Getting closer, but we’re not quite there. The debate is no longer about context, but style! The lines and colours aren’t quite right (that’s a design background for you).
Roadmap of Emerging Science & Tech
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Roadmap & Timeline of Emerging Science & Technology
We are still waiting on revise 2 of the map, but in the meantime (meme time?)
I thought I’d share a few of the entries that we thought about, but which didn’t make it onto the final map. This was usually because we didn’t think that these things were really possible by a certain date, might exist, but not in significant enough numbers, or because there just wasn’t room to include everything on the map.
Notably, whilst we are including a few ‘events’ on the map (e.g. number of mobile phones exceeds human population) we have dropped the idea of having a sphere of ‘appear’ and ‘disappear’ events around the outside of the map.
Anyway, some things NOT on the map…
All windows become solar panels
Monetary policy set by algorithms
Growing coloured finger nails
All roads individually priced
Pilotless cargo aircraft
Smart teeth
Ingestible robots
Crop pollination robots
Invisibility shields
Personal data as an asset class
Uploadable skills & experience (we had downloadable too)
Online vehicle theft
End of road traffic accidents
Internet search engines than can answer any question in real time
Programmable body cells
3D printing of high end consumer goods
Fabrics that change colour and texture on demand
‘Supervision’ contact lenses
Spider-silk textiles
Synthetic wombs
New timeline of emerging science & technologies
Almost there!
BTW, had a brainwave this morning. In Future Files (2007) I used ‘GRIN Technologies’ to denote the key emerging trends in science & technology (Genetics, Robotics, Internet and Nanotech). So how about using ‘BINNG Technologies’ ? These are at the heart of my new timeline with Imperial (Bio-tech, Info-tech (currently Digital), Nano-tech, Neuro-tech, Green-tech). Could use DINNG, but it doesn’t have quite the same ring!
Hopefully have the finished thing up by end of next week. Above is just a rough of the middle (with mistakes).
When the past is another country
It is sometimes said that the past is uncertain. Here’s a classic example. Louisa Lim, a correspondent for US National Public Radio in Beijing, showed 100 Chinese students the image above in 2013. Only 15 of the 100 students could identify it correctly.
Back in the Day
Love it. Date anyone?
Fear of Missing out (FoMo)
Worth a read (<10 minutes). From Aeon magazine.
(Update) On the Future of Public Libraries
I’ve done an update to my thinking on public libraries called ‘Novel Spaces: The Future of UK Public Libraries’, which can be found here. It’s for Quadrapheme, an online literary magazine. Apparently, the next issue features an essay arguing that public libraries are dead – or should be. Can’t wait for that! Also on the site at the moment is a lovely essay about the importance of paper called ‘Surface Matters: Why I Buy Books‘ by Alexander Monro.
Memory & Understanding: Paper versus Pixels
A study by Pam A. Mueller of Princeton and Daniel M. Oppenheimer of UCLA has found that US college students who take notes on laptop computers are more likely to record lecturers’ words verbatim. Sounds like a good thing, but the study goes on to say that because notes are verbatim, students are therefore LESS LIKELY to mentally absorb what’s being said.
In one study, laptop-using students recorded 65% more of lectures verbatim than did those who used longhand; 30-minutes later, the laptop users performed significantly worse on conceptual questions. According to the researchers, longhand note takers learn by re-framing lecturers’ ideas in their own words.
This chimes with anecdotal evidence in the UK that some students aged around 16-18 are going back to index cards for exam revision because, as one said to me quite recently: “stuff on screens doesn’t seem to sink in.”
Source: Sage Journals: ‘The pen is mightier than the keyboard: The advantages of longhand over laptop note taking’. See also Scientific American (Nov 2013) ‘Why the brain prefers paper.’ (summary here).
Photo cluster bombs
What do you do if a violent suspect or terrorist runs around the corner or into a building? You might stick your head around the corner, or into the building, but that could be dangerous. You could call in a UAV surveillance drone, but this could take time. Or you could launch teargas or a grenade in the approximate direction of the suspect, but this could be dangerous not only for the suspect, but for innocent parties.
One solution is something called a ‘photo bomb’ from Bounce Imaging in Boston. This is essentially a small bouncy ball dotted six with digital cameras. All a user need do is press a button and throw it. Images are taken every 1/2 second and are relayed back to suitable portable device. Flash is available via near-infrared lights that are invisible to the eye.
Presumably also rather useful for paparazzi and teenage parties.
Wearable computing that isn’t
It’s not just me then. I bought a Nike Fuel Band a while back to see if it worked. It did. I walked a bit more. The dog often went out twice rather than once. But then it started to feel like another thing to worry about. And those “Go Richard!” messages can get really annoying. Half of American adults who own an activity tracker no longer use it, and one third who have owned a wearable product stopped using it within six months according to Mike Merrill, writing for The Big Think.