Can We Predict How The Future Will Look?
It’s funny to look back on films of the past and see how they portray the technology of today. Films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey portrayed humans as being far more technologically advanced by this time than has turned out to be the case. Yet these movies have also missed technological advancements that have occurred and the changes they have made. Developments like the internet and mobile phones were not assumed by the movie-makers of Hollywood. While touch screen and advancements akin to new multi touch capabilities have been guessed at, their use on tiny screens each person carries around with them would have been difficult to predict.
There are a number of advancements we still project in our films that we’d like to see in our reality. Namely, time travel, space exploration and similar things but the actual developments have been in the opposite direction. Instead of being related to exploring, technological advancements have tended to deal with the person having their world suit them, making things as convenient and simple to access as possible.
How will the world look in just a few years time? If you believe many who deal in matters of the spiritual and supernatural, as well as Hollywood writers, you might think the world will be completely different after 2012. While this is a very questionable assumption, it’s very likely that there will at least be major changes with the way we function with computers, and the nature of these computers themselves. It’s been estimated that capacitive touch screens may take the place of the common computer mouse in the near future, due to its more intuitive nature. It seems unlikely that we’ll be able to replace something that seems so essential to computer use, but the success of differing platforms such as the iPhone has made it possible to interface with programs without the mouse, and this has shown that it may soon be a thing of the past.
Another good way to look at how technology could change is to look at the technology of years ago. It was recently reported that email is looked at by teenagers as being ”old school” technology. The new way to talk to friends and meet new people over the internet is through websites such as Facebook and Twitter, in which the dialog occurs far more rapidly, with less detail given to each sentence, and correct grammar not being the least of anyone’s concern. If this is how technology has improved so far, what is to come? Can the units of information we send to each other get any smaller? Is it possible that very soon Facebook and Twitter will seem like the old technology to the next generation?
It should be clear from this article that technology is changing at a faster pace than ever. It will be interesting to see how long technology can improve the ease of our lives, and provide more and more help to us before we come hopelessly reliant on technology to run our lives. In that case, perhaps many of Hollywood’s predictions will someday come true?
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