[Rain]

I think Table Tennis is going to be hot soon. Very soon. I would invest in TT stock if I could.

1) Lots of people play it (even if the population is mostly centered in some parts of the world, ahem)

2) A pretty big budget movie is going to feature table tennis.
http://www.cinematical.com/2006/03/28/walk...o-tell-us-that/

3) Big budget xbox game featuring TT
http://games.teamxbox.com/xbox-360/1427/Ro...s-Table-Tennis/

4) Cheap and easy and fun to play. Now all TT needs is have Hilton tout it during a Simple Life episode.

5. Plus, its played indoors, away from stuffy summer heat and blizzing winter storms.

[Rain]

I think there'll be major bathroom technology improvements soon. (Maybe 2-3 years?) At least, I wish it'll happen. Everywhere else in the house there are nifty new gadgets, but when's the last time you see new bathroom gadgets?

Wishes (sort of prediction)

1) A temperature setting for shower/bath. Set it to 20 deg and that's the exact temperature your water comes out.

2) More conservation--bathwater should be drained into the toilet for flushing, at the least. Ditto when you brush your teeth or whatever. This is probably already in the market somewhere, but hardly widely available.

3) Er, improvements in toilet technology. Self cleaning toilets?

[Deanrover]

I had to give my table tennis table away today

[Rain]

Vehicles and transportation


1) Better solar powered vehicles? Maybe in 10 years time, haiz.

That's when I'll move home to take advantage of the one thing Singapore has in abundence.

2) Flying personal vehicles

Last year's neiman marcus christmas wishbook (the one with fancy gifts only rich bridge clients can afford) had a prototype of a personal flying vehicle for 2million usd iirc. I don't know if it worked, it looked like a mini airplane.

Maybe in 20 years time helicopter-like personal vehicles will hit the market?


3) And in 200 years time, if the Earth still exists and we haven't all killed each other, maybe an energy beam will beam us everywhere (give or take a few electrons).

[Rain]

Segway

Segways are pretty cool. I think in 20 years time they'd probably have a version capable of moving on staircases. And that's when the technology will take off.

This is based on their balancing technology that looked great in the video. Its worked into some super wheelchairs that can move like cats.

I'm still disasppointed I can't afford a segway yet. Prices haven't fallen enough.

[hrothgar]

Here's one that I am quite convinced of:

Electrical companies in the United States are going to start using dynamic pricing models for electrical power. You're going to pay a lot more electricity on a hot summer afternoon when everyone and their brother is running their air conditionery, TV set, and computer than you will at 3:30 AM.

Many countries in Europe already use this type of differential tariff structure (For example, in France you have three different pricing models: Option Base, Option Heures Creues, and Option Tempo). The only reason that this isn't used in the US is that the local power meters aren't smart enough. However, rising eletrical costs are causing a number of local utilities to start rolling out new improved meters. (I believe that the first system is scheduled to go online in San Diego)

For what its worth, I actually looked founding a company to try to arbitrage the power grid. The plan was to create a small flywheel battery capable of storing approximately 15 KWH of electical power that would sit in consumer's basements. The flywheel would spin-up at 3:00 AM when power was nice and cheap and provide power during peak hours. Ideally, we wanted to design the system such that individual flywheels would coordinate when they spun up and avoid time shifting the power spikes. Ideally, this might translate to better rates for our customers. (Think of this as a wood stove for the new millenium)

Unfortunately, we believe that the system would only save customers about $150 a year. The most that we could charge for the device would have been roughly $750 which isn't enough to turn a decent profit. If electricity prices continue to climb, we might dust it off again.

[Gerben42]

Quote

I think Table Tennis is going to be hot soon

For this it has to become more international. At the moment the East-Asian domination is quite large. However otherwise it's probably going to become more popular.

Quote

4) Cheap and easy and fun to play. Now all TT needs is have Hilton tout it during a Simple Life episode.

Ugh... People WATCH that? (assuming it is what I think it is - i.e. something to do with Paris Hilton?)

Quote

1) A temperature setting for shower/bath. Set it to 20 deg and that's the exact temperature your water comes out.

Exists, just is very expensive so too small a market.

Quote

3) And in 200 years time, if the Earth still exists and we haven't all killed each other, maybe an energy beam will beam us everywhere (give or take a few electrons).

This will certainly not happen. As Scotty says: "We cannot change the laws of physics!"

So now for my own predictions:

* Information technology will go as far that everyone will have access to all kinds of information at all times. Computer information included in people's glasses and things like this.

* Direct connection between the brain and electronics is promising. For example you need to only think of something and your personal computer makes a search on the net on it. It is possible that disabled will be able to function fully in society using implants that work just like real limbs or organs: brain-controlled.

* Lack of fossil fuels will force us to travel less, increased use of virtual reality will allow us to travel less.

[Rain]

Internet cost

I think some newcomer will have a new pricing model for internet usage in the coming years. Maybe they will offer this as a gimmick. I think google is likely to do this, they have their fingers in many pies.

1) Free high speed internet surfing.

2) Charges are for emails (sending and receiving may be charged at different rates, although email technology will be improved with better encryption, and it will be impossible to bypass this to send/receive emails for free) and possibly for using their search engine.

Charging for sending solves some of those stupid spam problems, but only if everyone switches to this model. Ugh I hate spam and viruses!

[mike777]

The New Human

Playboy, June 18, 2006


By 2020, virtual reality will allow for a full-immersion sensual encounter involving all five senses, says Ray Kurzweil in "The New Human," an interview in the July 2005 issue of Playboy.

"You'll feel as though you're really with that person.... The whole idea of what it means to have a sexual relationship will be different.

"Computers used to be remote: now they're in our pockets," says Kurzweil. Next, they'll make their way into our clothing, our body, and our brain. "You can't point to a single organ for which we haven't made enhancements or started work on them." The latest FDA-approved neural implant even allows you to "upload software from outside the patient.

"If we follow this trend -- the exponential shrinking of technology -- we'll be able to send intelligent nanobots the size of blood cells into our brain. Neural implants introduced noninvasively will be able to extend our intelligence or provide virtual reality by replacing the input of our senses so it feels as if we're in a different environment."

A sidebar, "Future Shock," includes forecasts by roboticist Hans Moravec and futurists Ian Pearson and Jeff Harrow.

[Gerben42]

Quote

Charging for sending solves some of those stupid spam problems, but only if everyone switches to this model. Ugh I hate spam and viruses!

I fear that someone will think of a virus that will start sending spam from MY computer and I get the bill - I love that prospect!

[Rain]

I accidentally deleted/edited hrothgar's post above, but luckily winkle has the old copy and I reposted it. Whew!

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Here's one that I am quite convinced of:

Electrical companies in the United States are going to start using dynamic pricing models for electrical power.  You're going to pay a lot more electricity on a hot summer afternoon when everyone and their brother is running their air conditionery, TV set, and computer than you will at 3:30 AM.

My electricity company has this pricing, but its elective.
http://www.exeloncorp.com/NR/rdonlyres/538...06_rate_1dr.pdf

I'm not looking forward to a wide range rollout, as long as I live here, since I basically use only the air conditioner extensively (guilty energy spurlge)

[jdonn]

These are fun, but of course they will all almost surely be wrong

From Wikipedia:

"What can be more palpably absurd than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stagecoaches?" – The Quarterly Review, March, 1825

"That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical nature have been introduced." – Scientific American, January 2, 1909

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." – Popular Mechanics, March 1949

"We can close the books on infectious diseases." – Surgeon General of the United States William H. Stewart, 1969

"Democracy will be dead by 1950." – John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936

"With over fifteen types of foreign cars already on sale here, the Japanese auto industry isn’t likely to carve out a big share of the market for itself." – Business Week, August 2, 1968

"Rail travel at high speed is not possible, because passengers, unable to breathe, would die of asphyxia." – Dr Dionysius Lardner (1793-1859)

"Such startling announcements as these should be deprecated as being unworthy of science and mischievious to its true progress." – Sir William Siemens, on Edison's light bulb, 1880

"Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires." – News item in a New York newspaper, 1868

"Transmission of documents via telephone wires is possible in principle, but the apparatus required is so expensive that it will never become a practical proposition." – Dennis Gabor, British physicist and author of Inventing the Future, 1962

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." – Lord Kelvin, 1895

"A rocket will never be able to leave the Earth's atmosphere." – New York Times, 1936

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." – Ken Olson, 1977

and my favorite

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." – Charles H. Duell, Comissioner of the US Patent Office, 1899 (though possibly misattributed)

[Rain]

I think britney spears will get divorced soon. Reason: In this week's People's magazine she claims to be very happily married. And we all know whenever celebs claim to be in the full bloom of love divorce is impending.

I'm posting this so that in 20 years time when we look back on this thread, nobody can fault me for being 100% wrong in my predictions.

I was reviewing my posts this morning, and had a personal thought: coffee is really bad for me. I predict I'll stop drinking coffee from now on.

[barmar]

Rain, on Jun 19 2006, 12:50 PM, said:

I think there'll be major bathroom technology improvements soon.

I've seen reports on really fancy bathroom technology that's available in Japan. Talking toilets, automatic lowering toilet seats, toilets that clean your bottom automatically, etc. The Japanese really like gadgets.

[Walddk]

barmar, on Jun 19 2006, 10:17 PM, said:

I've seen reports on really fancy bathroom technology that's available in Japan. Talking toilets, automatic lowering toilet seats, toilets that clean your bottom automatically, etc. The Japanese really like gadgets.

As long as they don't introduce F&G in Japanese toilets, I don't mind which gadgets they come up with

Roland

[mike777]

Let's see today they announced a new drug that reverses blindness from an illness that strikes over 1.2 million Americans and millions more around the world.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060630/ap_on_...zkxBHNlYwN0bQ--

We have implants for the deaf to hear.

Vaccine for Cervical Cancer in Woman in the news.

These seem to be at least hints of exponential growth rather than linear growth in knowledge that impacts humans.

[hrothgar]

For what its worth, business strategy types spend lots of time trying to model this type of issues. Jim utterback (my graduate advisor at MIT) did a lot of the early work in this field.

Typically, people who are studying these issues differentiate between "disruptive" and incremental innovation. As the name suggests, incremental innovation describes a slow and steady series of improvements that are made to a given technology platform. For example, we might consider "sailing ships" as a technology platform. Sailing ships date back thousands of years. People (steadily) made improvements in the technology platform culminating in the Clipper ships that were used to trade between North America and China. "Disruptive" innovation involves the introduction of a new technology platform. (Steam powered / propeller driven ships would be an obvious example of of a disruptive technology innovation)

Traditionally, innovation on a given technology platform is modelled as an "S" curve. Plot the "cost" of technology innovation on the verticle axis and the performance of the technology on the horizon axis. When a new technology platform is initially introduced, first derivative of performance with respect to cost is positive. At some point in time, you hit an inflection point. The platform starts to become exhausted and incremental innovation starts getting a lot more difficult. (Using the sailing ship example, Clipper ships were VERY well designed. Its would be extremely expensive to try to get even a small improvement in performance) There is still some debate about whether this this theory can be validated empirically, however, its the dominant paradigm used in B-School.

For the purpose of our discussion, folks are probably a lot more interested in understanding where new technology platforms come from. Unfortunately, there really aren't any well accepted theories about this. I did a thesis on this topic that argued that the transition of products into "commodities" is one potential source for the emergence of new disruptive technologies. Personally, I think that its relatively interesting reading.

There is an abridged version available at

https://dspace.mit.e.../1/54032850.pdf

[mgoetze]

hrothgar, on Jun 19 2006, 06:12 PM, said:

You're going to pay a lot more electricity on a hot summer afternoon when everyone and their brother is running their air conditionery, TV set, and computer than you will at 3:30 AM.

Huh? Shouldn't electricity be particularily cheap on hot summer afternoons? Think solar power.

jdonn, on Jun 19 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

"Democracy will be dead by 1950." – John Langdon-Davies, A Short History of The Future, 1936

I think that one came true actually.

[helene_t]

I predict that the supporters of whoever loose the football final will blame it on the referee.

I predict that Hirsi Ali will publish a book about her experiences at the American Enterprise Institue.

I predict that Cantonese will become the most popular foreign language next to English in most European countries.

I predict that Microsoft will give up on Windows and make trillions of bugs of profits on web-services for the Linux-addicted consumer base.

[Gerben42]

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I predict that Cantonese will become the most popular foreign language next to English in most European countries.

Only if they adopt a simpler system of writing it down. No way people are going to learn Chinese characters.