Check out the Business Insider set of graphs showing how much better things have gotten in the last few decades or the last century.
31 Charts That Will Restore your Faith In Humanity.
A few of my favorites: Read more…
Check out this superb graph from Wired Magazine reposted by Carpe Diem – Chart of the day: The falling price of memory.
Fantastic illustration of how drastically storage prices have dropped in last 20 years.
Let’s look at the technology I’ve used to pass info back and forth to clients while at their office.
That we haven’t seen the full impact of IT is a comment I heard the first time a few years ago. That sort of made sense but didn’t really register. This blog is focused on sorting out that change. The idea that the technology revolution has barely begun finally clicked for me with a column by Matthew Yglesias – Why I’m Optimistic About Growth and Innovation.
A few industries have seen huge impact from technology. Think of book publishing, journalism, and music. Those industries have been turned upside down. I read a lot and listen to a bit of music so am quite attuned to those areas. The way everyone consumes news has been transformed. I regularly read dozens of blogs a day. They just appear on my computer screen with a mouse click or two. I’ve always been a news junkie, and my consumption has soared in the last few years.
However, as big as those industries are, they are a small part of the total economy.
You will still take a cab to the doctor’s office. For a while. That is a post that guesses what the annual checkup might look like a decade from now.
A self-driving car takes you to the office. A friendly, perceptive, caring, automated voice talks you through your checkup. Sensors that don’t touch you run all the tests.
John Bredehoft paints an appealing picture. Check it out.
You’ll have to read the article to see John’s predictions for the destiny of Google, Facebook, and Apple.
For a breakthrough on data storage capacity, think about storing bits and bytes on DNA.
I have no idea what the technology is, but scientists have written data to DNA and read it back successfully.
There are a few downsides of the astounding technology we have today.
A team from a Navy research office has announced a malware application that can use your phone to create a 3-D image of your office. Such a program could you be used to steal information from your office. For example, bank account numbers visible on checks, info on broker statements, info on your computer screens or calendars. Could also be used to figure out what nice stuff is in your den or living room.
This isn’t a concept paper or theoretical discussion. It is software that is in existence today and has been successfully tested.
A frequent comment at several blogs I follow and discussion on this blog is the dramatic improvement in life generated by technology over the last few decades. Look here, here, here, and here. For a longer term perspective, look here.
Don Boudreaux and Mark Perry expand the discussion beyond technology to explain the middle class is much better off today than in the 1970s. Check out their article in the Wall Street Journal – The Myth of a Stagnant Middle Class.
The claim they are addressing is the idea that only the richest people are better off over the last 30 years:
That’s the lead question in an article by Kevin Kelly at Wired, Better than Human.
He asks:
Imagine that 7 out of 10 working Americans got fired tomorrow. What would they all do?
Well, we’ve been there, done that. And thrived.
We are being recorded and logged and photographed everywhere we go. We need to be aware.
I’m not sure we have all caught on to the extent that we are tracked. Andy Kessler ponders where we are in his Wall Street Journal article, In the Privacy Wares, It’s iSpy vs. gSpy – Big Brother is watching us. But we are watching back.
Boundaries of monitoring
He reminds us there is a log and probably a photo from every time you interact with a toll booth, cell tower, ATM, or commercial security cameras, of which there may be as many as 30M around the country.
As cheap as storage is, those records will be retained for years, if not decades.
Ponder the new boundaries of the monitoring:
Can you give your digital books or movies to your heirs? Can your family gain access to your social media sites after your death to preserve your memories and content?
Our legal system hasn’t quite dealt with those questions. At the moment, the answers to those questions are probably no.
Café Hayek takes a leisurely tour though his newly acquired copy of the 1956 Fall/Winter Sears catalog and shares the preliminary results in The Future: Back to the Past.
Maybe things weren’t so great in the good ol’ days.
Check out the photo –
Thanks to capitalism all of these things now fit in your pocket.
If you wanted to move those things from one room to another, it would take half a dozen trips back then.
The technology is in its infancy, yet bioengineers are creating human tissue through computerized adaptive manufacturing, or 3-D printing right now. Today.
A Wall Street Journal article, Printing Evolves, An Inkjet for Living Tissue, has details.
Scientists can build tissue, such as a blood vessel, one dot of tissue at a time, just like other 3-D printing applications. Around the tissue a separate nozzle places a water-soluble gel, called hydrogel, that works like a mold to hold the tissue in place until the dots of tissue knit together. After the printing is done, the tissue is stored in a solution that provides nutrients. Then after a few weeks to stabilize, the hydrogel is washed away.
Way cool. DARPA is working on some amazing things. A robotic cheetah that currently can run 28 miles an hour. Also, a robotic pack mule that can walk over rough terrain, obey simple instructions, and follow its leader (master?) without instructions. It can right itself if it tips over. A dog that can walk across a rocky surface, up a 45% snow-covered hill, or carry 400 pounds:
Check out the National Geographic article, Animals Inspire New Breed of War Robots.
Check out the pack mule:
Check out the cheetah: Read more…
What will develop next after the astounding technology changes of the last 30 years? We have no idea.
Previous post described my brain stretch from an article, The Next Great Growth Cycle, by Mark Mills.
His main point is we can no more tell today where technology will be in 30 years than we could predict in 1980 where we are today.
He then points out three major technology transitions that are already here and will have a huge impact in the future:
