What do you see as the next big thing?
For me, I think VR is a potential game changer. If they can get Oculus Rift out as a consumer product under 3 bills, I think it will take off.
Less big and more niche, I think personal UAVs are going to boom soon as well. Mainly with gopros on board, but I think we'll see some other excuses to own one soon.
I personally look forward to a culmination of both, using VR to pilot your UAV from a first person perspective.
Those both sound very likely to grow in the future. I think something in between Google Glass and Oculus Rift will be the sweet spot if it were web enabled. I could see something that looks a lot like sun glasses that can augment reality without being very much of a burden to wear. I know the technology isn't quite there yet.
Looking deeper into the future...
Nations and corporations are going to crack down hard on copyright and patent infringement as 3d printing gets better. I'm picturing a future where these 3d printers will be able to not only work in plastic, but be able to print circuitry and other mixed-material components. An enormous economy will grow out of it where people will print brand-name goods at home and it will feel normal to them to pay for the good made out of a machine sitting in their own house -- much the same way people pay iTunes for a copy of digital music today.
Good points, 3d printing drm should be interesting.
Quote from: Drastic on July 02, 2014, 05:08:08 PM
Less big and more niche, I think personal UAVs are going to boom soon as well. Mainly with gopros on board, but I think we'll see some other excuses to own one soon.
I personally look forward to a culmination of both, using VR to pilot your UAV from a first person perspective.
Boom in UAV seems to be well upon us. Hit our beach any sunny day and you'll spot several. I know at least a dozen people using them with a gopro in this area regularly.
VR + UAV is also now mainstream. Didn't occulus announce a drone tiein recently? Apparently impressive but still more of a gimic than useful
Mmmm... people have been saying this for so long so I could be off by decades, but I think the next ten years will see huge advances in natural language processing and that will have profound ripple effects.
3d printing, already made a huge impact in business may well stay there. The choice that "you can make anything you want in the world" will make most regular folks freeze in the headlights.
Cheap robots
Computers smarter than humans (that's when the world changes forever, a one way door)
I think we have until about 2040 at best until robots smarter than humans :)
>a one way door
You ever read the Dune books? I remember that they ended up outlawing machines built in the likeness of man.
Drone footage from the middle of fireworks display.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlXGU20F-ME
Vid gets pretty good 1-1.5 mins in.
Here's a gif for those who are youtube averse:
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FjFEGGnI.gif&hash=3f3c1bd4b7e16e624d02da77bce82b2f1cdd922d)
"Named "Foxbots", each robot will be able to assemble an average of 30,000 devices and costs anywhere from $20,000 to $25,000 to make. Gou stated that the assembly devices are undergoing their final testing phase, as Foxconn plans to deploy 10,000 robots to its factories."
http://www.macrumors.com/2014/07/06/foxconn-robots-assemble-iphone/
When it makes economic sense to replace Chinese workers with robots...
When somebody realizes a Foxbot can assemble 30k Foxbots and the unit price drops to $35, then it's really going to get interesting.