“I want to say just one word to you”

“I want to say just one word to you”

Well this time it isn’t “Plastics”. If that makes no sense, you need to catch up on your late 1960’s cultural literacy.

It also isn’t one word, or even two. It is Three names, of new technology that is going to shape the world we live in starting in the very near future. If you think they aren’t, you will probably be one of the ones left behind.

So in no particular order, in very rudimentary terms, here goes-

1) Genetic Bioengineering. We are living in an age where the first artificially produced life form is now in existence (http://www.jcvi.org/). It is a bacteria with a completely man-made chromosome. This sort of engineering goes so far beyond new strains of corn or peas. This could very well lead to organisms that eat garbage and excrete oil, or gold, or any other element in the very near future. Not to mention replacement DNA sections that could extend life, cure disease, etc. As long as the uncertainty of evolution is accounted for (as well as it can be), this could be amazing.

2) Nanotech. Nanotechnology is the science of using microscopic machines to accomplish a variety of tasks. Currently there are color changing items, controlled by remote. In the near future there will be nanotech machines that can extrude a steel I-beam, or “Grow” a building, or mine the tunnel and lay a fiber optic cable that is produced from the elements being mined. A complete factory in the palm of your hand. Machines that produce the workers, produce the repair units, produce their own replacements, all 100’s of times per minute. (Still have to deal with evolution on this one too, things the replicate, mutate and thus evolve).

3) Quantum Computing. There is a lot of speculation regarding Quantum engineering. What does it mean, is it a parallel universe, can it be bent to your will etc. All those things are still up in the air. But one thing we do know is that when a particle is observed it acts as a point and when it is not, it acts as a wave. 100% of the time. Infinitely reproducible results. This is a 2 position switch at the particle level. As soon as the technology finds a way to designate a “Point” as “1” and a “Wave” as “0” we are going to have microprocessors with switches the size of a single particle. The computing power of all the current computers in existence on your desktop.

Want to know where the world is going? Watch these three technologies. And don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

Xtian