What hasn't been done and are there any visionaries left?

originally posted by: autopat51
are you asking if there are any Edisons, Marconi's, or tesla types around?

Yes...

Again...linearly responding.

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
Augmented reality will be the wave of the future, we'll be working inside augmented reality due to the ability to combine work and information in one place and couple all that with the remote mobility of a mech suit, then maybe those coral reef starfish killing robots can be manned by a augmented reality pilot.

Only big issue is power, amazingly enough, we could use kinetic power strips in the streets and sidewalks, not to mention even harness power from most electronics with motors in them via vibrational / magnetics resonating.

As for Visionaries, that's a money issue, and a fickle on at that. Many visionaries visualize their ideas due to the inability to use what's already available due to money or the concept not being reality yet. Many times once they make any kind of money the idea motivation is somewhat decreased and things tend to slow down or get more complicated than they need too and take up far too much time.

Make man want and man dreams, give man what they want and watch man get lazy.

I would agree. Many times it is the 2nd company, that learns from the first failure, that makes its mark.

Isn't that how Apple was started?

And Microsoft? Gates didn't even write his own code...he bought it. Oddly enough he was a visionary and knew what he was buying was worth Billions.

originally posted by: Woodcarver
I think quantum computing is the next thing on the horizon. It needs to be perfected before an efficient Artificial intelligence can be modeled.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

But that is just an add on to computing.

What I am really looking for is the next brick layer that will challenge the mold and lay their brick vertically instead of horizontal...and somehow make it work like it has never been done before.

originally posted by: Ozsheeple
a reply to: Tranceopticalinclined

kinetic energy in not a bad idea, possibly combining gyms with power generation could work i mean people could work out, stay fit and generate energy. good for the environment too

Wow...that is actually a really good idea!

I had an idea that I put out to a few people...I think it would actually work to provide power too...and a lot of it. Enough so that snall cities could sell it back to power companies. Put small hydro-electric turbines in storm drains all over heavily rained areas in the US....direct attach to a power storage/transfer plant and you make millions ever single time it rains.

Anywhoo.....

originally posted by: Aleister
What's left to do??? Save and restore the forests, seas, and prairies, and all the life therein. That, and the total immersion reality surface suit, with accessories!

Are you sarcastically suggesting that we revert? Or are you accurately predicting that we will?

originally posted by: Tranceopticalinclined
a reply to: Ozsheeple

I didn't come up with the idea, but have loved it ever since I learned about it and even adapted a conceptual model for robots to use ( bi-petal robots maybe 4 legged friends too ).

Here is a site about some of the tech I learned about, they used them in marathons and I'll have to do some digging but thought there were in a city's sidewalks somewhere.

Kinetic Energy Panels

City Sidewalk kinetic energy titles

Ok...honestly here all I can do is correct your spelling...it is not "bi-petal" it is bi-pedal.....

Outside of that....golden.

originally posted by: Ozsheeple
a reply to: Tranceopticalinclined

kinetic energy in not a bad idea, possibly combining gyms with power generation could work i mean people could work out, stay fit and generate energy. good for the environment too

Why do I get the sense of a combination of The Matrix and Soylent Green.

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: Vasa Croe

New materials for building. And a new type of propulsion would be some fields to keep your eyes on as well.

Again...that is just an "add-on" to existing tech...we have had propulsion since the first fart. Materials for building have evolved over, likely, millions of years.

What I am looking for is the next "computer". I put that in quotes because it actually DID revolutionize the world...as did the cellular phone...and the car, and steam engine, and cotton gin, and f♡

originally posted by: olaru12

originally posted by: Woodcarver
I think quantum computing is the next thing on the horizon. It needs to be perfected before an efficient Artificial intelligence can be modeled.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

I agree....

not only AI but mind to mind communication and things not even dreamed up yet. It will look paranormal....

I was talking to my wife about this for a minute. You have all of this online hookup apps all over the place and people sit on their phones more and more. You walk in to most any bar around and count how many people are engaging the bartender in conversation versus how many are buried in their phones.

I, personally, think the next evolutionary step will be to add senses to the human experience. We have 5. Add a 6-10 and you just bought the world.

originally posted by: amazing
Lots of stuff going on. Some will get somewhere and other's won't.

Elon Musk is the visionary of our life time. He's already got Hyperloop funding. Tesla cars keep getting better and now others are copying. He's got electric charging stations popping up everywhere. The Mega/Giga factory making batteries. Solar City, Pay Pal. SpaceX....All of those companies keep inovating and trying new things. The Tesla power wall....He's only getting started.

It's all going to be connected...AI research into apple, google Tesla cars and other makers that we haven't heard of yet. Robots are going to be using the Tesla Charging stations or a copy of them. We'll be sending robots up to the moon and mars with SpaceX.

It's all connected. I use Tesla in that last paragraph as an example. Innovation in one area leads to inovation in another area. The only thing keeping us back are those that are anti science. Lot's of those people these days.

Very nice...yes, I would consider Musk a visionary, though he is using known tech to make his empire.

I am fascinated by his enthusiasm and drive. He is a 6 bladed fan on a front porch in North Georgia, mid-August.

It would be more logical to ask what isn't left to do... still so many diseases and human illnesses we have yet to completely remedy. Still so many flaws and weak points in our business system and our system of government. Still so many people around the world starving or dying of thirst because they cannot meet their basic human needs. So many people who don't even have access to basic utilities like electricity. Even many people who do have access simply cannot afford it because we still run the world on expensive fossil fuels. Even our main form of propulsion, the combustion engine, is over 100 years old.

I would say that one of the only areas we've made real progress in lately is P2P cryptocurrency, which is way faster than the traditional banking system, even international transactions are fast and have very low fees, and it's far more secure if you know what you're doing. I have actually done a lot of work myself on making cryptocurrency more scalable so that the problem of blockchain bloat is not such an issue in the future. There is many things left to invent and improve upon. We are still in the early phase of the electronic age. Within the next 100 years I'm sure we will see many amazing technologies emerge.

Free Energy in it's simplest form is what's being waited for. Then we can begin to sort this ball of dirt out and create the freedom of power without so much destruction.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Haha. "Frugal". They are buying up the cutting edge. In some respects, i am glad that all that tech is being consolidated. They seem to be able to handle the task of tightening all of these loose strings. As impressive as these many robotics companies are, none of them have anything near a working model.

Hopefully they will come up with some breakthrough and leap over this computing hurdle. I am hopeful.

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: Vasa Croe

Haha. "Frugal". They are buying up the cutting edge. In some respects, i am glad that all that tech is being consolidated. They seem to be able to handle the task of tightening all of these loose strings. As impressive as these many robotics companies are, none of them have anything near a working model.

Hopefully they will come up with some breakthrough and leap over this computing hurdle. I am hopeful.

I am sure given enough time that the robotics branch will have some major breakthroughs...

a reply to: Vasa Croe

In the 1800's the general consensus was that everything in physics was almost fully known.

Then along came the likes of Einstein, Planck and Bohr.

There is so much that we don't know that we don't know. The visionaries will push us into that dark absence of knowledge, lighting the way with new ideas and new ways of seeing.

In my estimation, I believe that the four "fundamental" forces of Gravity, Electromagnetic, Electroweak and Strong Nuclear force, are not the only forces and that we will find other forces (from their Bosons) that will greatly extend the standard model. This will allow us to achieve things, in engineering terms, that are barely conceivable now.

This is only one of the many emerging paradigms that will integrate with each other leading to greater innovation in the near future.

Ray Kurtzweil's paradigm of the technological singularity is proceeding on course and as expected.

a reply to: Vasa Croe

How about Freeman Dyson?

Still alive, this genius of a human being is sadly not that well known in mainstream culture. He's responsible for a discovery that could've propelled humanity centuries forward (some say it did)!

Here he is in a 2015 interview at age 91. Listen to him talk, he is more coherent than most people who are in their prime.

a reply to: combatmaster

Please tell me he's not the guy that invented that horrendously expensive vacuum? Any relation?

a reply to: MystikMushroom

He came up with Orion, and other great things...

You're right, Steve Jobs was NOT a visionary, he was a master marketer who was able to blend existing technologies very well and call them something new.

Even major innovations that have been accredited to him, like the GUI and the Mouse, were actually someone else's inventions (in both these cases, developed by Xerox research station) that he ran with and improved upon. Steve Wozniak recently said that Jobs had a hard time grasping hardware AND software that ran the technology in the original Apple designs, but he was an amazing marketer and OCD on the small details.

That being said, I think you're right. Not many technology visionaries come to mind. Elon Musk, maybe. The guy is going to do great things bringing electrical power to the people. The TESLA home generator might be a big thing in the next 5-10 years. once it gets cheap enough for everyone to have one.

Other than that, I see the ridiculous over valuations of startups all over Silicon Valley and I think most people in tech are really in it to write a quick app and sell it for a couple billion in 3-5 years. No one is really in place to change the world.

We're at a point with technology where people have gotten so used to having things work very well around them that in order to come up with something truly visionary, it has to be absolutely astounding and in a new field that no one thought of yet. Something that will help all mankind and change the world is a very rare thing. It was easy in the early days of microprocessors when every new application for high tech chips was a revelation, but most fields have embraced technology by this point, so the advances don't seem as impressive.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe

originally posted by: Woodcarver
a reply to: Vasa Croe

Haha. "Frugal". They are buying up the cutting edge. In some respects, i am glad that all that tech is being consolidated. They seem to be able to handle the task of tightening all of these loose strings. As impressive as these many robotics companies are, none of them have anything near a working model.

Hopefully they will come up with some breakthrough and leap over this computing hurdle. I am hopeful.

I am sure given enough time that the robotics branch will have some major breakthroughs...

True robotics will remain the basis of many science fiction stories until Artificial Intelligence has been nailed down, and can be run on much smaller computers than run it now.

Supercomputers like IBM's Watson fake it very, very well. However, until they can get the processing power that runs artificial intelligence into something resembling the size of a small personal computer, true robotics will remain in the realm of science fiction rather than science fact.

I agree tho, once it takes off, would be massively interesting times.

However, I'm only in my 40's, and I wouldn't expect to see this in my lifetime.