FastForward Radio

By | August 23, 2008
2 Comments

Long Shot Futures, Part 2

Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon talked about long shot futures – futures that they think aren’t likely, but are hoping for anyway!

miracle.bmp

We can always be surprised.

Stream our latest shows:


Or:

add_to_itunes.gif

Or download MP3′s for all the archived shows at:

Listen to FastForward Radio... on Blog Talk Radio

Click “Continue Reading” for the show notes:

  • http://wheretheresawilliam.blogspot.com Will Brown

    The technology doesn’t seem to be all that long a shot, but the application I note here may well qualify.

    Sadly.

    See you all “on the air” if I can …

  • http://www.StopAndConsider.com Leslie Kirschner

    Here is my longshot future: I’m really looking forward to a paradigm shift in personal travel–not just from the perspective of what kind of fuel we use to power our vehicles, but for the whole experience. In this future, I get up in the morning and tell my travel AI what time I want to be in the office (or wherever!), and it tells me what time I need to be ready to leave (based on traffic patterns and what everybody else is currently planning to do).

    At the scheduled time, I step into my personal travel pod–no need to drive, so I can stretch out, sleep, eat, listen to music, work, look at the scenery, etc. The pod coordinates with all the other pods on the roads to dynamically choose the best route and drops me off at my chosen location, then parks itself somewhere until I am ready to leave again. Pods can be hooked together for families or larger groups traveling together or to carry larger amounts of stuff. Rich people can get fancy pods, and some who don’t want to own can share or rent pods. Kids of a reasonable age can be ferried to activities without assistance. My pod can even go on its own to pick up the grocery order or other errands. In fact, I can think of lots of things to keep my pod busy!

    At the moment, I still think this is a pretty longshot future, since you need to not only solve the current fuel/energy issues, but also develop the AI and (probably the most difficult and costly) create the infrastructure. None of this is physically impossible though, and research steps along these lines are already in progress (DARPA challenge for example), so I hope to be around long enough to see it happen!