In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

[Blindweb]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Ages

It's interesting that you can come to the same conclusion about the post-peak-oil world through history, physics, evolution, ecology, and many more intellectual disciplines. Yet 99.99% of the world's population doesn't get it.

[don]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

I'm an aerospace engineer who started with punch cards and line printers and went through too many information and engineering "paradigm shifts" to count. Glass screens, bigger databases, and talking interfaces are all well and good, but below is the sci-fi story about what I think the "end game" is for the human race. If we get to this level of technology, we will simply stop living and starve to death thinking we're at a feast; and stop reproducing while we think we're screwing every hour...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtwCHfmDQ60

And how many of those paradigm shifts were in time strangled by marketing decisions. Once market dominance is won, how often does the technology turn into techno-kitsch (think Microsoft, aka death by OS or Office)?

[lektrode]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

...f we get to this level of technology, we will simply stop living and starve to death thinking we're at a feast; and stop reproducing while we think we're screwing every hour...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtwCHfmDQ60

or perhaps more like this: ?

[lektrode]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

best indirect/unintended? advert for the ipad/phone eye've seen to date... perty amazing stuff tho... can hardly wait (any luck at all, i'll even be able to afford one of them glass walls - think about that for a sec: "where would you like to _be_ today" )

[jk]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

Luddites Unite...Bill Joy (then Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems) in Wired Magazine 2010
"Why the Future Doesn't Need Us"

"In the book, you don't discover until you turn the page that the author of this passage is Theodore Kaczynski - the Unabomber. I am no apologist for Kaczynski. His bombs killed three people during a 17-year terror campaign and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely injured my friend David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time. Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target.

Kaczynski's actions were murderous and, in my view, criminally insane. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument; as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it. "

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8...ic=&topic_set=

enjoyed [not sure if that's exactly the right word, given the content] the wired article. thanks.

[mooncliff]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

I think it will be more Minority Report-like. You usually will not actually touch the surface, just gesture at it, and you won't need gloves. Or speak to it, or the computer will follow your gaze and determine what you are looking at.

I also guess it will be plastic rather than glass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMVZqJk8s4

Although my iPad gets smudged easily, actually, when it is on and backlit, you can't tell. It only when it is off you can see the oil.

[oddlots]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

Ha! Ok I'll desist.

But check out this podcast for some enlightenment:

http://www.radiolab.org/2010/jun/28/...-you-plan-for/

[Ghent12]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

I think it will be more Minority Report-like. You usually will not actually touch the surface, just gesture at it, and you won't need gloves. Or speak to it, or the computer will follow your gaze and determine what you are looking at.

I also guess it will be plastic rather than glass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyMVZqJk8s4

Although my iPad gets smudged easily, actually, when it is on and backlit, you can't tell. It only when it is off you can see the oil.

Glass, plastics, ceramics, and other materials make up the core of this age's material advances. They are in this age what iron was in the Iron Age. It doesn't really matter if it's glass or plastic, because both will be integral to technological advances.

[seanm123]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

I am going to need my own pebble bed reactor buried in the back yard if I get this wired up with flat screen communication devices
everywhere in the home. Think about the cost of adding thousands of kilowatt hours to your annual electrical bill? These systems
have to use at least 5kw/hr each. I already have a Blackberry, Android, iPhone, IPad, a few laptops, smart TVs,
and other nearly always on devices like printers, DVRs and satellite TV. All these devices will do is save a second or two but not enough
for me to go hit more golf balls. Whatever happened to the to the time saving robots in the Jetsons? All we really have so far is more social
networking! I want more time to go fish and hit golf balls!

[mooncliff]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

An iPad uses 3 watts. A 52 inch top of the line Sharp Aquos Quattron (gorgeous!) uses 140 watts.
If there were a matrix of microLEDs, which is coming, a fully lit 52 inch screen might use as little as 10 watts.

My entire apartment is now brightly lit with ten 60-watt equivalent Panasonic LED bulbs, 7 watts each, for a total of 70 watts when they are all on. The LEDs were $15 each, dropping to $3 by 2015 or sooner. They are getting better by the day.
I expect something like a 75-watt equivalent that uses 3 watts that lasts 20 years, and for a few dollars, within 5 years. You might want to put off renovations of light fixtures for now until you see the coming options.

[metalman]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

I am going to need my own pebble bed reactor buried in the back yard if I get this wired up with flat screen communication devices
everywhere in the home. Think about the cost of adding thousands of kilowatt hours to your annual electrical bill? These systems
have to use at least 5kw/hr each. I already have a Blackberry, Android, iPhone, IPad, a few laptops, smart TVs,
and other nearly always on devices like printers, DVRs and satellite TV. All these devices will do is save a second or two but not enough
for me to go hit more golf balls. Whatever happened to the to the time saving robots in the Jetsons? All we really have so far is more social
networking! I want more time to go fish and hit golf balls!

here ya go, bud...

[c1ue]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

I am going to need my own pebble bed reactor buried in the back yard if I get this wired up with flat screen communication devices
everywhere in the home. Think about the cost of adding thousands of kilowatt hours to your annual electrical bill? These systems
have to use at least 5kw/hr each. I already have a Blackberry, Android, iPhone, IPad, a few laptops, smart TVs,
and other nearly always on devices like printers, DVRs and satellite TV. All these devices will do is save a second or two but not enough
for me to go hit more golf balls. Whatever happened to the to the time saving robots in the Jetsons? All we really have so far is more social
networking! I want more time to go fish and hit golf balls!

An iPad uses 3 watts. A 52 inch top of the line Sharp Aquos Quattron (gorgeous!) uses 140 watts.
If there were a matrix of microLEDs, which is coming, a fully lit 52 inch screen might use as little as 10 watts.

Electronic devices - outside of computers - generally use fairly low amounts of electricity.

However, they consume massive amounts in the creation process:

TSMC power usage 2003 2007.png

Now factor in that TSMC made 8 million 8 inch equivalent wafers in 2007.

Plus the energy cost of creating the silicon wafer base.

Plus each iPod/iPhone has at least 6 major chips, plus an assembly board (albeit small), plus hundreds of components.

Plus the battery (In a significant sense, the lifetime energy storage capacity of a battery is a function of the energy needed to create it).

Plus the accessories.

Plus assembly.

Plus shipping.

Plus packaging.

Plus Apple billboard advertising and what not everywhere.

In the case of small electronics, the energy used in manufacturing is probably at least an order of magnitude larger than its life time use - compared to things like a washing machine where the ratio is 2 to 1 (i.e. 2/3rds of lifetime energy consumption is in the creation of the device).

[mooncliff]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

Ah, yes, the embodied energy problem. But that applies to everything... cars, lightbulbs, cans of tuna, and will be attacked with improved manufacturing out of necessity.

Small electronics look worse because they are super energy efficient. A MacBook uses 20 watts, but the Dells in the office use 150 watts.

[c1ue]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

Ah, yes, the embodied energy problem. But that applies to everything... cars, lightbulbs, cans of tuna, and will be attacked with improved manufacturing out of necessity.

Improved manufacturing for most everyday devices at this point doesn't reduce the energy consumed; it generally increases it. This is because what's going on isn't improvement of a basic function but rather the addition of features.

Small electronics look worse because they are super energy efficient. A MacBook uses 20 watts, but the Dells in the office use 150 watts.

The MacBook probably has a significantly weaker CPU.

The CPU alone in a modern server or a high powered office system requires over 100 watts.

[Munger]

Re: In the future it's all cool high tech fun... discuss.

Would you rather have glass, or plastic?

These were recently on display. More power efficient, more vivid, thin, light:


More:
http://singularityhub.com/2011/02/14...ds-are-coming/