 |
 |
 |
By Amber Ashton
(3/9/01)
Almost daily, we hear about the latest breakthroughs from technology gurus at Microsoft, Intel, and other big players in the tech sector. What we don't hear about is where their big ideas come from. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in Palo Alto, California; and Starlab in Brussels, Belgium, are among the top think tanks in tech research across the globe, and many technological innovations were born within their walls. According to these science soothsayers, technology is just beginning to change our lives, with plenty of advances to come.
Show me the future
We asked scientists at the world's leading research labs for their tech predictions for the next 5, 10, and 50 years. Here's what the experts said to expect.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
Research lab | |
|
|
Predictions for the end of 2001 | |
|
|
Predictions for the end of 2005 | |
|
|
Predictions for the end of 2010 | |
|
|
Predictions for the end of 2050 | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||
| Sony Aibo ERS-210 review, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. | More robotic toys will appear and will be big sellers at holiday time. The first few home cleaning robots will be available. | Robotic products such as cleaning machines, priced in the $100 to $200 range, will be common in many homes. They will be controlled via the Web. | Advanced personal robots will appear, as will robot-assisted surgery. People will adopt robotics into their bodies. | Scientists will have precise digital control of cells. Biological robots will enhance the performance of the human body. | ||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
| Sony Aibo ERS-210 review, Brussels, Belgium | Society will come to a collective realization that technology is a natural fit only for some tasks. | Artificial limbs will interface with the human brain. Eye transplants will appear. Home appliances will recognize emotions and adjust accordingly. | Expect customized medicine based on our individual genetic makeup. Genes will be used as a form of identification. | Scientists will be much further along in their attempts to directly engineer nano-scale machines. | ||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
| Sony Aibo ERS-210 review, Palo Alto, California, U.S. | All toys will have speech capability. Everything from scooters to building blocks will talk. | Gene chips will be widely available. Medical researchers will use these chips to analyze the impact of chemicals on DNA and to develop gene therapies. | Plazas, town squares, and other public spaces will be reinvented to include interactive digital-art installations. | Genetic engineering will take hold. Expect the creation and replication of creatures large and small. | ||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
Amber Ashton is a freelance writer who contributes to CNET Tech Trends. Questions? Comments? Send us feedback.
