“DIY ‘Back to the Future’ hoverboard actually hovers”
Nice. I might even be tempted to buy something like that.
Archive of posts filed under the Science of the Future category.
“The Pirate Bay torrents printable 3D objects”
Ever since I read Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, I’ve been wondering what would happen when anyone could download a set of plans and print their own, for example, Star Wars toys. And more to the point, what would happen when those plans could be pirated. Anything digital can easily be copied; the Internet is …
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“E. coli turns seaweed into ethanol”
Sounds useful. Not quite as good as the oil-burping algae mentioned a few months ago, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.
“Printed jaw lets woman swallow again”
This sort of thing might have come directly from a science-fiction action story, where the hero is patched up in an unbelievably short time between epic space battles. Who says the future is always far away? 😉
“Your Personal Placebo Profile”
I’ve often wondered if there might be a way to harness the placebo effect to actually help people get better. It seems that I’m not the only one, either.
“iPhone doc will detect cancer, diabetes – boffins”
I never thought that I’d live to see a working Star Trek-esque medical tricorder, but it seems that I might… at least a poor-man’s version of one, that requires placing a sample on or in the device. Even better, the smartphones we’re toting around today might already have all the hardware needed, if I’m reading …
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“Star Trek tractor beam to save Earth from asteroid Armageddon”
No, there’s no real Star Trek-style tractor beam (yet, anyway). What they’re discussing is parking a large spacecraft near such an asteroid and using its gravity to drag the asteroid onto a course that would miss the Earth. That assumes that we detect the threat early enough to launch such a craft, get it into …
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“Ten 100-year predictions that came true”
Considering the poor accuracy of professional science fiction authors even in “near-future” SF, this guy‘s track record is nothing short of amazing. Too bad he can’t be around to enjoy his success, but when you’re making predictions for a century hence, that’s a bit problematic. 🙂
“Locating Change: Science and Technology Controversies”
From this article: […] This is why one of the great contributions of science fiction is its ability to create monsters and technologies from the ether. When they show up out of nowhere, they challenge us to think more broadly and to make new connections. […] That’s one of the things — maybe the main thing …
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“IBM: Mind-Reading Machines Will Change Our Lives”
I have no doubt that it will — but in five years? That seems more than a little overly optimistic. I’d love to be proven wrong though. Oddly enough, this sort of thing rarely appears in science fiction, at least the SF I know of. When people in SF literature deal with computers, it’s almost …
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