What new inventions do you think will be out in the year 2050?
Use your imagination, kids.
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A Turing-compatible robot.
Flying cars, for old time’s sake.
Or if you’re feeling slightly apocalyptic, a water treatment plant.
A Turing-compatible robot that goes around destroying AIDS research, just to be a jerk.
Man-portable directed energy weapons.
A system for creating new and interesting movie plots, since people can’t seem to manage on their own.
Flint axes are probably going to make a comeback, and if we don’t mess up that bad, at least we can look forward to companies projecting their company logo directly on to the sky, the moon of course being the main slot.
A laptop as thin as a dinner plate. Even the smallest laptops and netbooks could be smaller.
Ambient holographic porn! :=D
Roll-up laptops, for that matter. Made with quantum computers. The best ones we use now will be laughed at. (People will look at them the way look at hand-cranked phones.)
Keyboards built in the form of a glove, so that one-handed typing will be simple, and not require “a keyboard”.
Oh yes @Brian1946 Holographic porn. There are already holographic fictional singers that are admired, so the next step is obviously watching people do it.
Oh, and do it yourself mini beer brewers for the house. Kind of like a Keurig for beer lol.
“Atmospheric” energy. Forget “solar”, that will have been so twentieth century.
“The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.”- William Gibson
@CWOTUS Yeah good idea. We could do so much if we also found a way to harness the power of the wind in the jet stream.
Actually, @Blackberry, there’s some research on that. Some experimenters have attempted to fly kites at high altitude in a way to generate power. Should be online long before 2050.
Vehicles made entirely out of rubber, lets make accidents fun!
Cool Suits (Trendy refrigerated clothing to keep you cool in the Age of Global Warming)
Artifish (Genetically engineered fish that feed the world’s hungry)
Biobook ( A recording device that logs your every interaction 24 hours a day.)
Ayr (A fashionably improved version of air sold at a premium price)
DNLay (A remote DNA sensing device used to identify the sexually compatible.)
Affordable breathalizers to detect different diseases. It would be like going into a local drugstore and getting your blood pressure read.
Holographic online social chat rooms!!!!
@ucme Damn your eyes! Rubber cars and fun accidents…. I had a mouth full of Cheerios when I read that! They’re all over my keyboard now!
A pen that can make you write faster and with better penmanship, without your hand being in pain.
Or an electronic sandwhich maker. Like, a machine that makes your favorite sandwhich without you doing it yourself with a push of a button.
PB&J in 4 seconds!
A micro alcohol delivery device that you place in the palm of your hand, slap yourself in the cheek and you’re drunk instantly. Slobbering, smiling, eyelashes fluttering…happy! Heh! : )
A female watch that detects if their husband or boyfriend’s penis is having an erection and firing. If they wish, there’s a button they push that activates a little video screen on their watches, showing the scene in their guys’ dick’s POV.
A voice activated, self burying nail. Just don’t say the words, “Nail In” while you’re holding them in your hand.
Caseless ammunition.
Or not.
Hopefully better public transportation and crash-less airplanes.
Now if I ever tell you to go fly a kite, @Blackberry, you’ll know that it’s a positive request to be productive.
Houses that clean themselves.
@flutherother Aren’t the refrigerated suits already around? I believe I saw something about them being popular in Japan.
There are also already genetically engineered salmon, and far from feeding the hungry, they threaten the wild salmon population, and only make the corporations who spawn them richer.
@HungryGuy There was something on the radio a few months ago about home-size nuclear reactors. That’s when I gave up any hope.
Since Margaret Atwood has already called a bunch of freaky shit, I’m just going to say that whatever she said in her novels is going to happen, complete with complete corporate takeover of everything.
@incendiary_dan – Try showing some intelligence for once! The home nuclear reactors of which I and others speak are Farnsworth Fusors. They rely on fusion rather than fission. For fuel, they use either deuterium or tritium, and produce no nuclear waste. The cleaning chemicals under your kitchen sink are more harmful to the environment and hazardous to human health than a home Fusor in operation. If anything, these devices will be the salvation of our energy end environmental woes.
@HungryGuy Well, that is quite a bit less frightening. Wish they were talking about putting those in peoples’ garages.
@incendiary_dan – There’s a number of technical hurdles to overcome before they become practical as a home appliance. But their availability will solve many of our problems, and will even work to end our biggest problem of anthropomorphic climate change (a.k.a. “global warming”).
@HungryGuy I’m guessing the technical hurdles are infrastructural in nature? Most of the propsed solutions I’ve heard seem to have that issue. People forget that it’s all still pretty much dependent on a mass of copper and such that has to be mined, which itself is a huge environmental problem. Not to mention replacing petroleum with something that is as portable. But I’m starting to ramble. :P
@incendiary_dan – The biggest hurdle is that the anode inside the chamber absorbs the current as quickly as it’s produced. It requires more electricity to keep the reaction going that can be extracted. They need to find a way to design it so that there’s a net output of electricity.
And yes, infrastructure is another problem. Deuterium is commonly available from chemical supply outlets, but probably not in the quantities needed if Fusors become commonplace. Tritium is more efficient as a fuel, but is not as readily available, and is regulated as a “nuclear substance.” Theoretically, deuterium can be extracted from tap water, and so I can foresee a device attached to the water supply supplying the Fusor with deuterium so that the Fusor can basically run on tap water.
Probably more Apple products that do the same exact things as the last 50 Apple products but with a different name, and either screens big enough that you can’t move it once it’s installed or small enough that you can’t see them or find them in your pocket.
iPhone 46. It has the hologram/sex toy with the Great Sexploits app. Hump Marilyn, Mae, Theda, Angelina or Madonna whenever you like.
@rebbel or the Janet Reno or Madelyn Albright version, but they are into some kinky shit.
Insta-exercise machines. You step in and in 2 minutes, you’ve done 2 hours of full body exercises.
@HungryGuy and @incendiary_dan well…microwaves were born out of huge, dangerous experimental war machine things that relied on…“microwaves”....right?
I want a nuclear reactor under my sink!!!
@Dutchess_III – Your wish is very likely to come true within the next 50 years. Central power generating plants and distribution networks will someday be obsolete. Those high tension power lines that blight the landscape will be a thing of the past.
Oh, it will be one less thing that we have to worry about terrorists crippling the country by taking out a major power plant or power line.
How about ray guns? I bet personal ray guns will be around in the next decade. The military is already using some laser weapons, but they’re vehicle mounted.
I wanna ray gun AND a nuclear power plant under my sink!!
I want a nuclear powered flying car with a ray gun.
Well according to some scientists, due to our exponential growth in technology, we may be creating A.I. and perhaps merge with it as well and biological immortality can probably be put under control by then as well. I would love to see Jurassic Park become a reality though.
We’ll be routinely regrowing amputated limbs, which is pretty damn cool. Maybe the same technology will repair damaged spinal cords.
Blind people will be made to see!
You can’t have a Portal Gun, @HungryGuy. Remember what you did with the slingshot? No. No guns for you!
@Dutchess_III – But how can I get to the cake without a portal gun?
@Nullo – What?!?! The cake is a lie??? Ooooh! I’m gonna blast that GLaDOS with rockets until all her personality spheres fall off…
Definitely no rockets @HungryGuy! No hand grenades, no C-4 no nothing like that! WTH is a personality sphere??! LOL!
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