Future Technology: 10 Ideas That Could Change the World
The future of technology is coming, faster than you think. These emerging technologies will change the way we live, how we exercise our bodies, and help us avoid climate disaster.
In the modern world, technology advances at a fast pace. It feels like new technology and innovation will change our future. But amidst the announcements about massive future technology upgrades and cool gadgets, it’s easy to forget that the world is evolving in amazing ways.
For example, there are AI programs that write poetry from scratch and generate images from just a text prompt. There is also 3D printing, new holograms, lab-grown food and brain-reading robots.
These are just scratching the surface, so we’ve curated a guide to future technologies that lists them all below.
Sometimes new futuristic technology has the potential to change the future while being terrifying at the same time.
1. Turn dead things into robots
Sometimes new futuristic technology has the potential to change the future while being eerie at the same time. That’s one description for the concept of necrobotics, which, as the name suggests, involves turning dead things into robots. While it sounds like the plot of a horror movie, it’s a technology being explored at Rice University.
A team of researchers has turned a dead spider into a robot-like gripper, giving it the ability to grab other objects. To achieve this, they pumped air into a spider. This works because the spiders use hydraulics to force their blood (hemolymph) into their limbs, causing them to extend.
The concept is still in its early stages, but it could mean that in the future dead animals are used for further scientific research.
2. Electronic skin can help us hug distant friends
While modern technology allows us to communicate anywhere in the world, there is currently no reliable way to share the sense of touch across distances. Now, engineers at City University of Hong Kong have developed a wireless soft electronic skin that could one day allow people to hug each other over the internet.
The electronic skin is covered with flexible actuators that can sense the wearer’s movements and convert them into electrical signals. These signals can then be sent via Bluetooth to another electronic skin system, where the actuators convert them into mechanical vibrations that mimic the initial movement. The researchers say this system could allow friends and family to “feel” each other from a distance.
3. Catapulting satellites into space
Who would have thought that the best way to get a satellite into space is with a makeshift catapult! It’s much smarter than a catapult, but the technology exists in a similar way.
SpinLaunch is a prototype system for sending satellites or other payloads into space. It does this by using kinetic energy rather than the chemical fuels commonly used in traditional rockets. The technology allows the payload to spin at speeds of 8,000 km/h and 10,000 Gs before being launched into the sky through a large launch tube.
Of course, small rocket engines are still needed to get payloads into orbit, but SpinLaunch claims the system reduces fuel and infrastructure by 70 percent.
The company has signed an agreement with NASA and is currently testing the system.
4. Xenotransplantation
Implanting a pig’s heart into a human body may sound like a ridiculous idea, however, it is one of the newest medical procedures that is making rapid progress.
Xenotransplantation—the process of transplanting, implanting or infusing cells, tissues or organs from animals into the human body—has the potential to revolutionize surgery.
One of the most common surgeries so far is to implant a pig’s heart into a human. This has been successfully performed twice. However, one of the patients survived only a few months, and the other is still under observation.
In these surgeries, the heart cannot be implanted immediately into a human body and first needs to be genetically edited. Certain genes need to be removed from the heart and human genes need to be added, mainly those surrounding immune acceptance and preventing overgrowth of heart tissue.
5. AI Image Generation
As artificial intelligence gets better at doing jobs as well as humans, a new industry has been added to the list: the art world. Researchers at OpenAI have developed software that can create images based on text prompts.
Type in “a dog wearing a cowboy hat singing in the rain” and you’ll get a whole bunch of original images that fit the description perfectly. You can even choose the art style your request returns. However, the technology isn’t perfect and there are still some issues, such as the poor results it generates when designing cartoon characters.
Dubbed Dall-E, the technology is now in its second iteration, and the team behind it plans to continue developing it further. In the future, we could see this technology used to create art exhibitions, provide companies with quick, original illustrations, and of course, revolutionize the way we create memes on the internet.
6. Brain-reading robots
Brain-reading technology has advanced so much in recent years that it’s no longer science fiction. One of the most interesting and practical applications we’ve seen so far comes from researchers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL).
Thanks to machine learning algorithms, a robotic arm, and a brain-computer interface, these researchers have successfully created a means for quadriplegic patients to interact with the world.
In tests, the robotic arm was shown to perform simple tasks, such as maneuvering around obstacles. The algorithm would then interpret signals from the brain using an EEG cap and automatically determine when the arm made a movement that the brain deemed incorrect, such as getting too close to an obstacle or moving too fast.
Over time, the algorithms could be adapted to personal preferences and brain signals. In the future, this could lead to wheelchairs controlled by the brain or assistive machines for quadriplegics.
7. Natural Language Processing
Natural language processing is the big new trend on the internet. While you’ve most likely seen it used in Google’s autocomplete software or on your smartphone predicting what you’re going to type, it can do so much more.
OpenAI is a company at the forefront of artificial intelligence that initially took the internet by storm with its image generator. Now, it’s back at it again, building a chatbot called ChatGPT that can create poetry from scratch, explain complex theories with ease, and hold full conversations like a human. ChatGPT is powered by software called GPT-3, which was trained on billions of text examples and then taught how to form coherent and logical sentences.
ChatGPT is an example of artificial intelligence and its future. It has already proven itself capable of making entirely new websites from scratch, writing full-length books, and even cracking jokes. Although, it clearly hasn’t mastered humor yet.
8. A digital twin that tracks your health
In “Star Trek,” a movie that gave rise to many of our ideas about future technology, humans could walk into a medical suite and have their entire bodies digitally scanned for signs of disease and injury. Doing so in real life could improve health while reducing the burden on doctors, according to the makers of Q Bio.
The US company has built a scanner that measures hundreds of biomarkers in about an hour, from hormone levels to fat buildup in the liver to markers of inflammation or any cancer. The company intends to use this data to create a 3D digital avatar of a patient’s body – a so-called digital twin – that can be tracked over time and updated with each new scan.
Q Bio CEO Jeff Kaditz hopes it will usher in a new era of preventative, personalized medicine, in which the vast amounts of data collected will not only help doctors determine which patients are most in need of emergency care, but also enable more sophisticated disease diagnostics. Read an interview with him here.
9. Self-healing “living concrete”
Scientists have used sand, gel and bacteria to develop what they call living concrete. The building material, researchers say, is structurally load-bearing, self-repairing and more environmentally friendly than concrete, the second-most consumed material on Earth after water.
The team, from the University of Colorado Boulder, believes their work paves the way for future building structures that can “self-heal cracks, absorb dangerous toxins from the air, or even glow on command.”
10. 3D-printed eye tissue
Researchers at the National Eye Institute have used stem cells and 3D bioprinting to create retinal tissue. This new technology can help scientists build models of the human eye to better understand diseases and conditions that affect people’s vision, such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and develop corresponding treatments.
By printing stem cells taken from patients into gel and letting them grow over several weeks, the researchers created tissue found in the blood-outer retinal barrier, an area known to develop AMD. They are currently using this tissue to study the progression of AMD and are experimenting with adding additional cell types to simulate more of the human eye.