We’ve watched our fair share of geeky movies at Digital Trends and high-tech cars play a big role in many of our favorite flicks. Even though automotive technology is advancing quickly, most of these cars are still a little farfetched for present day operation– but some do have components based in reality. They may not be street legal but they’re fun to look at, so check out our 10 favorite futuristic cars from the movies and television.
Tag Archive: Future Technology
Augmented Reality Past, Present and Future: How It Impacts Our Lives
Can’t stop hearing about it in the news, but wondering what makes “augmented reality” (AR) – the concept of overlaying computerized information, digital pop-up windows and/or virtual reality (VR) displays over real-world scenes and imagery – so exciting? Allow us to paint a picture. Imagine. You walk up to an airport terminal and breeze past the airline check-in. Afterwards, a wireless chip in your smartphone uses biometrics to verify your identity at a checkpoint, then a green arrow pops up and shows you the best path to the gate. When you get there, a blue circle shows you where to sit and helps you avoid the most common congestion points. You wait about five minutes until a soft chime tells you to get in line. The total time between drop-off and take-off: Just 20 minutes.
What is Augmented Reality (AR): Augmented Reality Defined, iPhone Augmented Reality Apps and Games and More
As you wait anxiously in the motionless horde of cars tangled in rush hour traffic, you gather surrounding statistics through your digital LED contact lenses. Tom’s Pizzeria is five blocks ahead and was ranked four out of five stars by customer reviews. As for the woman in the beige Honda beside you, she has a Jack Russell Terrier named Charlie, is originally from Texas, and her favorite book is Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. The pack loosens up and you finish your commute home.
In the Year 2020, Part III: Transportation, Urban Planning, and Energy
Check out Part I and Part II in our series about life in the year 2020.
Our cities are a mess. Based on grids of pavement for devices of transport that pump poisonous fumes into the atmosphere, they and their inhabitants are slowly but inexorably being choked into submission. Many of them are rotting from the core – their eroding downtowns often unattainable in heavy traffic from the distant, sprawling suburbs that surround them.
Experts Question the Future of Netbook PCs
Thought the heretofore booming netbook industry was on a major upswing as price-conscious PC owners flocked to score one of the low-cost, highly portable laptops that emphasize performance over power? Guess again, as industry experts warn that the companies producing these systems and actual consumers buying them may be on different wavelengths.
With the holidays nearing and the machines’ stocking-stuffer-ready size and cost, netbooks are anticipated to be a big buy this gift giving season. But with the introduction of 12-inch screens, ION processors and rising sticker prices, some technology insiders say the lines may be getting a little blurry for these pint-size PCs. Many industry analysts noted that, in the coming months, we may see netbooks grow rather than shrink—a little “switcheroo” for the technology world—as unlike most machinery, dwindling in size with advancement, this hardware is growing and ultimately defeating its original purpose.
In the Year 2020, Part II: Biotechnology and Genetics
Check out Part I of our series about life in the year 2020.
Nobody delivers profanity better than Bruce Willis. Nobody. Perhaps that’s why he’s seen so much of it in practically every script he’s tackled during the last 20-odd years. We don’t have a final count on the number of F-bombs our man Bruce dropped in his latest flick, Surrogates, but we can say with some authority that a world filled with robotic avatars gone amok would drive anyone to repeated vulgarity.
But 2017? Surrogates would have us believe that just eight short years from now, we’ll have retreated to our homes and left the “real” world to synthetically pimped-up alter-egos? Is it conceivable that we, as naturally exploratory human beings, would want to do that? Is it conceivable that such technology would even exist just 3,000 days from now?
Welcome to Part II in our three-part series on life in the year 2020. In Part I, we took a gander at cloud computing and the immediate future of the amazing, shrinking computer. In Part III, we’ll get the down and dirty on transportation, urban planning, and our changing cities. But today, we’ll go all Surrogates on you.
In the Year 2020, Part I: Cloud Computing
It’s Friday afternoon. Andy’s had a long, tiring week, and he’s thinking this would be a great time to shed the shackles of his job and kick back with a good friend over a couple of beers and a juicy steak. One problem: Andy’s best buddy is off in Europe and he’s stuck in downtown Cleveland.
Robots that Live Among Us
As we all learned from Terminator, artificially intelligent machines will one day conduct a systematic extermination of all human life forms and turn the Earth into one gigantic robot playground. But until that day comes, robots are our friends.
From heavy industry to the toy industry, devices that perform at least some automatic functions have been with us for quite some time. But in this roundup, we’ll look at robots that go far beyond the basics. Some benefit humanity as a whole. Some are already at work in the corporate world, handling complex or tedious tasks and situations that even a decade ago seemed impossible. Some point the way to a better future, others impress with their ability to mimic life forms, and still others make us feel a bit apprehensive as we come to grips with their tremendous power and potential.
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