Flying cars were always a pie-in-the-sky proposition, but hologram calls
and many other bold tech ideas have hit snags.
1.
Hologram calls
The
hope: Soon we'll be chatting with our friends in life-size,
3-D, holographic form -- beamed right into our living rooms! Even cell
phones will pop out little avatar versions of the person at the other
end of the line.
The reality: Video chat
services like Skype and Apple's (AAPL) FaceTime are
something of a replacement for, er, face time. But hologram calls
remain relegated to sci-fi movies and experimental labs.
What's
the deal? Until very recently, the technology required to
create hologram calls was overly complicated and expensive. 3-D was
still a pipe dream. Videos were too large to transmit quickly.
Now,
all of those technologies exist in our living rooms -- and researchers
are harnessing those advances in order to develop hologram technology.
It's still experimental and expensive, and most consumer Internet speeds
are still too slow to make 3-D videos stream reliably. But the tech is
getting close.
The Human Media Lab at Canada's Queen's University
is working on holographic chat called "TeleHuman," which uses Microsoft
(MSFT) Kinect
sensors, a 3-D projector, and cylindrical displays. RGBD Toolkit, which
is backed by Carnegie Mellon, works with Kinect-DSLR camera
combinations.
2. Cryonics and zombies
The
hope: Why be dead forever, when we can just freeze our bodies
and reanimate decades later when someone figures out how to revive us?
The
reality: The Cryonics Institute and Alcor Life Extension
Foundation have already cryo-preserved hundreds of people. But no human
"patient" has yet been brought back to life.
What's the
deal? The prospect of cryo-preservation has been around since
1962, when Robert Ettinger published a book called "The Prospect of
Immortality." It's been popularized in movies like "Vanilla Sky", and
the body of baseball great Ted Williams was frozen in 2002.
According
to the Cryonics Institute, the process
involves "cooling legally-dead people to liquid nitrogen temperature
where physical decay essentially stops, in the hope that future
technologically advanced scientific procedures will someday be able to
revive them." No cryopreserved mammal has been revived, but insects (and
something called "vinegar eels") have come back to life. A few types of
human tissue, cells, and organs have also been "revived."
But
Williams may have to wait a while to swing the bat again. Robert
Freitas, senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular
Manufacturing, predicts the first human reanimation won't happen
until around 2040 or 2050.
3. Spam-free inboxes
The
hope: "Two years from now, spam will be solved," Bill Gates
proclaimed in 2004.
The reality: Er, not so
much. According to Gates' own Microsoft, spam accounted for an
astounding 97% of all email sent in 2008. The anti-spam technology has
improved somewhat, but progress is slow: 71% of last month's email was
spam, says Kaspersky
Labs.
What's the deal? As spam-blocking
technology becomes more advanced, so do the spammers.
"These
days, spam is moving into a realm of truly professional development,"
said Christopher Budd, threats communications manager at Trend Micro (TMICY). "Some
spammers are even hiring editors to make sure their English is good."
Budd
pointed out that any security system has limits. Spammers are cooking
up increasingly more technical ways to infiltrate victims' computers,
and spam-blocking technology has to catch up.
So a completely
spam-less world will likely never come to pass -- and you should still
delete that email from the prince of Nigeria.
4. Robots
to do our bidding
The
hope: I really don't feel like doing the dishes. Can't someone
make a robot to do this stuff?
The reality: You
still have to do the dishes.
What's the deal?
Scientists have made major advances over the past decade in robotics and
artificial intelligence, but you'll be waiting a long time for
affordable, autonomous robots that can do your chores.
Measuring
the progress of robot development depends on your definition of "robot."
IBM's (IBM) Watson
supercomputer is one of the most famous examples of machine
intelligence: It battled humans on "Jeopardy," learned
Urban Dictionary slang, and is being used to help physicians
diagnose ailments. But "he" won't do your laundry.
Annual tech
shows routinely showcase humanoid robots. However, most are early
prototypes that can walk around and dance -- but not learn. Honda (HMC) unveiled its
ASIMO robot in 2000. Newer versions can kick a soccer ball or step aside
when a human walks in its path. But ASIMO doesn't really have
real-world applications yet.
Buy yourself a Roomba in the
meantime.
5. Cord-cutting
The
hope: Thanks to Netflix (NFLX), Hulu,
Amazon (AMZN) Prime, and
other streaming services, no one will need to shell out $100 a month for
cable.
The reality: The streaming-video space
is now choked with competitors, and they're falling all over each other
to sign exclusive contracts. So no provider offers all (or even most) TV
shows and movies. According to the most recent data available from
Nielsen, more than 58 million households still have a pay-TV
subscription.
What's the deal? Pay-TV's biggest
advantage is that streaming services can't offer shows as quickly as
cable. Forget about live events like sports.
Still, some services
aren't content to merely stream older, licensed content. Netflix is now
churning out several original series, including the Kevin Spacey
vehicle "House of Cards." Amazon Studios greenlighted six original
pilots in December and has added a handful more since then.
Meanwhile,
even sports and other live events are slowly trickling out of the cable
realm. MLB.tv lets users stream baseball games for $20 a month, and the
NFL offers a variety of streaming and audio-only options.
6.
Connected home
The
hope: Sensors, wireless connections and special routers can
create a Jetsons-esque connected home. Your fridge and cabinet will
"talk" to each other and let you know that if you pick up some
chocolate, you'll have all of the ingredients for a killer devil's food
cake.
The reality: The components necessary for a
connected home are finally cheap enough to make this a reality.
AT&T (T) and Sony (SNE) have already
shown off lots of cool home-control technology -- but each company's
platform is incompatible with the others.
What's the
deal? Each connected-home system works differently, and the
platforms don't talk to each other. So consumers either have to stick to
one platform, or shell out for extra equipment to bridge the gap. That
severely limits consumer choice.
Still, connected-home demos are
finally catching up to the Jetsons fantasy. AT&T's home security
platform, expected to roll out nationwide this year, lets customers
control door locks, lights, ovens, and thermostats using a smartphone or
tablet. Intel (INTC) has a
similar experimental platform that links household gadgets through
machine-to-machine connections.
Mainstream adoption is likely
still a few years away though. Earlier this month, Microsoft posted a
connected-home "conceptual" video
of technology the company says could be 5-10 years down the road.
Read the full article at: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-cool-innovations-we-re-still-waiting-for-161604174.html
