dryriver [soylentnews.org] writes:
As the title states, what would you, personally, consider to be the most amazing technological breakthroughs if they were a) fully researched & ready for action and b) commercially available - this year - at a decent price-point? Would it be a brand new single-core x86 or x64 CPU that crunches data/runs compiled code 10 - 30 times faster than, say, a current Core i7 or Xeon CPU can (perhaps a 3 dimensional chip of some description)? Or a hyper-advanced 3D graphics card that can really deliver "Hollywood-movie level photoreal realtime 3D graphics", with a visual fidelity virtually indistinguishable from what we see in the real world when we are out and about? Would it be a smartphone that can go 90 - 120 days without recharging and easily survive being run over by a fully loaded SUV? Or a smart software technology that takes older 3D games and "upgrades them graphically" to look just like current GFX quality games? Would it be resolution-independent digital images or video that scale to look razor-sharp on screen resolutions ranging from 640 x 480 to, say 16K or 32K? Would it be a small attachable motor + battery that let you bicycle to work in 1/3rd the time and only need recharging once a month? A production car with a brand new type of gearbox that gives you 500+ gear settings to choose from? A lightweight beverage mug that heats the beverage in it in 5 seconds? A word processor that can take a 250 word article summary and AI-magically expand it to 2,500 words with perfect quality writing/grammar/terminology, and also making logical sense? A t-shirt or pair of jeans that automagically clean themselves of any dirt when you run some current through the fabric? A smartphone that lets you, an English speaker in Boston, speak with a French speaker in Paris in realtime, with flawless simultaneous translation both ways and each person's voice sounding completely natural/authentic despite language translation ? Perhaps a digital pocket camera that is also a high-def 3D scanner and lets you create accurate 3D models of anything - from plants to buildings to people - as simply as snapping a casual photo of it? --- Now use your own imaginations, Soylentils. What would you, personally, consider to be an AMAZING technological breakthrough that you could - in an ideal world - BUY today (not in 15 - 20 years time). Thanks for participating, everybody!
Original Submission
