In case you have not been counting, it is 2011. Back in the 1980s, which seems not so long ago now, we had grand predictions for the 21st century. Flying cars, robots that do our every bidding (or sometimes destroy us), interactive holograms, colonies on other planets, and many other high hopes. In 2011, ten years after the turn of the century, we still rely on the internal combustion engine that is slowly eating away at our atmosphere and seem to still be struggling with some fundamental problems like hunger and poverty.
The grand utopia or apocalyptic wasteland (depending on who you ask) does not exist as we expected. What follows are 9 inventions that should have been in mass production and wide usage by now. Instead most are just figments of our collective imagination. I am neither a scientist nor an engineer, so do not expect coherent details about any of these.
1. Self-sustaining electricity – If conspiracy theorists are right, someone somewhere has already discovered a way to power homes without the need to burn fossil fuels or depend on any other external energy source, but the oil companies quickly silenced him. At any rate, all the energy we exert, flushing the toilet, cooking, or exercising escapes into the void rather than being recycled back into our homes. The self-sustaining electrical system still eludes us.
2.The perfect battery – Batteries are still messy, and the best ones are downright dangerous. According to managed server host 34SP.com, Americans use and discard 3 billion batteries each year. We still have not found a way to even keep rechargeable batteries from degrading over time. If there is a way to make a perfect battery, it is either too expensive or too difficult to make at this time.
3. The self-powered water fuel cell – Again I am not a scientist, but would it not be cool to have a car powered by water (perhaps the hydrogen in the water), with a fuel cell capable of reusing the waste product, which of course is just water. At some point, your water would become dirty, and you would get a water change rather than an oil change. People have envisioned concepts like this for years, but they have yet to take hold.
4. Car force fields – The ultimate is automobile safety is the force field for cars. Accidents would be like two bumper cars bouncing into each other, rather than the cataclysmic metal carnage that we now see far too often. It seems we still struggle with the concept of the force field in general, something every practically futuristic Sci-Fi film predicted we would have everywhere.
5. True universal adapters – Not only is this one possible, it has already been invented. For computers we have USB (Universal Seriel Bus), but we still have tons of devices with their own proprietary power cords. Mobile phones, laptops, tablets, and every other device all have their own cords. When your device is no longer useful, you cannot simply use the same cord for the new one. This creates more waste.
6. Easy programming (no language required) – I am not a programmer but know enough to look at source code and know that we still have a long way to go in this department. By now, many of us envisioned we would have computers that could understand natural language and create new programs based on our rough descriptions. Such a day has not yet arrived.
7. Automatic ice melting streets, driveways, and sidewalks – If you live anywhere cold, you have seen salt trucks, ice scrapers, or even the huge sledge axe that I used to break the ice on my sidewalk. Whether you have a shovel or a snow blower, removing the white stuff is still a pain. By now, we would have thought we would have streets that make the ice quietly vanish, along with evenly-heated driveways and sidewalks.
There are many other inventions, like flying cars, that we expected to have by now. Many times it is not the lack of scientific ability or knowledge that slows us down but rather the lack of funding, resistance from large corporate stake-holders in the status quo, and senseless battles of trade secrets and patents that stifle innovation. Now that technology moves at such a rapid pace, the only way to achieve the results we expected is to work together.
Tavis J. Hampton is a librarian and writer with a decade of experience in information technology, web hosting, and Linux system administration. His freelance services include writing, editing, tech training, and information architecture.
Brilliant list well done.
The very thought of flying cars is terrifying. I know we might often think when sitting in traffic jams that it would be great to just fly and take a very short clear route to our destination. But can you imagine the chaos without controls or set pathways. Everyone would be crashing into each other. On top of that imagine waht it would be like sitting in your lovely quiet garden and then having lots of cars flying noisily overhead or even hovering for a while to watch you. Talk about invasion of privacy and the possibilty that you could be killed by a car when your in your own garden… oh heck not good is it?
Flying cars are unthinkable as Roberta says. phew!
It does seem ridiculous that they havent invented a safe battery yet though. Im sure its more liekly that that some battery that creates its own electricity with movement or frictionis on the cards. They are probabaly already out there.
Heated sidewalks and roads. I’m not sure that this amount of energy will be justified for melting snow. The sooner people work at home more the better. And it makes sense that storage facilites are smaller and more local to avoind unecessary long transportation. Its called shopping and doing business locally.
Shopping locally is something that is now encouraged but we have a long way to go before our local shops have anything of quality and can provide organic and locally grow too. The shops around my area are mostly fast food takeaways and a couple of hairdressers. None of which I use ( the hairdressers do not use non toxic hair products so they are out of the running for me) and the takeaways I avoid at all costs for obvious reasons.
However in long snow periods how difficult will it be for good local shops to get supplies? Maybe we need to re learn how to be prepared for difficult by preserving food in good old fashioned ways for example pickled eggs, and other pickled stuff. Fruits preserved in juice syrups and organic vegetables all precooked and forzen ready for use. Everyone needs to start thinking about conservation and conserving themselves in the home for times when they just cannot get out to buy produce food.
Working from home is definitely a great idea for everybody and perhaps the new cloud type technologies have the answer there
Did you see this guy on you tube who has developed technology for water powered engines and other things
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImGaraPrEo8
I also know they have already developed a water powered car so its all on the horizon but without massive investments , (maybe now the investments into nuclear fuel will be redirected in the right places after the Japan disaster, I hope so)
Too litttle too late? Should it have all been in place in the 21st century? It should have but they spent our hard earned taxes elswhere because they could only think of BIG BUCKS and not saving the planet
I totally agree, i would love to see things like water fueled cars, real universal bus which will fit to everything(or better if everything would be wireless), also better batteries in smartphones(1 day of life for cellphone is ridicolous don’t you think?), i like point 7 about roads too.
There is still a lot of things which would easy our lifes and would be great to see them right now!
Intersting that homes can harness wind and solar which generates electricity. Most systems then send power back to the grid and then the elec companies have to pay us. I’m not sure I quite get this idea? Why can’t we just keep the power all for ourselves and store it somehow? I’m uneducated of course but surely there is a battery to store power been made from harnessing external natural energies?
Lets be honest, some of the predictions we used to get in the 70′s and 80′s were a little over the top. But some of these seven suggestions are things that you would genuinely think possible in this day and age. For example, the technology should be there for self-sustaining electricity and automatic ice melting sheets.
5. True universal adapters.
I’m pretty sure the reason for this is so the consumer has to buy the manufactures products if they need a new cable/connection etc. Its a way of trying to get more money from you, rather than the consumer being able to use any old connection they may have lying around the home.
Max recently posted..Top 10 uses for usb flash memory sticks
I’ts true for so many things Max. And things are not made to last anymore so people have to keep buying and buying all the time.