We are living in an amazing time in history

Strange how so many technologies have come so far in a relatively short period of time, yet after over 100 years we're still burning good ol gasoline to run our vehicles.

fat bastard

it is simply amazing, you know they fixed a severed spinal cord on a mouse with stem cells. its only a matter of time before we are living extremely longer lives with a higher quality....

I agree with you. I can´t wait to see what future will bring on.

I hope I don't need to put on my tin foil hat.

If someone had a better answer, we would be using it. There are probably even some really good alternatives, but the problem is that it's more than just inventing a better mousetrap, it's getting everyone to use it. Even if there is better technology, it takes the efforts of the people that use it to convert, which costs money because the infrastructure is already built around those energies.

One of the top inventions in my mind was the ink jet printer. Though I guess one needs to think outside of the box to see what it has done and is capable of.

Thats really amazing indeed...

Too bad we've only got enough oil production, reserves and exploration for 17 more years tops - and that counts all the protected reserves they probably will drill soon - of course that number is only good if oil use stays at todays demand - any rise in China or Russia will shorten the timeframe

As far as discoveries - I remember being totally amazed when the first color tv and the first microwaves rolled out

Do you have a link? That's really amazing.

Be nice if they could fix hearing loss as well. I'd pay big bucks for that.

longer lives

What about overpopulation. Not good ...

I think were at the begining of an amazing era. This new eye wont allow people to recognise faces yet, thats a goal thats 7-10 years away according to that article.

Were lucky that we get to see it begin. people in a hundred years time will look back at this decade as the time when the real advances started.

That to me is the big one. I couldnt cope with not being able to move. We need to pour cash into that as it is so fixable.

I've seen that before...

It's not the first implant but it is one of the better ones out atm. Unfortunately it'll be quite sometime before they are able to provide any sort of true vision. Look at this picture:



This is roughly what the person with the implant would see:



We're a long ways off from "seeing faces" but at least we've made the first steps toward helping the blind see.

Yup, sorry... get that tin foil hat ready. :D

It's not a matter of people changing their ways or making different decisions. There have been plenty of great alternatives invented over the past 30+ years in the area of ground transportation, but the giant of the industry, the auto companies and oil companies always seem to find ways of buying out the technology or quashing it in some way. I'm actually surprised that the latest hybrid technology is allowed to thrive and exist, but that's likely because it isn't about cars running on water or batteries or solar power.

Seriously, go ahead and invent a car that runs on any resource other than at least some gasoline... and then try to sell the idea to the big auto makers who control the industry. None have ever decided to run with such advancements in the past, I wonder why?


But my point in my earlier post was more about comparing this to other technological advancements. Look at computers for example... today's average home computer is more advanced and has a higher memory capacity than the one from back in the 50's and 60's that they used to run NASA. The leaps in that industry in even the past 10 years is staggering, yet here we are after 100 years of driving cars STILL chugging away polluting the atmosphere with gas.

It rather astounds me is all. And now it astounds me that it doesn't astound you.

In mice we now have ways to cure baldness, HIV, Blidness and cancers, now all we need is to figure out how to turn a human into a mouse temporarily and we got it all solved

come on, an ink jet printer? what's so revolutionary about it?

Exciting news..on the brink to some major breakthoughs..hopefully I wont be dead to see them

The coolest stuff will actually take place 5000 years from now.

the oil companies buy out new ideas for whatever amount then they patent them and you never hear of it again.

but it will take 20 years to take it to the "normal" life

Exactly, which underlines what I said in my post above.



Compared to the dot matrix printers of 10-15 years ago they are a huge leap in that technology. The kinds of printing and print quality a home computer printer can get today far outstrips what anyone was doing back then.

damn right it is

I said one needed to think outside of the box. Most would never imagine what is can or will do.

Here is one application being discussed.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16156314/

Other applications that are currently in either production and or patent modes are industrial sized inkjet printers that will print out actual buildings and houses, wires and everything included.

There is much much more of course.

wow,interesting article.unlike many other inventions this will be very useful.thanks for the heads up !

It is amazing....its moving fast...

Now if we could just have a cure for cancer...

Get the shit out of here!

Wow, what are you like 75 years old or something.l

Much as is innovative, one cannot help but wonder how more innovative we might be. For example, I have read that there are many health issues which likely have relatively simple solutions, but because they only affect small numbers of people, are often left unresearched.

I once visited Volkswagen's Wolfsburg factory where they have an amazing research facility. They were completely honest that marketing considerations dictate whether and when an innovation or improvement may appear in production. We could already have much safer cars, cars which last longer, require less maintenance, or which are dramatically more fuel efficient. Instead, the industry resists any change which might raise the cost of a car even a few cents, for fear of damaging sales.

Nor is all innovation a step forward. Despite "Cheddar" being the most popular cheese in the world, there is now only one farm still making it the traditional way. Cauliflowers, tomatoes, apples, etc., are all grown for appearance and uniformity these days, and not for flavor. Wine and beer are "helped along" with chemicals and technology. The irony is that future generations will never experience the taste, texture, color, which made a particular cheese or whatever, popular in the first place.

We also live in a world in which publishers can get rich reproducing the works of centuries-old authors for schools and colleges. Yet if there is a modern-day Shakespeare out there, he is probably struggling to find anyone willing to read his manuscripts. The music industry still uses A&R men, but for the past 30 years many producers have found it easier simply to create bands and singers in whatever mould is currently marketable.

Drifting away from the original direction of this thread? Possibly. And yet the style and fundamental quality of our lives is not driven only by overtly technological change. Perhaps not even mainly by such change. Social change, although it tends be noted in history books more than in media headlines, has a much more profound effect. Consider just the many consequences over the past 50 years, as working mothers have become the norm, instead of the exception.

Think too about the potential of further change. Living barely a mile from each other in the rich and poor parts of Washington DC, the US capital city, are males with average life expectancies 20 years apart. It took the whole of the 20th century for life expectancy to be extended 30 years, courtesy of medical advances. And most of that change came about before 1950, due to reductions in infant mortality and better treatments for childhood diseases. The right social/political change could have almost as dramatic an effect on some parts of our population.

How come we don't have a huge network of pneumatic tubes all over America delivering our mail yet? They had a working system 200 years ago... I want all my fucking mail delivered via pneumatic tubing!

My favorite quote is by Yogi Berra:
"The future ain't what it used to be."

still feel like we live in the stone ages, don't know how they survived 200 years ago

I'm 44, and I remember the first sightings of Color TV's and Microwaves.