Future
December and January are generally slow news months in Australia. The pollies have gone home, cricket is on the TV and we can find time to relax. It can be a testing time for the media, with column inches and tabloid TV segments to fill. But all is not lost.
Enter the fortune tellers.
What does the year ahead hold for us? Let’s ask our resident astrologer/medium/psychic/mystic/clairvoyant.
Continue reading "Your 10-step guide to predicting the future" »
Where will you be in 2050? According to a new report on Australia’s digital future you could be working from your smarthome and communicating with the office via your eyeballs.
You’ll be gobbling up 200GB of data a month, probably having sex with robots, and sitting pretty on a household income of around $188,000 in today’s money.
Of course, IBM’s Snapshot of Australia’s Digital Future to 2050 also makes the wild prediction that the photographic film processing industry is in trouble, so who knows where these crazy cats are getting their information from.
Continue reading "Let’s all meet up in the year 2050 - won’t it be strange?" »
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Paul says:
In 2050 global sea levels and temperatures will be be pretty much what they are today. We will therefore know that Anthropogenic Global Warming was a big con. Read more »
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Paul says:
In the mid 1990’s I went to a tech conference (I think it was on the Gold Coast if my memory serves). Phil Ruthven was making the big prediction that 10 years from now (i.e. about 2005) “homes in Australia will no longer be built with kitchens”. The idea being… Read more »
Someone once told me that when people reach a certain age they begin dressing in the manner they did at the happiest time in their life.
The same often goes for elderly people with severe dementia, who can keenly recall the minute details of life when they were happiest. My 80 year old grandmother did not recognise me at all in the last six months of her life, but she would talk about her sons as if they were still young teenagers. She was a homemaker and it was the most joyful time in her life
That’s what I think about when I watch the brilliant video above about hipsters, the future and social media.
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Poida says:
Just turned 39… it’s been a fun, so I’m milking the “I’m in my 30’s” for all it’s worth this year! Anyway, as they say you’re only as old as the woman you feel, so that gives me an extra couple of years!!! Read more »
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Audra Blue says:
I’m 45 and things are actually getting worse. They were pretty good for a while and I thought I’d made it. Had a decent guy, a good job, some money in the bank, my son was out on his own. I had it made. Then my partner dumped me (he… Read more »
Could this be the year we finally get a dream-recording device?
There are many inventions I’m hanging out for this year – from automatic cheese graters, to a device that allows Kyle Sandilands to break free from his rage-limiting mortal form and roam the skies as a scowling dragon, hurling damsels with ‘90s haircuts into volcanoes.
But a gizmo that could record and playback dreams would be at the top of my list.
Continue reading "I dream of telling everyone about your kooky dreams" »
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Jon says:
If I could playback my dreams this would be fantastic?. I have been woken up from several extraordinary things to never complete them. Thought of a few as I read this article that I would like to relive, lol think Apple will give us an app for it? Just a… Read more »
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Liver says:
I find your snow man dream quite interesting. The reason dreams are boring to other people is the way people tell them, trying to make sense/story as they go. Read more »
It’s time to get over the hovercar. It’s not happening. You’re not getting one.
And for that matter, you’re not going to be flying to Mars or the moon or through the rings of Saturn in a spaceship. Not in your lifetime.
The biggest let-down of the 21st century is that humanity has proved pretty poor at inventing the flying technologies that we imagined would be jetting us to Mars or well, Coles, by now. But it’s time we got over that. Because our levitating-vehicle-filled imaginations of the future are holding us back from embracing the future that is already here. And it’s a future that’s far more remarkable than you would think. For instance: say hello to the Matrix.
Continue reading "Our hi-tech future is here! And it’s remarkably ordinary" »
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Don says:
They are not exactly portal guns but hand-held analysers for metals (in soils/alloys etc) are starting to change the game for various industries, mining amongst them. One thing I am not looking forward to is effective lie-detectors. When they start to come on line then Orwell’s prophetic 1984 will be… Read more »
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Ob says:
I can’t verify this but I’m pretty sure Metropolis was the first time a “video-phone” was imagined. Of course it was a fixed display in the wall (which has been a staple of SF movies since) which has since been overtaken by the portable idea, but for being made in… Read more »
By now, Robert Ettinger should be well and truly frozen.
At 92, the man widely credited as the founder of the cryogenics movement had already seen the some of the best and worse of the past century.
He died on Saturday and reportedly became the 106th patient at his Michigan-based Cryonics Institute, where he joins his mother and first two wives. I genuinely hope it all works out for him and that he lives long and prospers… again.
Continue reading "Robert Ettinger’s not dead. He’s frozen. And one day…" »
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Marta Sandberg says:
Mark G says: 08:23am | 29/07/11 Marta, I would like to point out that rejuvenating live cells is completely different to rejuvenating dead or destroyed cell tissue. With things like stem cells we are not that far of being able to rejuvenate living cells now. Dead cell matter that has… Read more »
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Marta Sandberg says:
It is easy to dismiss something if you haven’t taken the time to research it and, unfortunately, your comments show that you do not understand the basic of cryonics. Before I signed up for cryonics I spent three years trying to debunk it. In the end I had to reluctantly… Read more »
The most interesting thing I’ve read all year about the climate-change debate is a book that has nothing directly to do with it.
Dan Gardner’s Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe Them Anyway explores, well, the title pretty sums it up. Gardner runs through a laundry list of culture-shaping fears and hopes and points out that they were almost always wrong.
Capitalism didn’t end up on the ash heap of history. World War I didn’t turn out to be the war to end all wars. Society wasn’t plunged into anarchy by the Y2K bug. The nightmare scenario of overpopulation Malthusians have been banging on about since 1798 is yet to play out.
Continue reading "Warmist or denier, ye shall pay for your beliefs" »
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Thommo says:
It shouldn’t be about the politics or econmics it should be about the Science. As we saw yesterday at the Press Club debate, when it’s about the science the proagandist warmist don’t have a leg to stand on. Dennis was humiliated by Monckton.It was like watching Geelong destroy Port in… Read more »
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John says:
Daz. I hope so! Read more »
It’s that time of the year again when people begin pieces with “it’s that time of the year again” and tweak the end bit slightly to sound cool and “alternative”.
I refer, of course, to the awkward period between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
Hands grip wobbling bellies in the aftermath of a national pudding massacre as their owners ponder how they will lose the extra baggage before the all-important New Year’s party.
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Denno says:
Predictions for 2040 Queensland State Premier Bindi Irwin criticised for exploiting her daughter to sell the Australian Zoo’s newly acquired (gifted) asset - The Great Barrier Reef. The new ad campaign, “Where the bloody hell are youse all, ‘ey?” features a bikini clad Mercedes Irwin walking on a stunning Queensland… Read more »
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Veganista says:
Don’t confuse fear with a healthy natural repellence to insanity. And instead of saying ‘Straaaaahhhns’, you should say the majority of people in every Western country on earth. And lastly, 1992 called and wants its ‘NOT’ back. Read more »
I have glimpsed the future of motoring and it turns out that in twenty years from now we’ll all be zipping around in ludicrously over-accessorised Segways. At least that’s if General Motors has any say in the matter.
GM’s new ‘Electric Networked Vehicle’, or EN-V, which was recently shown to the motoring public in Shanghai, looks like a Segway on steroids, which is not all that surprising given that it was developed in partnership with Segway.
Weighing in at less than 500 kilograms, measuring just 1.5 metres long and powered entirely by electricity, the EN-V is being touted as a solution to pollution, urban congestion and road accidents.
Continue reading "What a concept car can tell you about life in the future" »
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Generators says:
The information put together in this article is extremely valuable to anyone with even a passing interest in this area. I hope you continue to cover this topic. Honda Generators Read more »
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Honda Generators says:
I have to applaud the effort, expertise, and candor put forth in this piece. This is useable information, clearly presented to inform and educate the reader. As simple as that may seem, articles such as this are more the exception than the rule these days. Honda Generators Read more »
Remember Buck Rogers and the 25th Century, where the women all wore space age silver outfits and zipped around in metallic all-in-ones with sharp shoulders, bubbles on hips and weird shoe contraptions?
Well it appears the 25th century has come early, and I’m not entirely sure I’m happy about it.
It started last year with Balmain and The Shoulder, as it’s now referred to in fashion circles, which became an accessory all on its own. The Balmain jacket which featured The Shoulder, cost over $11,000 sold out in one week.
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Nedahl says:
Hi Zeta, glad to have you on board the fashion train, if only to distract you from more important matters (and isn’t that the point of fashion? Why yes). I believe that Bassike do a great pair of harem pants and you don’t even have to leave your desk for… Read more »
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Tags says:
Nice one Nedahl, I’m hoping they sew those shoulder pads in more firmly this time around than our method of tucking them under our bra straps and hoping for the best - I remember the odd one escaping in the 80’s and being kicked around the dancefloor like a hockey… Read more »
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