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Where will tomorrows technology and The Internet of Things take us next?

I’m a bit of a geek! I have been as long as I can remember. I think two things started me off: as a teenager I was terrified of computers until my parents got me an Apple Mac Classic when I was in sixth form. I quickly found that it wasn’t terrifying at all – in fact, I was blown away by the power at my fingertips! Don’t get me wrong, I’m not particularly technical, just quite good at figuring stuff out and making things work how I want them to.

titleAround the same time, I discovered Star Trek and my geekiness blossomed into a full on geek tree! I cried at The Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas, so overwhelmed was I to be on the bridge of the Enterprise; I danced with Q Junior at the Black and White Disco at a Voyager Convention in Blackpool; and was fooled by a decoy Captain Jean-Luc Picard whilst trying to get an autograph! Sad I hear you say? Maybe, but it got me thinking about the future and the shape of technology to come.

I became interested in the physics of Star Trek and still find it incredible that a lot of the technology, including the best-known tech – warp speed, transporter beams, replicators and tricorders – is actually theoretically possible and not complete sci fi nonsense! Okay, these things are unlikely to become a reality in my lifetime, but then again, only 10 years ago I thought that about flying passengers into space! Enter Virgin Galactic with SpaceShipTwo and my dreams are back on track – well, obviously providing I can spare the £175K airfare in my lifetime!

The point is that getting into sci fi generally made me more curious about the universe, the future and where technology might take us. It opened up my eyes to a whole world of imagination where anything is possible. I read a book some years ago called The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence M. Krauss; Professor Stephen Hawking was quoted in the Foreword and his words really stuck with me and encouraged me (in the days before it was cool to be geeky!) He said: “Science fiction like Star Trek is not only good fun but it also serves a serious purpose, that of expanding the human imagination… There is a two-way trade between science fiction and science. Science fiction suggests ideas that scientists incorporate into their theories, but science turns up notions that are stranger than any science fiction.” If you are interested in finding out more, here’s a video of the author discussing 'The Physics of Star Trek'...

I find it quite fascinating to theorise about the boundless possibilities of our future world (or perhaps I should say future civilisation as realistically we may have had to vacate the planet Earth!) My friends and family all glaze over when I start ‘going on’ so I thought it would be fun to start a discussion with some like-minded ‘techo-geeks’ here on DesignSpark and find out what you guys think.

All the recent and escalating hype with the Internet of Things has got me thinking. We are in a very exciting, but slightly annoying early phase where everything is distinct and separate with different hardware and a multitude of apps. I get far more excited by the idea of the next leap in the human machine interface journey, the point where we don’t have to stop what we are doing to physically type or swoop an app on our smartphone, or even need voice control to interface. I’m hoping we leap straight over the terrifying sci fi ideas of people actually being plugged into machinery, or becoming half machine people – like the Cyber Men or the Borg – directly into a far more efficient Wi-Fi chip implant that we operate using just our thoughts.

titleSo in the future, if you are in a meeting and suddenly remember you need to cancel afterschool club because your son has a play date; or driving to work in a panic because you might have forgotten to lock the door; or out at lunch when you remember an urgent message you forgot to give your colleague, you could simply sort the issue out just by thinking about it. Send a text or instant message, check your door is secure by connecting with your home hub. It could even be connected to a contact lens that provides a visual overlay, like the field of vision you might get with some of today’s smart glasses but without the silly-looking glasses of course!

Perhaps we could record and recall our thoughts, then use some futuristic version of Google search technology to locate and playback conversations, lectures, instructions, books in a separate and more robust memory chip than our real, but less efficient memory chip, the brain!

For that matter, we could take education to a whole new level of efficiency and simply upload key skills and the national curriculum in gradual stages as children grow up!

Okay, STOP! I haven’t considered the flip side of the technology coin in my excitement…

In my super-efficient, thought-connected future I have basically just turned the human race into Borg drones – exactly what I was afraid of! I might as well go the whole hog and stick children in maturation chambers while they are assimilating their education! Seven Of Nine’s ocular implant is pretty cool on her, but I really don’t want any kind of robotic eye implanted in my head. And my Wi-Fi super memory chip has made my access codes, bank details and even my thoughts and memories hackable!

Our world is becoming more and more connected, quicker than ever before. For every advance we make and advantage we find, there seems to be a negative downside in some way – be it security, power, cost or environmental. But it is in our nature to keep on inventing, exploring and discovering new ways of doing things, which, going back to Professor Hawking’s point is probably why we love shows like Star Trek.

As excited as I am by the technological advances we are making and the possibilities it brings, part of me is apprehensive about where all this will take us and the vulnerabilities it could open up.

But I am merely an amateur geek who’s keen on speculating about the future and what technology might look like in tomorrow’s world. If you are excitedly apprehensive about the future too, please post your replies – let’s start a heated debate!

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DesignSpark Community Manager and all-around geek girl.
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