Sleep No More: How technology could shorten our time between the sheets

If you live to 80 years of age you will spend 27 years asleep. That’s a third of your life in the land of nod. It’s a staggering amount of time and what’s even more amazing is that we lack a complete understanding of why we do it at all. A common assumption is that sleep serves as rest. A chance for the body to recharge after a long day, ready to go again the next day. It’s a problematic explanation though as we know remaining still for 8 hours does not have the same refreshing qualities. Perhaps instead sleep is needed for the resting of the mind, but again this is questionable as scans show brain activity can be very high during periods of sleep.

There are however leading theories on this question, with scientists proposing sleep to be a mixture of memory consolidation, general maintenance and an evolutionary hangover from our ancestors. During an eight hour sleep our brains go through a four phase cycle, but only two of these phases serve any benefit to us. The first is the REM (Rapid Eye Movement) phase and it is here that memory consolidation is performed, with a by-product of dreams occurring as the various information from the day flows over our minds like cars sweeping across a city. It’s also a phase that can produce a strange phenomenon as dreams are treated as unnecessary information and therefore are ‘deleted’ from your memory, waking up during a dream though can mean we are conscious during this deletion process and we literally experience the memory disappearing as we struggle to recall it.

The second important phase is called slow-wave (due to observations of our brain activity during this time) and it’s believed this is significant for maintenance and repair work to be carried out in the brain, a chance for connections to be reinforced and general checks to be performed. How then do we explain the other two phases of sleep? Well they appear to be nothing other than ‘ramps’ feeding us down into the important phases and their length is very much linked to our evolutionary past.

WHEN IT COMES TO SLEEP WE’RE VERY MUCH STILL IN THE GRASP OF AN ANTIQUATED ROUTINE

The idea is that our brains use these ramp phases as a way to extend the sleep cycle in order to satisfy various external factors. Evolutionary biologists believe that this was essential for the survival of our ancestors as a longer sleep cycle enforced an extended period of rest, essential for preserving energy, and also hid the individual away at times of darkness where threats from predators could be greater. For that period of human evolution it made a lot of sense, use your energy to hunt for food during the day and preserve it at night when you need to seek safety from predators. Eight hours fits nicely into this and it took our ancestors through the night to the following morning when the sun returned to the sky.

Of course these concerns don’t apply to us today as we no longer have to worry about hunting for food during the day and the threat of predators at night but still we are left with this evolutionary hangover of an 8 hour sleep cycle. The instinct is still there and as soon as the sun sets our bodies start to produce chemicals that make us drowsy and inevitably lead to us seeking out our beds. When it comes to sleep we’re very much in the grasp of an antiquated routine so is there any hope for us to modernise our sleep behaviour?

Well this is where new technology is beginning to step in with techniques such as transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) both offering a way to shorten the redundant ‘ramp’ phases of sleep by applying small currents to the brain via a headset. These currents manipulate the behaviour of the brain by forcing the next phase of sleep to occur, effectively skipping over the ramp phases and initiating the important part of the cycle much quicker than would normally occur. Early results have shown that it’s already possible to reduce a healthy night’s sleep from 8 hours to 6 hours, a significant achievement.

IT STANDS TO BECOME ONE OF THE MOST TRANSFORMING TECHNOLOGIES HUMANITY HAS EVER CREATED

Of course it’s early days for this technology but it’s not too difficult to imagine a near future where thin headbands allow us to sleep healthfully for 4 hours rather than 8 and by halving our sleep like this we stand to extend our waking lives by 13 years. There are many questions to ask though, like how will we spend this extra time? Will society see a big increase in leisure time and an explosion of creativity from people who finally have the time to finish that book they’ve been writing or will the never ending rat race step up to fill the gap with working hours increasing? Whatever happens it stands to become one of the most transforming technologies humanity has ever created and will be fascinating to experience. Looking even further forward, how would you feel if one day it was possible to negate sleep altogether? A huge stretch of wakefulness stretching beyond from the day of your birth. What implications could that have on how you see the world and your mental state on the whole? The future holds many interesting days to come.

Here Comes the Sun: Birth of a Solar Empire

Look around you. Everywhere you look there is energy. Weaved into our world like veins in a body, energy reaches into every last corner of our lives. Whether its electricity powering your television, gas on the stove or petrol in your car, we are a society totally dependent on it. Our reliance is so great that without it modern life would grind to a halt. Just try to imagine how tomorrow morning would pan out in its absence. No alarm, no shower or radiator, no cold milk and no fuel to get to work. Go beyond a day and things get very serious, very fast, as food preservation becomes an issue with both home and supermarket freezers failing to function. Power really is the lifeblood of modern life and without it we are incredibly vulnerable.

Even though energy holds this crucial role, being literally a life or death consideration, we find ourselves in a farcical situation. Today, in the 21st century we get the vast majority of our energy through fossil fuels. This is to say we dig deep into the ground to find fossilised remains of animals and plants that hold the energy of their previously flesh forms. It is this energy, in the guise of gas and coal that is then used in power plants to produce energy. It is a strategy so old and so tried that we have become numb to the lunacy of it.

WHY DO WE TURN DOWNWARDS, FAR INTO THE GROUND, WHILE OUR BACKS ARE HEATED BY THE VERY ENERGY WE SEEK DEEP BELOW?

Every single drop of energy that has ever been used on this planet comes from one place, one radiant sphere; the sun. By digging up the fossilized remains of plants and animals we are simply digging up solar energy contained within them. But how can this make sense when enough solar energy drenches the planet every day to meet our energy demands for a year. Why do we turn downwards, far into the ground, while our backs are heated by the very energy we seek deep below?

Our strategy for obtaining energy is akin to a mountain dweller living next to a natural spring, but still finding the need to walk several hours a day to buy bottled water. In the years to come our actions will be looked back on with a mixture of embarrassment and shame. How could a society who put a man on the Moon and invented the internet rely on such Victorian methods of energy extraction and not see what was staring them in the face?

Soon our fossil fuelled days will fade from memory as a new era of energy extraction is born. Earth will become a solar empire, incredibly efficient at utilising solar energy far beyond our capabilities today. Modern solar panels are only able to absorb a maximum of 17% of the energy that falls on them but next generation panels, by mimicking photosynthesis, will achieve drastically higher efficiency rates and a reduction in cost will open them up to mass appeal.

A TIME OF ELECTRICITY BEING AS CHEAP AND READILY AVAILABLE AS THE AIR WE BREATHE.

These improved panels will start to appear everywhere and with the ability to fully fuel what they are appended to rather than just provide supplementary energy. Roofs on cars and houses will become a natural home, gifting society that most utopian of dreams; free energy. Time will pass and technology will develop further until we will reach a point scarcely visible today, a time of electricity being as cheap and readily available as the air we breathe. Such a breakthrough will have vast implications for the poorest of our kind. A continent like Africa could be transformed overnight.

The real tragedy here is that this shouldn’t be discussed as future technology at all, cheap efficient solar panels should be sitting next to our computers and iPads today. But they aren’t. And why they aren’t is the oldest answer of all; money. In the UK alone the energy market is a multibillion pound industry and globally it is a goliath. With so much money riding on it and so many employees any disruption could easily trigger a global economic crisis. Unfortunately we have built a world that runs on what makes the most money, not the most sense. So even though we sit upon this pale blue dot, that is basked in free energy, it’ll be awhile yet before we put the spades down and look up into the light.

The Internet’s free march that could swallow everything

One of the most basic requirements that has faced human civilization through the ages is the need to communicate information. For centuries this was a major problem to solve, but cornerstone inventions like the printing press, radio, and television have played significant roles as cultures developed more and more sophisticated ways to get information out to the masses. It was this goal, this drive for ease of communication that led to the birth of the internet; the 21st century’s principal invention.

The internet represents a dream realised, instant communication to an entire planet with minimal effort and cost. It’s easy to take it for granted but it really wasn’t that long ago that our finest way of getting information to a million people was printing a million books – think encyclopaedias’ vs Wikipedia. The net wasn’t born as a blank slate though, instilled into its core was the value of free and open information. And it was through these key principles that websites such as Wikipedia, Google and Facebook were born. Gateways to mountains of data at no financial cost.

There is a dark side to this utopian dream though and in 1999 we stared it straight in the face in the form of Napster. It was the first widely popular music sharing service allowing it’s users to download music files for free. Suddenly you no longer needed to pay for music, the internet was giving it away and by wrapping the practice in the internet’s core values of ‘free and open’, it was easy to digest and ignore the moral/legal grey area. The internet was a land of free and why should music not fall into this, it was digital data after all?

AT THIS POINT THE INTERNET SAILS WITHOUT A CAPTAIN AND NO MEANS TO STEER HER IF THERE WAS

It always was a twist of the original vision though, the early creators of the net never intended it to become a means for piracy, but through creating an all-encompassing arena for data and stamping that arena with the ideal of ‘free and open’, a problem in-waiting emerged. The issue was, and is, that nobody controls what enters the arena. Sure you can say this is a place for free information, but if nobody is keeping an eye on the door you quickly find yourself creating a black market of stolen goods. It’s tempting to think the solution is easy, just add control, but who could possibly fill this role of deciding what is allowed inside and would we even want to indulge in such wide reaching censorship? These questions aside, it’s questionable if it is even possible to prevent undesirable data from being uploaded. The internet now exists onto itself, no one institution has control over it, and they haven’t for years. At this point the internet sails without a captain and no means to steer her if there was.

Looking at the state of illegal file sharing today things are only heading in one direction. No longer is the music industry the sole victim, now the film studios join the ranks as the fight against illegal file sharing continues. And as technologies develop, and internet speeds increase, ever increasing amounts of data will find its way into the arena of ‘free and open‘. What happens when one day there is so much inside that we risk the stability of the very financial ground we stand upon?

Although it may not seem like it, the relatively new 3D printer could play a key role in such a downfall. They are an impressive new technology, offering the ability to turn digital designs into three dimensional physical objects. Its early days so limitations such as what materials you can use exist, but like any new technology rapid development will soon follow and it won’t be long before every home plays host to a 3D printer capable of printing almost any object you see around you. Just smashed your iPhone 13’s screen? No problem, order a replacement from Apple and they’ll send over the digital design ready to be printed out. It really will be a remarkable breakthrough technology offering unparalleled access to goods.

Of course this represents a new challenge. In the world of the internet, no data is secure and inside the arena of ‘free and open’ it won’t be long before we’re able to illegally obtain digital designs without payment. For any company that relies on selling its customers physical goods it’s a terrifying prospect. Imaging having the ability to download the latest PlayStation for a fraction of the cost (just the cost of raw materials to pay). It’ll be a temptation many will submit to and on this day how does capitalism continue to make sense?

ENJOY THE INTERNET FREEDOM YOU EXPERIENCE TODAY, THEY ARE COMING FOR IT

Widespread adoption of such illegal activity could send shockwaves across the global economy and since the risks are so great, we should expect to see the internet’s principle goal of free and open information come under serious attack in the coming years. Enjoy the internet freedom you experience today, they are coming for it.

Beyond the Play Station 4: the deep future of games consoles

Last month finally saw Sony announce the successor to the PlayStation 3 – the PlayStation 4. Given that the lifecycle of current gen consoles is seven years and counting, Sony’s new offering (along with whatever Microsoft announces this month) is very much the imminent future of gaming. From what we’ve seen so far Sony is doing some interesting things with cloud computing but essentially the next generation consoles will offer the same gaming experience we’re familiar with today, albeit with a few extra polygons. There is a revolution coming in gaming though and when it arrives things will be very different.

Video games at their essence are a form of escapism. A chance for the mind to wander off to another space and be distracted from the normality of everyday life. In this way their appeal is similar to film, television and books. But games are unique among these as they offer a secondary level of immersion, the player is given the chance to play a role within the world, a chance to influence the story.

A feeling of immersion and therefore escapism is not easily achieved though. Great storytelling is a crucial part of the best escapist art, and without it the individual can be left bored and very aware that they are sat in a dark cinema or on their sofa holding a game controller. To truly succeed, these art forms must transport you away leaving you completely absorbed and enthralled in their story and their world.

Great storytelling can lead us far down the escapist path, but there is still distance left to walk and in 2006 Nintendo took us by the hand for a few extra steps. The launch of the Wii introduced the world to the first mass market motion controlled games console. By putting an emphasis on the player acting out the actions of his or her onscreen counterpart the first step was made to a full body immersive experience.

If the ultimate goal of escapist media is to instil a full sense of presence within the participant, to make the individual feel as though they have been transported to a secondary world that is just as real as the real world they occupied seconds earlier, then the Nintendo Wii represents a mass market genesis of this goal. This year however has taken us significantly closer as at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January we were introduced to the Oculus Rift.

“THE OCULUS RIFT CHANGED MY LIFE. NO SERIOUSLY… IT’S REALLY, REALLY AMAZING”

The Oculus Rift is your childhood dreams of virtual reality realised and at this early stage it looks like one of the most exciting products of our generation. Journalists rushed to their laptops to heap praise on the Rift with Joshua Topolsky of The Verge writing “The Oculus Rift changed my life. No, seriously… It’s really, really amazing. Truly and honestly a revelation, a trip, a rabbit hole. And I’m going in. Forever. Goodbye universe. Hello Universe”.

On the face of it, it doesn’t look like a particularly exciting product. At its core it’s a headset that you wear over your eyes with two small screens inside and a series of motion sensors to detect the movement of your head. The results however are astounding, as what you experience is an exact recreation of sensory signals the brain expects from the real world, meaning your brain is utterly convinced that what it is experiencing is real. Instead of looking through the eyes of a soldier on games like Call of Duty, we become the soldier. Even the most subtle of head movements are reflected in the game world, creating a perfect feeling of reality and presence. The principle is simple, when you move your head up, you see the sky, when you move it down, the ground. To see behind you physically turn around, but since this parallels our everyday experience of reality the Rift succeeds in tricking us into thinking we’re still experiencing reality. The Oculus Rift doesn’t just give you more natural controls for a video game, it puts you inside a video game.

There is a problem though, a flaw that could unceremoniously rip you out of the experience, break the immersion and dump your mind back onto your sofa; movement. As it’s not practical for game movement to be controlled by actual movement (take three steps and bump into your wall), you’re still required to use a control pad for walking and running. Of course this isn’t consistent with the brains expectations of reality so we face a problem to overcome.

DREAMS ARE YOUR MIND’S OWN FORM OF ESCAPISM

There could be a surprising solution though and one that comes from what your mind does every single night. Dreams are your mind’s own form of escapism and it has a neat trick to make sure the immersion is perfect. It’s called temporary paralysis and it involves your brain blocking motorory signals to prevent muscles acting on the brains instructions to move. Through this method the brain is able to give the conscious mind the feeling that the body is moving, without any movement actually occurring, and it is through this that a full virtual reality experience will be realised.

Exactly how we could mimic this behaviour of the brain is not currently fully understood but as science and technology improve in years to come we will surely discover the secret. In this predicted future virtual reality headsets (or more likely contact lenses) will be as commonplace as mobile phones are today and will have many applications outside of games, but it is games that will lead the charge and first introduce us to the idea of experiencing digital worlds with the same sense of reality as we experience the real world today.

Cooking Made Easy: the future of your kitchen

Technology can enrich our lives in many ways, but perhaps its most important role is to take over our more laborious day to day tasks. By offloading these essential but tedious errands over to machines we free ourselves to pursue activities that bring us joy and fulfilment, to live a more satisfying life. Our planet has existed for billions of years, but we will see just a tiny fraction of its life before fading out of existence. Our time here is precious and we need to spend it wisely. The decades to come will take today’s emerging technology and use it to create intelligent and interactive systems that give back our most valuable commodity; time.

One of the most important trends in electronics is how as time passes electrical components get cheaper, smaller but more powerful. This can be seen when comparing the phone in your pocket with the computers that first took men to the moon in 1969, your pocket holds computing power they could have only dreamed of. This trend has also led to the birth of disposable electronics. In late 2012 Entertainment Weekly issued a limited run of magazines featuring a page with an embedded LCD screen to display video. Aligning the perceived dispensability of electrical components with paper is shocking, but it is the inevitable future we face. Electrical components will become so cheap that companies will soon justify attaching them to low value, use-once products.

Now, imagine walking into a future kitchen where these trends have taken us to a time where all supermarket items carry small computer chips holding key information about the product. Interactive surfaces within the kitchen will be able to feed this data to a centralised computer giving a full view of every item, their remaining contents and their nutritional value.

Having a computer with access to such information will be an incredibly powerful tool enabling eating habits to be managed in a way not currently possible. For example, weight sensitive surfaces will pass on remaining contents information to your smartphone for the purpose of intelligent shopping lists that show items most in need of replenishing. No longer will you have to keep an eye on how much milk is left and be caught out in the morning when you’ve failed to do so.

This however is just the start of the kind of functionality we can expect. Since the computer will hold data on all the ingredients currently in your kitchen and will be connected to the internet it will also become an extremely comprehensive cookbook, drawing on an entire planet’s worth of recipes, but also being personalised to you. By monitoring your previous meals the system will learn what you like and keep track of your nutritional intake, allowing meals to be suggested that are weighted in favour of your tastes, what you need to consume to maintain a healthy balanced diet, and what is possible based on ingredients you currently have.

Building on this, the computer will also suggest additional ingredients that you could purchase, showing the additional meals they will allow you to create. Comparing the difference between the kind of diet you could expect to commonly see today with one made possible by this future technology will reveal huge differences. For minimal effort the owner of such a kitchen will not just find themselves spending less time manually maintaining food stocks, they will also effortlessly widen the variety of their diet and improve their personal health.

Fire fighting in the future

In 1666 the Great Fire of London ripped through the city destroying 70,000 homes and killing many. And still today fire stands as one of the greatest threats to human life, so much so that a whole profession has grown around protecting us from it. Fire fighters do an essential job and they do it with impressive efficiency, but there is and always has been a fatal weakness in the way they operate. They are totally reliant on citizens reporting fires, meaning they can only get to work after a report comes in.

This reliance on the city’s residents to be the eyes and ears on the ground creates a window of risk where the fire can cause significant destruction and loss of life before fire fighters have even been made aware of it.

Future technology therefore has a problem to solve, stop fire in its track as quickly as possible before any damage is caused. This challenge will be met through the development of city-wide sensory networks designed to monitor minute temperature changes across the urban landscape. A whole labyrinth of sensors will be installed along streets to cover the city like an invisible web. Each one providing vital early warning signals to produce the quickest possible response time from the emergency services.

Of course this technology will continue to evolve as the sensors move into new builds and are retrofitted into the city’s current buildings to provide another layer of depth and accuracy. With such a system in place, a fire breaking out in any location of the city will be detected within seconds allowing fire fighters to immediately dispatch, greatly reducing the risk to human life.

Finally the further stage of the process has the potential to make the idea of someone dying in a fire as antiquated as the idea of someone dying of smallpox. Alongside this city-wide sensory network will come the construction of drone pipelines running under every street. In this world, human fire fighters will no longer be relied upon as fire fighting drones take their place. Upon detection of a fire, the central city computer will analyse the situation and dispatch the appropriate number of drones. These will then arrive with unimaginable speed as they make use of the purpose built underground pipes. Upon their emergence onto the surface they will establish a connection with the nearest street-level water pipe and scuttle their way to the area of concern to extinguish the flames.

With such a system it is hard to imagine how fire could ever be allowed to wreak the kind of destruction it does today. Through technology we will succeed in creating an urban environment far safer than anything possible today.

War

The sound of gunfire is deafening as you rush forward to take cover behind a half demolished wall. The rest of your squad quickly join you as they duck and weave to avoid the bullets that are bombarding your position. You’re part of a squad consisting of just 6 soldiers and the enemy force ahead looks to have at least 30 firing on your advance. The numbers don’t look good but war has changed. In the future, military technology now dominates the battlefield and the advantage very much lies in your favour.

Looking back towards your line you see the tech squad releasing a swarm of bee-sized robots into the air. These represent a significant advancement of the drones we see today. Each one carrying a sophisticated 3d camera to map the environment below. The result is an incredibly detailed real-time map of the battlefield and because they’re sent over in great numbers and only need seconds to establish the live model, it makes them almost impossible to defend against.

This 3d map is then passed back to artillery just behind the front line which calculates the most effective targets based on enemy solider density and environment factors. Within seconds of the swarm passing over you hear the loud thud of artillery shells firing and the cracking sound of them ripping through the air on their way to their targets. Seconds after they hit your augmented reality goggles flicker into life as the 3d map now becomes an overlay over your vision. You now have a full view of the battlefield via subtle coloured hues to mark the outline of enemy positions, effectively you can now see through walls. With this new information you now begin to calculate a route of attack. As you do this, your squad leader along the line shouts “stand back!” as he takes out a high pressure sound gun and fires it at the wall you’re positioned along. This weapon uses a high concentration of sound waves to create a powerful forward force capable of knocking down obstacles.

As the wall crumbles in front of you your squad piles through the opening to attack the enemy forces. Thanks to the augmented overlay you can see their progress and also select your targets, readying your weapon. Getting to your feet, you burst through the gap gunning down your first target just two steps from penetrating the wall. You now see a second and advance on his position but before you can attack a secondary wave of drones pass overhead. This time they are bigger, more the size of birds. Carrying weaponry, this second wave is designed to attack and kill.

You hold your position and wait for the all clear as the drones clear up the remaining enemy presence.

Today we are seeing the birth of robotics presence in the military but in the years to come their role with grow and grow as the information they provide transform conventional tactics, putting tools into the hands of tomorrows soldiers that we can only dream of today.

Teleports

Teleports along with inventions like flying cars are one of the cliché future technologies, the kind of invention that populates lazy visions of the future, meaning it can be tempting to approach them with a healthy sum of cynicism. Is there any real science behind the idea, and could our oft talked about cliché one day become a functioning reality?

You may be surprised to learn that the basic science behind a teleport is actually relatively simple. It starts with an understanding that everything in the universe is made of the same thing; atoms. Everything that you have ever seen, touched, and interacted with in any way is made of atoms. The only difference between a pea and a diamond is the arrangement of these atoms, if you had the technology to rearrange atoms then turning a pea into a diamond would be as easy as turning a Lego rocket into a Lego house.

Through this understanding we can begin to think of the teleport as a real possibility. So, how exactly would the teleport work? Well just like in the movies you will have two ‘ports’, let’s say one in London and one in New York. You will then place an object at one of the ports, a banana at London for example, which will be scanned to create a 3d computer model of the exact location of every single atom that the banana consists of. These atoms will then be rearranged into the gases found in air, essentially causing the banana to vanish into a mist. Then at the New York end, the 3d model will be used to perfectly create the exact same arrangement of atoms, causing the banana to ‘re-appear’.

Now of course what has actually happened is the original banana has been destroyed and an exact copy has been created, so is this really the same banana re-appearing or just a sort of destroy and clone machine? Well it’s surprisingly difficult to define what is the same object. For example, over a 7 year period your body will have replaced the majority of cells in one of your arms, meaning it no longer consists of the same atoms that it comprised of when you were born, but of course you still think of it as the same arm, so perhaps the banana is also the same banana?

Writing out the teleportation process in the way above may make it seem very simple and cause you to wonder why it doesn’t already exist, however there are significant reasons that it doesn’t yet. A crucial part of the process is the creation of the 3d model, the computerised blueprint showing the exact location of every atom that make up the object. To get an idea of how much information this will require, the number of atoms within a single grain of salt is 10 followed by 15 zeros, a number so large that it’s hard to fathom and this, remember, is just for a single grain of salt. Needless to say, modern day computers would find it impossible to create such a sophisticated 3d model, pushing teleports into realm of deep future technology.

The teleport hasn’t become the darling of so many science fiction writers for its ability to send fruit over the Atlantic however. The classic image of the person walking into a teleport and reappearing somewhere else entirely is what captures our imagination. If our envisaged teleport was to be used in this way it would create some very interesting results.

Firstly it’s not entirely clear if the man who remerged at the New York ‘port’ would walk out or lifelessly slump to the ground. Here we really have to ponder the nature of life itself. What is the difference between something that is alive and something that isn’t? They are both arrangements of atoms, so why does one walk and talk and the other remain still and lifeless?

If we assume that the man does walk out of the New York ‘port’ though, then his experience of the process would have been one of complete success, he would proudly report that everything went fine and that the teleport was perfectly safe to use. Of course we know this isn’t technically true, as in truth, the man was killed in London as the atoms that he consisted of were burst apart and an exact copy, clothes and all, was reassembled in New York. This ‘new’ man would hold all the memories of the ‘original’, including a memory of him walking into the ‘port’ in London, meaning he would be completely unaware that he is only 2 minutes old.

The Internet

Over the last couple of decades there has been a substantial shift in the way that we access information. Picture the scene, the year is 1969 and after the excitement of Neil Armstrong’s historical first step, a friends asks the following “does Neil Armstrong have any children?” If you don’t already know the answer your best option would be to ask around and receive a possibly inaccurate answer, or visit a local library. Skip forward to the present day and the question is no longer necessary as we carry around the answer in our pocket. Smartphones, together with the internet have literally put a planet’s worth of knowledge in our pocket and in the process, changed our relationship with information forever.

However, whereas the last few decades have seen information move from the library into our pocket, the future will see that distance close even further. Scientists envisage a future where internet-connected chips will be physically implanted into our brains, allowing us to access information like never before.

The vision being that the user will possess the ability to recall information from the internet in very much the same way we recall memories, creating a powerful but natural feeling process. The implication for such an invention is staggering, imagine having all of humanity’s collective knowledge inside your mind, a dizzying concept. The temptation will be great though for if such an implant was inside you now, there would be no knowledge-based question that I could ask that you wouldn’t know the answer to, by today’s standards you would appear to possess God-like abilities.

However, if this does one day become a reality, and it is a big if as the human brain is widely considered to be the most complex structure in the universe, there are some serious concerns you may like to think about before taking your place in the pre-order queue. Firstly we have no idea if the human brain has the ability to cope with that amount of information, even if structurally it could, it’s not known whether your consciousness would remain stable, it’s a real possibility that such a procedure would end in insanity.

Secondly, if we imagine a future where the majority of the population possess these chips and they have become an essential element of how people live and work, then this presents a fundamental vulnerability to society. Since everyone will be accessing the same central information store, this allows a hacker to manipulate data in one location and affect millions of people who will instantly accept the manipulated data as fact. It’s not hard to envisage how such a vulnerability could be exploited during an important election.

Once the technology exists to make such a chip, we will be powerfulness to resist building it, but perhaps the future will also show we are powerless to wield it.

Healthcare

The equipment modern day medicine has at its disposal would seem undistinguishable from magic to the doctors who worked a few hundred years ago, and the same will be said of our medical technologies compared to what the future will bring.

Modern day medicine brings with it increased knowledge, improved diagnosis tools and more effective treatments. It’s no exaggeration to say that our advances in medicine are among the greatest achievements of the 21^st century. This didn’t happen by accident though, in 2010 the US and UK combined spent $2.9 trillion on healthcare. Such a massive investment has borne witness to a long line of medical advances, saving countless lives, and we have no reason to believe this trend won’t continue long into the future.

Alongside healthcare, a relatively new industry, nanotechnology, is also attracting large investment from governments around the world ($3.7 billion in the US alone) due to the great promise it holds for progress. Nanotechnology gives, for the first time in human history, the ability to engineer on an atomic level. Scientists will be building using the smallest material in the universe; the atom.

Combining the two industries of healthcare and nanotechnology points us in the direction of what could very well become one of the greatest inventions in human history, nanobots. Nanobots are microscopic robots so small that millions of them can be injected into your blood through a needle in very much the same way we receive vaccines today. Once inside, nanobots take on a role similar to white blood cells, tracking down threats and destroying them before they cause the individual to fall ill. But, unlike white blood cells, nanobots will benefit from all our modern understanding and should therefore prove to be more effective.

For example, today, a cancerous tumour can grow inside a human, untroubled by our immune system and only when an outward sign, such as a lump, is detected by the individual will the tumour receive treatment. In the future, nanobots will identify and destroy cancer cells minutes after their formation, literally preventing cancer from ever occurring. Some of our biggest killers will be eradicated overnight.

Looking even further into the future, we catch a glimpse at a singularity, a moment of great achievement along with terrible implications. As with all human endeavours, progress is inescapable, understanding grows and technology advances. Today, the aging process is just beginning to be understood, human systems are being intensely studied and scientists are attempting to understand what causes cells to stop replicating in the perfect way they do in our youth. Just like everything else in the universe, aging is a logical process that can be understood, and once the technology is developed, manipulated. There is a day waiting for us over the horizon where the aging process will be stopped. We will gain immortality. Both a thrilling and horrifying concept.

This however is far into the future, meaning no one alive today is likely to witness it, one technology you should expect to see though is the growing presence of body scanners. Today, an outward symptom and a trip to the hospital is required before your body has the chance to be subject of a full body scan (such as an MRI scan), but in the future, scanners fitted into the door frame of your house will provide these on a daily basis and in a fraction of the time. Comprehensive health reports sent on a weekly basis to both your doctor and yourself will represent a big step forward in healthcare technology.