“The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.”
The quote, attributed to William Gibson, was brought to mind as I
reviewed the technological accomplishments of the past year. The quote
is apropos of my job as a professional futurist because, as I often
remind my audiences, I don’t predict the future—I merely outline
plausible possibilities based on existing trends.

With this caveat in mind, I want to share with you a list of ten notable
technological achievements which will significantly influence our
near-term future:

#10: Metamaterials: The creation of a Harry Potter-like ”Invisibility cloaks”
received a great deal of attention this past year and the breakthrough
portends the day when the Defense Department might be able to hide a
person or a tank in broad daylight, but a more plausible near-term
application of a metamaterial resides in the prosaic application of a
noise-abating material which will make life more pleasant for citizens
who must deal with annoying sounds such as airplane noise.

#9: Digestable Pills: In December, Phillips announced the creation of the iPill—a
digestable pill that can be taken orally by a patient and which will
dispense medication at a specific location and a rate pre-determined by
the patient’s physician. In addition to being an impressive technology
which will soon become mainstream, it is a wonderful example of
“convergence”—in that the pill combines a tiny computer, a wireless
transmitter and a series of sensors.

#8: The Personal Supercomputer: In September, Cray announced the creation of a $25,000 supercomputer.
The machine is obviously beyond the reach of most consumers but a
growing number of small to medium-sized businesses are now using the
tool to create new materials and products as well as redesign their
packaging and determine the most optimum route to deliver packages. The
end result is that companies using the machines are innovating at an
accelerating rate and saving big money in the process. In the near
future look for these supercomputers to become increasingly powerful,
less expensive and more pervasive.

#7: Voiceless Communication: In one of the year’s more impressive videos,
Michael Callahan from Ambient demonstrated how his company has figured
out how to decipher brain neural signals and translate those signals
into the corresponding words. The technology is years away from prime
time but its day is coming and it will lead to a series of unpredictable
applications, including augmenting human intelligence.

#6: Brain Neural Technology: To better understand just what some of these applications might be, I’d refer you to this video which shows a monkey in North Carolina controlling a robot in Japan by thought alone, as well as this 60-Minutes segment on brain neural technology that demonstrates how the technology is being used on real patients today.

#5: Voice Recognition Technology: This is hardly a new technology but in November Google brought voice recognition one step closer to the masses when
it introduced its new voice recognition application on the iPhone. The
day when consumers navigate on their computers using only their voice is
one closer than ever. (The technology is also an excellent—albeit
early—example of how technology can augment human intelligence. See #
7.)

#4: The Memristor: This fall Hewlett-Packard announced the creation of the ”Memristor”—or
memory transistor—and it is expected to allow for the creation of
computers that will remember what is stored in its memory when the
device is turned off. In other words, within the next 3-5 years we will
have computers that won’t need to be booted up. Granted, it’s not the
biggest development in the world, but it will remove yet another one of
those nagging, little issues that sometimes have a way of getting our
day off on a sour note.

#3: Rapid Prototype Manufacturing: With little fanfare, Stratasys announced
in December that it had created a new rapid prototype manufacturing
machine capable of competing with injection-molding. Now, the creation
of new plastic parts sans injection-molding might not seem like a big
deal but as advances in RPM continue to progress look for a major-shift
in the manufacturing paradigm as many products will soon be produced on
location. To this end, it is worth noting that some RPM machines have
dropped from a price point of $100,000 to below $5,000. (To get a better
idea of the type of products which can now be manufactured via RPM, I
refer you to this informative article.)

#2: The UMan Robot: Progress in the field of robotics over the
past few years has been nothing short of amazing. Robots are now driving
cars, conducting surgery, roaming oil pipelines, and flying into craves
disguised as insects. As impressive as this progress has been, it was the UMass Mobile Manipulator –UMan for short– that most caught my attention this year because
it demonstrated that robots could learn how to use new objects.
Obviously, a robot that can learn and adapt to changing conditions is a
huge step in making robots more practical for a wide range of
applications—including becoming helpful assistants to America’s aging
Baby Boomers.

#1: Genomes for the Masses: It was only three years ago that
Craig Venter sequenced his genome for an estimated $70 million. Today
there is a company that claims it can do it for $5000 and, soon, the
cost will plummet to under $1000.
It will take some time for healthcare professionals and citizens alike
to understand the implications of how all of this genomic data will
manifest itself in healthcare and lifestyle decisions (e.g. changing our
diet based on genetic factors, etc.), but it is evident that this day
will arrive sooner than many people—including medical
professionals—realize.

And that, my friends, is an appropriate note to end on. The future, as I
said at the beginning of this post, is already here; it’s just not
evenly distributed. It is also fair to say that based on the progress
made in 2008 the future is also arriving sooner than most of us realize.

If you don’t believe me, just watch the news this month. It is quite
likely that Craig Venter will announce something should shock the world:
The creation of the first form of artificial life.

Interested in reading related posts from America’s most respected futurist? Check out these past articles:

The Most Significant Breakthroughs fof 2007

The Future of Education is Now

The Power of Zenzizenzizenzic

The Future is About to Get Personal