Skytopia > Projects > Mysteria Onera - Technology of Dreams

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: Photon Camcorder Description: A video camera able to record events at the picosecond scale, and with the quality of the best camera of the age.
Conditions: Up to one trillion frames per second. Resolution limited to 0.01mm and 16,384x16,384 pixels.
Price: §200

For those of you familiar with high speed photography, you'll understand the never-ending need for higher quality and speed. Who can resist the sight of bullets bursting through apples, ice and glass breaking, grenades exploding, viscous chocolate drips splashing, water balloons bursting, and High-speed AOL... SLOWED... RIGHT.... DOWN.
          They have their scientific uses too. For example, real world versions are used to study how inkjet printer heads spray ink, or how certain materials break or crack when subjected to high-energy forces.

State of the art: Current technology allows up to 200 million frames per second ($457,000 it costs too). It'd be nicer though if it was free, and everyone was able to have one - such as would be the case if you were to purchase the Photon Camcorder item for only 200 critons.
Future prediction date: 2035 (low-cost versions at 'only' 10,000 fps (4000x4000 pixel resolution). Multiply the fps by 10 for every extra 10 years)
Worst case scenario: Not much really. Apart from it's gonna be easy to run out of disk space quickly!       [Index]


: Sound Wallpaper Description: Commodity high quality flat panel speakers as flexible as wallpaper.
Conditions: Must use external source of power.
Price: §240

For free, anyone can have paper-thin, light, waterproof, weather-proof, durable, bendable, cuttable, high quality sound speakers gracing their refrigerator, garden path, or toilet seat. Other more practical uses include 'aural wallpaper' for living rooms or an 'aural screen' behind their LCD/OLED monitor. Dance floors would benefit with a clearer overall sound (less general room reverberation and ambience), and companies would drool at the advertising possibilities. Free power is not supplied though, so combine this with the #Omega Battery for full effect!

State of the art: In recent years, flat panel speakers have been catching up with conventional cone speakers in terms of sound quality. There's no single 'sweet spot' with flat panels, and so the sound is radiated more evenly around the room. However, the deeper frequencies can still be lacking, and therefore they usually require a separate subwoofer.
Future prediction date: 2060
Worst case scenario: If speakers ever become lightweight, disposable and cheap, the advertising and overall noise pollution could become irritating.       [Index]


: Century's Information Online Description: Instant free internet access to practically all human-created information from 1900 to 2000.
Conditions: Able to exclude/include private/copyright information at any moment.
Price: §300

Instant free internet access to all information written in the past century, including published books, scholarly journals/papers, and video. Every scrap of info is stored according to date and culture, and is searchable in a Google style way.
          We know a lot more about the 20th century than any other century in time. However, it would still be a historian's dream to fill in the missing gaps. Scholars and researchers would soon reap the benefits from being able to access any academic material that's ever been written. Also, lost television programs would be seen for the first time again (unfortunately, recording tape in the early part of the 20th century was expensive, so it was often reused to save money).

State of the art: Google's starting to archive academic material with Google Scholar, and the Internet Archive Wayback Machine is doing a good job in preserving all web content since 1996. It's anyone's guess when the world's books or TV programmes will ever be freely available online though.
Future prediction date: 2035 (more than 90% of all books, and 50% of all television. Much lost video from the early part of the 20th century will remain lost however.)
Worst case scenario: Especially for newer material, copyright will always be an issue when giving away certain information for free.       [Index]


: Solid-State Disks

"Flash, and Samsung, have some catching up to do. Hard drives continue to rule the roost because of simple economics: They're cheap -- and getting cheaper. Prices are falling at about 20% per year, according to Merrill Lynch. But flash prices are falling faster: between 30-40% annually. And performance is improving." (Taken from usatoday)

Description: Fast, reliable, high-capacity, solid-state disks
Conditions: Prices equivalent to hard drives of the day. Speed equivalent to DRAM of the day.
Price: §350

No more crunching and grinding, or fear of data-loss. No, that would all be a thing of the past, as everyone would be using low energy solid state 'disks' that run at super-fast DRAM speeds, and capable of storing quantities of data comparable to the most advanced storage capacity of the day (whatever that would be - HD, holographic, SSD itself).

Laptops would benefit the most, thanks to the lower power consumption, which is about 5% of standard hard drives. Unlike conventional hard drives, SSDs should theoretically last forever, because there are no moving parts to collide or wear out. Operating systems should boot up in seconds instead of minutes, and general everyday use will feel much smoother and faster. The drive itself will be much quieter and a bit lighter too.

State of the art: The great thing is - this technology is almost upon us (actually you can get it now, but expect to pay thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars). At a more realistic price range, the best we can do for now is a 16GB flash disk by Samsung due out in August 2005. (Here's a slashdot article). Two more years though, and we are being promised 100 gigabyte SSD drives. Yay!
Future prediction date: 2006 (32GB SSD for $250), 2010 (before SSD becomes the primary means of storage in new computers)
Worst case scenario: Companies will see less demand to improve the efficiency of their software thanks to the brute force speeds of SSD technology.       [Index]


: Free Bandwidth Anywhere Description: Free internet and phone access anywhere in the world
Conditions: -
Price: §380

Find yourself in the Sahara desert, dying from thirst, and without a means of transport? That's okay, because if you choose to buy this, you can call SOS from the instant universal network available. The internet is becoming more and more important in everyday life these days. But how much smoother would life be if free, wireless access to the net was taken for granted? Do you fancy speaking to your friends for hours on end without running up a huge phone bill? There's no doubting the billions of pounds we would all save. Combine this choice with #20,000Mb_Bandwidth Bandwidth and #Featherweight Laptops to experience the full benefit.

State of the art: If you're reading this, then you're one of the world's lucky 13.9% who can access the internet. That's 2.5 times as many online as five years ago in 2000. Increasing bandwidth and internet presence is happening all the time. WiFi for instance is already cropping up across airports, universities and major US cities. Not quite the Sahara but...
Future prediction date: 2025 (more than 90% of the world's surface covered in WiFi or equivalent)
Worst case scenario: ---       [Index]


: Flu and Common Cold Cure Description: A instantaneous universal cure for the common cold and flu.
Conditions: Quick and easy.
Price: §400

Less misery for everyone! Colds generally last between five and seven days, while influenza can last anything up to 10 days. But for the ultra cheap price of 400 critons, you can say goodbye to the common cold and sometimes (life threatening) flu for good!

State of the art: Despite (possible) half-cures for the common cold and the flu (through the use of Relenza), a 100% cure for either of these illnesses seems as far off as ever.
Future prediction date: 2030
Worst case scenario: Our immune systems might lose out in the long run, as fighting off such viruses bolsters it.       [Index]


: Pseudo 3D Screen Description: Hologram-style 3D screen, but with unlimited depth of field and can switch instantly between 2D and 3D.
Conditions: Other factors such as screen weight and picture quality are equivalent to the technology of the day. 90 degree viewing angle for 3D mode.
Price: §400

You won't need any glasses, let alone those red/green ones you get out of cornflakes packets. Yes, you can now play Pac-man and Space Invaders in three dimensions, build and manipulate architecture and landscapes, and become even more terrified of that monster in Quake MX. The reason for the qualifier 'pseudo' though - is because just like with those hologram things, you need to sit pretty much facing the screen head on (anything more than a tilt of 90 degrees begins to distort the 3D effect). Apart from the obvious uses such as games, TV and CAD design, a 3D screen would help doctors perform operations, and help physicists visualize molecular structures.

Idea: Combine this with the #Xeton Microscope item to see the microscopic realm in 3D!

State of the art: The technology to achieve pseudo 3D has been maturing lately. For example, Sharp's LL-151-3D isn't bad. However, it's still quite pricey (approx £1000), and the viewing angle is low. Unfortunately, an old slashdot post from 2004 indicates that a unique technology was already developed to a large degree, but bad business stopped it from reaching the market. See this slashdot thread for more info about 3D monitors.
Future prediction date: 2020 (for great quality and decent depth of field)
Worst case scenario: In-yer-face advertising may take a turn for the worse.       [Index]

Next Page

Anchor shortcuts:

: §200 - Photon Camcorder
: §240 - Sound Wallpaper
: §300 - Century's Information Online
: §350 - Solid-State Disks
: §380 - Free Bandwidth Anywhere
: §400 - Flu and Common Cold Cure
: §400 - Pseudo 3D Screen
: §450 - Death Of Spam
: §500 - Noise Blocker
: §600 - Forever Lightbulb
: §700 - 20,000Mb_Bandwidth
: §720 - Featherweight Laptops
: §850 - Missile Train
: §1,000 - Flat Screen
: §1,150 - Flying Car
: §1,250 - Zelphon Light Panels
: §1,450 - Space Travel For Free
: §1,600 - Light Saber
: §1,900 - Sight and Sound Restorer
: §2,000 - Infinite Data Memory
: §2,200 - 10,000x Processor Speedy Uppy
: §2,600 - Internet Omega
: §2,800 - Entire History's Information Online
: §3,200 - Quantum_Computing
: §3,500 - Disintegrator Disc
: §4,000 - The Sky Train
: §4,300 - Earth Viewer
: §4,600 - Age of the Deltascreen
: §5,200 - Terraformation Of Mars
: §5,700 - Universal Temperature Controller
: §6,900 - Pure Air Forever
: §7,500 - 100,000,000x CPU Speed Up
: §8,100 - Anti-sleep Pill
: §8,300 - Infinitely Powerful Telescope
: §8,700 - Gravity Blocker
: §9,100 - Xeton Microscope
: §9,900 - Omega 3D Holocube
: §12,500 - Deluxe Flying Car
: §13,500 - Flying Skate Board
: §15,000 - Grand Theory of Physics
: §18,000 - Music Analyzer
: §22,000 - Universe Viewer
: §25,000 - Infinite Water Supply
: §28,000 - Grand Theory of Visual Art
: §34,000 - Programmable Repelling Superatom
: §39,000 - The Diamond Age
: §45,000 - Double Lifetime
: §52,000 - Teleportation
: §60,000 - Dawn of Cold Fusion
: §66,000 - Grand Theory Of Music
: §81,000 - Material Duplication
: §90,000 - Infinitely Fast Processor
: §107,000 - Quadruple Lifetime
: §115,000 - Omega Battery
: §126,000 - Atomic Synthesizer
: §145,000 - The U-Atom
: §260,000 - Indefinite Life Span





All pictures and text on this page are copyright 2005 onwards Daniel White.
If you wish to duplicate any of the information from this page, please contact me for permission.