Wow, the future is almost here!

[Gilberticus 374]

I was watching a commercial for the Celluon Magic Cube, it creates a virtual projection keyboard for your tablet/cellphone. Some people criticize it's practicality, but I am 100% mystified. Last decade's Sci-Fi is today's reality, not just with the Magic Cube, but everything, look around. The tablet itself, for example. When I was a teen (which was not too long ago) had you told me you could carry around a whole library on a palm-sized device, I would have said "you've lost it, bub", but ...well, here we are, huh? Even internet was virtually nothing more than a few chat rooms when I was a teen. What an exciting time we live in However, there's an aspect that is slightly...disconcerting. If today's reality is yesterday's fiction, fiction predicts that our not-too-distant future is bleak. In almost every Sci-Fi about the future that I remember, we're doomed. We've bombed the planet til it looks like New Vegas, or we've completely traded away our morality in the name of science, or our technology rises up and wipes the floor with us and there's like a handful of humans left crying in their hands saying "we didn't know! WE.....DIDN'T KNOW!!". I'm sorry, perhaps I've had too much coffee and sugar today. But my point is I'm totally stoked, as long as we avoid the whole Bladerunner/Terminator type scenarios

[chattius 2,520]

Don't worry ,commander Cliff McLane will save us.

 

 

What seems like a fairy tale today may be reality tomorrow.

Here we have a fairy tale of the day after tomorrow.

There are no more national states, only mankind and her colonies in outer space.

We settle on stars far-off, the bottom of the sea is developed as living place.

With what are today unimaginable speeds, the starships of tomorrow transverse the Milky Way.

One of this starships is the ORION,

a little piece in the giant security system which protects the Earth from outer space threats.

Let's accompany the ORION and her crew at their patrols-service on the edge of infinity ...

 

 

The german blackand white series Raumpatrouille,space patrol, started with this words. Way more cult than Startrek in my childhood.

[Gilberticus 374]

Never really saw Star Trek. I like Farscape , though

[SX255 630]

Sorry to burst your dream bubble, but we need to get cynical if we want it done.

 

Let me remind you that we still don’t have flying cars or personalized cheap jetpacks. Windows 8 is worse to work on than Windows XP. We still haven’t toped the Silicon Valley issue with the latest overpriced “androids”. NASA is outsourcing its orbital delivery program. And half of the promised old-time science fiction is crazy and forgotten for a reason.

 

I believe the Celluon Magic Cube will flop – unlike regular keyboards, which softens every button press, you will be tapping your desk… Try writing a novel on a Tablet or Surface, and soon your fingertips will start to hurt. You could use a chopstick to press one button at a time, or you could wear special gloves, but then why change the interface at all? Its like substituting a mouse for the Kinect – you can do it, but you will soon regret it.

[wolfie2kX 528]

But... But... But... Flying cars and jet packs aren't practical as I takes FAR more energy to keep something aloft than securely on the ground.

 

I've worked with every version of Windows from 3.0 to the latest version and I never found Windows 8 to be any more of a challenge than any other version. TBH, Windows XP was like Swiss cheese when it came to security - the Alpine Lace variety. At the very least, Windows versions since then have taken that aspect a LOT more seriously.

 

I think the Chinese will have something to say about "overpriced" Android devices. I've seen some seriously cheap tablets and phones out there...

 

NASA is a government agency. As such, is there ANYTHING that ANY government does that actually cheaper than what the private sector does? I'm thinking not much, if anything. Why? Because governments tend to have more money to play with when it comes to these sort of things. They have little incentive to keep their budgets within the realm of reason. And lots of companies have done their best to charge exorbitant amounts of money for things - merely because they can. $500 hammers. $800 toilet seats. Normal corporations can't spend that kind of money. They have to be more fiscally responsible. So, by throwing the doors open to companies to build orbital delivery systems, it does go a long way toward making things cheaper.

 

This Cellulon Magic Cube... I've seen something similar to this about 10 years back. And truth be told, the previous incarnation did flop. Why? Because it didn't work very well. This one may be better than the old one. Hopefully, it is.

[chattius 2,520]

Well, old and I mean really old school programmers still used emacs to code programs when there were software developements kits with full graphic surface.

 

I wonder always how fast kids adapt to new technic. I know a 5 year old boy who lost a hand in an accident. He has an interface at the hand nerves which gets the impulses. He is faster with his artificial 'hand' then with his normal. The reason is simply he trains more with it.

 

Kids have less to forget than adults to adapt to a new technique. I bet if it is brought into a game the next generation has less problems using it.

 

Remember the dead born Apple Newton? It was just to early.

[SX255 630]

Yeah, also our future would be a lot brighter if we had powerful longlasting batteries for everything.

But now that we perfected the art of put all of our electronic needs into one device of your choice, where do we go from here?