Four Nerds

Well kids, I've said it many times before. Since the turn of the century, I've been largely disappointed with the state of modern technology. There have been no flying cars, no robot butlers, no moon colonies or luxury hotels in orbit. I don't take a rocket pack to work. No, for the most part, the technological promises of the 21st century have been a disappointment.

Well, fortunately the good people at Popular Science are just as annoyed as I am, and have labored to keep us up to date on the progress of future science. In the March issue, for example, they have dedicated the cover story to where we stand on these various technologies. One of the more interesting articles explores the recent development of the world's first bionic hand. This device is not only capable of responding to brain signals, but it can also feel. It's still a few years away from being commercially available, but it's still a step in the right direction.

They also profile a real-life rocketeer. Granted, rocket packs have been around for a while in one form or another, and his research into rocket packs has set him back about a half a million dollars, but it's good to see that he's keeping the dream alive.

Despite the fact that they don't have robots and flying cars, I'm not entirely disappointed with the future. The last fifteen years or so have seen some amazing developments, a lot of which we don't see as future sci because we have evolved along with the gizmos. For instance, I have a computer that fits in my pocket. My entire music collection is stored on a gizmo the size of a credit card. Thanks to Spaceship One (most boring spaceship name in history), space flight has now entered the private sector and companies are exploring space travel and space tourism as a viable business. The world is connected via a huge electronic computer network (although I still can't connect it directly to my brain). There's a whole host of cool stuff that have come out in the last decade and a half that needs recognition, from GPS systems to cell phones, DVDs and flat panel HD TVs to Blackberries and WiFi internet. When I was a kid, these things were science fiction. Now, they're science fact.

I remember as a kid back in 1984, going to see 2010 for the first time. There was a little montage at one point in the film where Heywood Floyd is preparing for his trip to Jupiter. In one shot, he's sitting on a beach working on a laptop. I can remember thinking how cool it was to have a computer that you could take to the beach, how 2010 was so far away, and how impossible something like that seemed in my lifetime.

Well, it's not impossible. Science fact has caught up with science fiction. I have a laptop, and even though it's a few years old and pretty slow, it's a heck of a lot cooler than that one Dr. Floyd had. I also wouldn't recommend taking any computer to the beach. Still, we have a long way to go.

P.S. - The Popular Science issue also explores the status of flying cars and robot maids, and so on, but those aren't on the website yet. Patience, my young Jedis.