Envisioning Emerging Technology For 2012 And Beyond: Infographic Predicts Space Elevators, Blood-Powered Computers

When can we buy robots that will complete all our household chores for us? When will our gadgets be grafted onto our skin and powered by our blood? And when will transporting items into space be as easy as opening an elevator and pressing the "Up" button?

Tech trend forecasting firm Envisioning Technology has put together a beautiful infographic that examines current scientific and technological research and predicts when in the next 28 years possible innovations might become reality. The graphic, titled "Envisioning Emerging Technology For 2012 And Beyond," separates breakthroughs into 11 categories -- artificial intelligence, Internet, robotics and space, to name a few -- and lets users hover over each item to see more information.

Emerging technology strategist Michell Zappa, who led the research team that gathered data for the graphic, told The Huffington Post that this mapping of tech's future was more than a purely imaginative exercise. "My hopes are to enable policy-makers and entrepreneurs to make better decisions about what the near future might look like," Zappa wrote in an email. "The idea behind mapping all of these emerging technologies is to reduce the guesswork about plausible scenarios, which in consequence should allow us to develop better futures."

Just don't expect to see flying cars anytime soon -- they're not included in the infographic. Writes Zappa, "Flying cars, along with cold fusion and quantum computing have been in the 'pipeline' too long to hold any real credibility as a potential emerging technology, in my opinion [...] They're evidently all plausible, but very little current research points to either being rolled out or produced at scale."

Flying cars aside, some of our favorite tidbits from this vision of the future include the prediction that the global online population will jump from roughly 2.5 billion in 2012 to as many as 5 billion after 2019. During that time, Envisioning Technology also sees the number of Internet-connected devices increasing from 10 billion to as many as 50 billion -- that's as many as 10 devices for every person online.

A few more mind-blowing highlights:

• 2018 - 2019: Self-driving cars let human drivers relax behind the wheel.
• 2019 - 2020: 5G connectivity becomes the norm, replacing 4G; traveling into space becomes a leisure activity; eyewear comes equipped with tiny displays that project into the wearer's retina.
• 2026: Humans hand off household chores to domestic robots.
• 2030: Displays can be embedded into human skin and powered by the blood.
• 2034: Manned missions to Mars begin.
• 2036 - 2037: Materials are transported from the surface of the earth into space using an elevator-like structure.
• 2037 - 2038: Anti-aging drugs make us all look young and lovely forever.

Some of these, like autonomous cars and eyewear-embedded screens, aren't too hard to imagine. A number of companies, including Google, have already begun road-testing autonomous vehicles, and the states of Nevada and California have already granted preliminary approval to such tests. Google is also planning a 2014 release date for the consumer version of its Project Glass device, an Internet-connected augmented reality headset that displays digital info on a postage stamp-sized screen that sits over one of the wearer's eyes.

Check out the entire infographic below. Mouse over each item to pull up its description and find out more about how life might change in the near future. For an embeddable PDF version, visit EnvisioningTech.com, where you can also purchase a large poster of the infographic.

[Hat tip, Fast Company]

Earlier on HuffPost:

Comments

[cosmicdart]

12:08 AM on 08/06/2012

Wouldn't a nano-particle propulsion beam be better than a space elevator? In this system, a focused beam of high velocity nano-particles would be shot into the bottom of a platform in such a way that these particles transfer their kinetic energy to this platform lifting it into orbit. All we would need is a large nano-particle accelerator on the ground. This would be a starship Enterprise sci-fi Tractor Beam in reverse, a Repulsa Beam.

[Scott Weiner]

11:44 PM on 08/05/2012

That makes me 70 when they have immortality.

I knew I should have been born later!

[AQUEOUS SOLUTION]

10:02 PM on 08/05/2012

self-driving cars through gps could be possible now, although EVERYONE would have to have run on this system or tons of accidents would occur. Good luck on making everyone pay a few extra hundred dollars to run on this system. would you not need insurance then? insurance companies would tear this project down.

[psnyder325]

01:33 PM on 08/05/2012

These are exciting predictions. Some are, of course, in very current development. But there are some problems that need to be addressed.

1). The planet is overpopulated as it is. We need to stop over-breeding. For that, we need to get rid of the superstition of religion and get rid of cultures that push over-breeding for manhood or whatever. Not easy.

2). Death, which they are trying to defeat, was the great equalizer. Now the wealthy will be able to live almost forever, and the poor will die young.

3). We need, first, to equalize wealth and make sure everyone on the planet is taken care of. This is impossible with the number of people we have now. We need a good plague or global disaster. Our best sustainability will be with under 1 billion people on the Earth.

[cosmicdart]

11:23 PM on 08/05/2012

A genetically engineered plague wouldn't need to kill everyone since all it would need to do is sterilize 90% of our population, but the thought of it is a diabolical one since the only people with the vaccine to prevent sterilization would be our wealthy aristocratic Masters in high places.

[onehenry]

09:22 PM on 08/03/2012

I cannot wait for the anti aging drugs. Of course by that time i'll be 85.

[cosmicdart]

11:31 PM on 08/05/2012

Don't worry cuz by the year 3030 we'll perfect time travel whereby we look back in time and sequester all those human beings that were instrumental in the scientific advancement of humanity as we grab them just before they die so they may be reconstituted in the future inside of immortal android bodies. All the religious fanatics that obstructed science would be left behind. Eternal life for atheistic scientist, and eternal nothingness for all those others.

[obamathegreat235]

05:23 PM on 08/03/2012

Envisioning Emerging Technology For 2012 And Beyond: Infographic Predicts Space Elevators, Blood-Powered Computers"-----

Here is another interesting detail to the concept of blood powered technology:
Neuro engineers at MIT have created the worlds first implantable energy generator which creates electric power through the glucose sugar found in the cerebrospinal liquid thats found in your mind as well as spinal-cord. Theoretically, this particular energy supply might ultimately generate low-power receptors as well as computer systems which decode your minds action in order to interface with prosthetic arms or legs.
The glucose-powered fuel-cells are designed from platinum and silicon, utilizing regular semiconductor manufacturing procedures. The platinum acts like a catalyst, stripping electrons through from the glucose, much like how aerobic animal cells (ie human cells) strip electrons through glucose with oxygen and enzymes.

http://stemcellremedy.com/biotechnology/glucose-powered-fuel-cells-power-human-brain-computer-interfaces/

[SimonBao]

08:21 PM on 08/02/2012

And it's always worth remembering that whenever people compile these lists of predictions, almost none of them come true. Just check similar lists of predictions from the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s...

And the greatest technological advances tend never to have been included on any lists, nor anticipated by the STEM communities...

[minteros]

01:23 PM on 08/02/2012

It doesn't matter if your car fly's and tweets show tunes in 100 different languages if no one is around to watch you drive it.

[pixeloid]

09:25 AM on 08/02/2012

Great. The anti-aging drugs are finally released when I'm in my 70s. Thanks for nothing, guys.

[Pandoras Folly]

10:48 AM on 08/02/2012

its okay, they will keep you alive till the point we can begin reversing aging....maybe a new body....or replace your current body piece by piece cell by cell.

[pixeloid]

08:14 PM on 08/02/2012

But won't old age be a "preexisting condition"?

[psnyder325]

01:28 PM on 08/05/2012

Yeah, me too. Though I'm very concerned about the anti-aging drugs being around at all. We are already way too overpopulated on this planet. Until we get rid of religion altogether and the cultures that push overbreeding, we're just creating one more catastrophe for ourselves. It is also almost certain that, with the population as it is, anti-aging drugs will be the sole privilege of the 1%, and the 99% will be encouraged to die sooner. See the movie "In Time." It is prophetic.

[cosmicdart]

11:41 PM on 08/05/2012

Scientologist would buy the patent so that they live forever and everyone else dies unless the Pope sequesters it first.

[pixeloid]

09:23 AM on 08/02/2012

Out of all these predictions, my first thought was, "what's it like if someone farts in the space elevator?"

[Alamin Islam]

07:51 AM on 08/02/2012

An online Computer Science
Degree opens up a world of opportunity for any individual. Computer science is fast becoming one of the most important areas of science and the amount of money within the industry is ever increasing. Once an online computer science degree is completed your job opportunities will be near endless. http://www.startechdnj.blogspot.com the ability to obtain such a valuable degree from the comfort of your own home is an added bonus and should make the idea of obtaining an online computer degree irresistible. The best degree granting based programs in computer science are at MIT, Cal tech, and Stanford University. There are several online and vocational schools that also offer strong Computer Science programs including ITT Tech, University of Phoenix, and Decry. The world needs people to run and work these computers and that is where computer science comes in.

[jaguarkpr]

06:36 AM on 08/02/2012

The game-changing medical breakthroughs that happen/happened will be kept under wraps and un-disclousure mostly is for the benefit of humankind ironically. Antibiotics would have been better have they been handed out less liberally than they were. Rising the evolution stakes(by employing new and synthethic antibio's) is biting back in a way our biology has never witnessed before...but thats how the story goes regardless, how long will the flow continue to flow

[Pandoras Folly]

10:49 AM on 08/02/2012

once we get nanites no need for anitbiotics.

[smeeeee]

04:47 PM on 08/04/2012

That's what I'm waiting for. Something that will clean my blood and clean my house.

[jaredbrain]

02:00 AM on 08/02/2012

and then the technological singularity, and the complete unison of human and technology. mortality nothing but a distant memory as we expand our collective consciousness and energy out into the universe.

of course, we could also just keep totally and utterly ruining the earth and our own futures.

[Illin Crux]

03:28 AM on 08/02/2012

we are the 12 mass extinction, even if we kill off every species on the planet, we have the technology to bring them back...even species that were wiped out by previous mass extinctions and not us.

In other words, I'm not too worried.

[jaredbrain]

10:28 AM on 08/02/2012

You think we're living in Jurassic Park? Anything we clone is massively expensive and sterile. How about we just keep the biodiversity that we've always had

[fredgladys]

09:37 PM on 08/01/2012

Every so often a whole lot of predictions come out on technical changes impacting on society, not many of them actually happen.

[mario andretti]

08:02 PM on 08/01/2012

People who no longer age killed in accidents with driverless cars. Where'd the justice?