future
Exploring the future of science today, while looking back on the achievements from yesterday. Science fiction is science future.
The Watcher
From the dome of his mile-long tower, peeking above the cracked earth of a former schoolyard, Dalen studied a wall of sulfuric storm clouds overshadowing the husks of Chicago’s skyline. One level below, a window wrapped around the tower’s shaft overlooked the hidden city, laid out like the layers of an onion. Were the city lifted to the surface, it would look like a giant toy top. The carved streets and homes lay open like a labyrinth, lit by cauldrons of engineered glowworms hanging from the cavern ceiling.
By Sequoia Nagamatsu8 years ago in Futurism
Darkening Day
Remember when The Curtain went up? The only viable solution, extreme as it was, to save humanity from Earth's rapidly hyper-toxifying, invisibly over-saturating air. A superstructure, ten miles up, of floating chemical filters, each a sort of box-shaped balloon, converting noxious chemicals into safer ones. Billions of them, linked together into an edgeless shell spanning the entire globe.
By Breyen Katz8 years ago in Futurism
China's Environmental Cooperation
Ask a Westerner what most surprised them about their trip to China. If they were not staying in a five-star hotel in a major city on the dime of a major Chinese corporation, most likely you are going to get your ear bent with stories of people spitting on the floor of, not just a public streetcar, but their own bloody offices!...and also of pollution that makes L.A.’s ring-around-the-collar skyline circa the smoggy eighties look like a Rocky Mountain High by contrast. The brute summary is that this place is colossally productive, and also colossally filthy—and unashamed of it.
By Matthew Wilder8 years ago in Futurism
Elon Musk's Self-Driving Tesla Car
In 2012, there were 33,561 deaths from motor vehicle accidents. Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, announced in 2015 that Tesla cars would handle 90 percent of driving within five years. This plan included all Tesla vehicles being equipped with an autopilot system. Musk compared Tesla's autopilot to the autopilot in airplanes, where people still manually control the vehicle in risky situations.
By James Porterson8 years ago in Futurism
Beginnings of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence has been the goal of humankind since the dawn of the computer age. As each year passes, we depend on computers more and more. This over-dependence leads us to create an abundance of machines capable of computing. The only end goal in this scenario is the actual replacement of human intervention. Artificial intelligence is not just a simple notion of what we would like to have. It has become part of who are and our eventual progress into the next technological age.
By George Gott8 years ago in Futurism
I Surgically Implanted Earbuds Under My Skin
The human body doesn't do upgrades. Take poor care of your machinery, and there's no reboot, no system overhaul, no virus software that can come to your aid. In terms of the basic sensory apparatus and what it offers, you're pretty much stuck with the equipment you're born with. At least, until now.
By Claire Evans10 years ago in Futurism