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Railguns are the nexts step for battleships. Rail Guns will make ships safer. Rail Guns ammo do not have any explosive material, so if ther ship is hit itmay not explode.

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Long a staple of science fiction movies, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is hoping to turn railguns into a practical reality onboard tomorrow's warships. As part of its efforts, the ONR is ready to demonstrate its electromagnetic railgun technology during field trials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division's new railgun Rep-Rate Test Site at Terminal Range.

"Railguns and other directed-energy weapons are the future of maritime superiority," Dr. Thomas Beutner, head of ONR's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department said at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo.

"The U.S. Navy must be the first to field this leap-ahead technology and maintain the advantage over our adversaries."

Railguns rely on electromagnets to launch a metallic projective-dispensing with chemical propellants. In the case of the Navy, the service has developed a new next-generation, low-drag, guided round called the High-Velocity Projectile (HVP) that it intends to use in conjunction with the railgun.

The HVP-which can also be fired from conventional cannons-would be able to hit targets at ranges of over 100 nautical miles at speeds exceeding Mach 6.

"That velocity allows projectiles to rely on kinetic energy for maximum effect, and reduces the amount of high explosives needed on ships," according to the ONR.

Theoretically, a railgun would allow the Navy to take full advantage of the capabilities of HVP because of the increased amount of launch energy the new weapon should be able to impart to the shell.

"With its increased velocity, precision guidance and extended range, the railgun realizes the full range of the HVP's scalable lethality," the ONR states.

According to the ONR, the railgun has already been tested at low muzzle energy while firing multiple shot salvoes-what the Navy calls repetition rate of fires or rep-rates. Now, the Navy hopes to incrementally increase the amount of energy flowing through the weapon while also increasing the salvo size and rate of fire.

"Railgun rep-rate testing will be at 20 megajoules by the end of the summer and at 32 megajoules by next year," an ONR release stated.

"To put this in perspective, one megajoule is the equivalent of a one-ton vehicle moving at 160 miles per hour."

While railguns show much promise for the future, there are major hurdles to overcome before such weapons are ready for prime time. One such challenge is that the Navy has to develop a barrel that can withstand repeated firings over a certain period of time. The Navy also has to develop power sources that can supply energy to electricity intensive weapons.

"The Navy currently is developing and testing railgun barrels capable of firing many rounds per minute with a tactically relevant barrel life--as well as the associated power and auxiliary systems needed to make that possible," reads an ONR release.

"In addition, the weapon's power system now is small enough to fit aboard current and future U.S. Navy ships. These products, when matured, will create much more capable warships."

Though railguns hold much promise, it is not clear how long it will take for the Navy to develop and field a practical weapon that can put to use onboard a future warship. If the service succeeds, it is possible that the railgun will open up new possibilities for new offensive and particularly defensive weapons. Railguns offer the potential for far deeper magazines than is possible with missile tubes.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

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The U.S. Navy's Next Super Weapon: Railguns?

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Long a staple of science fiction movies, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is hoping to turn railguns into a practical reality onboard tomorrow's warships. As part of its efforts, the ONR is ready to demonstrate its electromagnetic railgun technology during field trials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division's new railgun Rep-Rate Test Site at Terminal Range.

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In the future of gaming you will be able to see through the eyes of a drone to a VR joystick you control with your feet.

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Future of technology (Mattie Richards)                                        The Future in technology can take over a lot. For instance self driving could be come existent. Drones and flying cars can become a major topic with technology. Drones can be used for so many things like delivering packages etc.

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Future of technology (Mattie Richards)                                        The Future in technology can take over a lot. For instance self driving could be come existent. Drones and flying cars can become a major topic with technology. Drones can be used for so many things like delivering packages etc.

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In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate. These improvements are due mainly to advances in technology, beginning in the industrial age and continuing today in the information age.

There are many exciting new technologies that will continue to transform the world and improve human welfare. Here are eleven of them.

1. Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars exist today that are safer than human-driven cars in most driving conditions. Over the next 3-5 years they'll get even safer, and will begin to go mainstream.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.25 million people die from car-related injuries per year. Half of the deaths are pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists hit by cars. Cars are the leading cause of death for people ages 15-29 years old.

Just as cars reshaped the world in the 20th century, so will self-driving cars in the 21st century. In most cities, between 20-30% of usable space is taken up by parking spaces, and most cars are parked about 95% of the time. Self-driving cars will be in almost continuous use (most likely hailed from a smartphone app), thereby dramatically reducing the need for parking. Cars will communicate with one another to avoid accidents and traffic jams, and riders will be able to spend commuting time on other activities like work, education, and socializing.

Tech Insider

2. Clean Energy

Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy haven't worked. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.

Due to steady technological and manufacturing advances, the price of solar cells has dropped 99.5% since 1977. Solar will soon be more cost efficient than fossil fuels. The cost of wind energy has also dropped to an all-time low, and in the last decade represented about a third of newly installed US energy capacity.

Forward thinking organizations are taking advantage of this. For example, in India there is an initiative to convert airports to self-sustaining clean energy.

Tesla is making high-performance, affordable electric cars, and installing electric charging stations worldwide.

There are hopeful signs that clean energy could soon be reaching a tipping point. For example, in Japan, there are now more electric charging stations than gas stations.

And Germany produces so much renewable energy, it sometimes produces even more than it can use.

3. Virtual and Augmented Reality

Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.

People sometimes think VR and AR will be used only for gaming, but over time they will be used for all sorts of activities. For example, we'll use them to manipulate 3-D objects.

To meet with friends and colleagues from around the world. And even for medical applications, like treating phobias or helping rehabilitate paralysis victims.

VR and AR have been dreamed about by science fiction fans for decades. In the next few years, they'll finally become a mainstream reality.

4. Drones and Flying Cars

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need... roads." - Dr. Emmet Brown

GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokémon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.

For example, drones are being used to inspect critical infrastructure like bridges and power lines, to survey areas struck by natural disasters, and many other creative uses like fighting animal poaching.

Amazon and Google are building drones to deliver household items.

The startup Zipline uses drones to deliver medical supplies to remote villages that can't be accessed by roads.

There is also a new wave of startups working on flying cars (including two funded by the cofounder of Google, Larry Page).

Flying cars use the same advanced technology used in drones but are large enough to carry people. Due to advances in materials, batteries, and software, flying cars will be significantly more affordable and convenient than today's planes and helicopters.

5. Artificial Intelligence

It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go - maybe even longer. - New York Times, 1997

Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.

AI can be applied to almost any field. For example, in photography an AI technique called artistic style transfer transforms photographs into the style of a given painter.

Google built an AI system that controls its datacenter power systems, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs.

The broad promise of AI is to liberate people from repetitive mental tasks the same way the industrial revolution liberated people from repetitive physical tasks.

Some people worry that AI will destroy jobs. History has shown that while new technology does indeed eliminate jobs, it also creates new and better jobs to replace them. For example, with advent of the personal computer, the number of typographer jobs dropped, but the increase in graphic designer jobs more than made up for it.

Master of Go Board Game Is Walloped by Google Computer Program" - New York Times, 2016

It is much easier to imagine jobs that will go away than new jobs that will be created. Today millions of people work as app developers, ride-sharing drivers, drone operators, and social media marketers- jobs that didn't exist and would have been difficult to even imagine ten years ago.

6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone

By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.

Internet-connected smartphones give ordinary people abilities that, just a short time ago, were only available to an elite few:

"Right now, a Masai warrior on a mobile phone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communications than the president did 25 years ago. If he's on a smart phone using Google, he has access to more information than the U.S. president did just 15 years ago." - Peter Diamandis

7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains

Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are changing this by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.

"If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said a decentralized network of information nodes that are linked using hypertext." - Farmer & Farmer

Protocols based on blockchains also have capabilities that previous protocols didn't. For example, Ethereum is a new blockchain-based protocol that can be used to create smart contracts and trusted databases that are immune to corruption and censorship.

8. High-Quality Online Education

While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality. Encyclopedia Britannica used to cost $1,400. Now anyone with a smartphone can instantly access Wikipedia. You used to have to go to school or buy programming books to learn computer programming. Now you can learn from a community of over 40 million programmers at Stack Overflow. YouTube has millions of hours of free tutorials and lectures, many of which are produced by top professors and universities.

The quality of online education is getting better all the time. For the last 15 years, MIT has been recording lectures and compiling materials that cover over 2000 courses.

As perhaps the greatest research university in the world, MIT has always been ahead of the trends. Over the next decade, expect many other schools to follow MIT's lead.

9. Better Food through Science

Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.

Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system. For example, entrepreneurs are developing new food products that are tasty and nutritious substitutes for traditional foods but far more environmentally friendly. The startup Impossible Foods invented meat products that look and taste like the real thing but are actually made of plants.

Their burger uses 95% less land, 74% less water, and produces 87% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional burgers. Other startups are creating plant-based replacements for milk, eggs, and other common foods. Soylent is a healthy, inexpensive meal replacement that uses advanced engineered ingredients that are much friendlier to the environment than traditional ingredients.

Some of these products are developed using genetic modification, a powerful scientific technique that has been widely mischaracterized as dangerous. According to a study by the Pew Organization, 88% of scientists think genetically modified foods are safe.

Another exciting development in food production is automated indoor farming. Due to advances in solar energy, sensors, lighting, robotics, and artificial intelligence, indoor farms have become viable alternatives to traditional outdoor farms.

Compared to traditional farms, automated indoor farms use roughly 10 times less water and land. Crops are harvested many more times per year, there is no dependency on weather, and no need to use pesticides.

10. Computerized Medicine

Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.

For example, just fifteen years ago, it cost $3B to sequence a human genome. Today, the cost is about a thousand dollars and continues to drop. Genetic sequencing will soon be a routine part of medicine.

Genetic sequencing generates massive amounts of data that can be analyzed using powerful data analysis software. One application is analyzing blood samples for early detection of cancer. Further genetic analysis can help determine the best course of treatment.

Another application of computers to medicine is in prosthetic limbs.

Soon we'll have the technology to control prothetic limbs with just our thoughts using brain-to-machine interfaces. Computers are also becoming increasingly effective at diagnosing diseases. An artificial intelligence system recently diagnosed a rare disease that human doctors failed to diagnose by finding hidden patterns in 20 million cancer records.

11. A New Space Age

Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget dropped from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.

The good news is that private space companies have started filling the void. These companies provide a wide range of products and services, including rocket launches, scientific research, communications and imaging satellites, and emerging speculative business models like asteroid mining.

The most famous private space company is Elon Musk's SpaceX, which successfully sent rockets into space that can return home to be reused.

Perhaps the most intriguing private space company is Planetary Resources, which is trying to pioneer a new industry: mining minerals from asteroids.

If successful, asteroid mining could lead to a new gold rush in outer space. Like previous gold rushes, this could lead to speculative excess, but also dramatically increased funding for new technologies and infrastructure.

These are just a few of the amazing technologies we'll see developed in the coming decades. 2016 is just the beginning of a new age of wonders. As futurist Kevin Kelly says:

"If we could climb into a time machine, journey 30 years into the future, and from that vantage look back to today, we'd realize that most of the greatest products running the lives of citizens in 2050 were not invented until after 2016. People in the future will look at their holodecks and wearable virtual reality contact lenses and downloadable avatars and AI interfaces and say, 'Oh, you didn't really have the internet' - or whatever they'll call it - 'back then.'

"So, the truth: Right now, today, in 2016 is the best time to start up. There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/ risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute. This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, 'Oh, to have been alive and well back then!'

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11 reasons to be excited about the future of technology

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In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate.

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The Future of Prosthetics (Will Hartgrove) 

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The Future of Prosthetics (Will Hartgrove) 

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Prosthetics in the future can be changed into something new. Instead of limbs it could be internal organs like a kidney, or more control with prosthetic hands or feet. There could be a spread of new bionic prosthetics created accurately by robots.

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By the end of the First World War, there was no shortage of amputees. Of the seven million British soldiers deployed, 41,000 had amputations in field hospitals or medical facilities behind the lines.

Prosthetic limbs had existed for hundreds of years before the War, but the sudden influx overwhelmed medical services on all sides. And even with the return to rudimentary mobility offered by a prosthetic leg, one thing remained with amputee veterans: shame. Returning soldiers needed to be reintegrated, to find jobs, to support families. Many while hiding - as best they could - whatever rudimentary prostheses they could have fitted, or rejecting them outright in favor of sticks or crutches.

"During that time period, people didn't want anybody to know that they were an amputee," says Scott Schneider, Chief Future Development Officer at , one of the world's largest manufacturers of advanced prostheses.

"When I started my practice, some people would walk in the back door, because they didn't want to let other people know that they [were going] to a prosthetics facility. It was very secretive."

The company's founder, Otto Bock, saw the yawning gap in supply and demand for prostheses after the Great War. In the early 20th Century, prostheses were still niche stopgaps: whittled, strapped or forged to fit amputees by craftsmen. Bock took the best of the existing 'technology' and put it into mass production.

Nearly 100 years later, its current top-of-the-line model, is still helping soldiers. Developed for veterans who have lost legs above the knee, the X3 is fitted with microprocessors and sensors that allow a soldier to pull an 80kg squadmate, out of a foxhole, backwards.

When I started my practice, some people would walk in the back door, because they didn't want to let other people know that they [were going] to a prosthetics facility.

Scott Schneider, Ottobock

"That's pretty amazing when you're doing it with one, or two prosthetic knees," says Schneider.

That shame and stigma around prostheses is changing. As military-backed technology (Ottobock works closely with US Department of Defense) trickles down into the civilian healthcare system, and as more and more amputees see top-end limb replacements fitted to soldiers and elite athletes, the line between 'able' and 'disabled' begins to blur - for the user and the able-bodied public. There's still no true replacement for a lost limb - but their prosthetic replacements are now functional and futuristic enough not to be hidden, but worn with pride.

"It's very individual and sometimes [comes down to] the type of amputation," says Schneider. "[But] I think the best quote I've ever heard from one of our patients was: 'I don't mind being an amputee, so long as I don't feel like an amputee.'"

Affording to walk again

But top-tier prostheses are expensive - not just prohibitively, for most amputees, but unnecessarily. A high-end prosthetic can easily run into the tens of thousands of pounds. But Bristol-based Open Bionics - a prosthetics company that 3D-prints its arms to bring costs in-line with expectations from the NHS - doesn't need to create arms that can drag adults out of foxholes. Rather, it makes arms that allow amputees to write, open doors and shake hands again. Perhaps as importantly, it makes arms that look - - cool.

"There was this feeling in the amputee community that the end-user could never talk to the people who were designing their limbs," says Samantha Payne, Open Bionics co-founder and COO.

"We brought in the users, the people who actually experience the problems, at a very early stage so that they could help us build the solution. We found that there was a really big psychological aspect to prosthetics that hadn't really been addressed before: how wearing a device makes you feel day-to-day, how it affects your confidence, how it affects your self-image, how it affects your body image, how your peers interact with you. It affects how people address your limb difference."

3D-printing its prostheses means more than just lower costs. Functionality may be paramount on the battlefield or in sport, but the problem of stigma and shame is maybe nowhere more pointed than on the playground. Open Bionics doesn't exclusively produce its hands for children, but users like 11-year-old Tilly Lockey and its range of arms inspired by Iron Man, Star Wars and Frozen are what really caught the global media's attention. Kids can be mean, and a missing limb or crude prosthetic makes a child an easy mark for bullies.

If they were wearing a cosmetic hand or a hook at a young age, like at school, it would make them want to hide their limb.

Samantha Payne, Open Bionics

"In the beginning, we were just 3D-printing in whatever color filament possible," Payne continues.

"We would make them black, or grey, or even skin-toned. But then once we started really focusing on this co-creation methodology and holding amputee workshops, we were hearing these really traumatic stories from young people growing into adults who felt this huge stigma because of their limb difference. If they were wearing a cosmetic hand or a hook at a young age, like at school, it would make them want to hide their limb.

"This created a really negative body image that they carried into adulthood. And it was through no fault of their own: it was how others perceived them and others treated them. Obviously at school, any difference between a schoolchild is going to really stand out because everyone's trying really hard to fit in. So, they [thought], 'If I am going to stand out for having a limb difference, I don't want to have a Victorian-age technology hook. I want something really cool, something that makes people ask, 'Oh my God, what is that?' in a really good way, rather than, 'Oh, what happened to you? Tell me your traumatic amputation story.'"

From disability to enhancement

These advances in prosthetics at both ends of the pricing spectrum beg an obvious question: when will - per decades of predictions in science fiction - bionic limbs surpass the ones they're replacing? When - if ever - will we reach the point where prostheses become 'enhancements' - desirable upgrades for able-bodied people, no stranger than a facelift or a tummy tuck?

"In terms of prosthetics technology and how it can match humans' capabilities, we're a long way off," says Payne.

"But culturally, we're not far off at all. So, when we released the Iron Man hands and the Star Wars hands, and they had all these extra functions - they could light up, they could play noises and had all of these different modes

"They looked so cool; the smiles and the confidence of the people wearing them and how it made them feel, made them really attractive to everyone who got to see them and meet them in real life and shake their hands. We were getting messages from people saying, 'Can I get one? I've got two hands, but how can I get one?' And people were joking on our Facebook page, saying, 'I'm willing to have my limb removed to have one of these.'

"For us it's quite morbid!" Payne says, laughing. "But I think it did a really good thing: it changed the conversation to something aspirational, and it felt like for the very first time in this community that it wasn't a clinical thing. It wasn't a conversation about disability, it wasn't about going to the hospital, it wasn't about medical advice - it was about having something that made you stand out for a really good reason. It made you admirable. People wanted to be you."

We were getting messages from people saying, 'Can I get [an Iron Man hand]? I've got two hands, but how can I get one?'

Samantha Payne, Open Bionics

Ottobock's Schneider agrees. Though if your dream is to one day leap tall things in a single bound or punch your way through a wall as a bionic superhero, there may be hope yet - for the able-bodied and amputees alike.

"I think the next step in technology will be assisted devices," he says. "I was at a robotics conference speaking last April and a lot of these companies were actually selling devices that users can put on like a suit, that then enables them to lift more weight. So it's not replacing an arm, but it may be putting a device on that arm or that back or that body to be able to work along with their own hands.

"More like an Iron Man, than the Six Million Dollar Man," he concludes.

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The amazing bionic prosthetics that are changing lives and shaping our future

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By the end of the First World War, there was no shortage of amputees. Of the seven million British soldiers deployed, 41,000 had amputations in field hospitals or medical facilities behind the lines. Prosthetic limbs had existed for hundreds of years before the War, but the sudden influx overwhelmed medical services on all sides.

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The food delivery businesses are looking forward to self driving cars to make food get to their customer's faster. The food delivery services would save a ton of money because they won't be needing driver's to deliver their food to their customers, they would just need one driver to sit in the car and take a ton of orders at once. I think this is a revolutionary upgrade.

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While minimum wage amounts rise and labor groups form, some companies are installing kiosks in place of cashiers and planning on adding self-driving delivery vehicles to their operations. For consumers, this could mean less human interaction, fewer tips, pizza cooked in trucks and more. Soon, people won't need to leave their homes to do anything, bringing us one step closer to becoming blobs on hover boards à la Pixar's Wall-E. Here's a look into what food services could look like in the future.

Delivery People On Their Way Out

Self-driving cars have long attracted the eyes of fast food. Business Insider reports that Pizza Hut is partnering with Toyota to launch a pizza-delivering - and possibly cooking - mobile to streamline its business. Vehicle testing may happen as soon as 2020. It's a sad time for retro porn lovers; there's no longer room for that pie with extra sausage (drumroll).

In other delivery news, White Castle is following the leads of McDonald's with UberEats, Wendy's with DoorDash and Taco Bell with Postmates. The chain announced yesterday that its now partnering with Grubhub to offer delivery. Postmates is also partnering with Ford Motor Co. in dabbling with self-driving delivery vehicles.

Never Run Out Of Coffee Again

That is, until climate change renders coffee plants extinct. In the meantime, Illy introduced an app-controlled espresso machine that recognizes when coffee pods have run out and will automatically order more on Amazon. The app also allows users to remotely brew coffee, schedule brewing times and customize cup size and temperature.

Rosie In The Box

Faced with looming wage hikes (fair, livable wages? Oh, the humanity!), Jack In The Box CEO Leonard Comma says "it just makes sense" to replace cashiers with self-ordering kiosks at an industry conference earlier this week.

The California-based chain has tested self-ordering kiosks in the past with success. Wendy's plans to install kiosks to stores in 2018, while McDonald's - which already has these up and running in some stores - will add them to 2,500 more storefronts.

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The Future Of Food Delivery Is Becoming Clearer

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While minimum wage amounts rise and labor groups form, some companies are installing kiosks in place of cashiers and planning on adding self-driving delivery vehicles to their operations. For consumers, this could mean less human interaction, fewer tips, pizza cooked in trucks and more.

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The Future of Medicine (Kyla Diaz de Rivera)

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The Future of Medicine (Kyla Diaz de Rivera)

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Medicine in the future will improve our future health.  Humanity can look forward to a healthier future. As medical researchers attest, ambitions will go much further. People are now enjoying longer and healthier lives than their ancestors.

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Modern medicine has brought huge health benefits. Now researchers want to go further.

From the nineteenth-century benches of microbiologists Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch to the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, the past 200 years have seen medicine advance at an extraordinary pace. People are now enjoying longer and healthier lives than their ancestors. But as any medical researcher will attest, ambitions go much further.

The stories in this Outlook, chosen in consultation with editors from the Nature Research journals, represent some of the biggest opportunities we have to improve our future health. Our selection is not exhaustive, nor can we be certain that all research we report will come to fruition. But if only a fraction does, humanity can look forward to a healthier future.

To avoid antibiotic resistance undoing a century's worth of progress, researchers are racing to restock the antibacterial armoury. Others are exploiting the data generated by ubiquitous computers and smartphones to better anticipate outbreaks of infectious disease.

With the potential for gain so great, the prevention of illness is playing an ever-larger part in medicine. Intervention to protect people from long-term disease could begin in the first moments after birth. And although a decline in health in later life might seem normal, there is ongoing debate about where healthy ageing ends and disease begins.

Work to exert greater control over rogue immune systems, as well as to develop technological solutions to paralysis, is showing initial promise. The advent of CRISPR-Cas genome editing has raised hopes for widespread use of gene therapy; meanwhile, this technology is also aiding the search for new drugs. As long as barriers to accessing the best treatments available can be negotiated away, the future of medicine could be very bright indeed.

We are pleased to acknowledge the financial support of Merck in producing this Outlook. As always, Nature has sole responsibility for all editorial content.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02472-6
This article is part of Nature Outlook: The future of medicine, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

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Modern medicine has brought huge health benefits. Now researchers want to go further. From the nineteenth-century benches of microbiologists Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch to the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, the past 200 years have seen medicine advance at an extraordinary pace.

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In the next twenty five years half of our jobs going to be taken over by robots. The reason for this is because robots are much more faster and effective then humans.

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Pcs are starting to look obsolete in the eyes of others. It is being shown that people are starting to use their phones and things like that over a pc." According to analyst Gartner, worldwide sales of traditional PCs (desktops and notebooks) have fallen from 343 million in 2012 to somewhere around 232 million this year; revenue has dropped by an incredible $97bn from $219bn in 2012 to a predicted 122bn this year.

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The Future of Social Media (Austin Chen)

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The Future of Social Media (Austin Chen)

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Social Media keeps changing as time goes on. Social media sites like facebook have decreased because their parents used it. More people are getting scared of privacy, and are just caring about themselves. While social media can be addicting, it's helping us in things like making dating easier.

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With automation things will become more easier and simpler. Also manual labor won't be as hard because we will just be controlling robots to do it for us. I think this will be better for humans because it will make life easier and less grueling work.

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Many captains of technology are openly predicting the demise of humankind from advancements in automation and artificial intelligence (AI). The Luddites -- 19th-century textile workers who believed weaving machinery threatened their jobs -- said much the same thing, sans AI.

We must recall that mankind has created, endured and grown from nearly every technological advancement. The Luddites did not get their mill jobs back, but their descendants are doing quite well and wearing much less expensive clothing made from machines. My semiconductor industry all but did away with vacuum tubes, which would not be suitable for the smartphone in your jacket pocket. Milking machines did replace milkmaids, but I am hard-pressed to find a modern woman who wants that job.

Why, then, do tech titans loathe automation and AI? For the same reasons the Luddites feared weaving machinery -- they discounted human flexibility and overestimated the displacement power of technology.
Automation And Scribes
I suspect the Vatican is quite happy with Microsoft Word as compared to hiring warehouses full of scribes when it comes to mass production of Bibles.

Automation exists to save manual labor. In my lifetime, banks employed rooms full of people who manually reconciled accounts on the original spreadsheet -- large pieces of paper with preprinted grids of columns and rows. When IBM brought computation machines into banks, there was a transient (and isolated) spate of unemployment among the accounting class, who were quickly absorbed into other lines of work.

So why are we fearful of new machines designed to reduce human toil further? Some fret that lower-income wage earners will be forever displaced, which was the Luddites' claim. Others sense a need to increase job opportunities to meet the needs of the population but fail to incorporate the slumping birth rates (as side effects of general prosperity) or baby boomer attrition. Indeed, if, as one taxpayer advocacy group maintains, there is a $2 trillion economic drag from needless regulations, our tech industry leaders would do better to focus on the debilitating effects of Washington rather than robotics.

The fact is that automation temporarily displaces workers and tends to do so in singular industries. Currently, the fast food industry is a prime target, especially once $15 per-hour wages bring annual price parity in line with automated burger flippers. But that is one industry, and the change will neither be instantaneous nor ubiquitous. Displaced employees will adapt.

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The Future Of AI And Automation In The Workforce

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Many captains of technology are openly predicting the demise of humankind from advancements in automation and artificial intelligence (AI). The Luddites -- 19th-century textile workers who believed weaving machinery threatened their jobs -- said much the same thing, sans AI. We must recall that mankind has created, endured and grown from nearly every technological advancement.

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Future of High Speed Trains (Dillon Floden)

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Future of High Speed Trains (Dillon Floden)

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This website goes over how the hyperloop works and goes over the benefits and possible challenges of the hyperloop. This train and other trains like this will make ground transportation incredibly quick. It can go from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 35 mins!

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In Elon Musk's world, the Hyperloop will become a "fifth mode" of transportation, standing beside planes, trains, automobiles and boats in the pantheon of mechanized movement. Musk envisions people traveling through the Hyperloop in pods that whiz through steel tubes mounted on pylons, or pillars, designed to withstand California's earthquakes. Those pylons, made of reinforced concrete, would be spaced every 100 feet (30 meters) or so and stand 20, 50 and 100 feet (6, 15 and 30 meters) high, depending on the terrain [source: SpaceX].

How exactly does Musk plan to accomplish this amazing task of physics? Well, he looked at several possibilities. Most, he said, fall short for a variety of reasons. For example, the Hyperloop might be able to use powerful fans to push the pods, much like pneumatic tubes that offices use to shove mail from one building to another. Musk says while it's possible to construct such behemoth fans, it's impractical because a 350-mile (563-kilometer) -long column of air moving so rapidly would create an enormous amount of friction inside the tube, making the type of speed he hopes to achieve impossible [source: SpaceX].

The entrepreneur has also ruled out moving the pods through vacuum tubes using electromagnetic suspension, the same technology that maglev trains use. Musk explains that it's difficult to create a perfect vacuum in the tubes, especially with thousands of pods entering and exiting every day. Moreover, the aluminum tubes might crack or leak, letting the air out of the system.

"All it takes is one leaky seal or a small crack somewhere in the hundreds of miles of tube and the whole system stops working," Musk wrote in his initial Hyperloop report.

Another technical problem centers on the pod moving through a tube containing air. Musk says if the walls of the tube and pod are close together, "the capsule will behave like a syringe." In other words, the pod would push the entire column of air in the system instead of letting it flow past. The result is that the pods would have to travel very slowly, or engineers would have to build a massive tube to make traveling quicker. In that case, riders would be traveling several thousand miles per hour, subjecting their bodies to crushing G-forces when going around the slightest bend [source: SpaceX].

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In Elon Musk's world, the Hyperloop will become a "fifth mode" of transportation, standing beside planes, trains, automobiles and boats in the pantheon of mechanized movement. Musk envisions people traveling through the Hyperloop in pods that whiz through steel tubes mounted on pylons, or pillars, designed to withstand California's earthquakes.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/05/05/the-future-of-ai-and-automation-in-the-workforce/#1a0740c4e36c

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Food will get better and tastier because of technology. It'll take 95% less land, 74% less water, and 87% less greenhouse gas emmissions than before. I'm excited for this because I like good tasting food.

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In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate. These improvements are due mainly to advances in technology, beginning in the industrial age and continuing today in the information age.

There are many exciting new technologies that will continue to transform the world and improve human welfare. Here are eleven of them.

1. Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars exist today that are safer than human-driven cars in most driving conditions. Over the next 3-5 years they'll get even safer, and will begin to go mainstream.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.25 million people die from car-related injuries per year. Half of the deaths are pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists hit by cars. Cars are the leading cause of death for people ages 15-29 years old.

Just as cars reshaped the world in the 20th century, so will self-driving cars in the 21st century. In most cities, between 20-30% of usable space is taken up by parking spaces, and most cars are parked about 95% of the time. Self-driving cars will be in almost continuous use (most likely hailed from a smartphone app), thereby dramatically reducing the need for parking. Cars will communicate with one another to avoid accidents and traffic jams, and riders will be able to spend commuting time on other activities like work, education, and socializing.

Tech Insider

2. Clean Energy

Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy haven't worked. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.

Due to steady technological and manufacturing advances, the price of solar cells has dropped 99.5% since 1977. Solar will soon be more cost efficient than fossil fuels. The cost of wind energy has also dropped to an all-time low, and in the last decade represented about a third of newly installed US energy capacity.

Forward thinking organizations are taking advantage of this. For example, in India there is an initiative to convert airports to self-sustaining clean energy.

Tesla is making high-performance, affordable electric cars, and installing electric charging stations worldwide.

There are hopeful signs that clean energy could soon be reaching a tipping point. For example, in Japan, there are now more electric charging stations than gas stations.

And Germany produces so much renewable energy, it sometimes produces even more than it can use.

3. Virtual and Augmented Reality

Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.

People sometimes think VR and AR will be used only for gaming, but over time they will be used for all sorts of activities. For example, we'll use them to manipulate 3-D objects.

To meet with friends and colleagues from around the world. And even for medical applications, like treating phobias or helping rehabilitate paralysis victims.

VR and AR have been dreamed about by science fiction fans for decades. In the next few years, they'll finally become a mainstream reality.

4. Drones and Flying Cars

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need... roads." - Dr. Emmet Brown

GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokémon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.

For example, drones are being used to inspect critical infrastructure like bridges and power lines, to survey areas struck by natural disasters, and many other creative uses like fighting animal poaching.

Amazon and Google are building drones to deliver household items.

The startup Zipline uses drones to deliver medical supplies to remote villages that can't be accessed by roads.

There is also a new wave of startups working on flying cars (including two funded by the cofounder of Google, Larry Page).

Flying cars use the same advanced technology used in drones but are large enough to carry people. Due to advances in materials, batteries, and software, flying cars will be significantly more affordable and convenient than today's planes and helicopters.

5. Artificial Intelligence

It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go - maybe even longer. - New York Times, 1997

Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.

AI can be applied to almost any field. For example, in photography an AI technique called artistic style transfer transforms photographs into the style of a given painter.

Google built an AI system that controls its datacenter power systems, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs.

The broad promise of AI is to liberate people from repetitive mental tasks the same way the industrial revolution liberated people from repetitive physical tasks.

Some people worry that AI will destroy jobs. History has shown that while new technology does indeed eliminate jobs, it also creates new and better jobs to replace them. For example, with advent of the personal computer, the number of typographer jobs dropped, but the increase in graphic designer jobs more than made up for it.

Master of Go Board Game Is Walloped by Google Computer Program" - New York Times, 2016

It is much easier to imagine jobs that will go away than new jobs that will be created. Today millions of people work as app developers, ride-sharing drivers, drone operators, and social media marketers- jobs that didn't exist and would have been difficult to even imagine ten years ago.

6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone

By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.

Internet-connected smartphones give ordinary people abilities that, just a short time ago, were only available to an elite few:

"Right now, a Masai warrior on a mobile phone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communications than the president did 25 years ago. If he's on a smart phone using Google, he has access to more information than the U.S. president did just 15 years ago." - Peter Diamandis

7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains

Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are changing this by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.

"If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said a decentralized network of information nodes that are linked using hypertext." - Farmer & Farmer

Protocols based on blockchains also have capabilities that previous protocols didn't. For example, Ethereum is a new blockchain-based protocol that can be used to create smart contracts and trusted databases that are immune to corruption and censorship.

8. High-Quality Online Education

While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality. Encyclopedia Britannica used to cost $1,400. Now anyone with a smartphone can instantly access Wikipedia. You used to have to go to school or buy programming books to learn computer programming. Now you can learn from a community of over 40 million programmers at Stack Overflow. YouTube has millions of hours of free tutorials and lectures, many of which are produced by top professors and universities.

The quality of online education is getting better all the time. For the last 15 years, MIT has been recording lectures and compiling materials that cover over 2000 courses.

As perhaps the greatest research university in the world, MIT has always been ahead of the trends. Over the next decade, expect many other schools to follow MIT's lead.

9. Better Food through Science

Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.

Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system. For example, entrepreneurs are developing new food products that are tasty and nutritious substitutes for traditional foods but far more environmentally friendly. The startup Impossible Foods invented meat products that look and taste like the real thing but are actually made of plants.

Their burger uses 95% less land, 74% less water, and produces 87% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional burgers. Other startups are creating plant-based replacements for milk, eggs, and other common foods. Soylent is a healthy, inexpensive meal replacement that uses advanced engineered ingredients that are much friendlier to the environment than traditional ingredients.

Some of these products are developed using genetic modification, a powerful scientific technique that has been widely mischaracterized as dangerous. According to a study by the Pew Organization, 88% of scientists think genetically modified foods are safe.

Another exciting development in food production is automated indoor farming. Due to advances in solar energy, sensors, lighting, robotics, and artificial intelligence, indoor farms have become viable alternatives to traditional outdoor farms.

Compared to traditional farms, automated indoor farms use roughly 10 times less water and land. Crops are harvested many more times per year, there is no dependency on weather, and no need to use pesticides.

10. Computerized Medicine

Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.

For example, just fifteen years ago, it cost $3B to sequence a human genome. Today, the cost is about a thousand dollars and continues to drop. Genetic sequencing will soon be a routine part of medicine.

Genetic sequencing generates massive amounts of data that can be analyzed using powerful data analysis software. One application is analyzing blood samples for early detection of cancer. Further genetic analysis can help determine the best course of treatment.

Another application of computers to medicine is in prosthetic limbs.

Soon we'll have the technology to control prothetic limbs with just our thoughts using brain-to-machine interfaces. Computers are also becoming increasingly effective at diagnosing diseases. An artificial intelligence system recently diagnosed a rare disease that human doctors failed to diagnose by finding hidden patterns in 20 million cancer records.

11. A New Space Age

Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget dropped from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.

The good news is that private space companies have started filling the void. These companies provide a wide range of products and services, including rocket launches, scientific research, communications and imaging satellites, and emerging speculative business models like asteroid mining.

The most famous private space company is Elon Musk's SpaceX, which successfully sent rockets into space that can return home to be reused.

Perhaps the most intriguing private space company is Planetary Resources, which is trying to pioneer a new industry: mining minerals from asteroids.

If successful, asteroid mining could lead to a new gold rush in outer space. Like previous gold rushes, this could lead to speculative excess, but also dramatically increased funding for new technologies and infrastructure.

These are just a few of the amazing technologies we'll see developed in the coming decades. 2016 is just the beginning of a new age of wonders. As futurist Kevin Kelly says:

"If we could climb into a time machine, journey 30 years into the future, and from that vantage look back to today, we'd realize that most of the greatest products running the lives of citizens in 2050 were not invented until after 2016. People in the future will look at their holodecks and wearable virtual reality contact lenses and downloadable avatars and AI interfaces and say, 'Oh, you didn't really have the internet' - or whatever they'll call it - 'back then.'

"So, the truth: Right now, today, in 2016 is the best time to start up. There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/ risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute. This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, 'Oh, to have been alive and well back then!'

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11 reasons to be excited about the future of technology

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In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate.

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Image: Microsoft

When it comes to technology, nothing really goes away - or at least not for a very, very long time.

One example - a couple of years back, someone swore to me that they knew of at least one system in use that could still calculate in pounds, shillings and pence -- which meant the code must have have been somewhere around 45 years old and still running unchanged.

So it's unwise to predict the imminent death of any particular technology. And it's even more unwise to predict the death of the PC in particular, which had been done many times before.

But it's also generally accepted the PC is no longer the primary computing device for many, particularly consumers.

According to analyst Gartner, worldwide sales of traditional PCs (desktops and notebooks) have fallen from 343 million in 2012 to somewhere around 232 million this year; revenue has dropped by an incredible $97bn from $219bn in 2012 to a predicted $122bn this year.

Image ZDNet, data from IDC.

Sure, some of this is down to some short term economic factors - low oil prices and political uncertainties which is hitting spending in markets like Brazil and Russia. Windows 10 arriving as a free download has probably given some a reason not to buy new hardware too. But the longer terms trends are clear: we are simply not buying as many PCs as we used to, because we are not using them as much.

Microsoft's vision was to put a (Windows) computer on every desk and in every home. It pretty much managed it, at least in the richer parts of the world. But many of those PCs - especially the ones at home - are now forgotten and covered with dust.

That's because smartphones and tablets are easier and quicker to use, and can do the vast majority of things you can do with a PC. Indeed there are plenty of things that a standard PC or laptop cannot do that a smartphone can.

To put it another way: PC makers have struggled - and most failed to answer the question posed by Apple CEO Tim Cook last year: " Why would you buy a PC anymore? No really, why would you buy one?"

Now this doesn't mean the PC is dead: selling 232 million this year shows that (and yes, I wrote this on an PC and businesses will remain a stronghold for the PC). But it does mean that the PC is going to change, and so will PC makers.

Your PC is already not your father's PC anyway: that beige box with a floppy disk drive has been replaced with a sleek notebook that splits into two or does other kinds of gymnastics as required. And there's more of that change to come.

Here's a few ideas for what will be changing in the next few years.

1. Follow the margin: According to Gartner in a declining market what is calls 'ultramobile' is a still an area of growth - so expect to see more cool hybrid devices with a fancy price tag. The analysts expect revenues for these luxury devices to hit $34.6bn - up 16 percent from 2015, and it could be the most lucrative segment of the PC market in revenue terms within three years. Why? Because on a cheap $500 laptop the margin is about five percent - $25. On a $1,000 PC that margin is more like 25 percent - or $250.

2. Gaming gets serious. For the same reason - chunky margins - PC makers are going to go after the gaming. It's a small market for sure with only a few million devices sold each year, but gaming PCs start at $850 and easily go up to $1,500 for a premium model.

3. PC makers will diversify even further. Many mid-tier PC makers are struggling with tiny margins or are on the verge of quitting the market altogether. One option, for those that can, is to spread the risk by making PCs just one part of a broader business: that way selling PCs becomes a good way of getting a foot in the door to then sell the more expensive enterprise gear.

4. PC makers turn to services. The Internet of Things could help PC makers find new ways of making money and keeping customers happy: for example Gartner said vendors could use sensors to detect if a battery is getting too hot or a hard-disk drive is being overworked - and they could send an alert to customers to get PCs checked out and components swapped before they blow. Services like this could add to revenue and customer loyalty.

5. PCs will become more like smartphones. This is inevitable as most people's standard computing device becomes the smartphone. It will happen in a few different ways and we're already seeing the beginnings of it: the move to an app store experience in Windows 10 for example, or the rise of Chromebooks which assume most of the heavy processing and storage will be done though the cloud. That means from a UI design and back-end engineering point of view most PC applications will gradually become much more like apps.

There's even a chance that - if something like Microsoft's Continuum takes off (Canonical has talked about something similar) that PCs may even become smartphones: or should that be the other way around? Whichever it is, PCs aren't going away for decades, but they're going to become just one option among many, hidden behind newer technologies - smartphones, wearables, virtual reality and more. PCs will gradually retreat into a niche, but it will be decades before they disappear.
How do you think the PC is going to change in the next decade? Have your say in the reader comments.
ZDNet's Monday Morning Opener is our opening salvo for the week in tech. As a global site, this editorial publishes on Monday at 8am AEST in Sydney, Australia, which is 6pm Eastern Time on Sunday in the US. It is written by a member of ZDNet's global editorial board, which is comprised of our lead editors across Asia, Australia, Europe, and the US.

Previously on the Monday Morning Opener:

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Death or rebirth: What does the future of the PC really look like? | ZDNet

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When it comes to technology, nothing really goes away - or at least not for a very, very long time. One example - a couple of years back, someone swore to me that they knew of at least one system in use that could still calculate in pounds, shillings and pence -- which meant the code must have have been somewhere around 45 years old and still running unchanged.

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The food delivery businesses are looking forward to self driving cars to make food get to their customer's faster. The food delivery services will be 10 times more fast and gain more orders. I think this is a revolutionary upgrade.

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While minimum wage amounts rise and labor groups form, some companies are installing kiosks in place of cashiers and planning on adding self-driving delivery vehicles to their operations. For consumers, this could mean less human interaction, fewer tips, pizza cooked in trucks and more. Soon, people won't need to leave their homes to do anything, bringing us one step closer to becoming blobs on hover boards à la Pixar's Wall-E. Here's a look into what food services could look like in the future.

Delivery People On Their Way Out

Self-driving cars have long attracted the eyes of fast food. Business Insider reports that Pizza Hut is partnering with Toyota to launch a pizza-delivering - and possibly cooking - mobile to streamline its business. Vehicle testing may happen as soon as 2020. It's a sad time for retro porn lovers; there's no longer room for that pie with extra sausage (drumroll).

In other delivery news, White Castle is following the leads of McDonald's with UberEats, Wendy's with DoorDash and Taco Bell with Postmates. The chain announced yesterday that its now partnering with Grubhub to offer delivery. Postmates is also partnering with Ford Motor Co. in dabbling with self-driving delivery vehicles.

Never Run Out Of Coffee Again

That is, until climate change renders coffee plants extinct. In the meantime, Illy introduced an app-controlled espresso machine that recognizes when coffee pods have run out and will automatically order more on Amazon. The app also allows users to remotely brew coffee, schedule brewing times and customize cup size and temperature.

Rosie In The Box

Faced with looming wage hikes (fair, livable wages? Oh, the humanity!), Jack In The Box CEO Leonard Comma says "it just makes sense" to replace cashiers with self-ordering kiosks at an industry conference earlier this week.

The California-based chain has tested self-ordering kiosks in the past with success. Wendy's plans to install kiosks to stores in 2018, while McDonald's - which already has these up and running in some stores - will add them to 2,500 more storefronts.

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The Future Of Food Delivery Is Becoming Clearer

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While minimum wage amounts rise and labor groups form, some companies are installing kiosks in place of cashiers and planning on adding self-driving delivery vehicles to their operations. For consumers, this could mean less human interaction, fewer tips, pizza cooked in trucks and more.

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VR is a technology that could fundamentally change the entertainment industry. The world has a 50% of becoming more lazy from having virtual reality. The benefit coming from the future that VR holds for us is the cost. The cost is becoming more efficient.

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We all have such high hopes for virtual reality. The technology is just that cool.

Anyone who has put on a VR headset can already attest to the quality of the experience. Two years ago, I got to ride a VR roller coaster. Last year, I sat in the middle of a VR symphony. Both times, I walked away with chills running down my neck.

VR is a technology that could fundamentally change the entertainment industry, but it could also apply to other applications as well. Hospital surgeries, corporate videoconferencing, or military simulations are others areas that seem to be natural fits.

With potentially unlimited opportunities, industry experts began throwing out huge growth estimates. International Data Corporation believes the global market for virtual and augmented reality will grow from $14 billion this year to $143 billion in 2020. That's a tenfold increase for the entire industry in just three years -- quite a prediction!

However, the accelerated growth of VR always seems to be just around the bend. Are we really going to see an inflection point of rapidly accelerating sales, or will VR continue to be stuck in neutral?

Pokemon proved the concept

Perhaps the best example for those bullish on the future of VR was ( Nintendo's NASDAQOTH:NTDOY) launch of Pokemon Go in 2016. The augmented-reality game blended digital characters with actual locations, where players would use their smartphones to navigate real-world streets to "catch" Pokemon. The game was free to download, but Nintendo charged within the game for "PokeBalls," which allowed you to catch more Pokemon.

By just about any metric, the game was a huge success. It quickly became the most downloaded game of all time for an opening weekend on Apple's AppStore and had 50 million Android downloads within three weeks. In its first month, players had collectively walked while in-app farther than the distance from Earth to Pluto. To date, the game has generated $1.2 billion of revenue and been downloaded more than 750 million times -- which is nearly 10% of the world's population.

The game's success has also been a huge boon for investors. Since Pokemon Go's release last summer, Nintendo's stock price has tripled. The game served as proof that the public was indeed able to understand and willing to embrace augmented reality.

What has VR done for us lately?

But those bearish on the future of VR will point out that we haven't seen Pokemon Go's momentum continue. The number of teenagers huddling up to catch Pokemon while oblivious to their surroundings seems to be falling. And somewhat surprisingly, we haven't really seen that many spinoff games trying to replicate Pokemon Go's success.

One likely reason is that the hardware is still too expensive. Pokemon Go requires only a smartphone to play, but true virtual reality requires some serious spending, for the headsets and high-performance computers needed for the high-resolution graphics.

A variety of vendors offer headsets. ( HTC'sVive and Facebook's NASDAQ:FB) Oculus Rift virtual-reality headsets both hit the market in early 2016 at prices of $800 and $600, respectively. These price points were too high for the mass market to afford, and consumer adoption was limited to gaming enthusiasts.

This led us to a chicken-or-the-egg standoff. Without a large enough audience to appeal to, media companies wouldn't produce VR content. But without enough downloadable content, consumers wouldn't pony up for the headsets.

What the future holds

Just as the theory of disruptive innovation ( would predict, prices have begun to come down. Facebook temporarily dropped the price of the Oculus Rift to $400 this summer, while HTC permanently dropped the price of the Vive to $600. Both companies have also come out with cheaper models, with the Oculus Go now available for $200 and HTC recently announcing a new wireless headset. And let's not forget Samsung's NASDAQOTH:SSNLF) Gear VR headset, which attaches directly onto its Galaxy Smartphones, sells for around $100. There were 6 million VR headsets that shipped last year, and the Gear accounted for three-quarters of them.

I believe that the current industry forecasts are too optimistic, but that VR will eventually succeed in reaching the mainstream. Once high-quality, wireless headsets reach the $200-ish mass-market price point, affordable for Christmas presents, we'll begin to see price elasticity kick in. The decrease in costs will be offset by a significant increase in demand, which will spur interest in the advertising, software, and content needed to build out the VR ecosystem.

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We all have such high hopes for virtual reality. The technology is just that cool. Anyone who has put on a VR headset can already attest to the quality of the experience. Two years ago, I got to ride a VR roller coaster. Last year, I sat in the middle of a VR symphony.

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Long a staple of science fiction movies, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is hoping to turn railguns into a practical reality onboard tomorrow's warships. As part of its efforts, the ONR is ready to demonstrate its electromagnetic railgun technology during field trials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division's new railgun Rep-Rate Test Site at Terminal Range.

"Railguns and other directed-energy weapons are the future of maritime superiority," Dr. Thomas Beutner, head of ONR's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department said at the Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo.

"The U.S. Navy must be the first to field this leap-ahead technology and maintain the advantage over our adversaries."

Railguns rely on electromagnets to launch a metallic projective-dispensing with chemical propellants. In the case of the Navy, the service has developed a new next-generation, low-drag, guided round called the High-Velocity Projectile (HVP) that it intends to use in conjunction with the railgun.

The HVP-which can also be fired from conventional cannons-would be able to hit targets at ranges of over 100 nautical miles at speeds exceeding Mach 6.

"That velocity allows projectiles to rely on kinetic energy for maximum effect, and reduces the amount of high explosives needed on ships," according to the ONR.

Theoretically, a railgun would allow the Navy to take full advantage of the capabilities of HVP because of the increased amount of launch energy the new weapon should be able to impart to the shell.

"With its increased velocity, precision guidance and extended range, the railgun realizes the full range of the HVP's scalable lethality," the ONR states.

According to the ONR, the railgun has already been tested at low muzzle energy while firing multiple shot salvoes-what the Navy calls repetition rate of fires or rep-rates. Now, the Navy hopes to incrementally increase the amount of energy flowing through the weapon while also increasing the salvo size and rate of fire.

"Railgun rep-rate testing will be at 20 megajoules by the end of the summer and at 32 megajoules by next year," an ONR release stated.

"To put this in perspective, one megajoule is the equivalent of a one-ton vehicle moving at 160 miles per hour."

While railguns show much promise for the future, there are major hurdles to overcome before such weapons are ready for prime time. One such challenge is that the Navy has to develop a barrel that can withstand repeated firings over a certain period of time. The Navy also has to develop power sources that can supply energy to electricity intensive weapons.

"The Navy currently is developing and testing railgun barrels capable of firing many rounds per minute with a tactically relevant barrel life--as well as the associated power and auxiliary systems needed to make that possible," reads an ONR release.

"In addition, the weapon's power system now is small enough to fit aboard current and future U.S. Navy ships. These products, when matured, will create much more capable warships."

Though railguns hold much promise, it is not clear how long it will take for the Navy to develop and field a practical weapon that can put to use onboard a future warship. If the service succeeds, it is possible that the railgun will open up new possibilities for new offensive and particularly defensive weapons. Railguns offer the potential for far deeper magazines than is possible with missile tubes.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

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The U.S. Navy's Next Super Weapon: Railguns?

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Long a staple of science fiction movies, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) is hoping to turn railguns into a practical reality onboard tomorrow's warships. As part of its efforts, the ONR is ready to demonstrate its electromagnetic railgun technology during field trials at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division's new railgun Rep-Rate Test Site at Terminal Range.

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The Future in technology can take over a lot. For instance self driving could be come existent. Drones and flying cars can become a major topic with technology. Drones can be used for so many things.

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In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate. These improvements are due mainly to advances in technology, beginning in the industrial age and continuing today in the information age.

There are many exciting new technologies that will continue to transform the world and improve human welfare. Here are eleven of them.

1. Self-Driving Cars

Self-driving cars exist today that are safer than human-driven cars in most driving conditions. Over the next 3-5 years they'll get even safer, and will begin to go mainstream.

The World Health Organization estimates that 1.25 million people die from car-related injuries per year. Half of the deaths are pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists hit by cars. Cars are the leading cause of death for people ages 15-29 years old.

Just as cars reshaped the world in the 20th century, so will self-driving cars in the 21st century. In most cities, between 20-30% of usable space is taken up by parking spaces, and most cars are parked about 95% of the time. Self-driving cars will be in almost continuous use (most likely hailed from a smartphone app), thereby dramatically reducing the need for parking. Cars will communicate with one another to avoid accidents and traffic jams, and riders will be able to spend commuting time on other activities like work, education, and socializing.

Tech Insider

2. Clean Energy

Attempts to fight climate change by reducing the demand for energy haven't worked. Fortunately, scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs have been working hard on the supply side to make clean energy convenient and cost-effective.

Due to steady technological and manufacturing advances, the price of solar cells has dropped 99.5% since 1977. Solar will soon be more cost efficient than fossil fuels. The cost of wind energy has also dropped to an all-time low, and in the last decade represented about a third of newly installed US energy capacity.

Forward thinking organizations are taking advantage of this. For example, in India there is an initiative to convert airports to self-sustaining clean energy.

Tesla is making high-performance, affordable electric cars, and installing electric charging stations worldwide.

There are hopeful signs that clean energy could soon be reaching a tipping point. For example, in Japan, there are now more electric charging stations than gas stations.

And Germany produces so much renewable energy, it sometimes produces even more than it can use.

3. Virtual and Augmented Reality

Computer processors only recently became fast enough to power comfortable and convincing virtual and augmented reality experiences. Companies like Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft are investing billions of dollars to make VR and AR more immersive, comfortable, and affordable.

People sometimes think VR and AR will be used only for gaming, but over time they will be used for all sorts of activities. For example, we'll use them to manipulate 3-D objects.

To meet with friends and colleagues from around the world. And even for medical applications, like treating phobias or helping rehabilitate paralysis victims.

VR and AR have been dreamed about by science fiction fans for decades. In the next few years, they'll finally become a mainstream reality.

4. Drones and Flying Cars

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need... roads." - Dr. Emmet Brown

GPS started out as a military technology but is now used to hail taxis, get mapping directions, and hunt Pokémon. Likewise, drones started out as a military technology, but are increasingly being used for a wide range of consumer and commercial applications.

For example, drones are being used to inspect critical infrastructure like bridges and power lines, to survey areas struck by natural disasters, and many other creative uses like fighting animal poaching.

Amazon and Google are building drones to deliver household items.

The startup Zipline uses drones to deliver medical supplies to remote villages that can't be accessed by roads.

There is also a new wave of startups working on flying cars (including two funded by the cofounder of Google, Larry Page).

Flying cars use the same advanced technology used in drones but are large enough to carry people. Due to advances in materials, batteries, and software, flying cars will be significantly more affordable and convenient than today's planes and helicopters.

5. Artificial Intelligence

It may be a hundred years before a computer beats humans at Go - maybe even longer. - New York Times, 1997

Artificial intelligence has made rapid advances in the last decade, due to new algorithms and massive increases in data collection and computing power.

AI can be applied to almost any field. For example, in photography an AI technique called artistic style transfer transforms photographs into the style of a given painter.

Google built an AI system that controls its datacenter power systems, saving hundreds of millions of dollars in energy costs.

The broad promise of AI is to liberate people from repetitive mental tasks the same way the industrial revolution liberated people from repetitive physical tasks.

Some people worry that AI will destroy jobs. History has shown that while new technology does indeed eliminate jobs, it also creates new and better jobs to replace them. For example, with advent of the personal computer, the number of typographer jobs dropped, but the increase in graphic designer jobs more than made up for it.

Master of Go Board Game Is Walloped by Google Computer Program" - New York Times, 2016

It is much easier to imagine jobs that will go away than new jobs that will be created. Today millions of people work as app developers, ride-sharing drivers, drone operators, and social media marketers- jobs that didn't exist and would have been difficult to even imagine ten years ago.

6. Pocket Supercomputers for Everyone

By 2020, 80% of adults on earth will have an internet-connected smartphone. An iPhone 6 has about 2 billion transistors, roughly 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Intel Pentium computer. Today's smartphones are what used to be considered supercomputers.

Internet-connected smartphones give ordinary people abilities that, just a short time ago, were only available to an elite few:

"Right now, a Masai warrior on a mobile phone in the middle of Kenya has better mobile communications than the president did 25 years ago. If he's on a smart phone using Google, he has access to more information than the U.S. president did just 15 years ago." - Peter Diamandis

7. Cryptocurrencies and Blockchains

Protocols are the plumbing of the internet. Most of the protocols we use today were developed decades ago by academia and government. Since then, protocol development mostly stopped as energy shifted to developing proprietary systems like social networks and messaging apps.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technologies are changing this by providing a new business model for internet protocols. This year alone, hundreds of millions of dollars were raised for a broad range of innovative blockchain-based protocols.

"If you asked people in 1989 what they needed to make their life better, it was unlikely that they would have said a decentralized network of information nodes that are linked using hypertext." - Farmer & Farmer

Protocols based on blockchains also have capabilities that previous protocols didn't. For example, Ethereum is a new blockchain-based protocol that can be used to create smart contracts and trusted databases that are immune to corruption and censorship.

8. High-Quality Online Education

While college tuition skyrockets, anyone with a smartphone can study almost any topic online, accessing educational content that is mostly free and increasingly high-quality. Encyclopedia Britannica used to cost $1,400. Now anyone with a smartphone can instantly access Wikipedia. You used to have to go to school or buy programming books to learn computer programming. Now you can learn from a community of over 40 million programmers at Stack Overflow. YouTube has millions of hours of free tutorials and lectures, many of which are produced by top professors and universities.

The quality of online education is getting better all the time. For the last 15 years, MIT has been recording lectures and compiling materials that cover over 2000 courses.

As perhaps the greatest research university in the world, MIT has always been ahead of the trends. Over the next decade, expect many other schools to follow MIT's lead.

9. Better Food through Science

Earth is running out of farmable land and fresh water. This is partly because our food production systems are incredibly inefficient. It takes an astounding 1799 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef.

Fortunately, a variety of new technologies are being developed to improve our food system. For example, entrepreneurs are developing new food products that are tasty and nutritious substitutes for traditional foods but far more environmentally friendly. The startup Impossible Foods invented meat products that look and taste like the real thing but are actually made of plants.

Their burger uses 95% less land, 74% less water, and produces 87% less greenhouse gas emissions than traditional burgers. Other startups are creating plant-based replacements for milk, eggs, and other common foods. Soylent is a healthy, inexpensive meal replacement that uses advanced engineered ingredients that are much friendlier to the environment than traditional ingredients.

Some of these products are developed using genetic modification, a powerful scientific technique that has been widely mischaracterized as dangerous. According to a study by the Pew Organization, 88% of scientists think genetically modified foods are safe.

Another exciting development in food production is automated indoor farming. Due to advances in solar energy, sensors, lighting, robotics, and artificial intelligence, indoor farms have become viable alternatives to traditional outdoor farms.

Compared to traditional farms, automated indoor farms use roughly 10 times less water and land. Crops are harvested many more times per year, there is no dependency on weather, and no need to use pesticides.

10. Computerized Medicine

Until recently, computers have only been at the periphery of medicine, used primarily for research and record keeping. Today, the combination of computer science and medicine is leading to a variety of breakthroughs.

For example, just fifteen years ago, it cost $3B to sequence a human genome. Today, the cost is about a thousand dollars and continues to drop. Genetic sequencing will soon be a routine part of medicine.

Genetic sequencing generates massive amounts of data that can be analyzed using powerful data analysis software. One application is analyzing blood samples for early detection of cancer. Further genetic analysis can help determine the best course of treatment.

Another application of computers to medicine is in prosthetic limbs.

Soon we'll have the technology to control prothetic limbs with just our thoughts using brain-to-machine interfaces. Computers are also becoming increasingly effective at diagnosing diseases. An artificial intelligence system recently diagnosed a rare disease that human doctors failed to diagnose by finding hidden patterns in 20 million cancer records.

11. A New Space Age

Since the beginning of the space age in the 1950s, the vast majority of space funding has come from governments. But that funding has been in decline: for example, NASA's budget dropped from about 4.5% of the federal budget in the 1960s to about 0.5% of the federal budget today.

The good news is that private space companies have started filling the void. These companies provide a wide range of products and services, including rocket launches, scientific research, communications and imaging satellites, and emerging speculative business models like asteroid mining.

The most famous private space company is Elon Musk's SpaceX, which successfully sent rockets into space that can return home to be reused.

Perhaps the most intriguing private space company is Planetary Resources, which is trying to pioneer a new industry: mining minerals from asteroids.

If successful, asteroid mining could lead to a new gold rush in outer space. Like previous gold rushes, this could lead to speculative excess, but also dramatically increased funding for new technologies and infrastructure.

These are just a few of the amazing technologies we'll see developed in the coming decades. 2016 is just the beginning of a new age of wonders. As futurist Kevin Kelly says:

"If we could climb into a time machine, journey 30 years into the future, and from that vantage look back to today, we'd realize that most of the greatest products running the lives of citizens in 2050 were not invented until after 2016. People in the future will look at their holodecks and wearable virtual reality contact lenses and downloadable avatars and AI interfaces and say, 'Oh, you didn't really have the internet' - or whatever they'll call it - 'back then.'

"So, the truth: Right now, today, in 2016 is the best time to start up. There has never been a better day in the whole history of the world to invent something. There has never been a better time with more opportunities, more openings, lower barriers, higher benefit/ risk ratios, better returns, greater upside than now. Right now, this minute. This is the moment that folks in the future will look back at and say, 'Oh, to have been alive and well back then!'

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11 reasons to be excited about the future of technology

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In the year 1820, a person could expect to live less than 35 years, 94% of the global population lived in extreme poverty, and less that 20% of the population was literate. Today, human life expectancy is over 70 years, less that 10% of the global population lives in extreme poverty, and over 80% of people are literate.

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The Future of Medicine (Kyla Diaz de Rivera)

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The Future of Medicine (Kyla Diaz de Rivera)

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Medicine in the future will improve our future health. Humanity can look forward to a healthier future.

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Modern medicine has brought huge health benefits. Now researchers want to go further.

From the nineteenth-century benches of microbiologists Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch to the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, the past 200 years have seen medicine advance at an extraordinary pace. People are now enjoying longer and healthier lives than their ancestors. But as any medical researcher will attest, ambitions go much further.

The stories in this Outlook, chosen in consultation with editors from the Nature Research journals, represent some of the biggest opportunities we have to improve our future health. Our selection is not exhaustive, nor can we be certain that all research we report will come to fruition. But if only a fraction does, humanity can look forward to a healthier future.

To avoid antibiotic resistance undoing a century's worth of progress, researchers are racing to restock the antibacterial armoury. Others are exploiting the data generated by ubiquitous computers and smartphones to better anticipate outbreaks of infectious disease.

With the potential for gain so great, the prevention of illness is playing an ever-larger part in medicine. Intervention to protect people from long-term disease could begin in the first moments after birth. And although a decline in health in later life might seem normal, there is ongoing debate about where healthy ageing ends and disease begins.

Work to exert greater control over rogue immune systems, as well as to develop technological solutions to paralysis, is showing initial promise. The advent of CRISPR-Cas genome editing has raised hopes for widespread use of gene therapy; meanwhile, this technology is also aiding the search for new drugs. As long as barriers to accessing the best treatments available can be negotiated away, the future of medicine could be very bright indeed.

We are pleased to acknowledge the financial support of Merck in producing this Outlook. As always, Nature has sole responsibility for all editorial content.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-02472-6
This article is part of Nature Outlook: The future of medicine, an editorially independent supplement produced with the financial support of third parties. About this content.

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Modern medicine has brought huge health benefits. Now researchers want to go further. From the nineteenth-century benches of microbiologists Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch to the sequencing of the human genome in 2003, the past 200 years have seen medicine advance at an extraordinary pace.

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Future of High Speed Trains (Dillon Floden)

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Future of High Speed Trains (Dillon Floden)

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IN the future of gaming you will be able to see through the eyes of a drone to a VR joystick you control with your feet.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-5265119/The-future-gaming-revealed-CES.html#ixzz5Cr5oLknS
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

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Gaming firms showed of amazing new platforms at CES in Las Vegas this week

Augmented reality and virtual reality systems were popular across the exhibits

A firm unveiled 3D Rudder, which lets you control VR movement with your feet

Others showed off systems to make you a better athlete, or see what drone sees

Incredible new gaming systems that aim to take players' experiences to the next level once again dominated CES, with everything from virtual and augmented reality platforms to battling home robots.

Square Off showed their popular AI chess board, which uses a hidden robotic arm and magnets to move the pieces by itself - giving it an appearance much like the enchanted chess board from Harry Potter.

And, Drone Interactive demonstrated an amazing new game that combines drones and VR, giving you a first person look at what your tiny craft is seeing as you fly it around and shoot virtual bugs.

Scroll down for video

These are just a handful of the innovative new gaming systems on display at CES this year.

Some weren't solely for entertainment; Sense Arena, for example, demonstrated a VR system that works with an HTC Vive and a connected backpack to help improve your hockey skills.

The team showed Dailymail.com how moving their smart hockey stick guides your actions in the game, to help teach the player how to respond in different situations.

And, the aim is to see the process help develop cognitive skills that can translate to physical ability on the ice.

Another firm showed off what they call the 3D Rudder - a footpad-style joystick that can control your movements in virtual reality.

The system can be used for all sorts of actions in a VR game, the firm told Dailymail.com, from walking and running to flying.

Drone Interactive's system is designed to be used in arcades or other larger entertainment areas.

It uses two small drones in a netted arena that can be operated using an Xbox controller.

With the VR headset on, you can see exactly what the drone is seeing - plus virtual bugs that you have to shoot down.

And, you don't have to worry about crashing.

The system uses a virtual ceiling and virtual walls to keep the drones from colliding into anything as you play.

It wasn't all virtual reality - augmented reality made a major appearance as well.

Mekamon showed off their incredible fighting 'spider' bots that you can control with your smartphone.

And, as the spiders brawl in the small arena, everything they're doing is mirrored on the screen with special effects for different types of attacks.

The $300 bots are the product of Bristol-based firm Reach Robotics. Each has detachable legs, shields, and weapons.

In an incredible spin on the classic game of chess, Square Off demonstrated their AI 'magic' chessboard.

Chess pieces could be seen moving by themselves across the board in the amazing demonstration.

According to the firm, with the app-based game, you can play against remote opponents and even stream professional games, to watch the action up close.

You can also play against it yourself - but, the firm warns, it's able to play up to the skills of a Grandmaster, so you could have your work cut out for you.

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Cheyenne Macdonald For Dailymail.com In Las Vegas

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The future of gaming revealed in incredible exhibits at CES

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Gaming firms showed of amazing new platforms at CES in Las Vegas this week Augmented reality and virtual reality systems were popular across the exhibits A firm unveiled 3D Rudder, which lets you control VR movement with your feet Others showed off systems to make you a better athlete, or see what drone sees Incredible new gaming systems that aim to take players' experiences to the next level once again dominated CES, with everything from virtual and augmented reality platforms to battling home robots.

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Future of Medicine and Prescriptions (Kaitlyn Scheibmeir)

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Future of Medicine and Prescriptions (Kaitlyn Scheibmeir)

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In the future, new drugs and medical procedures won't be tested on humans, but virtual physiological human model. This will ensure both that they work, and the ones that don't work, won't harm anyone. I think this improvement will save lives and improve medications.

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10 Promising Technologies Assisting the Future of Medicine - The Medical Futurist

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Social Media keeps changing as time goes on. Social media sites like facebook have decreased because their parents used it. More people are getting scared of privacy, and more people are just caring about themselves

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9 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

The 2016 election was a painful time for most Americans. It was so mentally strenuous that psychologists are still talking about post-election anxiety several months after Election Night. And where did we process all that anxiety and frustration?

Why, Facebook and Twitter, of course. Some have even gone so far as to blame the results and tone of the election entirely on social media and the way real and fake information was shared.

Who among us isn't still suffering aftershocks? Who doesn't have strained relationships with friends and family after one too many political opinion posts? Who hasn't been affected by use of the "delete" button? Social media, in its role as ground zero for viral political commentary, is invaluable, unavoidable, and exhausting.

But that's not the only social media shift happening.

Demographics of social media are changing. Teens have been leaving Facebook in droves for years, and many can't even be bothered to join because it's what their parents use. In 2016, Facebook marked a 21 percent drop in original, personal updates as users have begun communicating more and more in shared articles and memes alone.

Privacy concerns are getting more pronounced as people become more aware of data harvesting, adding to previous concerns of identity theft.

Many in the industry are predicting massive changes as we move into the dramatically shifted post-election social media landscape. I recently interviewed Jeanne Lewis, CEO of Capsure, a new private social network for preserving memories, and she says, "Social media has really gotten away from us. It's gotten to the point where we work for it, not the other way around. With social media as it's been, the users are the product, which has caused some real rifts and problems between loved ones. It's just not connecting us the way it was supposed to."

Lewis isn't the only one who feels that way, but she's something of an expert on the subject, and she had some excellent points on how social media will transform in 2017 and on.
Related: To Be Blunt, a Lot of Your Social-Media Marketing is Getting You Nowhere
1. A focus on relationships

One of the first social networks was Friendster, a name which implies its purpose: Forming and maintaining friendships. That was how MySpace and Facebook ostensibly began, as well. However, as they've progressed, they've become more about personal brand maintenance and attempts to form and join various short-lived zeitgeists.

"Social platforms today have evolved into a broadcast tool both for companies and individuals," says Lewis. "While this is valuable when you have a broad announcement to share and want to reach as many people as possible, these are no longer the vehicles for sharing photos of your kids, recording audio or staying connected with your inner circle of family and friends."

To fix this, social media will probably begin to draw the focus back into relationships by emphasizing personal posts, photographs and small, intimate connections over outside content like memes and articles.

2. Diversity of personal posts

Until now, posts have been limited to outside material, pictures, videos and text. Don't be surprised if, going forward, new players will introduce more diverse posting options, intermingling audio and visual components to create a unique experience for people viewing and creating posts. As digital technology progresses, people will be hungry for new and interesting ways to share experience.

Lewis emphasizes the importance audio will play in social media's future: "Just as many of us gathered around a cassette recorder in our early childhood, the unique power of audio can be experienced once again using our smartphones."

3. Users will pay for peace

Premium service will make a splash. This one sounds counterintuitive -- after all, who would pay for a social media experience when they've all been free up to this point. Two things will happen to change that previous wisdom. First, with a more personal, story-driven experience, customers will want high-quality images, videos and audio files stored for posterity. Second, having a place to escape constant advertisements will become very important, something a premium social media experience will offer.

"In order to ensure our digital memories are stored and preserved there should be a direct and clear relationship between compensation and the service provided," says Lewis. "Otherwise, what assurance do users have?"

4. Different types of groups

Google Plus tried something like this before to little success, but spurred by the frustration caused by people seeing the wrong posts, social grouping will make a comeback. In the last political cycle, many relationships were tested unnecessarily when people felt attacked by never-ending political rants. If you don't want Grandma to see your stances on gay marriage, put her in your non-political group. This will become very important for relationship maintenance.
Related: How to Use Social Media and Not Feel Overwhelmed
"Context is everything," says Lewis. "The person we are with our family is not necessarily the person we are with our college friends. Nevertheless, there's a desire to stay connected with all of these groups but in a separate forum."

5. Increased focus on privacy

Privacy concerns have plagued social media since its inception, and are only getting more pronounced. Expect future social media companies to offer more advanced network and profile privacy than ever before.

6. Less gamification

One of social media's key components is that it's highly addictive, even going so far as to be described as more addictive than cigarettes. New platforms will try to gear more toward long-term customer wellness as a feature by staving off more addictive qualities. They will focus more on the communal quality of social media rather than offer quick hits of serotonin from gratifying and frustrating outside content.

7. Legacy building

As has been said many times, the internet is written in ink. It cannot be erased, and in the future, people won't want it to be. Users will want their social media to existing as an ongoing time capsule, a living record of their lives. Smart platform builders will realize posting shouldn't be a burst about a single moment in time, to be consumed in a few seconds and forgotten about immediately, but as a multi-faceted, interactive diary involving many writers, all telling pieces of their own and others' stories.

"We've arrived at a place where we are as thoughtful about capturing a personal moment to preserve as we are about carefully curating our Instagram feed," says Lewis. "It's a question of the legacy you want to leave behind. If someone has 2 hours to flip through your life's journey, what do you want them to see?"

8. Open to experimentation
Related: 5 Social Media Rules Every Entrepreneur Should Know
The main social media giants are slow, lumbering machines, resistant to change, and unbearably clumsy when they do change.

Future models will have seen platforms of the past try different things to different levels of success and will be open to explore. They will try out wildly different ways of managing contacts, befriending people, organizing interface layouts, etc. Facebook has had basically the same layout since its beginning -- don't expect that to be the case with new platforms.

9. Mobile-native

A mammoth advantage new platforms will have is that they about after the smartphone became ubiquitous. Facebook and Twitter both came before they could really function on a mobile phone, but future platforms will be designed with phones in mind from the beginning.

No clumsy borrowing between web and phone platforms -- seamless integration. The future of the internet is mobile, so it stands to reason that mobile-native platforms will be built to last.

10. Build us up, don't tear us down

The self care and heartfulness movements are big right now for a reason. In a world as chaotic and terrifying as ours, with such a constant barrage of information and stimuli, personal well-being is a thing we must actively pursue and maintain.

Family and friend communities have been part of humanity since there was humanity, and they're there to build us up. Social media will begin to recognize that again.

11. Video, video, and more video

In late 2016, we saw a major development in social media video when Instagram release Instagram Stories and Instagram Live. Instagram's parent company Facebook also released Facebook Live and Messenger Day. The focus on the live format follows in the footsteps of Snapchat and Twitter's Periscope.

According to Jay Singh, CEO of PHL Venture Company, "We continue to see a shift toward live content that is composed through a camera. The camera keeps growing in importance and the ability to see through other people's lenses in real time is becoming a powerful force in social media."

Conclusion

The most recent political cycle has exposed a lot of what was rotten in social media, making us all so constantly aware of what is wrong with ourselves and others that we barely have space in our heads for anything other than frustration and anxiety.

If they're smart, new social media platforms will understand that create a new kind of social networking -- a kind that actually feels like a personal asset instead of a detriment.

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11 Ways Social Media Will Evolve in the Future

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9 min read Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. The 2016 election was a painful time for most Americans. It was so mentally strenuous that psychologists are still talking about post-election anxiety several months after Election Night. And where did we process all that anxiety and frustration?

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The future of prosthetics (Will Hartgrove)

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The future of prosthetics (Will Hartgrove)

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Prosthetics in the future can be changed into something new. Like instead of limbs it could be internal organs, more control with prosthetic limbs

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The future of bitcoin(Harrison Le Marquand

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The future of bitcoin(Harrison Le Marquand

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Bitcoin keeps increasing the price of their product. Bitcoin will go to 20,000$ by the middle of the year. There stocks have not been as stable as what they could of been. The stock goes up and down

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Bitcoin has stabilized since a big selloff in December. Where's the cryptocurrency heading?

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In the next 25 years half of all jobs will be taken over by robotscsk

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INNOVATION, the elixir of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution artisan weavers were swept aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life. Typists, ticket agents, bank tellers and many production-line jobs have been dispensed with, just as the weavers were.

For those, including this newspaper, who believe that technological progress has made the world a better place, such churn is a natural part of rising prosperity. Although innovation kills some jobs, it creates new and better ones, as a more productive society becomes richer and its wealthier inhabitants demand more goods and services. A hundred years ago one in three American workers was employed on a farm. Today less than 2% of them produce far more food. The millions freed from the land were not consigned to joblessness, but found better-paid work as the economy grew more sophisticated. Today the pool of secretaries has shrunk, but there are ever more computer programmers and web designers.
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Optimism remains the right starting-point, but for workers the dislocating effects of technology may make themselves evident faster than its benefits (see article). Even if new jobs and wonderful products emerge, in the short term income gaps will widen, causing huge social dislocation and perhaps even changing politics. Technology's impact will feel like a tornado, hitting the rich world first, but eventually sweeping through poorer countries too. No government is prepared for it.

Why be worried? It is partly just a matter of history repeating itself. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution the rewards of increasing productivity went disproportionately to capital; later on, labour reaped most of the benefits. The pattern today is similar. The prosperity unleashed by the digital revolution has gone overwhelmingly to the owners of capital and the highest-skilled workers. Over the past three decades, labour's share of output has shrunk globally from 64% to 59%. Meanwhile, the share of income going to the top 1% in America has risen from around 9% in the 1970s to 22% today. Unemployment is at alarming levels in much of the rich world, and not just for cyclical reasons. In 2000, 65% of working-age Americans were in work; since then the proportion has fallen, during good years as well as bad, to the current level of 59%.

Worse, it seems likely that this wave of technological disruption to the job market has only just started. From driverless cars to clever household gadgets (see article), innovations that already exist could destroy swathes of jobs that have hitherto been untouched. The public sector is one obvious target: it has proved singularly resistant to tech-driven reinvention. But the step change in what computers can do will have a powerful effect on middle-class jobs in the private sector too.

Until now the jobs most vulnerable to machines were those that involved routine, repetitive tasks. But thanks to the exponential rise in processing power and the ubiquity of digitised information ("big data"), computers are increasingly able to perform complicated tasks more cheaply and effectively than people. Clever industrial robots can quickly "learn" a set of human actions. Services may be even more vulnerable. Computers can already detect intruders in a closed-circuit camera picture more reliably than a human can. By comparing reams of financial or biometric data, they can often diagnose fraud or illness more accurately than any number of accountants or doctors. One recent study by academics at Oxford University suggests that 47% of today's jobs could be automated in the next two decades.

At the same time, the digital revolution is transforming the process of innovation itself, as our special report explains. Thanks to off-the-shelf code from the internet and platforms that host services (such as Amazon's cloud computing), provide distribution (Apple's app store) and offer marketing (Facebook), the number of digital startups has exploded. Just as computer-games designers invented a product that humanity never knew it needed but now cannot do without, so these firms will no doubt dream up new goods and services to employ millions. But for now they are singularly light on workers. When Instagram, a popular photo-sharing site, was sold to Facebook for about $1 billion in 2012, it had 30m customers and employed 13 people. Kodak, which filed for bankruptcy a few months earlier, employed 145,000 people in its heyday.

The problem is one of timing as much as anything. Google now employs 46,000 people. But it takes years for new industries to grow, whereas the disruption a startup causes to incumbents is felt sooner. Airbnb may turn homeowners with spare rooms into entrepreneurs, but it poses a direct threat to the lower end of the hotel business-a massive employer.

No time to be timid

If this analysis is halfway correct, the social effects will be huge. Many of the jobs most at risk are lower down the ladder (logistics, haulage), whereas the skills that are least vulnerable to automation (creativity, managerial expertise) tend to be higher up, so median wages are likely to remain stagnant for some time and income gaps are likely to widen.

Anger about rising inequality is bound to grow, but politicians will find it hard to address the problem. Shunning progress would be as futile now as the Luddites' protests against mechanised looms were in the 1810s, because any country that tried to stop would be left behind by competitors eager to embrace new technology. The freedom to raise taxes on the rich to punitive levels will be similarly constrained by the mobility of capital and highly skilled labour.

The main way in which governments can help their people through this dislocation is through education systems. One of the reasons for the improvement in workers' fortunes in the latter part of the Industrial Revolution was because schools were built to educate them-a dramatic change at the time. Now those schools themselves need to be changed, to foster the creativity that humans will need to set them apart from computers. There should be less rote-learning and more critical thinking. Technology itself will help, whether through MOOCs (massive open online courses) or even video games that simulate the skills needed for work.

The definition of "a state education" may also change. Far more money should be spent on pre-schooling, since the cognitive abilities and social skills that children learn in their first few years define much of their future potential. And adults will need continuous education. State education may well involve a year of study to be taken later in life, perhaps in stages.

Yet however well people are taught, their abilities will remain unequal, and in a world which is increasingly polarised economically, many will find their job prospects dimmed and wages squeezed. The best way of helping them is not, as many on the left seem to think, to push up minimum wages. Jacking up the floor too far would accelerate the shift from human workers to computers. Better to top up low wages with public money so that anyone who works has a reasonable income, through a bold expansion of the tax credits that countries such as America and Britain use.

Innovation has brought great benefits to humanity. Nobody in their right mind would want to return to the world of handloom weavers. But the benefits of technological progress are unevenly distributed, especially in the early stages of each new wave, and it is up to governments to spread them. In the 19th century it took the threat of revolution to bring about progressive reforms. Today's governments would do well to start making the changes needed before their people get angry.

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INNOVATION, the elixir of progress, has always cost people their jobs. In the Industrial Revolution artisan weavers were swept aside by the mechanical loom. Over the past 30 years the digital revolution has displaced many of the mid-skill jobs that underpinned 20th-century middle-class life.

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Robots in the future will be more effective than humans at some tasks than others. One robot can already make a hamburger in 10 seconds. This means that in the future, robots will take our jobs.

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The robots haven't just landed in the workplace-they're expanding skills, moving up the corporate ladder, showing awesome productivity and retention rates, and increasingly shoving aside their human counterparts. One multi-tasker bot, from Momentum Machines, can make (and flip) a gourmet hamburger in 10 seconds and could soon replace an entire McDonalds crew. A manufacturing device from Universal Robots doesn't just solder, paint, screw, glue, and grasp-it builds new parts for itself on the fly when they wear out or bust. And just this week, Google won a patent to start building worker robots with personalities.

As intelligent machines begin their march on labor and become more sophisticated and specialized than first-generation cousins like Roomba or Siri, they have an outspoken champion in their corner: author and entrepreneur Martin Ford. In his new book, Rise of the Robots, he argues that AI and robotics will soon overhaul our economy.

There's some logic to the thesis, of course, and other economists such as Andrew ( The Second Machine Age) McAfee have sided generally with Ford's outlook. Oxford University researchers have estimated that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next two decades. And if even half that number is closer to the mark, workers are in for a rude awakening.

In Ford's vision, a full-on worker revolt is on the horizon, followed by a radically new economic state whereby humans will live more productive and entrepreneurial lives, subsisting on guaranteed incomes generated by our amazing machines. (Don't laugh - even some conservative influencers believe this may be the ultimate means of solving the wealth-inequality dilemma.)

Sound a little nuts? We thought so-we're human, after all-so we invited Ford to defend his turf.
Critics say your vision of a jobless future isn't founded in good research or logic. What makes you so convinced this phenomenon is real?
I see the advances happening in technology and it's becoming evident that computers, machines, robots, and algorithms are going to be able to do most of the routine, repetitive types of jobs. That's the essence of what machine learning is all about. What types of jobs are on some level fundamentally predictable? A lot of different skill levels fall into that category. It's not just about lower-skilled jobs either. People with college degrees, even professional degrees, people like lawyers are doing things that ultimately are predictable. A lot of those jobs are going to be susceptible over time.

Right now there's still a lot of debate over it. There are economists who think it's totally wrong, that problems really stem from things like globalization or the fact that we've wiped out unions or haven't raised the minimum wage. Those are all important, but I tend to believe that technology is a bigger issue, especially as we look to the future.

Eventually I think we'll get to the point where there's less debate about whether this is really happening or not. There will be more widespread agreement that it really is a problem and at that point we'll have to figure out what to do about it.
Aren't you relying on some pretty radical and unlikely assumptions?
People who are very skeptical tend to look at the historical record. It's true that the economy has always adapted over time. It has created new kinds of jobs. The classic example of that is agriculture. In the 1800s, 80 percent of the U.S. labor force worked on farms. Today it's 2 percent. Obviously mechanization didn't destroy the economy; it made it better off. Food is now really cheap compared to what it was relative to income, and as a result people have money to spend on other things and they've transitioned to jobs in other areas. Skeptics say that will happen again.

The agricultural revolution was about specialized technology that couldn't be implemented in other industries. You couldn't take the farm machinery and have it go flip hamburgers. Information technology is totally different. It's a broad-based general purpose technology. There isn't a new place for all these workers to move.

You can imagine lots of new industries-nanotechnology and synthetic biology-but they won't employ many people. They'll use lots of technology, rely on big computing centers, and be heavily automated.
So in the all-automated economy, what will ambitious 20-somethings choose to do with their lives and careers?
My proposed solution is to have some kind of a guaranteed income that incentivizes education. We don't want people to get halfway through high school and say, 'Well if I drop out I'm still going to get the same income as everyone else.'

Then I believe that a guaranteed income would actually result in more entrepreneurship. A lot of people would start businesses just as they do today. The problem with these types of businesses you can start online today is it's hard to put enough together to generate a middle-class income.

If people had an income floor, and if the incentives were such that on top of that they could do other things and still keep that extra money, without having it all taxed away, then I think a lot of people would pursue those opportunities.

There's a phenomenon called the Peltzman Effect, based on research from an economist at the University of Chicago who studied auto accidents. He found that when you introduce more safety features like seat belts into cars, the number of fatalities and injuries doesn't drop. The reason is that people compensate for it. When you have a safety net in place, people will take more risks. That probably is true of the economic arena as well.

People say that having a guaranteed income will turn everyone into a slacker and destroy the economy. I think the opposite might be true, that it might push us toward more entrepreneurship and more risk-taking.

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Rise of the Machines: The Future has Lots of Robots, Few Jobs for Humans

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The robots haven't just landed in the workplace-they're expanding skills, moving up the corporate ladder, showing awesome productivity and retention rates, and increasingly shoving aside their human counterparts. One multi-tasker bot, from Momentum Machines, can make (and flip) a gourmet hamburger in 10 seconds and could soon replace an entire McDonalds crew.

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In the next few years all cars will have hot spots and wifi built in. Then cars will slowly become automated. I think this will be good for cars. I think the convience of hot spots will make

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"It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future."

Sure, it's a wry remark about the accuracy of superfluous prognostication but that doesn't stop human beings from seeking to peer past the horizon. From trying to plot a course through years of academia to sorting out what's for dinner, we're always looking expectantly to the future.

One way to qualify the passage of time is through technology eras, each hallmarked by the progression of transportation - from steam engine to internal combustion, jet propulsion, and so on. This is why flying cars and robot-piloted taxis remain a staple in science fiction narratives. But putting the Jetsons aside for a moment, what's actually in store for the automotive world in the next few years?

It's difficult to make predictions, but what the heck: Prognosticate with me for a bit, will you?

1 year out: 2017

Head's up: the cars of the not-so-distant future are being made today. Automakers have been hard at work testing tech that will appear in the car of tomorrow for some time, and we're seeing the results already. Ten years ago, cars with built-in Bluetooth, navigation, and parking sensors were the domain of top luxury vehicles. Now even the most affordable econo-box has these things, as options at the very least.

Next year, we can expect even more everyday technology features to come as standard equipment, notably online access. General Motors has been blazing a trail with its OnStar connectivity for decades, offering in-car connectivity for all sorts of services. This can now turn cars like the Chevrolet Camaro into a roving 4G LTE hotspot. Similarly, FCA and its vehicles access the interwebs through Uconnect for all their connectivity needs.

Connectivity is a major factor in making cars - our means of mobility - true mobile devices. Folks without factory installed systems can get on-board with third party services like Verizon's Hum or Vinli's OBDII port accessory. Throw in Apple Carplay and Android Auto which will be barreling towards ubiquity by 2017, and the world of connected apps you've come to rely on from your smartphone for will be available every time you get behind the wheel.

2 years out: 2018

Further along the foggy path of time, it's clear that autonomous driving will be a part of our automotive existence. We have seen grand demonstrations from Audi of RS7 sedans lapping Formula 1 courses and driving 500 miles, but these still seem like projects for the far future. What about sooner? As is turns out, many autonomous functions have crept into our lives under the label of driver-assist features: things like lane keep assist, adaptive cruise control, and self-braking systems.

If we've got cars that can stop, steer, and accelerate independently already, why can't we simply network these functions to work together? This thinking hasn't escaped many automakers who are working on ways to do just that. Take Tesla's autopilot system, which uses all these to operate semi-independently. Drivers still need to remain responsible behind the wheel, but it makes highway commutes easier, keeping within the chosen lane and monitoring the cars around with an array of sensors along the exterior.

Bosch has also demonstrated its ability to have all these systems communicate with its traffic jam assist technology. This system, with the help of a stereo video camera (to perceive depth the same way our two eyes allow), traffic jam assists makes the gridlock under 35 miles per hour slightly more bearable. Autonomous cars, where we push the power button, enter a destination, and then open the newspaper, will still be a challenge by 2018. But driver-assist technologies will make our cars feel like they drive themselves.

5 years out: 2021

In the year 2021, the Tokyo summer Olympics will be behind us, Sealabs will be run of the mill, and Johnny Mnemonic-style couriers who commune with cyber-dolphins will be daily business. Well, at least one of those things will be true, anyway.

Your car would sense the disabled one instantly, applying the brakes before you could even see the problem.

By 2021, the first production self-driving vehicle should be for sale. In 2014, Elon Musk said fully autonomous cars should be on the road in five to six years. And the folks at Ford, Google, and other companies have made similar projections. The challenge, of course, will be communicating to the other autonomous and human-piloted cars on the road.

Driver-assist features will have dramatically improved along with the connectivity, with plans for vehicle-to-vehicle communication, like that demonstrated by Ford. The ubiquity of networking will allow cars to sense each other, giving drivers an extended perception of what's nearby. Say the car ahead of you suddenly swerves right to avoid another vehicle that stopped short. The swerving driver had an extra split-second to perceive the imminent danger and narrowly avoid the collision - you aren't so lucky.

With a connected car network, your car would sense the disabled one instantly, applying the brakes before you could even see the problem. Ford takes the car's awareness of its surroundings even further, experimenting with LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) systems allowing the car to "see" the world around it in real time. It's sort of like how SONAR (SOund Navigation And Ranging) maps things with sound waves, only with light.

10 years out: 2026

What lies beyond? Short of the massive class schism predicted by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, cars should certainly still be around by 2026, but they will have certainly changed enormously. Automakers like Audi and Mercedes-Benz believe that in 10 years, fully autonomous driving will be sophisticated enough for regular use. Perhaps we'll even have the legalities and moral quandaries of self-driving cars sorted out by then.

If so, cars will have to be accommodating for the hands-off moments. Volvo, heavily exploring self-driving car technology, is preparing for this eventuality with ideas like its Concept 26 design study. This demonstrates how a car's cabin will be configured to change depending on the driving mode - kick back and relax, watch a film, or connect to the Internet and work in a mobile office.

This idea still seems fanciful today, despite the great leaps we've seen in recent years. Bosch's vision of autonomous driving is more realistically rooted, believing that full autonomy will be relegated to highways, with drivers needing full control only around local streets.

Perhaps we will incorporate these ideas into one: Cars with the ability to drive and compute independently, but communicating through the cloud. These vehicles will "sense" which cars are on the highway - even the ones that aren't in autopilot mode. Let's face it: Many people will still be cruising along in old-school classics like our 2008 Mustangs. Cars of the self-driving era will keep an eye on those old clunkers thanks to myriad LiDAR sensors and small camera arrays.

And with such a set up, a fully autonomous highway system built to work with our current infrastructure doesn't seem that far fetched. The future may be impossible to predict, but we're the ones making it; it's up to us to decide what we want to happen.

Except flying cars. We're never getting those.

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The next 10 years in car tech will make the last 30 look like just a warm-up

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"It's difficult to make predictions, especially about the future." Sure, it's a wry remark about the accuracy of superfluous prognostication but that doesn't stop human beings from seeking to peer past the horizon. From trying to plot a course through years of academia to sorting out what's for dinner, we're always looking expectantly to the future.