The Giga Beast and 30yrs to the Future

[Rhyth]

With the acception of a few insightful geniuses and time travelers, who would have thought we’d be where we are now with today’s pc’s 30 years ago. So I wonder when the first "Giga Beast" will arise from the steaming pits of ATI’s clandestine Canadian creation labs?… or for that matter nVidia’s fairy shed, either way for all we know our VR suites with newly acquired groinel attachment (because the last five wore-out in the first week) could be fuelled by one of these…or maybe not.

I can't imagine the level of would be current technology used in 30 years time and what changes it would impart on every day life. Will my child be adorning a real hazardous environment suit in order to go to work.. and fight aliens? Will earth be sundered into another pre-life on earth state by a meteorite only to replay the evolution of man and his pc?

[Speed]

You've got too much time to think , get back to what you are supposed to be doing! .

You raise a good point though; we've come so far in the past 30 years it’s hard to think what things will be like 30 years down the line. I'd imagine we will have more computers with of course more power integrated in to more aspects of our lives.

Myself I think we are going to see computer enabled and maybe controlled houses, public transport, aircraft, schools and god knows what else.

I think computers are their parts can only get more powerful and larger/smaller in the future.

God bless technology and more ways to be lazy

Speed

[Da Hoe]

But what worries me more than anything is that the more labour saving devices the 'eggheads' come up with, the less time I seem to have to relax

[utdmleach]

The new metro's in Paris are controlled by Computers...good for when you aint gotta ticket and have to explain it to someone.

[Destroyer^]

thing tht worries bout me is if we let computers take over from humans on most things like school s bussies and they might try tot ake over the world and turn out like skynet which would be bad so im against computers running most things

[iranu]

Aircraft are already controlled by computers. Auto-pilot and fly by wire are used.

These systems allow planes to take-off and land by themselves. It is only our natural reluctance to leave it all to the machine that stops pilots doing this, especially as these are the most dangerous maneuvers. Pilots these days are no more than monitors for when the system goes belly up. Ground control also rely heavily on processed information so as to be able to make the correct decisions.

You will find that the majority of systems that require some form of control, i.e. everything from power stations and electricity distribution, to rail transport and cars will have a microchip controlling aspects of the system. Remember all those embedded chips that were going to cause such problems due to the millenium bug?

Some modern houses that have been built for the rich or research purposes do just that. Window blinds, heating, lighting, hi-fi, intercoms, security etc are all controlled by a server depending on conditions that are preset by the user. I think this will become the norm as we look for greater energy efficiency and comfort.

Speed2003 - If you mean, when will humans be taken out of the loop, then that is a different question. Can you really trust the machine? Will there always be a need for a human overseer? Would you want Microsoft Windows 2025 controlling your hovercar?

[Speed]

I really much doubt that anything like skynet would ever happy, our own reluctance to let computers take over the actual decisions will hopefully stop that. Nearly all of the technology developed is merely a way to calculate faster and with more accuracy. Take auto pilot for example, yes it can allow a plane to take of and land by itself but all its doing is calculating the various actions needed to get from point A to point B along a human inputted flight plan.

[iranu]

It's funny you mension skynet from the Terminator films. Skynet is already with us. I know because I worked on Skynet 4D, E and F in 1996/7. Skynet is the name for Britain's military communications satellites and were produced by Matra Marconi Space (now Astrium)

http://www.space-technology.com/projects/skynet/

Sleep Well

[Rhyth]

Just remembered this post from ages ago And here we are with the Half-Gig beasts fueling our graphical fancies and virtual endevours... oh the times they are a changing

[AndyO]

hehe,

Well I'm looking forward to getting out of bed, donning my VR glasses and flying (hey its virtual so might as well make some form of fun commute) to my virtual office to spend a virtual day at work with other people who are only there in the pixellated uber-net sense.

Actually, scratch that first bit, I clearly don't need to get out of bed!

And then of course there'll be kudos for the first Chinese 'gold farmer' who invents a virtual person who can REALLY go to work and 'farm' cash from my virtual office

I can see the conversations now - "hey, why isn't the photocopier bloke talking to me?" He's just walking into the door frame repeatedly?"

Just my two cents