Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Week 2 - Reading by Koerth-Baker (4)

Innovations that will change your tomorrow

It is often very difficulty to think back to things when they were first invented and realize just how long they took to succeed. These days everyone wants everything done so quickly that it is hard to imagine that inventions back in the 19th and early 20th centuries actually took more than one persons lifetime to make possible.

I have only been alive for 23 years, but the inventions, or rather advancements that have occurred in this time have been enormous. We have gone from no computers, to slow computers that do little, to supercomputers that can basically do everything for us. Cars these days are developing in luxury, speed and every other factor in just one year. Advancements back in those times came along very slowly, just like the light bulb. Where as the light bulb is at a point where it can't really be improved and is now inefficient. Now we need to create new paths like they did back in the 19th century, which is going to take our geniuses a long time to figure out like it did Edison and all those before him.

I don't think in any way that people are smarter these days, I just think people in the day had to figure things out that have never been done before. Those people created new paths which people today continue on and improve. Now as we have developed the old ideas to that maximum potential, we look to other things which are more efficient and better for the environment.

Those people back in the 19th and 20th centuries also had different responsibilities to what we have today. They were looking to innovate and create things no one had ever thought of. Now we are looking to improve those things or create new things that are better for society and the environment. Things created back in the day were potentially harmful to people and the environment (to nobodies knowledge). The advancements in recent years in the medical field has discovered many of the potential harms that we face from these things. Now we look to improve the quality of the world which we have degraded over time and make it a safer place in every aspect.

The inventions that I like the most or that I think will be the most widely used

The morning multi-tasker
How much simpler would this make every bodies life. Rather than keeping everything stored in books, which take up physical space, it is stored digitally and can be viewed and worked out in front of you for your benefit. This is something that I know will be in every bodies house in a few years. Whilst it will start out expensive it will soon become affordable for everybody.

Nice little cabin in the sky
Who wants jet lag? you want to get to a new place and experience it rather than spending the first 2 days in bed. Seriously we have the technology to create better flying environments, so why don't we upgrade already and improve productivity. If you measured the loss of every bodies productivity from jet lag I'm sure it would outweigh the cost of upgrading some planes.

Terrifying Playgrounds
I think a major problem in society today is that people are too soft, and don't let their kids do enough stuff or experience enough things to toughen them up. Kids are suppose to get hurt, that's how they learn and experience and know what not to do in the future. By hiding kids from these things you make them weaker all through life. If you increase the difficulty of activities you make problems for kids that they need to think about before they do it which provides them with better skills in working out situations and better coordination.

The liar's workout
Everything restricting us is in the mind. We only perform that well because that's what our brain is telling us is our limit. Your brain cant differentiate between a slight difference in time unless it is right in front of you. I think this is a brilliant way of improving peoples performances and I'm sure will be widely used among athletes.

Sleep Mining
This could be such a good early preventative way to find diseases in people. I really hope this is widely used, maybe targeting people who are more likely to have genetic issues or something

The constant gardener
People love their front yards and grass as it is like a statement to the whole street. Therefore if people could have an easy way of knowing how to improve their grass with technology such as this, it would sell very easily. A whole street could be full of lovely front yards making it seem much nicer than it may be.

I truly cannot wait for a lot of these inventions to hit the shelves. I'm sure once they do, life will be much simpler and the quality of life could be improved for many people.

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