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Have you ever been way off on your technical predictions?

dougw
  • Were you one of the many who thought the computer mouse would never catch on because it was slower and less precise than a keyboard?
  • Did you really expect a 2 TB microSD card to be available this year for $4 ?
  • Did you expect digital cameras to completely make film and videotape obsolete?
  • Did you expect an 85 inch UHD TV to be available weighing just 41 kg?
  • Did you ever expect to see PCBs fabricated in low volume for less than $1?
  • Did you ever expect a 3D printer to be available and cost less than $150?
  • Did you ever expect to see a smart phone with a 100 mpixel camera?
  • Did you find GPS to be a mind-altering revolution in navigation?
  • Did you predict that Apple's iphone would unseat all the big phone companies and make Apple the largest company in the world?

Some of these things simply blow my mind.

What technology blows your mind or surprises you?

  1. When do you expect to see dwellings built with automated enclosed landing ports that have security beacons for drone deliveries?
  2. When do you expect driverless aerial Uber drones to be legalized?
  3. When do you expect most people to have an AI as their family physician?
  4. When do you expect the majority of people to spend more time in the metaverse than they do in the real world?
  5. When will you have a digital ID that allows you to vote with your phone? (some places already have this)

Would you bet money that your predictions of any of these 5 dates are accurate?

Parents

  • Bubble memory is the storage of the future. (1980s)

  • in reply to gordonmx

    Bubble memory was a really interesting technology, and had it come out just a few years earlier would have probably gotten a lot more investment as it was superior to both core and disk at the time.

    Also reminds me of the Wankel engine; I had an Rx-7 in the early 80s and that seemed like a real game-changer (though I never predicted it would be incredibly successful, I did think it would make a bigger impact given the lower parts count/reliability compared to piston). Again, had it been on the market about 10 years earlier (than it was, I hardly had the first), it may have been more widely adopted.

  • in reply to bradfordmiller

    It was a nice idea, but they never really finished it. There were leaks around the sides and over the tops of the vanes resulting in high oil consumption and expensive servicing and repair bills. Ten to twenty years later they might have been able to use ceramics, and manufacturing processes would have been far more accurate. I had an NSU Prima 3KL when I was a poor broke student, soon to become even poorer and broker when the clutch and gearbox failed due to excessive tinkering.

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  • in reply to bradfordmiller

    It was a nice idea, but they never really finished it. There were leaks around the sides and over the tops of the vanes resulting in high oil consumption and expensive servicing and repair bills. Ten to twenty years later they might have been able to use ceramics, and manufacturing processes would have been far more accurate. I had an NSU Prima 3KL when I was a poor broke student, soon to become even poorer and broker when the clutch and gearbox failed due to excessive tinkering.

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