Eleven Gems on the Net #4 – White Mirror

Hi dreamers,

Welcome back to another episode of Eleven Gems on the Net (EGN, for friends), where i share few inspiring links I’ve found on the web.

This episode is a special edition of EGN!

They say 2016 has been a sheetty year: Brexit, ISIS, Syrian refugees crysis, the death of so many famous&cool persons (David Bowie, Prince, Gene Wilder, Muhammed Ali,…), the election of Silvio Berlusconi as US President…

but I’m a Futuristic by heart (backed by Gallup Strengthsfinder) and I’m still utterly optimistic about our future! I’ve also seen so many promising endeavours all around me that I still think the bright side will win. This edition of EGN is all about our future and how bright it could be. I’m going to dig into eleven technologic fields that are arising and that may be dominating our lives tomorrow, hopefully in joyful ways.

I named this special episode White Mirror as a joke, in contrast with the amazing series Black Mirror. While the series focuses on the dystopian aspects of current/future technologies, I’ll show here why I’m so inspired by them!

“Hey RIP, why the hell are you annoying us with this stuff? I’m here to find awesome-money stuff, ultra-saving tips, cool-investing hints, earning-more tricks, wealth-building prompts…”

Welcome to EGN my dear imaginary friend! First time here, isn’t it? Well, this series is about inspiration. What’s more inspiring than our future? Btw, I see a lot of connections between what’s presented here and personal finance, macro-economy, lifestyle and meaning of time, money, work and life.

• Want tips to earn more? Invest time and resources into these fields!
• Scared about the limits of economic growth? As uncle Buzz says “Get your ass to Mars“, colonise it, colonise the rest of the solar system and the rest of the galaxy! Still scared for your index fund potential growth?
• Scared of Artificial Intelligence? It may make you FI tomorrow even with a NW of zero!

My guess is that technology will change future society waaaaay more than politics do. So yes, this post has to do with your money, your plans, your (and our) future.

enjoy!

1) Artificial Intelligence / Machine learning

Trying to keep the list sorted by potential impact on our lives, first on the list is ML or AI or Deep Learning or whatever else you want to call it. AI will seriously revolutionise everything within this century. The most inspiring resource about AI and its future is WaitButWhy post series, dated 2 years ago. Check it out: Part 1, Part 2. Let’s admit that 2016 has been quite a silent year for AI, just not as inspiring as the amazing 2015, where AlphaGo defeated Lee Sedol.

Ok, want to be impressed with a video? Watching Westworld isn’t enough? Take a look at this TED

2) Space Exploration

Second place for space exploration! I think I’ve already told you I’m a big fan of astronomy, astrophysics, big history and space exploration. And Elon Musk. What? A million times? Ok, got it.

I strongly believe that visiting space is what makes me angry the most of having to die somewhere in this century. We’ve not yet really started doing cool things, what could happen is unimaginable. The sky is the limit… wait, it isn’t anymore!

I don’t want to repost the Musk’s video about Mars colonisation plan, go there NOW if you missed it. Here let’s get inspired by what human species did in last 70 years, and by projection what we could achieve in next 70!

3) Genetics

Genetics completes the top 3, given its potential impact. We all know the genome project and the very recent CRISPR / CAS system don’t we? We’re going to be able to edit our DNA. It’s something that scares me a little bit, I’m more on the black mirror side of this (strangely there’s not been a genetic exploiting episode in Black Mirror yet) since I’m not in the field, but it’s hard to admit that it won’t have impact in our lives. Genetic diseases could be completely eradicated and that’s a good thing.

If you want to watch more, take a look at this video by Bozeman Science or the two amazing videos by Kurzgesagt (first, second) or this nice TED talk. But ok, let’s get inspired here 🙂

4) Energy

Future is… energy of course! We all nerd know about the Dyson sphere, right? A level 1, 2 and 3 civilization, right? No? Ok, let’s put it simple: despite what the newly elected most powerful man in the world thinks, fossil fuel energy won’t last and we shouldn’t rely on it. The environment doesn’t like it too, ’cause “burning shits pollutes me“. Energy revolution is here and things are going to change drastically this century.

Again, one of the main drivers of this revolution is Elon Musk. What a man! Take a look at Powerwall, Gigafactory and Solarcity.

But the latest inspiring video I’ve seen about energy is SolarRoof presentation!

Don’t believe it’s real? Don’t believe it’s doable? Want to keep up with oil wars and exporting democracy? What about… electric cars? They are already here and growing a lot! Take a look at Tesla Model 3 presentation! I don’t like cars, but if I will ever have to own one, I’d go electric.

But I’d rather go for…

5) Autonomous Vehicles

If you asked me to sort this list a couple of years ago I’ve put Autonomous Vehicles on top for sure. I’ve been amazed by Google Driverless Car since day one. Just imagine what this could mean for our lives. No more parking lots, no more accidents, no need for traffic lights and, actually no more traffic at all!

And it’s not only driverless cars. Someone is building driverless jets, driverless trucks (which will kill the job in the US that employs the highest number of people) and even self driving bicycles (ok, joking)!

But let’s get inspired by a TED talk:

6) Fast ground transportation

Hyperloop! Elon, again. Yes, sorry guys. When I think about the future, Elon always pops up. We need more Elons.

Hyperloop is a revolutionary idea of mass fast ground transportation in vacuum tunnels. You’ll reach easily 1000-1200 km/h, same as today’s airplanes. If you didn’t hear about it, here’s a project for Dubai – Abu Dhabi. Check it out.

7) Augmented reality

What is AR? Thanks to Wikipedia:

Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.

I was skeptical about AR since a couple of months ago. I mean, skeptical of AR being impactful for a significant portion of the population. The Google Glass failed. We all were betting on it, weren’t we? It’s a failure for the whole AR world? Well, take a look at Magic Leap and their whale demo. Take a look at Microsoft Hololens. But let’s get inspired by Hiddencreative!

Even though I’m not buying it completely, I think it’s pretty obvious that this is going to dominate our lives in the very near future. It’s not a coincidence that at least 4 Black Mirror episodes revolves around AR (Nosedive, Men against fire, Playtest, The entire history of you). Be ready!

8) Virtual Reality.

Even though I’m so old that I had an account on secondlife (holy sheet how much it sucked!) and I devoured Ready Player One twice, I still believe VR will just be an entertainment thing only (and I don’t mean “just porn”), but on a very large scale. Things like 360 videos, VR devices (headsets/visors, suits, omni directional treadmills), VR games are coming to the mass. I already shared the facebook demo that opened my eyes. Let’s get inspired here by a TED talk about the future of VR!

More TEDs here, here and a very cool one here. VR is a very hot topic on TED talks!

9) Robotics.

I’d never though I’d put “robotics” so low in a future technology ranking! I went all in on robotics 15 years ago and even though I quit the field I kept being an enthusiast supporter. Three years ago robotics promised yet-another-time to be ready to go. 2013-2014 Google acquired a dozen robotics companies and we all thought the robotic revolution was (finally) going to happen! It didn’t happen (yet).

10) Voice.

By voice I mean several things: voice recognition, voice HCI, natural language understanding. Ok, it’s AI, I know. I should have mentioned in the AI chapter. But let’s focus on the HCI (Human Computer interaction) here. Things are going to be voice operated. Amazon launched Echo, Google launched Home (and the Smart Assistant) which one is the coolest? The future will be voice operated. You won’t use your hands to “type” a command. Mouse and Keyboard are dying, touchscreens will die too (well, not sure…). Voice is the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxxRAHVtafI

11) Drones.

I’m not a big fan of drones. They are boring. They are for voyeurism. What can you do with drones? Ok, I’ll take a look at your video… whaaaat???

I hope you dreamed a little bit 🙂

 

NOTE: I’m going to Mexico for 2 weeks to build a wall and pay for it on vacation. Don’t expect updates for a while 🙂