Cincin, OH Was Science Fiction/ Is now Science Fact

I thought this might be an interesting topic to start. Science Fiction very often times inspires us to invent new things and drives us to move technology forward.

It's pretty common knowlege that the modern "flip phone" style cel phones was inspired by Star Trek communicators for instance.



I was watching Ripley's on TV the other day and they were showing a man that had been blind for several years due to an accident. They drilled a large hole into his skull and inserted a plug thing and some wires. The man wears special sunglasses with a camcorder type camera on one of the lenses this is connected to a wearable computer and the computer is then, as they described it on the show, "jacked in" to the plug in his skull. The end of the cable that goes from the computer to the plug actually looked alot like "The Matrix" The doctor who invented this technology says that eventually he will be able to give sight to the blind using a "visor like Star Trek" The guy can actually "see!" they showed what it kindof looks like...it's all black and white and is a series of dots like a mosaic and what is dark is light and what is light is dark like a photo negative. Very cool stuff! Amazing! Science fiction seen in both the Matrix and Star Trek is now science fact!


sorry to use 2 references to Star Trek....

 

You dare to speaketh Star Trek, for shame,lol. But you are so right.

 

It's amazing how much of science fiction inspires others to create them as science fact. Over the years, people have refered to ideas/products as "something out of Flash Gordon" or more recently "out of Star Wars". So it's kind of ironic that people don't take sci-fi's influence on society more seriously?

And sometimes sci-fi can be used as a warning of the potential consequences of real life advances in technology. Nuclear War, Global disasters, human cloning (what was the movie called again? ) all serve as lessons about the dangers of something that has not happened yet.

 

I wasn't even thinking along the lines of Sci-Fi being a warning, but that is sooooo true as well. When that blue hologram (oh there's another one....) first said "You served my father during the Clone Wars" in 1977 That was way before the human clone controversy ever started and clones had been in movies even before then. People even in the 70's and 80's (and 90's up until the Dolly thing) didn't think cloning was ever going to happen; but look how far Science Fact has come.

 

You guys mention the clones, but for our "real world" purposes... the Separatists' army is more practical for us in the future. I saw something that I think was on the Discovery Channel, where they were showing some robotic plane that can shoot down enemy planes and bomb places. I'm pretty sure they said the US hopes to integrate a bunch of them into our armed forces by 2010. So we could very well end up with a droid army in the not too distant future. Although they did also say that while the robots would be effective so as not to lose lives, that the decision-making abilities and skills of a pilot could not be reproduced, so they would still like a substantial amount of the armed forces to remain human.

 

I think we used a few remote operated planes during the war with Iraq for recon missions and maybe a few bombings.

That reminds me of a kinda strange movie. Toys it had Robin Williams in it. It was about a toy factory that gets turned into a factory for making remote controlled planes and tanks and stuff that are real and they bring in kids to "play video games" but they are really operating the remote control army vehicles.

 

Reminds me of two different trilogies in which these robotic armies decide the planet is better off without us.

 

From kurzweilai.net (my favorite source for AI related news):

Leading the Pentagon's remote-control warfare effort is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Best known for creating the infrastructure that became the World Wide Web, DARPA is working with Boeing to develop the X-45 unmanned combat air vehicle. The 30-foot-long windowless planes will carry up to 12 bombs, each weighing 250 pounds. According to military analysts, the X-45 will be used to attack radar and antiaircraft installations as early as 2007. By 2010, it will be programmed to distinguish friends from foes without consulting humans and independently attack targets in designated areas. By 2020, robotic planes and vehicles will direct remote-controlled bombers toward targets, robotic helicopters will coordinate driverless convoys, and unmanned submarines will clear mines and launch cruise ­missiles.

Rising to the challenge of mixing man and machine, MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (backed by a five-year, $50-million U.S. Army grant) is busy innovating materials and designs to create military uniforms that rival the best science fiction. Human soldiers themselves are being transformed into modern cyborgs through robotic devices and nanotechnology.

 

WOW that's cool and scary at the same time!

 

from the TF.N main pages

Real-Life Battledroid Research

CVT is running an Associated Press article about real life battledroids making an appearance in a future battlefield. An interested real-world SW connection:
It's called the Segway Human Transporter, but the Pentagon is drafting the two-wheeled scooter as part of a plan to develop battlefield robots that think on their own and communicate with troops.
The program is still in the research phase, so the self-balancing scooters aren't expected to report to boot camp anytime soon.

So far, university researchers armed with Pentagon funding have programmed Segway robots that can open doors, avoid obstacles, and chase soccer balls -- all without human control.

Researchers say potential applications for the robots include performing search missions on the battlefield, transporting injured soldiers to safety, or following humans around while hauling their gear.

 

Where's my EMP?

 

There have been a number of companies experimenting with creating robots that can walk much the same way a human can without appearing to be just a glorified shuffle. Unless they've made some good leaps in technology, the major drawback was getting a gyro to properly stablize the robot in the gait of the walking motion.

They have made progress in making the walk turn into a run though... By having the robot attached to a spoke with an axled free spinning center, they have been able to get the robot to mimic a human running in circles at speeds up to 15 mph or somewhere in the region.

C-3PO is on the horizon.