Angela Fields
Professor Richard Winters
Technology and the Future
26 March 2017
Ideas About the Future Possibilities-A Roadmap to the Future
Abstract
Today we live with many technologies that people fifty to a hundred years ago would
have only dreamed about. And yet with all the advances in our technologies, over that period of
time, we still face a great deal of problems ahead and at present. Some of which are: food,
energy inequality, uncertainty in our government water shortages in many areas of the world, and growing environmental concern, just to name a few. The question is: In fifty to a hundred years from now will we be facing such large issues or, if they are not addressed with our rising technological world, will we begin to see even greater issues in that future? We will look at a few possibilities of some of these future technologies in the following chapters based on both the problems we can see today and technology that has already begun developing.
Chapter 1. Energy
How we will meet future energy demands.
According to the International Energy Agency, 1.2 Billion people lack access to
electricity and 2.7 Billion people still cook with wood or other forms of biomass (What will it
take to achieve energy for all?). Not only does this lack of energy cause people to settle for
energies that are known to be extremely hazardous to the environment and to their own personal
health but it also prevents those people from being able to function in society at the level they
would be able to if their energy need was not such a burden. Just as we question inequality in
many other facets of our lives among our communities we should also be fighting to lesson this
lack of energy for the whole of people around the world.
One idea for a technology that is starting to be seen is personal created power. “Free
Electric” created by the Billions in Change cooperation is a machine that can use a own locomotion to power most of a common residence facilities for a 24-hour period with minimum time loss. It takes only one hour of effort in exercise, which is what is recommended to help maintain health for every person anyways, to give the owner a full day of energy to meet their needs. There are also variations of this technology that can be retrofit to a bicycle to perform this task with little cost and assembly for the owner making it have the ability to be far more widespread than our current energy systems. The following image is of founder Manoj Bhargava test riding the design entitled “Free Electric.”
Not only could this bring many people out of energy poverty but poverty of many other
kinds as well being able to focus less on survival needs we depend on energy for and more so on
other struggles they may have. It is also my belief that such an invention could be modified to
allow such a device to be used by people without the use of their legs just as we see in
wheelchairs where they are driven by the ability use their arms. The idea proposed to assist with the growing automation in our economic society by Martin Ford is something he called “externalities” (The Lights in the Tunnel Pg. 170). These are methods that a person in order to earn a living they provide a service of their choice generating an income when many jobs are being eliminated. Using this idea, we could create these jobs designed especially for a group within our societies that have historically been seen as burdensome becoming a sought-after person of labor perhaps over others! What a change that would be. This may also help some of the disability community to help them provide for themselves, decreasing burdens some are currently suffering from lack of funds to purchase basic essentials. Worldwide this may help many more people but to give some relevance to the more local, “it is estimated that over 40
million people in America have some level of disability, and many of these individuals live in
poverty (U.S. Census Bureau, 2006). This would be a step in the right direction to start providing
for more of our populations even as it explodes. This method of energy production could even be
incorporated into our transportation systems to provide for both home and work alike, which will
be discussed in the chapter titled Transportation later in this paper.
Another idea is that we ourselves could provide the energy we need. What if we could
produce the energy we need by simply performing the tasks we do every day by incorporating
technology into the clothes we wear? If we could expand on not only the introduction to solar
energy to fabric we could also use our motion to generate it further. Today we can find jackets
that have battery packs inside a compartment that can hold charge enough to charge a cellphone,
mp3 player, or other small electronic devices, but what if we didn’t need the battery? What if we
had a way to harness our everyday motion and somehow store that energy. How many times
have you been shocked by the friction you yourself produced? Our body temperature alone could
be the heat source, our own bodies a battery pack! The potential to this idea is limitless. What if
you could get paid to talk? If we could store heat, built up static electricity and vibration, even
from our throats as we speak, we would be a limitless rechargeable battery with proper nutrients
that we already use to survive. It would be the same idea that we use to harness any other sort of
motion based energy like wind, heat energy like geothermal, or electric generating sources like
water or even lightning. Do you feel the chills, the hair sticking up on your head? If you do
a light bulb turning on with these possibilities. Below is an example of what we have today
found on CNN Tech. This is just the first step of what could eventually reduce the individual
need for networked energy systems which can often be unreliable especially in the event of a
natural disaster and excuse the pun, but quite literally put the power back into their own hands.
Combining the ideas found in The Lights in the Tunnel by Martin Ford concerning job
loss in the future because of technology unless we find a way to keep income in the hands of the
masses and the principles of common good in everyone’s actions for wellbeing for all found in the book Colors by Gordon Young, we can create new energy systems. Ones where people with the ability and motivation to simply exercise could in the event this technology was developed further, provide the energy for those that either don’t have an interest in doing so or for those that don’t have the ability to do so, such as the case of people with some disabilities. This could create jobs from a technology rather than eliminating them because of one. A person could make a living by exercising, a person could cut down on their personal cost and so to their need to work in jobs that may not interest them by having the energy freedom that is self-provided, AND people that cannot provide energy for themselves would be cared for by those that generate a surplus of energy. This would raise the overall standard of living for all within a community, not to mention the health from the method of higher activeness of a community providing energy for themselves.
Developing technologies in energy and our adaptation to them can even bridge between
multiple forms now known, creating methods using more than one to produce energy. An
example could be the idea of clothes that both capture sunlight and the motion of the wearer,
using two known means of making energy into the one goal to fulfil the need to have it. We
already have combined motion with harnessing wind energy. Here are some images of variation
among known energy resources. The first is of a wind tree, and the second two are of the first
step in some of our clothing already incorporating solar energy.
Another energy we have seen develop in idle areas, is geothermal. Using a technology,
the Billions of Change corporation is calling "Limitless Energy.” It uses an allotrope of carbon called Graphene, a film created from graphite of lead that is stronger than steel, more conductive than copper by a hundred times, it is extremely light and will not melt under the intense temperatures found at the core of our planet. At the moment, we could create strings that could be combined to make cables from the single layers we are able to extract from the lead that could be placed under the earth surface transferring the heat to create energy for us.
There are many methods for creating energy in society, from the poor use of coal
and oil, to the still developing use of nuclear energy using fission, to the stride we have been
making in fusion energy, along with all the more sustainable renewable energies like solar, wind,
and water. Each with its potential risks, some greater than others, to each having the benefit of
providing the world with energy. It is only through the development of resources and methods
via technology that each find their place within our diverse need and geographical restraints that
change for the betterment of the world or fall short when reaching difficulties or failure. The
scope of the world's need for energy is proportional to the impact of those methods make to our world, and we should take every aspect of its process into consideration in order to maintain it for all.
Chapter 2. Transportation.
How people will commute over short and long distances in the future.
We can already begin to see major problems with our roadways in many of our more
heavily populated areas. Road maintenance, construction and parking/congestion are three large
topics on city budgets and the strain on taxpayers is increasing to keep all these things adequate
to support our numbers. With our still growing population these problems will only intensify in
the coming decades. In the future, we will either need to continue to expand what we already
know; parking garages, smarter traffic systems (lights and other methods like flex lanes), and
highways systems OR we start planning more sustainable methods that could both save us
money but also be easier on our environment.
Ideas like the Hyperloops, Bullet trains (high speed train), Maglev, even the idea of
automated freight transport has already started developmenting or is currently in operation.
These concepts may be improved upon to allow for less cost in regard to construction of their systems, to cost of operation. There are positives and negatives to each system alone.
The hyperloops use solar energy and vacuum/low pressure atmosphere technology
allowing it to go very fast without wind resistance. This means that since it is a closed system the
changes of accidents are cut drastically. It also means that it is one of the more environmentally
friendly options out there because it has less chances to conflict with natural places or be
hindered by most weather conditions. Some of the downsides to this technology is that it does
not allow for a high number of passengers currently and may not be idle for long distant travel,
primarily because a completely new system would need to be built. Hyperloops have the
potential to be faster than the bullet trains already in use and with a smaller price tag says Elon
Musk. Below(left) is an image of one vision Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, has for the
hyperloop.
The difference between the Hyperloop and the Maglev, also pictured above to the right, is
the Maglev uses magnets to propel it either using similar fields which repel in the Japanese
designs or opposites fields which attract in the German design. Another difference is the
estimated cost. The Maglev is already in use in areas found in China costing around $1.2 billion
to build. That being said, one of its disadvantage is simply that, its cost. This is mostly because it
cannot be adapted to current infrastructures. It has to be built from scratch. Despite the
transportation technology has been able to reach 603 km/h in a manned test in Japan, it still had not been able to warrant worldwide use due mostly to its price tag with old methods still winning
the day when it comes to bidding. Though this idea is not a new one in the scope of the history of
transportation since it was first proposed by British electrical engineer Eric Laithwaite in 1940, is
has been evolving greatly and may be a solution to help solve some of our transportation related
issues, at least when it comes to long distance travels, when the primary issue of cost is no longer
the biggest concern.
Closer to home, as they say, we may begin to wear a different face in transport in years to
come, that of electric based transport or my hope-- self-powered. With the decreasing reserves of
fossil fuels that we have not only depended on to get us around but also create many of the
products we use daily, we will begin to see a huge need/demand for an alternative for both, as
cost to the individual rises. Self-driven cars, axle less vehicles, hydrogen and solar cars are all
ideas we have been working on to replace the environmentally harmful gas powered ones we use
today. Heavily populated and crowded areas such as China and Japan as well as other major
countries like the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Finland, and
Norway just to name a few are already well underway from swapping out such vehicles and
switching to self-powered, simple, but effective method of bicycling. In the future let us hope
many other countries will follow this pattern to save money, save space, save personal health,
and save our environment all in one nice little package. If this trend did take off in the future as
Bill Nye has speculated, we could begin incorporating wind tunnels to make bicycle travel faster
by providing a tailwind for riders in any direction as well as safety from the elements any time of
year(Nye). Below is an image of Ironman Pro Thomas Gerlach testing the wind tunnel concept
(left)and a simple bike tunnel to keep riders safe from the elements(right)(Gerlach and Mitchell).
Some of the limitation people say when it comes to bicycling if you take out the time restraint by
implementing these tunnels, is that you can’t transport goods, or your families, but what if you
could? A better question is; can’t we already?
The first image above is from the New York Times, the next two can be found on International
Surrey Bikes/Chapnbikes and may remind you of the Flintstones but would that not carry
everyone in your family? The last one above is a common site in areas of China where people
carry unimaginable amounts of things on their bikes from boxes to billy goats! And these types
of bicycles still probably cost less than a minivan in upfront cost, maintenance, taxes, and
insurance, not to mention zero in traditional fuel cost and close to that in environmental impact
when in use. Bonus? Or just common sense? Let us hope for our future’s sake we start to use this
method of travel sooner than later.
Even if the you are unable to use your legs there have been electric bikes available for
some time now and in development a few others that could change the idea of biking as a chore
to some into a game. Below is a picture of an invention by Yvan Forclaz called the Joystickbike
which uses just that-- a joystick for navigation. One of the many models they have made, whose
design is being made free to the public using nearly all easy to get bicycle parts, is pictured on
the left below.
If a person doesn’t live in an area with a lot of “wind tunnels” and they need an enclosed vehicle and feel peddling won’t get them to the places they want to go fast enough, another option in the future could be bikes/vehicles/motorcycles such as the RAHT mobile or “RAHT racer.”
“The RAHT RACER is a power biking vehicle that uses state of the art pedal-electric
hybrid technology to amplify pedal power, enabling the rider’s legs to propel the vehicle
up to highway speeds, giving the rider the feeling of super strength. The result is a
breathtaking new, Iron Man-like, power-sport experience. Safer than a motorcycle, or
bicycle on a busy street, the Raht has an integrated roll cage, reinforced carbon fiber body
and automotive safety features like headlights, tail lights, seat belts & air bag”
It has ability to allow you to pedal at the speed of most cars. Some models of bicycle could even
be used to store the energy generated by the labor of pedaling to and from work and be later used
to power your work or home residences reducing greatly a current burden of electricity expenses. What if the concept mentioned in the chapter on Energy of “Free Electric” adapted to become mobile, the above idea may be a realistic possibility. With all the developing options in safe, cheap, easy-to- use sustainable personal transport, few in the future will be left with any excuses not to make the change from gas powered to other modes.
Another idea is to use the power of Gravity to get around. This could be coupled with
other methods to produce energy as well, but we will focus on using it for transport in this case
only hinting to the potential possibilities. Not only could we harness the power of gravity but it
could be added to other renewable energy sources to create a few transportation infrastructures
that could connect close cities and business centers within them, with little to no pollution
creation. Stations would be those business centers, like many skyscrapers found in large cities.
The idea would be to use the power of gravity, water, solar, and even magnets to operate an
unobstructed system of transport modules. We already have the idea of using the power of
magnets to lift a train to prevent the friction allowing it to travel faster but what if we use
magnets to slow down a falling object in intervals that makes the speeds safe when coming down
at an incline? It could also be placed on the front and rear of the transport module to prevent any
two modules from connecting causing an accident, should the need arise, like an invisible airbag.
The solar could be used to power the module, providing climate control and electricity. The
system could start out, to gain acceptance by still being connected to cables leading to its
destination and surrounded by tubes to further its safety but as the use of magnets improves
eventually more redundant safety systems could be removed. The water power, which will be
mentioned in the section on city infrastructures as well, could be used which runs in each
business center as a turbine, using it to lift the module to the highest point of the towers where
the module will then be propelled forward by gravity alone or by magnets should the incline not
send the module the desired distance without some assistance. If cables or rails should be used at
first to ensure safety they could also be used to catch the energy generated by the moving module
downward by the friction they make, much like the idea that we can generate energy simply by
our footsteps on the sidewalk.
Not only would this system nearly run itself with a few electronic devices to maintain
order but the resource cost would be near nothing minus the materials of construction. With that
said, it could save the buildings that incorporate it, expenses they now must keep in electricity
which would be generated by the friction of all the moving transport. If a toll was added, an
income could be generated for the city that helps build them, like many large bridges do now.
This system would not be limited by many of our current systems or hindered by them either
being they would be raised in the air spanning from tower to tower. Because of this, travel time
most spend in a day commuting could be done in a fraction of the time and reduce both cost to
the individual and to the planet.
This has the potential of connecting city to city not by streets, but by buildings. To do this
would completely rethink what we have been doing all along, just lifting it up many stories. Who
needs external flying cars that could become an airborne chaos when you could create a seamless
web of tower transport tubes. Although using some of the currently development of
Superconducting Vacuum trains may not be beneficial to incorporate into this design that uses
many other transport ideas. It is unlikely an option since the power needed to move the vacuum
train may be greater than the output and undo the resources saved with other designs than it is
worth for the added speed it could provide.
But if we combine some other developing ideas of transport taking many of their good
attributes while discarding many of the potential bad ones, a system like this would be possible.
We already have the technology to produce energy in all these ways and advancing technology
in many of these types of transport, such as the Hyperloop, Maglev, even Reverse Roles
transport or Robert C. Tubular Rails, and even String theory. If you have ever been skiing and used a lift or been to an amusement park and gone on one of those ride lifts, then
clear, the idea is already in its first stages when it comes to noninvasive structures, able to
traverse difficult terrain and speeding up transport over those areas. Why not use the same idea
with all the known and proven faster systems we have, using energy that is environmentally
more sustainable? If we incorporate all the redundant systems it will make transportation safer
but also remain usable in the event of a city-wide power outage. Cities like Medellín, Columbia
have already seen a reduction in crime from their narrow streets by lifting some of their citizen
transport in the air using a Metrocable system pictured below. If this was brought to other large
cities that are unable to keep up with growing populations on their transportation systems, traffic
jams and high accident rates may become a thing of the past.
Chapter 3. Cities infrastructures and life styles
How will people live and conduct their lives in the future.
Population growth has some cities worried when it comes to infrastructures being able to
support such growth in the future. Problems such as increased rental cost, space constraints
leading to crowded areas, poorer living conditions as some cities cannot adequately remove
waste, and cost of products being shipped in, are all concerns that need to be investigated when
designing in future plans. How we do this is small and large changes that as Jane Jacobs suggests
that, “Lowly, unpurposeful, and random as they appear, sidewalk contacts are the small change
from which a city’s wealth of public life must grow.” Put simply, each one of us can improve
how we live in the future and the power to design it as we wish it to be. Each one of us willing to
work with each other can gain us the ability to make the most for all.
Ideas about better space management in overpopulated cities have architects coming up
with a way to make small quarters provide all the amenities of larger domiciles in more rural
communities. One idea “the future house of 2050” proposed by students of Deakin University is
pictured below. It shows how instead of multiple rooms, one is all that is needed with a sophisticated addition of technology to provide all the things commonly found in every room in a
larger house, from bedroom to office that could be set to keep your life schedule like a
thermostat timer, the room changing as you would need to use it.
This idea may be able to also reduce current rental cost along with space issues because builders will have to pay less for the land used and be able to have more residence in smaller areas. This may happen over time of course, because as we have seen in the past new technologies can be expensive initially but over time as more and more compete to provide similar one’s cost drops and eventually everyone can afford one, an easy example is the computer you are reading this paper on and the phone likely in your pocket.
With more people comes more waste and pollution generated. We will look at a possible
solution to the waste problem in the section on personal homes below but as we have seen in
some of the previous section the pollution generated by transport may be well on the way to
being eliminated once we steer away from fossil fuels (excuse the pun again) and start using
other modes available to us. Below is an example of a city infrastructure that could be built
above many of our current road systems to allow people to have the choice to bicycle instead of
drive.
These are suspended bicycle bridges found in Eindhoven, Netherlands. With these structures, perhaps fewer people will choose to sit traffic jams, which may alleviate some of the congestions as more started to use them, while they begin to instead enjoy the view and get exercise.
Though the above idea can be tacked on to our already existing road structures in many
heavy populated areas another idea to eliminate yet another problem that plagues city dwelling--
parking. Currently owning a car can not only create a hazel as far as payment/cost, getting to
where you want to go with frustrating traffic jams but once you get to where you were headed
then give you the added headache of finding a place to park it. An idea already in use in Tokyo,
is the underground bicycling parking lot. The idea is the bicycle has a chip on it showing the
system you are a member and being able to track its location much like a Redbox keeps track of
which movies are inside and how to retrieve them upon request. We had once hoped to have a
similar design meant for our cars but such a structure would be far more expensive than our
current parking garage designs. By making it parking for bicycles it cuts down on the space
needed even though it is underground but also the cost of the machinery, only needing to lift and
store light weight transport instead of 2 ton vehicles that is an average of what we need to park
today. Though this will not be seen in areas still resistant to bicycling as a primary mode of
transport, I believe this will be a solution to many of our dense cities problems around the world
once the change is made.
As mentioned before the idea of creating power from water inside our buildings may not
be as far stretched as it sounds. In fact, the Romans used water and the power of gravity to both
bring water to its citizens but also powered some of their milling needs. The concept of the
aqueduct could solve some of the current problems we have with getting water to where it needs
to go, conserving the water while making sure it remains clean, and create energy for the
buildings and systems that could use it. If water only needed to be pumped up from its sources at
slow inclines to the highest point or the natural capture of rainwater, we could manage using the
principles of water in our pipe designs (water will flow fast in tight spaces into large spaces more
radially than vice versa) and then allow it to drop at sharp inclines siphoning only what the floors
need as a water supply and the rest dropping several stories turning small turbines creating the
energy. Then just as the Romans did with their systems to make sure that it kept in motion they
would bring it down in steps. This is why you would start with the highest point of a city where
the water supply could be and bringing it down in stages using gravity to take it back up again if
needed or as much as possible before repeating the process. This could be a way to spread the
supply over a city network of aqueduct systems. Daryl Ng of Hong Kong also thought of the idea
to use the drain water and pressure in a building to provide energy and water and made a
prototype in his companies shopping mall called Olympian City. Though this may not work for
every city especially those that don’t have their water supplies coming from high elevation but
for others such as right here in Salt Lake City which does rely on water from the mountains this
system may be idle.
Hydroelectric generation systems, installed in pipes in Hong Kong’s many skyscrapers, could be
used to generate electricity from water pressure. Credit Daniel Groshong for The New York
Times
Micro homes/apartment have already started to take hold in areas where space is severely
limited yet buildings have been built larger to support more people. Future methods to support
such large buildings in cities that are already tight is to build them underground.
The Samsung report envisions people will live in subterranean structures called Earth
Scrapers in 100 years. actually a planned Earth scraper for Mexico City, which
would be an upside-down, 65-story pyramid. But we heard anything about the
project since the schematics were released in 2011 (Muoio).
Since many of our largest cities are on the coast, as well as being built on top of
marshland or water like Mexico City and New Orleans, it is not unimaginable that we may
consider moving them further over the water. “The Samsung report envisions there will be
aquatic communities in 100 years that will be powered by the waves and solar. You could
potentially even live in a floating city” (Muoio).
“This floating city concept, called Aequorea, would house 20,000 residents and be built using garbage. Aequorea is still in concept phase, but it provides a glimpse of how people are thinking of the future of homes” (Muoio).
Chapter 4. Water
How will people live when our water is depleted or polluted in the future if there is no change
It is well known that although the planet’s surface is mostly water only point three
percent of it is usable by humans and every other living creature that needs water to survive. The
rest of the water is either in the form ice as it is in the north and south pole, in our atmosphere,
the soil, of the oceans. As creatures, whose bodies are 60% water without it we could not be able
to exist so it is safe to say we should be very careful how we use it. With that said it is also a
concern that we are contaminating many of those finite water resources. When thinking on this
problem I have come to two possible futures in the case of water using technology that is already
in the works or one that may happen if we continue to be careless with our water supply as our
populations continue to increase.
The first possibility and though not something that many of the world have to deal with,
in some areas it is already happening. This is that we will have to begin rationing water. Just as
we had to do with some food products and gasoline in times of war. This is a scary possibility as
it can not only shift power in the world, create strife between neighboring countries, cause many
people to be forced to go without which is in all reality a death sentence, it can also become a
cause to go to war. Below are some images of ration books that were given out in times of war
and it is not that far of a stretch to imagine governments making one for water should the need
for it become impossible to fully provide to its governed populations. Energy shortage could also
see this sort of thing if we run out of fossil fuels without replacing it fast enough with another
means of energy creation.
We have already seen areas that ration water such as California after extreme droughts as the image below slows, and conflicts over water in other areas of the world such as Peru, Syria, Iran and Yemen.
Technologies that may develop to enforce this possible need to ration may be timed
showers where each house is only allowed so many gallons per month before the water is shut
off much like data on cell phone plans or minutes on calling cards. Houses may be required to
install mist or low flow shower heads which use less water, though today they are mostly just a
novelty or alternative for people already concerned for our wasteful water usage. The timer idea
could be done much like it is at your local car wash where you feed it coins in exchange for as
much time you feel you will need to get the job done. Water timers are already in use for people
that use a sprinkler timer for their lawns or gardens. If this was incorporated or became
mandatory into individual residence, it could provide water companies a way of regulating water
supplies to each house. Another thought was if there was a way to have various setting on your
sink faucets for changes in water pressure based on occasion of use. This could be done by
incorporating what we see in a car door hinge where it will stop periodically to prevent the car
from swinging to far open. If this was done it could even allow families under these restrictions
to lock their water taps so children or themselves do not use more water than is needed to
perform a task by regulating water release pressures. I am not saying these new ways of limiting
our water use is as convenient as what we are used to today but if we begin to see water shortages here or want to create more equality of water globally this is something that could help
with that. It certainly beats the alternative to water conflicts, war and worst of all, death because
of unprecedented droughts.
The second possibility is that we create a technology that can clean our waterways and
even utilize the massive amount of salt water in our oceans. This is another idea that the Billions
in Change cooperation is working on. Their invention is called “the Rainmaker Project” and is
pictured below. One unit can provide a thousand gallons of clean drinking water in an hour!
As the picture indicates that you could place many units on a barge right on the ocean, first to be close to the water source with minimum energy use, second the movability factor of the facilities and third to cut on cost of the transport of the water resource itself. This machine can also make usable water out of polluted water by performing the same process as rain with other levels of filtering to insure a safe water product which means it can potentially be used in areas where water has been significantly contaminated.
Chapter 5. Personal Homes
How people may choose to live in the future
One of the biggest problems that many people are not even aware of because it is
conveniently taken away for many but still exist is waste. I know you are wondering why such a
topic would find its way into the section labeled “personal homes” but hear me out. What I have
found as a solution to this problem that may if left unchecked quite literally become as large as
mountains is, in the future we no longer see it as waste but instead construction material. But
instead of us “living in our own filth” we transform it into works of art that we can then inhabit.
When researching for an earlier paper I discovered an architect by the name of Michael
Reynolds, also known as “the garbage warrior.” Michael believes that we could reduce our waste
by building what he has labeled “Earthships,” which are self-sustaining houses that he has been
able to build in some of the world's most inhospitable barren landscapes such as the New Mexico Desert, Reach, NV on a mountain slope, and some of the coldest areas in Alberta, Canada.
Because of the off-grid nature in design of the Earthships, Michael and his buildings have hit many politically barriers but hopefully as the need to find useful ways to reduce our waste both being generated and previously disposed of that can’t be designs may be the way of the future. Below are four designs of the Earthship ideas that for some would be a palace and not a building made of trash.
Using principles like thermodynamics, triangulation of the positions over the year and design these houses rarely need any heat or cooling in the months of the year that others
have their heaters and AC units turned up on full, saving residence incredible amounts of money.
These houses also store water from rain and have internal treatment systems. Water is then
networked though the structure to all the places we commonly have it as well as a few others,
such as a garden both internal and external. Below is a simplified diagram of such a system
which also uses many sources of power just as my proposed transportation system earlier.
Combining all these methods makes a complete self-sustaining off-grid system that does not
interfere with nature very much but is built into it and using the energy it provides naturally to
sustain the building and those inside.
Other examples of self-sustaining houses can be found made out of more common
materials and far smaller than that of the Earthships. The Ecocapsule, pictured below, which
costs $87,000, has a unique egg shape to minimize heat loss and capture rainwater that is filtered
in a water tank. Keep in mind shipping can cost as much as $3,890 depending on where you are
(Muoio).
Ecocapsule
Modular homes may be win over the Ecocapsule for one big reason-- the cost.
Above you see a prototype of such a home that was designed by French architecture firm
Multipod Studio. The PopUp House costs between $1,200 and $1,900, not including the
cost of the construction team that comes to put it together. The best part is it can be built
in just four days using an electric screwdriver. The future of homes will include ones like
the PopUp House that can easily be taken apart and put back together(Muoio).
Chapter 6. Communication (Security and Surveillance)
How people will interact in the future
The future of security can be scary when we think about the people we currently have in
control and their personal goals, but the future of communication has been making rapid changes
that may connect us even while others try to separate and monitor us. Google translate and
universal translator recently integrated into the Skype program is hopefully a large step towards achieving the world-wide goal of universal understanding. Language barriers have been a problem for as long as humans could speak but now that we have a way to computerize everything these challenges have been met by these idles and strives to overcome those barriers.
We have already begun making such an idea more mobile with the technology below, and though it can only translate three of the more prominent languages around the world a good
sign to see such things still a heavy focus within current technologies.
Image found at https://www.quora.com/Where-can- I-buy- the-ili- wearable-translator
This device called the “ili” can instantly translate English, Chinese, or Japanese to one of the other and does not even need WiFi or mobile data! It may not be as far off to begin incorporating many more languages into designs like this, that provide faster and audible translations as well as more exact ones which would connect the world in a way never fully realized before.
The concept that we may be able to communicate via robot as Gordon Young in his book
Colors refers to as “telepresence” may be well on the way in the area of robotics but another
technology that may require far less personal technology and cost is virtual reality glasses. In this
idea people may be able to connect by being able to manipulate virtual objects from both sides,
even over vast distance just as internet does now to relay information. Coupled with the also fast
improvements to 3D printing, glasses such as the Meta 2 RA may be able add the dimension not
yet tackled by the world-wide web-- physical material/objects when printed. The Meta 2 glasses
can also help people understand how the body works by allowing the wearer an inside view of
the brain and maybe in the future a virtual model of an actual patient. Another useful way it can
be used is to help construct buildings or used for interior design. Below is an image of a virtual
object being manipulated by a person wearing the Meta glasses.
Another technology using what is called Neuro Science, is the Hololens. Similar to the Meta glasses but far more compatible to bring people together virtually or allowing people to
experience areas they could not reach on their own, at least via sight and sound but with the
potential to explore other avenues to the rest of our senses.
In the realm of security for the future I believe GPS devices will continue to improve,
allowing people’s possessions as well as physical location to be trackable personally, but likely
though 3rd party interest as well. This will likely happen from the demand of such devices and
the side effect of outside accessibility to that technology to become nearly unavoidable. Smaller
Bluetooth GPS trackers are already on the market for relatively low cost to consumers beyond
being a simple application found on their phone. The Trackr and Tile are two such devices, both
of which already in multiple generations. Below is the Tile on the left and Trackr on the right.
Small enough to put into your wallet or make sure you are less likely to lose your keys in the house again; these devices may be well on the way to becoming an everyday item for people to keep track of all the things either commonly lost/misplaced to finding items that are stolen. Since processors, transistors, and integrated circuits have become so small in the recent years it is only a matter of time before devices like these can be applied to anything as easily as putting a sticker on something.
Another problem that we have today that could be solved with increased surveillance and
communication is time management when it comes to have multiple children. Since more than
ever it is needed to have both parents in the average family working in order to be financially
secure it is harder for them to make sure their children can involve themselves in all the
extracurricular activities available to them such as sports, arts of all kinds and other self-
improving or social events. Because of this a reliance on technology has been escalating such as
allowing children to own cell phones as a safety measure and method of contact. In the future, I
foresee additional technologies stepping in and relied on to safely assist parents in providing
these opportunities. The self-driving car though not mentioned in the section covering
transportation previously in part because such a thing is already here but may become this time
managing dilemma future savior. If you can trust a car to drive for you and get you to where you
want to go safely what would stop us from being able to program them to also take our children
where they need to? If it could be set similar to parental controls as many of our devices today
are able than it is feasible such an idea could be possible. This may currently be a scary idea but
as the world connects more and more electronically and the self-driving technology gains greater
support and trust, automatic locks made remotely by parents in the future may be all the
reassurance they need when waving their children off to baseball practice.
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