To think all the best ideas have now been thought off?

[dottypotter]

Do you think all the technology ideas like FB, Twitter, Deliveroo, Dating Websites, Friends Reunited airbnb, and so on have all been taken now.
Does anyone wonder what the next big thing will be or has it all been thought of now?
What are we missing if anything?

Surely the move to fully driverless cars will obviate the need for that? You'll be able to whizz up the M1 swigging champagne while the car does everything.

No way. As long as there are humans there will be advancement.

The tech industry’s big challenge is to find a more sustainable way of storing all its data - the data centres that support cloud infrastructure are just horrifically bad for the climate.

The metaverse will give us advancements in communication and retail…green energy…social media will continue to evolve…green transport…it’ll be a different world by 2050.

🙈
It's time to have it without the scratch cards.

Oh scratch card postcards. Personalised. Send a smell of your cake to your loved ones. Send your fart to your not loved ones. Family feuds would be interesting!

Oh my god! I remember that! What a great memory. I’m off to Google it as can’t remember the smell-a-long programme.

Gosh, where to begin?

A method of using nuclear fusion to provide us all with unlimited clean energy.

A non end-to-end way of encrypting messages on platforms such as WhatsApp, that maintains privacy but can detect, for example, CSA images that are being sent.

Teleportation, allowing instantaneous travel around the world. Beam me up, Scotty!

patentlyo.com/patent/2011/01/tracing-the-quote-everything-that-can-be-invented-has-been-invented.html

Can I ask - if they invented the tech that could freeze you now in time and defrost you at a later date - i.e. just as you are now but will be defrosted in say 200 years - how many of you would sign up for it?

But I don't think we're quite done innovating. I think one major issue will become privacy - the boundary between personal and digital is already wearing very thin.

I wouldn't tbh

Not at this exact moment - I might once all my family are dead (I don't have any younger family). 200 years would be a good length of time to do it for. You could leave instructions not to be woken if 200 years happened to bring you to the 23rd Century equivalent of 2020!

In around 1900 the then head of the US Patent Office proposed it be closed down as everything that was going to be invented had already been invented.

The amount of technology change that has happened in my lifetime is huge and unimaginable to me at 25 and I'm sure it will be the same for my daughter's generation.

According to the geek at work the next big things will be breakthroughs in artifical Intelligence and machine learning. How they will impact our (or our childrens) lives is unimaginable to me. The same way having all the information available on the Internet from a small hand held device that can also pay for your shopping was unimaginable to my parents when they were teens in the 1940/50s.

There is so much to come:

Stem cell cures
Brain transplants
Bionic limbs
Cloning
Artificial uteri
Nanotechnology
Genetic engineering
There isn't even a cure for cancer, heart disease or dementia yet.

Electric cars that are cheap and last hundreds of miles.

In keeping with the theme of the thread - breathalyser car starting systems have existed for over 70 years

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignition_interlock_device

Just the other day I came up with the genius idea of windscreen wipers but for side windows on the car so I'm pretty sure if I can come up with revolutionary ideas like this on my morning commute, properly clever folk will invent some amazing things in the future

We’re going to see the biggest leap in tech over the next 10-20 years than we witnessed over the last Century. Necessity breeds invention and we’re definitely going to need some help!

Before you get excited by this amazing technological leap ... a scatch and sniff card was included in the Radio Times, with instructions as to when to scratch which bit during the TV programme

😂😂

I remember the scratch and sniff smellivision experiment!

I think there is loads more to come in terms of clean energy. And I think cutting people open to cut bad bits out will be looked back on as utterly barbaric before too long. I also think that typing words one letter at a time will become obsolete.

My 5 year old wants to invent a machine to remove all the plastic from the oceans. I'm not quite sure how he plans to do it, or if he'll be sidetracked by Sponge bob and Spider-Man. Kids hey. (They really are the future).

I am hopefully optimistic that there is much more good and great things to come.

When I was about 7, I used to fantasise about a machine that would allow me to watch my favourite TV programmes whenever I wanted (this was probably after missing a programme because it was my sister's 'turn' to choose). I remember mentioning it to my mum who roared with laughter at my ridiculous idea. About 10 years later, video recorders became available.
The problem with assuming there is nothing left to invent, is that until someone invents a product, many, if not most, of us will have no idea what the next 'thing' will be. I have seen so many advances in my lifetime (born when we had only two TV channels), and can't wait to see what the future brings.

13yr old DS is going to make his billions inventing pilot free aeroplanes apparently. He’s not very good at maths or physics so I’m not holding my breath - nor would I get in one he’d designed, but I’m sure someone a bit smarter than him will come up with one eventually.

That's what we said, 30 years ago!

I love that this thread is full of wild & wonderful ideas - but surely, you can all think of the developments & innovations during & since Covid? Pre-Covid, online meetings were possible but not used in the way they are now; Teams was in use in our organisations but most of functionality now in use within it was developed only in the last two years.

Paying with your phone (Apple Pay, Google Pay) is very recently developed.

New ideas & inventions happen all the time, that's what makes is human. Last week, a missile was able to strike an asteroid in a targeted way - something that will have huge planetary significance potentially!

I do think we will have fully immersive entertainment one day - where your living room becomes the set of the film and everything happens around you, quite possibly including smells.

And I think there will be a single 'device' that does everything, rather than having separate phones, tablets and so on. We might be able to change the size of it - not through folding which is a bit clunky; we'd press a button and a larger screen would roll out, more like an expandable dining table in mechanism.

Just because, technologically speaking, you can, does not mean you should.
I am not convinced things like social media and OLD have enriched most people's lives and in some cases have increased the burden on people's mental health.
Whilst it is very convenient to be able to do things like online banking, shoppoing and bill paying, the moment there is any kind of technical glitch it is always complicated and onerous to rectify.
I was an early adopter of mobile phones, because they were very convenient and made my life at the time slightly less complicated. However, I am not thrilled about the morph into all-in-one computers, music players & cameras, which also track your every step.
Finally, all the young things online "influencing" and bleating on about climate change etc. do they not know that the internet is one of the world's biggest polluters?
Very happy for science to advance in the field of medicine, where it could relieve a lot of suffering, but I think all these things need to be relative to the good (as opposed to the financial gain) that they contribute to society.