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| GeoCommunity Mailing List |
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| Subject: | [gislist] GIS in 20 years: Where is the future taking us |
| Date: |
06/23/2006 09:10:01 AM |
| From: |
Serge Bedard |
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Good afternoon all,
=
I=92m currently preparing a paper on the impact of new technologies on ou=
r field. More specifically, I=92m addressing the consequences of the expone=
ntial growing rate of processor speed, computer performance, memory capacit=
y, etc. that Ray Kurzweil is talking about in his last book =93The Singular=
ity is Near=94.
=
Without going as far as him in the future and without addressing the phil=
osophical debates on human enhancement and this kind of subject, I would li=
ke to give some ideas in my paper about the impact on our GIS field of comi=
ng technologies like the following:
=
- The developpement of Robot Drivers for road vehicles as illustr=
ated by the DARPA challenge. Sebastian Thrun, Director of the Stanford AI L=
ab, thinks that by 2010, we'll have reliable urban robot driving. This, he =
argues will have huge impact on the way we drive. For example, a urban high=
way packet with vehicles at 4pm on a weekday is still only used at 8% of it=
s capacity. This is because we, as bad human drivers, need a huge front and=
rear distance to drive safely. What if much better computer drivers are do=
ing the job?
=
- Another technology that might be coming within the next 20 year=
s is Personal Nanofactories (see this link for an interesting animation mov=
ie about this: http://www.lizardfire.com/html_nano/themovies.html). This sm=
all device will allow us to build almost anything from raw material. For ex=
ample, at the moment, when you are sending a fax, you are not actually send=
ing the paper but only the information that is on it. In the same way, with=
a Personal Nanofactory, we will be able to recreate an iPod that we ordere=
d on Amazon just by receiving the information from their web site about the=
design of it. This is likely to drastically change the transport industry.
=
- Another example can be the miniaturisation of GPS devices. At t=
he current miniaturisation pace, such a device will so small as to be imbed=
ded in almost anything in 20 years from now. This means that the position o=
f nearly anything from your credit card to your car keys (if such things ar=
e still needed then) will be permanently known. We might not lose anything =
anymore.
=
Now what are the consequences of such technologies in the daily practice =
of our jobs in 20 years from now is the subject of my article (I only menti=
on a couple technologies that are coming to my mind but maybe you can come =
up with some more). While this might be a dangerous exercise, I think it is=
still worth thinking about such a perspective.
=
Any of your ideas will be most welcome even if they=92re crazy of far fet=
ched.
=
Thanks for your input.
=
Serge B=E9dard
Project Manager
Hansa Luftbild
=
---------------------------------
L=E8che-vitrine ou l=E8che-=E9cran ? Yahoo! Magasinage.
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