Technology: From Imagination to Reality (and Business Opportunities too!)

New Scientist suggests of “Ten sci-fi devices that could soon be in your hands ”(pictures from New Scientist)

1 Super-vision…

The Super-vision technology will be introduced by ``the Prism 200 which can detect people through a brick wall by firing off pulses of ultrawide-band radar and listening for returning echoes.”

2 Disappearing act…

Harry Potter’s ‘invisible cloak’ turns real based on the technology of steering electromagnetic waves by virtue of metamaterials!

3 Hands-free healing…

A band aid kit in the future will possibly include high-frequency sound waves based portable scanner that would not only spot internal injuries (e.g. torn arteries), “but also heal them in a flash.”

4 Spider vs gecko…

Spiderman technology or hair based nanotubes that may allow vertical “stick to the wall” movements!

5 You power…

Gadgets like pacemakers that can be implanted and powered by electricity generators from our heart!

6 Jet packs…

James Bond move over, personal rocket belt jets are coming!

7 My other car is a spaceship…

Space travel coming to reality?!

8. Breathe underwater

Swimming with artificial gills ala Man from Atlantis…

9 You speak, it translates

Forget language barriers. The evolving revolutionary technology in speech recognition and translation software is coming to close that gap!

10 Smell-o-vision

To make watching TV attain a vicarious experience, smell-o-vision will give off scents/smells that fit the scenes.

Our observations:

Technology, like any businesses undergo transformational cycles as they get accepted into our lifestyles (see above chart).

Such advances may dramatically progress if they are allowed to develop by means of competition and less regulation.

And dramatic improvements of technology should improve our lifestyles or business process flows the way the cellphones and the web has done (lower communication and transaction costs, ease of flow of communications or data, and etc.)

Moreover, technological progression also translates to huge potential investment opportunities, as the transformational cycle allows for greater diffusion of its application. In Austrian economics lingo: lengthening of the production structure.

Read the entire article and its gallery from New Scientist