Technology's Promise

William Halal in "Technology's Promise" makes several predictions regarding the future of space exploration. Halal offers opinions on manned lunar bases, the manned exploration of Mars, interstellar travel, and even alien contact.

Technology's Promise was published in 2008 and is already dated in at least one key area. Halal discusses then-President George W. Bush's plan for an American manned lunar colony as a milestone in the conquest of space. In the two years since publication, economic and political realities have come home to roost, and it now seems certain that there will be no manned lunar colony in the near future, at least not a solely American one. Other nations and alliances have been just as negatively impacted by the worldwide financial crisis, and it is doubtful that any will rise to fill American shoes in this endeavor.

This will of course delay the manned exploration of Mars. In addition, several associated projects, such as the construction of new heavy lift rockets have also been canceled. The cancellation of these adjunct programs will of course delay any attempt to have mankind walk on Mars.

This shows the unpredictability associated with any attempt to forecast the future. No one could have foreseen the depth of the economic crisis which has gripped the world since the publication of Technology's Promise.

Web 2.0 tool Google Wave is a collaboration tool. It was introduced at the 2009 Google I/O Conference. It combines email, instant messaging, social networking, and wikis into a single web-based tool. It can communicate either synchronously or asynchronously as desired.

A key feature of Google Wave is the real-time operations. Users can actually see the keystroke of others. This real-time operation assures that all participants have the most current and up-to-date information.

Another key feature is the drag-and-drop file feature. It eliminates the need for separate file attachments and each file is immediately available to all participants in the "wave".

Web 2.0 Tool

The choices of Web 2.0 tools are astounding! Surfing the site at http://www.go2web20.net/, one can see literally hundred of Web 2.0 apps and tools.

One notable tool is FotoFlexer, which offers much the same range of functions as Corel's Paintshop Pro, or Adobe's PhotoShop. FotoFlexer is noteworthy because unlike the other two tools, it is a completely web based application available at no charge.

Photos can be uploaded for edit, or edited from all the major photo-sharing services, such as Photobucket, Flickr, Picasa, etc., and the more general purpose sites including Myspace and Facebook.

The Horizon Report

One of the more interesting trends in the Horizon report, Horizon Report 2010, is the proliferation of cell phones and allied devices. One can only wonder if the power of billions of such devices could be harnessed in some sort of mega-Beowulf cluster! The thought of all the amazing problems that much power could solve is astounding!

From a smaller perspective, functionality of cell phone applications is increasing at an exponential rate. Already, cell phones and smart devices are replacing the need for a general-purpose personal computer. The main limitation seems to be how to funnel all that information through a tiny interface, the display. An I/O bound problem, to be sure.

The Horizon Report also discusses several areas of technology. One item of particular personal interest is that of semantically-aware applications. This technology could be thought of as a blending of database and artificial intelligence technologies. The author mentions the connections that could be inferred from previously unrelated pieces of information. This is the essence of how the human brain works; making connections between chunks of data and applying the result in ways not previously thought of.

There would seem to be room for both approaches discussed, top-down and bottom-up. Top-down could be used for future applications while the bottom-up approach could be used for legacy information and applications.