The Technology Advance: Reading our Thoughts
Once thought impossible, it is becoming commonplace to find technology that literally reads our thoughts. Here’s a toy that reads our brainwaves and responds by levitating a ball. Sounds like fun, huh?
This “toy” teaches us so much about our changing world and the future.
Most people thought that reading minds was impossible. I suppose many still do. Here is a toy that actually does it. It shows us that what we thought was impossible just a few years ago will soon become an everyday item.
How is it possible to create such a revolutionary device? One reason is that this technology is not really new. Brain scanning and imaging technology has been around for decades. What is new is that the resolution of the image has steadily increased, and will continue to increase. As the resolution increases, it becomes possible to identify more specific ideas, words and thoughts. At some point the future, the technology will be able to monitor individual neurons. I don’t know if that will really help anyone (what can you learn from one neuron?), but that level of detail will definitely be incredibly powerful.
This improving resolution is not the only technology that is advancing. Virtually every technology that we are aware of and use is getting better and better each year. Computer price performance is doubling each year. Memory, hard drives and every other aspect of computers are getting faster and cheaper. The 50″ plasma TV that cost $10,000 a few years ago is less than $1,000 today.
The interesting observation is that these technologies benefit from each other. For example, there are many technologies besides brain scanning that lead to the production of this toy. For example, you are watching the video on the internet. Many of the customers will do the same. The production of the item will benefit from all sorts of advances, such as cheap communication due to the internet and VOIP, the ability to outsource, and ease of transferring money using credit cards.
All of these factors add up to a powerful idea: that the rate of technological advancement is increasing. Soon, computing power will double every six months. What will the world be like, when computing power is unlimited and virtually free? What other advances will this technological change produce?
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