Living in the future #1: movie-style projects technology will make possible

Singularity University classes, lab sessions and workshops present us the latest technology. Most of the speakers tell us first hand what they are working on to help technology solve our biggest challenges. I’ve been collecting examples of cool stuff that is already out there or can be incorporated in our life in a near future. Can you imagine a future powered by technology like this? Here is a very small preview of what it could look like.

• There are places on earth (India is just an example) where there are no toilets but there are mobile phones. The next step is to make internet connection a commodity. Internet for everyone powered by balloons is the concept behind project Loon that is being developed by X with the goal of connecting people in rural and remote areas.

• No one doubts self driving cars will be around in a couple of years and time will come during which our packages will be delivered by drones. Have you thought about ordering a pizza and having a self driving robot coming at your door to deliver it?
• In the era of personalization, 3D printing will play an important role in several sectors. Dubai recently announced the first 3D printed building and this is just the beginning. Not only we will be able to build things faster, we will be able to recycle them as well.
• Did you ever wondered if it’s possible to read your mind? Several experiences have shown that hacking the brain and reconstructing visual experiences from brain activity (like a dream reading machine) is possible. This technology could impact people that cannot speak or communicate properly (and even serve as a lie detector).

From left to right: Google’s self driving car, piza-delivery drone prototype and Starship self delivery robot

Health and Medicine

• As sensors become smaller, they will easily be integrated in our body through technology. The Digital Contact Lens is a good example. Patented by Google, it aims to change the course of diabetes management by measuring blood glucose levels from tears.
• CRISPR/Cas9 is a gene editing approach whose usage has been approved in humans and can help cure cancer, genetic diseases or even help “designing babies”. Here is a very good visual explanation of how it works but basically the goal is to edit the DNA as if it was a text document. Is there something wrong? Let’s replace it with the correct version.
• 23andMe has been around for a while and is available to anyone. It all starts by collecting a sample of saliva that is used to analyse your DNA and then gives you a bunch of reports about your ancestors and predisposition for certain diseases. Curious? I am doing it soon!

Food

• Hyperspectral cameras were associated with military applications up until now but as they become more affordable, the future reserves us the possibility of inspecting food as we shop or detecting contamination and composition. Transparency can only be positive I guess.
• Are future experiences at restaurants all about getting personalized deserts? Hershey’s has integrated 3D printing in its production process so chocolate structures can now be customized and printed on demand.

On the left you can see the an apple observed using an hyperspectral camera. The image on the right is a 3D printed chocolate structure.

• The global demand for meat is expected to double by 2050 as more and more people are rising out of poverty. Moreover, meat production is one of the largest sources of greenhouse emissions and you need 48 times as many liters of water to produce the same amount of beef as veggies. To meet the demand, experts are redesigning meat and producing it in a lab based on steam cells. It’s out there, how do you think it tastes?
• In the US, food travels on average 2400km before being consumed. As more and more people move to cities, the food distribution problem is just getting worse. What if we could grow food in cities using 80% less land, 90% less water (agriculture uses 70% of the water in the planet which is a scarce resource) and reduced transportation costs? Vertical farms can be the solution. In some cases, these experiments are part of totally eco-villages, fully self-sufficient villages (from energy to food to waste).

We are getting closer to the group work phase during which we should develop something to impact one billion people in 10 years. Any interesting problem suggestions that could potentially be solved with high technology? :)

This post was inspired by my experience at Singularity University where I am spending the summer as part of #gsp16.