#8
Your 10ghz old pal
Gimmickeer
Spritanium
Aug 28, 2016 at 12:08 AM
Also regarding technology, it's hard to say what I'm looking forward to within 5 years because most of the stuff I look forward to I'll be lucky to live long enough to see
But within 5 years VR and self-driving cars will probably improve drastically. If people really pick their shit up we could have some self-drivers on the market by then, but generally speaking I don't think they'll get through all the red tape for another decade at least (even though multiple tests have shown even current self-drivers to be better than human drivers)
It's mostly the "what if" scenarios they'll have to work out, like what if you reach an unconventional road or obstacle and the car doesn't know what to do? The cars will still have to come with controls to be driven manually, which means it'll still be required to be alert and pay attention to the road, which means you still can't get home by yourself when you're drunk. If we start talking about, I dunno 100 years into the future, then by that point we'll be reimagining cities to accomodate the new technology. I hope I get to see that.
As for VR that's getting better by the month it seems, but it concerns me because it seems like there are some gigantic obstacles to get the technology where everyone expects it to be. Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Ergo if I can tell that my virtual reality isn't real, it's not good enough yet. They can get the graphics and audio incredibly lifelike within 5 years I'm sure, but what do we do about tactile feedback? How do we program the infinite amount of interactions you can make with a simple object? When you're playing a video game, you can't just look at a rock on the ground and decide to pick it up and examine it. Any simulation where you can't interact with the environment in such intricate ways will break the illusion immediately.
And how do you make the user feel wind in their hair, or the warmth of sunshine? How do you let them feel like they're running? How do you let them look in a mirror and make faces? How do you let them feel as if they're wearing the same clothing as the ingame character, not just materials, but weight, resistance, and so forth? Hell, how do you make them feel as if they're not wearing a clunky headset while sitting in a chair? Afaik you can't do any of this without interfacing directly with the brain.
But as for realistic 5 year expectations...I hope the next time I buy a car it can be an electric. Probably with automatic accident avoidance / emergency half-assed self-driving mode, which I think already exists on some really high-end cars.