Ray Kurzweil talks about the future of (non)transportation, solar power and BRAIN EATING ZOMBIE NANOBOTS

OK so that last bit was an exaggeration, but maybe not that far off from what Kurzweil predicts we'll be living with in the not-so-distant future.

The inventor, futurist and author of The Singularity is Near in the latest issue of Good Magazine makes some predictions about the future of virtual reality, renewable energy and transportation.

Given the rapid advances we're witnessing in solar energy technology and storage, his belief that within 20 years most of our electricity will come from the sun seems plausible. However, I'm a little skeptical of his suggestion that we'll happily inject nanobots into our brains in order to enjoy better HDTV:

By the late 2020s, nanobots in our brain (that will get there noninvasively, through the capillaries) will create full-immersion virtual-reality environments from within the nervous system. So if you want to go into virtual reality the nanobots shut down the signals coming from your real senses and replace them with the signals that your brain would be receiving if you were actually in the virtual environment.

Yeah....normally I'm an early adopter of new technology, but I think I'll let others turn their brains into grey goo first before I give it a try. Then again, I vaguely remember spending a good part of my twenties doing exactly that...


[Good Magazine]

When a stranger calls

A few years ago you could have dismissed the development of a new social networking site by fresh-faced teenager as a curiousity, and nothing more. However since Mark Zuckerberg brought us Facebook and is now considered an industry sage at the ripe old age of 25, people now pay attention to what those crazy teens are working on. Case in point: Leif K-Brooks and Omegle. It's too early to tell whether or not he's going to be the next Zuckerberg, but it's still amazing to see how "an 18 year-old guy who loves computer programming" has created a site that's growing exponentially in users. Since its launch out of nowhere on March 25th (2009...about 2 weeks ago), it's gone from zero to 1,800 concurrent users in its first five days. At the time of this post there were 3,405 online.

Brooks created Omegle to facilitate chats with random strangers on the Internet. That's right - you land on the home page, click "Start a Chat" and the next thing you know you're chatting with....who the hell knows? It's the Web equivalent of hoping to make new friends by picking up a phone book and dialing the first number your eye lands on.

So what exactly is the point of this? Probably nothing....but it's not like you're already wasting a lot of time on the Internet, right?

This blogging thing can be a lot of work!

Yeah, I've been really really bad about posting, but I promise (to no one in particular) to do better starting today!