Almost 26 years ago, in a research paper that I wrote about the future of education, I predicted that, in the future, people would connect computers to their brains.

One result would be quantum leaps in many fields, including education, entertainment, medicine, philosophy, arts, psychology and interpersonal communictions.

Regular readers know that, a couple of years ago, researchers finally [more...]

Regular readers know that I’ve always been a technophile.

I’ve always loved to know how everything works, and to learn about new technologies, even though I have very little need to own most of them.

Smartphones? Cool, but I don’t need one.

Giant-screen LCD TV? Cool, but my three, old, 27-inch analog TVs still work just fine. [more...]

Back in the early 80s, my favorite professor (and my boss for two summers), sent a coworker and me to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Chicago.

Driving from Toledo, Ohio, we stayed overnight in one of the suburbs, in the trailer home of one of our boss’s clients, who wasn’t home at the time.

By day, we roamed the CES, looking for future trends in technology to report back to our boss.

For me, the most memorable future trend was the introduction of a [more...]

It’s not a war against all computing.

But it’s definitely a war against general-purpose computing.

More and more people are buying smart phones, tablets and other special-purpose computers. Some of them have even written articles, bragging that they now do all of their computing work on those devices.

Instead of on relatively big, bulky general-purpose computers, like mine.

One result of the mobile computing movement is that [more...]

The inventor was getting ready to start his demonstration.

He had bragged to his audience that his new, secure wireless communication system was going to revolutionize the industry.

As they watched intently, his device began to receive messages, just as he had said it would.

Unfortunately for him, he [more...]

A few days ago, I described the methodology that I would follow if I wanted to try to predict the next few years of technology.

in a nutshell, look at what’s currently out there, and think about where it appears to be heading — sort of like aiming a gun ahead of a moving target.

I presume that financial speculators use that same basic methodology to help them decide which new companies to invest in.

And it sure looks to me like [more...]

It’s a huge undertaking when humans build a dam to hold back a river.

Both from an engineering standpoint, as well as from an environmental one.

A dam can cause incalculable, permanent effects on wildlife, ecosystems and topology.

But, every once in awhile, humans change their [more...]

If I were to sit down and try to make some technology predictions for the next five years, I would probably focus on evolutionary changes.

Evolutionary changes are much easier to predict than revolutionary changes.

Just look at what’s already out there, and think about any realistic changes or improvements to those things that you think most people would like to see.

You might also consider different [more...]