The Future Is Faster Than You Think - Peter H Diamandis, Steve Kotler

Sub-title: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives (Exponential Technology Series)

This was a fascinating book, full of optimistic (mostly) predictions for the future based on new technologies coming together to accomplish amazing changes.  The authors have written two previous books Abundance  and BOLD as a series on new technologies.  There are lots of new to me concepts in this book that opened my eyes to the possibilities for the future.  One disappointment is that there are few women innovators mentioned in the book.

While the power of technology is intoxicating it also can be incredibly destructive which the authors brush off.  Changing the systems and cultures that utilize the technologies is a huge leap.

Quotes

[Quantum computing] is already available to the masses.  Rigetti Computing www.rigetti.com

[Virtual Reality] sensory trickery that VR experts term "presence"...when VR's done correctly, for reasons that are neurobiological, we can't tell we're in the Matrix...the brain believes the illusion.

[3-D printing] ...machine prints a four-hundred to eight-hundred square foot home in 48 hours at the cost of $6,000 to $10,000. 

[Blockchain] is a distributed, mutable, permissible, and transparent digital ledger.

[Perovskite] light-sensitive crystal has the potential to get conversion efficienty of average solar panel up to 66% from 16.

[CRISPR-Cas9] gene-editing technique that allows ou to repair the DNA inside a cell; stem cell therapies replace that cell entirely.

The smartness economy in book The Inevitable by author and Wired cofounder Kevin Kelly says AI will replace the 1800 electricity revolution by adding a layer of smartness to any existing tool.

[Google Lens] general visual search engine

[Augmented Reality - AR] IKEA has an app to map your living room.

[Artifical Intelligence - AI] 2016 short film Sunspring created using AI and also Morgan by Twentieth Century Fox.

[Virtual Reality] - lets us crate distributed, customized, accelerated learning environments.  ...drive people into flow makes it even more potent.  Ready Player One by Ernest Cline describes world of VR. 

Published: 2020  Read: July 2020  Genre: Non-fiction, technology