[TV Show] 2057 - The World

Some thoughts on the Science Channel show 2057. This time on the installment entitled “The World”.

Quick Shave
In the setup for the show, we’re introduced to a space station tethered to the Earth with two men (one American, one Chinese) manning it in its final days before it is shut down. American Guy wakes up and orders a laser shave. Dutifully a laser runs down his face and he’s smooth as a baby’s bottom in about 3 seconds. Interestingly he doesn’t have to turn his head to get at all the hard-to-reach areas that a laser issuing from a single point might not be able to reach from a head-on view, but that’s just a nit.

More interesting, I think, is whether he would need to shave at all. I expect (as I’ve written about elsewhere) that by about this time we can expect nano-machinery of some sort to maintain our body hair. You design what you want your hair to look like and little nanites would crawl up and down it, trimming it the moment it got longer than needed. At the same time, they could be manipulating molecular bonds to curl or straighten your hair, and likely apply whatever coloring is in vogue. No fuss, no muss.

More interesting yet is the question about whether we will have hair at all. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find the bulk of people opting for permanent hair removal on the head. And those that didn’t might have chains of nanobots for hair (a sort of nano-medusa look) that could rearrange themselves dynamically. A middle ground would probably be some sort of synthetic hair with whatever properties (energy generation for your onboard computing anyone?) are in style at the moment.

Shaving? That was so 2037!

A Laptop?
As Chinese Guy quizzes American Guy on Chinese sayings, we see that Chinese Guy is sitting at a laptop working. Didn’t they deride this in The City? Anyway, see my article on that episode with respect to augmented reality to refresh yourself on why all of the visible computers are unlikely to exists.

You might be thinking that visible interfaces might still be necessary in collaborative environments, but there is no reason to believe that collaborative environments wouldn’t happen in an augmented sense as well. Even better, your version of an interface that we need to share may be customized for your needs and preferences, looking very different from mine. Physical shared interfaces are just SO inflexible ;)

Where’s the Gravity?
On the tethered space station, there appears to be Earth-like gravity. The people don’t float, nor does any of the equipment. Perhaps the tethering is supposed to provide a centrifugal force-type gravity, but you can clearly see in the windows behind them that the “gravity” that they are experiencing is pulling them towards the Earth. If the tethering was providing a gravity-like force, wouldn’t they be “pulled” away from the Earth?

Caller ID?
Interestingly, none of the “phone calls” I’ve seen so far have told the person receiving the call who is calling. Are we taking steps backwards here?

Body Armor
There’s an interesting piece about work that is being done for the military on active body armor. The idea is that the uniform a soldier wears will transform its properties as needed (being soft and compliant until hit by a bullet whose shock causes it to become stiff), and have active components that, as given in the example, can give a soldier CPR by contracting as needed.

It’s interesting to think of this latter property in terms of muscle augmentation, making soldiers stronger and faster. What’s more interesting, is that if we assume that this technology is, say, 20 years out, it will probably only be 10 years before the average citizen has access to it. If we think about the applications of assisting the elderly, or otherwise weak, and the applications in terms of enhancing a healthy person’s performance, I’d guess that it would be available much faster…should it be available at all.

Going the Distance
Overall, I think that these shows are suffering from the same problem as many future lookers: They aren’t thinking big enough.

From some of the screens shown on the show, it appears to have been made in 2006. Since that time, much progress has already been made on things they’ve shown, meaning that it’s much closer than they are projecting.

Just think of where we were 50 years prior to 2007, in 1957. We’ve made monumental leaps in so many fields, the list would be extremely long if you tried to write it down. And think of all of the things that are new since then. Heck, for a more enlightening experience, think of where things were in 1997. Think of the state of the art in computers, cell phones, the Internet. Think of how you watched TV then, and how you get your entertainment today. Think of hybrid cars and green technology. Really big screen television, video games and the like.

Every day our understanding of the universe gets better, allowing us to make better educated guesses than we could the previous day. Every day our tools get better allowing us to do more work far more efficiently and accurately than we did the day before. The walls to collaboration drop, the number of people working to improve any given area of life increases, the ability to learn whatever you need to know increases as well. Every day we take a bigger step forward based on the previous record step of the day before. It’s an amazing time to be alive. And tomorrow will be more amazing yet. 50 years from now? I’m guessing it’s practically unimaginable.