Future Timeline

Relaunch of the old thread!

Tracy Caldwell Dyson viewing Earth from the ISS Cupola, 2010

What is something that sounds futuristic but is happening now?

Honestly seeing these HD videos from a different freaking planet is insane to me. Makes me wonder if anyone will get there within my lifetime

Data centers


Data centers are built to be modern, very well insulated, and huge. Very geometric. A lot of soft-but-bright lights lining the edges, with a lot of glass, metal, and wires as well as almost nothing but rows and rows of identical computers. There are rarely any flourishes besides logos, so it looks very industrial or business-like. They're ripped straight out of a sci-fi novel.

They just feel like the kinds of places where machines think.

Dubai

I still love this so much. It's just so inadvertently mundane! A how-to guide for powering up your own humanoid robot.

Disinfection Gates in China, way back at the start of the pandemic

Half-response to funkervogt's chat update:


Leisure tech is extremely advanced

A very fascinating thread!

This is a great example of how the Future™ won't always look like what you expect it to look like


Now I knew that fully automated retail wasn't going to literally be "existing retail outlets, but with humanoid robots walking around and picking things out" like you'd see in a bad sci-fi movie, but it really did just now strike me how inhuman and futuristic these things will be. There's absolutely no need for things to be designed for humans here, and it's so efficient.