Yes, information technology is still important, but it seems especially in the past several years the emphasis is less on simply providing machines for information (the development of the Internet and the birth of social media), but now it seems with Smartphones/Tablets, we want to merge technologies into one device, and is sort of a technological minimalism movement. Nanotech breakthroughs are more common these days in scientific/medical fields, and we just take information usually for granted, and enviormental developments are very pro-nanotech as well. The information age was postmodernist, while I feel the nanotech is post-postmodern (see wiki or other sources for the differences).  

One author feels that the nanotech age is set to begin between 2025 and 2050, but shift between the two is definately on; lots of these tablets are indeed convergance on technology. One screen will do radio, TV, Internet, your bank, shopping; it's definately happening, and the shift really began around 2003.

It seems to be a natural desire for man to have everything at his fingertips...Which was why the TV remote control was invented. :)

-Nanotech, nanotech, I need my nanotech, Nanotech,nanotech, it's not your fault!-

;D

It's just consumer electronics, not a basis for a stable economy. 

I definitely see nanotech/biotech as the next technological revolution, there will also be a push for alternative energy as fossil fuels become more expensive. There is actually a company developing nanosolar technology that makes solar cells more efficient(using nanotechnology). Nanotechnology will also make vast improvements in medical technology, like treating and preventing diseases.

Soon...we'll have the EyePhone like in "Futurama". (But it may be easier to put in your brain and there's no bitch called 'Mom' who wants to control the world).

10 years from now we'll start talking to people via television set.

10 years from now we'll start talking to people via television set.


People will have telephones in their cars!
:)

People will have telephones in their cars!
:)


Isn't that what OnStar does?  ::)

Yes, information technology is still important, but it seems especially in the past several years the emphasis is less on simply providing machines for information (the development of the Internet and the birth of social media), but now it seems with Smartphones/Tablets, we want to merge technologies into one device, and is sort of a technological minimalism movement.


Nanotech isn't about information exchange, it's about free/easy replication of physical objects in the same manner in which we now trade MP3s or software.  (And on the medical front, when machines - whether made of meat or metal - starts being able to do things that current chemistry can't, and our own pre-programmed biology won't.)

Required reading: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, 1995.  (Bonus: You'll also learn where that whole Steampunk ball really got rolling.  Yes, Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine was the genesis of the term "Steampunk", but it was the Neo-Vickys in The Diamond Age that made it into a (fringe) cultural phenomenon, rather than a literary genre.)

Nanotech isn't about information exchange, it's about free/easy replication of physical objects in the same manner in which we now trade MP3s or software.  (And on the medical front, when machines - whether made of meat or metal - starts being able to do things that current chemistry can't, and our own pre-programmed biology won't.)

Required reading: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, 1995.  (Bonus: You'll also learn where that whole Steampunk ball really got rolling.  Yes, Gibson and Sterling's The Difference Engine was the genesis of the term "Steampunk", but it was the Neo-Vickys in The Diamond Age that made it into a (fringe) cultural phenomenon, rather than a literary genre.)


What happens when our nanotech robots we use to clean plaque from our arteries develop their own intelligence and go on strike right at the holidays.  Give them what they want or you might get iced on Christmas.

What happens when our nanotech robots we use to clean plaque from our arteries develop their own intelligence and go on strike right at the holidays.  Give them what they want or you might get iced on Christmas.


I'd actually kinda be happy with that outcome.  Something would have achieved the Singularity, even if it wasn't human.

As nanotech catastrophes go, your scenario's nothing compared to what happens when some guy with an attitude problem builds some nanobots just plain consume any available materials in order to replicate.  Pay no attention to that planet covered in a layer of Grey Goo.

10 years from now we'll start talking to people via television set.


That's already happening; have you ever heard of a computer wire monitor to a TV set and Skype?

That's already happening; have you ever heard of a computer wire monitor to a TV set and Skype?


Yes.

My nieces and their friends Skype all the time.  I haven't Skyped yet.
:-\\

My nieces and their friends Skype all the time.  I haven't Skyped yet.
:-\\


Would you like to? ???

Would you like to? ???


Oh, I will Skype at some point.  I just haven't had a reason to yet...
:)

Nanotech is still mostly sci-fi but maybe in the 2020s it will start to emerge in the mainstream as an industrial force.

Nanotech is still mostly sci-fi but maybe in the 2020s it will start to emerge in the mainstream as an industrial force.


yeah

Nanotech is still mostly sci-fi but maybe in the 2020s it will start to emerge in the mainstream as an industrial force.


and just about everything will be cellphones, Ipods, Wii U's and Playstations.

and just about everything will be cellphones, Ipods, Wii U's and Playstations.


Even the iPod isn't really that high tech anymore.  ;D

Even the iPod isn't really that high tech anymore.  ;D


I see them listening to iPods once in a while.