Technology Explodes

Posted: June 4th, 2008 | Author: Steve | Filed under: Technology | Tags: Computing, DIY, future, Information, Makers, Making, Rapid Prototyping, Science | View Comments

There has recently been a confluence of extremely interesting news floating about in the past week, leading to some really mind-blowing conclusions:

• Scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil has been everywhere in the past few weeks, speaking about how the exponential compounding of information will lead to an explosion of new technologies, covering all spectrums from medicine to computing, and it’s going to happen much sooner than most people think. What he is saying is very profound when you combine it with the next two bits…

• The Institute for the Future recently released a report suggesting that DIY culture, along with the decreasing costs of production and increasing access to information will lead to a revolution in the way products are produced and delivered. The “Maker Map“, as it is called, outlines the major factors which will influence how products are made in the future.

• The RepRap project announced that on May 29th, 2008, their Universal Constructor machine successfully produced a copy of itself, thus achieving the project’s main goal: the world’s first self-replicating machine!

When I wrote a few weeks back about the potential of rapid prototyping technology to change the way products are produced, and, subsequently, to potentially be a major step towards a truly sustainable world, I had no idea how far along this technology had progressed. In a way, this is exactly the sort of thing that Ray Kurzweil has been speaking about: we are quickly entering an age of sudden and incredible change. More to come very shortly…