|
|
|
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
The Future in Focus
| Article
# : |
17411 |
|
|
Section : |
LIFE
|
| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1990 |
3,133 Words |
| Author
: |
Steven Kaplan
Steven Kaplan is a widely published writer living in St. Paul,
Minnesota, and a contributing editor of St. Paul magazine. |
If you want to get some sense of what life will be like in the 1990s, one good place to look is inside the research and development laboratories of corporations and universities across the world. The Japanese, for example, are developing a washing process will require no soap and take no more than a few minutes to complete a load.
On our side of the Pacific, Nolan Bushnell, the genius behind the Atari company, is working on a robot that may be able to handle such household chores as vacuuming and dusting. Among the other items already in development are an ultrathin television set that mounts on the wall like a huge framed picture, a machine that automatically translates from one language into another, and a high-powered computer that weights less than two pounds and is smaller than a videocassette.
These products, though, seem almost ordinary compared to what scientists are dreaming of for beyond the 1990s. A peek inside MIT's Media Lab offers some breathtaking visions of the coming decades. There, for example, a scientist lays out his vision of tomorrow's movies. They will not be anything like today's movies, flat and projected on a screen, he explains, but will be lifelike presentations that seem to be taking place in your living room.
If you like classical music, you can have the New York Philharmonic play Beethoven's Fifth in your parlor; or if you prefer, invite Katherine Hepburn in to perform Eugene O'Neill for your dinner guests. Of course, explains the scientist, neither Hepburn nor Leonard Bernstein will actually be in your living room, but it sure will look that way. What you'll be seeing is a holographic representation of the
... (2000 of 18731 Characters)
Read Full Article
|
|
