Back in the 1960’s people who predicted what the world would be like today got most of it wrong. They mainly focused on transportation improvements like flying cars or other stuff that you might have seen on “The Jetsons”. They totally missed the electronics revolution and our total dependence on electronics and information databases. “Star Trek” was much closer to that reality, but that series was set centuries in the future.
Over the last 50 years, many things in the world did not change as much as people thought they would, and other things changed beyond anyone’s expectations. For example, the cars we drive have not changed that much since the 60’s. However, personal computing devices, the Internet, Wi-Fi , and ilk were not even envisioned in the 60’s.
Thanks to the electronics revolution, knowledge is now doubling every year or two. Barring a major world war and world economic collapse, or a world-wide destruction of electronics by a coronal mass ejection from the sun, I think technology developed by 2025 will even be more surprising than all the advancements in technology of the prior 50 years. I do have to admit that I am rather doubtful that man will avoid the pitfalls that I have mentioned, but I am giving humankind the benefit of the doubt in this article when it comes to continuing technical advancements.
Some technology that will become common in 2025 are now under development and some things probably have not even been thought of yet. In this article, I will mention just a few things that I know are under development that will greatly change the way of life on earth by 2025.
Advances in computer devices and data-basing of information on the cloud and the vast improvements in data transmission by 2025 will make the devices that we now use to traverse the Internet highway look like the horse and buggy days of the information highway. Satellite or other communications technology will bring the Internet and knowledge databases to the whole world.
I think by 2025 almost all information in the world will be available on the Cloud for those that are allowed access. I believe a thousand times more data will be stored in less physical space then is possible today. Low cost unlimited bandwidth with gigabit transmission rates are likely to become reality in all world cities by 2025. Most everything will be streamed instead of downloaded to your computer. In fact, the only PC like device you may have in 2025 is a voice or touch controlled device that has a cloud based browser.
By 2025, the biggest productivity advance since the Industrial Revolution will be underway as the result of robotics and 3D printing. You might become aware of this “3D printing” term, because your going to hear a lot about it in the near future. 3D printing will change the way that most everything in the world is manufactured.
The basics of 3D printing is that engineers design computer programs that robots follow and the robots apply (spray) thin layers of liquified material (plastic, metal, fiber, etc.) that are rapidly hardened by cooling or drying. These layers are rapidly built up into 3 dimensional solid objects that were programmed by the engineer.
The beautiful thing about 3D printers is that once the program design is created for the 3D printer, replications can be created forever on that or any other 3D printer with similar capability. This will eliminate most manual labor in the manufacturing process.
These 3D printers will not be limited to building trinkets, they will be able to build very precise electronic chips, machine parts, tools, clothes, and even whole components like appliances, engines, car bodies and even modular homes (bye-bye labor intensive China). 3D printing will impact the 2020’s more than any other technology that I can think of.
Some already have plans to produce a biological 3D printer that will make new organs and other body parts for human bodies cultured from your own skin stem cells. The stem cells will be spayed on scaffolds of the right organ design.
You might think this is all science fiction but there are complex 3D printers in existence that are already making certain things. This new technology is going to take off and grow like wildfire as patents expire, 3D designs are created, and as this technology advances. All this means many more jobs for engineering programmers and far fewer jobs for skilled and unskilled blue-collar factory workers. It will become so easy to create low-cost manufactured products that I think the standard work week will have to be changed to 3 or 4 days a week by 2025.
Robots will also do many other manual labor service jobs from hamburgers at fast food joints, to cutting your grass and cleaning your home.
In 2025, when you go to a fast food place, you will just tap in or speak in the order by using your smart phone or by using the device at the restaurant and then pick up what you ordered. The money will automatically be deducted from the account that you designate and all this will be remembered so if you want to duplicate an order next week you can accomplish it by one voice command.
There obviously will be major advances in the medical field by 2025. Doctors will have ways to determine what diseases you are likely to get before you get them and they will offer personal wellness training and gene therapy to help keep you healthy. They may even be able to slow the worst effects of aging if not actually extend life spans.
Solar electric will be very big by 2025. Solar electricity is already cost-effective in certain parts of the country and the cost of solar systems are now being incorporated into and financed within the mortgage loans. As electric prices rise and solar continues to fall in price (thanks to advances in both production and solar efficiencies) most new homes will be solar-powered by 2025. Many older homes will be retrofitted when the roof needs replacement (roof shingles or tiles will be available that produce electricity at reasonable cost).
The spare electric capacity that solar power will free up will probably be used to charge electric cars using Li-Air batteries that are now at the research and development stage. These new batteries will allow cars to have a range of about 1000 miles before they need to be recharged. The extended range of electric vehicles will eliminate the need for expensive hybrid cars.
By 2025, you will not need to learn foreign languages to get by in foreign countries. There will be instant translation programs on your smart wrist watch phone that will translate what you say to the language that you choose or the language that the program recognizes. It will also translate what people speaking in a foreign language are saying into your language. In fact, you will be able to use Bluetooth wireless ear buds or glasses so that you can hear or see what those speaking other languages are saying in your own tongue. That is going to make relocation and travel to other nations much more attractive.
You will not need cash or credit cards by 2025. You will be able to instantly transfer funds using the security of biometrics and the ease of voice commands.
These examples are only the tip of the iceberg. There will be many important technological advances by 2025. If you know of interesting additional positive possibilities coming by 2025 you might share your knowledge with us.
I know some will say the world will destruct before then, or the Rapture will take Christians before then. However, I am not talking about the declining moral condition of man and his advancements toward evil in this article. For the purpose of this article, the premise is that most people on earth will survive the next 11 years, and they will continue to advance technologically by building upon the knowledge of those that preceded them. How man’s technological advancements ties into certain passages in Bible prophecy will be found out soon enough. New inventions by the fallen human race also produces evil unintended consequences.
I see mini RFID tags becoming commonplace. losing items will be a thing of the past as they can be put into almost anything their so small.
Most of us have heard of the singularity, but that is supposed to happen around 2030 I believe? that will be the biggest technological leap in history if it happens.
I heard self driving cars with minimal driver input will be here in the 2020’s. That will be interesting.
Video games are supposed to become holographic or virtual reality.
I know scientists are working on artificial oxygen particles that are injected into the bloodstream during situations where someone is not getting oxygen (choking etc.) which will supply the body needs for around 15 minutes I believe. This would be given to EMT crews in particular.
There are several 3D printing companies at the forefront that I have bought early on but buy on dips. 3D(DDD), Stratasys (SSYS), and Organovo(ONVO). What will the poor people that want $15 an hour here in the Chicago area do? Probably be hired for $5 to care for the robots who will be more valued and probably get 99.9% of orders correct. I wish I had the logic capacity to be into computer de elopement, but alas, the good Lord didn’t bless me in the IT field like my wife. I find it fascinating what technology holds and to see how far The Lord allows it to develope. Will have to train for something in this field. Maybe even have my own robot to do my work while I get paid, bitcoin only please.
I left out something. How many jobs will this take away and how many will it create? People who do not embrace change will be left behind. We can’t look at all advancements as evil. Most never are, only when it is used by rogue entrepreneurs for the dark side, which could be anything that is created.
I tend to lump prophecy and the looming wars / world chaos with everything, including technology.
Although there have been wars / warring since WW1/WWII, spurning technology, WWII was the last major world chaos and the technology that was spurned altered the world dramatically, including technology and the decades following.
What I think the looming wars will do is not only focus technology, but concentrate the development of technology while large parts of nations suffer in peril (particularly the Americas [first]).
As for what technologies shall occur, we can also look to prophetic scripture (information, travel, biological, etc).
Security of technology is something that is questionable. It seems like the same cat/mouse game as the past has been and currently about. I don’t see any infallable security other than by force.
Here’s something I’ve been following a bit. Looks like we will see some of this appearing in the market place in 2014. Kind of thought my next new vehicle might be fuel cell powered, but will settle for this option if we’re still here…
OPOC – Opposed Piston Opposed Cylinder
New engine design developed by EcoMotors International.
http://www.ecomotors.com/
http://www.howstuffworks.com/opposed-piston-opposed-cylinder-engine.htm
http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/04/24/america-new-engine-future-to-be-made-in-china/
Undoubtedly, Star Trek had a visionary or a person plugged into something with Gene Roddenbury, because I distinctly remember crew members going into the galley to a computer and said computer immediately construct whatever meal they wanted(3D manufacturing) or the crew members talking into thin air to the computer and getting an answer, and this stuff was proposed what, 40 years ago? However, the one singular thing that freaked me out the most, given the fact that I deal with surveillance tools, the dissemination of sensitive security matters, etc., in my job, was the brain chip proposed by Google that would allow you to access pretty much anything via the internet. Along with the possibility of individuals DNA being messed with with the “mark”, and the real time application of being able to transmit “messages” to individuals vis sound frequency manipulation, how hard would it be to infect those chips with some sort of virus that would have the recepients to accept a story of the reality of the power of a Man of Peace and his ability to perform “miracles” just like God? Hang on kids, I really think we are almost ready to get on the train for Home.
I think this post is one of your 25 best. It really got me thinking. Your analysis of the 3D printers of the future was absolutely fascinating. I am aware of 3D printers and have actually touched one, but your insight about where they are going was fantastic. Based on what you have said, I now see the 3D printer of the future as separating the resource rich countries from the resource poor countries. Why would China and Japan (others too) import raw materials to 3D print goods for export when the resource rich nations can print their own? And even if the Chinese steal and reverse engineer any design, they still won’t be able to produce it as cheap as we (and other resource rich nations) can, unless they are operating out of Africa, Russia, etc.
I think you should do a Part 2. Whereas this post is about consumer and commercial future technology, the Part 2 might be government technologies of 2025. A drone grid comes to mind, visually recording the comings and goings of all residents from the time we leave home until we return. Combine that with ubiquitous electronic tracking of every automobile (invisible checkpoints on every road). Even rural residents will be tracked–all in the name of eliminating crime. They would not even need traffic or police copters anymore. And imagine how accurately they could track weather.
A next logical step is for the government to force every resident to carry a device that will beacon their exact location at all times. The same mandatory device would be an integral part of every communication and transaction they make, all instantly recorded. The sad thing is that so many people already carry this device and it would be nearly impossible to pry it from their hands. Especially the young.
I think that what separates today’s cell phone from a useful computer is the size of the display and keyboard. I envision setting the cell phone of the near future down on a table and turning on a built-in projector to project the “screen” as big as you want it on a nearby wall for movies, meetings, or word processing. The full size keyboard will either be manufactured into shirts and/or pants (like a bunch of RFID chips—one for each key) or else the keyboard will be projected as a special light pattern down onto the table top.
Again, I really enjoyed this post. Keep it up.
Havery,
Good input, and astute observations of how 3D printers could change world trade. Of course it probably is going to take a decade beyond 2025 to develop the technology and mass production to the point that you suggest.
As for a part II on what government technology might be like by 2025, good idea, but I think you already gave a pretty good picture of where it is going if people continue to allow tyrannical surveillance for the facade of security. In any case, when the Beast government of the Antichrist appears he and his minions certainly will have the technology that you mention and more.
Harvey and Don,
I do have a bit of input here.
What Harvey said is assuming that government regulations/Tariffs will not be enforced to a major degree to limit the efficient usage of 3D printing for commerce.
We have certainly now seen the U.S. government handicap almost every attempt for self sufficiency and cripple our countries ability to manufacture and compete globally with their insane taxes and tariff’s.
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The checkpoints for automobile traffic is not new and has been going on for quite awhile now in the trucking industry…it is rumored that all automobiles manufactured after 2005 have the ability to be tracked.
I have read of technology where there would be no speed limit signs, very few cops would need to enforce traffic violations as the speed limit (and other violations) would be transmitted to the cars themselves…for example, if one goes over the speed limit, then the fine is sent to the registered owners home based on how fast one was going and for how long…and if it is a major violation, then, of course, you are tracked and thrown in jail.
Rental car companies use this technology to a point already and insurance companies want it in full swing, of course.
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There will be no cell phone handsets in the very near future…they will be basically an all in one Bluetooth headset, the headset itself will be the entire cell phone…no pushing buttons or phone numbers, one will just tell the phone what to do…no dialing, no texting.
Then there’s the Google Glasses idea…who knows, that might be an alternative for cell phones headsets all together.