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As New Year’s dawns, a look at the future
“GT2030″ offers specific forecasts about technological advances, painting a picture of smart cities tapping into information technology to create a more prosperous, better and greener place to live.
Smart-city planners will incorporate IT extensively to manage resources, communications, transportation, security, emergency services and other important functions of a healthy city. Sensors, cameras and smartphones will feed information into the smart-city system for digestion and decision-making.
The future could see megacities built from the ground up, offering an opportunity to integrate advanced IT for smart cities. These cities could be well-run urban centers or “urban nightmares” if done badly.
Breakthroughs in health-care technologies could come from “additive manufacturing” – also known as 3D printing – which produces three-dimensional things a single layer at a time, and could translate into “bio printing” new, unclogged arteries. Even complex human organs could be produced with 3D printing, and by 2030, people might rely on human augmentation to improve vision, mobility, focus and learning ability.
Exoskeletons are now in military development to help troops carry heavier loads, but they could also help the elderly carry out the activities of daily life.
More personalized medicine is also on the horizon. Futuristic disease management might involve faster, cheaper “molecular diagnostics.” That means, for instance, evaluating genetic information to find out whether a disease is present or a patient has a predisposition to one.
Cost, of course, is a significant factor in the development and spread of these “magic” new technologies. Will only the wealthy have the means to create new organs and “cure” genetic defects? Will only privileged parts of the country be able to build more livable and greener communities?
We must keep that in mind as the revolutionary new technology enters our lives.
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