“Eventually such systems may not require conscious input to capture and respond to shifting user preferences, though user intervention might still remain an option. The notion of ‘virtual’ fails to accurately describe such a world.”
The international authorities overseeing the creation of a unified standard for 5G mobile technologies are expected to release the initial specifications next year and the final phase in 2019, paving the way for the commercial deployment of 5G services by mobile network operators from 2020.
China is one step closer to achieving the reality of seamless, super high speed communications that will enable driverless cars, virtual reality education and nationwide health care services after a partnership comprising China Mobile, Qualcomm and ZTE accelerated efforts to finalise technical standards for the next generation of smartphones.
With the world’s largest population and most number of internet users, China is making a huge bet that the wide roll-out of 5G mobile infrastructure by the country’s three main telecommunications network operators would support the country’s rapid digital transformation – enabling a raft of advanced applications and services that were the stuff of science fiction just decades ago.
Millimeter waves, massive MIMO, full duplex, beamforming, and small cells are just a few of the technologies that could enable ultrafast 5G networks.
Today’s mobile users want faster data speeds and more reliable service. The next generation of wireless networks—5G—promises to deliver that, and much more. With 5G, users should be able to download a high-definition film in under a second (a task that could take 10 minutes on 4G LTE). And wireless engineers say these networks will boost the development of other new technologies, too, such as autonomous vehicles, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things.
This sort of thing is rapidly going mainstream, and de Grey, if still a fringe thinker, seems increasingly less so. At the very least, medical science has progressed to the point where “negligible senescence” — eternal youth, more or less — is something it might be a good idea to start talking about before it is suddenly upon us without our having thought through the implications. As with most of the other miracle technologies that have turned our lives inside out over the past 100 years — rampant automation, nuclear power, virtual reality, artificial intelligence and so on — this one, as Shukan Gendai points out, has its dark side.
Is death inevitable? True, everyone born before Aug. 4, 1900, has proved mortal (the world’s oldest-known living person, a Japanese woman named Nabi Tajima, was born on that date). But the past is only an imperfect guide to the future, as the effervescent present is ceaselessly teaching us.
Must we die? We ourselves probably must. But our children, our grandchildren — or if not them, theirs — may, conceivably, be the beneficiaries of the greatest revolution ever: the conquest of death.
Continue reading “On the quest for the holy grail for as long as we live” »
Future U.S. military tanks may look and perform nothing like they do today.
In fact, they may not even have windows and instead seal military personnel inside a closed cockpit to better protect them against threats.
But how could they see the battlefield around them without windows? To see outside, Soldiers could use a new technology made by Honeywell that lets them “see” with virtual reality and augmented reality.
The four drivers received specialist training, including a new virtual reality mode…
Lincolnshire police officers have been receiving extra lessons in high-speed car chases — by playing a video game.
Continue reading “Game on! Police play Gran Turismo Sport to improve driving skills” »
Looking back at vintage conceptions of the future can be interesting. Most depictions of the 2000s that were rendered in the 1800s or early 1900s come off as whimsical, because they’re so off-target. Illustrators in the past were often focused on transportation, military tactics, and domestic life, and they predicted everything from whale buses to Fallout -esque fashion. Some illustrated predictions, however, are eerily accurate.
In 1963, science fiction author Hugo Gernsback posed for Life Magazine wearing a fake mock-up of a tool featured in one of his stories. He called the contraption “TV glasses”. Considering them now, they look a lot like an oculus rift. Hugo told Life that users would one day watch television on screens so close to their eyes that they felt immersed in the action, effectively predicting the media’s recent preoccupation with virtual reality.
No one’s sure if Hugo also predicted immersive “action” of the pornographic kind, but that’s what technology’s up to now.
Continue reading “8 Science Fiction Illustrations That Now Feel Crazy Prescient” »
