Virtual Reality (VR) has advanced to incredible heights. For those who haven’t kept up with the gaming scene, the newest game renowned for impressive graphics is Fallout 3. Of course, graphics aren’t all that matters to gamers, which is why another one of the hottest games on the block right now is Spore, which looks very cartoonish. Nevertheless, consistent advances in both graphics software and hardware have been propelling ever more realistic graphics into our homes. Movies and gaming were the vanguard for realistic graphics. In only a couple decades we went from Pong to Fallout 3. Yet, we still haven’t ditched the joystick, mouse, and keyboard. Join discussion...

J. Storrs Hall is the author of Nanofuture: What’s Next for Nanotechnology, a book covering the physical principles of engineering at the atomic scale, possible applications of nanomachines, and their potential alteration of human society. More recently he published Beyond AI: Creating the Conscience of the Machine, a review of the history of AI, discussing some of the major roadblocks that the field has recently overcome, and predicting the probable achievements in the near future. At October’s Global Catastrophic Risks conference in Mountain View he gave a presentation entitled “The Weather Machine” on the potential for nano-enabled “Climate Control for the Earth” Join discussion...

Future technologies seem so impactful and fabulous that it is easy to jump to incorrect conclusions about what things would be like with their advent. Fallacy #1: Molecular assemblers will have a worldwide overnight rollout The conventional assumption is that once humans are able to make one molecular assembler, it will be able to self-replicate, and therefore within twenty-four hours everyone worldwide will have one. It is far more likely that a molecular assembler would follow the usual s-curve adoption pattern of any other newtech; early versions are expensive and clunky with minimal functionality, continued improvement iterations make the newtech more relevant and usable. The first molecular assemblers may be like a next generation 3d printer, printing the T-shirt a friend sent as an email attachment. Only early adopters will have the utility (read: money and interest) to purchase the first molecular assemblers. Also, the first molecular assemblers will not be able to self-replicate as the intricate molecular manufacturing processes will need to be conducted at special facilities. Join discussion...

Improving the delivery of healthcare is arguably the greatest challenge facing the United States and the global community particularly with regards to aging populations. Next generation healthcare services also represent one of the largest growth sectors for applied information and communication technologies that improve access and quality while reducing costs for patients and healthcare institution. Is Healthcare 2.0 preparing for prime time? This notion of applying advanced technology systems is not new, but widespread applications might be much closer to mainstream adoption than is currently reported. This notion of next generation healthcare services has been explored by a number of forward looking physicians such as Dr. S. Vincent Grasso who organized a recent symposium at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey titled: ‘Enhancing the Delivery of Healthcare Services to an Aging U.S. Population. Join discussion...

Science will continue to surprise us with what it discovers and creates; then it will astound us by devising new methods to surprises us. At the core of science's self-modification is technology. New tools enable new structures of knowledge and new ways of discovery. The achievement of science is to know new things; the evolution of science is to know them in new ways. What evolves is less the body of what we know and more the nature of our knowing Join discussion...

The 4th of September could be day we will remember because it is the day a new concept of watching movies is revealed. Filmmaker Scott Hessels together with film and engineering students at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University have invented a new way of watching movies based on the viewer’s location and movement. It is location based cinema and I think… wow, this could be great! Join discussion...