2010 - An Improved Internet The National Science Foundation is funding a program to develop a re-design of the next-generation Internet, creating a new network that will be suitable for years to come. It is called the Global Environment for Networking Investigations (GENI). The new Internet will focus on security as its main concern. It is expected to be able to handle the increase in Internet traffic expected as more people come online, and also be geared for the increase in content-delivery demands as more video and other large-scale projects are made available online. The development got under way in August 2005 when the U.S. government provided six small planning grants to the National Science Foundation to begin the project. Internet pioneers support the NSF idea; Leonard Kleinrock said it must be built to handle the boom in internet demands from sources other than computers, such as cellular phones, GPS/RFID-type tracking and hand-held organizers; David Clark, a senior research scientist at the Laboratory for Computer Science at MIT, said while the turn-of-the-century internet is operating at an acceptable level, "There are some things where you say, 'That doesn't work right.'" He said he expects this project will go beyond current efforts such as IPv6 (Internet Protocol Version 6), which would only incrementally improve the internet. Goals for the GENI initiative include new naming, addressing and identity architectures for the internet; advanced security architecture; a design built to handle a great deal more material at faster rates; traffic documentation; and new applications and services. The NSF announcement said GENI will "enable the vision of pervasive computing and bridge the gap between the physical and virtual worlds by including mobile, wireless and sensor networks." 2010 - RFID/GPS Can Track Anything Radio-frequency identification detectors are already in heavy use today, but by 2010 they will be even more ubiquitous, woven invisibly into everything everywhere. As of 2006 companies were using RFID in: ID cards to track employees at work; pre-paid passes that record usage and deduct payments at mass-transit systems and tollbooths; tags that monitor student attendance and location in some schools; tracking of shipments of goods and delivery of services. Global positioning systems (GPS) allow the calculation of the exact position of anything anywhere in the world. By 2006, these were being incorporated in car-safety systems and in cellular phones, making the devices tools by which people can be tracked and located. By 2010, you may be able to skip going through any sort of checkout and payment process when you shop or travel. You and all items you intend to purchase will have RFID tags; as you pass out of the door, you will be instantly billed for the items you carry. Passports are also being equipped with RFID tags. Hitachi introduced the tags above in 2005. They are tiny when compared with the tip of a pen. Some humans and animals are already carrying RFID devices implanted under their skin for identification purposes. Lost pets can be found and returned more easily when they carry such tags. Humans tie their medical records to the RFID number, and emergency personnel can access their identity and medical history (blood type, allergies, pre-existing problems) by using an RFID reader and matching a code number to a patient's file. This can also be tied to the idea of "IP on everything," which network engineers use to explain that nearly all material items will be networked in the future, from shoes to toasters. The sort of continuous tracking enabled by GPS, RFID and IP on everything has some negative implications in regard to freedom and privacy. These tools can be used by criminals or others to exert control over people and track them. A debate will continue to rage over the negatives and positives of the use of these devices and their networking. 2010 - Interactive Guidebooks Educate Innovators are developing interactive guidebooks tourists can use while traveling in vehicles or on foot, alone or in groups all over the world. These tools use GPS signals and allow travelers to hear a guided narration of what they are viewing along with related pictures and sound effects. Some of the places mapped to introduce the new guidebooks are Alcatraz in San Francisco, the Louvre in Paris, Edinburgh Castle and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. These types of guides will also be applied in other settings, including industrial training on special equipment, possibly even being used to train robots in future decades beyond this period of time. 2011 - SUPER Supercomputers Computational capabilities are accelerating rapidly, as indicated by IBM's announcement in 2005 that it had doubled the performance of the world's fastest computer, named Blue Gene/L (pictured at left), from 136.8 trillion calculations per second (teraflops) to 280.6 trillion teraflops. Supercomputer speed rankings are released every six months, and there is a healthy competition among top computer scientists. The United States has plans to create a supercomputer with petaflop capability by 2010. A petaflop - which equates to 1,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second - is equal to 1,000 teraflops. A supercomputer that will operate at a speed of 10 petaflops (or 10 quadrillion floating-point operations per second) is the 2011 goal of Japan's technology ministry. This would give it a capability close to the computational capacity of the human brain. High-speed computers are used to run simulations (for example, to study the formation of galaxies and to project the paths of hurricanes). Many scientists say they expect that computers will soon surpass the intelligence capacity of humans. 2012 - Food as Designer Medicine Nearly everything we eat is derived from livestock, crops and microorganisms bred specifically as food. Humans have been modifying these products and redistributing the genes geographically for most of their history. Thanks to gene research, computer modeling and the sharing of new knowledge in science and technology through the internet, the positive attributes of modified foods will continue to be refined. Crops will continue to be developed to be resistant to diseases, pests and herbicides; they will be developed to screen out allergens (such as the allergenic proteins found in nuts); vaccines will be bred into plants or possibly into livestock - for instance in milk in dairy herds. Fruit can be bred to carry additional essential vitamins and other medicines. People may be able to get necessary medical treatments just by eating. 2012 - Intelligent Fabrics, Materials By 2012, clothing may be equipped with sensors that can detect body warmth and send a signal to the thermostat controlling the temperature of the room to automatically decrease or increase the temperature of the room based on your body temperature. The sensitive fabrics may also be able to sense your mood and can be set to automatically adjust the lighting in a room. Clothes may eventually be able to sense and respond to the weather, monitor your vital signs, deliver medications, interface with information systems and automatically protect injuries. E-ink and e-paper and flexible, foldable computer displays were already in testing stages in 2006 and by 2012 to 2015 they may be common. They can allow, for instance, the easy and instantaneous changing of the printed price tags on every item in a store; easy-to-change signage on trucks, inside and outside retail outlets and along highways; the constant updating of the stories and photos in a newspaper - with moving photos or video possible. Other Possibilities by 2010-2014 The following are excerpted from the British Telecom Technology Timeline (information was compiled by Ian Neild and Ian Pearson from worldwide sci-tech reports in 2005): Artificial Intelligence units used as classroom assistants

Toys have built-in tracking technology

People have some virtual friends but don't know which ones are virtual

Mood-sensitive home décor comes into use

First divorce due to virtual affair with computer game character

Addiction to online games seen as a major problem

DNA used to assemble electronic circuits

First bacterium assembled from scratch

AI soccer teams as TV entertainment

Chips with 10 billion transistors

Electronic prescriptions reduce fraud and improve speed

Quiz shows screen for implant technologies

24/7 blood-chemistry monitoring

Laser-activated drug capsules

Ultrasound or radio-activated medicine capsules

Blood-analysis chips

Supermarkets used as major source of medical alerts

Remote control of insects by neural implants

Emotion detection used in businesses to select front-line staff

Instant electronic identification of pathogens

Lifestyle monitoring and insurance linked to medical records

Online surgeries dominate first-line medical care

Video tattoos

Cyber-drugs (electronically activated drugs)

Automated pain relief for soldiers

Bacteria in toothpaste to attack plaque

Antibacterial coatings on domestic appliances, phones, etc., especially in hospitals

Smells embedded in ordinary household objects

Flexible displays used for body monitoring and alerts

Emotional jewelry

Hand-held scanner to detect tumors using tissue resonance interferometer

Smart pill bottles remotely monitor medication taking and use alarms

Hotels offer some hospital services

Extensive remote-sensing use in environmental management

Effective prediction of most natural disasters

Chips on food packaging tell when food is at its best

Most homes have wireless networks

Smart paint available (contains microchips or nanomaterials)

Digital bathroom mirrors

Personalized response from household gadgets

Mood-sensitive light fixtures/bulbs

Smart, responsive home and work environments

Virtual windows open new worlds

1 billion internet users in 2010

Automatic video capture of personal events

Electronically mediated tribes become major social structures

Viewers able to pick any angle or player view while watching sports events

Augmented reality at sports grounds to enhance spectator experience

Frequent use of multiple Net identities causes personality disorders

Cheap miniature cameras cause social backlash

Personal black boxes record everyday life

Ability to digitally replace or enhance people in your field of view

3D "Minority Report"-style air display for information appliances

Projected augmented reality

Full-voice interaction with computers

Voice synthesis quality up to human standard

Data loss because of format changes becomes major business problem

Chips with 1 billion transistors

Quantum effect interferometer for flux measurement

Use of carbon fullerenes for on chip interconnect

Self diagnosis using gene chips for domestic use

Liquid drop lenses for camera phones, etc.

Terahertz scanners

Self-organizing adaptive integrated circuits

Molecular sized switches

Intelligent materials with built-in sensors, storage, and effectors

Smart skin for intelligent clothing and direct human repair

Use of bacteria to assemble small circuits

Optical neuro-computers

Simple quantum computer, 4 Qubits

100GB memory sticks (typical 2005 HD capacity)

Ultra-simple computing - just-in-time OS

Bacteria used in detection of explosives

Autonomous weapons authorized to fire at own discretion

Household access by facial recognition

Criminal tagging augmented with video and audio sensors

Extensive use of electronics to monitor police behavior

Immersive VR shopping booths

60 percent of internet accesses from mobile devices

Single address for emails, phone calls, etc.

HDTV over broadband

Assisted lane-keeping systems in trucks and buses

Most new cars fitted with positioning systems as standard

Pollution-monitor chips built into cars

Light-emitting fabrics used in clothes

Smell-emitting clothing, uses context

TV-quality video screens built into clothes

Jewelry that changes shape, color, and texture

Portable translation device for simple conversation

Shape-changing fabrics

Terahertz jammers in clothes as personal modesty shield

Dual appearance - you can change how you look with quick tech

Laws restrict what can be shown on video clothing View predictions for other time-spans: <2010-2014> <2015> <2016-2025> <2026-2045> <2046-2150>