This is hardly recent news, but I just found out that the U.S. Coast Guard no longer uses Morse code. Apparently its use in communicating with ships at sea ended in 1995. The USCG was actually one of the last holdouts, with many other nations and organizations abandoning it earlier. Like all historically important technology that becomes outdated, there was considerable emotion displayed when it passed from the scene. The USCG's last Morse code dispatch (read the full text here) sadly acknowledged that satellite and GPS-based technologies obsoleted Morse code but their cold precision lacked the romance of a lone radio operator communicating by dots and dashes. It ended: "What hath God wrought?" and the sadness of the operators is apparent throughout. The French Navy was in an even more lyrical mood, signing off for good with "Calling all. This is our last cry before our eternal silence.
" Damn.
It is not hard to understand the sadness of people who devote a substantial portion of their careers to a technology that becomes obsolete.
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There is also a melancholy aspect to tossing a technology that played such an important historical role onto the trash heap as soon as it is improved upon. Email and the GPS are undoubtedly more convenient and helpful than letter-writing or Morse code, but it's a shame that we so quickly forget that people did just fine for a couple hundred years with only pen, paper, and the mailman.
This train of thought led me to the state of communication technology today and the realization that, although my mind can't comprehend the details, in 30 years we will be looking back on Droids and 4G iPhones with the same kind of nostalgia for primitive technologies. I certainly don't mean that they are primitive today, but history suggests that what we consider cutting-edge today will quickly be surpassed until we reach some sort of singularity.
But as much as I know that smartphones and other recent developments will become outmoded, I can't begin to wrap my head around how. What will be the next great leap forward in communication technology? We already have nearly instantaneous access to any bit of information on the planet from mobile devices and we can communicate to any corner of the globe instantaneously by text, voice, video, and so on. How can we improve upon this? To some extent this is a silly question, because any of us who knew with certainty what is to be the Next Big Thing would be busy inventing it, investing in it, and getting rich. But even in the broadest conceptual terms, even assuming technologies that do not currently exist, I lack the imagination to foresee how we can improve upon instant access to the sum of all human knowledge. Much as there are no physical frontiers remaining in the world, it seems to me that we are quickly reaching the point at which electronic and technological frontiers have also been exhausted.
But I'm sure people say the same thing with every new development.
Like everyone who failed to comprehend how technology could get more advanced than the telegraph, the radio, and then television, I am certain that time will prove me wrong.
What do you think our next Great Leap Forward will be? I'm stumped.
Andrew says:
"sixthsense", gestural interface technology that essentially turns the entire world into an Xbox Kinect game. After that, sixthsense will be integrated with technology that can pick up intentions from our brains, and after that, our gestures and thoughts will be converted via nanotech into reality. Some of us might use voice commands or tools to gesture with out of a sense of nostaliga, but it'll just be for show.
In other words, the next great leap forward will turn us all into wizards.
daphne says:
well all I can say is 3 dits, 4 dits, 2 dits, dah.
Xynzee says:
Hmmm… No morse code?
While the zippo lighter may have replaced rubbing two sticks together, I'm sure that I can more easily find two dry sticks in a survival situation than a zippo and fuel.
Sometimes we're too quick to abandon non- & lo-tech ways of doing things for something with flashy lights. Luckily there will always be somekind of anorak who keeps this stuff alive, "just in case".
I'd hazard a a guess of direct neural linkage.
Nunya says:
I have a feeling that the endless pursuit of more and more advanced technology will fade away until they become what they were designed to be: Tools.
I'm not alone in the feeling that screen time is essentially the theft of humanity. I may be older than your current audience but I have ditched the crackberry, set limits on when I am expected to answer email, and have a tiny sliver of my life where I actually interact with flesh and blood people.
I've been engages in the digital revolution more than most and am quickly growing to resent it. It is, as all technology is, only a tool to increase our abilities. Yeah, I can hear any song I've ever thought of on a whim or watch any film, read any book, seek out fellow crackpots but to what end?
Plugged in is starting to lose its luster. Data plans are, surprisingly, starting to show less per capita usage even given the nacent technology.
In this era of gnat-like attention spans, we might actually return to old-fashioned stuff like using complete sentences, being physically present with friends and family, and some sense of sanity that only comes from one on one contact.
The fact that this may all come from the fact that we can neither afford these magnificent devices nor the steep monthly fees is beside the point!
Coises says:
Active bodymods? I mean, if you’re going to wear a tongue piercing, why not have it able to recognize your whispered (or vocalized) speech and record, transmit or transcribe it? (The problems being a small enough power source and a wireless transmission method safe enough to be in such intimate contact with the body; the software would come along sooner or later.) Same with audible earrings.
A way to do visuals — the most important output interface — is less apparent.
ts46064 says:
Ok this is completely off topic but Coises mentioned body modification. Body modification has become very popular over the last 10-20 years with numerous "reality" shows about tattoo parlors and the proliferation of tattoos among people who aren't bikers or veterans. My question is does anyone else think that tattoos and other body mods might be a fad?
On topic comment: I suppose the transfer of other senses might be the next step, sending a smell, taste, or feel via phones or some other technology not yet invented.
Daniel says:
Video games will probably be virtual reality in twenty years. You will shoot a guy who actually looks like a real guy. At least this is what we have been told for the last ten years or so. Is this appealing? I don't think so. Give me a plumber jumping on turtles and an elfin boy vanquishing goblins any day of the week.
duck-billed placelot says:
The Replicator, duh. And I'm 100% sure that the armed forces/Blizzard Entertainment are hard at work on some sort of Holodeck. I'd settle for R2D2 style recordable holograms, which are probably the most feasible with current technology.
af says:
"What Technology Wants" is an interesting book on this subject, came out a couple months ago.
Aaron Schroeder says:
I think we should think about what sorts of limitations there still are to actualizing whatever human desires we have and just assume that some kind of technology will be able to achieve that capacity. Given the availability of information, what we have is the capacity to bring the world to us, in a sense. "In a sense" though, means that we're just bringing some representation of the world to us — not the world, itself. The limit, then, is space. What we can't do is bring ourselves to the world.
With that in mind, then, I suggest this as the next giant leap: near-instantaneous physical 'teleportation.' Just what teleportation amounts to remains an open question, but presently, we can transmit data in one very small location (the structure of a couple of atoms) near-instantaneously to another location. This basically means that we can cause the structure extant in one area to be organized in another area at almost-instantaneous speeds — though, with the evisceration of the structure in the first area. Think of an atomic version of Captain Kirk beaming up, and you'll get the picture. Macrofy that process several million times over, and you'll have beaming up, full-stop.
zosima says:
The singularity ain't never gonna happen. What looks like an exponential turns out to be a boring old sigmoid. It is purely a side-effect of improper extrapolation. Look at Moore's Law. we were supposed to have 30 Ghz processors today. No such luck. They're still clocked at 1.7 Ghz.
Facehammer says:
Even more intimate contact between human and computers. You won't need to stare at a screen to find information – it'll be accessible as if you were simply recalling it from your own memory.
comrade x says:
Virtual reality sex booths at Sex World. With automated squeegee attachment.
The Man, The Myth says:
I think this whole move towards mmorp games will continue to encourage people to never leave their homes… or computer screens.
Hawes says:
I think the way we interface with technology is the next big change. The next obsolete technology will likely be the keyboard.
Misterben says:
I doubt that we can really count on another true "Great Leap Forward" in our lifetimes. Dazzling consumer electronics, certainly, but I don't expect another real "Great Leap".
I think it's important to remember that our astonishing technological advancements in the last 50 years – and more importantly, the widespread dissemination of those advancements via consumer products – did not happen on its own. These advances required: (1) widespread industrialization and globalization, (2) cheap energy, and (3) abundant credit.
Industrialization and globalization allowed us to transform vast swathes of the rest of the world from subsistence farmers into factory laborers. This vast addition to the global labor force made it much cheaper to produce what are essentially toys: laptop computers, iPhones, etc. This also had the effect of making some Westerners much richer, and making many Westerners *feel* much richer.
Cheap energy allowed us to inexpensively transport consumer goods from all over the world directly to the Apple store in the local mall. It also means that most Americans think nothing of plugging something into the wall to charge it.
Abundant consumer credit in the US and other parts of the West made us feel rich, giving us the confidence to buy new stuff every year just because we felt like it.
These elements combined to drive voracious consumer demand for new tech toys. It also made it easy for suppliers to make money selling to that demand. Of course the private sector has been paying for lots and lots of R&D; the corporations know that whatever they discover, they can sell to us.
But it is my belief that these conditions are rapidly fading. Oh, sure, globalized industry is here to stay, but they don't have to make iPhones for us on the cheap. If we can't pay them for it, they won't do it. Our cheap energy bonanza is over, and I don't think it will be practical to transport shiploads of tech toys from Taiwan to Duluth for much longer. (I wonder how much longer Americans will so casually plug things in to charge them too.) And consumer credit is currently on life support. There is a very good chance that consumerism as we know it could fade away during our lifetimes.
Without the engine of consumer demand to drive it, I doubt our technological innovation will continue at the same breakneck pace for much longer.
Del says:
I didn't know this either, and it makes me sad. My dad, dead ten years now, spent WWII teaching radio school in New Jersey. On the other hand, I've noticed more and more customer/ tech support people are using the old Alpha Bravo Charlie radio alphabet, so we can still cling to that.
Elder Futhark says:
(Semi-serious crank thinking on my part) In the usual half-ass primate kind of way, we've already had our Singularity, or maybe v1.0. The Industrial Revolution. There is a serious disconnect between the ancient and medieval world (ending, say, 1918?) and the modern (inhuman) one. Steam opened up mass-production on an inhuman scale. The telegraph is an incredible quantum leap. People really do not recognize the destruction of time and space with this advance. Going from fast as a horse to fast as light? Fucking unbeleivable! The corporation and the nation state – vast inhuman organisations, appear. That's not a Singularity?
So, next up, and yes I ain't gonna get rich on it, but this is where it is going: brain to brain electronic technology. No fucking wires in the skull. A beanie or a head band. Eventually, the bandwidth allows, not just thoughts, but transmission of somatic experience. This is what my body feels like.
Imagine what that will do for fucking!
Skepticat says:
And to help Xynzee's anorak:
http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html
ladiesbane says:
Do you remember Jeremiah Denton, forced to be interviewed as a POW, blinking out the word "torture" in Morse code? That's what I'll always think of, and why (as unusual as this situation is) that there will always be a use for ways to communicate that don't rely on external technology.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgelmcOdS38
What will happen to books published only electronically? Once the Kindle becomes obsolete, not all titles will be transformed to the new technology. I can still listen to my 80 year old records using a needle and a Dixie cup, but my minidiscs are gone forever.
Elder Futhark says:
Not only can you swap bodies fucking. If you can transmit, you can record. What's the mindshare on your experiencing your fave celebrity coule fucking? What's the Big Pig like? You know, the Cloud. The Grid. The Borg hive mind? Won't it e something to confirm that dogs really don't unconditionally lve us, or that whales and dolphins are even bigger assholes tha we are?
Get those hoverrounds and exosuits ready. They gonna be a whole bunch of comatose fat people to cart around! Noblesse obese.
Taylor says:
What's next? The Cerebrum Communicator, of course!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUa3np4CKC4
Keifus says:
"In the beginning was the Word. Then came the fucking word processor. Then came the thought processor. Then came the death of literature. And so it goes."
Kulkuri says:
The first phones I remember using had a crank where the dial should be and ten houses on a line, and now people are walking around with a BlueTooth in their ear and some of them are actually talking to someone else.
Keifus says:
Of course the other alternative is that we neither grow indefinitely nor level out, but regress, what from unsupportably expansive socioeconomic models or resource limitations, or whatever. At which point the iPads and machines and infrastructure will make some fancy relics. Make the Appian Way look like a cowpath.
Hazy Davy says:
Speed: In 1987, a 1200 baud modem was lightning fast. By next year, the norm on a *mobile phone* will be 1000 times that. In 50 years, we'll be able to transmit far more, far faster. We already do images and video…but the next step might involve some multi-camera full-representation.
Interface: Nintendo Wii. MS Kinect. Multitouch iPhone/Android. Vingo. It's pretty clear that interfaces can and will be improved. (And no, we won't have any "Gorilla Arm"-inducing Minority-report interfaces.) The interface through a keyboard or mouse will seem quaint, as we'll use our body, surfaces of walls, and our voice, at the very least.
Application: This is where the big guesses will come. But not from me.
Da Moose says:
We've already achieved Singularity. It's called Sarah Palin. Actually, it's pretty obvious what the next great leap forward will be from a communications standpoint. You may have unwittingly hinted at it in your piece when you mentioned that we already have nearly instantaneous access. Brain implants are next. And these will be implants that you ingest like a pill and then they will attach themselves, via your bloodstream, to the base of your brain using nanotech. So, you'll be able to receive a phone call or access data immediately without the use of any exterior hardware device. Call it Real Genius tech. "Stop touching yourself, Kent!"
John says:
The next big leap in technology is gated by the next big leap in transportation technology. If we can communicate instantly with any part of the world, the next step is to communicate instantly with any part of *any other world*.
At present, communication between, say, the moon and the earth has substantial time lag involved because of the great distances. Move it out to some of the outer planets, and communication stops being any semblance of real-time. Move it out beyond the solar system, and inter-stellar communication becomes a serious problem. Not to imply that science fiction necessarily dictates reality, but there is a lot of truth to that old Aliens nugget, "I don't ask because it takes a week to get an answer out here, and the answer is always don't ask."
The next big thing in communication technology is, of course, ComStar. But we won't need ComStar until we get to other worlds.
chautauqua says:
I was saddened to hear of the passing of the old Morse system. As an ex-Coastie whole set his last Special Sea Detail many years ago, I can remember that the Radio Shack and the Captain's Cabin were the two places on our relatively small ship wherein genuine mystery resided. Both were off limits for simple swabbies, and although I once had the honor of winding the Old Man's chronometer, the radio room was forever an enigma unknown to most of us. The more so as invisible messages would flood into it, changing our routines and destinies at an unheralded moment's notice.
Monkey Business says:
I think the next big thing in tech will be fully augmented reality and personal area networks. We're already seeing it in limited fashion now. Imagine putting on a pair of glasses or contacts, and having them be able to display your calendar, email, texts, phone calls, tweets, facebook messages, etc., overlayed over the real world. Building interfaces for work and play on the fly. Interacting and sharing data with every device over a personal area network.
Mike says:
Read some more scifi.
Since we are not limited by the speed of communication (OK, a little, but only in high bandwidth applications) it is probably good define what we are limited by.
There have been incremental improvements and leaps forward in cellphone technology. I would argue that the last great leap forward was probably the advent of pager code in the early 90's. It is the precursor to the modern text message. Everything after that was just an improvement: alphanumeric characters, better interfaces the addition of images and video.
What's holding me up right now is the interface. Everyone has to reach for their pocked and pull the damn thing out to get their messages. That and ponderously type things out. In order to improve on this you'd have to interact a lot more directly with the nervous system. Networked additions to our brains would fit the bill. Not sure how I'd feel about getting one, but I'm sure I'll making that decision at some point.
After that sort of a grand shift in the interface who the fuck knows what would happen? Apps for sharing a thought, an emotion on a chemical level. Apps to coordinate conscious thinking. Sky's the limit.
bb in GA says:
@Del
"I've noticed more and more customer/ tech support people are using the old Alpha Bravo Charlie radio alphabet, so we can still cling to that."
Actually the phonetic alphabet that your Dad used in WWII is different than what we use today.
From 1941-1956 the Amercian military and others used the "Able, Baker, Charlie…" list. Very few of the calls used in that earlier alphabet survive today (Charlie, Mike, Victor, X-ray, and maybe a couple more.) in the Alpha, Bravo series used internationally in aviation (as well as in our military)
Roger that!
//bb
jjack says:
I'm echoing some sentiment that has already been expressed, here, but doesn't it seem a little unsettling that we're phasing out the old "analog" backups because the new high-tech stuff is so awesome? I mean I'm no luddite but it seems like there should always be a well-maintained non-digital backup system "just in case".
Imagine something happens and the internet goes down for a day or two. I don't know what that would take but just imagine for a second that everyone in your city is cut off from the net. Life would grind to a halt. Yes, I know people did just fine even 50 years ago without all the network tech but we don't have those low-tech ways of doing things around anymore. All financial transactions, even withdrawing cash from a bank account, are digital. All communications, even oldschool phone, has gone digital. Even blue-collar jobs utilize the internet day-to-day somewhat. Students couldn't study without Blackboard. You might as well just give everyone the day off. But what would they do? No Netflix, on Pandora, no Kindle. No porn.
Everyone would either have to sit around on their thumbs or go camping or something, and that might be good as far as re-introducing natural selection into the human population, but even then…people are so used to the internet to get weather conditions, outdoors info, etc. that they wouldn't know how to use their radio (as if that info is even available on the radio anymore).
Erin says:
I was in USCG Quartermaster A school at REC Yorktown in the spring of 1997 and was required to learn Morse code. It may have been phased out as a primary means of communication but was still taught to us drunken assholes for whatever "just in case" scenario (EMP) or if voice-communication via radio was compromised.
I only used it at sea twice and both of those times were playing war games with the US & Her Majesty's Navy. Was also the only time I used flags and pennants to communicate as well, which was no fun at all.
glf says:
Personally, I keep hoping for a teleportation device so I can get to where I want to go instantly without worrying about traffic.
john says:
what we will see soon (what were starting to see now) is man- computer interfaces
that don't require typing.
i know work is being done on seemlees interfaces (for solders) that track their eye movements (to "see" what they see) monitor voice (and respond to commands) and
use small earpeices so the computer can respond verbally (no more screen display).
after that will come implants to effectivly merge you with the network and put all known (stored) data available to you.
stay thirsty my friend!
displaced Capitalist says:
–. .. -. / .- -. -.. / – .- -.-. — …
bpasinko says:
Great question. Impossible answer but too fun not to try.
The next BIG step will allow us to use our hand-held personal offices by just thinking, speaking or hand movements. Anything in between what we have now and that are relatively minor steps in the grand scheme of things.
Alabaster says:
Better batteries would be nice.
grendelkhan says:
Maybe it'll be less about the amount or speed of information and more about how well it can be retrieved. Bruce Schneier, back in 2006, was imagining a life recorder; maybe the next innovation will involve having complete (machine-assisted) recall over everything we've ever said, heard or seen.
Moore's Law refers to the number of transistors per processor (originally, it referred to "density at minimum cost per transistor", but this is less commonly used). It never referred to clock speeds. (Don't you remember those "megahertz myth" ads Apple did?) There are other, related, formulations such as Kryder's Law for disk storage, Nielsen's Law for end-user-accessible bandwidth, Butters' Law for optical-fiber transmission, and so on.
The most obvious current threat to Moore's Law is Rock's Law, which states that the cost of a semiconductor fab doubles every four years. This seems not to have held over the last decade or so, however. And, of course, software gets slower and even more baroque–expands to fill the available computing power, in general.
Joe says:
The next big leap will be web 3.0, the machine-to-machine internet. Intelligent products of all kinds will be able to communicate with eachother without human intervention. ie: your fridge will tell your computer that you are out of milk, then the computer will place the order, and viola, more milk.
Sarah says:
M.T. Anderson's novel "Feed" seems like a realistic extrapolation of technology into the future…except for the "moon as Coney Island" thing.
Turkler says:
The way I see it, the advancement of technology has, since the dawn of capitalism, sought to remedy problems created in and through capitalism. Thus, communications, transport, productive, and financial technologies have been the great revolutions (not to mention weapons).
Think of the stranglehold the guilds had on technology prior to the development of capitalism. All the new technology since then has increased the productivity of capitalist enterprises. Note: this is NOT to say that sciece is only pursuedfor economic (or military) reasons. This is simply to say that the material realization of scientific advances will conform to the mode of social production.
As much hooplah as the iPhone has generated, it's not really that serious a paradigm shift: capitalism has required ever-faster communications.
The next REAL paradigm shift in technology will be dialectically determined by a new system of production. Whatever that might be. All the rest of the new technologies until then will be variations upon a theme.
BD of MN says:
To get a mid level or higher Amateur Radio license (I know, more antiquated technology, but take one guess how all emergency communications were handled immediately after Katrina…) prior to 2008 you had to know Morse code… When that went away, there was much wailing and rending of garments by the old timer ham radio guys… (and correspondingly, that's when I upgraded my license…)
If you want to see what direction the future is heading, watch the military. They're always on/creating the forward bleeding edge of technology…
Drouse says:
There are four basic forces in nature.Two of them pretty much only matter at the atomic level. Of the other two, we've attained a good command of one. It seems to me that we really need to get cracking on the understanding and manipulation of gravity.
spruce says:
There are two topics of discussion here– the near-term evolution of technology ("what's next") and the long term "final frontier". For the near term I'm sold on the idea of ubiquity in computing, echoed by comments like info following you everywhere, personal-area networks, devices that talk to each other, and entailments like the trivialization of surveillance and the triumph of marketing. The best and brightest of today's computer scientists are already working on this.
In the long term it's hard to imagine, because there doesn't appear to be any way to achieve any of these technological advances without a tremendous increase in energy demand. All the remaining sci-fi dreams (replicators, high-speed travel, etc) are contingent on power sources that are orders of magnitude more powerful than what we've got currently. presumably gravity control falls in that group too, drouse.
spruce says:
oh, I also wanted to ring in on the death of analog- a tragedy all around. but it just doesn't make sense to keep hauling all these records around.
jjack says:
BD of MN:
That's kind of funny to think of watching the military…what's going to happen when other countries develop these unmanned drones and stuff like that? Are we going to have wars where robots blow each other up? And the loser will be the one whose economy goes tits up from pumping out more robots than it can sustain?
al says:
I don't really know about the next technological leap, but I do feel an odd sort of nostalgia for the things that will be obsolete during my (as of yet unconceived) kids' lifetimes – phone books, cable tv as we know it, house phones, probably even land lines – before I ever got a cell phone I got my own phone line for Christmas one year, ha. I've never encountered an 8 track.. my kids will probably never encounter a VCR.
And this won't be a huge jump forward, but I look forward to the day when everything is wireless – speakers, printers, power cords, etc. I know some of those wireless options exist already but they're not yet widespread and as far as I know there's no wireless charging options. Although I'm not sure how I feel about all the air around us being jampacked with wireless signals. But I do hate cables.
chautauqua says:
I wonder if there's a point for each of us to simply stop and say enough. Enough connectivity. Enough e-dependence. Only this and no further. Only a fantasy, perhaps. But I cling to my beloved library of books and am contemplating hand-writing letters to accompany Christmas cards. Is there a limit to how much change we can assimilate? I'd like to think that there is.
ladiesbane says:
There really does need to be more head-shaking about the death of Morse code, but I'll leave it with a last image: Burgess Meredith wandering around the post-apocalypse library — his glasses work fine, but his Kindle died. No more books, ooh, scary.
The Next Big Thing (NBT) will be widespread applications in nanotech. We've crept toward medical breakthroughs using programmable bacteria, among other things, and the same techniques are being modified for military uses (from distance-fighting to espionage) and computers (not just miniaturization, but a completely different approach to storage.)
Some modifications will allow it to be exploited for cosmetic and entertainment purposes, and eventually new materials (synthetic plastic that is structurally harder than steel, synthetic protein chains that are stronger than spider silk, etc.) with the next big thing being universally adaptable cells (essentially synthetic blood, skin, organs), immune system repair through reprogramming, and age-reversal techniques such as cell regeneration (brain, bone, etc.)
— For the rich, of course; nano-engineers don't get paid minimum wage. But some biz whiz will figure out a way to get it to the masses.
Brighton says:
Guessing the tech of the future is boring. Just watch the porn industry and the military. The better question is "what will regular people make out of the leftovers?"
1984 and Brave New World were the scary futurist books of 3 generations ago- our scary visions are The Matrix and The Terminator. There is a real risk of capitalists turning us into batteries, since they already do in a sense. SkyNet is also a real threat. We already have flying robots with guns and bombs (predator drones). We are weeks away from police having them, and AI is a reality.
When I was little, I wanted to learn to play music. My parents bought us a keyboard with automatic rhythm and chord-playing functions. I chose to actually learn to play piano instead, and that has made all the difference.
What is important is that we stay connected to our shared humanity, our music, regardless of how technology changes. And in spite of it if necessary.
Drouse says:
A lot of the near term ideas mentioned for the near term next big thing seem to involve communications that would make a person a literal part of the network. Does anyone else find that somewhat dystopian? Personal identity becomes what? Where do you start and the net begins. Who programs your filters and will they be hackable(of course they will). If it comes about in my lifetime, I think I'll sit back and see what happen to the early adopters.
Spruce, it took most of 500 years from the first experiments with electricity to our current command of it. We haven't really progressed much wrt gravity since the start of the 20th century. It doesn't take ultra-high density energy sources to develop theory and try to come up with experiments to prove or disprove them.
Desargues says:
I think the next big thing will be messenger pigeons that can carry out conversations on our behalf. Keeping up with all these 'friends' on Facebook will be too taxing for our fragile, lazy selves. Another one will be a Japanese-made inflatable doll customized to offer 'the girlfriend experience.' There's all these guys that can't wait to be relieved of the obligation to interact genuinely with a woman.
No, but seriously, the next leap forward will be renewable energy at 5 cents a kilowatt, hence able to displace all the obnoxious power-plants.
I am intrigued by a commenter's speculation that other nations might developed military drones. I don't think it will threaten our [part of the world in any significant way, though. One needs nearby bases from which to launch those things, and America currently controls all its backyards. If likely, these drone wars will continue to take place in the Middle East and Asia, unless they find more precious minerals in Africa, where China is currently buying everything.
Desargues says:
Sorry for the two typos in my comment above.
Speaking of the death of older technology, Nabokov in a beautiful story — "Lance" — suggests ways to look at everyday objects around us and see them as historically remote, quaint, and already obsolete. Chairs too, not just vinyl LPs.
par4 says:
Our next be step will be the Halocene Extinction Event. No technology will survive that.
acer says:
I'm expecting most major future tech innovations to further erode individual privacy in some way, probably involving RFID tags, or something that will make the debate over RFID tags sound like Orange County housewives boycotting Mortal Kombat in '92. No down time; all face time. It's good for business.
Mayya says:
I recommend reading any of the short story collections by SF writer John Varley. Recording of memories + accelerated cloning = immortality. Genetic manipulation + accelerated cloning = changing your sex at any time, but remaining your actual self. Having your consciousness temporarily transported into an animal, for a "vacation." Advanced body modifications, such as hands instead of feet (very useful in space/zero gee), heart-shaped nipples, a clock embedded in one's thumbnail…
Agree that keyboards are the next to go. Some sort of heads-up display perhaps to replace.
Bill says:
Edible phones. Next big thing. Make a call, have a snack.
Plus, there is also a catchy song endorsing the product…