The rapid development and widespread dissemination of technology is the most powerful force that drives human progress. The average human life expectancy in 1820 was 35 years, 94% of the world population lived in poverty and less than 20% were literate. Today people live on average for more than 70 years, in extreme poverty there are less than 10% of the global population and over 80% of the world's population is considered literate.
We owe these improvements mainly to technological development, which began in the industrial age and continues now, in the information age. Many new and exciting technologies will continue to transform the world and improve the quality of human life and here are 11 of them:
Eco-Friendly Energy Types
Attempts to reduce energy consumption to stop climate change have been unsuccessful. Scientists and engineers are working hard to make environmentally friendly forms of energy convenient and cost-effective. Thanks to the continuous improvement of technologies and approaches to production, since 1977 the price of a solar battery has fallen by 99.5%. In economic efficiency, solar energy will soon surpass fossil fuels.
The cost of wind energy also fell to a low mark. In the last decade, this resource provided more than a third of all the energy generated by new stations in the United States. Farsighted organizations take advantage of clean energy sources. Some facts give hope that the development of clean energy is approaching a tipping point.Unmanned Cars
Modern unmanned cars outperform traditional ones in most driving accidents. Over the next 3-5 years, they will become even more reliable and truly popular. You already have the ability to lease a car with an autopilot system. The World Health Organization estimates that 1.25 million people die every year as a result of traffic accidents. Half of them are pedestrians, cyclists, and motorcyclists hit by cars. Cars are considered the main cause of death for people aged 15–29.
In most cities, 20-30% of the territory is occupied by parking spaces and most of the cars are idle 95% of the time. Unmanned vehicles will be used almost always, which will reduce the need for parking. Cars will be able to share data with each other to avoid accidents and traffic jams. Former drivers will be able to spend time to work, education, and communication instead of driving a car.Public Mobile Supercomputers
About 80% of the world's adult population by 2020 will have smartphones connected to the Internet. Inside the iPhone 6 is 2 billion transistors, which is about 625 times more than in an Intel Pentium computer manufactured in 1995. Today, smartphones are what are considered supercomputers. They connected to the Internet and provide ordinary people with features that recently were available only to select ones.High-Quality Online Education
As long as the cost of higher education continues to grow, anyone with a smartphone can learn almost any topic online. The Internet contains a ton of free educational content which quality is getting better. The famous Britannic Encyclopedia costs $ 1,400 but now it’s enough to have a smartphone to get access to even more information from Wikipedia for free.
YouTube stores million hours of free video tutorials, many of which are created with the participation of top professors and universities. The quality of online education is growing steadily. Over the past 15 years, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has recorded video lectures and other materials from 2,000 courses.Computerized Medicine
Until recently, computers were on the periphery of medicine. They were used only for research and data storage. A combination of computer science and medicine is leading to breakthroughs in healthcare. Genome sequencing (determining the structure of RNA and DNA) 15 years ago was worth 3 billion $ but today this has fallen to 1,000 $ and continues to decline.
Another result of the use of computers in medicine is the production of high-tech prostheses. Modern artificial limbs can be controlled by muscle contractions. In the future, neurocomputer interfaces will allow prostheses to be controlled only by the power of thought.
In addition, computers are highly effective in diagnosing diseases. The IBM Watson artificial intelligence system recently discovered signs of leukemia that doctors didn't notice. This was due to the fact that the machine found hidden patterns in 20 million cancer records.