Living Better Than the Jetsons: Six Science and Technology Innovations That Will Transform Your Life in the Next Five Years
Today, science and technology are advancing at an unprecedented pace, their convergence is exponentially transforming the way we live and work beyond what even the cartoon could dream up.
In the 1960s space-age television cartoon "The Jetsons," George and his family were surrounded by innovations that seemed somewhat far-fetched at the time, but that today are reality. Video conferencing, a technology ubiquitous in today's workplace, kept the family connected and enabled George to take calls from his hot-headed boss Cosmo G. Spacely. Dinner was produced in the family's food replicator, an early take on the food printers available today. Rosie the robot helped perform chores on command, a precursor to our automated vacuums and virtual personal assistants.
Today, science and technology are advancing at an unprecedented pace; their convergence is exponentially transforming the way we live and work beyond what even the cartoon could dream up. From self-driving cars, virtual reality meetings, gene editing, and artificial intelligence, the possibilities of what we can accomplish seems almost limitless. As these fields further converge and new discoveries are made, we can continue to expect radical changes in every aspect of our lives — from the way we work, communicate, what and how we eat, travel, and even experience the world around us. These advances will further revolutionize our lives in ways once never imagined possible.
No longer concepts from science fiction novels or movies, our reality will unveil revolutionary concepts, touching every aspect of our daily lives. Here are six of the most important advances that will transform your life in the next five years:
Smart Manufacturing
Smart manufacturing is a manufacturing approach that uses internet-connected machinery to improve the efficiency and performance of the production process. The integration of information technology with manufacturing has led to the development of smart factories, which use artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things (IoT) to automate and optimize production processes. As a result, increased productivity, reduced costs, and improved product quality are driving economic growth and are likely to reduce the time to achieve further innovation. Today, many industries are moving to robotic manufacturing of everything from semiconductors to consumer products.
Improved Health and Medical Treatments
Precise and personalized medical treatments, such as gene editing, targeted drug delivery, and 3D-printed organs can help cure diseases and improve health outcomes. At-home testing and rapid point-of-care diagnostics will expand and provide clinicians with the ability to gain quicker health outcomes. The promise is to move from well-health, the ability to diagnose disease, to a new paradigm where personalized medicine will promote and achieve optimal health. Precision medicine is "a form of medicine that uses information about a person's own genes or proteins to prevent, diagnose, or treat disease. In cancer treatment, precision medicine uses specific information about a person's tumor to help make a diagnosis, plan treatment, find out how well treatment is working, or make a prognosis."
Sustainable and Renewable Energy
A renewable energy source is sustainable, specifically, endless. Alternative energy is any source of energy not in line with the more commonly used non-sustainable energy sources, meaning energy that is sustainable — something that won't run out, or is endless, like the sun. However, it is often also used to refer to renewable energy sources as well.
More efficient and cost-effective renewable energy sources are solar, wind, and geothermal energy, which can help reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. Climate change, dwindling natural resources and linear product life cycles (production, use, disposal) will continue to cause immediate and future unforeseen problems for humans and the environment. However, science and technology are now poised to provide novel approaches that can provide circle economy approaches that will allow for a resilient and recyclable process that will feed our energy needs, including fuel for equipment and food for the world with less impact on the environment.
Smarter and More Efficient Cities
According to Tech Target, "...the overarching mission of a smart city is to optimize city functions and drive economic growth while improving quality of life for its citizens using smart technology and data analysis."
Smart cities will use sensors, data analytics, and artificial intelligence to optimize energy use, traffic flow, waste management, and other services, resulting in more efficient and sustainable urban living. We already have IoT to increase efficiencies in our homes and the interconnected communities will now enable efficiencies and resiliency that is unavailable now. More than 4 billion people in the world desire the resources and energy uses that are used in developing countries which will now be possible thru more efficient uses of resources.
Enhanced Connectivity and Communication
Advancements in communication technology have dramatically changed how information is provided and consumed, business is transacted, and essential services are undertaken.Advanced and ubiquitous communication technologies, such as satellite communication, quantum and molecular communication, and 5G networks have revolutionized how we are able to communicate locally and around the world, enabling new forms of collaboration and creativity. Global connection will transform how we learn, teach, collaborate, and innovate with one another, opening up new worlds and limitless possibilities for information sharing.
Improved Environmental Protection and Conservation
Leveraging new technologies offers us the best hope to reverse the effects of climate change and pollution. By shifting the way we have been managing our resources, we are able to help make the world more sustainable and prevent further degradation of the planet. New technologies and approaches for environmental protection and conservation, such as precision agriculture, remote sensing, and bioengineering, can help sustainably manage natural resources and ecosystems.
It is truly an exciting time to be alive! As with "The Jetsons," the benefits of science and technology make our lives better every day. Local and global innovation will drive the development of new products and services that help keep us connected, improve our health and well-being, and increase productivity and efficiency in our daily lives. And the timeline for innovations that used to take decades to dream, develop, and produce can now be reduced to years or possibly even months. Looking forward, these and other developments in science and technology will accelerate our ability to solve some of the greatest challenges facing the world today.
