As accelerating change transforms the way we learn, innovate and
network, traditional social institutions will be forced to adjust.
Some will successfully make the transition, most won’t.
Universities, in particular, will need to completely re-think
their models as youth are lured away by new income and
actualization opportunities.
While it’s possible that some schools will be able to change
with the times, here are 5 compelling reasons why your kid (born in
2002) probably won’t be going away to college in 2020:
1. Prevalence of Teenage Millionaires: With
more and more people making money online, an explosion of
user-generated content platforms like Second Life and Spore and the
ongoing rise in value of human capital, a boom in teenage
millionaires will be old news by 2020. Pressured by their peers
to roll the dice and strike it rich, kids will opt out of college
and probably even high school. Parents will be loving it.
2. Distributed Distance Learning: People are
already taking classes via virtual worlds. By 2020 there will be
millions of rich, interactive
courses offered online. This will allow kids to learn from
anyone anywhere and will moot campus-based learning.
3. Pervasive Education: The advent of the
semantic web, Artificial
Intelligence and new learning software will mean that kids are
effectively attending college at every moment of their lives.
4. Corporate Poachers: Google is already
tapping into the middle school market via contests. 2020
will see companies more aggressively recruiting kids straight out
of high school and paying them to learn while on the job.
5. Enhanced Info Input: Brain implants,
new attention mastery techniques, powerful learning software and
better understanding of brain development will conspire to let kids
learn much more in a shorter span. To the average future kid, the
current notion of college will feel like swimming through a pool of
molasses.
While this doesn’t mean you should hop on a plane and go blow
your kid’s college fund in Vegas, it does
suggest that at some point you may want to consider allocating some
of it to alternative learning programs and new technologies. As our
environment undergoes changes, so too must the methods and
structure we employ to teach our youth to navigate it.
You’ve heard about electronics that can bend and even stretch, but a team at Northwestern University has managed to make electronics that can withstand any configuration, including twisting.
This breakthrough could help in developing gadgets that are located on the human body which is itself highly flexible (except mine). “This emerging technology promises new flexible sensors, transmitters, new photovoltaic and microfluidic devices, and other applications for medical and athletic use.” Flexible electronics have the potential to change how we view visits to the doctors office, how we talk on the phone, even interacting with people.
Imagine being able to wrap an X-Ray machine around your leg at the emergency room to see exactly what the break looks like and where it’s located. Or having a 40-inch screen folded into the size of a pack of cigarettes. Why not incorporate your music into your winter beanie? The possibilities are already amazing and we haven’t even scratched the surface.
via PhysOrg
Leave it to people in Utah to invent the most anal-retentive product of this decade so far. Key2SafeDriving is a prototype made by University of Utah researchers that allows parents to disable their kids' cellphones while they're driving. The parents can allow certain numbers to be dialed, and of course 911 is still available, but the kicker is the other functions they hope to add into it.
They hope to include a "safety score" which will be sent each month to insurance companies to compile a driving record of each user. "The score also could include data recorded via Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites on the driver's speeding, rapid braking or running of lights, which are calculated by comparing the driver's position with a database of maps, speed limits, stop lights and so on." You'll basically have to drive like a saint (usually the most hated person on the road) or else your insurance company will use that one time you went five miles over the speed limit to jack up your rates like crazy.
I really don't see this gaining ground among the general public. The people I see using this are parents of only children, Mormons, parents who home school their kids, and rich liberal intellectuals who feel their kids will see how much they treasure their life through their over-protectionism. Sorry if I come off as hostile, but this product is so silly it makes me laugh that there might be a market for it. Check out their totally awesome video after the jump (seriously, you have to see it, I'm still laughing).
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HP and the Flexible Display Center at Arizona State University announced their first prototype of a flexible screen that is both easy to produce and affordable. Made almost entirely out of plastic, the displays hope to revolutionize the size of our electronics such as laptops, phones and televisions. The amazing thing about it is their prototype consumes 90% less material than traditional displays of the same screen size.
It's been difficult for flexible screens to break into the mass market due to their cost and complicated design, but with recent breakthroughs like this we can expect flexible displays start to show up in our everyday lives by next year. I mean, if they can build a plant that can crank out thousands of feet of thin film solar fairly quickly, it would make sense they could use the same type of production to mass-produce flexible displays.
via BusinessWire
Researchers at Clarkson University have discovered a way to protect teeth from tooth decay by polishing the surface with silica nanoparticles. The teeth are polished so smooth that harmful bacteria, the leading cause of tooth enamel decay, are unable to attach to the surface. "Roughness left on the tooth after the polishing is just a few nanometers, which is one-billionth of a meter or about 100,000 times smaller than a grain of sand." Even if bacteria manage to get a hold of the surface, a simple brushing will brush them off fairly quickly. The polishing method is taken from the method developed to polish semiconductors.
Story via Science Daily, image via Gizmodo
Elon University recently unveiled a series of future scenarios they've compiled from asking industry leaders, analysts and activists a series of questions about major tech advances they expect by 2020. You can find good snippets from the report here at Pew Internet.
One thing the report goes over is the increasing use of mobile internet as the method of connecting to the World Wide Web. "The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020." The go on to cite various examples such as the increasing computing power of mobile phones, how applications are increasingly easy to use and operate, and of course the cost of phones drop everyday (anyone heard the rumor that Wal-Mart would be selling the iPhone for $99?)
On one hand I feel bad for those '$100 Laptop' people who tried so hard to make a cheap laptop and have pretty much failed, but on the other hand we have amazing products that do even more for the same price, and they're small. While the idea of a third world student dutifully doing their homework on a cellphone may seem strange, by 2020 we'll be seeing developments of amazing heads-up displays as well as the nearly complete removal of the touchscreen as a device. Infrared beams can replace a touchscreen and rolllable OLED screens will allow for larger displays in much smaller gadgets.
Check out the links above for the full scoop.
