I'm tired of hearing about a better battery. Yes it would be useful and lucrative, but it's a very hard problem that has been worked on by lots of people for a long time.
Sterling makes a similar point in his hilarious deconstruction of the Singularity, which IMHO is required listening for students of this topic:
http://media.longnow.org/seminars/salt-0200406-sterling/salt...
He points out that Singularitarians go on and on about the spectacular technology improvements in data networks, but manage to ignore all the other networks -- plumbing, railroads, highways -- that are much more important to our lives but which haven't changed technologically since the 1950s or before.
That made me realize that if Kurzweil's extrapolations towards a singularity are roughly right, the imminent-singularity± world will look a lot like the world looks now. Roads will be much the same, people wont have their houses rebuilt, office buildings will be similar. It will be all the technology inside that's different.
If you've read Vernor Vinge's latest novel, Rainbow's End, that feels like a fairly convincing future. Mostly augmented reality, fewer user serviceable parts, and improved medical technology.
±imminent-singularity implies a sharp switch. That's not how I think of it - it's more a series of concentric circles - singularity event horizons, future-shock waves emanating back into the past - that we are already in, and have always been in, where each one marks a point where enough quantitative change has happened to make a qualitative change that would be difficult to predict from before the change. The imminent-singularity refers to the fact that they are getting closer together, and as more of them happen in less time, the cumulative effects are that much stronger and faster, leading to a techno-sonic-boom.
The key changes to hurry along "the singularity" are changes to hurry along new and better kinds of thought. As Alan Kay(?) said, computers are tools for thinking, so I think it's right to look at computing/IT for the changes with the most impact.
Significant AI work will, I think, be software based, or biological designed with software. Significant nanotechnology design will be done with lots of aid from computers. Significant collaborative work will be done with the help of future telecoms infrastructure. Significant sharing and spreading of ideas will be telecoms related.
Plumbing, railroads, highways ... A new kind of collaborative shower? Trains that run even if there are leaves on the line? What kind of technological change do you think would make major differences? I think something along the lines of personal communications tech would make the most difference, e.g.:
- An open API for all train and bus timetables and up to date changes. Imagine being in an unfamiliar city, opening Google maps. It finds your location, you click where you want to go, it finds a bus/underground route for you, next few buses, option to buy a ticket.
- Local area networking such that you walk into an airport, your phone knows which flight you need so arrows appear on it and show you where to go in the airport. Over here, down there, to this checkin, then to that lounge.
The technological changes that I think will make a difference are in people and bureaucracy and communication, not in roads and rail themselves.
Why not simply take a taxi cab?
Why not use public transport?
- Because you don't know where it is. Enter technology to point you to a bus/train station. Enter GPS on your phone to guide you to it.
- Because you don't know which route / bus / train to take. Enter an open transit information system so your phone can tell you, on the fly.
- Because you don't know if this is the right bus/train to get on. Enter QR codes on the side of the bus so your phone can confirm it for you.
- Because you don't know which stop to get off at. Enter GPS on your phone to tell you.
- Because you don't know which ticket to get or if you have the right change. Enter your mobile and your phonebill or other integrated low-hassle small-quantity payment service.