;Hardware is going to be increasingly smaller and more powerful. Nanotechnology, and the potential that opens up to us with the ability to manipulate structures on the atomic level, will have at least two profound impacts on the hardware industry. Firstly, the size and specificity will make interfaces and tools much more powerful and flexible. Secondly, the self-construction of molecular components will nearly eliminate the cost of manufacturing.
Some of the technologies that may become commonplace:
- Cleaners – scouring for impurities and removing them,
- Remote sensors – devices that reside far from us and operate by receiving, interpreting, and transmitting information. This will expand our information gathering capabilities to open new avenues of predictability and accountability.
- Sensory interfaces – devices that are near, touching, or even within us and operate by receiving, interpreting, and transmitting information. This will expand our senses to include all measurable information, and be just as intuitively interpreted as we perceive oscillating pressure information as sound.
- Contact lenses that supplement vision with graphical displays.
- Hearing aids that receive any combination of audio streams at various volumes.
- Cloths that manipulate pressure, texture, and temperature.
- Self evaluation devices that read your own physical characteristics and track health stats.
- Personalizers that interpret your biochemical reactions to stimuli and control devices to optimize your state.
- Storage for the massive volumes of information that is a daily part of life.
- Controllers will directly manipulate your nervous systems, biochemistry, and genetic makeup.
Dan Von Kohorn 