Lighting the way you want it I think most of us have had the experience of moving into your first apartment. Underfurnished. Underlit. Figuring out...
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Living in the Future
Every now and then, some mundane thing in my daily life makes me pause and realize that I’m living in the future. Sure, there’s plenty of room for both SciFi dreams and nightmares in the future future, but lots of things today really are kind of amazing. This recurring “Living in the Future” topic explores those, along with past SciFi roots that might have inspired them.
Withings BeamO
It’s got a few key functions covered In the Star Trek universe, a tricorder is a handheld miracle capable of scanning and analyzing just...
Electric Cars – Do Androids Dream of Electric Vehicles?
The roads are quietly evolving Year by year, electric vehicle adoption inches higher. Gasoline isn’t going to be around forever, and even while it...
Future tech sample platter (CES 2026)
Some of the future is on sale, but it’s expensive Every year, the future gets a little bit closer. Some of it arrives. A few bits and pieces fade...
AI-Assisted Archaeology
How to build a better archaeologist. AI needed a hobby, and this could be it. Between roughly fifteen hundred and twenty-two hundred years ago, in...
Delivery robots
Delivery food, minus some stranger’s car. Note: Don’t tip the robot. How would you feel if you order a burger and fries on Uber Eats and a little...
Interactive art exhibit
Step Into the World of Art - Literally A framed picture on a wall. A parade of tourists marches past with a glance. Some pretentious bohemian with a...
Bird Buddy
Do You Like Birds? I’ll Show You Birds!Or at least, this fun gadget will… Binoculars, field guide, hiking boots, there’s a standard, stereotypical...
Water-reduced vegetables
Researchers at TAU have developed a water-conserving technology for tomatoes using one of my favorite technology platforms: CRISPR. Specifically,...
Disney Holodecks
In Star Trek (starting with The Next Generation) the Federation has the technology to produce realistic, immersive, fully interactive...
Brain.fm
It’s not often that Living in the Future intersects directly with my own writing process, but here we are. I’ve been writing for… well, comfortably...
Fluora smart plants
Some people are born with a green thumb. This sounds like a medical problem, or something fixable with soap. Other people can keep house plants...
Flying Cars
In the late 19th century, the automobile was invented. Early in the 20th, humanity discovered powered flight. In the century since, the quest to...
The End of Backbreaking Labor
Job posting from 2040: Entry level construction job Will be supervising 20 employees No physical limitations You’ll be building bridges and...
Google Maps Timeline: The Argument-Killing Machine
"We haven’t been to X in ages." "What was the name of that little Italian place we stopped at the day we went to Y?" "Yes, we went to Z on our...
Yachts Are Evolving – Into Starships?
Early space travel was never going to be cheap… When I came up with the story of Hotel Caledonia (mission 7 of Black Ocean: Mercy for Hire), the...
Genetically engineered plants
Your Garden Center Doesn’t Carry THESE (yet…) Maybe you wanted to add a pop of color to a living space or just enjoy tending to living things and...
SciFi contact lenses – the biggest monitor is the smallest
Early in Terminator 2 we are privy to a view from the terminator’s perspective. Cast in villainous shades of red, it shows an augmented reality...
Inspector Gadget had nothing on the modern smart watch
Can we take a moment to appreciate the technological majesty of the smart watch? Dick Tracy was an American comic strip that debuted in newspapers...
Portable Payment Processors – No cash? No problem…there is an app for that
How are we going to explain the change jar to our grandkids? When I was a kid, I had a wallet that had velcro to keep it closed. It usually only had...
Hot Wheels, Matchbox…and microchips?
Your age will determine your relationship to them, but just about everyone will at least be familiar with a particular type of tiny toy cars called...
AI-generated artwork: Move Over Dalí, it’s DALL-E Time
In the earliest days of machine automation (we’re talking about looms here), workers worried that they’d be rendered obsolete revolted. These...
Ballpark In-seat dining
Press 1 For Peanuts. Press 2 For Cracker Jacks. A few weeks ago, my wife and I ventured out to see our former hometown (or at least, home region)...
Who needs eyes to see?
Well, science has taken another step into future tech. Essentially since the inception of reading glasses, science has combated blindness and visual...