2013 : The Year 1990's Science Fiction Became Everyday Life
March 2013
Spaceflight Goes Corporate
Big Tech often gets pioneered by governments, and it rarely gets affordable to the public until two companies have started competing to turn a profit at it. That's why I'm excited to say that the first corporate flight to the International Space Station happened in March of 2013, with a rocket launch by SpaceX. And they got their first competition in September, from Orbital Sciences.
April 2013
Wearing the Internet
In April, Google released it's first beta batch of "Glass", putting 1,500 people in touch through The Internet for every waking minute.
July, 2013
Virtual Reality For All
Oculus Rift delivered its first batch of VR headsets to their Kickstarter backers, to rave reviews. Faster than you can say "Skyrim", nerds worldwide were looking around their favorite game worlds by moving their heads instead of a joystick.
August 2013
Remote-Controlled People
A researcher at University of Washington demonstrated a rig that allowed one person to remote control another's body. This one makes my pick for "Creepiest Invention of the Year".
Now Hackable: Your Car
In movies, hackers can breaking and take over anything in seconds. But it doesn't work that way in the real world. Except, sometimes it does. Hackers at DefCon demonstrated the ability to take over partial control of several models of car at this year's DefCon, via unsecured bluetooth radio connections.
September 2013
Your Shit No Longer Stinks
Science!!.
Elon Musk is Tony Stark, but Real
October 2013
Robots Now Outrun Humans
Boston Dynamics, makers of the awesomely creepy robot "BigDog" released their latest mechanical terror, the "WildCat". Running at 16mph, the WildCat is 50% faster than trained marathon runners over a mile-long run. The company did not confirm that the announcement was attended by a T-2000 model Terminator from the future. Company officials did not confirm that the Terminator delivered a fruit basket and a thank-you card.
December 2013
Amazon Works to Flood the Skies with Tiny Robots
Did your Facebook feed get flooded with people saying they were going hunting for their Christmas shopping list with a 12-gauge shotgun on Amazon's flight paths? Mine did.
WiFi-Connect All The Things!
In December, the first batch of SparkCores landed on Kickstarter backers' doorsteps. This thumb-sized board makes controlling pretty much anything wirelessly just stupidly easy. Electric Imp released a similar product months earlier, but SparkCore is the one I'm betting on to take over the world. SparkCore released their entire product open source, so anyone can copy it and improve on it: Both the hardware AND the software.
Things to look for in Early 2014
- The Myo: an armband that turns hand gestures into wireless input. Control your computer by waving your arms and making Yoda quotes about The Force. Yoda quotes optional.
