From stamps to email and paper to paperless, it seems as if technology has assimilated itself into our day-to-day lives even more so than ever before. Rarely do we go hours, possibly even minutes, without checking our smartphones. In fact, we're often more fixated on uploading data to a cloud database than we are to look up at the sky above from which it derived its name. And now, tech-savvy blockbusters seem to depict more fact than fiction.
Google Glass, the company's attempt at absolute assimilation, sounds almost too fictional to be reality. A device that can just as easily navigate you to the nearest coffee shop as it can Skype with your friends; Google Glass represents a tech-bridge as to how much technology we allow in to our daily routines.
But what's often an overlooked aspect of virtual reality is not the visual simulation, rather the auditory ques that let us know the surroundings around us
"For me to feel that something is real, you need more than just sight," said Dimitri Singer, co-founder of the French startup, 3D Sounds Lab. "Sound is what brings emotion." And, in the ever-evolving realm of 3D gaming and realistic imagery, Singer may be ringing in a future market for such needs.
Aside from the sensory bombardment of technology, there's also been a surge in feasible, rapid transport.
The idea of "hyperlooping," defined as blindingly-quick transport, was brought into financial feasibility by none other than the future-tech mogul himself, Elon Musk. To put into the perspective just how "blindingly-quick" hyperlooping would be, passengers would be able to commute from San Francisco to Las Vegas in the span of an episode of your favorite TV show. That's right; passengers would be completing the 550-plus-mile trip in 30 minutes, quite literally, at the speed of sound. Never before has "buckling up for safety" echoed louder for the everyday pedestrian. And the best part is that it would only cost a mere $30 per-trip.
Described as the "fifth mode of transport," Elon Musk first brought the idea into the international spotlight back in 2013. And, with little research backing the claims, initially the concept was brushed-off by academics. But not anymore. In the near-future, we could find ourselves boarding underground city-jumping hyperloops, guided to our terminals via our data-crunching glasses. And that's a fictional picture that may soon very well be a reality.
