Hard Problems For The 21st Century

[General Patton]

Most of these problems are older than the 20th century. Prototypes exist to fix at least half of them, but the economy of scale may or may not work out.

What problems do you think were missed?

http://www.networkworld.com/community/b ... st-century
In fact, X Prize last year it declared a top eight list of key challenges that could end up being public competitions in the coming months or years. The eight concepts or challenges included:

1. Water (“Super ‘Brita’ Water Prize”) – Develop a technology to solve the world’s number one cause of death: Lack of safe drinking water:

2. Personal Health Monitoring System (“OnStar for the Body Prize”) – Develop and demonstrate a system which continuously monitors an individual’s personal health-related data leading to early detection of disease or illness.

3. Energy & Water from Waste – Create and demonstrate a technology that generates off-grid water and energy for a small village derived from human and organic waste.

4. Around the World Ocean Survey – Create an autonomous underwater vehicle that can circumnavigate the world’s oceans, gathering data each step of the way.

5. Transforming Parentless Youth – Dramatically and positively change the outcome for significantly at risk foster children, reducing the number of incarcerations and unemployment rate by fifty-percent or more.

6. Brain-Computer Interface (“Mind over Matter”) – Enable high function, minimally invasive brain to computer interfaces that can turn thought into action.

7. Wireless Power Transmission – Wireless transmission of electricity over distances greater than 200 miles while losing less than two percent of the electricity during the transmission.

8. Ultra-Fast Point-To-Point Travel – Design and fly the world’s fastest point-to-point passenger travel system

From the National Research Council report, the five challenges are:

1. How can the U.S. optics and photonics community invent technologies for the next factor of-100 cost-effective capacity increases in optical networks?

2. How can the U.S. optics and photonics community develop a seamless integration of photonics and electronics components as a mainstream platform for low-cost fabrication and packaging of systems on a chip for communications, sensing, medical, energy, and defense applications?

3. How can the U.S. military develop the required optical technologies to support platforms capable of wide-area surveillance, object identification and improved image resolution, high-bandwidth free-space communication, laser strike, and defense against missiles?

4. How can U.S. energy stakeholders achieve cost parity across the nation’s electric grid for solar power versus new fossil-fuel-powered electric plants by the year 2020?

5. How can the U.S. optics and photonics community develop optical sources and imaging tools to support an order of magnitude or more of increased resolution in manufacturing?

[Wombaticus Rex]

First off, they get huge props for #5 -- that was a great statement of the problem.

Definitely, universal translation -- the most important technology in my lunatic mind -- and distributed/autonomous energy generation. I am not of the NWO-scurred contingent that thinks Smart Grid tech is inherently a corporate invasion...there is real, in fact tremendous, value to the data that kind of system would gather. I do have a problem with 1) that data remaining in private hands rather than being public property and 2) plugging a smart grid into the existing "Consumer Copper Trough" system that's a legacy from the dawn of railroads.

Economics-wise: building a parallel IMF, for sure! Even if it's not in terms of an alternate loan source for distressed sovereigns -- at least in terms of providing ongoing, accurate, real numbers on the global economy as a public service. (An actual public service, not a "public service." Of course.) I am also spending a lot of time in the past 2 weeks with this IMF paper: The Chicago Plan Re-Visited -- or as I prefer to call it, "The Obvious, Immediate and Massive Benefits of Outlawing Usury."

Edit: I knew I remembered babbling about UT somewhere before -- cf. previous thread Global Agenda Council on Emerging Technologies

[undead]

5. Transforming Parentless Youth – Dramatically and positively change the outcome for significantly at risk foster children, reducing the number of incarcerations and unemployment rate by fifty-percent or more.

I have an idea! Voluntary robot slavery! They could use the mind-machine interface in reverse to control problem foster children and force them to work, thus eliminating the need for incarceration. That way they could win 2 prizes. If these motherfuckers ever develop a mass-producible MMI, you'd better believe that's the first thing they'll use it for. I mean, look at what they did with the Tesla Death Ray.