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Technology

Transportation Retro-Futuristics 129

Posted by michael from the meet-george-jetson dept.
jpatokal writes "Flashback to the future with UC Berkeley's Transportation Futuristics! An excellent exhibition of amazing diagrams on how transportation was expected to evolve, featuring flying saucer buses, airplane escape pods and, yes, monorails. But where are the Segways and SUVs?"
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Transportation Retro-Futuristics More

Transportation Retro-Futuristics

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  • Back to the Future (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    At least we know for sure we'll have hovercars by 2015...

  • monorail (Score:3, Funny)

    by Kujah ( 630784 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @07:27PM (#9849014) Homepage
    Well, sir, there's nothing on earth like a genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car MONORAIL!
    What'd I say? Monorail!
    What's it called? Monorail!
    That's right! Monorail!

    ah that loveable Lyle Lanley...

  • No Transporters? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alphanos ( 596595 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @07:30PM (#9849020)
    I suppose this was before the age of Star Trek. Much better than an underground subway between New York and Los Angeles would be a simple door you could walk through that instantly teleported you to the destination.
    • Very funny Scotty - now beam me back my clothes!
    • Far in the future, with nanotechnology, transporters could be something that is actually possible. But I think it would only work for inanimate objects and not living creatures. With inanimate objects, you just break down the object into its individual molecules, recording the data of each one so that you can send the data to the other end of the transporter and build an exact copy of the original object. But with living creatures, this process would effectively kill the original. So you walk in a transport
      • So you walk in a transporter, and you die, while a copy comes out the other end. The only way to remedy this would be to send the actual molecules down the transporter "line" rather than the data, but this would be much, much more complicated

        Both methods breaks down the living creature so I don't see a huge difference. Anyway, I would be curious to know how many people would refuse to use such transporters because of the die/recreate thing.

        • Still, if you were broken down, and then those exact molecules were sent and reconstructed, all in just a few nanoseconds, wouldn't you still be yourself? It's the same physical matter. Why would this process, assuming it could be done fast enough, destroy your individual consciousness?

          I don't think it would... but the problem, of course, is that there's no way to test it. Even if the original being that goes through is dead, the version that comes out on the other side is always going to say "Don't worry,
          • "Don't worry, it's still me!"

            If it hasn't been done yet (and if it has, please, sombody give me a title), you have just described one hell of a scifi plot, as well as a great title!

            Bravo.

        • Anyway, I would be curious to know how many people would refuse to use such transporters because of the die/recreate thing.

          A lot... but, as with any new technology, it would become accepted over time.

      • The particles that we are made of are constantly winking in and out of existence due to quantum fluctuations anyway. It's only a matter of degree to compare that to being completely disassembled and reassembled somewhere else from different particles.

        At a more concrete level, most of the chemical elements your body is made of are gradually dissolved and replaced over several years; you literally are not the same person you were 15 years ago.

        In other words, you are already being subject to similar "transpo
        • Yes, the only way this method would work is if the person was either frozen to 0 degrees kelvin before being scanned, or having some super scanner which gets every data point instantly.

          Either way, its going to be a very neat feat when they eventually work it out - Beta testers anyone?

      • If you disassemble a living being, I don't think it really matters if you ship all the molecules to the new location or use stuff that's already there. For a while, the being is dead either way depending on your theology.

        I'd be worried that the other end would be running a nanno-nanny filter and I'd come out the other end without any naughty bits. Also, even if you do break down the original, there's no limit on the number of copies. I'd rather not get people spam.

        • On the up side you could do pretty much anything you wanted to the spam people with no legal repercussions.

          Spammer:How would you like to increase your penis size up to eigth inches?
          You:Hold on let me get my machette.
          Spammer:Err...
          • Perhaps something like David Brin's Kiln People? (Interesting book, but it never quite turned golem magic into science and technology for me.) Cheap clay duplicates that last a day or so, with memory transfer back possible at the end of the day. Send dittos to work each day. If it's a boring job, don't even bother to download the memories afterwards. (Since the copy is you, you'll be "killing" it, oh well.)

            Destroying someone's ditto might get you a fine, but then, if it was trespassing and wasting the time

      • I think the interesting part is going to be the confusion the researchers have in trying develop this technology when no matter how exact and precise they (transport the particles/replicate the particles), the living creature, once reassembled, hits the floor dead everytime.

        If you transport the molecules in a "disassembled" format, you are killing the living creature, moving the molecular constituents to another location, and reassembling them. The meat gets there, but the life doesn't ; it is a dead con
        • The problem is that the replication and the new location has no "life", the spirit isn't made of physical particles so as it can't be "scanned" and duplicated. The creature is constructed into a dead state.

          We don't know this for sure, though, because we have such a long way to go before this kind of technology can even be attempted.

          But who is to say the "spirit" cannot be duplicated? Our consciousness, our self-awareness, the thoughts that run through our minds, all of it... one can argue that all of tha

          • Our consciousness, our self-awareness, the thoughts that run through our minds, all of it... one can argue that all of that is made up simply of physical things like chemical reactions and electrical impulses.

            I don't disagree that a lot, if not ALL of our psychology is dictated or processed by the physical structures of our nervous system. However, I liken those physical structures of our nervous system to the hardware & software of a computer system. Without electricity, a computer just sits there,

  • The Future Ain't What it Used To Be (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @07:40PM (#9849045) Homepage Journal

    Future may not be available as shown; individual fates may vary. Future not available in India, Africa, or Central/South America.

    -- Tom Servo, Mystery Science Theater 3000, "Design for Dreaming"

    Beg, borrow, or make a copy of MST3K episode 524, "12 to the Moon," which leads with the short subject, "Design for Dreaming," a corporate promotion film by General Motors. Produced in the 1960's, it depicts THE FUTURE! as General Motors will bring it to you. Astounding labor-saving kitchen devices! Amazing new cars! ("For the electronic highway of the future, the new Firebird-II!")

    Corn-ball as it is these days, part of me still wishes the future were like this.

    Schwab

    • Vew (Score:3, Informative)

      by Animats ( 122034 )
      View Design for Dreaming [archive.org] on line, from the Internet Archive.
    • When I went to see the recent remake of "The Stepton Wives" (Yes, I admit to this - we all have our embarassing moments), I was laughing myself silly during the opening credits.

      People thought I was nuts but I just couldn't stop laughing - see, over the opening credits there was a montage of these '50's commercials depicting the perfect housewife, complete with poodle-skirts and everything - and one of the things they kept using clips from was "Design for Dreaming". I kept picturing the bot's making commen

  • Trans-planetary subway misses the boat. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by juggledean ( 792527 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @07:47PM (#9849059) Homepage Journal
    The trans-planetary subway http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/news_events/exhibits/f uturistics/oddities/5.html [berkeley.edu] has a description of accelerators and things to take care of the g-forces but, if they'd even read Scientific American they'd know that if you dig the tunnel in a straight line, through the planet, from Los Angeles to New York, you can get gravity to do most of the work and free fall all the way in about 45 minutes, coming to rest at the surface at the far end. You just have to worry about friction and the temperature rise.


    Retro-future isn't what it used to be.

  • When I was a high school student in Tulsa in the 1980's, a monorail system around town was being kicked around. I thought it was pretty cool, although it didn't actually *go* anywhere in particular. It went by my school, and that was good enough.

    I don't know what it is about monorail that gets the imagination so fired up... as the site notes, the engineering required for something as simple as switching tracks is daunting. But what's the runaway #1 selection in an online poll of Tulsa students? 80% say
    • 80% say... Monorail, baby! (Note, this is before Slashdotters hit the poll and skew the results...)

      Haha, I can see it now. The poll gets /.'d and then by tonight the leading poll result (in a landslide), despite it not even being a choice right now, will be: CowboyNeal.
    • for those who want to skew the results, here you go
      http://student-voices.org/modules/index.php3?C ityI D=3

      i can't figure out how to vote cowboyneal yet, maybe someone else can
  • Damn 503 errors, I've been waiting to post for nearly a half hour, so no link, but did you see those seats for the proposed short-haul plane? I guess they expect their passengers to either be very skinny- or to just kind of lean against the seat standing up.
  • ...where's my flying car!?
  • but I seriously wouldn't mind piloting this thing http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/news_events/exhibits/f uturistics/auto/3.html

  • Park-n-ride (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SimplyCosmic ( 15296 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @08:07PM (#9849125) Homepage
    Looking at the image they have for the "flying-saucer bus", one would think that a slight part of that dream is alive in the form of "park-n-ride" bus services that many suburbs offer for their work commuters looking to get into the city without the wear on their cars and frustration of rush-hour traffic.

    Sure, the buses don't fly, but the end result is somewhat similar in a "it's 2004, but no weekend trips to the moon" kind of way.
    • was where they thought that it'd be good if there were loads of wide-open roads through a city that looked more like some buildings scattered throughout a park rather than the traditional street built for people. Problem is, they ended up convincing the planners to adopt aspects of that philosophy and we ended up with such monstrosities as Los Angeles.

  • This is all great (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    but how are they going to power all these wonderful things ? if you are thinking oil then think again, we will be lucky to see oil in 2025 never mind in the distant "future", how are those fusion generators coming along ?

    still you can always apologise to your grandchildren now because they will be the ones to suffer

    • As I recall everything was going to be fission powered, until the fearmongers and FUDers came along. So while you are sitting in traffic wondering why you aren't cruzing home in your very own aircar blame the guy ahead of you with the air-fowling VW minibus and the greenpeace sticker.

      -- Greg
      • As I recall everything was going to be fission powered, until the fearmongers and FUDers came along...blame the guy ahead of you with the air-fowling VW minibus

        I guess that means he was chicken.

        [Score -1, those who cannot spell words are doomed to repeat second grade]

        --Rob

      • You mean like the Nucleon ?
        http://www.google.com/search?q=Ford+Nucleon

  • I still want my flying car! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Roblimo ( 357 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @08:30PM (#9849282) Homepage Journal
    I was born in 1952, and I remember many of these images when they were new.

    A couple of weeks ago I waited for a late plane, then got jammed into one of those just-too-small Airbus middle seats for six hours. I couldn't help thinking that what I really wanted, right then, was one of the self-piloting flying cars we were all going to have by the year 2000.

    Computers and the Internet are okay, but not much of the really good stuff futurists promised we'd have by the beginning of the next century is in common use yet.

    I guess I might as well give up on that Moon vacation. Not going to happen in my lifetime at this rate. :(
    • The upside is that we're not all going around dressed in Spandex jumpsuits. Spandex remains a privilege, not a right!
    • I don't know about you, but I'd rather have the Internet than a flying car (unless maybe the flying car was fast enough to take a day trip halfway around the world).

    • Re:I still want my flying car! (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Saeger ( 456549 ) <farrellj@nosPAM.gmail.com> on Friday July 30, 2004 @10:05PM (#9849782) Homepage
      The main reasons why the flying car was a bad prediction:
      1. Costs too much in comparison to a car that moves in 2-dimensions (in terms of $ and energy).
      2. Not as safe - there STILL isn't enough AI computing power to control the traffic and fly the masses safely through the 3D "skyways". Maybe the idiots in the 50s really did think that anyone who could drive could surely be a pilot too?
      3. Noise.
      4. Parking space.
      5. (Why move your body physically, when in many cases it's more efficient to do it virtually?)

      What gets me mad, though, is how people like to trot this wheres-my-flying-car(!) example out every time they're waxing pessimistic about present day futurism.

      I guess I might as well give up on that Moon vacation. Not going to happen in my lifetime at this rate. :(

      Cheer up. As long as you've got at least another decade of life left in you, you'll make it to the crossover point where it can be extended indefinitely, because the rate of technological progress is actually exponential [kurzweilai.net].

      --

      • Re:I still want my flying car! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Christopher Thomas ( 11717 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @01:12AM (#9850590)
        2.Not as safe - there STILL isn't enough AI computing power to control the traffic and fly the masses safely through the 3D "skyways".

        It's not a computing power problem - it's a reliability problem. The computer on your desk has enough number-crunching ability to direct a city's traffic in 2D or 3D in real-time, especially if a simpler sub-optimal-but-good-enough algorithm is used.

        The real problem with automatically controlled cars is that the system won't be perfect, and the consequences of failure either on the ground or in the air aren't acceptable. On the ground, your automated vehicle kills a pedestrian (because of vehicle control failure or because they did something foolish). In the air, a malfunction turns your vehicle into a few thousand pounds of flying metal (plus fuel!) looking for something fragile to crash down on.

        The 2D case gives you prohibitive liability problems for the manufacturer, and the 3D case gives you accidents that are far less survivable and produce far more collateral damage than the 2D kind. All of these problems are solvable, and I firmly believe we'll end up with computer-controlled ground cars in the not too distant future, but it won't be a cakewalk.

        Maybe the idiots in the 50s really did think that anyone who could drivecould surely be a pilot too?

        That was the general idea, if I understand correctly. After all, how much harder can it be? (/irony)

  • 1950s future vehicles look like 1950s vehicles (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WomensHealth ( 661860 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:05PM (#9849427)
    Isn't it strange how, when we look at designs for future vehicles realized by past designers, the pictures look old-fashioned to us? Why does the 1950s vison of a futuristic hovercar look like nothing more than a 1950s automobile without wheels? Surely, to the contemporary viewer, these vehicles looked futuristic, but to us, they just look old-fashioned. Why does it seem that the 1950s futurists were unable to come up with an image of something resembling, say, a 2004 BMW 3-series, or even a 1990s Dodge Intrepid?

    The corollary to this is that, our current interpretations of what future vehicles might look like (imagine the Audi in I, Robot or the Lexus in Minority Report), will probably look hopelessly dated when 2030 rolls around.

    The problem, I suspect, lies largely in our inability to predict what styling cues future consumers will find appealing. Is it impossible for us, as non-clairvoyants, to imagine what manufactured goods might look like in the future? Can anyone cite any examples of past designers who were able to successfully envision the future of industrial design?

    • Considerthe Concorde [britishairways.com]? So it was envisioned in the early 1960's, however, it does look quite stunning, no?
      • Interesting one that.

        Presumably supersonic planes pretty much have to be a specific shape; Delta wings and a sharp pointed nose, which was a design principle already established in the 1960's.
    • "Isn't it strange how, when we look at designs for future vehicles realized by past designers, the pictures look old-fashioned to us? Why does the 1950s vison of a futuristic hovercar look like nothing more than a 1950s automobile without wheels? Surely, to the contemporary viewer, these vehicles looked futuristic, but to us, they just look old-fashioned..."

      Futuristic design is intrinsically self-negating prophesy. To predict a design of the future is impossible, for a design exists at the moment of predi
      • The styles of yesterday's future were adopted into yesterday's present.

        And vice-versa: the ideas and styles of yesterday's present were adopted into yesterday's future. For instance, Sci-Fi books and films from the 1960's and 70's quite often picture big mainframe computers and other technology (or other fads like cybernetics) from that era.

        One could say that it's because we think in and operate with terms and objects that are already there. We can think of what the future might be like, but most of the

  • I was cheated. Cheated I say! At some point I fell through a rift in the spacetime continuum and ended up in this timeline where the future turns out to be as lame as can be with little sign of improvement. Where are the hovercars? Where are the big round space stations? Where are the bases on the moon? Where are the sonic showers? Where are the talking robots? Where's my shiny silver suit? Cheated! Give me back my real timeline!
  • The oil hasn't run out - yet.

    But it will.

  • In that family of predictions, one stalwart is the vision of "hands-off" driving. Although the schedule has always been wildly unrealistic, this particular vision keeps popping back up -- unlike a lot of the gee-whiz ideas which are rarely discussed today (such as ubiquitous personal aircraft).

    Also, bullet-trains and the Chunnel might be considered to be fulfilled predictions, albeit much less spectacular than others.
    • I particularly like the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) stuff.

      (This [berkeley.edu] little bit irritated me though:

      Pilot applications of a full-scale version of this driverless taxi system are soon to begin in the Soutwest of England. According to a May 6, 2004 press release by the SWRDA, "Prototype tests of ULTra have already been completed on a 1km track in Cardiff.

      Cardff is in Wales, not England!)

      I don't know what the latest is on that but Cardiff Council got into a lot of bother for gambling with taxpayers' money o

    • A tunnel under the sea hauling passengers and trucks on high speed trains? Buying a ticket in London for a train ride to Paris or Brussels? That sounds pretty spectacular to me.
      • Yes, I agree, which is why I said *less* spectacular.
        I think that, even 50 years ago, it would have been regarded as less so and less gee-whiz-futuristic than things like *ubiquitous* personal aircraft.
        After all, the Chunnel is primarily an achievement of engineering and dogged determination, in the same sense as the Egyptian pyramids.
        In fact, there was a chunnel attempted in the 19th century -- by the same family (Brunel) who did the Brooklyn Bridge, I believe.

  • personal aircraft (Score:3, Interesting)

    by PsiPsiStar ( 95676 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:25PM (#9849548)
    Has anyone ever heard of the plane Deadalus?
    It was powered entirely by a person and flew across the English Channel. That'd be the perfect vehicle for me. Of course, to be light and strong enough, it had to be made of some lithium alloy so it was rather expensive.
    • Are you sure it wasn't the Gossamer Albatross? That plane actually made it across the English Channel, back in 1979.

      http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Gossame r- Albatross


      • http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/Daedalus/

        I was confused with the Albatros, though, in that Daedeuls didn't fly across the English Channel. That was the record it beat.
  • I laughed when I saw the 730-passenger Airbus concept [berkeley.edu]. I laughed even harder when I saw that it was made in March of 2004.

  • It all could have happened (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Solder Fumes ( 797270 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:32PM (#9849579)
    Most of the items really could have existed by now. It would have been possible with the hard work and ingenuity of our engineers over the last 50 years. However, the visionaries did not account for one thing:

    Affordable computers.

    Compare the advances in vehicles and transportation infrastructure to the advances in computing technology. Virtually all of our work has been focused on rapidly advancing semiconductor technology and computer programming ability. Imagine if that energy was instead focused on mechanical innovations like flying cars and high-speed rail. We'd have them by now.

    Am I suggesting this was the wrong way to do things? Absolutely not! That vast complex mechanical infrastructure would be the result of billions of man-hours in design, and would require significant human intervention to operate. What we are doing now is getting our processing and data management development out of the way first. The ability to store vast amounts of data, communicate instantly, run complex algorithms, and develop intellegent control systems will make all other technological development much more efficient.

    The Silicon Revolution has been a time of building new tools. Building the machines that will help us build better machines. No longer does this mean tying a rock to a stick in order to make a better hammer; we now work with our minds and computers are the tools we use to expand the influence of our thoughts. Computers were once an end unto themselves; now they have grown to a high level of usefulness and are already being applied to further develop other fields.

    This was a little sidetrack that 1950 could never have seen, but it was a highly necessary and important one.

  • Where Indeed? (Score:3, Funny)

    by dcollins ( 135727 ) on Friday July 30, 2004 @09:32PM (#9849583) Homepage
    But where are the Segways and SUVs?

    Oh, you're looking for the Horror section. One aisle over from the Sci-Fi.

  • wasn't [simplonpc.co.uk] far [steam-packet.com] wrong [europeforvisitors.com].


  • hahahahahhahaha the future WAS cool!

  • Well it's the past of travel as well, well time is irelevant *steps into his police box*.
  • Forget flying cars and monorails. Considering the prevalence of obesity, it is about time that the beliwheel [thatsite.ca] from Judge Dredd was made available.
  • There are loads and loads of pictures - all worth looking at, but I thought I'd give my favourites (with best at top). If you like, go from the last pic (no. 12) to the first for a buildup:

    1: Tomorrow's railroads in the sky [berkeley.edu] -
    My favourite - this one's just bizarre. A flying bullet rollercoaster. 'nuff said.

    2: The traffic light parade [berkeley.edu] -
    The funniest. A perfect candidate for the old "False or True" TV show.

    3: The TransDrive system [berkeley.edu] - So that's what cars were designed for... A great way to travel I'm sur

  • Magma Tunnel Transport (Score:3, Interesting)

    by serutan ( 259622 ) <snoopdoug@geekaz ... minus physicist> on Saturday July 31, 2004 @12:27AM (#9850381) Homepage
    The "Planetron" [berkeley.edu] New York to Los Angeles subway system shown on the site reminded me of an old science fiction story that featured an even more fanciful long-distance subway system. In the story the tunnels were straight lines through the Earth's molten magma layer, held open by force fields. The cars needed no power, they used gravity to accelerate downhill to the halfway point and decelerate up to the destination. I wish I could remember more about this story. Does it ring any bells?
  • I was extremely disappointed that there were no airship at all in this exihibition. None. And especially no ATOMIC airships. :(

    -Airship
    http://www.atomicairship.com
  • I think it just shows us how predictions rarely come true.
    Flying buses?
    Flying cars?
    It's all a bunch of balloney. Yet people ask for predictions.

    How about the Segway? The only big news on the Segway was the rush for local governments to restrict their use. Pedestrians don't want them on the sidewalks, and motorists don't want them on the streets.
    Sure, a Segway would be cool to drive, but they're expensive. Put it this way: they're more expensive than the TOTAL cost of my first 3 automobiles, a
  • They missed some good ones.
    • The nuclear-powered car [velocityjrnl.com]. The Ford Nucleon concept car made it to the concept stage.
    • The nuclear-powered locomotive. The Baldwin Locomotive Company did some design sketches, but never got very far.
    • The nuclear-powered railroad switch lamp. The New York Central actually built some prototypes.
    • The nuclear-powered airplane. This got quite far along. A working nuclear reactor was actually flown in an B-36 aircraft, although it wasn't powering the aircraft. Huge nuclear ai
    • The nuclear-powered railroad switch lamp. The New York Central actually built some prototypes.

      Ummm ... why? How could this ever be seen as a practical solution to any real world problem? Was it just naive atomic boosterism (anything will be better if you make it atomic-powered - after all, it's futuristic)? The mind boggles!

      A very interesting read on such things (though I don't recall the switch lamp!) is Paul S. Boyer, By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic

      • Here it is, the the nuclear powered switchlamp. [archive.org] It's the picture of the guy sitting behind a big red lamp, with a periodic table in the background. At the time, there were still large numbers of oil-burning switch lamps; somebody had to go light them every night, refill them, trim the wick, and so forth.. With nuclear power, they could get ten years between lamp replacements!

        From "The Big Train", a documentary about the New York Central Railroad marred by whining from the CEO about highway subsidies.

  • Has anyone noticed that much of what people considered as revolutionary in "futuristic cars" almost 75-100 years ago, is still considered as revolutionary today? Especially when you consider that some of these things are still in development to this date.

    Sorry Detroit, but y'all have been chasing your tail for nigh on a century, yet only delivered on 1/100th of your concepts and promises. How about researching proven technologies for just a year, instead of wasting money and passing the expense onto consum

  • Future of Transport (Score:3, Interesting)

    by digitaltraveller ( 167469 ) on Saturday July 31, 2004 @09:25AM (#9851949) Homepage
    Flying Personal Transport Device's (PTD's) makes sense to me, especially when I see all those poor souls wasting their lives sitting in gridlock. I say PTD because the car is a hopelessly outmoded design, one that needs to die soon.

    The PTD would need multiple safety redundancies (backup power, turbines, parachute, whatever) but the major stumbling block for consumer acceptance would be one thing: The interface.

    The PTD should basically take just a set of GPS coordinates and that's it. The vehicle should be able to fly itself using a simplistic genetic algorithm, with the entire traffic system looking like a type of swarm intelligence. This would also help on the regulatory front. How could the FAA force you to have a pilot when the only control on the device is a GPS entry console?

    The PTD obviously shouldn't ever have a locus of central control. Besides traffic net system failure, it would an obvious target for terrorists. A good PTD design would probably be so light that any terrorists using them to attack targets would probably do little damage and do us a favour killing themselves. Sure they could pack the cabin full of explosives but they could already do that using an RC plane.

    The rise of such vehicles would probably drive a transition to buildings made of nanocomposites so tremendously strong that a little PTD bouncing off them probably wouldn't even leave a mark. This kind of infrastructure would be built automatically. Anyone who's been to Japan and witnessed the post WWII economic miracle knows it was the Japanese automotive exports that drove that economic expansion.

    I just googled the Skycar [moller.com] and noticed they IPO'd on 21 November 2001. Poor bastards.
  • Pretty much what we have with the car, but it needs to be automated, like an automated taxi cab. Trains are too large and inflexible, conventional roads too complex without sophisticate artificial intelligence.

    The concept is called Personal Rapid Transit.

    Something like:
    http://www.advancedpassengervehicles.com/au strans. htm

    or

    http://www.atsltd.co.uk/

    • I agree that this is the future, but not a rail system. When self-driving cars become reality, I believe it will lead to the end of personal car ownership. At first many families will go to single-car ownership. Why pay to leave a car parked at work when it can return home by itself and drive other family members around? I think we will see various forms of timesharing for cars, just like condos, but the dominant mode will be automated taxi services. Without the need to pay drivers, cab companies should be
      • The problem with self driving cars is that because the road environment is extremely complex, they are going to need massively sophisticated artificial intelligence systems in order to navigate safely. Remember, as well as the automated cars there will be human driven vehicles on the same road, the automated cars will also be stuck in traffic just like normally operated vehicles. It's going to be years (decades) before these are generally feasible.

        A much cheaper and simpler system is the ATS ULTra system w

  • SUVs (Score:2)

    by dcs ( 42578 )
    That's not evolution, it's a step back. Kinda like a meteor falling on Earth and killing all but single cell life.

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