Wisdom of the Crowd

And now for a more realistic technological idea. I’ve heard the CIA has been employing the “Wisdom of the Crowd” concept to test predictions about geopolitical events. Studies have shown that it is difficult for one person to guess, say, the number of beans in a jar, but if you poll a large number of people, and calculate the average, you can get surprisingly close. Why not create a free web site where people can predict the future, and maybe even avert some of humanity’s many dangers? I don’t have time to work on it right now, but basically, each screen would have an origination date, a prediction, and a future date. Site visitors would vote on the likelihood of each prediction coming true, then later, after the future date is past, they would vote on whether it came true or not. Anyone could submit a prediction, but only the most popular ones would float to the top. People who predicted the best would also get higher rankings. More features could be added, but the basic concept is pretty simple.

Micro-Drones

If micro-drones are ever perfected, there will be no privacy. There will be a “fly on the wall” at every meeting. An interesting movie would be “Drone Wars”...each side trying to bomb the command center of the other. 

Invisibility Cloak

I’ve heard the Canadians are working on an invisibility cloak. I can only imagine how such a cloak might work...The fabric is made up of tiny micro-hemispheres that act as both cameras and screens, each capturing and projecting light in all directions, and each in communication with all other micro-hemispheres. Using radio signals and computer software, each angle of light from each micro-hemisphere is routed to the appropriate micro-hemisphere angle on the other side of the cloak, which is always changing because the cloak is moving. A cheaper solution might be to use micro-mirrors, but then there’s the problem of how to tell the light to start and stop.