At the turn of the century then, which is only 30 years from now, a nurse visiting a 75-year-old person may be engaged as part of her job in making sure that he is taking regularly several kinds of vitamin doses, a painkiller, a hypnotic dream regulator, an anti-depressant, a sedative or psychostimulant, and so on.
NEW YORK (UPI) - In Computersville this day, Jane Doe presses buttons on the mini-computer in her kitchen.
She orders up a week's worth of low-calorie menus. Within micro-seconds, the machine devises such meal plans. Then it prints them.
Before she entered the kitchen, Mrs. Doe stopped briefly in the living room to admire the family's newest possession - a huge geometric print, drawn by computer.
As she goes about her chores, she is relaxed by the sounds of her favorite record, Computer Concerto. This features a musical score created by computer and orchestrated by computer. The sounds are electronic. There are blips and beeps and modulated static.
At times the sounds blend noises of a dozen jets waiting on the runway to takeoff. Altogether, it is a pleasant record.
In the afternoon, Mrs. Doe goes to her small town's medical center for her annual physical. Among other things, she has an electrocardiogram - administered by technicians, processed by computer and read, of course, by computer.
The printout on her eletrocardiogram: "Non specific T-wave changes. Possibly borderline gram. Probably within normal limits."
All of these things from the world of computers were seen at an unconventional convention in New York - the 25th National Conference of the Association for Computing Machinery.
They will come home to roost in the not-too-distant future. You probably won't have to wait until the year 2,000, for example, to have computer art and music in your home. Hospitals of the land already are experimenting with diagnosis by computer.
The menu - planning computer for the kitchen, while a bit expensive around $10,000, is available. It is designed to help keep track of financial records, lend a hand with the children's homework - and perform many other tasks.
In another 25 years, [Seaborg] speculates, teen-agers and adults will have two-way wrist watch radios . . . their own computers to aid studies or automatically translate foreign tongues into English . . . vaccines against cancer . . . synthetic foods . . . books from electronic libraries via closed-circuit TV into their homes . . . flights to Europe in one or two hours . . . clothes of special material which they'll wear once or a few times and then throw away . . . security from hurricanes or tornadoes because scientists will have learned how to prevent disastrous storms.
In health care, for example, a cure for cancer will be found by 1995 and will be generally available in the early 21st Century.
Closer to the present, it's felt that within two years doctors should be able to detect most genetic defects before birth and be able to prevent them by the 1990s.
In transportation, an all plastic car, except for engine and drive train, will be common by 1990. So will the electric car. The service-free, accident-proof automobile is expected to be in widespread use by the year 2000.
Ditto for automated urban transit, after becoming technologically possible in 1985 and economically feasible 10 years later.
Also by 1995, aerospace experts predict an economic alternative to petroleum fuel and full use of it by 2010.
Chiang Kai-shek dead in Taiwan; new regime is created that seeks to "modernize" Formosa. Ten year plan to replace most ideographs with Roman letters is announced. Major effort is made to organize "overseas" Chinese - the millions is southeast Asia, the tens of thousands in America - into a series of formalized trade associations.
Safe cigarettes invented: Lorillard stock advances 20 points in one day.
Chicago firm begins marketing robot "housekeepers": mechanical mice to vacuum rugs and clean floors, automated kitchens that prepare hot meals according to consumer specifications, etc.
Team of Muskie and Adlai Stevenson III defeats Republicans for Presidency.
J.Edgar Hoover resigns post as head of FBI.
Astronauts find evidence of sub-cellular life on the moon - two billion years ago.
Jackie divorces Ari; she plans to marry David Brinkley.
New Jersey becomes first state to legalize marijuana.
Stones break up. New music stirs U.S.; Cheyenne native rock-and-tom-tom group tops charts.
Peace settlement reached in Middle East; version of Allon plan adopted on a "phase-out" basis; Israel-Jordan to become joint secular state.
Mao-Tse-tung suffers heart attack in China. Succeeded by Chou En-Lai. Red Guard "party" forms to challenge authority of the government, cultural revolution becomes an underground movement.
Hovercraft "grass highway" bonds approved by Congress: Boston-Richmond route.
Haile Selassie dies in Washington hospital. His death removes last obstacle to United States in East Africa, a new nation made up of the former states of Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda.
South Sudan secedes from Arab Federation; civil war erupts as rebels receive encouragement and aid from Addis Ababa.
Houston doctor discloses discovery of selective memory-erasing drug.
Reagan defeated by 350,000 votes.
Rescue in space; Russians save Americans endangered on orbiting space platform.
U. of Oklahoma student disorders reach insurrection proportions; social science building destroyed, 4 police, 18 students killed.
"Electro-pop," completely synthetic beverage starts a new food craze: Electro-snax, Electro-suppers are marketed.
First space hospital (4 "beds") established by U.S.S.R.
Socialists return to power in Britain.
Cabinet restructure in U.S., new secretaries of Education, Environment.
Sex-selection industry booms. Chemical treatments enable prospective parents to predetermine sex of offspring.
Allard Lowenstein defeats Buckley in N.Y. Senate contest.
Temporary lunar base set up by U.S. - 6 men, 2 months.
Famine conditions worsen in India, Java. Communist revolution develops.
Sexual intercourse allowed in Yale sex ed. classes. Harvard follows suit.
Brazilian church secedes from Rome; "second reformation" as Dutch, some Americans, also walk out.
Tito dies in Yugoslavia, unsuccessful leftist coup to oust hand-picked successor.
Religious revival reported in Africa: Nigeria, Dahomey, Ivory Coast, Guinea become Baha'i countries.
Japanese firm announces opening of sea-chains, series of floating cities to accommodate 10,000 people each; located in Polynesia.
Police force retired in Seattle; replaced by paid, plain clothes community people.
First "time traveler." Star of ten-year hibernation for Minneapolis man.
Radio signals from vicinity of 41 Y Cygni indicate intelligent life in the universe.
Laser "arrays" used by commercial ships to navigate Antarctic waters; business firms start pilot plants on southernmost continent.
U.S. court system reformed. New features include "maximum wait law" - no more than 30 days between arrest and trial - and "obsolete statute law" - any law on the books is retired after 20 years unless specifically renewed by legislative act.
|
| Paleo-Future |
| Visit this group |
