(This is the first in a series about the technological advances that will be introduced during the new century. This column describes Britain's new Millennium Dome, which exhibits some of these exciting possibilities.)
Cleverly disguised as a tourist gimmick, Britain's Millennium Dome houses a startling and impressive array of futuristic scientific innovations. The Dome, the highlight of the opening scene of the new James Bond movie, "The World is Not Enough," demonstrates progressions expected in biotechnology, finance, transport, communications, computers, the world of work and the environment. But the Dome is not a museum filled with glass showcases.
Inside are 14 creatively designed interactive zones, each dedicated to the imaginative yet wholly convincing development in these areas.
While touring the Dome over Winter Break, I entered the world of money and was presented with a card to purchase my dreams. One million dollars to spend in one minute. I avidly and rapidly selected as many items as I could, and after I had bought the house, the car, the rhinoceros, the island, the holiday in Hawaii, I still hadn't taken complete advantage of the money. The choices of items to purchase in the world were infinite; the time to enjoy -- limited. But the money zone's slogan for the next 1,000 years was not "buy, buy, buy" but rather "invest, invest, invest."
Next, the body zone was a 3-D construction from a very curious perspective. As I strolled through this giant twisted pink structure I could identify my location in the head as an earring and hair follicles pierced through the surface. The most fascinating part was a high resolution scanning machine. All the kids lined up to have this machine microscopically scan the surface of their heads. There were gasps of awe and disgust as it identified the live head lice and bacteria inhabiting one little boy's head.
The intelligent counterpart to the body zone was the mind zone. It questioned whether we would feel different if we looked different. Through a special morphing machine a graphical model was made of my face, and through this machine I had the option of changing my race, my sex and my age. The race and sex change were the most dramatic, and as for the age change -- let's just say I still look pretty good at 40! Within the closed cubicle of the machine I didn't feel different looking at the changes to my appearance, but I knew that I probably would if others could react to the alterations.
There was also an opportunity to produce a 3-D virtual reality model of yourself -- known as an "avatar" from the Hindu word for God. This avatar could be used as a direct self-representation in computer games, information access and all virtual reality applications.
From there I moved on to the talk zone. Do you know how much we really talk? How many words we speak in our lifetime? It is inevitable that communications will have to keep up.
In the next century it will be possible to have video links simultaneously with several people across the world, access information and the Internet, and talk to people simply from our wristwatches!
I found the journey zone the most intriguing exhibit. It was not so much the description of transport through time from when they invented the wheel, but the plethora of ingenious inventions that are likely to impact the travel market in our lifetime.
Beginning with the airplane, whether it's the airbus that travels faster than Concorde, or the new airplane that skims the surface of the sea, capitalizing on the upward drag force, we are about to see a dramatic revolution in the transport industry. The journey zone also suggests that in the future, cars will be electric and have customized control systems for the driver. Through voice recognition commands, the car will electronically locate your destination. It will be fitted with infrared and radar devices, to facilitate driving at night, and, should a collision be imminent, the car will detect this and inform the emergency services before your accident occurs. Pity that it can't stop the accident itself!
And to highlight the future of transportation, the actual models of the car and boat in the James Bond film were on display in the zone.
Sadly the future is not all glorious. The environment zone presents us as profligate people. As the population increases, clean water will become scarce, the sewage in Britain's seas will proliferate, and sanitation will become poor. And to top it off, I learned that all of the dishwashers in the U.K. combined consume the water to fill 24 Olympic-sized swimming pools in one wash.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the Dome is the public prediction of what is most likely to happen in the next 1,000 years.
I was surprised to learn that people believe perpetual motion will be achieved, shortly followed by the finding of extra-terrestrials. Other strong beliefs about the future include finding cures for cancer and AIDS, advancing in space travel and men having babies.
In polls, the public said the least likely events to happen are having one universal language, an infinitely clean energy source and cloning -- because according to the Dome, the public believes talking animals and travel at the speed of light are still more likely to happen than one worldwide state!
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