If you could travel to the future, what would you see? What innovations have humans come up with? What do our relationships look like? Have we improved? Classic science fiction writers asked themselves these questions too, and many of their imagined futures have become our present. These are four speculations which are now our reality. Wireless Earbuds and Headphones - Ray Bradbury in Fahrenheit 451 As an accessory, to go to the gym, to listen to music while on the bus. Wireless earbuds and headphones have recently become a trend among young people. But perhaps one of the first ones to come up with the concept of this gadget was Ray Bradbury back in 1953. Mildred, the wife of Fahrenheit’s 451 main character, used small listening devices called Seashells. They allowed her to listen to recordings without carrying another device with her. Listening to noise became an obsession, it filled her brain. She seldom listened to her husband, she was never entirely present. Have computers changed the world? - Isaac Asimov A copy of the Toronto Star Newspaper from exactly 40 years ago contains one of Asimov’s most remarkable guesses (or predictions?). He theorised that by 2019, most people would have a computer which was much lighter and faster than computers in the 80’s. But that is not it. He also said that many kids would be educated through computers instead of attending offline schools, and that has become a common way of distance learning and homeschooling. In other articles, interviews, and novels, he wrote about interconnected devices with complex communication systems. Voice-to-text writing - George Orwell in 1984 If you have your phone nearby, try asking your digital assistant (Siri, Google, Cortana, etc.) to send a text to one of your contacts. It will probably ask you something around the lines of “What do you want to say to _?”. You can now dictate your message, and your assistant will send it efficiently (in most cases). In 1984, George Orwell wrote about a device called Speakwrite. It was a sort of microphone which transformed what the user was saying into written text. A similar mechanism can be now used in Microsoft Word, iPhone Notes, among others. In fact, I am now using Google Docs’ voice typing tool to write this. World Problems - Margaret Atwood Overpopulation and climate change are two of the most challenging problems we face nowadays, and which have a time limit for humans to figure out (yes, this is a reminder to raise your voice any way you can to demand change from companies and governments). Not only the problems, but different reactions to them, were presented in Atwoods’ The Handmaid's Tale. But Atwood has an outstanding perspective on what fiction means when imagining the future. “All stories about the future are actually about the now” -Margaret Atwood in an interview with Slate magazine. So, in a hundred years… This year’s CES presented hydrogen cars, robot animals controlled by voice commands, and even a device which detects how ripe an avocado is. What comes next? Perhaps it is time for writers to speculate. Paula Argudois an Ecuadorian writer who weaves culture and magic into her stories. Her work has been featured in literary magazines such as SeaGlass Literary and Ice Lolly Review, and she was an international finalist in the Metamorphosis contest. When not writing, you can find her dancing, baking, or daydreaming.
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