[Wayne Luke]

Originally Posted by nexialys

Transponders from StarTrek, and Flying cars like Back to the Future...

Those are modes of transportation, not methods of communication.

Holographic viewers and faster speeds than you have now. We basically already have the communicators (cellphones), tricorders (palm pilots, mobile windows devices), and video communications potrayed even in the earliest Star Trek movie. Heck we even have the automatically opening doors. For the communications, we just need to make it faster.

Previously processor power doubled every 18 months. Now we need to work on increasing bandwidth speeds every 18 months. Moving the data across countries and around the world is where its going to be. Its probably 10 years before we begin to reach the potential of fiber optics. Now we are just scratching the surface. With wireless communications, squeezing more data into a smaller radio burst will be key so digital compression will be big. Or we'll have more devices that use multiple datastreams to piece the information together. But if I can get HD television on over 150 channels from a satellite, it isn't long before that kind of information is two way.