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Museum of the Future

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the give-us-talking-fruit dept.

Magnavox writes "In Boulder, Colorado tonight there is going to be a rather unusual announcement about the DaVinci Institute's effort to create a Museum of Future Inventions. This will be a museum where they exhibit things that haven't been invented yet, like spray on clothing, instant sleep, genetically engineered Velcro sheep, and metric time. Pretty creative stuff. Some of the people they have involved are Dr. Paul MacCready, inventor of the Gossamer Albatross and Paul Dusenbery, Founder of the Space Science Institute. This looks like serious competition for Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum."

9 of 234 comments (clear)

  1. Duke Nukem Forever? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Will I be able to go there and play Duke Nukem Forever?

  2. I call prior art! by rfischer · · Score: 5, Funny

    How 'bout we draft some patents on these pre-natal inventions?

    and profit, of course.

  3. Oblig. Simpsons' Quote by aceat64 · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Not only are the trains running on time, but now they're running on metric time!"

  4. I thought... by Mad_Rain · · Score: 4, Informative

    I thought metric time already invented?

    Or at least it was at the time of this posting: 41.911 UMT. :)

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  5. Negative calories by 3770 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Screw those inventions. What I want is potato chips with negative calories.

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  6. Prior Art? by bloodstains · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The question is, can exhibits from the Museum of the Future be used as prior art in patent requests.

  7. This is Old News by serutan · · Score: 4, Funny

    I bought a season pass to that museum two years from now and went there twice next month.

  8. Largely Irrelavant by beaststwo · · Score: 4, Informative
    When I was in grad school (1990), I read the book "Megamistakes" by Steven Schnaars, Professor of Marketing at the City University of New York. An amazingly interesting book that can be read cover to cover in a few hours. Professor Schaar's book talks about science and technology forecasting and how wildly wrong such forecasts almost always are. He then goes on to talk about why forecasts go wrong.

    The uptake of the book is that even the "best of the best" forecasters are only right one prediction in nine. The record falls off sadly as you move away from that top tier.

    So while hearing visionaries talk is fun and can be enlightening, they seldom represent anything likely to actually happen. After all, isn't Popular Science still telling us about how we'll drive personal aircraft instead of cars in a few years?

  9. Velcro sheep? by nizo · · Score: 5, Funny

    You wouldn't be able to mix velcro sheep and regular sheep, otherwise they will stick together, forming one large sheepmass.

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    I Am My Own Worst Enemy