Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100

fifty just within a decade. In the future, flat screens that cover an entire wall will also fall dramatically in price. These wall screens will be flexible and superthin, using OLEDs (organic light-emitting diodes). They are similar to ordinary light-emitting diodes, except they are based on organic compounds that can be arranged in a polymer, making them flexible. Each pixel on the flexible screen is connected to a transistor that controls the color and intensity of the light.
    Already, the scientists at Arizona State University’s Flexible Display Center are working with Hewlett-Packard and the U.S. Army to perfect thistechnology. Market forces will then drive down the cost of this technology and bring it to the public. As prices go down, the cost of these wall screens may eventually approach the price of ordinary wallpaper. So in the future, when putting up wallpaper, one might also be putting up wall screens at the same time. When we wish to change the pattern on our wallpaper, we will simply push a button. Redecorating will be so simple.
    This flexible screen technology may also revolutionize how we interact with our portable computers. We will not need to lug heavy laptop computers with us. The laptop may be a simple sheet of OLEDs we then fold up and put in our wallets. A cell phone may contain a flexible screen that can be pulled out, like a scroll. Then, instead of straining to type on the tiny keyboard of your cell phone, you may be able to pull out a flexible screen as large as you want.
    This technology also makes possible PC screens that are totally transparent. In the near future, we may be staring out a window, and then wave our hands, and suddenly the window becomes a PC screen. Or any image we desire. We could be staring out a window thousands of miles away.
    Today, we have scrap paper that we scribble on and then throw away. In the future, we might have “scrap computers” that have no special identity of their own. We scribble on them and discard them. Today, we arrange our desk and furniture around the computer, which dominates our office. In the future, the desktop computer might disappear and the files will move with us as we go from place to place, from room to room, or from office to home. This will give us seamless information, anytime, anywhere. Today at airports you see hundreds of travelers carrying laptop computers. Once at the hotel, they have to connect to the Internet; and once they return back home, they have to download files into their desktop machines. In the future, you will never need to lug a computer around, since everywhere you turn, the walls, pictures, and furniture can connect you to the Internet, even if you are in a train or car. (“Cloud computing,” where you are billed not for computers but for computer time, treating computation like a utility that is metered like water or electricity, is an early example of this.)
    VIRTUAL WORLDS
    The goal of ubiquitous computing is to bring the computer into our world: to put chips everywhere. The purpose of virtual reality is the opposite:to put us into the world of the computer. Virtual reality was first introduced by the military in the 1960s as a way of training pilots and soldiers using simulations. Pilots could practice landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier by watching a computer screen and moving a joystick. In case of a nuclear war, generals and political leaders from distant locations could meet secretly in cyberspace.
    Today, with computer power expanding exponentially, one can live in a simulated world, where you can control an avatar (an animated image that represents you). You can meet other avatars, explore imaginary worlds, and even fall in love and get married. You can also buy virtual items with virtual money that can then be converted to real money. One of the most popular sites, Second Life, registered 16 million accounts by 2009. That year, several people earned more than $1 million per year using Second Life. (The profit you make, however, is taxable by the U.S. government, which considers it real income.)
    Virtual reality is already a staple of video games. In the future as computer power continues to expand, via your glasses or wall screen, you will also be able to visit unreal worlds. For example, if you wish to go shopping or visit an exotic place, you might first do it via virtual reality, navigating the computer screen as if you were really there. In this way, you will be able to walk on the