1. The iPad: 1968

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We all giggled earlier this year when Apple announced the iPad. Some of us made jokes about certain feminine products. But it looks like Arthur C. Clarke went down the the same naming route with the “newspad.”

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke:

“When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug in his foolscap-size newspad into the ship’s information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world’s major electronic papers…Switching to the display unit’s short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him. Each had its own two-digit reference; when he punched that, the postage-stamp-size rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination…”

What’s next?

While it is true that a present day company named after a delicious fruit has been able to capture the public’s interest in slick technology, let us not forget Sir Isaac Newton was the original apple innovator with his theory of gravity. 

Gravity was a big idea. Big ideas drive the world forward, predictions of big ideas have come true, and there are currently a few very real big ideas currently under development in some form or another.

Each one of these five technologies are inspired by big ideas, and when they come to fruition (pun intended), they will change the way we travel, or think about travel.

1. Holographic tabletop map

Touchable holography is possible. Soon enough we’ll be able to reach out and touch memories from our last vacation on interactive maps like Google Earth.

The tech: Nokia and Intel are pouring some very real money into 3D and holographic research with the founding of their joint research lab.

Throw in Google’s continued mapping of the world with Google Maps and Google Earth, Microsoft’s surface technology, and the advancement of 3D and holographic displays and projectors (seen above), and the future is bright indeed.

Tech-to-travel: People have always found new ways to show images dear to them. First there were cave drawings, then sophisticated canvas paintings, then motion pictures, onto television, then The Carosel slide show projectors, and now there’s online photo galleries.

Futurist Mike Walsh, author of “Futuretainment” and CEO of innovation research agency Tomorrow says table top holographic maps will be a way for people to view and share their travels.

Walsh says, “There will be a holographic map sitting on their coffee table where they can pull up different photos and bits of where they’ve been.”

He continues, “The journey will be mapped up because of GPS location capabilities, and most of their photos will have been taken automatically by cameras around their neck based on algorithms working out what was actually interesting. So you can follow the route right on the Google Earth holographic tabletop map.”

Timeline: Flatscreen display — two years. Holographic display — five years.

Check out cnngo.com for the other 4 innovations 😉