Of course, technology also has the potential to help us connect with people wide and far. Kaku noted this point, outlining how tech will allow us to exchange thoughts and ideas as never before. “You will be able to talk to people in any language because your contact lenses will translate speech,” Kaku predicted.

Want to take a trip? Regardless of whether you’re going near or far, you won’t own your car; you also won’t drive one. Cars will drive you. You’ll also be able to travel much lighter than you do today because, as was mentioned above, you’ll be able to create most of what you want or need on demand.

For the things we do what to buy, Kaku believes we’re headed toward a future that will be socioeconomically unlike anything we’ve experienced.

“We are building up to something that I call ‘perfect capitalism,'” he said, describing the concept as “eliminating the middlemen, eliminating all the frictions of capitalism.” In this society, Kaku said, “the winner” will be all of society. The losers? The middlemen. The Stockbrokers.

Eoin Treacy's view

Moore’s law delivered upon a doubling of computing power every 18 months for 40 years but is now slowing down as the atomic limits of silicon atoms are approached. That has resulted in two primary responses by chip makers. The first is to focus more on power consumption than computing power and the second is to invest heavily in developing new forms of computing whether quantum, optical, memristors or other solutions.

The evolution of the Internet of Things theme is at least in part an offshoot of this development. The desire for highly energy efficient, miniature, web-connected devices is driven by the acceptance that computing power is now fast enough for whatever calculations that need to be done on the fly. Faster internet connections open up the ability of larger networks to do more pressing functions on the cloud. Therefore, the future of technological innovation is likely to be in connection speeds, cloud computing and ease of availability rather than raw computing power in one’s pocket.   

That is particularly true of the autonomous car theme where vehicles will need considerable computing power onboard but will eventually likely pool data with a central hub to control traffic patterns. The evolution of implants will give us instant communication and there are already prototypes of universal translator earbuds.  All of these products and enhancements are going to require much faster internet connectivity which is why companies are now increasingly eager to build out 5G networks. Here is a link to another article covering the same conference. 

Broadcom’s bid for Qualcomm, with the largest debt financing deal ever ($106 billion) is part of the desire to capture a piece of this looming infrastructure build as well as chips which will fuel the Internet of Things. .