Future Now
The IFTF Blog
SUBSCRIBE
The Coming Era of Autonomous Vehicles
Illustrations by Jacob Glaser
Stories from the Future
In the next decade, autonomous vehicles will evolve to become the ultimate mobile computer. These intelligent and connected robots will be nomadic nodes on the Internet of Things, efficiently shuttling atoms around our built environment not unlike packets on the Internet of bits. Sometimes we will ride around inside these mobile computers; just as frequently, they will bring us what we need wherever we are. As the autonomous vehicles traverse our concrete networks, they will collect and share data about the world at very high resolution. This real-time data will help us index our physical world with a greater resolution than ever possible. As that database becomes more comprehensive, drawing information from myriad sources, it will be the backbone of a new kind of human-machine interface: a search engine for reality itself.
But it’s a long road ahead. Working with one of our longstanding clients in the automotive industry, Institute for the Future developed an outside-in, ten-year forecast on the future of autonomous vehicles. The aim was to provoke insights about possible consumer use-cases for fully autonomous vehicles looking ten years out. We presented the forecast in the form of short comics, “Stories from the Future,” that are driven by collisions at the intersection of technology and culture.
Matter Routing: The Autonomous Vehicle as a Node on the Internet of Things
Mobile Family Room: The Journey is the Destination
The Lone Commuter: Rest, Work, Relaxation, Relief
A Collaboration Commute: Workplace on Wheels
Gameful Driving: Vehicle as Personal Recreation Space
FUTURE NOW—When Everything is Media
In this second volume of Future Now, IFTF's print magazine powered by our Future 50 partnership, we explore the future of communications, tracing historical technology shifts through the present and focusing on the question: “What is beyond social media?”
Think of Future Now as a book of provocations; it reflects the curiosity and diversity of futures thinking across IFTF and our network of collaborators. This issue contains expert interviews, profiles and analyses of what today’s technologies tell us about the next decade, as well as comics and science fiction stories that help us imagine what 2026 (and beyond) might look and feel like.
About IFTF's Future 50
Every successful strategy begins with an insight about the future. Every organization needs to build the capacity to anticipate the future. The Future 50 is a side-by-side relationship with Institute for the Future; it’s a partnership focused on strategic foresight on a ten-year time horizon. With 50 years of futures research in society, technology, health, the economy, and the environment, IFTF has the perspectives, networks, signals, and tools to make sense out of the emerging future.
For More Information
For more information on IFTF's Future 50 Partnership and Tech Futures Lab, contact:
Sean Ness | [email protected] | 650.233.9517