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Comment by biesnecker | Hacker News Reader

A high-res panorama of Mars, taken by a semi-autonomous robot that was landed via rocket sky crane, transmitted 14 light minutes across space, then transmitted on demand through a global information network to my computer.

And people say the future isn't what it was made out to be.

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No one said that the future isn't amazing (or maybe they did), but the "future" imagined in the 1960s is mostly still science fiction.

Where is my flying car? Where is my robot personal assistant? Where is my food replicator? Where is my day trip to the moon? Where is my space colony on Mars?

Just sayin'. :P

And yet two posts away is: http://www.bostonherald.com/jobfind/news/technology/view/202...

It's a good point. I've thought about this before. I think the 1960s imagined future was predicated on basically infinite energy availability. That clearly hasn't happened, but what did happen most people in the 1960s didn't predict.

Makes you wonder what 50 years hence things will be like, given that the microtrends to which we pay so much attention will likely not continue.

And it you watch it in your iPad 2, you will be holding the viewport in your hands.

If I had looked at this on my laptop, I would have said, "Cool". On my iPad, though, I was transfixed, especially after removing browser chrome and maximizing the image. It felt lie FaceTime with Mars.

To the creator I say, "Well done!"

"We wanted flying cars, instead we've got 140 characters" -Peter Thiel

But 3D HD 4k streaming in real-time!

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