[kahawe]

Ahhh, see-through aluminum now where could they have possible come up with that? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Star_Trek_materials#Met...

And clearly, staring right into the blaring sun at around 9k ft up in the air is going to make for an even greater and more satisfying travel experience!

You know what a truly wonderful vision for 2050 would be? Travel without having to deal with the airlines and without being locked in a crampy seat the size of sardine can and without having to wait through endless and pointless lines of "security checks". I hate those security checks... if only someone would come up with truly smart and efficient security procedures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airpor...

[StavrosK]

I thought of a portal system, similar to what's used in the game, only you'd have a door frame installed in your house with a dial pad next to it. You'd dial the person whose door you wanted to connect to, they'd authorize it (perhaps after a small conversation) and the two door frames would create a portal to each other's room, as if the rooms were connected.

This is nothing more than an interesting thought experiment, but I figured that it would already make all forms of transformation obsolete, except perhaps for ones used for leisure. Everything would be much cheaper, as you could basically just carry everything from production to distribution to people's homes within a few seconds.

It would also probably make most forms of communication obsolete, as you could just walk into the next room and see your friends, and you could go out in any place in the world, so it would also revolutionize travel.

Physical shops would be turned into their online equivalents, as locality would no longer play any part in anything, but they would only exist for the pleasure (and marketing) of physically shopping. Actually, I can't decide whether online stores would perish instead...

Anyway, it's an interesting world to contemplate.

[rmccue]

Turns out transparent aluminium does actually exist: http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/151361,transparent-aluminiu...

Though I doubt they'll be making planes out of something explosive.