AND WHEN TELEPORTATION ARRIVES?

[Wizlish]

Science fiction alone has done teleportation in as a practical approach, as far as animate objects -- let alone conscious humans -- are concerned.

Effective full-immersion telepresence over the same range, albeit with latency concerns, is 'only' about 750Mbps.  There is the same possibility of degrading QoS in data networks as there is for voice, due to the high assured transmission priority for the packets, but in this case the packets can be packed with full data instead of 'just' reserved for the few bits of compressed voice, so at least theoretically you could 'pad out' low-latency voice transmissions with data of similar latency for another client's telepresence, and have the 'best of both worlds'...

... without the problems teleportation has with re-creating living reality at the other end over an information-based network.  If you solve those issues, we can start dealing with the issues of unintended multiple reception of the information...  George O. Smith had already looked at many of these things back in the '40s.

[daveklepper]

Imagine transportation 100, 500, or 1000 years from now, assuming Humankind's problems of intolerance and global warming and food and water supplies are solved.  We now have three-dimensional holographic printing.   Imagine this so refined that it can go to the atomic level.  That one can step into a transportation booh and be transported to another booth anywhere else at the speed of light, electronically.  Impossible?  Flying, undersea boats, electric lights, sound and video recording and playback, wired and radio information transmission, and mechanical, non-animal propulsion were once considered impossible.

 

While flying is possible, only the very very rich can afford personal airplanes for transportation.  And while most adult Americans have the use of a personal automobile, most people worldwide do not.  Even those with personal automobiles do not use them for city commuting. So probably only the very rich will have transportation booths in their offices and in their homes for commuting.  Others will use public transportation booths, and costs may rule out use for most for short distances.  So commuter rail and rapid transit trains and light rail will still be around.  Personal automobiles will still be around because teleportation will be too expensive for random short-distance trips, and some people enjoy driving long distances.  Corridor trains will survive for the same reasons as commuter trains and local transportation, but their scope may be reduced in specific markets where the need for teletransportation makes it economical..  But long distance trains will survive for the same reasons they have survived airline development and only if they are pleasant enough to provide a mini-vacation for the traveler.   Airlines?  Possibly not.  Recreational flying, absolutely yes.

Possibly enough people will not trust teleportation for airline survival.