Alright, so there are two things that I really love. The first is cyberpunk and all its trappings: the neon and the chrome, baby. The second is bleeding edge technology. When I read a cyberpunk book or get into a world like Shadowrun I get very excited about the real-world possibility that is only decades away. I can't help but say "ooh, look! I'm already seeing the baseline in technology for this!"
You'd be surprised at how much has already come from cyberpunk and other sci-fi, too! The cell phone and the internet, both predictions by sci-fi novels, the latter a cyberpunk ideal from a few years before its true inception. What's next for us? Nano-machines? We've been researching them heavily, in fact there are already prototypes for a kind of nanobot au tattoo that displays vitals and feasibly much more. What about commlinks? The fusion of computer and cellphone is definitely just around the corner with the advancement of smaller and smaller microchips. Smartphones and PDAs are already doing many of these functions.
The crown jewels of the cyberpunk ideals, though, comes with AR. AR, Augmented or Alternate Reality. Hoo baby, just the thought of it gets me going - the idea of a HUD displayed on your retina, or the lenses of your glasses, connected to your smartphone/commlink. The idea of that much information laid at your feet and beamed into your brain seems, well, hyper-realistic for me. It's too real to be real. But it's coming, my friends, it's coming. In the next decade or two, it will be here! Who needs to pay at the cash register when you can broadcast your credit and have machines read RFIDs that are already so prevelent in anti-theft measures today? Who needs a desktop when all the power you'll ever need is sitting in your pockets? Who needs a big-screen when it's shot directly into your eyes?
These are the things that dreams are made of but even more, these are the things on which technology stands! The bright ideas of obscure writers and cancelled TV shows that somebody sees and says to himself "Man, that's cool! Why don't we have that already?!!"
...let's just hope the corporations don't actually take over. 
Tags: Cyberpunk Shadowrun Reality Technology
