Many things that looked like miracles in the past have become accepted as “normal” today. Just think of what would have happened to you if you had taken a digital photo during the time of the witch hunts in Europe or the US! This kind of effect, a miracle turning into something completely accepted will happen again.
The talk starts with an amazing and surprising list of such things, showing the fast shift that is happening from year to year. It is than argued that many things that today are considered impossible, from telepathy to telekinesis, from teleportation to making persons and objects invisible will be commonplace in the future. Why such things will be possible and indications of possible solutions will be given in this talk, most solutions based on further dramatic advances or information technology.
The talk is suitable for a general audience with a superficial knowledge of information technology. The speaker believes that it is both instructive and entertaining.
Born in Vienna, Austria, Maurer studied mathematics in Austria and Canada. After stints with IBM Research and the Computer Centre of the Government of Saskatchewan in Canada, he was professor for computer science at Calgary (Canada), Karlsruhe (Germany) and Graz (Austria), where he was the first Dean of Computer Science. He has built up a group of some 200 researchers. He has supervised hundreds of M.Sc.s, some 60 Ph.D.s, has published over 600 papers (more than 150 in journals), 20 books (only half of them technical, the rest science fiction).
He has successfully headed a number of multi-million Euro projects, founded or co-founded 20 companies, has received three honorary doctorates to date, and many other national and international honours. He has been visiting professor for a duration of between 3 months and three years at universities such as Waterloo, Dallas, Brasilia, Auckland and Perth.
His main areas of interest today are multimedia, applications and dangers of the Web, and societal implications of computer science. To find more about Maurer consult www.iicm.edu/maurer (choose the English version) with more information than you ever care to read!