We’ve all seen the spy movies where a pertinent message is delivered from HQ to the hero. To protect the agency, the message is always set to self destruct in a matter of seconds. In the case of Inspector Gadget, it made for some funny scenes of the message blowing up at inopportune times. The source and content of the message is safely destroyed and unable to be traced. In the 21st century, we all have secret agent type technology at our fingertips. We often say or send things we regret or that we prefer to remain private. Often times, the message leaks, and we’re been left to face the consequences of our texts, e-mails, and videos. That’s all about to change.

As we grow into this coming age, technology is allowing us the ability to feed the thrills of our imagination unlike ever before. Whether it’s watching automobiles rocket around a track at over two hundred miles an hour or observing a plane pierce through the sound barrier, many of us have an innate desire to push body, mind, and technology to their limits.

One such limit that scientists have been trying to crack for decades is the one set forth by one of the most brilliant minds of all time, Albert Einstein. Through his analysis and mathematical configurations, he concluded that the ultimate speed that could ever be attained was that of light traveling through a vacuum (such as the vacuum of space). His theory presented a barrier that through the laws of physics could never be broken…until now.

Children in the United States are raised differently based on their gender. Girls are given dolls, and boys are given guns. This early exposure embeds guns in our psyche, and leads us to long for bigger and better technology. Traditional bullets just aren’t cutting it these days, we need weapons that shoot cooler things. Engineers have been listening, if you see someone wielding one of the following guns, run.

Needles have scared and scarred many since their youth, but few knew that fear was an actual condition. Trypanophobia, or fear of needles, affects over 31 million Americans today. Sufferers of Trypanophobia dread medical care and are likely to experience elevated heart rates and blood pressure in the time leading up to a procedure, with a dangerously sharp drop beforehand. With our reliance on needles for getting vital remedies into the human body, Trypanophobia has been a major problem. Fortunately, researchers at MIT have engineered a new method for getting patients the juice they need: jet injection.

With advancements in current technology, we are seeing objects that were once dull and boring take new life and perform tasks our grandparents never could have dreamed of. A couple of the most recognizable brands in the world are at the forefront of a move towards smarter, more efficient surfaces around our homes.

People love their pets. Many people love their pets more than they love other people. Despite this unwavering affection, we’re still unable to communicate with them. What are they thinking? How are they feeling? Where do they want to go? Well we’re reaching a point where all of those questions may soon be answered.

The internet and the airplane have combined to tear down boundaries worldwide and fuel the globalization fire. Standing on two continents in one day was absolutely unfathomable even one hundred years ago. Businesses are now thriving with a global reach, while the Earth is currently at the most peaceful time in it’s history. Communication and collaboration brought upon by technology have been fundamental to this shift.

These two history-changing inventions that accelerated globalization on it’s current path are the new inspiration for taking humanity to the next level. A patented transportation concept that is as lightning quick and connected as the internet is gaining funding, and prototypes are set for the immediate future. Evacuated tube transport will rock your world.

Over the last few decades, we have become unbelievably spoiled with technology. Everything is becoming faster, slimmer, lighter and more efficient. The materials that we produce our gadgets with are becoming more impressive seemingly by the day.

By now you’ve probably heard of graphene, if not you can read more about it’s potential capabilities here. Graphene has been lauded as the perfect future material for our technological needs, but it does have one major flaw: it conducts electricity too well at this point to be used in electronics. Graphene in it’s purest form is unable to control the electricity flowing through it; it would thus be difficult to make future gadgets out of it. Fortunately, there have been a couple of recent major breakthroughs in the supermaterial realm including a genetic modification to graphene and a material cousin. Both hold a lot of promise for the future of sweet gadgets.

When the first sports were conceived, the athletes involved just played the game. In the 21st century, that has all changed. Sports are now a science. Instead of just taking it play by play, we analyze, study, graph and dissect. There are now metrics in every sport that can pinpoint the ultimate weaknesses of any team or individual.

Teams and coaches aren’t the only ones trying to get an edge, performance clothing companies are conducting seemingly ridiculous tests to produce the most efficient clothes, shoes, and accessories possible. Nike, being the number one sporting good company in the world, is at the forefront of future performance research. In this particular case, they’ve taken a page from an unlikely sport to produce the fastest performance running wear in history. The discovery is set to make it’s debut at the 2012 Olympic Summer Games in London.

Astounde covered a story in February about how Google, along with Audi, BMW and others are deep into testing of a car that not only parks itself, but drives itself. Advancements in GPS and motion sensing technology have made this dream a reality. News then came in late March that a man lacking 95% of his vision, “drove” a car for the first time in a long time. We now have a glimpse at what the official license plates of these vehicles will look like, and we can soon expect to see them cruising beside us on the interstate.