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Note: all prices are in Canadian dollars
High tech companies constantly develop new products for future advancement. Here is a glimpse of the luxuries that those who can afford them are enjoying - and what all of us may be using once time and mass production bring prices down to within a more affordable range.
"I'm tired of Love: I'm still more tired of Rhyme. But Money gives me pleasure all the time."
-- Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), French-born British writer
No longer just movie fantasies, the future of personal transportation has arrived. The SkyCar, a cross between a traditional automobile and a personal aircraft, boasts big turbo engines, a fire-red body, and ultra-stylish looks.
You can now zip to work or play at a fraction of the time - traveling at up to 350+ miles per hour high off the ground. Keep your eye out for screaming, pointing pedestrians while driving in it.
You will be able to legally drive/fly it in the city within about four years. You must obtain a "powered lift" pilot's license from the FAA for the SkyCar, and you can land it almost anywhere. The requirements aren't as rigorous as a pilot's license, and sophisticated computers will help to guide you safely to your destination.
Moller International, the company that produces the Skycar, states that, "…The automobile is only an interim step on our evolutionary path to independence from gravity."
Moller projects that the SkyCar will be as affordable as a mid-range luxury car within 15 years.
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Website: www.moller.com
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Price tag: $1.53 million
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SkyCar photo
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For the pet-deprived and money-healthy, a clean, obedient, and extraordinarily intelligent pet is now available. Meet RoboDog, a robotic dog that is so technologically advanced, it moves with fluid grace, responds to voice commands, makes decisions, and learns objects and shapes and then remembers how to interact with them.
In addition to being a fun pet, it can also perform useful tasks such as videotaping any action in your home while you are away. The metallic tail-wagger, while not exactly cuddly, is the cutest hunk of metal out there. This is a great solution for those restricted by strata corporation rules that do not allow pets, or for those who like the thought of a pet, but don't want all the mess, fuss, and worry of a biological pet.
Ex-Formula One designer Nick Wirth and a team of seven specialists developed the RoboDog in an astounding seven months.
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Website: www.roboscience.com
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Price tag: $48,500
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RoboDog videos
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Yamaha's high tech take on the traditional grand piano is truly a work of art. The lid is divided into translucent wings, giving the illusion that they may carry the instrument away at any moment, leaving only a dreamy memory of its presence. Brushed aluminum legs and a cherry-rimmed case add further romance to this masterpiece of a piano.
Aside from being a traditional concert piano of the highest quality and sound ever produced, the user can control the piano's functions through voice commands - such as commanding live-action performances by artists such as Bob James and Fereric Chui. Like a millennium version of the old player piano, you can watch the keys play, or pretend that you are playing like a virtuoso, which alone may be worth the price for some who are not pianists.
The technology in this piano is incredible; the system is based around a Pentium III computer processor. Current production is limited to only a few instruments, with three already out on concert tours.
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Website: Yamaha
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Price tag: $517,077
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Disklavier photo
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Reaching into the past instead of the future to produce a new creation, Moët has produced a triumphant mix of 11 vintages from 1900 to 1921 culminating in a bottle of exceptionally special bubbly that had to be included as an endnote.
One bottle costs over $18,000!
So, if you can afford the other tech toys on this list, why not sit down and smile over your cornucopia of technological wonders, think about just what they might invent next, and have a glass, or four, of Moët's contribution to extreme luxury.
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If you begin to worry about your dwindling bank balance, just remember what the venerable poet Robert Frost once wrote:
Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent.
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