Internet Of Things Visionary Says Self-Driving Cars Will Dominate The Road By 2030

If you're tired of sitting in your car frustrated over traffic congestions or just too sleepy and plain tired at the end of the day, Kevin Ashton has a technological forecast that will surely excite you. The man who coined the term "Internet of Things" himself predicted that by the year 2030, you'll be able to put your feet up on your dashboard because cars will do the driving for you.

That's right, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Auto-ID Center founder Kevin Ashton believes that the technology of the future is predictable when you base it on past trends and he wrote a book titled "How to Fly a Horse: The Secret History of Creation, Invention, and Discovery" which is currently a finalist for Best Innovation & Creativity Book of the Year in the 800-CEO-READ Business Book Awards for 2015.

"Expect self-driving features in most new cars by 2020 and cars without steering wheels between 2025-2030, varying by country. What's the point? They will be safer, faster, more fuel efficient, and you'll be able to get things done, or take a nap, while you move from place to place," he wrote.

He anchored the predictability of future technology on three specific laws that technological progress seems to abide by: Moore's Law or the idea that every two years, microprocessors half in size; Metcalfe's Law which determines that a network's value is dependent on the number of users squared; and Koomey's Law which establishes the idea that every 18 months, the energy spent for computation is halved. Basically, what this means is that computer technology becomes smaller, constantly connected to the Internet and more energy efficient.

Ashton's predictions may just be on its way to the streets as more and more car manufacturers are investing in technology to produce a self-driving vehicle. Toyota, Nissan, General Motors and Google are racing to perfect their technology as they all announced their plan to get autonomous vehicles cruising the streets by 2020.

We have five years of waiting time for car manufacturers to make good on their plans and 15 years to see if Ashton's predictions are correct. To pique your interest on his ideas more, Ashton also predicted that we will discover extra-terrestrial life and gives his take on the reality of Climate Change and how humans would cope with it.