Conspiracy or Not?

[Pez D Spencer]

A few years ago a thought dawned upon me. I'm not sure exactly when this idea occured, but ever since it's been something I've wondered about. I don't know if any of this has been said before, but I'd like to get some opinions.

I believe that there is technology that exists that is FAR beyond what is available to us, the general public. Let's use video game consoles as an example. Of course I can't say how advanced this "secret" technology is but just give me a second and I'll explain. Let's say that in 1985 when the NES launched the engineers actually had the ability to produce games and consoles on the level of the SNES. However, wouldn't it be much, much, MUCH, more financially advantageous for Nintendo to just release the more mediocre NES, milk the sales of it for a few years and THEN release the SNES? By the launch of the SNES, this "secret" technology would be even farther along and allow them to milk things even more. Of course, Nintendo and the NES/SNES was presented simply as an example, but this underground conspiracy could be applied to any technologies whether it be video cards, CPUs, RAM capacities, ETC.

If this secret society of engineering does exist, I'm sure it's membership and mere knowledge of it's existence is VERY limited. But at the same time I find it hard to deny the fact that there are such things going on behind the scenes.....

 

[NikolaeVarius]

The military probably has technology 10-15 years above what is available at the consumer level.

Imagine, GPS's, lasers, and Velcro were all done for the military.

 

[Iron Woode]

cocaine is a hell of a drug.....

 

[compuwiz1]

I say not a conspiracy. Many manufacturers have a roadmap, where they will start developing products years before they actually go into production. It makes sense to anticipate the future and the next greatest product.

 

[BrianH1]

sometimes in life it seems hard to take

 

[SmoochyTX]

<--- grabs tinfoil hat

 

[Rubycon]

Do you really think those screwdrivers cost $1500? Or a $4000 ashtray, $900 toilet seat? :laugh:

 

[Sphexi]

Let's use another example: Intel.


Let's say that Intel has technology that's far ahead of their current commercially available products. They would've had to have been developed, tested, produced, etc. Intel is a company with tens of thousands of employees, no matter how hard they try something ALWAYS leaks out about future products, so if there was indeed something far more advanced available now, it would be known.

Fact is that they have a roadmap, which has been pointed out, and that they follow it pretty well.

 

[KaChow]

The primary "conspiracy" in the tech area is hard drives. The manufacturers milk everything they can out of one capacity of drive before releasing the next larger capacity.

 

[Corporate Thug]

**paging Rosie**

 

[ed21x]

i don't think this is a conspiracy... tech companies just want to release what is marketable at the moment so that they will always have something in the pipeline. It's more profitable that way.

 

[DrPizza]

Hey, speaking of the Nintendo, remember the game "Duck Hunt"? You aimed your light gun at the television, and shot the ducks. Well, that was what? 2 decades of technology ago? So, 20 years ago, the technology allowed a gun to shoot a small beam of light at your television. Then, a console game connected to your television miraculously was able to determine, from the feedback through the television into the antenna cable, where that beam of light hit the television. Now, remember, when you turned lights on in the room, it didn't affect the game. Thus, not only could the console determine where the beam of light hit the television, but it looked for a specific frequency/wavelength of light. Now, it doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to realize that the television played a passive part in all of this... it was just your plain old television. Yet, some external device, with 1980's technology, was able to determine the exact location on your screen that a specific wavelength of electromagnetic radiation was hitting it (light).

How far along do you think technology has come? Hopefully, with a little thought, you realize how easy it would be to expand upon that technology. And, rather than a console in the living room - linked with 10 feet of cable and interpretting data fed back through that cable (same wire that you used for your cable or antenna) - with more sophisticated electronics, they can now read that signal from miles away via the cable that's connected to your television. And, of course, they can decipher what other wavelengths of light are hitting your television screen (and where.)

In short, the technology has obviously advanced rapidly over the past 20 years. Rather than simply taking a picture of where light from a gun hits the screen, the technology most likely exists to use your television - in your living room - as a rudimentary camera. Then again, who knows what resolution is possible with some of the algorithms available today.

Of course, they'll never let you know, but they're watching you. Right at this very moment, they're watching you.

 

[jagec]

Lots of times the manufacturers will have a "better" product in the labs at any given moment...but it takes a lot of time and effort to make it reliable, robust, and cheap to mass-produce. IIRC Intel had FPU units running at 10GHz or so back when the fastest procs were cracking 1GHz, but that was a one-off unit, in a lab, with LN2 cooling. It takes a lot of design work to go from that to a product on the shelf.

 

[Squisher]

Better technology exists, but at what price? Try selling a $10K gaming console.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

usually, conspiracy is the only reasonable explanation for things

 

[brxndxn]

Originally posted by: Squisher
Better technology exists, but at what price? Try selling a $10K gaming console.

PS4

 

[JMWarren]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hey, speaking of the Nintendo, remember the game "Duck Hunt"? You aimed your light gun at the television, and shot the ducks. Well, that was what? 2 decades of technology ago? So, 20 years ago, the technology allowed a gun to shoot a small beam of light at your television. Then, a console game connected to your television miraculously was able to determine, from the feedback through the television into the antenna cable, where that beam of light hit the television. Now, remember, when you turned lights on in the room, it didn't affect the game. Thus, not only could the console determine where the beam of light hit the television, but it looked for a specific frequency/wavelength of light. Now, it doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to realize that the television played a passive part in all of this... it was just your plain old television. Yet, some external device, with 1980's technology, was able to determine the exact location on your screen that a specific wavelength of electromagnetic radiation was hitting it (light).

How far along do you think technology has come? Hopefully, with a little thought, you realize how easy it would be to expand upon that technology. And, rather than a console in the living room - linked with 10 feet of cable and interpretting data fed back through that cable (same wire that you used for your cable or antenna) - with more sophisticated electronics, they can now read that signal from miles away via the cable that's connected to your television. And, of course, they can decipher what other wavelengths of light are hitting your television screen (and where.)

In short, the technology has obviously advanced rapidly over the past 20 years. Rather than simply taking a picture of where light from a gun hits the screen, the technology most likely exists to use your television - in your living room - as a rudimentary camera. Then again, who knows what resolution is possible with some of the algorithms available today.

Of course, they'll never let you know, but they're watching you. Right at this very moment, they're watching you.

I thought the gun detected a contrast difference between the target and rest of the screen through a single frame that was displayed when you pulled the trigger....

Edit: Seems I'm right http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_Zapper

What you describe would have been far more impressive...although I'm not sure it's feasible.

 

[JS80]

it's [not so] simple economics.

The "conspiracy" can only be valid in scenarios where competition is nil, i.e. communist environment, monopoly, patented tech, or uber secret/huge barrier to entry. In modern day US usually the only impediment of such tech is fear of nationwide deployment failure or lack of profitability.

 

[BoomerD]

Originally posted by: JMWarren

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hey, speaking of the Nintendo, remember the game "Duck Hunt"? You aimed your light gun at the television, and shot the ducks. Well, that was what? 2 decades of technology ago? So, 20 years ago, the technology allowed a gun to shoot a small beam of light at your television. Then, a console game connected to your television miraculously was able to determine, from the feedback through the television into the antenna cable, where that beam of light hit the television. Now, remember, when you turned lights on in the room, it didn't affect the game. Thus, not only could the console determine where the beam of light hit the television, but it looked for a specific frequency/wavelength of light. Now, it doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to realize that the television played a passive part in all of this... it was just your plain old television. Yet, some external device, with 1980's technology, was able to determine the exact location on your screen that a specific wavelength of electromagnetic radiation was hitting it (light).

How far along do you think technology has come? Hopefully, with a little thought, you realize how easy it would be to expand upon that technology. And, rather than a console in the living room - linked with 10 feet of cable and interpretting data fed back through that cable (same wire that you used for your cable or antenna) - with more sophisticated electronics, they can now read that signal from miles away via the cable that's connected to your television. And, of course, they can decipher what other wavelengths of light are hitting your television screen (and where.)

In short, the technology has obviously advanced rapidly over the past 20 years. Rather than simply taking a picture of where light from a gun hits the screen, the technology most likely exists to use your television - in your living room - as a rudimentary camera. Then again, who knows what resolution is possible with some of the algorithms available today.

Of course, they'll never let you know, but they're watching you. Right at this very moment, they're watching you.

I thought the gun detected a contrast difference between the target and rest of the screen through a single frame that was displayed when you pulled the trigger....

Edit: Seems I'm right http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NES_Zapper

What you describe would have been far more impressive...although I'm not sure it's feasible.

(SHHHHH! Doc's version is MUCH better...)

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
Hey, speaking of the Nintendo, remember the game "Duck Hunt"? You aimed your light gun at the television, and shot the ducks. Well, that was what? 2 decades of technology ago? So, 20 years ago, the technology allowed a gun to shoot a small beam of light at your television. Then, a console game connected to your television miraculously was able to determine, from the feedback through the television into the antenna cable, where that beam of light hit the television. Now, remember, when you turned lights on in the room, it didn't affect the game. Thus, not only could the console determine where the beam of light hit the television, but it looked for a specific frequency/wavelength of light. Now, it doesn't take much of a rocket scientist to realize that the television played a passive part in all of this... it was just your plain old television. Yet, some external device, with 1980's technology, was able to determine the exact location on your screen that a specific wavelength of electromagnetic radiation was hitting it (light).

How far along do you think technology has come? Hopefully, with a little thought, you realize how easy it would be to expand upon that technology. And, rather than a console in the living room - linked with 10 feet of cable and interpretting data fed back through that cable (same wire that you used for your cable or antenna) - with more sophisticated electronics, they can now read that signal from miles away via the cable that's connected to your television. And, of course, they can decipher what other wavelengths of light are hitting your television screen (and where.)

In short, the technology has obviously advanced rapidly over the past 20 years. Rather than simply taking a picture of where light from a gun hits the screen, the technology most likely exists to use your television - in your living room - as a rudimentary camera. Then again, who knows what resolution is possible with some of the algorithms available today.

Of course, they'll never let you know, but they're watching you. Right at this very moment, they're watching you.

I assume you're referring to TEMPEST?