Highlighting promising products and interesting innovations
In this edition:
- Lockheed Martin says it will soon sustain fusion
- No tangles: Wireless earbuds use magnetic induction
- Transistor + memory = memristor
- Polymer injection stops fatal bleeding
- Band detects driver fatigue
- 3D-print a custom low-cost mechanical sensor
- Print delicious snacks
- Flexible wearable stickers control your phone
- A brick can cool your house
- Printing plastic cars
- Self-driving cars could cut commutes
- Tires generate electricity from friction
- Laser Destroys Truck
- Apple to “revolutionize medical studies”
- Satellite camera spots skin cancer signs
- 500 years? Google invests in Immortality
- Billion-dollar wristband
- Liquid metal shifts shape, moves, and pumps
- Spherical lenses yield wide-angle 3D display
- Bug-like electronic eye stabilizes flying robot
- Blind can read with finger-camera
- First photo of light as particle and wave
- Qualcomm senses fingerprints
- Silicon bends light for “optical link”
- “A Network of Eyes” — help the blind to see with a phone app
- Sunglasses correct color blindness
- Emerging technologies of 2015
Lockheed Martin says it will soon sustain fusion
Aeronautics giant Lockheed
Martin claims it is nearing completion of a compact fusion reactor that
could sustainably deliver energy.
“It’s no secret our Skunk Works team often finds itself on
the cutting edge of technology,” the
company says. As they work to develop a source of infinite energy, our
engineers are looking to the biggest natural fusion reactor for inspiration –
the sun. By containing the power of the sun in a small magnetic bottle, we are
on the fast track to developing nuclear fusion reactors to serve the world’s ever-growing
energy needs.”
The “compact magnetic container” reactor may be “small
enough to fit on a truck” and yet could “provide enough power for a small city
of up to 100,000 people.”
Eweek reports it may be “running in
prototype form in five years and operating commercially in ten.”
Transistor + memory = memristor
A “new” electrical component could revolutionize electronics
— new in that it was conceived in the 1970s — but may soon come to market.
HP built a memristor in 2008, and now, CNN reports, IBM is
working with ETH Zurich on the idea. “Many researchers believe it could spark a
revolution in computing.”
How so? By “paving the way for computers that will instantly
turn on and off like a light bulb and never lose data… and “escape the
boundaries of binary code.” A memristor can have multi-levels, several states:
say, zero, one half, one quarter, one third, and so on, “and that gives us a
very powerful new perspective on how our computers may develop in the future.”
No tangles: Wireless earbuds use magnetic induction
I don’t think “Near Field Magnetic Induction” sounds like something I want to have in my ears… but NXP Semiconductors says its NFMI technology yields wireless audio streaming from ear to ear.
“During sports and fitness activities, the wires of today’s earbuds are a genuine inconvenience and can potentially be unsafe,” the company says. “Truly wireless earbuds would provide substantially increased user comfort for sport activities, but in general in all situations where wires are undesired and annoying to users.”
Polymer injection stops fatal bleeding
One-third of deaths related to traumatic injuries are caused
by bleeding, reports The Verge — but a new technique could prevent many of
those losses. It’s a simple injection of a polymer that causes clots.
In the study, the femoral artery of rats was cut, the
injection administered — and blood loss stopped.
The research was done at the University of Washington, where
the scientists says the method is completely novel. "People have tried to
make artificial platelets, but in terms of a synthetic polymer like this, we
think it’s the first."
Band detects driver fatigue
Have you nearly dozed off at the wheel? Yeah, me too. Among
the many new devices designed to monitor many bodily functions, one simple band
only ensures you stay awake.
The Bluetooth device monitors your brainwaves, and detects
drowsiness 3-5 minutes before you would fall asleep, with 90 percent accuracy,
claims manufacturer Impecca.
The company adds that the National Highway Safety Administration estimates driver fatigue
contributes to 100,000 accidents, 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries & $1.25
billion in losses annually in U.S.
The Alert Band works with a smartphone. Data collected by
sensors on the forehead are transmitted to the smartphone app.
While this particular gadget might not be a hit, I do think
this type of monitoring will soon prove essential.
It will be available in May for $250.
3D-print a custom low-cost mechanical sensor
Speaking of small sensors — howabout molecules? A
process for printing molecules that can respond to their surroundings was
developed by scientists at the University of Washington (those people again!).
The result was a printed piece of white plastic with barely
visible stripes that turn purple under force, Kurzweil AI reports. “It acts as
an inexpensive, mechanical sensor with no electronic parts. The whole device
took about 15 minutes to print from materials that cost less than a dollar.”
Print delicious snacks
3D printing can now assemble and manufacture everything from
molecular switches to full-size buildings — but edible food must be sometime in
the far-off future, right?
Wrong — It’s almost here now. And 3D print with living
organisms can even grow into food so fresh you’re practically a farmer.
Flexible wearable stickers control your phone
You may no longer have to fish your phone from your pocket,
or even reach up to your ear to tap the Bluetooth receiver: computer scientists
are developing flexible silicone stickers that embody circuitry and switches to
let you tap on your forearm, for example, to control and device.
Popular
Science reports on “iSkin” here.
There’s also a demo video here on the “Flexible, stretchable and visually customizable on-body touch sensors for mobile computing.”
There’s also a demo video here on the “Flexible, stretchable and visually customizable on-body touch sensors for mobile computing.”
A brick can cool your house
A new spin on an old idea could lower your power bill (and I
know mine could use that).
3D printed porous ceramic bricks “absorb water like a sponge”
and the three-dimensional lattice “allows air to pass through the wall. As air
moves through the 3D printed brick, the water that is held in the micro-pores
of the ceramic evaporates, bringing cool air into an interior environment,
lowering the temperature using the principle of evaporative cooling.”
That’s the claim of Oakland-based Emerging Objects. The company says
its “innovation lies in our unique approach to materials and sizes, and our
belief that 3D printing is the medium where good ideas become real.”
What’s missing: pricing and ship dates — I’d buy ‘em
now!
Printing plastic cars
There’s been plenty of activity in the new manufacturing
method dubbed 3D printing, from toys and chotskies to tools and even foodstuffs
— but a ready-to-run car? Yes, that’s on its way as well.
Phoenix-based Local
Motors made its Strati vehicle in front of a live audience at a car show — well, over the course of a
couple of days, that is. As Popular
Science reports here, the company built a “micro-factory” with a 3D printer
and CNC machine on the show floor, and then let attendees test-drive the
machine.
And it’s not all made from scratch: “Everything on the car
that could be integrated into a single material piece has been printed. This
includes the chassis/frame, exterior body, and some interior features. The
mechanical components of the vehicle, like battery, motors, wiring, and
suspension, are sourced from Renault’s Twizy, an electric powered city car,” the company says. However,
the “brand-new process disrupts the manufacturing status quo, changes the
consumer experience and proves that a car can be born in an entirely different
way.” Local Motors adds that it was the first developer :to eliminate a car’s
frame and integrate all exterior and interior features into a drastically part
reduced automotive creation.”
The “Big Area
Additive Manufacturing” machine deposits 40 pounds per hour of carbon fiber-reinforced
ABS plastic. The Strati took 44 hours to print. “The goal for the next stage of
research and development is to speed up the print rate while maintaining
quality,” the company says. “We intend to cut the print process to 24 hours.”
Long term Local Motors says that “once the 3D-printed car is cleared by U.S.
vehicle rules and regulations, it will be drivable on public roads; our goal is
to complete this in 2015.”
Popular Science also reports on German engineering firm EDAG
and its 3D-printed “Light Cocoon” concept car here.
Self-driving cars could cut commutes
Yep, they’d be better drivers than you.
Self-driving cars promise to do more than let you snooze on
the way to work: as the robotized vehicles would maneuver more efficiently and
safely, they’d cut commutes by 50 minutes per
day, cut accidents enough to save billions of dollars. That’s according
to a look at the future of autonomous vehicles from the McKinsey and Co., Silicon
Beat reports.
Tires generate electricity from friction
Goodyear is
developing tires that utilize friction heat to provide automotive electricity.
Aimed at electric cars, the tires would feed a car’s
batteries, Gizmodo
reports. “At the core of the concept is a layer of piezoelectric material
underneath the rubber of the tire.”
Laser Destroys Truck
A 30-kilowatt laser scorched through a truck. Lockheed Martin says its weapon system “successfully
disabled the engine of a small truck during a recent field test, demonstrating
the rapidly evolving precision capability to protect military forces and
critical infrastructure.”
The Athena ground-based prototype system (Advanced Test High
Energy Asset) “burned through the engine manifold in a matter of seconds from
more than a mile away,” the
company says. “Fiber-optic lasers are revolutionizing directed energy
systems.”
Lasers are “expensive to develop, lasers are very
cost-effective to use, with each laser shot drastically cheaper than missiles
and sometimes even cheaper than bullets.” Popular
Science notes.
Apple to “revolutionize medical studies”
Amidst all the talk today about TV, watches, and skinnier
notebooks, Apple announced a more
profound development: a software framework designed for medical and health
research, “helping doctors and scientists gather data more frequently and more
accurately from participants using iPhone apps.”
What’s more, ResearchKit
is open source — anyone can build on it.
Apple
reports “world-class research institutions” including UCLA, Mount Sinai,
Stanford, Massachusetts General Hospital, and the University of Rochester,
“have already developed apps with ResearchKit for studies on asthma, breast
cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease. ResearchKit
gives the scientific community access to a diverse, global population and more
ways to collect data than ever before.”
ResearchKit works HealthKit,
an iPhone toolset which enables third-party devices and apps for such readings
as blood pressure, glucose levels and asthma inhaler use. ResearchKit can also
request from a user, access to the accelerometer, microphone, gyroscope and GPS
sensors in iPhone to gain insight into a patient’s gait, motor impairment,
fitness, speech and memory.
One more way in which tech can potentially deliver better
medical care at reduced costs…
Satellite camera spots skin cancer signs
A camera launched into space may find skin cancer in humans
here on Earth.
The high-speed infrared camera developed by the European
Space Agency “is being adapted to spot changes in human skin cells, invisible
to the naked eye, to help diagnose skin diseases like cancer, ESA
reports. Mounted on a standard medical scanner, the space sensor can help
doctors to look deeper into human tissues for detecting skin diseases earlier.”
In space: “The Proba-V camera has such a unique wide field
of view that it allows the small satellite to build a fresh picture of our entire
planet’s flora every two days.”
500 years? Google invests in Immortality
The head of Google’s investment arm is looking to fund
science that could slow aging, reverse disease, and extend life — and he’s got
$425 million to do it with.
It might be a combo of human biology extensions and machine
additions, but he’s betting on being around for half a millennium.
Billion-dollar wristband
Truth in labeling? Well, Disney is calling them
“MagicBands,” but the techy wristbands do deliver a special experience within
the Magic Kingdom.
The bands pack an RFID chip and a long-range radio that
transmits info about the guests 40 feet in every direction, so that, for
example, a meal awaits you when you enter a resort restaurant. It connects to
sensors throughout the parks.
Liquid metal shifts shape, moves, and pumps
A self-powered liquid metal motor might deliver nano-sized
transport in the near future.
New Scientist reports that Beijing-based University
researchers combined a drop of gallium metal alloy with indium and tin
— and when placed in sodium hydroxide and contacted with a flake of
aluminum “it moves around for about an hour.” It can travel in a straight line,
run around the outside of a circular dish, or squeeze through complex shapes.
Spherical lenses yield wide-angle 3D display
No one likes to wear glasses to see 3D imagery, but existing
glass-free displays often have very narrow viewing angles. A new method might
change that.
Microsphere lenses project images to different spatial
directions. Their larger curvature compared to planar lenses increases the
viewing angle, PhysOrg reports.
Researchers in China have built a prototype that increases
the viewing angle from 20-30° to 32°, with a theoretical viewing angle of up to
90°.
Bug-like electronic eye stabilizes flying robot
Well, that’s about the creepiest headline here so far…
The BeeRotor robot
has an artificial eye designed after those in insects. Thanks to the imaging
capability, it’s the first robot able to steadily fly over uneven terrain
without an accelerometer, Kurzweil AI reports.
“Aircraft, ships, and spacecraft currently use a complex
inertial navigation system based on accelerometers and gyroscopes to
continuously calculate position, orientation, and velocity without the need for
external references (known as dead reckoning),” the article says. The
researchers “decided to create simpler system, inspired by winged insects.”
Blind can read with finger-camera
Here’s an obvious-in-retrospect good idea: a camera on a
fingertip that reads out loud to the blind.
Researchers at the MIT
Media Lab built a prototype of a finger-mounted device that converts
written text into audio for visually impaired users, PhysOrg reports. The device also provides feedback that guides the
user's finger along a line of text.”
First photo of light as particle and wave
Photography captures light… and light is, physicists assure
us, both a wave and a particle… but who woulda thought a photograph could show
those two states simultaneously?
Swiss and American researchers say they’ve snapped a shot of
light’s dual behavior, Discovery reports. Using one of only two of the most
advanced electron microscopes, they took a “quantum photograph of light
behaving as both a particle and a wave.”
Qualcomm senses fingerprints
A new sensor from Qualcomm will use ultrasonic sound waves
to scan fingerprints, the BBC reports.
It can work through glass, metal and plastic smartphone
covers, Qualcomm claims — as well as sweat, hand lotion, and
condensation.
How? Because sound waves actually penetrate the outer layers
of the user's finger, the BBC adds.
Silicon bends light for “optical link”
Light-bending silicon strips are the key to super-fast
computers, Stanford University reports.
Engineers there have “taken a big step toward using light
instead of wires inside computers.” A prism-like silicon structure can bend
light at right angles. The goal is to transmit data faster and more efficiently
via optical rather than electrical signals. The silicon chips are etched with a
pattern that resembles a bar code.
“A Network of Eyes” — help the blind to see with a phone app
An app connects blind people with volunteer helpers via a
live video chat.
“Be My Eyes” lets a blind person request assistance for
“anything from knowing the expiration date on the milk to navigating new
surroundings,” the developer says. The sighted volunteer “receives a
notification for help and a live video connection is established. From the live
video, the volunteer can help the blind person by answering the question they
need answered.”
Imaging
Resource calls it “one of the most incredible uses of camera technology and
crowdsourcing we’ve ever come across.” I agree. Check
it out here.
Sunglasses correct color blindness
California-based EnChroma is creating lenses that allow some
to see colors for the first time.
The Smithsonian magazine reports the finding was all-but
accidental: a materials scientist had engineered the glasses for laser surgery.
But he and others found they “make the world look really bright… all colors
look incredibly saturated.” And when a colorblind friend borrowed his pair, he
could suddenly see colors.
The company’s eyewear is now able to treat up to 80 percent
of the customers who come to them.
Being partially color blind myself, I’d like to try these
out:
Emerging technologies of 2015
As regular readers know, there are new developments every
day in a wide variety of fields. Some of those have the most potential to
change our society, and the World Economic Forum called on 18 experts lists the
top ten. Their choices include:
1. Fuel cell vehicles
2. Next-generation robotics
3. Recyclable thermoset plastics
4. Precise genetic engineering techniques
5. Additive manufacturing
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