10
Incredible Cutting-Edge Technologies In Development
By Mike Floorwalker, Listverse, 29 August 2013.
By Mike Floorwalker, Listverse, 29 August 2013.
Don’t
give up on flying cars or hoverboards just yet! As technology marches
relentlessly on, everything goes into development sooner or later- as
demonstrated by the existence of these things, which we’ll almost certainly see
within our lifetimes.
10.
Artificial Gills
Inventors have long sought an
underwater breathing apparatus that doesn’t store oxygen, but extracts it from
the water the way gills do. Israeli inventor Alon Bodner has come
close.
The
device, aptly named LikeAFish, works by using a centrifuge to lower the pressure
of water within an airtight
chamber. Since
only a little oxygen is contained in water, the device must move about 190
litres (50 gallons) per minute in order for the average person to breathe
comfortably. Despite this, the only real barrier to implementation is size and
weight, but it’s close enough that the device has been under consideration
for military use for several years
now.
Such a
system would obviously allow for longer “bottom time” without the need for
refilling oxygen and would decrease the amount of nitrogen the diver is exposed
to. According to Bodner’s website, the company spent 2012 “quietly designing a
prototype to be
installed on board a naval submarine,” so they may be very close to solving the
size and weight issues of previous prototypes.
9.
Agricultural Robots
Agricultural robotics are,
somewhat surprisingly, still in their infancy. While unemployment seems to be
levelling off, there is still talk of a possible general labour shortage in
the near future - particularly in agriculture.
Many companies worldwide are attempting to bring various types of robot
farmhands to market, but in robotics (where government and academic projects
still lead the way) it tends to take longer than in some other, more commercial
industries for such projects to obtain funding, produce a product, and prove its
viability.
But the
technology is coming along, and it’s easy to imagine it implemented on a
wide-scale basis before too long. One Boston company that was able to raise
nearly US$8 billion in private funds in 2011 has developed a robot that it claims could perform 40
percent of the manual labour currently performed on farms. A Japanese research
company has developed a robot that performs stereo imaging of strawberries to
determine their ripeness before picking them, and MIT has a cherry tomato garden
that is managed by a small crew of robots equipped with vision sensors. Of course, the main advantage
to robot farm workers is the fact that they can work around the clock and never
get tired.
8.
Sunscreen Pills
An
effective sunscreen that can be administered orally has been sought after for
some time now. One doctor claims that a fern extract, containing
the compound polypodium leucotomos, can act as such. He cites a human study
showing less sun damage to the skin of those who were administered the active
ingredient (though he did have to admit that there were only 12 people
involved).
Also
promising is a study at King’s College in London, which has determined a method
by which coral protects itself from UV rays through its relationship with a
symbiotic algae that lives within it. The algae produces a chemical
compound which
is converted by the coral into its own UV-blocking sunscreen, benefiting not
only the coral and the algae but also the fish that feed on the coral. This
transference has led scientists to believe that if the compound can be isolated,
it could potentially be modified into a human oral sunscreen that would protect
both the skin and the eyes. Said Dr. Paul Long, head of the three-year project,
“There would have to be a lot of toxicology tests done first but I imagine a
sunscreen tablet might be developed in five years or so. Nothing like it exists
at the moment.”
7.
Paper-Thin, Flexible Computers and Phones
In early
2013, consumer electronics shows debuted a prototype by European firm Plastic
Logic of a product called the Papertab. That would be a portmanteau of “paper”
and “tablet” and it is pretty much what it sounds like: a fully functional,
touch screen tablet computer that is not only as thin as a sheet of paper, but
as flexible as one too, and possesses the same reflective
qualities. The
company envisions such machines being ubiquitous within five to 10 years, as
they could be inexpensive and interactive. A consumer could have several lying
around, multi-tasking with different media all in service of one
project.
A joint
project between two American and Canadian universities has been creatively
dubbed the Paperphone. Queens University director Dr. Roel Vertegaal has largely
the same vision of the project. “This is the future,” he says. “Everything is going to look
and feel like this within five years.” The machine is the size of a regular
smartphone, with a 9.4-centimetre (3.7 in) display, but again, paper-thin and
flexible. Users can give the phone commands by using “bend gestures.” It
consumes no power when not in use and is considerably harder to damage than an
ordinary phone.
6. Tooth
Regeneration
Regeneration of body parts in
humans seems permanently consigned to the realm of science fiction, even though
many species of animals are able to completely regrow lost parts. It’s long been
known that alligators are able to regrow lost teeth, for example, but it was assumed
to be a cyclical process, like snakes shedding their skin periodically.
Scientists have recently discovered that this is not the case: An alligator’s
tooth will grow back automatically to replace a lost one. This is quite
significant because the structure of alligators’ teeth is pretty similar to
ours.
The
problem has been that the inner areas of teeth contain living tissue known as
“pulp” that doesn’t grow back. But the solution may have been found in stem
cells: Scientists in multiple countries are trying to figure out how to get them
to produce the correct tissues and structure for the given situation on demand.
A University of Utah
study in
November 2012 confirmed that this could be done in a lab. Perfection of this
technology could result in the potential end of tooth decay, gum disease,
fillings, and root canals.
5.
Holographic TV
While
Ultra High Definition TV is on the way, there are really only so many
pixels you can cram into a flat display - most existing models are
214-centimetre (84 in) monsters for that very reason. But the next generation of
TVs, if you can call them that, won’t have screens so much as they’ll have a
viewing area. As seen above, it could be a desktop display, or it could be an
entire room - but holographic displays are definitely in the
works.
Researchers at MIT, who are
apparently good at the cutting-edge technology thing (hence the “T”), have
created a chip that can support a holographic display of 50 gigapixels per
second - enough to simulate real world objects, as reported in the journal
Nature. Such amazing technology will have to wait to come to marketplace,
though, until costs can be driven down - right? Well, says Michael Bove, head of
MIT’s Object-Based Media group: “The technology itself is one that’s easy and
inexpensive and, as far as we are aware and Nature is aware, has never
been applied to displays before.” He foresees holographic displays on the market
within 10 years - at the same cost as today’s regular, flat TVs. Another
company, Provision, has built an inexpensive projector that displays a
45-centimetre (18 in) image. As of this writing, they’re working on ramping that
up to a two-meter (six-foot) image, displayed by a unit the size of a
toaster.
4.
Real-Time Google Earth
At RAL
Space in Oxford, scientists are building two video cameras quite unlike any
other. Meter-long tubes packed with electronics and mirrors, these cameras are
to be mounted to the outside of the International Space Station. But their
purpose isn’t to capture images of space - they’ll be pointed toward the Earth.
And while the resolution won’t be great (roughly a meter per pixel) it will be a
real-time, streaming, live video of the entire planet.
Meanwhile, some Georgia Tech
researchers are taking a slightly different approach towards the same ends. They
take footage from the many live video feeds around the world and use it to layer
complex animations on top of Google
Earth, sometimes
piecing together multiple camera angles to extrapolate the desired information.
While currently focusing on people and cars, they’d like to add animals and
weather conditions soon.
3.
Wireless Electricity
The
notion of wireless electric power has been around far longer than one might
think: Nikola Tesla might have perfected the
technology a
century ago if he had not been poor, unlucky, and kind of crazy. Many today are
unaware that, even though it has obviously yet to be deployed en masse, wireless
power transfer actually exists.
Wireless
device charging has been around for some time, and continues to improve.
Companies like
Witricity are at
work developing electric “hubs” that can power your entire house. Their
prototype is called “Prodigy” and is based on research done by physicist Marin
Soljacic of MIT. It works by exploiting the fact that certain frequencies of
electromagnetic waves facilitate ease of energy transfer, and two objects
resonating with such a frequency can easily transfer electricity between them,
even at some distance and even if the objects are metal. When perfected (which
many see coming within the next
decade), it
could bring about an end to batteries as we know them.
2.
Ultra–High Speed Tube Trains
Magnetic
levitation, or Maglev, trains have been in development for quite some time. In
Japan, a recent successful test run means that plans are underway to connect the
whole country by 2045 with trains capable of reaching over 480 kph (300 mph). They accomplish this
by removing the wheels - and thereby, contact and friction - from the equation.
Maglev trains levitate above the track, suspended by an electromagnetic field.
And while the Japanese model is impressive, one company in the small Colorado
town of Longmont is upping the ante by eliminating another barrier to shattering
speeds: namely, wind resistance.
To be
fair, eliminating this factor doesn’t so much up the ante as it blows up the
entire house containing the card table. Daryl Oster of ET3 says that his
company’s concept, called the Evacuated Tube Transport, is the future of
transportation,
and it very well may be. Its track is contained within a sealed, pressurized
vacuum tube, making the capsules conceivably capable of speeds up 6,500
kph (4,000 mph), all while subjecting the passenger to G-forces comparable
to that of a leisurely ride on the highway and transporting them across the
entire US in less than an hour. ET3 has built prototype capsules and, as of this
writing, are searching for an appropriate stretch to build the first
tube.
1.
Sustainable Fusion Reactor
Nuclear
fission (the process by which nuclear power plants produce energy) is much
easier to control than nuclear fusion (the process by which the sun burns, and
nuclear weapons work). Small nuclear fusion reactors have been built, but a
large-scale, sustainable fusion reactor has yet to be attempted - until now. A
consortium of six member bodies (the US, EU, Russia, China, Japan, and South
Korea) has chosen a location in France to build the world’s first. And while even its champions
concede it could be decades before it’s dispensing energy, nuclear fusion is
cleaner and yields three to four times more power
than fission.
The
project is called ITER, for International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor,
and it is the second-largest cooperative international scientific endeavour
(ranking behind only the Space Station). It will use a donut-shaped magnetic
field to contain gases that will reach temperatures comparable to those at the
core of the sun, in excess of 150 million degrees
C (270 million
F), and will produce 10 times more power than it consumes.
No comments:
Post a Comment