GLIMPSES OF THE
FUTURE |
Airbus Developing Biofuel Jets Following successful Boeing/Virgin Atlantic tests of biofuels as a replacement for aviation kerosene, Airbus has announced that it will partner with Honeywell, IAE and JetBlue in order to develop a sustainable second-generation biofuel for use in commercial aircraft. The alternative fuel partnership is being driven by a desire by Airbus to help the aviation sector prosper with less impact on the environment. The companies' joint activity will help develop renewable energy technology to convert vegetation - and algae-based oils into aviation fuels. With much controversy surrounding food-based biofuel crops such as ethanol, the focus will be on non-food-crop biomass fuels. Climate Crisis: High Tech Fixes Could Have Unintended Consequences George W. Bush and others believe that technology will save us all from the worst effects of climate crisis. But a new study shows that planetary engineering projects to cool the planet could backfire quite spectacularly: the new model shows that a 'sulphate sunshade' intended to deflect the sun's heat from the planet would punch huge holes through the ozone layer above the Arctic. To make matters worse, it would also delay the full recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole by up to 70 years. Pumping tiny sulphate particles into the atmosphere to create a sunshield that would keep the planet cool was first suggested as a solution to global warming by Edward Teller, a physicist was best known for his involvement in the development of the hydrogen bomb. How Your Muscles Could Control Computers Everybody knows that a typewriter-style keyboard is a lousy way to control computers but now a novel way of interacting with computers and other gadgets could make twiddling your thumbs a productive activity. Microsoft researchers are developing an armband worn on the forearm that recognises finger movements by monitoring muscle activity. They have called it MUCI, which stands for muscle-computer interface (bound to catch on!). The aim is to make controlling computers and gadgets easier in situations where the user is otherwise engaged – for example, when driving a car or taking part in a meeting. Hands-free alternatives like speech recognition or cameras that recognise gestures are still too error-prone and indiscreet, say researchers at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Microsoft's lab in nearby Redmond, both in the USA. 'Combat Glove' Allows Soldiers To Control Computers Still on the subject of human-computer interfaces, RallyPoint, a startup company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has developed a sensor-embedded glove that allows a soldier to easily view and navigate digital maps, activate radio communications, and send commands without having to take his hand off his weapon. For soldiers carrying a plethora of equipment, finding and using electronic controls on their bodies can be awkward, says Forrest Liau, the president and cofounder of RallyPoint. 'We wanted to make a device that would have all the necessary components in a combat-ready way,' he says. The Natick Soldier Systems Center in Natick, MA, has a contract with RallyPoint and is currently testing a prototype of the glove, called a Handwear Computer Input Device (HCID), for use with its electronic systems. More Accurate Way To Target Radiation Therapy A simple wireless device implanted into tumours could give clinicians a more accurate indication of the amount of radiation that tumours receive during treatment. The device, under development by engineers at Purdue University, is meant to assist doctors in precisely targeting radiation to tumours without hitting surrounding tissue. The device is encased in a capsule about 2.5 millimeters in diameter and two centimetres long--small enough to be injected into the body by a large syringe. It is a simple version of a dosimeter, an instrument for measuring radiation that is used to track the exposure of workers in high-risk areas. It contains a wire coil and a capacitor that can store an electric charge; together they form a circuit that has a particular electromagnetic resonance frequency. When exposed to radiation, the capacitor's charge gradually dissipates, and the resulting change in frequency can be detected by an antenna placed outside the body.
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Microbes Might Unlock New Energy Reserves British and Canadian scientists began trials last month to find out whether microbes can unlock the vast amount of energy trapped in the world's currently unrecoverable heavy oil deposits. An estimated six trillion barrels of oil remain underground because the oil has become either solid or too thick to be brought to the surface at economic cost by conventional means. However, scientists at Newcastle University, England, and the University of Calgary, Canada, have set up a company, Profero Energy Inc, to build on their recent research, which demonstrated how naturally-occurring microbes convert oil to natural gas (methane) over tens of millions of years. The company is preparing to move on-site to begin pumping a special mixture of nutrients, dissolved in water, down an oil well above exhausted oil deposits in western Canada. If the scientists' calculations are correct, natural gas should flow back out, as the microbes thrive on the nutrients, multiply, and digest the tar-like oil at a greatly increased rate. Mirrors On The Moon - Whatever Next!? Scientists are proposing to mount mirrors on the Moon to signal across space to let ET know that we Earthlings are here. Ever since radio broadcasts began humans have been trumpeting their presence to nearby parts of the galaxy, so far without reply. To improve the chances of being found, Shawn Domagal-Goldman and Jacob Haqq-Misra of Pennsylvania State University in State College reckon we should cover half of the Moon with mirrors. When angled to catch the Sun's rays, the mirrors would increase the amount of light the Earth-moon system reflects by 20%, they say, more than enough to catch the eye of a vigilant alien astronomer. Domagal-Goldman proposes using a code of prime number flashes - just as aliens used to get in touch in Carl Sagan's book Contact. This will ensure the flashes aren't mistaken for natural variations in brightness. Those few of you who have read my novels 'Extinction' and 'The Clou' may well chuckle. Post-It Notes That 'Talk' To Computers In an attempt to bring one of the most famous inventions of the 20th century into the digital age, scientists of the 'Ambient Intelligence Group' at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed 'intelligent stickies'. These are essentially Post-its with a twist - the notes written on them can be managed by a PC that will be able to remind users of any information stored on the small paper notes at the appropriate time, via a variety of digital devices. In a project that combines artificial intelligence, RFID, and ink recognition technologies, the MIT team says they have managed to make the popular sticky notes much more useful. A newly-written Quickie is a simple Post-it note, which is scribed on a sensitive pad that allows the computer to capture and store the written information. This is done using commercially available digital-pen hardware, which translates the movement of the pen on the surface of the paper sticky note into digital information. The data can be viewed at any time through the Quickie software, which stores the sticky notes as images and converts the hand-written notes into computer-understandable text using available handwriting recognition algorithms. How stupid! Call Me On My 'Smell-Phone' A Germany company has filed a patent for applications allowing users to send scents via cell phones.. It expects the new capability will reach market less than two years from now with about 100 different prefabricated scents on the required chip. Not surprisingly, there are many applications for this technology, ranging from sweet smelling MMS greetings, to branded advertising samples for perfume manufacturers, to scent enhanced games for mobile phones and computers providing an additional sensory element for an outstanding gaming experience. Users will be allowed to accept or reject an incoming scent message in order to avoid stink-bomb spam. Back issues of 'Glimpses' are archived here. |