GLIMPSES OF THE
FUTURE |
Back To The Future: The Flying Car Is Invented (Again) An Israeli inventor has built a flying car which, he claims, has already flown three feet off the ground. The X-Hawk is intended for urban rescue missions in areas too dense for conventional helicopters to operate - think of people trapped in burning buildings. The flying car is attracting attention from Bell Hellicopters. The concept of a flying utility vehicle dates back 50 years. Other design houses currently working on vertical lift concepts with enclosed rotors include U.S.-based Trek Aerospace Inc. and Moller International Inc., both of which focus on a different niche, personal use vehicles. DARPA: Computers Approaching Human Brain Complexity Tony Tether, the director of the U.S.A.'s Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, has told a Wired reporter that computers being developed by his military agency are far ahead of commercial systems. "We're on the verge of having computers with densities approaching a monkey's brain, and it won't be long before we'll have a computer with the density of transistors, or equivalent to neurons and almost human,' said Tether. Those of us who anticipate "The Singularity" (the point at which machine intelligence equals human capabilities) don't doubt him. Email From The Grave? Microsoft Wants To Make Our Data Immortal Researchers at Microsoft Corp. are working on ways to store electronic messages in physical forms that will last indefinitely, according to a report in the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The story looks at some behind-the-scenes work that came to light after the company recently filed a patent application describing an "Immortal information storage and access platform." The Post-Intelligencer article quoted Microsoft researcher Eric Horvitz as saying: "Maybe we should start thinking as a civilization about creating our Rosetta stones now, along with lots of information, even going beyond personal memories into civilization memories." That's Microsoft for you. Want To Go Into Space? You'll Be Able to Take Off In Sweden. Space tourists will be able to take off from Kiruna in northern Sweden from 2012. For around 1.4 million kronor ($200,000) tourists will get to spend five minutes in a weightless environment 120 kilometres above the earth's surface. The agreement was signed by British company Virgin Galactic and Spaceport Sweden, a new company consisting of several Kiruna-based businesses, including the Swedish Space Corporation. Evidence In For Impact Of Mobile Phones On Developing Economies Mobile communication is revolutionising economic and social life in rural India, spawning a wave of local entrepreneurs and creating greater access to social services according to a new study by The Center for Knowledge Societies (CKS) commissioned by Nokia. The research identifies seven major service sectors including transport, finance and healthcare that could be radically transformed through mobile technologies. Meanwhile a BBC news story underscores the transformation mobile phones are bringing about on the African continent. Text Message Novel Published In Finland A new novel has just been published in Finland in which the narrative is made up only of text messages. "The Last Messages" tells the story of a fictitious executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages. His messages, and the replies - roughly 1,000 altogether - are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in such messages. "I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think," said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland. Know The Tune But Can't Remember The Song Title? You know how annoying it is to have a fragment of a tune in your mind but be unable to recall the song itself? Now a new web site called Midomi allows you top sing or hum a fraction of the melody into your PC's microphone and the web site will do the rest. It works well. There's a demo video here. For the vocally challenged you can also find a track by entering search terms via your keyboard.
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'Deep Impact' Team Meets To Protect Us The asteroid Apophis is heading towards the Earth and researchers say it has a 1 in 45,000 chance of hitting our planet on 13 April 2036. Calculations show it could strike somewhere along a narrow track that stretches eastward from Siberia to the west coast of Africa. To work out how best to deal with such threats the second Planetary Defense Conference is being organized by The Aerospace Corporation. It is co-sponsored by NASA, the European Space Agency, the Planetary Society, and other organizations. To be held March 5th-8th at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., the conference will feature top scientists and engineers from the international space community. They will be assessing our ability to discover and track near-Earth objects as well as our ability to deflect an asteroid or comet that poses a threat to Earth. It is not known whether Bruce Willis will be speaking. Scientists Grow Brain Neurons From Human Skin Scientists from Université Laval’s Faculty of Medicine have succeeded in producing neurons in vitro using stem cells extracted from adult human skin. This is the first time such an advanced state of nerve cell differentiation has been achieved from human skin, according to lead researcher Professor François Berthod. The researchers used skin obtained from plastic surgery procedures. They subjected these skin samples to various treatments in order to extract neuron precursor cells, which they then proceeded to cultivate in vitro. This breakthrough could eventually lead to revolutionary advances in the treatment of neurodegenerative illnesses such as Parkinson’s disease Roll-Up Screens On Display Shortly Production is soon to start on plastic display screens that you can bend, roll-up or pull out of a mobile phone or other electronic device. Polymer Vision (a spin-out company of Philips Electronics) has teamed up with Telecom Italia to produce the world's first mobile with a pull-out display. The screens will be manufactured in Southampton, UK. Robots Patrol The Corridors While You Sleep A robot security guard has been developed by two Japanese universities and a robotics manufacturer. Called Ubiko T2-4 (catchy), the robot is built to patrol buildings sniffing for smoke and capturing images to be transmitted back to a central security centre. T2-4’s robotic nose is the first of its kind to be sufficiently sensitive to distinguish between different odours when looking for fire hazards. In the test, the ‘bot was dispatched to patrol the university corridors seeking smoke where it should not be. After passing through rooms filled with potentially distracting garlic and perfume smells, it correctly identified a room with a stinky ashtray by scent alone. Computers Simulate The Brain's Visual Recognition Systems Neuroscientists at MIT have developed a computer model that mimics the human vision system to accurately detect and recognise objects in a busy street scene, such as cars and motorcycles. Such biologically inspired vision systems could soon be used in surveillance systems, or in smart sensors that can warn drivers of pedestrians and other obstacles. It may also help in the development of so-called visual search engines, says Thomas Serre, a neuroscientist at the Center for Biological and Computational Learning at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research, who was involved in the project. Ultra Small RFID Tags Developed Smart RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Tags) have been miniaturised by Hitachi to the point that they are now smaller than the diameter of a human hair.The new RFID chips have a 128-bit ROM for storing a unique 38 digit number The potential of such minute tags is that they can be used as a "powder" that can easily be incorporated into thin paper, like that used in paper currency and gift certificates. Bugged money has just arrived. Dogs At Risk Get Mobile Phones With so many dognappings recently it is good news to report that a new strap-on mobile phone is soon to be available for pets. Don't expect to get a call from your pooch when he's lost, but you will be able to get a GPS fix on his location (unless the wicked dog nappers have cut the strap-on phone from his body). The PETsCELL, is a waterproof, 2-way communication device (2 way speaker/2 way microphone) with Global Positioning Capabilities that provides the pet's location in real time through a desktop PC or hand held device complete with email notification services. The device allows for pet owners to set a geo-fence boundary that will alert the owner when their pet steps outside the pre-set boundary. (Told you it was coming. Watch this space for pet emergency services such as pet ambulances and paramedics. See my 2001 novel, Emergence.) Back issues of "Glimpses" are archived here.
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