GLIMPSES OF THE
FUTURE |
A New Search Engine Just For Medical Enquiries Many of us are now self-diagnosing and self-treating on the Web (and we're much better for it). Now a new search engine called Medstory claims to improve the quality of results as you search for 'tennis elbow', 'athlete's foot' or any other medical term or condition. At the heart of the new search engine are ranking algorithms PLUS an editing system which examines the results of a search and shows those links that are most likely to answer your query specifically (rather than you having to wade through a lot of links that may be of only general interest). I think it works very well. Also of interest to those concerned with health matters may be YourDiagnosis.com, an Australian site which provides an on-line diagnosis after taking a very detailed medical history and symptom report. Other self-diagnosis sites include Familydoctor.org and 24dr.com. All come with the usual health warnings, but all empower the patient. For those with mental help problems (or those who suspect they may have them) a site called Internet Mental Health invites visitors to undergo a self-diagnosis process and provides considerable help and support for its visitors. My own GP is very net savvy and has recommended me to Clinical Excellence, a site run by the British Medical Journal and one whose advice can be totally trusted. Other doctors are far less comfortable facing patients who, thanks to the Web, now have much of the world's medical knowledge at their fingertips. Power Your Cell Phone With Water NTT DoCoMo, the Japanese mobile networks operator, has announced a new self-powered mobile phone charger that runs on water. The recharger unit is as small as a mobile phone itself and it has been developed for heavy users of broadband 3G services who may need to re-charge their mobile phones several times a day when away from base. Ordinary water is used with a hydrogen-producing catalyst to create electricity in a fuel cell. Output is two watts. See details the full workings here. A Hard Drive For Your Car You can already buy cars with iPod interfaces built in, but hard-drive manufacturer Seagate is now equipping cars with 60GB hard drives so that you can carry your vast library of music, pictures and video clips while on the move. Specially hardened to withstand in-car operating conditions such as vibration, damp, heat and cold, the Seagate drives are likely to be only one of many such options that become available as drivers and passengers demand mass data storage systems in their vehicles. Telescopic Lenses For 'The Device Formerly Known As The Mobile Phone' Now that Nokia has become the world's largest camera maker, it is no surprise that telescopic lenses have been developed that allow you to snap on a zoom lens for that all-important close-up or paparazzi shot. Produced by Brando of Hong Kong, the lens does require a new back to be fitted to your Nokia phone and the Brando site is worth a visit just to sample some delicious misuse of English. For example: 'Overcome the short coming of camera cellphone that can only near-sighted, it also makes distant view for you at the moment.' and... 'The new design to run of rays can effectively avoid the contortion of image, and makes the super wide angle, the larger luminous flux, the higher visual acuteness, good for color reduction, which makes the high quality of photography.' Helping Charities As You Search Everyclick.com is a new British-based search engine which gives half of its income to charity. The company earns money through micropayments (payments of a few pence/cents to a few pounds/dollars) made by advertisers and via earnings from a shopping service. I have long argued that the arrival of micropayments will lead to an explosion of philanthropy on the Web, but it has taken far longer than I envisioned for micropayments to become economically viable (largely because of the cartel that has been operated by the major credit card franchisers). Now that cartel is breaking down and efficient micropayment systems are popping up everywhere. Everyclick.com has recently been announced as the regional winner of HSBC's Start-Up Stars competition for new businesses. Web users who would like to contribute to charity (users are able to elect which charity they support) should consider searching and shopping via the Everyclick.com portal. Google Maps On Your Phone (With Directions, Traffic Reports and Shopping Information) Google has just launched Google Maps for Mobile Phones, a service currently available in the USA, Canada, France, Spain, Germany and Italy (the UK will follow shortly). The service provides the well-known Goole Maps along with overlays of local information (shops, restaurants, etc.) and traffic densities which are updated in close to real time. Google Maps respond to queries such as 'find the nearest pizza parlour' and then returns the address along with directions to find the gourmet establishment. Expect customer reviews to follow shortly. Download Google Maps to your phone here. |
Ray Kurzweil Produces Mobile Reader For The Blind Ray Kurzweil, a futurist, writer and inventor I greatly admire, has worked with American's National Federation of the Blind to produce a mobile reading device which scans almost any form of print and reads it to the user. Kurzweil was a pioneer of optical character recognition technology in the 1970s and in 1979 his company produced a desk-top reading machine for Stevie Wonder. Now a device that is battery powered and PDA-sized, speaks print aloud. Available with an earpiece, the device enables the blind to hear restaurant menus, timetables, price tags, food labels and almost all printed information that fills and describes our information-rich world. Ray's own site is here. And Google For The Blind A Google researcher who suffered childhood glaucoma and is now blind has developed a new version of Google suitable for use by those with impaired sight. As many blind and visually-impaired people have to listen to automated readings of web pages, Google programmer T.V. Raman has refined Google's algorithms to edit out all those sites which use streaming video and other such bells and whistles which make it impossible for automated screen readers to render the content in audible form. The beta version of the 'Google AccessibleWeb Search For The Visually Challenged' is already on-line and helping thousands. Please tell any visually impaired friends about the new search engine that is tuned to their needs. Mobile Phones That Track Your Movements Parents of young children and women travelling alone already know the safety benefits of carrying a mobile phone, but a new service offered by Vodafone of New Zealand takes mobile safety one step further. Now customers who feel unsure about their safety can use their phone as a personal tracking device. The service works by customers sending a free TXT message to 7233 (SAFE) - for example, "leaving Viaduct @ 10pm to walk home to Ponsonby via Franklin Rd." Vodafone records the date, time and content of the TXT against the mobile number. Each TXT sent to 7233 will be acknowledged by an automated response, which advises customers who feel in danger to call local emergency (111 in New Zealand) and request police assistance. Chillingly, a Vodafone spokesperson says: 'You might be walking home alone, or getting into a car at night and realise that no-one knows where you are, or what time you're due at your intended destination. By TXTing some brief details about your movements to 7233, in the unlikely event you are reported missing the police may gain a valuable lead on what happened to you.' The service has been launched following the high profile abduction and murder of a German tourist who was on holiday in New Zealand. Computers That Think The Way We Do There's been lots of excitement in the Artificial Intelligence community of late. AI seemed a really hot topic twenty-five years ago when I first started writing on the subject, but by the mid-1980s and 90s it seemed that progress had almost come to a halt. It was said that as we humans don't yet understand how our own brains work, how on Earth could be we hope to build a machine that mimics our capabilities? Now there is rapid progress being made on many fronts and the research field is being re-named 'Cognitive Computing.' Not only have computer capabilities increased dramatically over the last quarter century, there has also been a vast improvement in scanning technologies that allow us to see inside human organs (these two improvements are, of course, closely related). Scientists at University College London are now scanning brains as human volunteers play gambling games with computers. This, they say, will allow them to 'automate thought ' and 'help to create computers that make decisions in the same way as humans, heralding huge potential benefits for businesses.' Another major artificial brain initiative is underway in Lausanne. The ' Blue Brain' project, a collaboration between IBM and a Swiss university team, will involve building a custom-made supercomputer based on IBM’s Blue Gene design. The hope is that the virtual brain will help shed light on some aspects of human cognition, such as perception, memory and perhaps even consciousness. Researchers say that it will be the first time humans will be able to observe the electrical code that our brains use to represent the world, and to do so in real time. And Finally...What 'Ordinary People' Think About The Future Believe it or not, even though we all try to do it everyday, it takes some training and experience to think constructively about the future. In trying to evaluate what things may come to pass the greatest traps lie in using today's attitudes to imagine tomorrow's society (when attitudes will have almost certainly have changed) and in allowing one's personal agenda (or political views) to colour visions of the future. Other hazards which lie in wait for the would-be futurologist include underestimating the speed of technological progress while overestimating the pace of social change. For reasons best known to itself, CNN recently solicited viewers' views of the future and these reveal a whole range of speculations and predictions based on misconceptions and personal agendas. For example, an overly pessimistic viewer from Michigan insists: Big business will continue using its record-breaking profits to take control of the U.S. government and other governments around the world. Consumers and workers will pay the price not only in staggeringly lower wages but also in damages caused by products and services offered by businesses. People seem to just be letting it happen with apathy and indifference. While someone from Virginia has a seriously over-optimistic view of the future, writing: In the future, businesses will be run by honest people who provide quality products at a fair price. To ensure honesty, people will wear special glasses that can read a person's electrical field and when a person is lying, their field will read red, and when they are telling the truth, their field will read blue. But I do like some of the contributions. Bryan Trogdon of Omaha, Nebraska writes: I am looking forward to being able to perform many of my daily tasks from the comfort of my own living room. From shopping to meeting with my accountant, to attending class or a work conference, I would like to have the option to decide if taking the time to make the commute and being there in person brings any additional value to the experience. As voice recognition, wall-size displays, increased broadband speed and intelligent interfaces become available, "teleliving" will change our lives in ways we can only imagine. Read the CNN viewers' predictions for yourself here.
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