Thomlex - Future

Transhumanism

bill — Thu, 04 May 2006 19:45:58 -0400

Michael Anissimov wrote this great article on Transhumanism. If you're not familiar with the concept, it is that the technology all around us is our next evolutionary step. Today, we think of computers and technologies as things around us, but they'll soon be part of us, and then replace us, much as we replaced cave men. We're building our own grandchildren.

Mr. Anissimov makes the observation that

Politicians and laypeople everywhere are beginning to get the picture - it matters less what you say than what technology you have at your disposal. This is why presidential speeches are peppered with mentions of the importance of alternative energy and the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Good technology improves the lives of millions and bad technology has the potential to murder millions. Social ideas are merely a footnote.

Here'a a post I did on the Singularity; a related concept. It's interesting how much acceptance the ideas have achieved recently especially among young people. It's still considered crazy by some, but a decade ago, you were hard-pressed to find anyone who would even listen to the concept.

Link

Wristwatches Going the Way of Dinosaurs

bill — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 01:45:00 -0400

Wristwatch sales are on the decline amongst young people. What's the purpose, when every cell phone and MP3 player tells the time? Even Fossil, the top brand for teens, acknowledged an 18.6% decline in wholesale U.S. sales of its namesake brand.

Link

NASA Developing Spacecraft Powered by Anti-Matter

bill — Sun, 16 Apr 2006 01:01:00 -0400

Anti-matter is the strongest fuel known. To send humans to Mars would require tons of chemical fuel, where if anti-matter were used, just tens of milligrams of the stuff would be required. That's about 1/100th the weight of an M&M. The three big challenges are producing it, containing it during flight, and controlling the production of dangerous gamma rays during it's usage.

Link

Scientists Attach Motor To Single-molecule Car

bill — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 01:50:00 -0400

Last year, chemists were able to build a car from a single-molecule. Now, chemists at Rice University have built the first motorized version of their nanocar.

The nanocar is powered by light. Its motor is a molecular framework that was developed by Ben L. Feringa and was modified so that it would attach in-line with the nanocar's chassis. When light strikes the motor, it rotates in one direction, pushing the car along like a paddlewheel.

Link

Nano-Batteries Built by Viruses

bill — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 03:26:00 -0400

MIT scientists have manipulated genes within viruses, coaxing them to grow and self-assemble "nanowire" structures. These structures can then be used to make very thin lithium-ion batteries.

The batteries that could be built using this technology could be the size of a grain of rice.

Link

Nano-Computer Diode from one Molecule

bill — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 05:35:00 -0400

Researchers at the University of Chicago have created a diode from a single molecule. The diode is only a few tens of atoms in size and 1,000 times smaller than a conventional one. Diodes are critical components within computers and other electronic devices.

Nano-Computer Diode from one Molecule

Woman receives Artificial Eyes

bill — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 05:15:00 -0400

Cheri Robertson recently received surgery that allowed her to see, even though previously she was blind. The procedure, performed at the Saint Louis University School of Medicine, is the first to reverse blindness in patients without eyes. A camera on the tip of Robertson's glasses sends signals to a computer that's strapped around her waist. The computer then stimulates electrodes in the brain through a cord that attaches to the head.

Link

Cellular Drug Delivery

bill — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 19:01:00 -0400

Ames (Iowa) Laboratory researchers have developed a porous silica nanosphere that can be taken up by a cell and deliver a payload into it on command. The nanospheres are roughly the size of a virus, so they won't trigger an immune response in the body.

The spheres have thousands of parallel channels running completely through them. The spheres soak up molecules of the drug to be delivered. When the channels are filled, the ends of channels are capped to safely seal the drug inside. The caps can be made of magnetic material, so that using a strong magnet externally, the spheres can be opened inside the cells, releasing their contents.

Link

Brain-Computer Interface Enhancement

bill — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 14:06:00 -0500

European scientists have developed a brain implant capable of receiving signals from more than 16,000 mammalian brain cells , and sending messages back to several hundred cells. (Learn more about Brain-Computer Interfaces in my previous post.)

This is a dramatic improvement over the previous state-of-the-art BrainGate technology which allowed some one hundred neural connections.

In addition to the number of connections allowed, the new technology is more "embedded", in that transistors and other components are inside the implant itself, and changes were made to the neurons themselves. This compared to BrainGate, which is really just a tiny set of probes, with all the processing done in a back-end computer.

Link

Artificial Muscles Powered By High-Power Fuels

bill — Fri, 17 Mar 2006 03:03:00 -0500

Nanotechnologists from the University of Texas at Dallas have made artificial muscles that are 100 times stronger than natural muscles. These muscles are fuled by alcohol and hydrogen.

These muscles could enable fuel-powered artificial limbs, "smart skins" and morphing structures for air and marine vehicles, autonomous robots having very long mission capabilities and smart sensors that detect and self-actuate to change the environment.

Link

DNA Origami

bill — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 19:02:00 -0500

Paul Rothemund of Caltech can weave any two-dimensional shape or pattern using DNA molecules. This technology, which he calls "DNA origami" could one day be used to construct tiny chemical factories or molecular electronics by attaching proteins and inorganic components to DNA circuit boards.

All of Rothemund's creations are made with a single, long DNA strand. First, the strand is folded back and forth into some desired shape or pattern. The entire structure is then fastened together at strategic points with hundreds of short DNA "staples." (link from nutmeg)

DNA Origami

Brain-Computer Interfaces

bill — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 02:07:00 -0500

If you haven't heard of brain-computer interfaces before, this Wikipedia article is a good place to start. The concept is connecting human brains to computers. So, you could think about something and effectively google it and know the answer. This sort of technology isn't as crazy as you might think. Recently,
Matt Nagle, a quadraplegic paralyzed from the neck down was implanted with probes into his brain through which he was able to manipulate simple things by thinking about them, such as working a remote control, reading email and opening and closing a prosthetic hand. Deafness has been cured in some 80,000 people today through cochlear implants, where audio signals are processed and fed directly into the auditory nerve.

So, today there are already real-world means of getting output from a human brain into a computer, and getting output from a computer back into the brain. Now, it's just a matter of increasing the bandwidth.

Link

The Long Tail Blog

bill — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 19:40:00 -0500

A few posts ago, I linked to an article about micromarketing and the long tail. This link is a blog by the subject of that article and will soon become a book. The graph here shows the percentage of hit (gold, platinum and multi-platinum) records being sold as a percentage of all records being sold. That number is decreasing.

Chris Anderson, the author, proposes this trend will continue across all products that are marketed, with the result that people will buy fewer of the blockbuster products (like gold records or Tom Cruise movies) and buy more niche products.

Link

Micromarketing and the Long Tail

bill — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 03:27:00 -0500

To thrive, Brick and mortar retailers must offer only the biggest sellers. So movie theatres only show the latest runs and Walmart only carries the biggest selling CDs.

But micromarketing and recommendation engines allow the "tail end" of the market (i.e. the non-big-sellers) an opportunity to enjoy access to large markets. Chris Anderson proposes the future of entertainment is in the millions of niche markets at the shallow end of the bitstream.

Link

The 10,000 Year Clock

bill — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 12:52:00 -0500

The Long Now Foundation has been building a clock that will keep accurate time for 10,000 years.

This page has many pictures of the components that comprise the first prototype. As part of it's development, a mechanical binary computer was developed, part of which is pictured here.

Link