Stories tagged technology
Sixty years ago today, in Manchester, England, a room-sized computer known affectionately as "Baby" successfully ran its first calculation using 128k of memory, and ushered in the era of the "modern PC".
Back in 1948, Baby's programmers had a whopping 1024 bits of memory available to work with while today's 1 GB DRAM chip can store about 8 billion bits. You do the math. Or just read the story.
Tags : And while we’re on the topic of technology and the number 10, here are 10 high-tech health breakthroughs that may soon be coming to a body near you.
Robot round-up
Robots are everywhere! So is news about robots. Here are a few stories that caught our eye recently:
A sign of the times: JGordon isn't the only one who knows how to find wacky stuff on the Web!
Courtesy Veronica Belmont
High school students compete in a robot-building competition.
A robot conducts the Detroit Symphony.
A robot dials 911.
And lawyers are beginning to debate the legal ramifications of robots on the battlefield.
Which, inevitably, leads to the society to prevent cruelty to robots
Evolved geek: Are advances in technology dooming humans to become lapdogs with laptops?
Courtesy PipeHave you ever wondered what kind of effect all the recent advances in technology along with our geeky ways of dealing with them will have on the evolution of our species?
For example, two innovations alone – search engines and the Internet – have caused tremendous change in the way we gather, store, and retrieve information. Used to be if I wanted to find a local business address, I’d have to walk to the kitchen, pull open the middle drawer, heft the ten pounds of Yellow Pages up to the counter, then spend at least a couple minutes wracking my brain while paging through it. I was using all sorts of arm and leg and back muscles – not to mention excessive brainpower going through the alphabet – just to accomplish the simple task.
Nowadays, I hardly have to move at all. I remain seated at my computer, type in a couple keywords and click the mouse a couple times. Voila! I get more company information than I’ll ever need plus detailed maps and directions to the exact location.
Or, as pointed out in a recent article, will having all our critical numbers and information stored externally in our iPhones or Blueberries free up some of our brain space for more important tasks? Or will the size and dexterity of the human thumb evolve eventually to produce a race of super text-messagers (I don’t know that this will happen since keyboarding is an old technology that I suspect will someday disappear).
But, it’s kind of an interesting subject to ponder, and a forthcoming book by William Halal, a professor of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University looks into the phenomenon.
"All of the routine things we currently preoccupy ourselves with are going to disappear and people are going to do what? We will move up another notch in the level of evolution," Halal said.
In his book, Technology’s Promise, Halal predicts that advances in new technologies over the next dozen years will relieve our species from the bounds of many of our mundane jobs, allowing us to shift our priorities to more important issues.
But at what cost?
"We are the first humans to outsource jobs to technology, to automate that which is labor intensive or mentally tedious," said Patrick Tucker, senior editor of the Futurist magazine. "In the 21st century, this may result in people that are by and large less capable than we are today. Whether or not we seize all of those opportunities depends on how we mature in the coming decades."
Will this future diminishment of our mental and physical expenditure lead us to evolve into a species of torso-less heads suspended by wires inside bell jars? As long as my jar is within viewing range of the TV, and I can change channels through telepathy, I really don’t care.
MORE INFO
Speaking of geeks, here’s an interesting video of Clifford Stoll that may add some relevance to this subject. But then again, maybe not. Stoll is an astronomer who, if nothing else, is really interesting to watch (although some may say he’s completely nuts). I saw him speak at a conference a few years ago and was really taken by his point of view regarding our reliance on computers in schools and elsewhere. He does have some good points about our dependence on technology. Not that I followed his advice much but he’s worth a listen.
Future city, here we come!: Brace yourselves.
Courtesy ILMO JOESixty “deep thinkers” from around the world have recently pooled their deep thoughts in a collection of essays titled “The Way We Will Be 50 Years From Today.”
Contributors include Vincent Cerf, “Father of the Internet,” Kim Dae-jung, former President of the Republic of Korea, Carol Bellamy, a former director of both UNICEF and Peace Corp, and Ray Kurzweil, futurist extraordinaire, to name just a few.
So you get all these smarty-pants in one book, and what do they predict? I don’t know—computers, and world populations, and blah, and blahbedeblah. I’ll tell you what they don’t predict: flying cars. Just swimming in IQ points, and no one is willing to stand up and say, “In five years we should, nay, must have some flying gol-darn cars!”
What can we expect from the next fifty years? Well, all kinds of stuff. Some highlights:
Eight billion nine hundred ninety nine million nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine people and you.
The future is going to be a cozy place, so, you know, pack some sandals for the shower.
Fewer Pets
All manner of diseases, “from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to Schizophrenia,” will turn out to be caused by infectious agents taking advantage of genetic predispositions. Animals will often be the vectors for these agents, so… no more animals in the house, I guess. We’ll probably still have dogs, because we like them so much, though.
”The Blue Revolution”
Where we get our water from, and how, is going to be a big deal. A really big deal. You and your 8,999,999,999 friends are going to need water for your agriculture, industry, sanitation, and papier-mâché volcanoes, and getting your little lips and paws on it might be tricky.
Intergalactic Planetary
Another dimension, new galaxy! This is just my way of saying that we’ll probably have outposts starting up on Mars or Titan. One of the few predictions I’m into. Technology like the Large Hadron Collider could make light-speed travel a possibility, so the solar system, at least, should get some looking-at. “Interplanetary Internet” will be available, something I’m not super excited about. I mean, I guess it’s nice to know that a day on Enceladus can be wrapped up with some hilarious pictures of cats. You can email them to your space-coworkers.
Enjoy those cat pictures
Remember? You won’t have any real cats.
We will live longer
Bodacious medical advances—we’re talking nano here, folks—will allow us to enjoy our interplanetary cat pictures for decades upon decades. Yes!
We won’t live as long
We’re so fat and lazy, not even nano can help us.
Chinese will be the next global language
China is hot Schmidt these days, and getting hotter. Google “tonal language” and start sweating.
Computers will continue to be better at math than you, and will probably express their emotions a little better too.
Deal with it. Those guys are smart, and getting smarter.
That’s it. Well, that’s not totally it, but you get the idea: yawn. Way to go, geniuses. You just predicted a bunch of stuff that will probably happen. Or not—it’s all so dull that nobody will realize either way. “Hey… didn’t we used to have a cat? No? Oh, whatever.”
You want some predictions that you can really sink your teeth into? Come to Science Buzz. Check it out—here are some predictions I just came up with. No research or anything; it’s so easy even a non-genius can do it.
Flying cars
You heard it here first. Cheap, fun, and available this summer.
New swear words
Swearing, v3.0, is finally here. Threaten to punch someone in the gleb, tell them they can window your fab, or make it clear that they can scotch off—just don’t do it in front of your mom!
Electric broadswords
For every occasion.
More pets, new pets
Polish up your aquarium, because mollusks are goint to be huge.
See? Those are predictions that will sell! If you need any more, don’t hesitate to ask.
I actually find putting things here on Science Buzz to be one of the more relaxing parts of my job, but I guess that's not the case with all bloggers. Here's a story that shares some sobering news about the health risks that come with being a hardcore, 24/7 blogger.
AFS Trinity XH-150
Courtesy AFS Trinity
Just plug it in
AFS Trinity corporation is hoping to convince auto makers to incorporate their "Extreme Hybrid" technology into their vehicle fleets. When bursts of energy need to be expended or stored (accelerating and stopping), use of ultracapacitors will prevent overheating of the batteries. The AFS Trinity batteries will only hold about 40 miles worth of power (78% of Americans drive less than 40 miles per day).
First 40 miles require no gasoline
If you drive 40 miles per day for 6 days and you drive 100 miles on the 7th day, how many gallons of gasoline do you need? AFS Trinity claims that one of their "extreme hybrid" technology equipped vehicles was able to do this with less than two gallons of gas (340 miles with 2 gallons of gas = 150+ mpg). The electricity which powered the car for the first 280 miles cost $7.58 (based upon $.06/kwh).
When can we get one?
Extreme Hybrid technology in commercial production is expected to cost around $8,700 more than current, gas-only SUV’s. Based upon today's gas prices and the weekly driving pattern above, the payback period would only be a few years.
"If car makers decide not to take advantage of this offer, AFS Trinity intends to raise the funds to begin modifying existing hybrids or manufacture its own 150 mpg SUV’s and, eventually, 250 mpg sedans. We believe such production models could be available for sale in three years.” (AFS Trinity CEO Edward W. Furia)
Learn more about the AFS Trinity Extreme Hybrid SUV
The robotic self-tuning guitar. Only $2,100.
Ro-blow your horn: Three years after showing off it's trumpet-playing robot, Toyota Motors has now developed a violin-playing robot. Click on the link the story to see video footage of it playing "Pomp and Circumstance."
Courtesy Jeffrey & MamiIf Jack Benny were still around, this bit of news would have really pushed him over the edge.
This week Toyota Motor Corporation unveiled its latest robot, one that can play the violin. Its debut performance was “Pomp and Circumstance,” evidently signifying that robot technology has graduated into the realm of classical music.
This new robot is the latest version in Toyota’s ongoing efforts to find ways to use robots to assist humans in everyday life. Three years ago, it debuted a trumpet-playing robot.
But before all you starving musicians start to worry about getting pushed to obsolescence by robots, don’t worry. Toyota doesn’t plan to create a full orchestra of robots.
Rather, these are the initial steps in designing robots that could help needy people, particularly the elderly or disabled, be able to accomplish common tasks without the assistance of another person. Toyota’s goal is to have prototypes of those types of robots complete in the early 2010s.
Why would a car-manufacturing company be developing robots for human use? Since the 1980s companies like Toyota have increasingly been using robots to perform tasks on car production lines. So car manufacturers have a head start in finding ways to apply robotics technology. Leading players in the commercial robot field right now are Toyota, Honda and Sony Corp.
While the robot’s ability to play the violin is pretty impressive, developers say that they’re still working to improve it’s hand and arm flexibility for it to have even greater applications.
Personally, I’d love to see a robot that could play the full guitar solo of Jimi Hendrix’s “Purple Haze.”
It’s a little early, but Popular Science has issued their list of the top innovations of 2007. Their grand prize winner are nanosolar powersheets, thin flexible films that use nanotechnology to harness solar energy -- and allowing me to tag this post as both "nanotechnology" and "energy." The health innovations section allows me to use the "health" tag, and a new toilet that uses 40% less fresh water allows me to tag this as "water." It's a win-win-win!
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