Google’s new Talking Shoe

Posted on March 31, 2013

So now fashion has a new address…Google, the Technology giant who has enabled the world to remain better connected with the Google glass and has now decided that you need to be turned into this super slick tech personality by having a shoe that talks to you constantly and that too in a British accent. 

As crazy as this new cool innovation may sound it is one of the smartest yet. A result of a project dreamed up by Google and Adidas this new sneaker appears to be a normal shoe at first glance but as you look closer you’ll see that there’s a speaker connected to the tongue that’s capable of speaking 250 phrases.

Motivating you to move the shoe has phrases like -” This is super boring” when you are seated and ”Call 911 because you’re on fire!” when you are motivated.There’s also a phrase that describes how you feel when you are excited -”I love the feeling of the wind in my laces”. This interaction is part of the intention of Google to interact with your body and subsequently with the world (Read Google glass) .

Wearable technology is snazzy with the generation next as the user is on the go and yet comfortable with the idea of wearing and interacting with small devices. These the company hopes,  will then go on to become an inherent part of the users personality. 

The Talking shoes come with an accelerometer, gyroscope and Bluetooth capability to connect to your smartphone. It can measure your activity levels and movement and the speaker on the shoe then comments on your activity from the 250 phrases it is allowed. 

The company claims that the shoe is a prototype and only in its testing phase. It is not to hit the markets anytime soon. 

Numbness is something most of us have experienced in extreme cold weather conditions. The loss of sensation and the inability to feel something can set off the most unexpected paranoia and fear in humans. One feels doomed and at a loss and it is almost as if one has lost the ability to communicate with the world. Imagine if a robotic finger could replace this inability to sense in a dire jiffy. Scientists at Syntouch have developed a robot with tactile sensory abilities to differentiate and identify different surfaces and textures. The official name "Biotacs" enables a robot equipped to discriminate between 117 different textures with greater than 95% accuracy. The robot has been able to outperform even human sensitivity in certain conditions.

SynTouch LLC (Los Angeles) and the University of Southern California have developed an advanced tactile sensor modeled after the human fingertip.They hope that this technology and its applications can launch the field of "machine touch." This year the company has sold almost 100 of its Biotac sensors to researchers in the fields of medicine and academics. This is an effort to further explore the navigation and the use of this device in other fields as well.

The Biotac comes complete with human like skin and this can be easily replaced if damaged or torn. The Biotac can be mounted onto a prosthetic hand and the user can handle delicate objects easily and reliably. 

The company Syntouch is among the top ten robotic companies in the world. While developing the Biotach , the robot was trained on 117 common materials gathered from fabric, stationery and hardware stores. It was able to intelligently identify the material 95% of the time . Biotach is also trained to detect three kinds of inputs -temperature, texture and force with vibration. The temperature can help it to distinguish metal from glass, texture will help it identify a button from its surrounding panel thereby mimicking the human fingertip. The programming of the Biotach is based on these three inputs. Such technology is called Haptic technology and is currently being developed to enable millions of handicapped people to touch and feel with human dexterity again.  

HULC expands to medical industry

Posted on March 27, 2013

Imagine if Iron man or the incredible Hulk could loan their abilities to Human soldiers or to handicapped war victims enabling them to walk upright again. Such a thought and dream could very soon be coming true as assembly lined Exoskeletons might hit the market changing fantasies from the realm of science fiction to that of the real world. In a project which started in 2000 by the Berkeley Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory the HULC or the Human Universal Load Carrier was developed by Professor Kazerooni and his team at Ekso Bionics.

In 2009, Lockheed Martin acquired the design licence from Berkeley and later the company signed a $1.1m contract with the US Army Natick Soldier Center for testing and evaluating the HULC design.

The HULC as the exoskeleton is originally called is an anthropomorphic, hydraulic powered titanium exoskeleton designed for the army to help combat soldiers to carry loads of upto 200 pounds at speeds of 10 miles per hour with minimum strain on their bodies. Because the exoskeleton operates on lithium polymer batteries its power-saving feature enables the system to support maximum load even when the battery power is low.

http://www.army-technology.com/videos/1425032752001.html

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The HULC is designed with brilliant flexibility and muscle power and doesn’t require any external control mechanism. It is controlled by a micro-computer installed within the system which enables sensing of the user’s requirement. Then it adapts to the situation accordingly. Its packaging is flexible too allowing for the HULC system to removed and packed-up in 30 seconds. Its parts enable the wearer to be exchanged in minutes for greater compatibility. 

Now Lockheed Martin has a new venture with  Parker Hannifin the biggest manufacturer of motion and control devices and is launching new ventures and finding new uses and customers for these bionic suits. The company plans to make inroads into the medical industry especially for those who have a spinal injury and suffer from the inability to walk upright. 

The Ekso Bionic device for spinal patients will look like a black metal skeleton standing on foot pads. Electric motors will amplify the strength in the weak limbs of the wearer and computer sensors will provide the guidance. This model also targets those users who have lost the ability to walk. 

It will go on sale in 2014 at a competitive price of 52.000 euro approx. 

In the natural living world and the universe , Nuclear fusion is a huge reality. It is a reaction that takes place in the stars. The Sun creates all its energy from a nuclear fusion and without the Sun our world would be a very dark and cold place. Temperatures at the core of the sun are ranging between 10 to 15 million kelvin and it is here that vast amount of energy is created by the combination of Hydrogen and Helium atoms. Nuclear Fusion is the perfect energy source. 

For years environmentalists and political honchos have grappled with the reality of fossil fuels burning out. Fear loomed large of peak oil and dependence on Middle East and the governments of the world pushed boundaries to scramble for fossil fuel alternatives. Then came shale oil and tar sandand the hope of the future energy reserves shone bright and secure. Imagining the end of energy crisis is a dangerous mistake as even the most optimistic predictions can leave a very uncertain future.

Solar, Advanced fission and nuclear fusion are the best alternatives we have for surmounting our energy battles.  All three have the most promising future but unfortunately we don't have innovative and advanced technology to capture and create and continue utilizing this energy source. Governments must catch up with the great research being done.

Of the three Nuclear Fusion is the perfect energy source. Fission involves the splitting of one heavy element into two lighter ones and each reaction along with producing energy also results in radioactive products some of which can stray in the atmosphere for tens and thousands of years. That is why nuclear reactors are built in remote areas This prevents exposure to deadly contamination. The Fukushima accident in Japan has raised a lot of fear of nuclear contamination.

Fusion on the other hand has a number of benefits. Some of which are listed below. 

• Fusion power would provide much more energy for a given weight of fuel than any technology currently in use.
•  The fuel for fusion primarily deuterium exists abundantly in the Earth's ocean and seawater is easier to access and more plentiful than fossil fuels.
• Fusion power has many of the benefits of renewable energy sources like being a long-term energy supply and emitting no GHG's
• Fusion could provide very high power-generation density and uninterrupted power delivery because it is not dependent on the weather like wind and solar power.
• Fusion reactors create far less radioactive material than a fission reactor, the material it would create is less damaging biologically, and the radioactivity "burns off" within a time period.
• And finally, a nuclear Fusion reaction has a very low accident potential as a nuclear fusion requires precisely controlled temperature, pressure, and magnetic field parameters to generate net energy which would stop functioning if the reactor were damaged.

De-extinction to revive and restore

Posted on March 20, 2013

Jurassic Park the movie was one of its kind…it made history not only in terms of the money it made but also the concept and the idea of bringing back species long dead was both fascinating and and incredulous. Something similar is being proposed by Dr. Stewart Brand, an environmentalist  for four decades Brand is already well known for creating the Whole Earth Catalog, The WELL, the Global Business Network and the Long Now Foundation. Now this evangelist  wants to re-create — or “de-extinct” — a few animals that’ve disappeared from the planet.

Imagine if the woolly mammoth and the Sabre tooth that you’ve so loved in ice age, the movie were to walk the face of the earth again. Or imagine the passenger pigeons are brought back from extinction by way of a new Bio-genetic technology.This revolutionary technique has been proposed by Brand and is backed on the basis of a ten year research conducted by a team of Spanish and French scientists who almost brought back an extinct wild goat known as Pyrenean ibex back to life.

The process of De-extinction is based on a very simple premise. DNA samples of the extinct species are located from museums or even from ancient fossils, it is withdrawn and injected into a healthy surrogate who can comfortably give birth to the extinct species. In case of the wild goat, the scientists made 56 attempts to impregnate a present day goat , the de-extinct goat was born , it survived a few minutes and then died due to a severe genetic mutation.

But the process of De-extinction raises a whole lot of moral, ethical and philosophical questions. Do we even want to bring back species that have been extinct ? what is the use of reversing the evolutionary process? will the new species that have been brought back be able to adapt and survive in the new eco system or will they alter it completely? These species which are extinct are gone for a reason- the very basic one is that they failed to survive in the time and the circumstances that they lived in . 

Stuart Prim  at the Nicholas School of the Environment emphasizes on the impracticalities of de-extinction and why conservation should take precedence. According to him bringing back the species will do more harm than good because along with the species one will have to think of recreating the ecosystem and the environment for them to thrive in and recreating nature is a very complex task.

This focus on de-extinction should be justified only if we a a proper environment to bring back the species and the focus should be more on better conservation as a strategy.  The reason that drives the species to be extinct is the continued expansion of humans into their environment. this is the issue that should be tackled first.

China’s Internet Firewall

Posted on March 22, 2013

In 2012, China was leading the way for developing countries as its internet user count hit 600 million. In a country of 1.3 billion people that is saying a lot. Do the Math. In fact official data shows most of the users connectivity is through mobile devices. An ever increasing number of people in China stay online using micro blogging services and social networking sites. It is estimated that by 2015 China will have more than 800 million Internet users, many of which will be from rural regions. The Chinese have their own versions of the Western Micro blogging sites. Renren is the equivalent of Facebook, Baidu=Google, Sina Weibo=Twitter, and Youku is the equivalent of Youtube. 

This in a situation when the nation imposes strict internet censorship on its users. China’s internet firewall is the country’s system of online restriction. The new government and the new leader worry about the power the internet holds, curbing its free use will not only restrict and control free publishing but will also put an end to any potential threat to the single party communist regime. This is an age when China promises economic reforms and better living standards to its citizens. 

The National Peoples Congress (NPC)  has passed a new law asking users toregister their real names with the internet service providers. Earlier the citizens did not have to do so and could use alternate pseudonyms to register. This new tightening of internet usage is “intended to better protect Internet users’ privacy and provide a legal basis for safeguarding online information safety to ensure the healthy and orderly development of the Internet”, an NPC spokesperson has claimed .

China’s internet firewall is the result of online expose`s of the officials wrong doings on Chinese micro blogging sites. Internet users have often used the sites for anonymous complains about corruption and official abuse. Citizens who at times wish to speak in complete confidence about a specific individual or company’s misconduct cannot do so now.

In a report published by “Reporters without borders”, it seems a large number of governments are resorting to cyber crime, surveillance  and intrusions on dissidents and journalists to curb the freedom of speech. This report is published on the eve of World Day against Cyber-Censorship. Syria, China, Iran, Bahrain and Vietnam are the top five nations who regularly conduct systematic online surveillance. This is a serious violation of human rights. 

At the Big Tent Activate summit held in New Delhi on Thursday, Eric Schmidt the Executive Chairman of Google described China as the most egregious example of a nation attempting to control the internet. In his interview with Guardian’s Editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, Schmidt talked about the New York times computers being hacked by the Chinese. 

One wonders at the potential and danger of this information which is being surveyed and can only hope that it does more good than harm.

A two dimensional arrangement of Carbon atoms in a chicken wire hexagonal arrangement make up a new revolutionary material which scientists call Graphene. This new material is futuristic and is said to revolutionize the 21st century. Graphene is the thinnest and the densest material known today so dense that even a Helium atom cannot pass through it. It is strong and tensile known to be an amazing conductor of electricity and heat.

Discovered originally in 2003 by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov who were subsequently awarded the 2010 Nobel prize in Physics, Graphene  a futuristic material is now the object of many a debate.Its potential is being researched in the field of  developing smartphones, ultrafast broadband, drug delivery and computer chips.

The University of Manchester is on the hunt for ideas regarding the full use of Graphene. It is for this purpose that at a recent staff event the university launched a 50,000 pound enterprise competition for students to come up with new Graphene ideas. 

Below is a list of possible future applications of Graphene.

• It could act as a rust protector on metals if used as a thin coat of paint. Even as an electronic ink its advanced usability could be defined
• Graphene could work as a Photo voltaic cell to improve the efficiency and working life of batteries.
• Since it is highly sensitive to the environment, Graphene could act as a sensor to measure strain, magnetism, gas or pressure.
• In the field of medicine it can help in building new tissues for regenerative medicine by delivering drugs to the point of contact.
• Graphene in the future might be used to prepare e papers which will have flexible screens and will be capable of being a rollup epaper by 2015.

These applications of Graphene go on to prove Moore's law that the exponential growth of technology is definitive and what we will see in the near future are inventions and discoveries of a singular exponential nature whereby machines become smarter and smarter permitting humans to be diagnostic and open minded in our approach to life.

Last week the Cardinals at the Vatican selected the new Bishop of Rome , Pope Francis. Formerly known as the Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina, Pope Francis was elected even as millions Catholic and Non Catholic alike waited with bated breath for the smoke signals to twirl out of the Vatican chimney. The sight gave hope to the millions as it is understood that the new pope will address a large number of debatable issues and help surmount them. As the new pope will tackle new challenges- those which will have huge repercussion on humanity in general, his actions and his decisions will be carved forever in history. He will be for time immemorial be remembered for helping the poor and vulnerable and strengthening the international community. 

But all that remains to be seen as Pope Francis is yet to declare his stance on Climate Change. Will the new Pope Francis tackle Climate Change? He is yet to formulate a long term strategy that will protect human life, health and the environment. The former Bishop of Rome, Pope Benedict XVI  in his address to the Reichstag Building in 2011 had stated that -"The importance of ecology is no longer disputed. We must listen to the language of nature and we must answer accordingly." 

Climate Change and the Vatican have much in common.  The Vatican has made huge strides forward in renewable energy.

In 2009, the Vatican installed huge Solar panels, the largest in Europe which led to energy production per capita of 200 watts per inhabitant. By doing so the Vatican became the world's smallest state to step up the fight against Global warming. The 2000 photovoltaic panels were installed over the Nervi Hall where the Pope holds his audiences. This installation has led the Vatican to saving close to 90 tonnes of oil and fossil fuel annually. Further the Vatican has a solar heating system for its cafetaria and even the pope's summer residence is being fitted to get power from the Methane produced by the close by horse stables.

The question arises will the new Pope follow in the footsteps of the previous one? Will Pope Francis tackle Climate Change? Pope Benedict was also called the Green Pope...will the new Pope address an issue affecting the entire world community?

 That remains to be seen even as Climate Change displays its destructive impact throughout the world. As of now, Climate change is the leading cause of 400,000 deaths on an average each year. The reasons are a plenty and mostly targeted towards the developing countries. Hunger, water, communicable disease, air pollution and even cancer are the main problems affecting the poorer nations. As the West grapples with changing weather patterns in the form of droughts, thunderstorms, rain and wild fires, the international community is hoping for help from all corners. We hope the new pope will be a helping hand. 

Recently Japanese marine scientists made headlines when they announced a technological breakthrough in the extraction of Methane Hydrates from the ocean. Methane Hydrate is a mixture of natural gas and water that becomes solid in cold , high pressure conditions in deep ocean floors.These Methane Hydrates are a promising new energy source for Japan as extraction of gas from this frozen source can reap huge benefits for an energy starved nation. JOGMEC (Japan Oil Gas and Metals National Corporation) has even tentatively targeted 2019 as the year in which they commercialize this operation. Methane Hydrates or 'fire from ice' as it is popularly known has been found off the sea of Japan.

Worldwide these deposits are found in a whole lot of places and they have potentially 35 % more natural gas than other reserves. If Japan is successful it will have a supply of gas lasting the country for a 100 years. For Japan and for the rest of the world Methane Hydrates are a promising new energy source. The US  and China have major programmes for exploration and experimental extraction of the gas with the US funding 14 projects in Alaska. 

India is known to have massive deposits of Methane Hydrate estimated to be nearly 1890 trillion cu.m. In 2006, an Indo-US scientific venture found deposits of Methane Hydrates in four regions in India -the Konkan-Kerala basin, the Krishna Godavari basin, The Mahanadi Basin and the sea off the coast of the Andamans. Some of these reserves are said to be the richest in the world.

Way back in the 1970 when this discovery was made China and India along with Korea and Taiwan were on an economic fast track and this discovery came as a boon for the developing nations. Sadly, India is now nowhere in the picture. Despite having such rich reserves of Methane,  India is bound by the formidable economic and environmental challenges to exploit this resource. Industry guess estimates that the initial cost itself would be difficult to surmount add to that the fact that India does not have a National policy for this purpose in place yet. Also there is no research based marine expedition programme on the horizon in the near future. 

India needs to develop its own technologies for exploration and extraction of the Methane Hydrate. It needs an R& D centre where research can be carried out successfully. Borrowing technology from the west will not suffice as the Hydrate reserves in India have been found in fractured shales and not in sandstone as it is in Japan or the USA. The environmental issue will also have to be tackled as Methane is a greenhouse gas and its extraction will have repercussions on the planet. Attitudes and policies need to be addressed and the government has to initiate the change. 

 In July last year the discovery of a new particle made headlines across the world as it was the eureka moment of discovery for thousands of scientists working at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The discovery of the particle , then called the Boson like or 'Godlike' particle was monumental,  triggering a huge response throughout the scientific community. Scientists at CERN in Geneva said their analysis was based on well researched data and the discovery of the particle  pointed firmly towards the one described by Professor Peter Higgs in 1964 at Edinburgh University.

But now the Higgs Boson discovery is authenticated .

Its been a year and the scientists have declared the particle to be truly the Higgs Boson that they originally discovered. The reluctance to confirm the discovery 100 % is not the fault of the scientists as in particle physics certainty of a discovery can only be confirmed down to the last .01% and now the more the scientists look at the particle the more it resembles the long-sought Higgs Boson that confers mass on the building blocks of nature. The new evidence which is the result of a year long relook at the properties of the particle points towards the end of a decade long search for the particle. It also put the physicists at the journey of a new one ...where do they go from here?

Research teams and scientists have been on a voyage of discovery as far as particle physics is concerned. As more and more particles were discovered quantum mechanics became a household name. Our understanding of the universe and its creation -the fact that particles took on mass and created matter, the fact that we were created through a subatomic process has become more acceptable and we continue to understand and search for the origins of life and the Big bang. The discovery and the authentication of the Higgs Boson is a cause for celebration. In layman's terms we are on the verge of discovering the creation of the world through this particle. This discovery is said to be a huge contender for the Nobel Prize this year and has huge implications in scientific advancement. 

At present many scientists are working on a way to improve the analysis of the Higgs data that has been collected as the Large Hadron Collider is in the midst of a scheduled two-year shutdown for maintenance and will only comeback online in 2015. The machine is being refurbished and upgraded. Reasearch is not over at CERN and practical applications of the particle still need to be ascertained. Who knows what conclusions we derive from there...?

So Global Warming is here and how. Temperatures of the planet have been soaring steadily. They've never been as high in the past 4000 years as they are now and researchers insist that they are showing no sign of a decline. All this warming is causing predictable changes as sea levels rise and danger of floods increase.

More radical changes are occuring in the North as the Arctic is greening rapidly. A study conducted by NASA and University Scientists published in Nature Climate Change states the the growing season in the North is dramatically changing. Analyzing satellite and ground-based data, researchers found that the vegetation in the North resembled that found four to six degrees of latitude further south. In short the Arctic region is blooming.

Is that a good thing or bad?. According to scientists the areas which are blooming and developing new forests will aid global warming, reducing surface reflectivity and further warming the Arctic. This expansion of the forest will impact the wildlife and the inhabitants thereby tilting the delicate balance of the ecosystem. In the coming decades if the warming continues at current rates then the existing shrubs will grow to full fledged trees.

This can negatively impact the region increasing drought stress as well as insect and fire disturbances. If wildfires increase warming could accelerate. If the scientists are correct then, by 2060 these forests will spread down to Alaska and Canada. Greenland’s ice cover will shrink, turning the island over to tundra.

The accumulation of heat trapping gases like the CO2, water vapor, and methane are causing the planet's surface to warm, this warming is reducing the polar sea ice exposing the dark ocean below which in turn traps more heat and increases the heat by warming the air above the water. This phenomena has been labelled by scientists as the amplified greenhouse effect.

Future Superhumans with Nanotechnology

Posted on March 12, 2013

Superman remains a powerful force to reckon in the American Culture even after 74 years of his debut as an comic book action hero. Its easy to understand why. Superman fulfills all that we yearn for - godlike supernatural physical abilities, good looks, an indestructible and predictably consistent future, bionic limbs and a body which is superhuman. Among the new innovative technologies one talks of – ‘Superbodies of the Future ‘. This is going to happen.  As technology advances exponentially, we know for sure that by the year 2030 the solution to aging will have been found. In the coming years we will see future superhumans with nanotechnology!

How will we create Future Superhumans with Nanotechnology?  Most renowned and controversial futurist Ray Kurzweil says that by 2030 our bodies will have Nanobots the small size of red blood cells . These nanobots will be far more superior to any medical technology known to man today. These nanobots will be regulating our DNA, our immune system , getting rid of all the bad aspects and regenerating new parts. Ray Kurzweil  is known to have the most number of correct predictions about mankind and the future of technology. 

Nanotechnology is set to revolutionize the world of Sports as well as the scope of medicine. Athletes will have better -more resilient bodies after using performance enhancing drugs. The paralysed will be able to walk again using machine-brain interface which will make it possible for mechanical limbs to respond to human thought . There is some research related to healing wounds instantaneously- aportable laser pen capable of sealing up wounds.

Examples of technology used to enhance physical ability are known and not so rare, Tiger Woods underwent laser eye surgery to see better than 20/20 vision helping him to excel at Golf. Diane van Deren a former tennis player underwent lobectomy, a form of brain surgery  which altered her perception of time making her incapable of judging its passing. That surgery has enabled her to become one of the most successful female extreme distance runners in human history. Both she and Woods show no immediate outward sign of their superior physical structures they possess.

So what we hope to see in the next twenty years is revolutionary technology in a future era of unprecedented connectivity, path breaking medical innovations and a chance to be superman! 

Futuristic Fuel empowering Japan

Posted on March 8, 2013

Japan has made new strides in searching for new Eco friendly green fuels to empower itself. This latest programme is one that cannot be termed Eco friendly but it will put the need for using fossil fuels on a large scale to rest. Scientists in Japan have discovered huge caches of combustible ice just off its southwest coast. This fiery ice if used as an energy source could lay the ghosts of the Fukushima nuclear plant  to rest. This initiative was taken up by the Japanese government in 2011 after the disaster at the Nuclear plant.

This Futuristic Fuel empowering Japan is below the water. Some 1300 meters deep in the ocean lies ice which is frozen Methane. This methane in the water or Methane Hydrates as it is called is solid due to the low temperatures and high pressure in its vents below the water.

The Chemical structure of the methane gas when used after processing gives it the potential to be 164 times the volume of natural Gas.If tapped this would work out to be a big energy source.

Large amounts of similar gas has been found to be trapped beneath the Arctic ocean floor called Permafrost. There has been concern by scientists who predict that large scale warming of the atmosphere has caused this permafrost to melt and as the melting increases poisonous Methane gas will release into the atmosphere causing double the harm than that caused from CO2. 

However, if like Japan which has invested millions to fund research for extraction of Methane Hydrates, other nations would do the same then we would have enough energy to last us for a century. Meanwhile Japan continues to dig further. This month a team of scientists will drill 300 metres below the seabed. Their aim is to extract the Methane and start commercial production by 2018. 

But there are problems galore and as scientists face technical and environmental challenges one thing is certain that digging deep under high pressure conditions will not go unchecked. Safety is a big issue as is uncontrolled gas leaks and landslides. Undersea earthquakes are also a big risk factor.

Because the experiment is in the testing stage , scientists will have to carefully monitor the ocean floor .Lucia van Geuns, an energy analyst at the international energy programme of the Clingendael Institute says, “Methane hydrates could make Japan energy independent” .

Nevertheless, the fact remains that the planet holds huge reserves of Methane gas in the form of Hydrates and these are sufficient to power all nations. The US, China, Canada and South Korea are among other countries now exploring the mining of methane hydrates from their own sea beds. More experiments and initiatives have to be taken up to explore the potential of these Hydrates. http://greenfuture-tech.com