Web Data:


* Huge number of volunteers for genome database

Telepathy:
* “Force Trainer” toy provides MRI for kids.
* Implant wires motor cortex to computer.

“Green” tech:
* “Mission One” electric motorcycle goes 150mph, with a 150-mile range and an optimum charge time of 2 hours.

I’ve been thinking about the future of currency this evening, and oh! I made a quick little simulation of the Fibonacci sequence the other day.

Robotics confronts me continuously online, to the point where I cease to keep track. In terms of military equipment there is Ember, TROPHY, and the old news predator UAV, which I was unhappy to learn now advertises on Hulu (unable to find link, sorry).

More links abound. Seriously. I could do this all day.

Oh, and speaking of Hulu, there was an interview on the Colbert Report (last section) just the other day with Seth Shostak. At the very end of the interview (roughly 20:45), Dr. Shostak points out that the alien life that we make first contact with is likely to be “beyond-biology.” That is, that they’re likely to be AI.

I applaud the out of the box thinking on this one. Most sci-fi would have us in fist-fights with bipedal cat-people, and I think aliens have gotten a bit of a bad rep for it. (Apologies for picking on sci-fi, though. I do so love it.) But I really think that Shostak is wrong here. The biological systems that have evolved over the last three billion years are incredibly more complex and efficient than anything artificial, and I would even state that it is more efficient than anything we’re likely to develop in the next century.

Just for a second, imagine a nano-machine that communicated with other bots with a swarm network to create macroscopic effects, re-arrange in the swarm or repair itself. Now imagine that this machine not only could self-replicate, but could do so in a sustainable fashion with very little waste and even make small improvements upon itself. I just roughly described a biological cell.

Now, let me be very clear, computers and machinery are VERY useful, and capable of doing many things that organisms cannot. My point is simply that there are many things that both approaches cannot accomplish easily, and that the path of least resistance is in combining artifice with the vast amount of powerful organic machinery all around us. We already do this to an extent, where the newest microprocessors are created by applying the human brain in conjunction with present day computers, and where the newest human brains grow in an environment that is connected by technology. We cure disease and disability so that we can live happier lives, but as we do so we cease to exist as a purely biological species. And in that same way, I cannot believe that the machines of the future could not be at least partially organic.

The following (including music) is entirely the product of computer algorithms; a.k.a. procedurally generated content:

We’re getting closer to good brain-interfaces:

I think that the above video is the equivalent of watching a tech demo of cell phones in the late 1980s. Give it 20 years and it’ll be everywhere, give it 40 years and it’ll be unthinkable to control a computer with something other than the brain.

Other things that have been exiting for me:
* Exoplanets
* Exoskeletons
* Netbooks (more)

Take note: The collision between cellphones and personal computers is happening. A good amount of resistance to adopting netbooks probably comes from PC gaming (it certainly does for me) and lack of good cloud-based applications. These problems are being solved though, and I anticipate a full integration by 2015.

EDIT: Oh! I forgot this one!