Emergency Party Button
Posted 13th May 2008 at 6:56pm by M1ke, tagged as Technology | Commenting Closed
The Emergency Party Button began as a novelty idea that has become the focus of every event that goes on in our home. A big red button is, by human nature, an object of compulsion. If you see it, you are overcome with the desire to push it. But what happens when you do?
There's little I can say about this other than that it's awesome and I'm so doing something of this ilk come summer.
Electric Planes Replace our Cars
Posted 11th May 2008 at 6:15pm by M1ke, tagged as Technology | Commenting Closed
The solution to gridlock on our overcrowded roads is to take to the air in a plane-car hybrid that will revolutionise the way society works.
BBC NEWS | Technology | Heading skyward to beat gridlock
It's certainly an interesting idea, and whilst the logistics of the public having access to personal flying vehicles is rather insane I'm happy to see that development is being done. I agree with the comments that we are long overdue to find an alternative to the combustion engine - rising prices of oil, a growing scarcity of resources and damage to the environment are all convincing factors why we need to get off the sinking ship quickly.
As a skydiver I'm pleased that within a few years we may have electric planes available to us, which whist not the transport replacement suggested in the majority of the article, will be more environmentally friendly and cheaper to run than the planes we currently use. I suspect that air sports will be some of the first to take to these craft, as they don't have large scale public considerations to worry about - its at the choice of individual airfield owners and the private pilots who fly from them. Certainly something to watch.
What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?
Posted 24th April 2008 at 6:35pm by M1ke, tagged as Technology | Commenting Closed
Modern Mechanix: What Will Life Be Like in the Year 2008?
The Modern Mechanix blog posted a very interesting article back in March, scanned in from November 1968. It's a magazine impression of "the future" and is quite an interesting read. The most remarkable thing is that whilst some areas (especially regarding transport and traffic) still seem ridiculously far flung into the future, other things have pretty much been achieved. Of course the best parts come when we've exceeded expectations, and it shows that the authors weren't scientists, just journalists with some imagination and a good knowledge of sci-fi. Its not surprising that they mention space tourism, given that it was written a year before man landed on the moon.
An interesting point is made when it discusses food - it claims that all the "housewife" will need to do will be to put pre-packaged food in a device which will produce a meal; of course whilst this does happen it shows a certain naivety that the authors didn't consider the possibilities that women would be more than "housewives" come 2008. The use of TV (and especially tape) to teach and inform was accurate of 10 years ago, but the rise of the internet superceded everyone's predictions, also making the comments about buying over the phone rather pointless.
The article does make a good read, and you wonder how many things we think of our future that just won't happen, how many will be totally blown away by something new, and how many of these things are based more around our own situations and problems than actual scientific or social trends?
Restoring Sight
Posted 23rd April 2008 at 3:18pm by M1ke, tagged as Technology | Commenting Closed
A 'bionic eye' may hold the key to returning sight to people left blind by a hereditary disease, experts believe.
I have long had a desire to see technology that can help people with very serious disabilities such as loss of senses or motor functions. There are numerous ways that people can go blind, deaf or otherwise disabled, and for these people life will be irrevocably changed. Whilst there is a lot of support through various health services and charities, being afflicted by blindness is something which until now people just had to live with.
With research into the way the eyes and the brain work, and interface with each other, scientists have been able to give people suffering from retinitis pigmentosa partial sight back. So far they are only able to show vague shapes, light and dark, but this is the first step on a road that may see these kind of physical disabilities being easily curable, and giving all those who suffer from them the same experience of the world that every healthy human should have.
Powering the Future
Posted 3rd March 2008 at 1:43pm by M1ke, tagged as Technology | Commenting Closed
A "zero-emission" sports car with a top speed of nearly 100mph is set to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show.
I'm one for new developments in power and efficiency and motor vehicles have always been one of the challenges to my opinion of how things should be powered. The problem with them is that their power source is one which is difficult to effect in any sense of environmental friendliness - changes to the petrol/diesel may stop engines running, and its certainly unfeasible to fit better exhaust or catalyst systems on every car on the road. For this reason a development in engine power only affects new cars, which in turn will remain static when more improvements are released.
As seems to be the case with many aspects of technology the real solution is in centralisation. Once we have a situation where every item in daily life (as opposed to industry) is in some way powered by electricity, every single improvement made to power generation at industry level (better filtering of emissions, more renewable sources etc.) will affect every single device or machine that we use. This car does just that because it uses hydrogen fuel cells, produced by using electricity to split water into hydrogen. Not only does the car have an excellent range, but every improvement made to large scale generation of power will benefit it, potentially reducing costs and making it steadily more environmentally friendly, without it ever needing to be "upgraded" itself. I can't wait for the day when we're all driving these things.