The End of Commercial Mass Media Television

By 2015, cheap bandwidth and computer processing power, combined with powerful video compression will end commercial television. From The Inflection Point by Cringely

By extension, the end of Mass Media T.V.

Amazing "BigDog" Military Pack Mule Robot

The latest "BigDog" 4-legged military robot "pack mule", moves with an astonishing animal fluidity. Creepy, spooky, amazing... what word best suits? It's real. But turn your sound way down. There is no commentary anyway, and BigDog sounds like a chainsaw.



Follow story here.

Exoskeletons and Thought Recognition

Thought-controlled Exoskeletons are on the way. The technology already exists.

Rapidly evolving, sophisticated exoskeletons have arrived. My favorite is Sarcos exoskeleton. No need for a joystick or hand controls. You just wear it, and it mirrors your actions.

You can pump a couple hundred pounds, run, box, dance and carry heavy loads up stairs. It doubles as an autonomous robot. If it can't do so already, it would be a simple step to program it. While in the robotic suit, carry out a series of actions, save, then step out. Switch to autonomous mode and the robot will repeat what you have taught it.

Like all computer tech, these suits will continually drop in price and become ever more sophisticated. Soon they'll park in the garage next to the car or maybe take up a corner in the living room waiting for intruders.

But here's the obvious next step: This technology is also primed to make the link between thought and superhuman abilities.

Thought Recognition

Thought recognition systems directly translate brain signals into action. Eric Ramsay, a man completely paralyzed except for his eyes is translating his thoughts into speech, a monkey's leg movement brain signals control a robot across the planet, and another monkey mentally controls a robotic arm to feed itself.

As exoskeletons fluidly respond to thought, paralysed, speechless people will walk, talk and navigate. Exoskeletons will spill from military applications to industry and then to consumers to become superhuman extensions of our bodies.

Follow news on thought controlled exoskeletons here.

More on thought controlled technology here:

Google Search

Google Video

Google News (not much as of March 2009, but worth checking over time)

As Speech Recognition Software Morphs Into Thought Recognition

Since 1999, Eric Ramsay has been paralyzed and only able to move his eyes. Otherwise he's completely conscious. But a new computer/ brain interface reads his brain signals as he thinks about vocal sounds, translating them in real time. The goal is conversation, by making it possible for him to literally think out loud. This pioneering development has interesting implications for texting, search engines and much more.

Some Blue Sky Thinking...

Computer technology that translates thoughts into spoken words would also be able to turn them directly into text. That's what speech recognition software already does. So Eric Ramsay may soon be searching Google and surfing the web. It means he may soon be texting his friends and family. Making new friends and maybe show up on Twitter.

[April 22 2009 Update: Adam Wilson made history, posting to Twitter just by thinking about it.]

As electrodes give way to a skull cap, things like wireless searching, texting, messaging, Twitter, Facebook etc., could become a thumbless, mental exchange. I can hardly wait for the 'Blue-Toothers' to discover this. I mean it's freaky to watch someone striding down a street, or sitting alone at a table having a conversation with the ether. (Chuckle at this short video.)

Reverse the process and imagine computer text translated directly into your unique brain signals and show up as your own thoughts. 'These opinions are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise...'

Is there an ethicist in the house? Who said that?

More on thought controlled technology here:

Google Search

Google Video

Google News (not much as of March 2009, but worth checking over time)

Amazing Rough Terrain Robot

The six legged RHex Robot, from the makers of BigDog is designed for extreme terrain. It can seemingly go anywhere. Stairs, over rocks, through mud, swim through water, run through fields... If it gets stuck it just goes crazy until it's moving again. Kinda cute too. At least until hoards of them begin marching from our desktop fabricators only to be turned into zombies by the latest botnet.
See the video links.

The Automation of Intelligence

Automated intelligence (also known as "computational intelligence"), doesn't need to be conscious in order to realize the promise, peril and potential of Artificial Intelligence. Meanwhile, computers run human cognitive skills such as decision making, analysis, testing, learning, creativity, invention, design, self-improvement... at hyper speed... and accelerating.

Early computers leaped from the assembly lines of the industrial revolution. These accelerated typewriters, doped with shreds of human cognition; memory, logic and calculating power, plowed the paper blizzard triggered by the men and machines of the factories. And as the next page of history turned, it dissolved into electronic pulses.

Today, the heart of our world beats with increasingly powerful cognition engines. Hyper speed simulated human mental functions run non-stop throughout our global computer systems, many way beyond human capabilities. And ALL of them promise the sort of returns that attract big investment.

It's Not About Consciousness

I'm not referring to some sort of conscious system that would spend 99% of it's time making itself brighter than it's builders while delightfully distracting us with the remainder. But all the promise, peril and potential of artificial intelligence will be realized through automated intelligence. In fact, while these emerging systems process human mental functions billions of times faster than a human, most fruitful thought about its implications has been bottlenecked by the A.I. consciousness debate. So whether artificial cognition systems can or cannot become conscious, they are getting exponentially better at behaving intelligently.

Things like automated decision making, analysis, testing, learning, creativity, invention, design and self-improvement, simulations, even perception such as vision hearing smell touch taste.

Emerging Cognitive Systems

Many singular functions are networked into systems from artificial sensory systems to new armed military robots.

What's Next?

As cheaper, more powerful coordinated automated intelligence continues to accelerate, learn, network and influence our global systems, what will be the impact? What will be the hallmarks of automated cognition systems at work inside businesses, nations, the markets and our personal lives?

Stay with me to explore the implications and impact of these hyper speed self-improving cognitive systems networking with each other and the world at large. I've got some ideas and I invite yours.

(Smart Mass) Times (Acceleration) = Smartforce

Swarming behavior is an accelerating social force.

Emerging from the global connectedness of cell phones, the Web, Email distribution lists etc., technological swarming is a novel development in Guerrilla warfare, protest, politics, journalism, and every social sphere. Experiment for yourself with some searches.

This one snagged me though: From China to Colorado, consumers are connecting online in coordinated "mob buying" sprees. A Smartforce of hundreds of people ready to purchase big ticket items, swarm temporarily into a collective that sellers are willing to compete for.

Here's a classic shot of a journalistic flash scoop collectively aiming their phonecams at the New York steam pipe explosion.

Emotional Reactions to Robots

At first I thought it was just me. Watching a recent video of a new 'pack-mule' robot (nicknamed BigDog) being tested by the US military, I suddenly began feeling pity.

I know it's just a machine. But during testing inside a small room, when a researcher kicked it to demonstrate how it recovers with an animal-like fluidity, I was secretly wishing it would kick back. But it also moves like 2 torso-less people trying to move a couch. That made me laugh.

Both of those responses came directly from the animal-like motion. And this highly complex movement is a sign of how advanced robotics is becoming.

This discussion on Digg has several posts describing emotional reactions to the vid.

Update: Mar 17 2008 Check out BigDog on ice, snow, climbing over cinder blocks, jumping and more.

Want to see more creepy robot motion? See the tree climbing robot that moves and looks like a cockroach that recently crawled out of university research labs. Others move like spiders and snakes.

Robots Are Evolving In Chunks

High quality reusable intelligent robot functions are hitting the market. Both the legwork of BigDog and the stability of the 2 wheeled Segway base have been adopted by the US military.

Also consider face recognition. Indeed, all of the senses, abilities and aptitudes found in nature are being reproduced and implanted into machines.

Robots of all kinds will very soon be everywhere while getting smarter very fast.

Marshall Brain's excellent read on the approaching impact of robots can be found here.

Technology, Computers and Innovation: Why Everything is Speeding Up

Our grandparents incredulously shook their heads at the moon landing, microwave ovens, nuclear bombs and computers. Theirs was the first generation to actually feel technology speed up. Today, crude replicators, new forms of Intelligence, immortality and the very reigns of evolution are within our grasp. Why IS everything speeding up?

Innovation MEANS Acceleration

Ideas trigger ideas. Step into any research lab, and you'd probably interrupt someone methodically confirming or disproving some theory. Boiling enormous amounts of information down to one bit of data. Either yes or no.

But once that tiny single grain of new truth is harvested, new knowledge, questions and ideas automatically spring forth. There’s suddenly a whole other set of things you can do. This is the classic feedback loop of discovery.

Time saving innovations create another self reinforcing loop. Think of all the things we use to save time. Our dishwashers, cars and computers free us from one set of demands but give birth to new urgencies. Our cars make it possible to live further from work. So we commute for an hour. Dishwashers make it possible to catch up on the Email we receive from all of those people around the world we could never have met any other way. So time saving solutions also incrementally speed up the pace of life. More events get crammed into shorter periods of time. Including world changing events.

As we shall see, these simple feedback loops have been speeding up for thousands of years. And we have arrived upon the scene in time to witness leisurely progress become super accelerated.

It's Been A Long Time Coming

"We didn't start the fire. It was always burning since the world's been turning." Billy Joel

The world seemed as still as stone for thousands of years and technology moved as slow as amber. Take a 100,000 year walk back with me. Notice ancient hands transform logs into levers, wheels and axles. Watch these three simple innovations morph into a wheelbarrow.

Flash forward as wheelbarrows transform into wagons going 2 miles per hour, chariots at 20 mph, cars at 100 mph, trains at 300 mph, planes at 2000 mph, rockets at 4000 mph, spacecraft at 18000 mph... Innovations beget ever more and powerful innovations because each advancement illuminates a new set of still greater possibilities.

Why Our World Is Noticeably Speeding Up

It was only last century that our grandparents incredulously shook their heads at the moon landing, microwave ovens that heated only the food and not the container, nuclear bombs and computers. Theirs was the first generation to actually feel technology speed up. A mere half generation later, crude replicators, new forms of Intelligence, immortality and the very reigns of evolution are suddenly within our grasp.

Computers Changed Everything

The BIG invention was computers because they are embedded with memory, logic and calculating power. Shreds of human intelligence. Things sped up dramatically since the computer (including computers) because each generation of computer chip could be harnessed to propagate the next. Now all of our world is speeding up in lockstep with the acceleration of computing.

Centuries ago the pool of innovations we sipped from was small and local. But on the Internet, our global ocean of knowledge and a worldwide pool of innovators are brought together.

Today's automobiles spring both from inventions, knowledge and processes as far back as fire and the wheel as they do from networked minds blanketing the globe.

Is There An End In Sight?

Most of tomorrow's inventions, from new drugs, to enhancing our abilities with embedded computing, to the progress we make with Artificial Intelligence, will be about coping with the acceleration. As a species, we CAN do more than survive. We could thrive and discover ourselves in ways we now believe impossible. But, as far as I can see, the acceleration will eventually go far beyond us. Soon AI will be as good at the same intelligence feedback loop we've been using since the evolution of our opposable thumbs - and accelerating.

Why You Should Know About The Digital Revolution

The computer revolution, the information revolution. You hear talk within the media about some revolution that is supposed to change everything.

Yes, there is a revolution so profound in it's implication, so sweeping in it's scope, and eventually so pervasive in it's effects, that it will change everything, but it is neither of these.

The two big revolutions we have seen so far are the Agricultural revolution which began about 3000 years ago, and the Industrial revolution which began about 300 years ago. I am convinced that we are simply in the heyday of the Industrial revolution, the final strokes of a mighty brush, which because of the Industrial revolution's drive to automate, simply paints faster and faster.

The acceleration of change we are witnessing is the logical outcome of the drive to automate causing history to unfold faster and faster.

Computers are simply machines which automate the processing of information. Because the most important underpinnings of our present world rely so heavily on information, (Economy, Government, Commerce, Business, Education Military, Media etc.), and because computers do that so quickly, all of these systems are speeding up, with change being the only constant. Therefore, these things do not represent something new, so much as the same unfolding process accelerating.

But the true revolution, the one that will change everything, the one with all of the wild cards, is just beginning. It is the digital revolution. At it's very core it IS new. It's about translating atoms into bits of data. Let's talk about that, and why you should know about it.

Shakespeare once spoke of a "tide in the affairs of men" and how valuable it is to recognize it early.

When you consider all of the things that you do which are repetitive, someone, somewhere is working on automating that process.

However, the digital revolution (the translation of real world experiences into bits or data) represents a still deeper shift in the "tide". That is because everything that can be digitized is being digitized. And everything can potentially be digitized. Sounds, images, movement, thought processes, information, knowledge, intelligence... In other words, everything that can be translated to data will eventually be data. Boring you say?

Well consider that the meaning of data has barely begun to dawn on us. Everything we sense is converted to data by our brain. It's called "sensory data". What we now call virtual reality is a vague shadow of what is to come. By then, our world will have completely shifted from the focus on atoms to bits of data.

Once things become digitized, their cost goes into free fall while rapidly accelerating in power and reach. Digital Cell phones loaded with digital cameras communicating across digital networks are leaching the mass from media spawning a new viable grass roots media. Notice how quickly digital devices; computers, phones and iPods spread and evolve. Or how the digitization of entertainment through MP3s or video on DVD have so quickly outstripped the recording and movie industries ability to stop it.

Meanwhile, look around at what physical things become vaporized due to the thrust of digitization: Paper, tape cassettes, photo development processes may quickly spring to mind.

Some cars have no physical link between the accelerator pedal and the engine. When you depress the accelerator, you are actually sending a digital signal to a computer. The pedal might as well be a mouse.

What about farm equipment and the land upon which it tills? Bio-engineering has already produced oranges that grow in vats. An entire "orange grove" sits inside a room, without trees, branches, leaves or dirt. What the digital revolution will do with Real Estate, it can do with practically anything else.

Look at all of the tasks that are repetitive where you work. These are the most fruitful to begin considering in a new light. The sheer amount of opportunities can be blinding at first glance, so start with customer service tasks. Specifically communication needs. Are there repetitive information requests that would better serve these people if they were automated? What about information that WOULD be very valuable, but because of distribution or production costs (printing etc.) it has never been fully implemented?

Now ask yourself how technology could make obsolete some of your equipment, products and or services. If it is conceivable to you, it is achievable. Pay attention to news releases about these areas. The best way I know of doing that right now is by using RSS. Have a robot scan hundreds of your favorite Websites and automatically deliver new information rather than surf for it.

(This is an excellent example of innovative people re-engineering the Web using these principles.)

So, if I have offered you any perspective at all, it is the direction in which to begin casting your flashlight.

For the best description of this emerging digital world, read "Being Digital" by Nicholas Negroponte. Lucid, easy to read and understand, it is at the top of my recommended list.

Warm regards,

Ted

The Dangerous Convergence of Technology and Warfare

Technology decentralizes power; military, political, economic, media, energy... all of it. Because once a medium becomes digitized, it must move with the laws of networked information. Distributed, connected, decentralized, democratized, Peer-to-peer ... Eventually grass roots. From the hands of the few to the masses.

The Internet is possible because of the computerized digitization of text, audio and video. The fight over music copyrights emerges from the digitization of audio. Pirated Hollywood movies can arrive online within hours of release because of the digitization of video.

The same pattern is also occurring within manufacturing which will soon give birth to desktop fabrication and crude (at first) replicators. A. I. will emerge as we get far enough down the road in digitizing intelligence. And this ongoing digitization of everything allows ever smaller groups to wage increasingly potent warfare.

This nexus of technology and warfare are probably the biggest challenge we face as a species. But the increasing acceleration and magnitude of political violence is also driving technological solutions to it. Ultimately the solution to global violence will be distributed as well, meaning we, the masses will somehow become the solution.

Computers Will Become Vastly Simpler To Use

Marshall Brain is an ongoing source of great, well articulated ideas.

I really like his "as simple as possible but no simpler" writing style. His way of removing the complexity and jargon while retaining the essence is why I always look forward to articles like this in which he points to a near future scenario in which our increasingly powerful computers become vastly simpler to use.

It's also great to see some fresh light on this subject.

I recall Eric Schmidt talked about the hollowing out of the computer in a similar manner quite a while back. Bob Metcalfe expanded on the concept in his article "The Coming Software Shift".

As our applications inevitably migrate from our computers to the network, the network literally becomes the computer.

This new supercomputer gets faster as bandwidth increases. A completely optical network means bandwidth would approach the speed of light. My computer could use your hardware as seamlessly as mine.

Meanwhile Ray Kurzweils predictions of $1000 of hardware with the processing power of a human brain arising within our lifetimes is also quite conceivable.

These factors, combined with Metcalfe's Law (The power of the network increases exponentially by the number of computers connected to it) all point to an emergent, distributed, networked, increasingly "intelligent" global nervous system.

And we've got front row seats :)

Stay well,

Ted

When Politics Is Driven From The Bottom Up

As information technology evolves, new ways of spreading information spontaneously emerge.

Inevitably, "mass media" becomes decentralized meaning our news about things we are interested in increasingly comes from the people we are connected to. Centralized media, in order to survive, will need to serve that end.

Email, web, texting, messaging, phone, fax, autoresponders, phone cams ... Evolving according to their utility (how useful they are) and how they reduce transaction costs (how much simpler, cheaper, more effective they are), existing technologies become the technology base from which new technologies emerge, in an ever widening spiral of growth.

Overheard On A Streetcorner: "Something Me" by Cameron Marlow

"While walking home from work the other day I passed a group of guys emerging from a pizza joint. After a few handshakes and goodbyes they parted ways and made arrangements for their next meeting. And then one of them yelled across the street, "something me on Thursday." His friend looked a little confused, but I knew exactly what he was talking about. He added, "IM, call, email... I don't care."

So as new adopted communications technologies become as saturated as Email, we can expect grass roots political force to grow.

What interests me is the potential untapped power of the connected masses. The computational power of all connected home desktops in North America is far greater than the most powerful supercomputer. Even Google, which has an estimated computational capacity surpassing the most powerful supercomputer and approaching that of the human brain.

Estimates are that
the Human brain computes somewhere between 100 TERAflops and 1000 Teraflops,
and Google performs somwhere between 100 and 300 teraflops.

P.S. Since doing that bit of research, every time Google checks my spelling and responds with "did you mean..." the hair stands on the back of my neck :)

Another example:
I don't know how current the Seti@home FAQ is, but they claim 15 TeraFLOPs at a cost of $500K and they are comparing it with IBM's ASCI White, rated at 12 TeraFLOPS with a cost of $110 million.

This potential computational power foreshadows the coming networked intelligence of the masses.

The economics of distributed communications technologies increase exponentially as more nodes are added to the network. As smart mobs become smart masses, political weight tilts faster and faster towards an irrevocable tipping point at which politics will be driven from the bottom up.

I see the day when the politics of local communities reflect the conscience of local mothers, the needs of children and all the things a community really wants in order to thrive and grow functionally.

Our Emerging Global Nervous System

We're accelerating towards a global computing grid which will tap unimaginable power from hundreds of thousands of computers, as powerful as a brain. The collective intelligence which emerges will rival our present fantasies of Artificial Intelligence

As we modelled the eye to build cameras, the brain to build computers, the ear to build speakers, we're modeling our autonomic nervous system to build the next evolutionary step in computing. Networks that independently and reflexively self -regulate, configure, repair, optimize, and protect in the same sense as an immune system or an automatic pilot.

This would allow the network to automatically manage server load balancing, process allocation, monitor the power supply, automatic update software and fend off threats without having to consult the administrator.

For example, if an application starts performing badly, it automatically receives increased resources. If software or hardware fails, it doesn't even ripple the end users coffee. An autonomous computing system would roll out new patches, monitor and adjust the resources singular end users need, set up servers... all the mundane stuff.

The complexity of integrating and managing the latest hardware and software into existing systems is destroying the advantages of economies of scale. Autonomic computing is one way of insulating the IT administrator from the mundane complexities and freeing them to do other more interesting things like understanding the needs of the business more, or modelling and automating existing business processes.

On a larger scale, it spells an evolutionary move towards a decentralized global self-configuring, self-healing, self-optimizing, and self-protecting nervous system. Since Autonomic Computing can look for patterns in data and extrapolate to predict future events, deployed on a global scale, the spin-offs will be very interesting.

As We Begin Inventing Our Evolution. Some Well Thought Out Near Future Scenarios from the Washington Post

Well written article about some of the technologies just arriving: Pain vaccines. Computers that enable us to move things with thought. Personal Gene sequencing for $10. Enhancements to our memories, metabolisms, personalities and offspring. It will all be adopted as avidly as Viagara for the same reasons. Here's the Link

A Few Quotes from the Article

"No one really has the guts to say it, but if we could make better human beings by knowing how to add genes, why shouldn't we?"
James Watson, co-winner of the Nobel Prize for discovering the structure of DNA

"We have spent billions to unravel our biology, not out of idle curiosity, but in the hope of bettering our lives. We are not about to turn away from this."
Gregory Stock of UCLA on the decoding of the human genome.

"All the political energy that has gone into this issue -- it is not even slowing down the most narrow approach." It is simply being pursued outside the United States -- in China, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, Scandinavia and Great Britain, where scientists will probably achieve success first.
Ray Kurzweil, on the controversy over the use of stem cells from human embryos.

More on emerging technologies here.

The Rise of Personal Desktop Fabrication and Replicators

In October 2004, I began tracking the rise of crude personal fabricators hacked from Inkjet printers. We are now on the verge of self-replicating fabricators and self assembling, replicating, and repairing robots. Here's the whole story...

My research began with the use of Inkjet printers to produce physical objects. The full story is in the above link. It involves hacked Inkjet printers spitting polymer instead of ink to create extremely detailed 3d physical objects. Initially, this was a cheaper and faster way to produce a prototype from a 3d computer model.

But since inkjet technology allows the very exact mixing of 3 basic colored inks into photographic quality results, it was also used to mix precisely charged polymers. A growing array of computer parts, complete working gadgets and solar cells followed from the widening jaw of the humble inkjet.

Polymer soon gave way to new mediums as researchers discovered they could use practically any pulverized material mixed with a suitable glue. Hard objects made from powdered ceramics and tungsten demonstrated that actual working parts (instead of just prototypes) were possible.

Then the pace quickened. Researchers Hod Lipson and Jordan B. Pollack at Brandeis University coupled inkjet technology and software to autonomously design and fabricate robots without human intervention. Other labs were using Inkjets to produce actual human skin complete with blood vessels.

The Rise of Personal Fabricators

In March 2005, engineers at the University of Bath worked on a machine to rapid prototype and replicate itself.

In early May, Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, announced his determination to produce affordable, replicating personal fabricators.

Later in May, Hod Lipson (who previously announced the process to design and fabricate robots without human intervention) pointed out the arrival of simple self replicating robots. I'll stay on top of this developing story.

The Evolution of Lego? Self Replicating Robots

Out of Cornell rises a self assembling/ replicating robot composed of independently functioning cubes allowing it to assume a range of three-dimensional shapes. Each cube is preprogrammed with step-by-step instructions on how to replicate the robotic structure.

(This is part of a developing story about the rise of personal desktop fabrication and replicators).

Dismissing any doubt that self replicating machines are possible, the modular design with intelligence built into each module, points a way to self-repairing, assembling and replicating robots.

Applications

More complex robots are possible. Adding grippers, cameras, new sensors etc. would allow the assembled robot to see, hear, move... A robot could assemble and reassemble itself into a new structure to deal with novel events.

The research team has set it's sights on a molecular version. The cubes, like molecules, are held together with magnets that turn on and off. Like biological life forms, they (crudely) replicate in 2005 and programmed to stop reproducing after 2 generations.

Implications

Nanomachines: Lipson is interested in making these machines at microscale. That could drive major advances in Nanotechnology because huge numbers of robots are needed to manufacture things at a molecular scale. Self-replication is how biology does it.

Imagine scaling the size of this self replicating design down in half each year. Increasingly complex structures, detail and properties would emerge. Each new generation would be exponentially more capable. Every 3 1/2 years the modules would shrink to one 10th the size. The cubes are now about 10 centimeters square. By 2010 the modules would be about smaller than the ball of your pen. By 2015 they would approach the size of the period at the end of this sentence. Each with equal or greater computational power than they have now, loaded with sensors and new properties.

Each module could become a pixel in the construction of an object. Kind of like those "Pin Art" toys that you press to your hand, face or some object. It would form itself from instructions and be able to walk, roll, climb and move about. Perhaps even swim or fly. And replicate as long as the supply of modules lasts.

It's absolutely conceivable because Technology is inherently self-accelerating. In an ever quickening loop, the power of technology naturally accelerates in speed, magnitude and scope while dropping in cost.

Beyond that is the doorway to manufacturing with molecules. At the molecular scale it would be capable of producing perfectly designed objects, energy sources, even food. It is a very powerful existence proof of what is on the near horizon.

The movie (accelerated 4X) is eerie to watch. It's easy to imagine a clutter of cubes picking themselves up and walking towards you.

Updated News Here

Emerging Technologies

Intriguing points from 10 Emerging technologies that will affect the Internet, Computing, medicine, energy, air travel, nanotechnology and more. Carbon Nanotubes are emerging superheroes. Powerful Exoskeletons represent the near future emergence of Robots and Human technological evolution.

• NANOELECTRONICS Carbon Nanotubes make possible ultradense data storage. Within 20 years, you may be able to fit the content of all the DVDs ever made on your laptop computer or store a digital file containing every conversation you have ever had on a handheld device.


• Quantum Wires spun from carbon nanotubes to transform the electrical power grid. They are much lighter and stronger with a capacity ten times that of the current steel-reinforced aluminum cables used in today’s aging power grid. And they perform as well as existing superconductors.


• Biomechatronics is producing robotic prostheses that can communicate with users’ nervous systems. By 2012, spinal-cord injury patients will move their limbs again by controlling robotic exoskeletons strapped onto them.


• Silicon Photonics will allow everything from supercomputers to the tiniest transistors talk to each other from around the world at the speed of light. That means your personal computer could access the hardware and software resources of other computers as quickly as it's own. It also means the entire world's computers could combine and operate as one computer. Supercomputing and Artificial Intelligence will belong to everyone.


• Airborne Networks will automate flight control using GPS. Each plane would be networked with other air borne planes, continually transmitting identity, precise location, speed, etc. to other planes in the sky. Software would coordinate them.


• Metabolomics will make it possible to distinguish between an individual who is healthy and someone who has, or might develop, a disease. Very early detection.


• Magnetic-Resonance Force Microscopy will soon provide a 3-D view of the nanoworld. Designing molecular machines will be much easier when we are able to see the arrangement of the atoms in the individual molecules we are working with. The impact on chemistry, biology and molecular nanotechnology will be huge.


• Bacterial Factories would reduce the cost of a malaria cure to less than 25 cents.


• Cell-Phone Viruses mean viruses can infect cell phones and then be passed on to supposedly secure networks.

Track Your Gps Enabled Vehicle Live with Google Maps

Track your GPS enabled vehicle live with this innovative Google Maps hack. For a few hundred dollars in parts and an onboard webcam, you can zoom right down to street level from Google Maps and look out of the vehicle. See the picture for how cool this is.

Review of Neil Gershenfeld: How Personal Fabricators Will Revolutionize Our World

Neil Gershenfeld, director of MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, who runs a one-semester smash-hit class called "How to Make Almost Anything", is determined to produce affordable, replicating personal fabricators by 2025.

(This is part of a developing story about the rise of personal desktop fabrication and replicators).

Today we fabricate by melting plastic and whacking metal with a little digital help at each end of the manufacturing process. Soon, the materials we build with will be digital, forming themselves into the shapes we now force atoms into. That's the big change knocking at our door.

Speaking at the Emerging Technology Conference, he illustrated how, within 10 to 20 years:

• Affordable desktop personal fabricators as powerful as an automobile plant will produce most any manufactured product you can imagine.


• The products emerging from these desktop "FabLabs" will be saturated with accelerating computational intelligence.


• They will be self-replicating.

Their ability to self-replicate will ensure they meet the exponentially rising demand. As they rapidly spread to thousands and then millions of people, they will mutate and evolve; enlisted to propagate their own next generation.

The Edge of a Revolution in Digital Personal Fabrication

Neil believes the only thing standing in the way of making this happen is getting the word out. These FabLabs are now only about $20,000. When they begin self replicating the cost will drop like a stone.

One business model involves setting up fab labs within communities. People would create for no charge and useful items would become marketable products.

Download the MP3 here. The discussion on desktop rapid prototyping is excellent too when Dr. Gershenfeld is joined by Dale Dougherty from O'Reilly Media, Bran Ferren from Applied Minds and Saul Griffith from Squid:Labs.