Lightning-Fast Wireless Charging
Device chargers ar terrible. however thus far, there hasn’t been any various to
charging cords that are simply lost or forgotten after you would like them most.
Wireless charging is far a lot of elegant and it’s commencing to seem in stores
like Starbucks, that has discovered wireless charging stations in many of its San
Francisco stores during a pilot program. Semiconductor companies like Freescale and
Broadcom ar leading the charge, therefore to talk, to create the technology even
better. the previous company says its new 15-watt, Qi-compliant wireless charging
solution are offered early in 2015, which means we tend to may before long have wireless
charging stations that recharge batteries quicker than wired technologies like USB.
Affordable, Printable Prosthetics
Earlier this year, our hearts were lifted when Kansas teen Mason Wilde used a 3D
printer to craft a prosthetic “Robohand” for his young friend, nine-year-old
Matthew, who was born without fingers on his right hand. Traditional prosthetics
can cost upwards of $40,000, but volunteers with groups like E-Nable are now
helping other kids with similar conditions, using as little as $45 in materials to craft
3D-printed hands that work via cables and an integrated tensioning system. But it
gets even better. We may soon have much more complex, 3D-printable
prosthetics using powered-up servo motors instead of simple cabling systems. To
wit, Open Bionics won the $200,000 second prize at Intel’s recent Make It
Wearable competition for its 3D-printable robotic hand for amputees—the
startup says it aims to bring the cost for such a prosthesis down to just $2,000.
SpaceX’s Reusable Rocket
In just a few years, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has gone from testing a reusable rocket
design, dubbed Grasshopper, to installing key vertical takeoff, vertical landing
(VTVL) functionality in the Falcon 9 rockets used for official missions like cargo
runs to the International Space Station. In July, the private space firm managed to
guide the Falcon 9’s first stage to a “soft” ocean landing after the launch of six
Orbcomm OG2 satellites from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The key to making its VTVL
launch vehicle reusable is to accomplish a guided set-down on land, and though
SpaceX has set a pretty ambitious timeline for making that happen as part of an
official mission, we think it may not be a reality for a few more years yet.
Wearable Drones
The winner of the $500,000 grand prize at Intel’s Make It Wearable contest, Nixie
has designed a drone aircraft that folds up its copter arms and is worn like a watch
on your wrist when not in use. It could be some time before the rather roughlooking
prototype is ready for prime time. But the Nixie, which can take photos and
video in “boomerang” or “follow me” mode, points us toward a future where drones
become truly mobile even when they’re not buzzing around in the sky.
Mainstream Self-Driving Cars
In 2014, California joined Nevada in issuing permits for self-driving vehicles—a big
step, to be sure, but automated cars like Google’s and Volvo’s remain novelties for
the time being. So when can we expect robot carriages for the masses to begin
hitting the roadways? Davide Santo, the head of Freescale’s Advanced Driver
Assistance Systems microcontroller business, says mainstream, semiautonomous
vehicles should arrive around 2017. Over the next decade, we’ll begin
sharing the road with fully automated cars, trucks, and buses. And eventually,
Santo believes, the self-driving versions will likely crowd out driver-operated
vehicles in all but a few designated areas, to the point that human-controlled
driving goes the way of the horse-drawn buggy.
United States Navy’s Laser Cannon
The U.S. Navy may have delivered 2014’s most “Star Wars is real” moment at the
very end of the year. What else can we say about the impressive demonstration of
a working laser weapon aboard the Afloat Forward Staging Base vessel, the USS
Ponce, which showed the laser blowing up ships and even a drone aircraft? The
Navy has now approved the combat use of its laser weapons system, or LaWS, in
the Persian Gulf. All very nice, but when will get an ion cannon?
Quantum Computers
By harnessing the weird, baffling properties of entangled subatomic particles, we
could someday develop computers based on quantum bits, or qubits, which are
orders of magnitude more powerful than our current calculating engines and
which could instantly transmit messages at great distances with uncrackable
security protection. The sticking point: This has proven exceedingly difficult to
accomplish, and successful experiments in quantum computing have thus far
been confined to carefully controlled laboratories, not real-world environments.
But scientists continue to plug away at the problem. Quantum computing on a
practical scale may still be a decade or more away. But just in the past few years,
researchers have developed silicon-based building blocks for a quantum
computer, created the first working quantum network, used lasers and diamonds
to achieve breakthroughs, and continued to set new distance records for
quantum teleportation.
Soft Exosuits
There’s already been a lot of work done to create powered exoskeletons to assist
soldiers carrying heavy loads or even help people suffering from severe spine
injuries to walk again. Many of these early efforts certainly look cool, but they’re
bulky and very mechanistic—think of the fearsome contraptions shown in films
like Edge of Tomorrow and Elysium. Early-stage development of “soft” exosuits
promises something very different: a much subtler muscular enhancement
system that could be worn unobtrusively. Researchers at Harvard’s Wyss Institute
for Biologically Inspired Engineering, recently awarded $2.9 million in funding from
DARPA, aim to create a smart suit that can “be worn comfortably under clothing
and could enable soldiers to walk longer distances, keep fatigue at bay, and
minimize the risk of injury when carrying heavy loads.” Wyss researchers also say
“alternative versions of the suit could eventually assist those with limited
mobility as well.”
STUFF A FEW
DECADES AWAY
Haptic Holograms
The holodeck from Star Trek may be arriving sooner than we think. The next big
breakthrough in virtual reality could be the haptic hologram, a technology using
sound waves to make virtual objects feel real to human users. Researchers at the
University of Bristol in the United Kingdom use a Leap Motion sensor to detect the
location of a user’s hand then project the feel of three-dimensional objects like
spheres and pyramids by means of “high-frequency sound waves emitted by an
array of tiny speakers [which] create the sensation of touching an invisible,
floating object,” according to New Scientist. Adding touch to the imaginary world
of increasingly advanced visual and aural replication technology would begin to
complete the futurist vision of all-encompassing VR that’s indistinguishable from
actual reality. And we can’t wait for it to happen.
Apple Watch
No, Apple won’t be creating the smartwatch market the way it did with
smartphones and consumer tablets. And yes, it seems like Apple could have
released this device at any point in the past couple of years, instead of making us
wait until early 2015. But we bet the Apple Watch, when it does arrive, will quickly
establish a standard for what a wearable should be. And it seems certain that
Apple will sell a ton of them.
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