NEWS : TECH (NFPC)

Spy Agency Predicts Megahumans By 2030

In the year 2030, Asia will surpass North America and Europe and become the global economic powerhouse it once was during the Middle Ages. Deaths from communicable disease will drop by 40 percent. The majority of the world's population won't be poor and among them will walk bionic superhumans with neuro-pharmaceutical drugs coursing through their veins.

These are just a very small fraction of the predictions made by the soothsayers over at the National Intelligence Council (NIC), a US coalition of 17 government intelligence agencies. The NIC's prophecies were recently detailed in Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds, a 140-page report that identifies "megatrends" expected to emerge over the next 18 years and radically alter the world as we know it today. The report is the fifth installment of NIC's Global Trends series, which seeks to provide a proactive framework for thinking about the future.

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"We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures," writes Christopher Kojm, NIC chairman, in the report's introduction. "It is our contention that the future is not set in stone, but is malleable, the result of an interplay among megatrends, game-changers and, above all, human agency."

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Chief among the megatrends is the diffusion of power and individual empowerment. The West is set to take a back seat to Asia's economy as technology levels the playing field and other "non-Western or middle-tier states" begin to rise. The middle class is expected to expand in most countries, but won't feel secure due to the one billion workers from developing countries expected to flood the labor pool.

Global demographics are expected to shift as well. Life-expectancy rates are likely to soar, leading to an increase in global population from 7.1 billion today to around 8 billion in 2030. Much of this population will gravitate towards megacities as urbanization is set to grow by nearly 60 percent.

As population swells, so too will competition for resources. Demand for food is expected to rise 35 percent and energy 50 percent. Half the world will live in areas with severe water stress.

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You see where this is going. As the global population becomes more intelligent, more healthy and more prosperous due to positive technological developments in a wide range of fields, it's creating a promising, yet vulnerable future. That's to say nothing of game-changing scenarios like nuclear war, pandemics and bioterrorism.

"Our effort is to encourage decision-makers, whether in government or outside, to think and plan for the long term so that negative futures do not occur and positive ones have a better chance of unfolding," writes Kojm.

Who those decisions-makers will be and whether they'll lead the globe into chaos or order, feast or famine, is anyone's guess. What's crystal clear, though, is that 2030 will be beyond our wildest imagination.

"As replacement limb technology advances, people may choose to enhance their physical selves as they do with cosmetic surgery today," the report states. "Future retinal eye implants could enable night vision, and neuro-enhancements could provide superior memory recall or speed of thought."  

via RT

Credit: Digital Vision / Getty Images

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Clothes Hangers Clean Clothes: DNews Nugget

Clothes Hangers Clean Clothes: Not every item of clothing we own needs to be laundered with soap and water after each wearing. But they could stand to be freshened up. Design graduate Lisa Marie Bengtsson has just the thing: a clothes hanger that has an activated charcoal filter.

Activated charcoal is treated with oxygen to give it extra absorbing powers to banish smells within a few days. The charcoal is contained in a glass chamber at the top of a ring-shaped hanger and is designed to be replaced after several hangings.

It's just a concept now, but it's clear that airing out clothing could save water and energy. via Gizmag

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Dude, Robot Turtles Are Totally Taking Over

They don't make pizzas or live in the sewers but a robotic turtle made by Swiss mechanical engineers is set to go exploring. With a shell that can hide high-tech gear and fast speed, this guy could kick some butt.

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Mechanical engineers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology have been hard at work on a robotic sea turtle project called "Naro-Tartaruga" since 2008. Led by masters student Cedric P. Siegenthaler, the project has support from Disney Research Zurich and the Center of Structure Technologies. The latest prototype will finally be heading for its first open water dive later this month, according to IEEE Spectrum.

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The most recent robot prototype features a large waterproof torso that can pack in a bunch of sensors and batteries needed to keep it working. The robot is several feet long, primarily made of aluminum, and can move a meter per second, which translates into 6.6 feet. Each fin contains three actuators for 3-D movement and the robot has a diving depth of more than 300 feet, according to the specifications.

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Here at Discovery News we've covered a lot of robotic fish developments, including ones that can detect pollution and lead real fish away from danger. A robotic sea turtle could have several key advantages over fish including extra maneuverability, capability and speed. Not to mention all that space to stuff in high-tech gadgetry under the shell.

While the robot-turtle can be controlled remotely, it's primarily intended to push the limits of autonomous underwater navigation. All that's missing is a ninja eye mask.

Image: The "Naro-Tartaruga," a robotic turtle made by Swiss mechanical engineering students. Credit: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

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How Do Hotels Keep Hot Water: Gotta-See Video

Showering in the morning can be a gamble in some apartments and households. If you're the first one up, you're fine, but if not, you may have a cold morning.

The Science Channel looked into how hotels keep enough hot water on hand for all of the guests. They don't store it in a tank like in most American homes, instead they heat the water and constantly pump it throughout the building, ensuring everyone uses it at the same time. The process is intricate and complex, but without it we would all be out in the cold on our next vacation. via Science Channel

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Freshwater Ecosystem Lives Off Seawater

Over half of the world's population lives and works within 120 miles from a coastline. Regardless of your views on climate change, it's safe to say that rising sea levels would present nothing short of a catastrophe. 

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In the event that the ivory towers of denial do start to surround with sea water, detractors will be happy to know that Studiomobile won't leave you high and dry.

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Billing themselves as makers of art and technology for architecture and urban research, the firm came up Networking Nature, an ecosystem that lives off seawater and produces fresh drinking water.

Glass tanks anchored near the coast would fill with seawater where a series of solar-powered stills would extract fresh water. Heat produced by small lamps would evaporate the saltwater and convert the condensed steam into fresh water. That water would then be collected in reservoirs near the coast and distributed to those who need it.

Here's how Studiomobile explains it:

However, water is not produced in isolated systems under central control. The new model provides for a large ecological infrastructure as well as small local production units connected to a network able to integrate the production of fresh water and to supply it where needed. It's a Smart Water Network controlled by sensors that read the local lack of water and, through an Arduino board, activate the pumps providing the water where there is a peak of demand. The Smart Water Network will be a layer of the ecological network as well as the Smart Power Grid and the communications network. This strategy not only gives response to the preservation of the environment, but it is also a radically new model that ensures free and democratic access to the resources to everybody.

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Networking Nature was created for the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale.

via Inhabitat

credit: Studiomobile

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Navy Wants to Turn Seawater Into Jet Biofuel

Naval scientists are turning seawater into biofuel. Besides using a readily available resource, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory thinks its special process could make seawater jet fuel as cheap as regular gasoline.

Refueling at sea currently costs a ton of money because all that fuel requires extra fuel to be delivered. This week the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, the Navy's scientific lab based in D.C., announced that it's hard at work on an intricate process that breaks seawater down into hydrogen gas and hydrogen, which could then be converted into biofuel.

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The NRL's press release about their scientific process had echoes of an academic paper for a chemistry journal, but from what I gather they've got a portable prototype called a "carbon capture skid" that's about five feet tall. Inside are three chambers designed to produce hydrogen gas and capture carbon dioxide.

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After the seawater goes through the skid, there'd be a two-step process to make liquid hydrocarbons -- proto-jet fuel if you will -- from the hydrogen gas and CO2. Then that liquid would just need to be converted using another reaction. We're not at a point where this all works smoothly, yet. The NRL is still developing all those steps.

"The potential payoff is the ability to produce JP-5 fuel [jet fuel] stock at sea reducing the logistics tail on fuel delivery with no environmental burden and increasing the Navy's energy security and independence," Navy research chemist Heather Willauer said in the release.

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Over the course of last year, the Navy delivered around 600 million gallons to its vessels at sea. Such a feat required running 15 replenishment oilers worldwide. But as Treehugger's Mat McDermott rightly pointed out, the green aspect here isn't reducing emissions but reducing the energy required to transport fuel in the first place. Emissions would still be similar to what they are now.

The economic advantages to this emerging tech might be more persuasive. The NRL's initial studies predict jetfuel could cost as little as $3 to $6 a gallon using this seawater process. That's a boatload of savings.

Photo: A U.S. Navy aircraft launches from the flightdeck in August. Credit: John Haynes, U.S. Navy

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Shower Doubles as a Washing Machine

 

You do all you can to help the environment. You recycle, use compact fluorescent bulbs and even keep your home slightly balmier than you'd like on a hot summer day. The one thing that's really hard to tone down? The nice long shower at the end of a hard day. Four Industrial Design students from Turkey feel your pain, so they developed Washit.

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Washit is a shower and washing machine all in one. Two waters pumps, three different kinds of filters (carbon, organic and chemical), UV filters and a water heater make up this double-use appliance. Don't get weirded out, here's how it works: The shower stall takes gray water that collects at the bottom during a shower, filters it, puts it through a UV cleaning phase and then sends it to a water tank. When a user wants to do laundry, she can access the washing machine from outside of the stall and use the filtered water to clean her clothes.

The Washit is still in design mode, but it did win the IF Concept Design Award. After such a big win, the creators are now working on a usable prototype.

via DVICE

Credit: Ahmet Burak Aktas, Salih Berk Ilhan, Adem Onalan, Burak Soylemez

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Sun-Powered Oven Makes Salt Water Drinkable

What if getting clean, drinkable water to developing countries was as simple as using a resource they already have in abundance? Sunlight. Designer Gabriele Diamanti believes this simple idea is key to solving the world's water problem -- so much so, that's he created the Eliodomestico oven, which turns salt water into drinkable water.

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Diamanti explains the oven by saying it works like an "upside down coffee maker." A boiler is filled with salt water and left out in the sun. As the temperature rises, pressure increases in the sealed oven producing steam, which is forced down through a pipe. The lid of the oven collects this steam and condenses it into drinking water. This oven only uses heat from the sun and requires absolutely no electricity.

Diamanti wants the project to remain open-sourced, meaning that it will always be evolving because anyone, from designers to local communities, can modify or improve it.

While a finished product is still in development, the oven has earned a Core 77 Design award and accolades from others in the design industry. The hope is that the recognition will lead to funding and help move this project out of the development phases and into the homes of the families that need drinkable water most.

Check out the video below for a full description from Diamanti.

Credit: Humans Invent

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Underwater Wheelchair Freewheels the Deep

When it comes to diving into the waters of self expression, British artist Sue Austin is as freewheeling as they come. As the 2012 Paralympics kick off this week in London, Austin has been making waves with a series of performances and film screenings of "Creating the Spectacle," a theatrical video of Austin as she navigates the deep in her underwater wheelchair.

According to the project's website, the work's "unexpected juxtapositions" aim "to excite and inspire by creating images that transform preconceptions."

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Austin, who's been in a wheelchair since 1996, told the BBC that she first had the idea for the project after learning to scuba dive in 2005.

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"When we started talking to people about it, engineers were saying it wouldn't work, the wheelchair would go into a spin, it was not designed to go through water -- but I was sure it would," she said.

Austin's wheelchair is powered by two dive propulsion thrusters under her seat. To steer, Austin slips her feet into an acrylic, U-shaped fin reminiscent of stingray wings. She also uses floatation devices for buoyancy.

Austin modified a standard-issue wheelchair from Britain's National Health Service (NHS) because it "is one of the most ubiquitous images of disability" and she wants this project to leave "a legacy of attitudinal change" in regards to the public perception of disability.

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The wheelchair has patents pending and is already making a splash outside of the art world.

"We've had Professional Association of Diving Instructors course directors and very experienced divers saying they would pay to hire it," Austin said.

"The Oceanography department at the University of Plymouth, where I did a BA in performing art, said it would make their courses accessible to students with disabilities."

Visit Creating the Spectacle's website to learn more about the project, film and live performances. In the meantime, grab your scuba gear and take an enchanting trip under the sea with Austin in the following video.

 

 via BBC  

Credit: Norman Lomax

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How A Shockproof Camera Knocked Itself Out

When I've talked to people in and around the camera business about how they're going to stay relevant when phones keep getting better at photography, two answers often come up: Make sturdier cameras, and let them talk to our phones.

Fuji's FinePix XP170 performs both of those tricks -- one better than the other. But this $279.95 camera doesn't do enough to slow the point-and-shoot camera's slide towards extinction.

The XP170's ruggedized design deserves the most compliments. Fuji says it can withstand immersion in up to 32.8 feet of water, a drop from 6.6 feet and refrigeration down to 14 degrees Fahrenheit, with complete protection against dust coming into its innards.

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I didn't want to do too much violence to the model Fuji loaned for this review--and the Potomac River isn't close to 33 feet deep near me anyway. But I did dunk the review model in a kitchen sink, let it tumble about six feet onto a wooden floor and throw it in the freezer for a few hours. Only the last test had any obvious effect: The outside of its lens briefly fogged over, and the chill temporarily wiped out the battery.

This camera's Wi-Fi Direct picture transfer didn't seem nearly as sturdy.

This standard already suffers from weak support--only a subset of Android devices include software for it, including Samsung's Galaxy S III and Sprint's HTC Evo 4G LTE but not Google's Nexus 7 tablet. Microsoft's upcoming Windows 8, due in October, will support WiFi Direct, but Apple's OS X Lion and Mountain Lion don't--even though its AirDrop file-sharing software is based on the technology.

Fuji's implementation makes things worse. You need to install a free app on an Android device, then simultaneously press a button on the camera and in the app to set up a transfer--every time. And you can only transfer one photo at a time (videos don't qualify). I don't know why Fuji didn't use Bluetooth, which works on far more devices and lets you "pair" gadgets for subsequent cooperation.

You also can't use WiFi Direct to geotag individual photos using a phone's GPS as last year's Samsung SH100 allowed, although at least you don't need to enable (and pay extra for) WiFi tethering on a phone.

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The rest of the XP170's interface showed a similar disregard to usability:

• Changing picture-taking modes--for example, switching from its default auto-everything mode to its panorama-generation option--required going two menus deep.
• Out of the box, the camera made an annoying high-pitched beep every time I touched a button.
• It wasn't smart enough to rotate pictures taken with the camera held sideways to a portrait orientation.
• Its crudely-bitmapped onscreen fonts looked like junk.
• For no apparent reason, it doesn't ship with a standard micro-USB cable like any other gadget would.
• You can't recharge its proprietary battery over its proprietary cable anyway; instead, you have to eject it and pop it into a separate charger.

And in the bargain, the XP170's 14-megapixel sensor, with a 5x wide-angle zoom, did not take the best photos. Some turned out fine (note that this camera's output has been featured in every post I've written here since late June), but others looked as bad as any cameraphone's output, down to a gauzy, halo effect around brightly-lit subjects. In two shots, nothing appeared to be in focus... much like how the camera industry's strategy appeared after using this device.

Credit: Rob Pegoraro/Discovery

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