Cybernetics Update

The creation of a remote-controlled cyborg beetle opens the door for creating ultra-small remote-controlled flying surveillance platforms:

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22039/?a=f

Alternative Energies Update

LEDs last 10x as long as fluorescent bulbs (using 1/3 the energy) and 130x as long as incandescent bulbs. Now they may finally be ready for prime time:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16496-cheap-superefficient-led-lights-on-the-horizon.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Transportation Update

The technology to produce cars with incredible performance while using completely green technologies for fuel is here:

http://www.livescience.com/technology/090129-fastest-electric-car.html

So now it's just a matter of the batteries and solar collectors to come of age and we're set.

Computing Update

With the recession, Moore's Law is becoming more about minimizing cost for a certain level of performance rather than maximizing performance for a certain cost:

http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12932356

Artificial Intelligence Update

AI is finally coming of age. This article describes some of the latest advances in machine learning, and how AI is finally beginning to live up to the hype:

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=332273

(I think the final sentence is way off base, though!)

Computing Update

The limit of a bit of information was thought to be no more than one bit of information per atom or electron. But now, researchers at Stanford University have managed to pack information into subatomic spaces, creating a holographic drawing that contained 35 bits per electron:

http://www.nature.com/news/2009/090124/full/news.2009.54.html

Predictions Update

Here's a list of ten items researchers are working on now that may change our lives over the next couple of decades:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.800-ten-scifi-devices-that-could-soon-be-in-your-hands.html?full=true&print=true

Transportation Update

Long, stretchy nanotubes appear set to make a space elevator possible:

http://www.physorg.com/news151938445.html

Artificial Intelligence Update

"A dual-layer Blu-ray disc can store an impressive 50 gigabytes, but discs which can hold 20 times as much data have just taken a step closer, thanks to new materials that make reading and writing 3D holograms more reliable."

This isn't directly related to the title of this post, but...close enough, since AI will require the means to store massive amounts of data.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16464-holographic-discs-set-to-smash-storage-records.html

Robotics Update

The gap is closing between what looks and acts like a machine vs. what looks and acts like a human:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16461-tests-that-show-machines-closing-in-on-human-abilities.html?full=true

Nanotechnology Update

"After announcing last April a method for growing exceptionally long, straight, numerous and well-aligned carbon cylinders only a few atoms thick, a Duke University-led team of chemists has now modified that process to create exclusively semiconducting versions of these single-walled carbon nanotubes."

"The achievement paves the way for manufacturing reliable electronic nanocircuits at the ultra-small billionths of a meter scale."

http://www.physorg.com/news151762245.html

Alternative Energies Update

New thermal photovoltaics solar panel technology generates electricity from waste heat, and could prove far more efficient than current conventional solar technology:

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21981/?a=f

Robotics Update

Researchers are developing robots that use piezoelectricity to power microscopic robots to traverse the human circulatory system with less risk than catheters:

http://www.physorg.com/news151649983.html

Nanotechnology Update

Researcher discovers how to use nanotubes to create molecular-level plumbing for filtering water and air, which should lead to cheap desalination systems, batteries and air-scrubbers (potentially removing excess C02 from the atmosphere):

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.500-nanoplumbing-more-than-just-a-pipe-dream.html?full=true

Nanotechnology Update

A new breakthrough allows a metamaterials-based invisibility cloak to work across a broad spectrum (as wide as the visible light spectrum, although only in the microwave range):

http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/21971/?a=f

Virtual Reality Update

There's the theory that we all live in a virtual universe. Now it appears there's evidence we live in a giant hologram. I don't know whether or how the two relate, but the latter is mindblowing nevertheless:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126911.300-our-world-may-be-a-giant-hologram.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Robotics Update

The year's most impressive robots--a collection of fascinating videos:

http://singularityhub.com/2009/01/12/a-review-of-the-best-robots-of-2008/

Cybernetics Update

New game devices give players psychokinesis-like powers to move objects with their minds:

http://www.physorg.com/news150781868.html

Robotics Update

Japan develops a robot suit to help aging farmers perform arduous work:

http://www.physorg.com/news150697278.html

Artificial Intelligence Update

New call center program promises to be much smarter than current AI programs:

http://www.kurzweilai.net/news/frame.html?main=/news/news_single.html?id%3D9980

"In essence, the system replaces a (hypothetical) intelligent live operator who happens to have an amazing memory. The system remembers each caller's preferences, previous calls and other details, so callers don't have to answer the same questions every time they call. If a call is interrupted, the system can call the customer back and pick up the conversation where it left off. Try getting all that on your next 800 number call!"

Robotics Update

"Fantastic Voyage" miniature robots perform surgical operations:

http://www.physorg.com/news151005939.html

Robotics Update

"Fantastic Voyage" miniature robots perform operations inside patients:

http://www.physorg.com/news151005939.html

Robotics Update

"Fantastic Voyage" miniature robots perform operations inside patients:

http://www.physorg.com/news151005939.html

Alternative Energies Update

Breakthrough catalyst allows artificial photosynthesis even more efficiently than plants:

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/2448/70/

Alternative Energies Update

Carbon nanotubes show promise in creating high-energy superbatteries:

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/21938/?a=f

Genetic Engineering Update

A bit of a deviation from the point of this blog, but interesting nevertheless, this article discusses the prospects for resurrecting a number of species that have gone extinct over the past 100,000 years:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126905.000-ten-extinct-beasts-that-could-walk-the-earth-again.html?full=true

Robotics Update

Robots will rapidly replace human soldiers over the next decade:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202191_pf.html

"Armed robots will all be snipers. Stone-cold killers, every one of them. They will aim with inhuman precision and fire without human hesitation. They will not need bonuses to enlist or housing for their families or expensive training ranges or retirement payments. Commanders will order them onto battlefields that would mean certain death for humans, knowing that the worst to come is a trip to the shop for repairs."

Could this mean the end of genocide and conventional warfare? A new Pax Americana? Or bring fictional Skynet to reality.

Computing Update

Computers can now read and interpret the results of an MRI scan in what is, essentially, mind-reading:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/31/60minutes/main4694713.shtml

Be sure to play the video on the page to see the 60 Minutes interview demonstrating the technology. The researcher involved in the project predicts we'll have the ability to read complex thoughts within three to five years.

Alternative Energies Update

This nano-scale antenna captures light like a radio antenna to then provide:

• Passive, energy-neutral cooling by converting infrared radiation into radiation that we don't feel as heat (like radio waves)
• Passive heating by turning radiation we don't feel as heat into infrared radiation
• Extremely efficient lighting by basically broadcasting photons from the nantennas
• Passive heating or cooling within clothing
• Electricitiy production in clothing by harnessing our bodies' radiation

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/1357/83/