Jump The Curve Archives: 01/2009

To See the Future Look in the Mir:ror

To understand where the future is headed, I invite you to check out this 3-minute YouTube video which shows how the “internet of things” is becoming a reality:

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Jump the Curve to Roof Top Wind Turbines

In my book, Jump the Curve, one of the 50 strategies I suggest for “jumping the curve” and embracing the future is to award prizes—in an attempt to spur creativity. In honor of its 10th anniversary this is exactly what Google is doing. One of the finalists for the $10 million prizes is the “jelly fish” roof-top wind turbine. To read about the technology, I recommend this article. However, this YouTube video is even more interesting:

Related Posts by America’s leading energy futurist, Jack Uldrich:

Green Investing: A Guide to Making Money Through Environmentally-Friendly Stocks
New Wind Company Seeks to Jump the Curve

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Concrete’s Solid Future

Did you know that concrete is the most abundant man-made material on earth and that it is responsible for 5% of the man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted into the atmosphere each year? I didn’t until recently when I began speaking to a number of construction-related companies and associations, including Dayton Superior, Kraus-Andersen and, most recently, the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota.

As a result of these engagements, I have begun paying a great deal more attention to this “everyday” material and the more I study it, the more confident I’m that, in spite of the on-going recession which has hammered the concrete and construction industries, I’m convinced concrete has a very solid future.

Specifically, there are five technological advances which of each, individually, will deliver great improvements; but, taken collectively, could revolutionize the industry. In no particular order here are the five technologies:

#1: “Green” Cement. Cement, which is used to make concrete, does not strike the average person as a “green” technology but thanks to research from such companies as Carbon Sense Solutions and Calera, I’m convinced that CO2 will no longer be seen as just a “global warming” output, rather it will become an input. In the process, the industry could become a green hero.

#2: Nanotechnology. Engineers at the National Institute of Standards recently patent a nano-additive which will slow-down the penetration of road salt and salt water. The technology holds the potential to double the life of concrete. With an estimated $54 billion spent on road each year in the U.S. this is no trivial advance.

#3: Stronger Concrete. Engineers in Liverpool recently tested a new fiber-enforced concrete that was found to absorb a thousand times more energy than traditional concrete. With terrorism an ever-present threat, the idea of making our embassies, government buildings and other strategic buildings and bridges more secure sure sounds good to me.

#4: RFID Technology. Yes, radio frequency identification tags. A handful of innovative companies are now experimenting with deploying RFID tags directly into concrete. Why? Because they want to know when the concrete has cured so that construction workers can safely move on to the next phase of building. The technology has the potential to shave days and weeks off of large-scale construction projections. It might also mean a few less road construction workers idly standing around.

#5: Rapid Prototype Manufacturing. Does the idea of printing a concrete slab sound ridiculous to you? Don’t laugh, Caterpillar is already working on the technology and the creator of the technology believes that in the future it will be possible to build a full-scale house in a few hours. In other words, the first little pig (you know, the lazy one) might be still be able to avoid the wrath of the wolf—who won’t be able to “huff and puff” and blow his house down.

#6: Translucent and Self-Consolidating Concretes: These material science advances are already beginning to gain a foot-hold in the industry so I won’t belabor the point but as customers, designers and architects begin to realize that concrete comes in more than one flavor and that more flexible designs can be made from it, I’m confident it find an ever increasing number of uses.

Interested in other construction-related articles from America’s foremost futurist, Jack Uldrich? Check out this past post:

15 Ways Nanotechnology is Improving Our Lives Today

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future has Arrived: Classic Video

Thanks to the fine folks at Techcrunch for bringing this classic 1981 video to my attention. Pay special attention to the rotary phones, the dial-up modems and, at the end of the video, the quote about the two-hour download time and $5 dollar price of “getting your newspaper from a computer:”

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future of Automated Cars: Part Two

The other day I opined that automated cars would arrive sooner than expected, but not for the reason most people expect: advances in technology. This was not to say that the accelerating pace of technology won’t play an integral role in the creation of self-driving cars. It will. In fact, today’s news highlights the startling advances being made in the area. Researchers at Lockheed Martin and the Rochester Institute of Technology are experimenting with sophisticated algorithms which are expected to use the bevy of sensors now embedded in automobiles to help predict “future failures.” In other words, your car will soon know that it is about to fail before it actually fails.

This begs the question: If all of these sensors can communicate with you, why can’t they communicate with the sensors in other cars? As older, non-sensor-embedded cars are replaced with new sensor laden automobiles (a process which will take up to 15 years) this scenario becomes feasible. And as cars begin to communicate with one another we will have taken a huge step toward the vision of automated cars. In the meantime, all of the sensors will also be used to better understand traffic patterns and habits and thus, hopefully, alleviate some congestion.

Alas, I don’t think that every driver will need to wait a decade-and-a-half before enjoying the direct benefits of smart cars. According to this informative article, Volvo will begin selling a new car (the XC60) which will be able to avoid fender-benders. Follow-up versions will be able to slow down the vehicle when it gets too close to another or even nudge the car back into a lane if you begin to drift.

Ironically, the technology is already good enough to do these things but the manufacturers are reluctant to deploy it because they fear people will become overly reliant on the technology and thus become even more inattentive drivers!

To this end, at some point in the future, I can envision the insurance industry becoming the major promoter of self-driving vehicles. Why? Because they will be much safer than us human drivers!

Related posts by America’s most renowned global futurist, Jack Uldrich:

Why Automated Cars Will Arrive Sooner Than Expected
Self-Driving Cars
Elderly-Friendly Cars, Sweet!
General Motors Jumps the Curve with Smart Materials
Dude, Where’s My Flying Car?

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future of Telecommunications in Six Videos

On Tuesday, I traveled to Nashville to give a speech on the future of the telecommunications industry. One of the bigger (and, to be honest, not terribly new) trends in the field is the continued growth of video. In the spirit of this trend, I’d like to offer you six different videos which, each in its own unique way, offers a glimpse into the future of the telecommunications industry. The first three are very cool, and the next three are more technical but still provide some very good information.

The first video reviews how advances in algorithms and nerotechnology could lead to “voiceless” communication:

The second clip from Nokia offers an idea of what future mobile devices might look like:

The third provides an idea of how holographic information might become more pervasive:

The next three clips review how terahertz transmissions, sensors and RFID technology could lead to some cool new applications for future mobile devices:

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Why Automated Cars May Arrive Sooner Than Expected

The idea of self-driving cars may seem like a far-off dream but, as I’ve written about before, the advances in robotic cars have been amazing. Perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively, I don’t think self-driving cars will simply be a matter of robotic technology “pushing” the technology to market. Instead, as customers continue to use their cellphones to do more things (call, text, email, Twitter, watch videos, etc.) they will not want to be burdened with the hassle of driving and will thus “demand” self-driving vehicles.

If you agree or disagree, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Related posts by Jack Uldrich:

Self-Driving Cars
Elderly-Friendly Cars, Sweet!
General Motors Jumps the Curve with Smart Materials
Dude, Where’s My Flying Car?

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future of Publishing?

What is the most popular book being published with an innovative new “print-on-demand” technology? The answer might surprise you. It is the “The Art of Perfume,” an ancient book about how to manufacture perfume from natural herbs. In fact, according the YouTube clip below, many of the most popular books are old manuscripts. I find this absolutely fascinating because it highlights a counter-intuitive aspect of new technology and that is that new technology can often help us recapture old wisdom.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Jump the Curve: January 23, 2009

Related Posts:

Jump the Curve: January 16, 2009
Jump the Curve: January 9, 2009

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

New, Improved Concrete

The other day I spoke to the Associated General Contractors and I explained how many materials are going to see significant improvement in the near future. To this end, here is an article suggesting that fiber-reinforced concrete will soon be able to absorb a thousand times more energy—making them much more protective and secure. At a minimum look for U.S. Embassies in the Middle East to explore the possibility of upgrading their compounds with the new concrete.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Read the Face of the Future

To understand just how far machine intelligence is advancing I invite you to watch this impressive 2 minute video: http://brightcove.newscientist.com/services/link/bcpid1873822884/bctid8693718001.

In the near future, we can expect better—and more life-like—avatars; more human-like robots; and, quite possibly, the replacement of high priced actors in Hollywood blockbusters.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future of Computing

Intel’s Justin Rattner believes multi-core processing; improved memory; and infinite battery life will continue to transform computing in the decade ahead:

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Supercomputers: Solving Problems Big and Small

Late last year, I explained how a number of businesses were using supercomputers to save millions of dollars. The machines are only going to become more powerful and, as they do, we can expect that they will solve an increasing number of mysteries—such as the great 1908 Tunguska explosion. Granted, it’s not the world’s most pressing issue but it is yet one more small intellectual itch that we can now scratch off our list.

For a more insightful look at the growing power of supercomputers, I invite you to watch this video:

Future Flash with Jack Uldrich: Supercomputers

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Nanotechnology: The Next Big Thing is Really Small

In 2003, I wrote the book: ”The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business.” In the final chapter, which covers the time period 2009-2013, I began it with this quote: “Nanostructuring represents the beginning of a revolutionary new age in our ability to manipulate materials for the good of humanity.”

Since it is now 2009, I thought it’d be a good time to revisit the field of nanotechnology and review my earlier projections. But rather than have me assess the predictions, let’s just look at the news from today—I think it speaks volumes about how far nanotechnology has progressed and, more important, it points to where the field is headed.

The first article is entitled ”Swallowing a nanotechnology pill” and it describes how carbon nanotubes are gaining traction in the field of drug delivery. The second article, ”Nanoplumbing: More than just a pipe dream”, reviews how carbon nanotubes will lead cheap desalinated water; and the final article discusses how researchers at MIT have made a nanosensor that can be placed inside living cells—and could revolutionize the field of medicine.

Interested in other articles on nanotechnology from the field’s best-selling author? Check out these past posts:

15 Ways Nanotechnology is Making Life Better Today

Nanotechnology & the Changing Face of the Electric Utility Industry

Nanotechnology & the Future of the Cellphone

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Wikipedia’s 8th Anniversary

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Solar’s Invisible Future?

Researchers at Duke University continue to make improvements to their “invisibility cloak.” If this sounds like something straight out of Harry Potter, well, it kind of is. Nevertheless, the technology could have some real world applications in the field of solar energy and biological imaging.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Bet on the Future

In my book, Jump the Curve, I write that one way to assess the future is to let people bet on the outcome. It is based on the “wisdom of the crowd” idea. Well, now a new website, Nostrodamical, is putting the idea to the test. It’ll be interesting to see how the technology evolves. What to bet it’ll be successful?

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future of Construction

Tomorrow, I will be giving a presentation on the future of the construction industry to the Associated General Contractors of Minnesota. In spite of the gloomy economy and the general pessimism that the recession will continue for at least the next six months, I’m optimistic about the future. To better understand how new materials, robotics and energy systems can transform construction I invite you to watch this short video. It’s a like futuristic but everything is plausible:

Related Articles by Futurist Jack Uldrich:

Robots Advance
Biomimicry at Its Best
The Future of Saudi Arabia

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Is the Future of Robots Inside You?

The answer is yes. According to this fascinating article, robotic researchers in Japan are already experimenting with the idea of leaving small, tiny microscopic robots inside people’s bodies. The rationale is simple: If they do need to conduct an internal examination or operation sometime in the future they won’t need to create an incision because the robot will already be inside the body.

To appreciate how advanced robotic technology already is consider this quote from the article: “In Thailand last year, a robot - remotely controlled from Kyushu - successfully removed lymph nodes from the abdomen of a dead human body in a joint venture between Kyushu University Hospital and Chulalongkorn University in Thailand.”

To gain a deeper appreciation of robotics check out some of these past articles by America’s leading healthcare futurist, Jack Uldrich:

Our Robotic Future
The Future of Hospitals (Robotics)
The Robot Will See You Now

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Voice Recognition Technology’s Promising Future

Late last year, I discussed Google’s promising new voice recognition technology which is now available on the iPhone. To better understand where voice recognition technology is headed, I refer you to LiveAGI Brain -- an interactive voice recognition system under development by Adaptive AI Inc.

Most of us know that artificial intelligence is getting better and you have likely experienced an AI system when calling your bank or an airline reservation system, but in the near future these systems will be able to: 1) pick up on local slang (i.e yes, yeah, yep, for sure, etc); 2) recognize you as an unique individual (meaning you won’t have to repeat your 11-digit bank account number or Social Security number multiple times during the call); and, perhaps most impressively, 3) it’ll be able to pick up a conversation exactly where it was should you somehow be inadvertently cut-off or disconnected from the call.)

Another way to think of this is that this is bad news for those many call centers in India—American companies are unlikely to need their services in the near future.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Another Day, Another Big Step Into the Future

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Jump the Curve to Your Genomic Future

Over 30 years ago, the first “Test-Tube” baby was born in Great Britain. At the time, it sparked a great deal of controversy. It still does within some circles (most notably the Catholic Church), but for the most part in-vitro fertilization is now widely accepted. In fact, over two million babies have been born in the United States using the procedure. I mention these facts because earlier today it was reported that in Britain, for the first time ever, a baby was deliberately born free of the cancer gene for breast cancer. It is impressive accomplishment and I predict within the next few years millions of parents will be widely employing similar genetic screening tools on embryos in order to give their children the best possible chance of a healthy life.

Interested in reading other insights on the future of genomics from America’s leading Healthcare futurist? Check out these past posts:

Jump the Curve to a $1000 Genome
Amazon Jumps the Curve
Personalized Medicine’s Acclerating Future
The Future is About to Get Personal
You’ll Look and Feel Good in Genes
A Trillion Reasons to Care About Genomics
The Coming Healthcare Revolution

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Jump the Curve and Power Your Home in New Ways

From solar-powered refrigerators to magnetically levitated wind turbines, we could soon be powering our homes and appliances in fundamentally different ways. For this first idea, I recommend this article about a young woman who has developed a solar-power refrigerator and for the second idea, I invite you to watch this Jay Leno video:

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Picture the Future in 3-D

The Wall Street Journal has an article in today’s paper discussing how the NFL is experimenting with 3-D technology to bring football games to movie theaters. I don’t think the idea will take off because of advances in flexible electronics. View the picture to the right—it is a designer’s conception of a pair of next-generation glasses based on flexible electronics. Why would you go to a theater and pay $20 bucks when you still soon be able to watch in 3-D in the comfort of your home?

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Start Thinking About the Future

Last month, I showed you a segment from the popular TV program 60 Minutes demonstrating the impressive progress being made in the field of brain-neural technology and suggested it heralded the beginning of brain-computer interfaces (i.e. implanting computer chips directly into our brains). Well, no sooner had I named this one of the top ten technological achievements of 2008 than 60 Minutes came out with another program documenting the startling advances being made in the field of brain scanning technology.

I highly recommend the 13-minute segment (posted below) and for readers interested in the future of marketing I would draw your attention to the words of the expert at the end of the video who claims that researchers will be able to read people’s complex thoughts within 5 years. (No doubt this will be aided by the amazing progress in supercomputers which I discussed in this video yesterday.)

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Future Flash with Jack Uldrich: SuperComputers

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

The Future Has Arrived: Notable Technological Achievements in 2008 and What They Mean for the Future

"The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.” The quote, attributed to William Gibson, was brought to mind as I reviewed the technological accomplishments of the past year. The quote is apropos of my job as a professional futurist because, as I often remind my audiences, I don’t predict the future—I merely outline plausible possibilities based on existing trends.

With this caveat in mind, I want to share with you a list of ten notable technological achievements which will significantly influence our near-term future:

#10: Metamaterials: The creation of a Harry Potter-like ”Invisibility cloaks” received a great deal of attention this past year and the breakthrough portends the day when the Defense Department might be able to hide a person or a tank in broad daylight, but a more plausible near-term application of a metamaterial resides in the prosaic application of a noise-abating material which will make life more pleasant for citizens who must deal with annoying sounds such as airplane noise.

#9: Digestable Pills: In December, Phillips announced the creation of the iPill—a digestable pill that can be taken orally by a patient and which will dispense medication at a specific location and a rate pre-determined by the patient’s physician. In addition to being an impressive technology which will soon become mainstream, it is a wonderful example of “convergence”—in that the pill combines a tiny computer, a wireless transmitter and a series of sensors.

#8: The Personal Supercomputer: In September, Cray announced the creation of a $25,000 supercomputer. The machine is obviously beyond the reach of most consumers but a growing number of small to medium-sized businesses are now using the tool to create new materials and products as well as redesign their packaging and determine the most optimum route to deliver packages. The end result is that companies using the machines are innovating at an accelerating rate and saving big money in the process. In the near future look for these supercomputers to become increasingly powerful, less expensive and more pervasive.

#7: Voiceless Communication: In one of the year’s more impressive videos, Michael Callahan from Ambient demonstrated how his company has figured out how to decipher brain neural signals and translate those signals into the corresponding words. The technology is years away from prime time but its day is coming and it will lead to a series of unpredictable applications, including augmenting human intelligence.

#6: Brain Neural Technology: To better understand just what some of these applications might be, I’d refer you to this video which shows a monkey in North Carolina controlling a robot in Japan by thought alone, as well as this 60-Minutes segment on brain neural technology that demonstrates how the technology is being used on real patients today.

#5: Voice Recognition Technology: This is hardly a new technology but in November Google brought voice recognition one step closer to the masses when it introduced its new voice recognition application on the iPhone. The day when consumers navigate on their computers using only their voice is one closer than ever. (The technology is also an excellent—albeit early—example of how technology can augment human intelligence. See # 7.)

#4: The Memristor: This fall Hewlett-Packard announced the creation of the ”Memristor”—or memory transistor—and it is expected to allow for the creation of computers that will remember what is stored in its memory when the device is turned off. In other words, within the next 3-5 years we will have computers that won’t need to be booted up. Granted, it’s not the biggest development in the world, but it will remove yet another one of those nagging, little issues that sometimes have a way of getting our day off on a sour note.

#3: Rapid Prototype Manufacturing: With little fanfare, Stratasys announced in December that it had created a new rapid prototype manufacturing machine capable of competing with injection-molding. Now, the creation of new plastic parts sans injection-molding might not seem like a big deal but as advances in RPM continue to progress look for a major-shift in the manufacturing paradigm as many products will soon be produced on location. To this end, it is worth noting that some RPM machines have dropped from a price point of $100,000 to below $5,000. (To get a better idea of the type of products which can now be manufactured via RPM, I refer you to this informative article.)

#2: The UMan Robot: Progress in the field of robotics over the past few years has been nothing short of amazing. Robots are now driving cars, conducting surgery, roaming oil pipelines, and flying into craves disguised as insects. As impressive as this progress has been, it was the UMass Mobile Manipulator --UMan for short-- that most caught my attention this year because it demonstrated that robots could learn how to use new objects. Obviously, a robot that can learn and adapt to changing conditions is a huge step in making robots more practical for a wide range of applications—including becoming helpful assistants to America’s aging Baby Boomers.

#1: Genomes for the Masses: It was only three years ago that Craig Venter sequenced his genome for an estimated $70 million. Today there is a company that claims it can do it for $5000 and, soon, the cost will plummet to under $1000. It will take some time for healthcare professionals and citizens alike to understand the implications of how all of this genomic data will manifest itself in healthcare and lifestyle decisions (e.g. changing our diet based on genetic factors, etc.), but it is evident that this day will arrive sooner than many people—including medical professionals—realize.

And that, my friends, is an appropriate note to end on. The future, as I said at the beginning of this post, is already here; it’s just not evenly distributed. It is also fair to say that based on the progress made in 2008 the future is also arriving sooner than most of us realize.

If you don’t believe me, just watch the news this month. It is quite likely that Craig Venter will announce something should shock the world: The creation of the first form of artificial life.

Interested in reading related posts from America’s most respected futurist? Check out these past articles:

The Most Significant Breakthroughs fof 2007
The Future of Education is Now
The Power of Zenzizenzizenzic
The Future is About to Get Personal

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments