oddlight

Coming lifestyle technologies

Robotics

The future: Your house is full of robots. Some look after the housework, others take care of maintenance. Most are utilitarian in appearance, although you can opt for a designer housing, or skin, if you have the money. Whatever the task, there is now a robot to help you get it done.

Huh? Robots of the future aren't quite going to be what we saw in The Jetsons. The idea of humanoid robots was nice for science fiction but task-specific bots are much more efficient. Instead, there will be embedded and free-roaming robots in the home. Examples that are already available include cleaners such as iRobot's Roomba ($599) and Electrolux's Trilobite ($2999) and Friendly Robotics' lawn-mowing Robomow (about $1400).

Joseph Engelberger, dubbed the "father of robotics" and now aged in his 80s, wants to see robots that help the elderly made a priority.

Companies including Toshiba have been working on "life support partner" robot projects since the start of the decade and several Australian universities are world leaders in robotics research.


Mind-controlled interfaces

The future: Gamers are sitting back, eyes flitting across the screen.

Little more than blinks and twitches indicate their involvement while on screen their avatars zoom about, acting on every thought.

Huh? With the help of a piece of headgear that reads electrical activity in the brain, you will be able to think left, right, up, down, shoot, jump, and you will do it in the game. Recent demonstrations showed early success in creating such an interface. One recent start-up, Emotiv Systems, has a bicycle helmet-style controller, Project Epoc, that monitors brain signals and converts thoughts into game movements. Honda Research has demonstrated mind-control technology for moving the fingers of a robot hand. Important applications of this technology will allow the severely disabled to use their minds to break through the barrier of physical impairment.


Personal networking

The future: When you meet someone new, shaking hands won't just be an exchange of pleasantries. You'll also share data directly through skin contact or wireless transfer. Your personal network will then share the information with your mobile devices.

Huh? Yes, your skin can transmit data - just like an electric shock, but without the zap. It's a nice trick that researchers are looking to put to good use. Japanese telecommunications giant NTT DoCoMo has achieved data rates of 10 megabits per second over skin. Devices including wristwatches and pens are also potential hubs for personal networking, with Hewlett-Packard demonstrating such concept designs in Sydney recently.


Smart buildings

The future: The walls really could have ears now. All glass and painted surfaces are doing a lot of extra work in the home and office, not least of which is reducing power needs. Windows automatically shade occupants as the need arises while generating power through invisible solar cells. Not only are robots living in the walls but the walls are doing their part, absorbing impurities from the air.

Huh? Big architecture is combining with small particles to achieve many things. The biggest is the possibility of smart systems embedded in glass-walled skyscrapers. SmartGlass International is already selling electronically controlled glass panels, with glass of varying opacity to control lighting, temperature and privacy. Solar cells can be embedded in window glass.

The Carvist Corporation is turning glass facades and roofs into solar energy systems capable of generating most, and perhaps all, of a building's power needs.

Smart paints are also ready to do their part for the environment. Not only can you buy kitchen and bathroom paints that prevent mildew, such as Perma-White (four litres for $78), you can cover a building in Ecopaint, from Millennium Chemicals, which absorbs smog-producing molecules, specifically nitrogen oxides.


Smart fabric

The future: Dry cleaning? That's for vintage. Now your jeans stay clean of their own accord. They're also more comfortable than ever, and waterproof - even bulletproof, if you like. If you're lost, just turn down the embedded music player and ask your jacket for directions. Oh, and then there's that invisibility cloak.

Huh? Already there are high-performance clothing lines with nanotechnology in the fibre. Nano-Tex fibre is being used in clothing and furnishing textiles to make them resistant to wrinkles, fading and stains with the capacity to cool or warm the wearer.

The list of fabric advancements is huge. LumiGram is a company making fibre-optic fabrics that radiate light. Tablecloths (from $571), tops ($325), cushions ($408) and bags ($211) are being made of this material. Sportswear makers are designing outfits to house your portable technology. Burton ski wear has teamed up with Motorola to create the Audex jacket ($899) with embedded Bluetooth systems for control of phones and iPods, with speakers and microphone. Even GPS is coming to such outfits soon. DuPont has launched tops containing Kevlar to protect against knife attacks.

Military applications of smart fabric will include embedded systems that monitor the whole body, diagnosing wounds and treating injuries. MIT has opened an Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies to develop suits with superhuman properties - flexible yet highly protective, with muscle-enhancing properties, light-refraction for near-invisibility and sensors for constant medical feedback.


Where's my flying car?

So much of the future is hard to predict, even the brightest minds can get it wrong.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." IBM chairman Thomas Watson, 1943

"Computers in the future may have only 1000 vacuum tubes and perhaps weigh 1 1/2 tons." Popular Mechanics, 1949

"640K ought to be enough for anybody."Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, 1981

"(By 2000), near space will be fitted with pharmaceutical factories and penal stations."Thomas Keneally, 1986

"Early in the next century, gym memberships may decline as the weight- and waist-conscious no longer need treadmills to burn off their favourite fast foods. All that will be required ... is to pop a fat-destroying pill."Wired magazine, 1996


The future of bio-technology

DON'T WORRY about that family history of heart disease, because gene therapy will soon clear all that up. Artificial limbs or an exo-kit will have you run, jump and lift like an Olympian.

Genetic research is already quite mature, although ethical debates will shape how it can be used. Will we get embryonic gene therapy or will genetic problems be treated only after birth? Best-case scenarios could include growing new organs from our own tissue and the arrival of vaccinations for cancer. The world's laboratories are tackling such areas as a matter of urgency, and one of the leaders is the gene therapy research unit at Westmead Children's Hospital, in Sydney.

Prosthetics already use amazing technology, with both realistic and high-performance options. Performance prosthetics, in particular, have a "cyborg" edge, offering users potential benefits over their original limbs. One Japanese company will next year offer an exoskeleton, the HAL-5 ($713 a month) for those who want to enhance their lifting capabilities.


The magic of nano

Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any science or technology sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic". Molecular nanotechnology is the science that will bring us closest to this magical future.

We have mentioned some textile and architectural uses for nanotechnology but it is in the engineering of true machines and systems on a molecular scale that nanotechnology promises to change the world in amazing ways.

We could see Star Trek-style replicators, with nanobots that build whatever we want, including food, out of ambient atoms and molecules.

Our blood could be infused with machines that fight disease, heal wounds, and maintain a healthy level of fat in our systems.

Another possibility is a "utility fog", a cloud of networked nanobots running errands in the air around us, whether related to health or business.

While nanotechnology is still in the theoretical stages, it is close enough to prompt scrutiny of its ethical implications. Expect to be living in a very different world by 2050.

from smh