Over these past few months I've been watching the technologies come online which will finally help us get rid of all of the unsightly cables and wires that have been piling up, connecting each device to another device and each of those devices to a power source.
Here's a quick breakdown of the technologies that will save copper:
Wireless USB
With Wireless USB you can toss all the USB cables.
Skin Transmitting Wireless Headphones
With skin conduction earphones you can reduce the amount of RF radiation in close contact with your body.
Wireless Power
New wireless power schemes correct many of the problems of earlier designs and promise to radically change our homes and offices. One method allows devices to be place on a surface but there is also a method that will charge a device within 10 feet of a transmitter.
Okay, so maybe it'll take until 2009 for the products to hit mainstream but at least it's not about the technology anymore it's about product development, manufacturing and marketing.
20061230
The Future and You -Award Winning Monthly Podcast
"The Future and You" is an award winning monthly podcast that brings futurists together to speculate on what the future has in store for us.
Finally I have something worth listening to during my afternoon drive home. Mornings I have Armstrong and Ghetty. :-)
Here's the link to download December's podcast
Finally I have something worth listening to during my afternoon drive home. Mornings I have Armstrong and Ghetty. :-)
Here's the link to download December's podcast
20061229
RFID Enabled Phones
Soon everyone will be sporting one more device crammed into their phones. RFID reader technology has reached the stage where it can be incorporated into cell phones.
See: MoreRFID Gentag to Piggyback on NFC Technology to Read RFID Sensors
The RFID enabled phone will read tag information in a product the phone will pull info from an RFID product database on the web and link to a website with detailed product info.
Why do you want it?
Immediate uses:
manufacturing and shipping history
detailed nutritional info
product comparisons
Later uses:
Through your phone you will be able to easily purchase stuff.
Your phone will download your grocery list from your smart appliances
and then automatically update your inventory as items are purchased. Manufacturers will be able to apply instant coupons through your phone.
RFIDorgs will be able to transfer calling card info easily since they can link their RFID data to an RFID database for downloading info such as the location of a blogsites.
See: MoreRFID Gentag to Piggyback on NFC Technology to Read RFID Sensors
The RFID enabled phone will read tag information in a product the phone will pull info from an RFID product database on the web and link to a website with detailed product info.
Why do you want it?
Immediate uses:
manufacturing and shipping history
detailed nutritional info
product comparisons
Later uses:
Through your phone you will be able to easily purchase stuff.
Your phone will download your grocery list from your smart appliances
and then automatically update your inventory as items are purchased. Manufacturers will be able to apply instant coupons through your phone.
RFIDorgs will be able to transfer calling card info easily since they can link their RFID data to an RFID database for downloading info such as the location of a blogsites.
20061213
Scientists Develop a Touchy Feely Hand for Cyborgs
New Scientist reports that scientists have developed a robotic hand that can sense pressure, temperature and slip through piezoelectric crystals that were "thick film printed."
Advance by advance our posthuman fate awaits.
Advance by advance our posthuman fate awaits.
One Christian's View of Transhumanism
Lepanto League Information Service has a new blog that attracted my attention with the title Reflections On Ghastly Transhumansim that links back to an essay by David B. Hart titled The Anti-Theology of the Body.
Although Hart's essay (really a response to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body) is verbose it is still an interesting read for the ideas, relationships, comparisons and some worthy quotes. In the end, I found it hard to be offended by his perspective and was left with one mans opinion that while not agreeable from my perspective is understandable given his.
A note of caution: Take the time to read the essay carefully so that bias does not cloud the true meaning and perspective he is trying to convey. He seems to be a master of nearly offending and complementing in the same sentence.
Some of the more memorable quotes:
"A satirist with a genius for the morbid could scarcely have invented a faction more depressingly sickly, and yet—in certain reaches of the scientific community—it is a movement that enjoys some real degree of respectability."
"Obviously one is dealing here with a sensibility formed more by comic books than by serious thought. Ludicrous as it seems, though, transhumanism is merely one logical consequence (if a particularly childish one) of the surprising reviviscence of eugenic ideology in the academic, scientific, and medical worlds."
"Transhumanism, as a moral philosophy, is so risibly fabulous in its prognostications, and so unrelated to anything that genomic research yet promises, that it can scarcely be regarded as anything more than a pathetic dream; but the metaphysical principles it presumes regarding the nature of the human are anything but eccentric."
"I dwell upon extremes because I believe it is in extremes that truth is most likely to be found."
Although Hart's essay (really a response to John Paul II’s Theology of the Body) is verbose it is still an interesting read for the ideas, relationships, comparisons and some worthy quotes. In the end, I found it hard to be offended by his perspective and was left with one mans opinion that while not agreeable from my perspective is understandable given his.
A note of caution: Take the time to read the essay carefully so that bias does not cloud the true meaning and perspective he is trying to convey. He seems to be a master of nearly offending and complementing in the same sentence.
Some of the more memorable quotes:
"A satirist with a genius for the morbid could scarcely have invented a faction more depressingly sickly, and yet—in certain reaches of the scientific community—it is a movement that enjoys some real degree of respectability."
"Obviously one is dealing here with a sensibility formed more by comic books than by serious thought. Ludicrous as it seems, though, transhumanism is merely one logical consequence (if a particularly childish one) of the surprising reviviscence of eugenic ideology in the academic, scientific, and medical worlds."
"Transhumanism, as a moral philosophy, is so risibly fabulous in its prognostications, and so unrelated to anything that genomic research yet promises, that it can scarcely be regarded as anything more than a pathetic dream; but the metaphysical principles it presumes regarding the nature of the human are anything but eccentric."
"I dwell upon extremes because I believe it is in extremes that truth is most likely to be found."
20061212
Turtles: Masters of Negligible Senescence
The NY Times has an article about the possibility of turtles living forever.
From the article:
From the article:
Dr. Christopher J. Raxworthy, the associate curator of herpetology at the American Museum of Natural History, says the liver, lungs and kidneys of a centenarian turtle are virtually indistinguishable from those of its teenage counterpart, a Ponce de Leonic quality that has inspired investigators to begin examining the turtle genome for novel longevity genes.
“Turtles don’t really die of old age,” Dr. Raxworthy said. In fact, if turtles didn’t get eaten, crushed by an automobile or fall prey to a disease, he said, they might just live indefinitely.
Turtles have the power to almost stop the ticking of their personal clock. “Their heart isn’t necessarily stimulated by nerves, and it doesn’t need to beat constantly,” said Dr. George Zug, curator of herpetology at the Smithsonian Institution. “They can turn it on and off essentially at will.”
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