Media overload got you down? Finding nothing but war, gloom, grief, and despair everywhere you look? Well, have we got some news for you.
Item 1
Researchers demonstrate wearable electronics
Soon you may be wearing your computer, or elements of it, according to a team of researchers and designers at Arizona State University. The era of smart bodysuits is about to begin.
In a demonstration of integrated and embedded electronic sensors, power sources, microfluidic devices and pumps in clothes, the ASU researchers are showing off two versions of their “biometric bodysuit” at NextFest 2004, which is billed as a mini-World's Fair. NextFest 2004, sponsored by Wired Magazine and General Electric, is being held May 14-16 in San Francisco.
The good news:
At the Speculist, we've been covering wearable electronics from the beginning. One of our first interviews was with Mr. Wearable Computers himself, Alex lightman, and just yesterday we featured a story about computerized sneakers. Wearable computers will have a host of applications, from the whimsical to the very serious. Various health tracking monitors will provide warnings when strokes or heart attacks are imminent. A personalized On*Star-like system will prevent you from ever getting lost, whether you're in your vehicle or not. And as we discussed a while back, other devices might help out in a variety of social situations.
The downside:
It won't be long before you find yourself saying the following.
"I'll be right with you. I just need to clear this spam out of my underwear."
That's just disturbing.
Anyway...
Corpulent Cowboy Store Clerk to Homer Simpson: Now this is made from a space-age fabric specially designed for Elvis. Sweat actually cleans this suit!
From "The Simpson's" episode "Lurleen on Me"
Item 2
Photo may show another world
Astronomers from Pennsylvania State University may have taken the first photo of a planet circling a distant star. Though many planets outside our solar system have already been discovered, this would be the first time another world has ever been photographed directly. The difficulty is that the much brighter light of host stars usually obscures fainter objects, such as planets.
The good news:
Ever since the first planets outside the solar system were discovered a few years ago, we've been eagerly looking forward to the day when we would actually see one. And now that day is here.
The downside:
This new insight into our universe — like so many before it — is courtesy of the Hubble telescope, which is scheduled to be shut down.
However...
That doesn't have to happen. Save the Hubble!
Item 3
Chip-Making 'Wall' Forces Intel to Try a Major Shift
[T]wo weeks ago, Intel, the world's largest chip maker, publicly acknowledged that it had hit a "thermal wall" on its microprocessor line. As a result, the company is changing its product strategy and disbanding one of its most advanced design groups. Intel also said that it would abandon two advanced chip development projects, code-named Tejas and Jayhawk.
Intel is embarked on a course already adopted by some of its major rivals: obtaining more computing power by stamping multiple processors on a single chip rather than straining to increase the speed of a single processor.
The good news:
Chip manufacturers are moving from an old computational paradigm seamlessly and without pause to the next. Rumors of the death of Moore's Law have been greatly exaggerated.
The downside:
Intel was obviously hoping to mine a little more performance from this paradigm before being forced to move on.
Anyway...
Who says that big companies can't be nimble when they have to be?
Item 4
Hi-Flying Wi-Fi Debuts on Transatlantic Flight
Passengers flying on a Lufthansa flight from Munich to Los Angeles [this month] became the first to experience in-flight Wi-Fi - a broadband wireless internet connection.
The satellite-based system enables passengers to surf the web and send emails from their own Wi-Fi-enabled laptop or handheld computers instead of using the more limited services some airlines offer through their seatback displays…
The cost to passengers is $10 for half an hour, or a flat rate of $30 for the entire flight. This is far cheaper that the $16 per email charged by some companies via seatback equipment.
The good news:
Better service for less money. What's not to like?
The downside:
We just wish our local Quizno's would offer Wi-Fi along with their pepper bar.
Item 5
Teen Techies Engineer the Future
The world's brightest aspiring scientists gathered in Portland, Oregon, last week to compete for a piece of $3 million and the recognition that could help them to become the next Bill Gates or Jonas Salk.
The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair awards college scholarships to encourage high-school students to work in a field that experts say will soon face a critical shortage. Students designed autonomous robots, studied the heavens and the seas, and harnessed solar power for their projects, which were judged by an international panel of scientists…
[One winning competitor] used a tungsten filament from light bulbs, recycled Styrofoam blocks and a PC sound card to create a low-cost tunneling microscope that delivers improved resolution over standard light microscopes.
The good news:
There exists in this world a high school student who made a tunneling microscope from a light bulb, Styrofoam, and a sound card.
The downside:
We need more kids like this!
Item 6
"Computer Virus" Fights AIDS
Promising news, from the search for an effective treatment for HIV: two assistant professors at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs are using a new approach using computer modeling to create a virus that will spread like (and along with) HIV but actually inhibit HIV's ability to kill immune cells, preventing it from developing into full-blown AIDS
The good news:
This simulated virus may well lead to the development of an actual virus which will bring hope to millions of HIV-positive folks around the world.
The downside:
It's only a simulation.
But anyway...
This has got to be the best use ever made of a computer virus.
Item 7
A Story with Real Bite
The dental world of the future will be one where patients grow their own new teeth, much like a 6-year-old.
Dentists will implant cells from a young tooth, then apply proteins to make it grow. Roots will grow into the jaw, dentin and enamel will form, and a new tooth will grow where there was once just a gum. The best part is it won't hurt.
The good news:
No fillings. No crowns. No root canals. Just healthy, whole new teeth.
Oh, and no pain.
The downside:
What downside? Did we forget to mention...no pain.
Anyway...
Here's a good example of how things really are changing for the better. Let's suppose for a moment that the techniques described are 25 years in the future. Looking back, what did the future of dentistry hold in store for us 25 years ago?
"In the future, you'll be able to go the dentist without having to spit."
Ideas are the only thing that can change the world. The rest is details.
-- Scott Adams
Update
The BATT Challenge, Part 2
Yesterday, we issued the BATT challenge,
Name an era prior to the present in which (given the opportunity to do so) you would go and live for the rest of your life.
The simple answer for us at The Speculist is that there has never been as fine a time to be alive as right now. We say this with our eyes wide open. The fundamentalist fanaticism we face in the Muslim world today is not some modern anomaly. In the past it was the rule. Our free and open society was the historical exception. But today our successes are neither easily hidden nor easily destroyed.
The recent discovery of the ruins of the Library of Alexandria reminds us that this wasn't always true. When that library diminished much knowledge went with it. Today, even the loss of the much larger Library of Congress would not have a significant impact on western learning. Whether via Gutenberg's printing press or the Internet, knowledge is too dispersed to destroy.
Given the choice, we'll stick with the 21st Century.
Better All The Time is compiled by Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon. Live to see it!
Posted by Phil at May 20, 2004 02:39 PM | TrackBack"No fillings. No crowns. No root canals. Just healthy, whole new teeth.
Oh, and no pain."
While I agree that this development would reduce the overall pain factor associated with dentistry, possibly even as much as the advent of safe anesthetics, the following facts remain:
1) Tooth extraction isn't a pretty business.
2) Gingival infections and other hazards may render the infrastructure of the jaw unsuitable for dental regeneration therapies.
and,
3) I maintain that the primary reason that the so-called "wisdom-teeth" develop in humans at approximately the beginning of the child rearing years is so that the parent will have some recent experience in teething (which can be extrodinarily uncomfortable) and therefore not be as inclined to prolicide (killing one's offspring.
Posted by: EJG (Mike Sargent) at May 21, 2004 10:48 AM>>I maintain that the primary reason that the so-called "wisdom-teeth" develop in humans at approximately the beginning of the child rearing years is so that the parent will have some recent experience in teething (which can be extrodinarily uncomfortable) and therefore not be as inclined to prolicide (killing one's offspring.
LOL! El Jefe dropping little bits of sunshine wherever he goes...at least, I think that's sunshine.
Drop by more often, dude.
Posted by: Phil at May 21, 2004 11:17 AMI was kind of under the weather yesterday and didn't get to the BATT challenge. I already know that I wouldn't want to live in a past era. I don't even like to go camping. That's what living a past era would be like - Camping permanently with no medical facilities or grocery stores to drive to. Sounds like a shallow and pedestrian comment. But I'm a highly domesticated human and a product of this era. And I'm spoiled.
I won't discuss morality and other social issues here. That's too much for the comments box.
Posted by: Kathy at May 21, 2004 03:52 PMKathy:
I'm sure Phil would agree that long comments are fine.
Load us up!
Posted by: Stephen Gordon at May 21, 2004 08:00 PM1601 Get your online poker fix at http://www.onlinepoker-dot.com
Posted by: poker at August 15, 2004 08:10 PM