10 Modern Devices That Will Change Our Lives Many believe that we are now experiencing the most intense technological revolution of all time, and that we are transitioning into a High Technology Age, where new advancements will make previous models extinct. Here are some gadgets that are slated to be released in the very near future (some have been released already). Many of these modern devices will change our lives—and the world we live in—for good: Fear of the dentist can be a very serious issue for many children and adolescents. The truth is that no one really enjoys going to the dentist regardless of their age, even if it’s just for a plain check-up. The sensor will alert you when it detects any bacteria that could cause cavities, plaque buildup, or any other infections—in this way you’ll be able to prevent a major problem, and thereby avoid the dentist’s office. Welcome to the future of fun and entertainment. It’s not recommended for people who are afraid of high rises, nor for those of us who have a propensity to vomit.
Concept Clothing Responds To Social Situations Goldsmiths, University of London graduate Lilian Hipolyte Mushi has designed concept clothing specifically for introverts to help them in a highly extroverted world. The project, which the designer has titled An Introvert’s Transformation to Extroversion, consists of specific components that ‘react’ when someone gets too close to the wearer. The piece of clothing includes wooden arms that fan out at the back when built-in distance sensors detect someone within 80 centimeters of the wearer. According to Lilian, the concept clothing ‘explores how introverts use isolation as a mechanism for social recharge as well as a way to navigate social situations.’ View more images of the project below. Lilian Hipolyte Mushi
Window Socket - Solar Energy Powered Socket by Kyuho Song & Boa Oh The Window Socket offers a neat way to harness solar energy and use it as a plug socket. So far we have seen solutions that act as a solar battery backup, but none as a direct plug-in. Simple in design, the plug just attaches to any window and does its job intuitively. Designers: Kyuho Song & Boa Oh
The Future Of Education Is Outside The Classroom The world is currently facing monumental education challenges. Decades of standardized testing, fear of technology, and fixation on memorization have impacted the world’s youth negatively and kept them from reaching their human potential. In a recent documentary, the telecommunications provider Ericsson sheds light on shifts happening in the worlds of various educators and the learning industry at large. Seth Godin believes the education system is scam. Jose Ferreira, Founder and CEO of Knewton, believes the textbook of the future will be housed on devices. Sugata Mitra believes that knowledge and knowing are becoming replaced by access to information. Stephen Heppell is working to shift the focus in education from exams and scores to be more data-led and technology friendly. Lois Mbugna and Margaret Kositany are Ericsson employees working in Kenya. Ericsson
Star Wars-style robotic arm approved for mass production Published time: May 10, 2014 08:55 Edited time: May 12, 2014 22:00 Image from darpa.mil A “near-natural” prosthetic arm, that took eight years to develop and test, has been approved for mass production by the US Food and Drug Administration. The DEKA Arm System has been affectionately dubbed “The Luke,” after Star Wars’ Luke Skywalker who received a robotic replacement for the hand he lost in a fight with Darth Vader in the 1980 film “The Empire Strikes Back.” One of the developers, Dean Camen, the inventor of the Segway, says that the new type of a prosthetic limb will dramatically improve the lives of amputees. According to the recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) release, it “reviewed clinical information relating to the device, including a 4-site Department of Veterans Affairs study in which 36 DEKA Arm System study participants provided data on how the arm performed in common household and self-care tasks."
Google reveals Project Tango experimental phone with built in 3D scanners Phone will only be sold to app developersCould be used for indoor navigation and augmented reality gamesTechnology similar to Microsoft's Kinect for game consoles By Mark Prigg Published: 20:33 GMT, 20 February 2014 | Updated: 17:59 GMT, 21 February 2014 Google has revealed a mobile phone with a built in 3D scanner that could revolutionise navigation. Called Project Tango, the phone can build up a live 3D map of its surrounding area. It will initially only be sold to developers, who Google hope will develop everything from satnav apps to games similar to those found on Microsoft's Xbox, which uses the 3D Kinect sensor.. Scroll down for video Google's prototype phone - a 5inch handset packed with 3D sensors The handset can automatically build a 3D map of anywhere the user is, allowing for far better indoor navigation The handset can take 250,000 3D measurements a second It was created by Motorola's ATAP division, which last week joined Google. A live map created by the handset
ITER: How a new star will be born | euronews, science The ITER project is truly at the frontier of knowledge, a collective effort to explore the tantalising future of free, clean and inexhaustible energy offered by nuclear fusion. Where the Large Hadron Collider at CERN pushes the boundaries of physics to find the origins of matter, the ITER project seeks to give humans an endless stream of power which could have potentially game-changing consequences for the entire planet. In this article, Robert Arnoux from ITER offers us his vision of nuclear fusion. Opinion: A new star will soon be born, a star unlike any other … a man-made star. ITER— both the Latin word for “The Way” and the acronym of International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor—will light up in the early years of the coming decade. From a scientific and technological point of view, it will be one of mankind’s major accomplishments. The ITER machine is a tokamak, the Russian acronym for Toroidal Chamber, Magnetic Coils. Preparation work on the ITER site began in January 2007.
SeaOrbiter set for construction | euronews, science The SeaOrbiter project which is headed by pioneering architect Jacques Rougerie stepped closer to reality after a crowd-funding initiative easily passed the 325,000 euro needed to begin construction of the vessel’s ‘eye’, a kind of lookout post that sits 18 metres high above the water. The cash is a significant vote of support from the public for a unique project to explore the world’s oceans. Jacques Rougerie told Euronews that construction would go ahead in western France later this year: “We’re going to build SeaOrbiter at St Nazaire, in the Loire region with all the industrial know-how of that region, that will bring us a new generation of recyclable aluminium, new welding technologies, new kinds of polycarbonates”. Overall, the crowd-funding accounts for a drop in the ocean of the overall budget for SeaOrbiter, but the project does have the wind in its sails, with 70% of the 35 million euro budget now available. Drifting in the open sea
Dean Kamen's DARPA-Funded Prosthetic Arm Gets FDA Approval For eight years now, the DEKA prosthetic arm -- a DARPA-funded project aimed at improving the lives of amputees -- has been moving slowly toward FDA approval. Now, right on schedule, the mind-controlled, robotic prosthetic has been approved up by the Food and Drug Administration. Nicknamed the "Luke" arm by its creators, the DEKA arm now has the distinction of being the first FDA-approved arm that can move multiple joints at once by receiving commands from electromyograms, or EMG, electrodes on remaining parts of the arm. In a study from 2012, the arm was also succesfully "mind-controlled" through the use of neural implants. As part of a "fast-track" review, the FDA reviewed a study of the arm, which "found that approximately 90 percent of study participants were able to perform activities with the DEKA Arm System that they were not able to perform with their current prosthesis, such as using keys and locks, preparing food, feeding oneself, using zippers, and brushing and combing hair."
▶ RoboEarth: Connecting robots world-wide At its core, RoboEarth is a World Wide Web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment. Bringing a new meaning to the phrase “experience is the best teacher”, the goal of RoboEarth is to allow robotic systems to benefit from the experience of other robots, paving the way for rapid advances in machine cognition and behaviour, and ultimately, for more subtle and sophisticated human-machine interaction. RoboEarth offers a complete Cloud Robotics infrastructure, which includes everything needed to close the loop from robot to RoboEarth to robot. The RoboEarth World-Wide-Web style database is implemented on a server with Internet and Intranet functionality, making it attractive for both research and business applications. Would you like to put a link to this lecture on your homepage?
Your Services are No Longer Needed - Meet the Robot Bio David Brooks David Brooks has been an op-ed columnist for The New York Times since 2003. Previously, he was an editor at The Wall Street Journal, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, and a contributing editor at Newsweek and The Atlantic. Currently a commentator on PBS’s “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” Brooks is also the author, most recently, of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character. His earlier books are Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. Andrew McAfee Andrew McAfee is a principal research scientist at MIT and cofounder of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. ZOOM IN: Learn more with related books and additional materials. For related Britannica content, please search on Britannica's Web site, at www.britannica.com.