"Enduring Genius"
Jobs left plans for more Apple products
Thomas Grillo, Boston Herald (October 10, 2011)
"The Apple genius stockpiled fours years worth of blueprints for fresh products to ensure his company's success, according to reports.
"Despite his illness, Jobs, the co-founder and CEO of Apple who died last week at the age of 56, had been masterminding updated versions of the iPod, iPad, iPhone and MacBooks, and overseeing the development of the delayed iCloud project, which will allow Apple users to store music, photos and other documents remotely, according to a report in the Daily Mail.
"Carl Howe, director of Yankee Group's Consumer Research group, said he's not surprised that Jobs was at work on future Apple products, noting that the design registration for the iPad was completed in 2004 but not introduced to the marketplace until last year.
" 'It's not like these guys plan only a quarter or two in advance,' he said. 'Jobs anticipated new products years ahead.'..."
We'll probably be hearing about Steve Jobs for quite a while. As the Lemming opined last week, Mr. Jobs had quite a bit to do with developing the interconnected world we have today.
That said, the "future Apple products" sound a whole lot like current Apple products:
Probably with new features
Possibly with better performance
Maybe with some number of bugs fixed
And a lower number introduced
Even the "delayed iCloud project" isn't all that new: at least, "cloud computing" has been around for years. This blog's first post about cloud computing was in January, 2009, as the Lemming recalls.
Back then, cloud computing would cause the death of the PC. The Lemming sounded off on "death of" articles last month. (September 28, 2011)
The Lemming thinks "cloud computing" makes sense for some functions. In a way, this blog is an example of cloud computing. The Lemming uses a desktop computer in central Minnesota to connect via the Internet with servers run by blogger.com: and it's those servers that store the posts.
Until some millennial day, when Internet connections never fail and data stored online is absolutely, positively, failsafe secure - the Lemming thinks that quite a few business and personal data storage and management will be done on-site.
How hard is it to make "failsafe" systems? Let's look at a definition for the term:
"failsafe- A process that uses controls and logic to stop an improper operation or transaction before it occurs and creates an error condition or defect. ex.- an entry program for distributing a single charge to several departments by percent that will not update if the individual entries don't add up to 100%."
(Bridgefield Group)
The example Brigefield Group gives shouldn't be too hard to get right: says the blogger who doesn't have to write the code; and get it approved by a gaggle of managers. More complex operations, like an online database? The Lemming suspects that making something like that "failsafe" when it comes to security will be somewhere between extremely difficult and flat-out impossible.
"Chances are you've encountered something called temper foam, even if you didn't realize it. This foam padding, which absorbs shock while providing comfort and protection, is now widely used almost 50 years after it was developed for NASA.
"Temper foam has padded the helmets of race car drivers and Dallas Cowboys, been used to manufacture comfortable prosthetic limbs, and found its way into shoe insoles so that men and women around the world need not sacrifice style for comfort. Yet it was invented in 1966 for use in NASA's airplane seats.
"Charles Yost was an aeronautical engineer with Systems Dynamics Group at North American Aviation Inc. who in 1962 helped build a recovery system for the Apollo command module, during the agency's lunar landing program...."
The article runs through how this high-tech foam is used - from protective gear to a special obstacle course for returning astronauts.
If you're younger than about 40, you've never lived in a world that didn't have this remarkable stuff in it:
"...The invention was originally referred to as 'slow spring back foam,' because the material flowed to match the contour of whatever was pressing against it – like a mold – and returned to its original shape once the pressure was removed.
"In 1969, Yost formed Dynamic Systems Inc. to sell the technology, which came to be known as 'temper foam.' ..."
Materials technology - the stuff things are made of - has changed a lot since the Lemming started taking notice. In the last 50 years, we've gone from glass bottles to - glass bottles. Some products still come in glass containers - but many more are in bottles made of synthetics that didn't exist back in the 'good old days.'
The Lemming once dropped a grocery bag with a ketchup bottle in it. A glass bottle. Plastic is, in the Lemming's opinion, better.
"Blog Guy, apart from writing textbooks and making airplanes, what do you do with your time?
"I dabble at inventing. Someday one of my ideas will catch on, and that will be my ticket out of this dump.
"Is there anything you can share with us?
"Well, I do have three patents pending. You know the automatic doors they have at stores?
"Of course. They open when you approach, but those have been around forever.
"Yes, but not the smaller home version. Why should you have to turn a doorknob when you can have all the convenience of a supermarket at your own front door?..."
(from Reuters/Sukree Sukplang, via Oddly Enough, used w/o permission)
That photo - purportedly - shows a test of a gadget that decides which side you sleep on. For the busy sleeper.
This Oddly Enough post is about as serious and fraught with portent as any other - which is either not at all; or more than might be supposed.
Like the automatic door openers for residences.
That's silly, right? Who would possibly want something like that? Next thing you know, Mr. Basler will claim that folks would want garage doors that go up or down at the touch of a button.
Wait a minute - garage door openers are about as common as garage doors in many parts of America.
The Lemming remembers when that wasn't so. Living in central Minnesota, the Lemming also understands why a foolish luxury like motorized garage doors - didn't turn out to be so foolish, after all.
Mr. Basler might have a patentable - and profitable - product there. If someone else isn't already marketing something like it.
Preface: It would be nice, in the Lemming's opinion, if everybody would always be nice. That doesn't happen. I've discussed niceness, war, and reality, in "War is Not Nice," Another War-on-Terror Blog. The Lemming will omit the customary hand-wringing in this post, regarding the need for weapons. A railgun is a staple science fiction weapon. Unlike guns that use a small explosive charge, or compressed gas, to accelerate a projectile; a series of electromagnets in a railgun's 'barrel' act on a projectile, one after another.
As the projectile reaches each electromagnet, it shuts off and the next one is turned on.
Theoretically, very high muzzle velocities should be possible.
This isn't a new idea. A 1933 patent application describes a machine gun that uses magnetic flux instead of "gun powder or the like." We don't have electric machine guns today: quite likely because back in 1933 we didn't have high-output portable generators.
As David S. Zondy said, in his Tales of Future Past page on railguns, "...Mr. Virgil Grigsby of San Augustine Texas went for the small-scale version of what today is known as a "railgun" when he patented his electric machinegun, which would have revolutionised warfare if the extension cord had stretched a bit further...." ("Railgun," Tales of Future Past)
That was then. This is now:
(U.S. Navy video by John Williams, via FoxNews.com, used w/o permission)
"A theoretical dream for decades, the railgun is unlike any other weapon used in warfare. And it's quite real too, as the U.S. Navy has proven in a record-setting test today in Dahlgren, VA.
"Rather than relying on a explosion to fire a projectile, the technology uses an electomagnetic current to accelerate a non-explosive bullet at several times the speed of sound. The conductive projectile zips along a set of electrically charged parallel rails and out of the barrel at speeds up to Mach 7.
"The result: a weapon that can hit a target 100 miles or more away within minutes.
" 'It's an over-used term, but it really changes several games,' Rear Admiral Nevin P. Carr, Jr., the chief of Naval Research, told FoxNews.com prior to the test.
"For a generation raised on shoot-'em-up video games, the word 'railgun' invokes sci-fi images of an impossibly destructive weapon annihilating monsters and aliens. But the railgun is nonetheless very real.
"An electromagnetic railgun offers a velocity previously unattainable in a conventional weapon, speeds that are incredibly powerful on their own. In fact, since the projectile doesn't have any explosives itself, it relies upon that kinetic energy to do damage. And at 11 a.m. today, the Navy produced a 33-megajoule firing -- more than three times the previous record set by the Navy in 2008...."
33 Mega-whats?!
The energy involved, 33 megajoules, may not seem like much: although "mega" is an impressive syllable. Briefly, a joule is a measure of energy. A megajoule is, what else? - 1,000,000 joules. A joule is the energy involved in moving one meter with the force of one newton. A newton is the force it takes to accelerate one kilogram at 1 meter per second per second.
Another way of putting it is that the energy in one kilowatt-hour is about 3.6 megajoules. On the unlikely chance that you want more of that, Australian Academy of Science and GCSE.com websites define these and other terms.
33 Megajoules: How Bad Can That Be?
If the Lemming did the math right, at typical American energy costs, that 33 megajoules of energy costs between 20 cents and two dollars. That's according to EnergyVortex.com. We're apparently supposed to feel guilty about the power grid, by the way. Destroying the environment and all that.
The FoxNews.com article translates the railgun's destructive potential in a less geeky, more readily understood way. In the Lemming's opinion.
"...A single megajoule is roughly equivalent to a 1-ton car traveling at 100 mph...."
(FoxNews.com)
So: let's say one of those semitrailers that carries maybe a dozen cars is barreling down a freeway at 100 miles an hour. And hits a bridge piling. It's going to be bad for the driver: also anybody driving nearby; the bridge piling; and quite possibly the bridge.
33 megajoules is a lot of energy.
Why Railguns?
The Lemming could insert the conventional hand-wringing about the not-niceness of violence here: but you've heard it all before. Moving on.
Since railgun projectiles are essentially solid pieces of metal, with no explosives: if one is dropped, it won't explode. Navy crews who handle munitions would have one less thing to worry about. The railguns themselves don't use explosives to accelerate the projectiles: so that's another worry gone.
There are logistical and tactical advantages, too - discussed briefly in the article.
Impossible? In 1933, Yes
Navy ships with railguns won't be around for several years. There are still very serious technical issues to be ironed out. Back to that article:
"...The projectile is no cannon ball, either. At speeds well above the sound barrier, aerodynamics and special materials must be considered so that it isn't destroyed coming out of the barrel or by heat as it travels at such terrific speeds.
"Then there's question of electrical requirements. Up until recently, those requirements simply weren't practical. However, the naval researchers believe they can solve that issue using newer Navy ships and capacitors to build up the charge necessary to blast a railgun projectile out at supersonic speeds. Ellis says they hope to be able to shoot 6 to 12 rounds per minute, 'but we're not there yet.'
"So when will the railgun become a working weapon? Both Ellis and Carr expect fully functional railguns on the decks of U.S. Navy ships in the 2025 time frame...."
(FoxNews.com)
"There wasn't much left of the 23-pound bullet, just a scalded piece of squat metal. That's what happens when an enormous electromagnetic gun sends its ammo rocketing 5,500 feet in a single second.
"The gun that fired the bullet is the Navy's experimental railgun. The gun has no moving parts or propellants — just a king-sized burst of energy that sends a projectile flying. And today its parents at the Office of Naval Research sent 33 megajoules through it, setting a new world record and making it the most powerful railgun ever developed.
"Reporters were invited to watch the test at the Dalghren Naval Surface Warfare Center. A tangle of two-inch thick coaxial cables hooked up to stacks of refrigerator-sized capacitors took five minutes to power juice into a gun the size of a schoolbus built in a warehouse. With a 1.5-million-ampere spark of light and a boom audible in a room 50 feet away, the bullet left the gun at a speed of Mach 8.
"All that energy was 'dump[ed] in 10 milliseconds,' says Charles Garrett, project manager at Dahlgren for the railgun.
But since there no explosion powering the projectile, why should the railgun have made any noise at all? Answer: the bullet went so fast it released a sonic boom."
"The Office of Naval Research Electromagnetic Railgun located at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, fired a world-record setting 33 megajoule shot, breaking the previous record established January, 31, 2008."
"Using ultra-fast imaging and 'echoes of light,' researchers have developed an innovative camera that takes pictures outside of traditional line of sight.
"Short bursts of light that reflect off of different objects is key for researchers at MIT. They've named the process 'Femto-Photography.' It exploits the finite speed of light and it is part of what they call the 'femtosecond transient imaging system.'
"Applying a femtosecond laser, short pulses of light bounce around off of one object and on to another before reflecting back onto the original object where it is then captured by the camera. The bursts of light last for one quadrillionth of a second. Algorithms then reconstruct what is hidden.
"According to MIT Professor Ramesh Raskar, the camera creates a '3D time-image' of the unseen image, by continuously gathering light and computing the time and distance that each pixel has traveled...."
Two words:
Oh
Wow
This technology is in its very early stages - sort of like X-ray machines, about a hundred years back. (November 8, 2010) The DailyTech article doesn't show any pictures made by the Femto-Photography, so the Lemming's guess is that the results aren't all that spectacular.
Given how useful this sort of thing could be, the Lemming's guess is that the MIT folks won't have to work all that hard for R & D funding.
Back to that article:
"...potential applications could include search and rescue, medical imaging, industrial building inspection and traffic collision prevention.
" 'You could generate a map before you go into a dangerous place like a building fire, or a robotic car could use the system to compute the path it should take around a corner before it takes it.'..."
(MIT Professor Ramesh Raskar, via DailyTech)
How long before there's a portable imaging system that uses this technology? The folks at MIT think - about two years.
Someone pointed out that Julius Caesar and George Washington wouldn't have had all that much trouble communicating with each other - apart from a nearly-eighteen-century gap between their lifetimes. George Washington probably understood enough Latin to get by - or could have found someone who did. It wasn't until the mid-20th century that Latin stopped being 'required' for serious students in the Western world.
Their common ground wasn't limited to language. Both men lived in a world where most people either grew food themselves, or worked directly with someone who did. Land transportation was powered by horses or other draft animals. Writing was the ultimate data storage and retrieval technology - although Julius Caesar would, the Lemming thinks, have been fascinated by the implications of movable type.
Not much had changed, in terms of technology.
Then somebody developed a way to get enormous amounts of more-or-less controllable power by boiling water. Steam locomotives, the telegraph, airliners, the Internet, and robotic spaceships followed in quick succession. And farming has changed from a nearly-universal occupation to a sort of professional specialty.
American English hasn't changed all that much in the last two centuries, so George Washington would be able to hold a conversation without much trouble. Until someone mentioned a car, cell phone, iPod, television - you get the idea. The former president would have a whole lot of catching up to do.
And now we're looking at portable 'see-around-corner' technology in about two years.
No wonder some folks write about an 'overwhelmed' 'hive mind.' (January 27, 2010)
The Lemming doesn't see things that way, but I've had a life that let me keep up with what's happening. Having to learn a new job every year or so helped.
Q Drum
"the rollable water container for developing countries"
"Water is essential to the survival of all forms of life and a clean and accessible supply is a basic need that millions of people around the world do not have. In disadvantaged and rural communities, the burden of fetching water invariably over long distances by cumbersome and far too often, unhygienic means is all too evident. The Q Drum is the simple, durable, effective and user-friendly solution to this problem. A device designed to improve the lives and health of countless people around the world...."
Looks like a good idea.
Ideally, folks living all over the world would have the sort of water treatment plant that's on the north side of Sauk Centre, where the Lemming lives. Plus the water tower, pumps, water mains and sewer system we've got.
Ideally.
Until everybody can afford that, technology like the Q Drum could make the job of getting clean drinking water easier. And, in some cases, practical.
"The idea of the Q Drum originated in response to the needs of rural people in developing countries who have a problem carrying adequate quantities of potable water from a reliable source.
"A burden which is generally bestowed on the women and children of each community. In Africa for example, many debilitating back and neck injuries are a result of women carrying heavy loads on their heads.
"Rolling water in a cylindrical vessel was the only solution that seemed to make sense and allow for a greater quality of life in this regard...."
The Q Drum is essentially a plastic drum with a hollow shaft down the center. The company's website says it's made of Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE), a synthetic material that's safe for carrying drinking water and "dry foodstuffs" - by which I gather they mean food like grain or flour.
It's got a fifty liter capacity - filled with water, it weighs 54.5 kilograms. If I did the math right, that's roughly 120 pounds. Once someone got it moving, it shouldn't be too hard to keep going on a relatively smooth, level surface. Going up or down slopes, though, might require planning - in the Lemming's opinion.
The thing comes with a rope - but if that breaks, just about anything long and flexible will do: a leather strap; or, of course, another rope. The website doesn't put it this way: but rope is a very common technology, quite possibly among the first we developed.
The Q Drum does have a 'down' side. A set of these things is cheaper than an urban water treatment facility - by far. But they're not exactly cheap, either.
The company has a Pricing page that discusses this - and has a table with costs per unit.
Somebody buying between 1 and 99 of them would pay R500 per unit. I assume that's 500 Rand - the South African currency unit. That might be around $72 USD. But don't take the Lemming's word for that. For one thing, currency values change over time.
The point is, as it says on that page: " 'The people that need them need can't afford them & must rely on people who can afford them but don't need them' "
Well, it's not a perfect world.
Some of the outfits that are helping Haiti might be interested in picking up Q Drums in large lots and taking them where they're needed.
Which brings the Lemming, somewhat clumsily, to Haiti: which doesn't seem to be doing any worse than last week; but not all that much better, either.
"Why build space station parts in factories here on Earth when they're ultimately going to end up in space? And why use a factory at all when you can just crank those parts out with a 3-D printer?
"A new company called Made In Space is posing these questions to the aerospace industry — as well as to potential investors. Made in Space wants to launch 3-D printers into orbit and use them to make parts for spacecraft and space stations, which would be assembled in zero gravity.
"Three-dimensional printers make objects by sequentially depositing thin layers of 'feedstock,' which can be metal, plastic or a variety of other materials.
"Printing out parts in space would save a great deal of time and money, according to Made in Space. And the technology could eventually be transplanted to other worlds such as the moon, where it could help human colonies gain a foothold by printing out robot parts or buildings, piece by piece...."
If this idea - 'printing' complex objects on-site instead of lifting them off Earth - seems familiar, you're either a regular Space.com reader. Or check out the Lemming fairly often. I posted a micro-review of 3-D printing off-Earth, back in April, 2010.
This sort of technology has been around for quite a while: I can't remember when I first ran into coverage of it, but RP (Rapid Prototyping) goes back a fair way. There's an interesting piece about the history of prototyping on the Cornell University website:
"3-D Printing the History of Mechanisms" (PDF) Hod Lipson, Francis C. Moon, Jimmy Hai, Carlo Paventi, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, Journal of Mechanical Design (September, 2005)
Prototype Zone's history of RP puts the start of this technology in the sixties - which agrees with my memory.
The Lemming's guess is that people will be manufacturing some things on Earth for quite a while - but the idea of making large, relatively simple components like pressure vessels on site seems to make very good sense.
Of course, there has to be some sort of material 'on site' to work with. Looks like we'll be using the surface of planets and moons for quite a while.
Related posts, on 'space' business and new technology:
"Novartis AG plans to seek regulatory approval within 18 months for a pioneering tablet containing an embedded microchip, bringing the concept of 'smart-pill' technology a step closer.
"The initial program will use one of the Swiss firm's established drugs taken by transplant patients to avoid organ rejection. But Trevor Mundel, global head of development, believes the concept can be applied to many other pills.
" 'We are taking forward this transplant drug with a chip and we hope within the next 18 months to have something that we will be able to submit to the regulators, at least in Europe,' Mundel told the Reuters Health Summit in New York.
" 'I see the promise as going much beyond that,' he added...."
"...Mundel said the initial project was focused on ensuring that patients took drugs at the right time and got the dose they needed -- a key issue for people after kidney and other transplant operations, when treatment frequently needs adjustment.
"Longer-term, he hopes to expand the 'smart pill' concept to other types of medicine and use the wealth of biometric information the Proteus chip can collect, from heart rate and temperature to body movement, to check that drugs are working properly...."
And the Lemming sees a whole lot of lawsuits here in America, as fearful folks become convinced that their privacy is being invaded. Or maybe it'll be that the CIA is tuning in on their brainwaves, using a microchip they ate in a covert BLT sandwich.
This is definitely not the world I grew up in.
Which is fine by me. I don't mind having microwave ovens, DVD players, cell phones about the size of the old Star Trek communicators: and medical technologies that help keep me in good operating condition. (I've discussed my biases about medical technology before.)
Others apparently aren't making the transition to the Information Age quite so smoothly.
New Technologies Will Solve All Our Problems: HA!
As I've written before, this new technology will be misused. We're human beings. That's what we do. Sometimes. Other times - most of the time, in the Lemming's opinion - technology is used for constructive purposes.
But it won't solve all our problems. Most of which come from inside us - and that's a different topic, for another blog. (Recently: "Mirrors, Television, and MP3 Players," A Catholic Citizen in America (November 6, 2010))
These gutbots (the Lemming's confident that medical technology companies will come up with a catchier name) have a lot to offer: detailed telemetry from our GI tract, for starters.
A bit further down the road, I'm looking for small implants that get power from our bloodstream, just as our cells do: They could be used for long-term diagnostic work.
And maybe better artificial organs than what we've got now. Pacemakers, for starters.
Today the Gut: Tomorrow, the Brain!
The Lemming may be more aware of what strokes can do to a person than most folks. My mother had a stroke - a bad one - and that's enough about that.
The point is that we've getting a pretty good picture of how the brain is wired. Parts of it, anyway. Cochlear implants already use an electronic-neural interface to help folks with severe hearing problems hear through a microphone sitting behind their ears.
It's a big step - make that quite a few huge steps - from a cochlear implant to plug-in components that can replace damaged parts of the brain. But 'brain chips' like that are looking less and less unlikely by the year.
"Just when you've got the sofa or carpet clean, the dog appears and sheds a few pounds of loose hair all over the place. It's a problem faced by dog lovers the world over and one which the folks at Dyson UK have been considering for the past year. The result is a vacuum attachment for medium to long haired dogs which sucks up loose hair and dead skin before it gets anywhere near your new clean floor or prized upholstery.
"While some dogs shed their coats a couple of times a year, others leave a constant stream of discarded hair in their wake...."
(from gizmag, used w/o permission) "The Dyson Groom tool has been designed to help prevent the mess associated with dog hair loss by sucking any loose hair into the vacuum before it gets the chance to hit the floor"
That photo is a smaller version of one of five in this gizmag article's gallery. My guess is that they're from the Dyson company.
Here's one I found on the Dyson website, that does a pretty good job of showing the grooming tool.
(from Dyson, used w/o permission) The grooming tool is that brush arrangement that fits on on the end of a vacuum cleaner hose. As the product description puts it: "The Dyson groom tool can be used with most Dyson upright and cylinder vacuums. However, it is not suitable for motorhead machines or handhelds." (Dyson groom tool part number 921001-01)
The Lemming wasn't too impressed with this thing: a quick skim of the product description and photos made it look like something anybody could cobble together from a vacuum cleaner and an ordinary dog brush.
This YouTube video shows that there's a bit more to this "Groom Tool" than that:
"For more information visit www.Dyson.co.uk/groom"
That isn't the most riveting sales copy the Lemming's ever seen: but the 25-second video does a good job of showing what this gadget will do.
What impressed me is right at the end - where we see the mat of dog hair that's accumulated on the bristles. With what looks like a very simple movement, the brush pushes the hair mat off the bristles. Then the vacuum hose inhales it.
Looks good. Although, at the $64 USD price mentioned by gizmag: If I had a dog, I'd probably stick with a cheaper brush and my household's shop vacuum.
"Yves Rossy, the first man to have the performances of an airplane (climb !) with only his body movements to steer: The Icare's dream reality !"
Yves Rossy's flown across the English Channel since that video was made: and other folks are developing personal flight technology, too. The Lemming doesn't think that the flying belts of the Jetsons are all that likely - not any time soon.
On the other hand, there are recreational and practical applications that just about guarantee that we'll see more of these things in the next few years.
"Emily may not be the prettiest thing with plastic parts on bikini-riddled Zuma Beach in Malibu, Calif., but 'she' still turns heads.
"That's because Emily -- whose name is an acronym for Emergency Integrated Lifesaving Lanyard -- is a four-foot-long robotic buoy capable of racing through rough surf at 24 miles per hour. Emily's creators estimate that the robot can rescue distressed swimmers twelve times as fast as human lifeguards. Take that, David Hasselhoff!..."
"...The final result is a remote-controlled contraption powered by a tiny electric pump called an impeller, which squirts a forceful stream of water, much like the propulsion system on a Jet Ski. Manufactured by Mulligan's startup, a seven-employee company called Hydronalix in Sahuarita, Ariz., Emily can run up to 80 miles on a single battery charge. The device's foam core is buoyant enough to support up to five people, who cling to Emily's ropes until human aid arrives...."
It looks like a sawed-off red pontoon with a flag - and relies on the drowning victim being alert, and able to grab and hold on to the lines along its side. Also realize that the red torpedo is there to help.
"...'This is a classic example of an inventor's idea of how to solve a problem that doesn't necessarily coincide with reality,' says B. Chris Brewster, president of the United States Lifesaving Association. He notes that a robotic floatation device -- no matter how nifty -- can't save an unconscious swimmer...."
That's a reasonable point.
Still, that 24-knot 'swimming' speed is impressive. And well outside the envelope of what human beings can do.
The Lemming thinks that something like EMILY could be a lifesaver - literally - in situations where getting there fast is important.
Add a camera, arms, and artificial intelligence - and the 'uncooperative victim' issue is dealt with. That'd be a huge upgrade, of course.
"In May 1958, Popular Science published an article titled 'The Car that Drives Itself: The Car in Your Future Will Be Run By Black Boxes While You Watch.' Sound familiar? Harry McCracken, founder and editor of Technologizer.com, discusses Google's self-piloted car, and dreams that came before it...."
There's more: a transcript of the interview, and the interview itself.
And a somewhat persnickety (in the Lemming's opinion) copyright statement. Since it looks like the statement applies to the interview transcript, I'm risking that excerpt from the page's introduction.
The Lemming had noticed Google's 'new' idea of cars with auto pilots earlier, but figured that if I waited long enough, someone else would do the legwork and look up who came up with the idea of 'automatic' cars. And sure enough, someone delivered. NPR, as it happens.
From the looks of it, Google's gadget actually does drive a car in real traffic. With a human along, to take over if necessary.
Which apparently wasn't all that often.
Technologizer, discussed in the NPR interview, gives a look at automated cars, 1958 style:
"Less than two weeks ago, I attended a talk by Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Schmidt spoke about a profoundly computer-augmented future, and said that there was no reason why super-safe self-driving cars couldn’t be built–in fact, he said he couldn’t understand why humans were allowed to drive automobiles at all. (As is fairly common with Schmidt comments, it wasn’t entirely clear where that comment sat on the continuum from utter frivolity to deadly seriousness.)..."
The Lemming isn't entirely comfortable with the word "deadly" in a sentence dealing with urban traffic - but that's a quibble.
Of the two, I recommend the Technologizer article: not so much because that outfit is less afraid of publicity, as the lack of 'social commentary,' or what ever it's called these days.
As the Lemming's discussed before, I'm 'apathetic' only in a rather restricted sense of the term.
Seriously, though: Harry McCracken does a pretty good job of discussing more-or-less 'automatic' cars from the earlier 20th century up to this month's news.
The Lemming's take on what Google and others are doing? With commercial artificial intelligence ranging from none-too-bright robotic floor cleaners (January 30, 2009) to Fenway, the hospital helper (September 21, 2010), and Robovie-II able to help with shopping (January 7, 2010): Robotic cars don't seem all that unlikely.
On the other hand, there are still issues like reliability. What impressed the Lemming was that Google and others had gotten processing speed for 'smart cars' up to practical levels.
"The history of pottery stretches back millennia. People across the world have fired or baked moist clay to make pots, plates and ceramic decorations since prehistoric times.
"History of Pottery "Most of the earliest evidence of pottery that has been found was made in the Middle East during the Neolithic Revolution, about 10,000 years ago, when humans started learning to domesticate plants and animals. However, our knowledge of the past is not complete. For example, scientists discovered a 25,000 year-old fired figurine of a woman made of clay and bone ash, called "Venus," at Dolni Vestonice in the Czech Republic.
"The next major innovation, the pottery wheel, emerged around 3000 B.C. in Mesopotamia. While no one knows who invented the pottery wheel or if it was developed over time, it allowed potters to make perfectly round pottery for the first time...."
The next time you feel an urgent need to review the first 10,000 or so years of pottery, here's a pretty good page. It's short, and has a quite favorable content-to-fluff ratio.
What, No Space Aliens?!
The Lemming cannot recall encountering a claim that space aliens taught 'primitive' humans how to make pottery. Not once. Not even during the heydays of the flying saucers.
"Imagine this: A wedge-shaped aircraft attached to a supersonic jet engine is hurtling along an electrified track, carrying a pod or spacecraft destined for orbit.
"Sound farfetched? It may not be.
"A team of engineers from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and some of the agency's other field centers are looking into this and other novel launch systems based on cutting-edge technologies...."
"Novel" isn't the term the Lemming would use to describe rail-launched spaceships. The idea was off-the-shelf standard equipment for science fiction writers by the time Gerry Anderson's Supermarionation Fireball XL5 was patrolling Sector 25, back in the early sixties.
(If the style of Fireball XL5 looks familiar, it should: Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's better-known Thunderbirds returned to the screen recently. Fireball XL5 isn't forgotten, though. Science fiction fans Pauline & Robin Day created images inspired by the show.)
The difference between Fireball XL5 (1962 and When Worlds Collide (1951) is that they were fictional. Based more-or-less on solid theoretical work done earlier in the 20th century, yes.
But filmmakers and audiences both recognized them as 'science fiction.' The sort of thing that belonged in "The Future."
Fifty years later, "The Future" is here: and has been for a while. We don't have a helicopter in every garage, or atomic trains. (I'm not making that up.)
On the other hand, that unlikely device, the 1920 Newsophone, that delivered on-demand news stories, is in use today. The technology is a little different than Lewis Yeager's proposal, and you're using it right now: the Internet.
Back to those rail-launched spaceships that NASA is looking at. The Space.com article points out that the current research isn't aimed at replacing the shuttle fleet. At least, not yet. On the other hand:
"...Scramjet vehicles could be used as a basis for a commercial launch program if a company decided to take advantage of the basic research NASA performed along the way, Starr said.
"Starr and his engineering team propose a 10-year plan that would begin with launching a drone similar to those used in the ongoing Air Force tests. More-advanced models would then follow, with the goal of developing a vehicle that can launch a small satellite into orbit...."
Eventually - maybe what, 15 or 20 years from now? - we'll have regular flights to orbiting stations, the way we've got trans-Pacific flights today. Science fiction? When I was growing up, yes. Today: Bigelow Aerospace doesn't seem to think so.
More, in this blog:
"One of the pleasures of writing in pencil is the friction of two solid materials in contact. One of the delights of writing in pen is that you can write continuously without having to stop to sharpen your stylus. Writing in metal, while expensive, provides some of the benefits of both while exhibiting its own unique beauty.
"These two (that's right, two) different metal pen manufacturers come to us by way of champ design blog Dornob. Both models work on the same principle: A tiny amount of metal alloy transfers from the pen to the page. Unlike pencil, it can't be smudged with your hand, and unlike ink, it doesn't need to dry. The amount of alloy for each stroke is so tiny that the pens are expected to last a lifetime without needing to be refilled or replaced. You can sharpen the tips for a finer point with a little sandpaper...."
One of the products' writing metal "has trace amounts of lead" - which is what "lead" pencils used to have, before we started using graphite.
"...The Inkless Metal Pen features a special metal alloy tip. As you write, tiny amounts of this metal are deposited onto the page. The silvery markings may resemble pencil, but they are permanent and completely smudge-proof...."
The Lemming reduced the width of the video, to fit this blog's format - follow the link to see vat19com's video at full size.
The Gadget Lab article points out that metal writing instruments are nothing new - Renaissance artists used them, for starters. On the other hand, the latest crop has a few nifty wrinkles of their own. Including, in some cases, a slightly heart-stopping price tag.
About the "endlessly" part of the title: These new metal writers are supposed to use so little of their substance, that one of them would last a lifetime.
"Tractor beams, energy rays that can move objects, are a science fiction mainstay. But now they are becoming a reality -- at least for moving very tiny objects.
"Researchers from the Australian National University have announced that they have built a device that can move small particles a meter and a half using only the power of light.
"Physicists have been able to manipulate tiny particles over miniscule distances by using lasers for years. Optical tweezers that can move particles a few millimeters are common....
"...The device works by shining a hollow laser beam around tiny glass particles. The air surrounding the particle heats up, while the dark center of the beam stays cool. When the particle starts to drift out of the middle and into the bright laser beam, the force of heated air molecules bouncing around and hitting the particle's surface is enough to nudge it back to the center.
"A small amount of light also seeps into the darker middle part of the beam, heating the air on one side of the particle and pushing it along the length of the laser beam. If another such laser is lined up on the opposite side of the beam, the speed and direction the particle moves can be easily manipulated by changing the brightness of the beams...."
The particle has to be about the size of a bacterium for this "tractor beam" to work. It's a pretty small-scale effect, but could have practical applications: like when researchers are testing really dangerous substances or disease organisms, need to move the things - and don't want to touch them with anything.
One problem that hasn't been studied is just how much heat reaches the object being moved.
"It's something most of us never think about. But you may start to take notice if HP Labs is successful in commercializing a new version of computer memory, which would make our electronics dramatically faster and more energy efficient.
"The technology is called memristor, and it is designed to work more like our brains and less like the electronic on and off switches that run computer memory now.
" 'The memristor has properties very similar to synapses in a brain,' said Stan Williams, a senior fellow at HP Labs, which has been working on this technology since 1998.
"Unlike conventional computer memory, which stores data with electronic on and off switches, Hewlett-Packard's memristor technology works on the atomic level. As electrons move across a titanium dioxide memristor chip, they nudge atoms ever so slightly, sometimes no more than a nanometer...."
That means that memristors can be smaller than their contemporary equivalents, run faster and use less energy. All of which make for smaller, more powerful, more energy-efficient - and faster - computers.
According to the CNN article, memristor technology should be on the shelves in about three years.
John D. Sutter mentions other new(ish) technologies, like Intel's phase-change memory, that uses crystal glass. (Glass isn't normally crystalline. It's more of a supercooled liquid. And that's another topic.)
"...This car is beautiful and it handles like a dream. It's fast, sexy, makes you ultra healthy and oh yeah, saves the planet. Welcome to the future."
My hat's off to whoever designed the chassis: there's an attention to aesthetics that 'relevant' gadgets like this don't always display. Still: "saves the planet?" That sort of hyperbole reminds me of terribly-earnest folks back in the sixties. And, I think, does not favors for people today who are trying to come up with practical and efficient new technologies.
The video's background music is nice, though.
And I'm glad to see that the fellow who's driving the thing is enjoying himself.
Me? I live in central Minnesota: and pushing that thing along would get mighty chilly during February.
"1933: Pilot Wiley Post returns to Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, New York, 7 days, 18 hours, 49 minutes after leaving. Aided by new technology, his flight is the first solo circumnavigation by air, and it's also the fastest-ever around-the-world-trip.
"Born in Texas, Post wanted to be a pilot after seeing his first airplane at a county fair at the age of 15. He got his break at age 24, when a barnstormer let him fill in for his injured skydiver. Post performed several jumps, but always wanted to be the pilot, not the skydiver.
"His dream was almost ruined while working in the oil fields to earn money for an airplane: He lost his left eye in an accident. Despite the lack of depth perception, Post was able to earn his pilot's license and, with his workers' compensation checks, bought his first airplane...."
Some of the new technology was 'high tech,' like his autopilot and radio direction finder.
Then there was the sleep-prevention technology that Post invented while on this around-the-world flight. He tied a wrench to one finger with a piece of string, and then held on to the wrench. If he started falling asleep, his hand relaxed - releasing the wrench, which tugged at his finger, waking him up.
"History of Air Conditioning" Derek Dahlgren, Amy Jewell, Ruth Li, Whitney Williams (for CHEG 310 Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics taught at Bucknell University by Professor M. Vigeant), Bucknell University
" The idea of air conditioning started before a machine was created to produce the cooling effect desired. The first attempt at building an air conditioner was made by Dr. John Gorrie (1803-1855), an American physician, in Apalachicola, Florida. During his practice there in the 1830s, Dr. Gorrie creating an ice-making machine that essentially blew air over a bucket of ice for cooling hospital rooms of patients suffering from malaria and yellow fever.
"In 1881, when President James Garfield was dying, naval engineers constructed a box-like structure containing cloths saturated with melted ice water, where a fan blew hot air overhead. This contraption was able to lower a room by 20 degrees Fahrenheit but consumed half a million pounds of ice in two months' time.
"A close ancestor to the modern air conditioner units was first made in 1902 by an American engineer by the name of Willis Carrier...."
A few paragraphs later, you'll know how ammonia, movie theaters, and the United States House of Representatives fit into the story of air conditioning.
These days, air conditioning is almost as 'necessary' for everyday life in America as electricity is. Which reminds me of something in yesterday's news:
Whether you call it trafficking in persons, human trafficking, or slavery, buying and selling people isn't nice. And, in quite a few cou...
Today's News! Some of it, anyway
Actually, some of yesterday's news may be here. Or maybe last week's. The software and science stuff might still be interesting, though. Or not. The Lemming thinks it's interesting: Your experience may vary.
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