Technically Speaking

A new breed

Sometimes it scares me how real life can imitate fantasy and science fiction. Take this rather clever idea from Exmovere Holdings that promises a new era of assisted mobility. For someone like myself who has extreme issues with walking, standing and bending, this device would be invaluable. However, there is a downside to the idea as this picture shows. Mind you, if I actually had one of the devices from Exmovere I would have it customized to look like Davos and his device. Hopefully, I won't have any Kaleds to convert to the interstellar menace known as the Daleks. The main issue with any mobile assistive device is typically one of power and range of use. The development of a small, light and almost inexhaustible power source would make all the difference for medical devices like this and in the wider worlds of engineering and transportation. The pipe-dream of the fusion power pack may be getting closer and closer. Until then, we can only look at these devices and think 'nearly there'.

Lights out

I'm not going to bleat on about the good and bad of Earth Hour or whether it was a success or just a publicity stunt. Yes, I know that saving power is a vital step in sustaining our planet and I do my best to help. I make sure that I turn off lights I don't need, use a programmable thermostat and recycle as much as possible. Unfortunately, saving on power, water and garbage doesn't seem to help my bottom line very much. My water bill is about to go up almost $20 a billing now and making me pay about $70 to use less that $20 of water - why should I restrict my usage then? I think that the images from the website here will illustrate the issue better that my words - check out the miserable effort made by Toronto to cut back - even Vegas does better - for shame.

Up, Up and away!

I've always been a fan of the giant airship and have thought that they were the absolute height (pun not intended, sorry) of airborne elegance and comfort. I'm sure that even today, the airship would be a perfect solution to high-class, high-paying luxury travel - Hindenburg disaster or no. Now, someone has come up with the same general idea but using a rather novel mode of transport - the giant helicopter. Yes - you read that correctly - a helicopter. Now, don't think of pokey little whirlybirds but rather of giant ex-Russian behemoths. The Hotelicopter seems to offer a really unique way to travel and avoids the nonsense of having to travel from the airport to your hotel and back again. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is an early April fools joke or not. I've yet to see real footage of this monster in action and there is no indication of cost - I suppose if you have to ask, you can't afford it. In my opinion, the Zeppelin had a certain coolness factor and looked sleek and elegant as it would slide across the sky - this hideous thing looks awful and barely flightworthy. I suppose, as people said of the F4 Phantom jet - 'give it enough power and even a brick will fly'. Sorry guys, I'm not tempted at all - I'd rather get a short flight on Virgin Galactic instead - porbably cheaper.

All 'present' and correct

The festive season is almost upon us and, even if I am not a Christian, I still enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas. As a slight departure from purely electronica - here is a wonderful collection of Christmas gifts for those hard-to-please people on your list. I had to wait till I stopped laughing so I could write this blog entry. To be honest, I think the Nativity Ducks are just great and get my vote for the best item. The Jesus piggy bank was probably second. Reminded me of graffiti I once saw on a church signboard, 'Jesus saves' - 'not in this economy'. Just brilliant! I think I will just let you look at these offerings as anything I would add wouldn't really help.

To boldly go!

Is this to be the ‘outernet’ as opposed to the ‘internet’? NASA has announced that it has successfully conducted an early test of a deep space communications network modeled on the Internet. NASA along with engineers at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory used software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN, to transmit images to and from a spacecraft some 32.4 million kilometers from Earth. NASA said the software protocol, which must be able to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space, was designed in partnership with Google. DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal Internet's Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, communication suite. Unlike TCP/IP, DTN does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection, due to the disruptions that can happen when a spacecraft moves behind a planet, or when solar storms and long communication delays occur. It said the delay, for example, in sending or receiving data from Mars takes between three-and-a-half minutes and 20 minutes at the speed of light. NASA said that if a destination path cannot be found, data packets are not discarded but kept by each network node until it can communicate safely with another node. NASA said engineers had begun a month-long series of DTN demonstrations in October using NASA's Epoxi spacecraft, which is on a mission to encounter Comet Hartley 2 in two years, as a Mars data-relay orbiter. It said there are 10 nodes in the early interplanetary network - the Epoxi spacecraft itself and nine on the ground at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory simulating Mars landers, orbiters and ground mission-operations centers. NASA said a test of DTN software loaded on board the International Space Station would begin next summer. It said an 'Interplanetary Internet’ could enable many new types of space missions including complex flights involving multiple spacecraft and ensure reliable communications for astronauts on the Moon.

Shields at 100%

In science fictional spacecraft the idea of some sort or shield or deflector countering the effect of debris and other hazards in space is common. The military has spent a whole whack of money developing some sort of charged plating to repel enemy fire and has been looking to go even further with active shielding and even invisibility cloaking. Now the boffins at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (RAL), the Universities of York and Strathclyde, and IST Lisbon have come up with a cheap and simple method to protect our astronauts from the Solar wind and it's debilitating radiation. I will be honest, I'm not a physics wiz by any means, but this seems such a simple solution. I am constantly amazed about the progress being made to make real much of what we have seen in Star Trek and expect big things in the future. Consider, now we have a handle on deflector shields, holodecks, cloaking and even warp drive. Yes, the research into 'zero point' physics has made the actuality of faster-than-light travel a distinct possibility. When Stephen Hawking visited the Star Trek set some years ago, he remarked, as he passed the warp drive set, 'we're working on that'. He wasn't kidding.The stars await!

At a loss for words

I really not sure what to make of this picture. I know that the idea of the 'wearable' computer is not a new one, but this seems a little extreme. Perhaps this would be good for a caption contest - see what you can come up with. I do NOT want to know where the reset button is. On another note, in case you had missed it, Windows 7 is coming! Yes, now that you are just getting to grips with Vista, there's a new light on the horizon. From what I've seen, it's much of the same with some tweaks and cosmetic enhancements. After all, what do we expect of our operating systems? The ability to run our word processors and games without glitches or driver issues. Not a lot to ask is it - you listening Microsoft? I suppose once Windows 7 hits the street, you'll get the typical whining that nothing was wrong with Vista and why did they have to go changing things. I also suppose we'll get another round of those misleading, annoying and funny Apple ads again. It's the same thing ever since Windows 3.0 - yes, I do remember that far back. Heck, I even used a version of Windows 286 many eons ago.

Boom!

I know that surfing the ‘net has its risks and, if you are a purveyor of child porn, you should be ready to get hauled of to prison like the filth you are. However, sometimes, I think that the long arm of the law just gets a little too zealous. The youngest person in Britain arrested and convicted under the Terrorism Act has been sentenced to two years in a young offenders' institution. Hammaad Munshi was 16 when he was arrested in 2006. During his trial the jury heard that he had spent many hours viewing jihadist websites and had downloaded guides to making napalm, detonators and explosives. The authorities also said, ‘he had gone out of his way to possess information about how to construct explosive devices and information about how to carry out acts of terrorism’. Call me old fashioned, but doesn’t this seem a little heavy-handed and rather paranoid. So, according to the police in the UK, just viewing and downloading information about terrorism and bomb making is enough to get you into prison and make you a dangerous person to society. It appears that this guy didn’t actually ‘do’ anything and was just hanging around on the periphery of the really dangerous guys. I feel that a fine or at least a stiff talking to would have been far more beneficial and a better solution that prison time. This seems to be a case of the law ‘making a statement’ and attempting to put the fear of God into the hearts of other would-be curious and easily influenced young people. This stuff isn't hard to find on the wibbly wobbly web and anyone with a brain can find it easily. If it’s a crime to view or download this stuff – then come and arrest me. Just type in ‘making napalm’ into Google and see what you get – ah-ha! Caught you! You nasty terrorist, you.

No more worries - ever

According to the doom-sayers, we're all going to be sucked into a black hole on Wednesday when the wonderful guys at CERN startup the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). The LHC will be used to investigate the earliest moments of our universe's existence and finally find out if the theories of earliest particles and the 'dark matter' that make up our universe exist. It's truly amazing when you read the details of what they hope to discover and I am eager to hear what the results are. These experiments will either reinforce current thought about the creation of everything, or else start scientists and thinkers on a new path to enlightenment. However, and this is the 'kicker', these unique experiments may unleash a flurry of black holes that will destroy us and ultimately the whole universe around us. If it does turn out that way, it would certainly solve my monetary problems and we will never have to worry about the election, pollution or the high price of gas again. To be honest with you, I think that's just a load of nonsense - mind you, if it does happen, what am I supposed to do anyway? As much as I am amazed by what we as humans can do to push the boundaries of knowledge, I wonder what the point of it all is. How does this particular line of research help me in particular. Answer, it doesn't - at least not now. Part of the benefit of such work is so far above my ability to comprehend that it might as well be magic - 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic' (Arthur C. Clarke). This research will, however, add to work already in progress on accessing higher dimensions and the push to discover ways of traveling faster-than-light. The fabled 'warp drive' of science fiction is no longer just a fictional device - real work is being done.It's not all serious though, as this great video will show you.

Touch me, feel me

It just amazes me how the world of science fiction becomes the world of today’s reality. Viewers of Star Trek would marvel at the Holodeck and then just dismiss it a sheer fantasy and not even a remote possibility of actually existing. However, that may be set to change in the near future if recent developments are to be believed. It now seems that the power of ultrasonic waves has been harnessed to produce ‘virtual’ objects in mid-air. The field of haptics - integrating computing and the sense of touch - has been around for some time but has required gloves or mechanical devices to impart a sense of interaction. A team of Japanese researchers has developed a system that uses focused ultrasound to do the job. Takayuki Iwamoto and colleagues from the University of Tokyo have now demonstrated a device that employs a number of ultrasonic transducers, which emit ultrasound. Sound is a pressure wave, meaning that as the inaudible sound waves from each of the transducers interfere, they can create a focal point that is perceived as a solid object. The team's prototype system includes a camera which tracks the position of a user's hand and shifts the output from the transducers to move the focus around with the hand. The result is a feeling of tracing the edge or surface of the virtual object. At the moment, the system provides a small force only in the vertical dimension, but the team is improving the geometry of the array and the amount of power it can produce so that future devices will provide a stiffer feel and more contoured objects. The team is working to adjust how the transducers are driven in order to produce realistic textures as well as shapes – wow!