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Here’s a very interesting video on where technology is progressively taking us by 2100. (Turn the volume down, the music is rather annoying).

What’s contained in this video isn’t the dream of some sci-fi junkie. The possibilities depicted are the work of some of the planet’s most respected scientists and thinkers who understand the accelerating trends in artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. Work is already underway to make some of the earlier predictions shown in the video a reality.

One notable omission from the video is how our emerging technology will handle global warming–because if we don’t deal with that problem then all bets are off. But I do believe that we will eventually possess ways of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere so that we can return our planet to its normal pre-industrial state (and there’s a prize out there waiting to be claimed right now by whoever comes up with an initial answer).

A monthly roundup of technological breakthroughs in energy, computing, nanotechnology, and biotechnology–and how these converging technologies are transforming our society, solving problems, and creating new ones.

1) (Nanotechnology/computing) Scientists create memory chip the size of a white blood cell. It is the densest such chip ever developed. It provides a possible path for circumventing the physical limits of silicone-based chips in the years ahead. Also, it is a potential milestone for creating machines that can operate at the nano level inside our bodies and such.

2) (Nanotechnology) Gut-crawling microrobot to debut in 2009. Think that the idea of robots crawling through your body to fix you is fanciful science fiction? Coming soon to a doctor near you in just two years: a robot the width of two human hairs that can travel through the arteries and organs of your body, penetrating far deeper than current methods. It will be able to provide images, and even perform non-invasive microsurgery.

3) (Computing) Military develops robotic insects. These nasty little bad boys will be remotely controlled, can fly into targets undetected, and will perform a variety of military operations from disabling computers to exploding. But can you imagine these little buggers in the hands of terrorists?

4) (Energy) Military unveils awesome projectile railgun. The military has been busy with futuristic technology. This nasty railgun, straight out of a Doom video game, can launch a small 7-pound projectile that can travel 250 nautical miles and hit its target with the force of a car at 380 mph. It can take down a building with one shot. Ouch! Who needs cruise missiles when you can lay down the smack with this nastiness?? (That goes for terrorists as well as us, of course–better not be finding this toy at the local Wal-Mart!)

5) (Energy) Military unveils new crowd-controlling ray gun. Isn’t it nice to know our military is putting our taxpayer dollars to good use with all this technology? Next up: a non-lethal ray gun it can point at people that can make them feel they are about to be burned alive, causing them to cease whatever rioting they may be doing and run away at top speed. The military says the gun is harmless, but critics claim they may have nasty side-effects.

6) (Computing) Researchers encode entire image onto a single photon. They essentially put a picture image onto a photon and were able to store it and retrieve it later. This could be a huge breakthrough in computer storage, as it would pave the way for society being able to store unimaginably large amounts of data using very little substrate.

7) (Energy) Company claims creation of new battery-ultracapacitor hybrid. EEStor claims to have created this new battery that has ten times the life of existing ones, and can be used on everything from laptops to cars. If true, it would transform our energy equation in a multitude of ways–from making intermittent solar/wind power much more reliable to allowing hybrid-electric cars to fully serve as stable backup for the power grid. Our iPod’s and laptops would run a hell of a lot longer too!

(Energy) New process makes ethanol out of trash. Forget corn, which we’d rather eat than shove down our gas tanks. A new process converts landfill and industrial trash into ethanol, with very little pollution created. We create enough trash to replace 25% of our gasoline if we used this process.

9) (Computing) Australia science agency demoes 6 gb/s wireless speeds. This new wireless peer-to-peer technology would let you download an entire DVD in six seconds. Researchers say this is just the beginning and will shortly be able to double these speeds.

10) (Computing) “Minority Report” style computer interface ready for prime time. Forget keyboards and mice, and take a cue from the (relatively primitive) iPhone. Direct manipulation of computer imagery, as shown in the “Minority Report” movie, is going to be a great new way to interact with our machines. There is a great video of the technology here, although it appears to be temporarily unavailable. Two videos showing the technology can be found on YouTube here and here.

11) (Computing) 65% of computer users spend more time with computer than with significant other. Lastly and sadly, this is not an innovation but a demonstration of a negative effect technology is having on society. Put down World of Warcraft and go cuddle your SO!

2006 was a remarkable year in the realm of science, as the law of accelerating technological returns continued apace at an increasing speed. From the advancement of brain-machine interfaces to using stem cells to cure blindness, humanity made astounding leaps in its use of technology to better understand and manipulate the world around it. This technology also forms an essential foundation for tackling the tremendous problems posed by increasing energy scarcity and global climate change.

I list here what I consider the top achievements for the year.

Robotics/Artificial Intelligence

1) Researchers demonstrate direct brain control over robot. Scientists have developed a method for allowing the control of a robot using thought control. The possibilities of this technology are immense–ranging from guiding machines in combat to providing direction to a planetary rover on Mars.

2) Researchers unveil self-aware robot. They created a four-legged machine but did not give it instructions on how to move. It had to learn that it was four-legged by trial and error, and by testing hypotheses. It eventually developed a sense of “self” that allowed it to strategize on how to move correctly, and later how to adapt as a result of an “injury” to one of its legs. This differs from previous robots that have had to be programmed to do specific tasks, without an ability to adapt. In so doing, this robot behaves more in line with a “conscious” animal like a cat.

Biotechnology

1) Pill made from red wine compound extends life of fat unhealthy mice. Obesity is a major problem in our society and a major cause of disease and premature death. Scientists have discovered that giving obese mice a pill made out of high doses of resveratrol, a compound found in red wine, eliminates the problems of obesity (fatty organs, insulin levels, etc.) even though the mice didn’t lose the weight. It also reversed the contributions of a bad diet on things like heart disease, cancer, etc. These mice went on to live as long as healthy ones, and research is underway to see if healthy mice given the compound will have their lives extended even longer.

2) Stem cells to be used to cure blindness. Scientists are using stem cells to restore retinal cells lost due to degenerative eye diseases, and have successfully restored vision to blind mice using this approach.

3) Brain-machine interfaces took drastic leaps forward in 2006. Several advances were seen this year on this front. In one study, a paralyzed patient became able to control his wheelchair by thought alone. Other scientists are developing a brain chip that can process muscle control commands and deliver them directly to paralyzed limbs, bypassing the source of paralysis.

4) Human bladders are grown in a lab and implanted in patients. Eventually scientists will be able to grow any organ using a patient’s own cells and then implant it to replace a diseased one, completely eliminating any tissue rejection issues.

5) Robotic worm can move through intestines. Scientists have developed a “worm” that can move through human intestines. It may someday contain cameras that can penetrate far deeper than today’s colonoscopies.

Nanotechnology

1) Nanowires generate electricity from body movement. Scientists have developed inexpensive nanowires that can harness our movement to provide energy to power machines. Anything from walking to breathing to the movement of our blood will eventually be able to provide energy to everything from IPOD’s to nanobots roaming inside our bodies. In a related development, nanowires have also been developed that convert light to electricity.

2) Polymer nanospheres target and destroy cancer cells. Researchers have developed particles that can target cancer cells and prevent them from spreading by slowly releasing drugs. This will greatly reduce the damage caused by conventional chemotherapy. This is part of a greater emerging movement in medicine that uses nanoparticles to specifically target and destroy disease at its source inside the body.

3) Semi-conducting nanowire transistors to make tiny computers and sensors possible. Scientists have developed a way to mass produce nanowire transistors that are much smaller and more efficient than existing ones. This will eventually make possible everything from tiny computers to ultra-sensitive sensors that can pick up the presence of hundreds of cancer markers and pathogens–in as little as five years from now.

4) Nano-membrane provides cheap drinkable water from the oceans. At a time when glaciers that provide life-giving water are disappearing at an alarming rate, with farmlands threatened by climate change all over the world, and with aquifers quickly being drained to nothing, our civilization needs a water solution fast and it needs it now. Nanotechnology provides the way, as scientists have developed a nano-membrane that reduces the cost of saltwater desalination by 75%. This will eventually lead to the creation of desalination plants that can efficiently create fresh water from the oceans. In a related development, nano-magnets have been created that can purify contaminated water.

Energy

1) Scientists design life forms to create ethanol from wood chips and agricultural waste. Ethanol provides an answer to our dangerous petroleum dependency, but using corn/soybeans/sugar/etc. for it causes competition between food and fuel. A much better answer is to use cellulosic agricultural waste and wood chips to create ethanol, but the means didn’t exist to do that until now. Scientists have developed organisms that metabolize these products and turn them into ethanol. This holds great promise as a new energy source in the future, and a cellulosic ethanol plant is already under construction. As an added bonus, ethanol contributes very little to global warming (since the amount of carbon spewed is roughly equal to the amount consumed by the plants themselves.)

2) Plug-in automobile hybrids are here. These hybrid automobiles allow you to plug them into a wall outlet, which will recharge their newer better batteries and allow more of their energy to come from electricity and less from fuel. This can be done with minimal construction of new plants by taking full advantage of plants’ peak capacities, rather than letting them stand idle during times when not everyone is running their air conditioners at full blast. Additionally, these cars will eventually serve to stabilize the power grid by providing excess power during times of emergency and by allowing users to sell power back to the grid when it’s unneeded.

3) Cheap super-efficient solar power is (almost) here. From drastically increasing the efficiency of solar cells, to being able to concentrate sunlight for increased performance, to more cheaply mass-producing solar cells, solar power is now close to being cost-competitive with fossil fuels. I hope to see the day soon when any household can put solar panels on its roof and not rely on the fossil fuel power grid for its needs.

Physics

1) Cloaking device becomes a reality. The pesky cloaking devices used by Romulans and Klingons that were such a pain to the Star Trek Enterprise crew may eventually become a reality. A cloaking device has been created that makes an object invisible–but only in the microwave frequency range for now (not in the visible light range). The problem with creating such a device for the visible light range is that it would have to be built at the nanoscale level due to the smaller frequency of light and that’s beyond the current capabilities of nanotechnology–for now.

The EPA has announced it will begin regulating the use of nanosilver as a germ-fighting agent. This decision is long overdue and I really hope it is expanded to the entirety of the burgeoning nanotechnology industry.

Nanoproducts take materials like gold and silver and manufacture them at the nanometer level. When this happens, previously inert materials acquire unusual properties. In the case of silver, nanosilver has germ-fighting qualities.

The problem is that nobody really knows how these nanomaterials will interact with the environment or with human health. Nanosilver’s use has exploded in everything from band-aids to shoe liners. These materials eventually make their way back into the environment, and insufficient research exists to show what happens next.

Nanotechnology is an extremely important emerging industry that will probably revolutionize many aspects of modern life. But we can’t make the same mistakes of the industrial revolution, where we dumped material into the air, ground and water without giving thought to the long-term consequences. While I think that over-regulation of industry is a bad idea, evidence abundantly shows that market forces alone do not protect the environment, and we have a duty to do so through regulation instead.
The FDA plans to require that the use of nanosilver as a germ-fighting agent be accompanied by research that demonstrates no deleterious effect on the environment. This is a good solid step forward and will hopefully serve as precedent for other regulatory agencies to take a good hard look at the pervasiveness of nanomaterials in everything from suntan lotion to clothing.

IBM is suing Amazon.com claiming the latter has infringed several of IBM’s patents, including one entitled “Ordering Items Using An Electronic Catalog”…a technology lying at the very heart of Amazon’s business. These patents seem to have been issued to IBM a long time ago, even as early as the 80’s in association with IBM’s Prodigy service.

I think that this lawsuit is an early portent of huge stakes that lie ahead. In a couple of decades, when/if nanotechnology becomes able to create objects by constructing them using nano-assemblers at the molecular level (think Star Trek’s food replicators) ALL of industry will be composed entirely of information blueprints for making the objects–and of course the patents associated with those blueprints will be extremely important. Patents, as guardians of information, are THE key to the future and these big companies know it…the companies who hold the patents will literally hold the keys to creation. Patents themselves will be the industrial base, not mega-factories spewing out materials. That’s what this lawsuit is about, at it’s most basic primitive level.

The lawsuit is also ridiculous in that the patents at issue seems very overbroad and encompass nearly all of online commerce. But that’s a flaw in patent law itself, and not necessarily the fault of IBM. Patent law seems not to be keeping up with the inherently new, pervasive, easily copied, and rapidly changing nature of Internet technology. Maybe this lawsuit will pave the way to a better set of laws that can better address the intellectual property issues of tomorrow.

I don’t know if it’s just that I’ve just been following technology news more closely lately or if it’s some other reason, but recent news of technological advances seems to be spinning further and further into the realm of science fiction. It seems that a clearer picture of what’s coming in the medium and long term is starting to emerge, and the results seem astonishing to me.

Centerblue.org will cover technology news occasionally given the importance of research in maintaining America’s technological edge and standard of living.

Computers/Artificial Intelligence/Robotics:

• Quantum Leap. Emerging technology in quantum computing will allow a laptop to have more power than trillions of today’s supercomputers. “The age of computing has not even begun,” says one research scientist. “What we have today are tiny toys not much better than an abacus.”
• Surfing the Web with nothing but brainwaves. Forget keyboards and mice. Soon, perhaps as early as 2012, we will command computers with our thoughts. As if that weren’t enough, communicating with another human being by using thought alone is not far behind (think instant messaging without having to type.) Yea, telepathy. Already it is possible to do things like open email and play Pong using thought alone. You won’t even need an implant to do all of this, but simply wear a cap.
• Brainy robots start stepping into daily life. Last year, a Pentagon-funded competition succeeded in getting a car to cross over 100 miles of desert with absolutely no human intervention. Next year, a similar competition will attempt to maneuver a car through urban traffic without human help. Additionally, within three years you’ll be able to parallel park a BMW simply by pushing a button.
• This is a computer on your brain. A new brain-machine interface allows image recognition faster than human consciousness currently allows.
• MIT researchers watch brain in action. New technology allows scientists to observe the brain in real time as it responds to experiences. Unlocking the keys to the brain’s functionality will accelerate the development of artificial intelligence.
• Robot destroys lung tumors quickly. “Synchrony” can track and target tumors that move as a result of breathing, allowing targeted bombardment with radiation. It can reduce treatment of lung cancer from dozens of hospital visits to 1-3 sessions.
• Wine-tasting robot to detect fraudulent bottles. A new robot will be able to verify that the wine in a bottle matches its label.

Biotechnology

• Building Artificial Viruses. We now have the capability to create artificial viruses using information readily available on the Internet. Yes, it is now possible to create life out of non-life. While the technology has great potential for everything from creating vaccines to cleaning up the environment, it also potentially very dangerous. Terrorist groups could design super-killer microbes in a matter of days and unleash them on unsuspecting populations. It makes the recently written-about biodefense facility being built by the US all that much more relevant.
• Carbon nanotubes you can live with. Carbon nanotubes have been made bio-compatible, whereas before they were toxic to cells. This advancement opens the possibility of a machine/biology interface at the cellular level.
• Researchers transform stem cells found in human fat into smooth muscle cells. They could eventually be used to repair tissue in blood vessels, intestines, and the urinary tract.

It is an unfortunate fact of life that politics and technology are often intertwined. While the scientific ideal may be that research and scientific breakthroughs should be allowed to occur unfettered by political considerations, the truth is that a lot of what is happening in the scientific community today is pushing up against the comfort zones of some religious conservatives, which immediately makes it a political issue.

Two widely known examples are stem cell research and cloning. Both of these technologies offer a huge amount of promise in curing problems that afflict the human condition, but some aspects of the technology currently rely on embryos. That puts the technology in the cross-hairs of the Religious Right, since in their view the use of embryos in such a manner is akin to murder. Never mind that the embryos being used were headed for a dumpster behind a fertility clinic anyway; they must think it better to stand on principle and let humanity suffer from ailments like paralysis or organ damage rather than use embryos that were destined for disposal anyway. Thankfully, most Americans don’t see the issue this way.

This is not all to say that emerging trends in science should not be subjected to an examination of its ethics. Writers and technologists like Ray Kurzweil predict an imminent acceleration of science in nanotechnology, biotechnology, and robotics that in just a few decades will fundamentally alter the very definition of what it means to be human. As described in his book, “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology,” we are headed towards of a future of sentient computers, ever-lasting life, a clean environment, and a merging of humans with machines. Such a future is both exciting and frightening, but undoubtedly fraught with much ethical peril. Kurzweil himself admits that these emerging technologies could also be used to extinguish all life on the planet far more efficiently than anything available today.

The ethical question to ask, then, is what we should do with such dangerous technology–and whether its benefits outweigh its potential dangers. That’s a different question from asking whether the technology offends the religious sensibilities of some people, especially over as unanswerable a question as whether life begins at birth or at conception.

Bill Joy, the founder of Sun Microsystems, has nightmares about Kurzweil’s future, which caused him to write his seminal article in Wired titled “Why The Future Doesn’t Need Us.” He examined the probable end result of emerging technology and concluded that it is so dangerous that humanity should relinquish it:

These possibilities are all thus either undesirable or unachievable or both. The only realistic alternative I see is relinquishment: to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous, by limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge…The new Pandora’s boxes of genetics, nanotechnology, and robotics are almost open, yet we seem hardly to have noticed. Ideas can’t be put back in a box; unlike uranium or plutonium, they don’t need to be mined and refined, and they can be freely copied. Once they are out, they are out. Churchill remarked, in a famous left-handed compliment, that the American people and their leaders “invariably do the right thing, after they have examined every other alternative.” In this case, however, we must act more presciently, as to do the right thing only at last may be to lose the chance to do it at all.

Relinquishment may or may not be a pipe dream–has humanity ever NOT researched a potential area of study? But at least Joy and people like him are asking the right questions: what are the implications of the technology for the human race and the planetary environment? Will the problems caused outweigh the potential benefits? Does the fact that industry rather than government will have control of these new technologies (unlike nuclear weapons) give greater cause for concern? Will we increase the divide between the “haves” and “have nots” because of the expense of adopting new technology?

Politicians are not competent to answer these questions, especially those driven by the religious beliefs of a few. They generally lack the background in philosophy, ethics, and technology required. Even if they attempt to control the technology’s development they are bound to fail and only end up harming their own constituencies. The only result of Bush’s ban on use of government funding on stem cell research using human embryos is that the United States is falling behind the curve compared to other nations who are continuing their research. Thankfully, privately funded efforts like the new Harvard Stem Cell Institute are filling some of the gap, but it is shameful that our government is not fully behind this important research.

The job of politicians is to understand the profound impact that new technology has on improving the economy and enhancing our standard of living, and to promote the education needed to maintain our technological edge in these fields. They should also implement safeguards against the known dangers of new technology, such as the FDA’s proposed regulation of nanotechnology materials. It is not their job to engage in grandstanding and adopt moral principles based on religious values not shared by all. Scientific communities like the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence are well aware of the ethical and philosophical implications of their work and are best suited to bringing the necessary experts together to devise ethical guidelines for other researchers to follow. A general consensus on the part of our citizens is also important–a solid majority of people approve of stem cell research, for example.

I’ll be writing about new advances in technology in this otherwise mostly-political blog, because I’m a strong believer in the power of technology to improve the human condition, the environment, and our economy. The rise of global competition makes it more important than ever that the US maintain its creative edge and scientific prowess. As such it is imperative that we understand what’s going on in scientific circles and pressure our politicians to facilitate rather than block these wonderful new technologies in a responsible manner, guarding the safety of humans and the environment with the minimum amount of regulation possible.