Latest Inventions

posted by admin on Aug 16

Hello Again - and what a great time to be at the fore-front of the latest inventions and technology!

Almost every day, there is an announcement about something great to advance our thinking or challenge our current ways of thinking - the future looks so different - if only we would make the change!

Looking back over time Adam Park takes us through his top 10 Tech Milestones That Changed The World for a glance at the past - and hopefully they can take us places in the future!

Add to this some of the following technological information here from Susan, as she details her best 25 Startups Revolutionizing Biotechnology. Even small things can make a huge difference!

Staying with the prefix ‘bio’ - take a look at the amazing advances and technology involved with Mike’s great article on: Massive Future MRI Machine Promises to Unravel the Secrets of Human Biochemistry! Great stuff!

Moving on to inventions today - read on if you want to know about something new: Coming Soon to a Classroom Near You: 10 Things To Know About Robot Teachersby the converted Erin Lenderts! Now I’m not sure if these will ever really take over in mainstream schools - but the idea for smaller groups or adult learners could really be a good thing!

And, if you ignore all the adverts at the top - scroll down to a very thorough article by Rick Cole as he reviews the difference between to very similar in-car technologies: Garmin vs TomTom. Worth a peak if you are considering a sat nav in the future.

And finally - How to use Twitter in a way I hadn’t really thought off: Sharons719 offers us 50 “Healthy” Ways to Use Twitter. Very interesting!

And on that note - get back outside and enjoy the nice weather before winter sets in!

posted by admin on Jul 30

London is shaping up for a greener future after the first day of its latest ‘Green Scheme’.

The idea is that many other European cities are bicycle friendly, and thousands of people use bikes all the time when in town - and having stood outside of Amsterdam Train Station on a week day, I have seen the sheer numbers involved!

So, London have taken the initiative and offered a ‘bicycle hire’ scheme to get people on to 2 wheels without the expense of buying a bike outright and worrying about storing your own bike in small flats on chained to fences overnight!

The Scheme:
At the moment you have to sign up to the scheme in advance for this - so you can’t just put a £1 in the meter like a shopping trolley and ride off!  You pay for access to all the bikes for a 24 hour period, and then pay your time-based hire charges on top.

Once signed with the scheme, the organisers (Transport for London and operator Serco) send you out a key (for £3) which will allow you to unlock any of the bikes on the street - currently there are 500 available cycles, stored at 315 docking stations across the city - including places like 32 docking stations in Westminster, 14 in Camden and many across the Royal Parks.

Currently you control your account online, and are charged for using the bike (up to £1 a day) and then the period of time you use the bike for - basically, when you release a bike using your key, your account gets debited as per the charges you can read online.  The first 30 minutes of a ride are always free but you can be charged up to £50 for a full 24 hour period (and a further £150 if you keep it longer than that!).

So if you buy a years membership at the current price of £45, and plan to ride for less than 30 minutes at a time (which is free), you will be paying around 12p a day to ride to and from work every day. 

For casual riders, they are hoping to allow people to pay for bikes at paypoints in the future - (at £1 to use the bikes during a 24 hour period and then hire charge on top) but they are starting with accounts only at the moment - and so far over 12,000 people have signed up!

The Benefits:
You can arrive in London on the train and then just hop on a bike instead of waiting for buses or going underground with everyone else!  You could cut your journey times massively in the rush hour!  When you arrive at the docking station closest to your workplace, you just park it up and leave it there.  No chaining up - no worries!

Alternatively, you could use the bikes for a day-trip to the city, and casually ride around back streets, through Hyde Park, out to Kew Gardens or London Zoo.  You just dock the bike whenever you have finished and head off home.

You can of course just hop on and off whenever you want and use as many bikes as you want through the day - so park up after arriving at your destination - maybe a museum, then after that you can hop on another bike and stop somewhere for lunch, then hop on another bike to go to a West End Show in the evening!  As long as you dock each bike securely in the docking station - that is your hire period over with, and someone else can hire the bike while you are feasting on some gourmet food or singing along to Dirty Dancing!

The Problems:
Well, as you may have calculated - 500 bikes: 12,000 people.  Let’s hope they all don’t want to ride at the same time!

Needless to say, there will always be teething problems when a new scheme starts up - and the main one will be that the operators don’t know when people will be using the bikes - and for how long, so they need to see what happens over the first few weeks.

So, there is a possibility of there not being a bike at the docking station closest to you when you arrive!  And the possibility of there being no free docking station for you to drop of your bike into after use!

There are maps showing the closest alternative docking stations and up to 15 ‘free’ minutes to cycle to it - but that could mean up to 45 minutes before you are back where you started (15 minutes to cycle there and 30 minutes to walk back to where you wanted to be!).

There will be staff at most of the main docking station over this first week, but other than that you are on your own, so if you card doesn’t work, your bike is faulty or you travel to a second docking station to find it full or empty too - you might need to make a call.

The Result:
I think that this could be a great scheme if they keep it as members only - as if they start letting anyone hire the bikes without signing up first - you will get problems.  Just as people make up fake names and addresses to get freebies, I think those same people will damage these bikes (activists have already stuck stickers over some of the bikes) or not return them (like the 4 shopping trolleys in my local park!).

However, the green potential is fantastic - and I would love to see big cities more pedestrian and cycle friendly. I’m fed up of having to walk around miles of metal barricades to cross a road, or standing in the rain waiting for the traffic lights to change, or even risk my life cycling among lorries and coaches in tiny streets. 

People and bikes should get the straight routes and priority lights - ad I hope that this is a step in that direction!

posted by admin on Jun 6

Imagine holding up a box of LEGO to a screen - and seeing a 3D image of the fully assembled model!

That is exactly what you can do right now, not just with that one ‘toy’ brand but with dozens of others - and the technology doesn’t just stop at games and gadgets - this new world of imaging could be appearing right in front of you in the street!

Soon, we won’t have to just guess what things will look like when made, we won’t have to guess where that repair store is on a busy high street - and you won’t even have to take your chances in a new restaurant without seeing the reviews of it’s past customers!

Augmented Reality (AG) - although first invented in 1968 by Ivan Sutherland - was truely brought to life in 1999 with the use of software that detected and reacted to ‘markers’ for image tracking.  Then it was developed the following year as a great way to bring text books to life with 3-dimensional images being more helpful than flat pictures - and basically - why stop there?

AG has been used for years on the TV - and watching the football teams pop up on screen as the players ‘warm up’ is a classic example; and showing the ’finish line’ over the river in a boat race is another ‘everyday’ use.  But we didn’t want an inanimate object - we wanted to be in charge of the images.

Initially driven by sales of merchandise, these AG software packages allowed consumers to ‘play’ with their gadget before buying it so to speak.  They could see images of their preferred product and even turn it around to see it from all angles before spending any money - even comparing the finished product to a similar one.

This is a huge step forward from the AG systems that need head mounted displays (HMD’s) to work.  Think back to when we thought that seeing computer information on the inside of your glasses was amazing - now it looks like you don’t even need the glasses!

The Future:
Well, think about films where computer screens seem to be on a whole table, the wall or even ‘floating’ in mid air and you can use your hands to move sections of it.  This could be coming very soon.

There are currently people working on whole room set-ups (spatial displays) that will allow you to overlay certain images into the space given - say for example looking at a new bathroom suite in your actual bathroom - try before you buy type of thing!  A new kitchen, lounge, office suite - the list is endless once you think about it.  But obviously it will have scientific uses first, like designing new hospitals, spaceships and whole environments maybe?

It is already being used in manufacturing - where the HMD’s contain step by step instructions that are triggered by the component parts and medical breakthroughs are also allowing layers of the human body to be seen simultaneously by surgeons to complete operations faster and safer.

So rather than a virtual reality - where you step into a computer generated world - this new reality is where the computers move into your world, and hopefully improve it!

However, I can imagine a hacker getting in to one of the programs and then a HMD AG fan could find New York City with wild animals or even aliens around every corner!

Source: BBC Focus Magazine.

posted by admin on May 9

At last, there is some common sense prevailing across the continent of Europe!

Rather than wondering what number to call in an emergency when travelling through Europe - nearly all the emergency services have got together and agreed to have just the 1 number instead!

People in the UK have always used 999 for all services, whereas France used to use 18 and Romania was 955!  All a bit difficult to remember - but Greece won the title for most confusing!  

In Greece it used to be different for each service: you had to dial 100 for the Police, 166 for Ambulance, 199 for a normal Fire but 191 for a Forest Fire!  The Coast Guard service was 108 and they even had an Anti-Narcotics emergency service available on 109!  Goodness knows how the public coped - let alone the tourists!

So now that’s 27 countries across the continent that all respond to the same 3 digits!  Hopefully getting to a lot more emergencies than before!

And many GSM cell phones are now pre-programmed to re-direct you to the correct number at home - and will let you call it even if their is no sim card in your phone or if you dial 999 for example, instead of entering your pin.  Although it won’t automatically recognise other country’s emergency numbers - if it is added, your phone can be ’trained’ to recognize ‘112′ as an emergency number if you are abroad in Europe and work in much the same way. 

GSM phones will realise that you are trying to call an emergency number and give your call priority over the network - meaning that your cell phone will actually work faster in an emergency situation (like if you were injured during a power cut) than someone else who is just trying to call a friend to tell them how dark it is!

Odd Ones Out:
There are seemingly 2 countries who are still not using the 112 number for any of their services (or are not redirecting from the 112 number to their own emergency numbers) - so if you visit Albania or San Marino, you will need to remember their own numbers - and they both have 3 different numbers for the 3 main services!

However, to just be awkward - Kosovo have recently changed their 112 emergency number to 911 instead!  So they are the only country in Europe to use this number - alright for all those visiting Americans I suppose!

Of course, there are still certain services which still have their own specific number, but you can safely call 112 and at least you will get through to an emergency expert who can forward you to the best alternative service rather than leaving you to watch a house burn to the ground!

Happy Holidays!

posted by admin on May 5

If you can, then you better start making plans to spend the £50,000 prize money!

Or, better still invent a plane that can fulfil the maneuverability guidelines required to win £100,000 instead - although this might take a little longer at the drawing board!

For years humans have dreamed of the idea of human powered flight - although the old ‘wings strapped to the arms’ is a definite no-no!   As you would expect though, Leonardo de Vinci had a try at designing a plane or 2 along with dozens of other not-so-successful attempts over the following centuries.

With still not a hope of staying in the air for more than a micro-second, in the mid-20th century - the Kremer Prize was put to the invention world by the Royal Aeronautical Society of Great Britain.  There main aim was to spur on the hope of man-powered flight with large amounts of cash!

First Prize:
From the creation of the awards to the first prize being collected was a very long 18 years - and there were still another 5 prizes to be won.

This first prize (£50,000) was won by a plane weighing 32kg with a 29 meter wingspan called the Gossamer Condor in 1977 - and it had had to fly a specific figure-of-eight course at a height of over 10 feet from the ground.

The second prize for distance (£100,000) was won by the same team in 1979 but with their modified plane - the Gossamer Albatross - clocking up an average speed of 18 miles per hour (29km/h).

The third prize was for speed (£20,000) was won in 1983 by a team from MIT - but this still leaves 3 prizes totalling £150,000!

Remaining Prizes:
So, do you think you could see yourself winning 1 of the remaining prizes?  Could you invent the best human-powered plane ever to take to the skies?

I mean now would be the perfect time to perfect a mode of transport that uses no fossil fuels and emits not an ounce of carbon (apart from in the poor peddler’s breath!).

Well?
The prizes you need to aim for are needless to say - not the easiest ones - as they have already been claimed, so what you are left with are the following:

A) 26 Mile Marathon Course In Under An Hour (£50,000)

B) Sporting Aircraft Challenge - stressing maneuverability (100,000)

C) Local School Challenge - for under 18’s (various prizes awarded annually)   

Still think you are up for the challenge?
It would be amazing to think of the multiple advantages to science of the creation of a way to harness human energy and turn it into a forward force.  Obviously the power need not be used for flight, but could be transferred to power just about anything.

Technological advances in these new inventions could lead virtually anywhere - and that is what these awards are trying to promote.

And - if you are not so keen on inventing planes, then take a look at the Sikorsky Prize instead - and build yourself a human powered helicopter instead!  This would win you and your team a tasty $250,000! 

Good Luck!