Posts Tagged ‘phones’
Future Shocks: Predictions From the World’s Foremost Film Prognosticator
How the designer of Blade Runner thinks the future will look
Lightweight Exoskeletons
Pointing to new electroactive polymers that contract powerfully and predictably when exposed to a charge, Mead foresees an era of lightweight human exoskeletons. Such strap-on limb supports could strengthen soldiers and help the elderly and the paralyzed. “These new materials are better than hydraulics or electric motors,” he explains, “because they have a directional axis to pull and push, much like muscles do. So they’re very efficient, and more like a sheath than a bulky cylinder. That’s going to change the world.”
Hands-Free Highways
“Cars have already become semi-sentient,” says Mead, citing the recent introduction of consumer-level “self-parking” systems. Soon cars will be able to communicate with one another, which could end slowdowns caused by erratic human judgment. “It’s all just geometry,” he says. “To have 1,000 drivers trundling down the freeway, making their own second-by-second decisions, is awful.” There is, he notes, also a potential downside: “Cars will be able to notify your insurance company immediately if you’ve hit something.” Even the smallest bump could drive up your rates.
Printable Replacement Organs
3-D printers, which lay down consecutive layers of urethane resin to create detailed objects, have become crucial prototyping tools for Detroit automobile designers and Hollywood special-effects houses alike. Mead says that soon these printers will be loaded with live human cells rather than sprayable resins. The micro-precise nozzles could turn out custom replacement body parts built using our own stem cells. “You’ll be able to make extremely intricate closed-volume solids at will,” he says. “No seams. That is amazing. And it reduces economies of scale to zero. You can make one item at a time, as demand requires.”
Swappable Car Bodies
Riffing off universal chassis systems such as GM’s drive-by-wire “skateboard” concept, Mead foresees a day when we’ll be attaching new car-body modules onto an underlying, independently powered frame as quickly and easily as we change shirts. “I first rendered this concept over 40 years ago,” he says (he began his career at Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Styling Studio). “Once it gets going, in about 10 years, it’s going to mark a huge change. In some ways, it’s like what happened in the 1910s and 1920s, before cars became fully mass-produced. You’d buy a Deusenberg chassis, then have a custom coach builder put the body on it.”
Covert Bank Warfare
Given the ever-increasing prevalence of cashless purchases, Mead says we are headed for a world of covert bank-account warfare directed by government bureaucrats. “You’re standing naked to the electronic-surveillance world with every financial transaction,” he says. Whether through radio-frequency ID chips, phone transactions, or mobile credit-card processing and Web transactions, financial information is becoming more easily intercepted, tracked, and correlated to personal information, such as national identity, bank-account information and employment history. “All somebody far above you in the hierarchy has to do is hit ‘delete.’ Instantaneously you’ve become a non-person, economically. That’s scary to me.”
As HP squares off with Android and Apple, Phil McKinney to keynote at MobileBeat
We’re pleased to announce that Phil McKinney, VP and CTO of Hewlett-Packard’s Personal Systems Group, will be keynoting at , a conference held by VentureBeat on July 12 to 13 in San Francisco. As the man in charge of HP’s product lines, McKinney stands smack in the middle of a major power shift in the mobile industry.
The success of new form factors for powerful computers (think iPhone, Droid, iPad) have inspired PC makers to redirect massive investment budgets towards tablets, TVs and superphones, and the platform of choice has been Android. Dell, Lenovo and Acer are all launching new mobile devices, and all have jumped on Google’s bandwagon.
In the midst of this Android lovefest, however, the biggest PC maker in the world appears to be increasingly going it alone. While it does have Android devices, the company has announced plans to acquire Palm and its WebOS software layer. That looks to VentureBeat like it plans to own its own mobile stack, platform and all. With a $40 billion PC business and big ambitions, we believe HP is on the verge of becoming the new mobile powerhouse.
Why do device makers need to innovate in software as well as hardware in the current market? How does this play into the coming deluge of connected devices? You won’t want to miss McKinney’s keynote on the current “perfect storm” of innovation. McKinney will share developments now underway at his own organization, including HP’s vision for next-generation connected devices, and how to tap the promise of the cloud.
Early-bird tickets for MobileBeat are available for just four more days. before they expire May 31.
Phil McKinney, VP and CTO,
McKinney is responsible for long-range strategic planning and research and development for the company’s PC product lines, including displays, mobile devices, notebooks, desktops and workstations.
A leading authority on innovation and its impact on business, the economy and culture, McKinney speaks to worldwide audiences at conferences and through his blog (www.philmckinney.com) and weekly podcast (www.killerinnovations.com). Dubbed “chief seer” by the The San Jose Mercury News, McKinney is a contributing columnist for Forbes, writes the column “The Objective” for Forbes.com, and has been quoted in publications including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, BusinessWeek, Financial Times, Fortune and others.
We also want to thank the mobile industry leaders that are supporting MobilBeat2010, including GetJar and Placecast as Gold Sponsors, AdMob and Open Market as Silver Sponsors, and Nexage and Offerpal as Event Sponsors.
In addition, we’re proud to partner with GetJar, the world’s second largest app store, to present “The Gettie Awards 2010,” a competition for talented mobile application developers. The winners of the awards will be announced at a ceremony to take place on the evening of July 12, immediately following the first day of MobileBeat. The Getties ceremony will include dinner, entertainment and the awards announcements themselves. Submission guidelines and event information can be found . To purchase tickets to the Getties, .
Don’t miss , VentureBeat’s conference on the future of mobile. The theme: “.” Now expanded to two days, MobileBeat 2010 will take place on July 12-13 at The Palace Hotel in San Francisco. . For complete conference details, or to apply for the MobileBeat Startup Competition, .
Companies: , , , , , ,
People: ,
High-Speed Camera Enables Touchless Gesture Control of Smartphones
Welcome to the post-touchscreen future
That success relies upon a high-frame-rate camera and algorithm which tracks a binarized finger image to estimate its 3-D motion and posture, a la . The camera can interpret a gesture similar to clicking a computer mouse button if the movement is toward the camera's optical axis, by gauging the size change in the fingertip image.
That allows users to move their mouse cursor over a virtual keyboard and type by making a clicking motion. It also allows for zooming in and out of photos by simply moving the finger closer to or away from the camera, as well as a one-click picture grabbing action.
Given the Japanese lab's past work developing the in the East and the based upon a high-speed camera, this application may not come as a total shock. And there's a good chance that we could see the application appear in commercial devices sooner than MIT's .
[via ]
New Lithium Batteries Could Remove Pesky Explosion Problem
The Stanford group has created a prototype lithium-sulfide cathode that forms the partner electrode to an earlier anode developed in 2007. The non-metallic form of lithium avoids a where the can grow branchlike structures that penetrate the polymer layer which keeps the battery's two electrodes apart. Such incidents can lead to short circuits and possible explosions.
Each of the lithium-sulfide electrodes can also hold 10 times as much charge as regular lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries, but a lithium-sulfur battery wouldn't have 10 times the energy storage capacity, because it has lower conductivity than the lithium metals in conventional batteries.
The current prototype lithium-sulfur battery managed an 80 percent increase in energy density compared to current li-ion batteries on the market, and could eventually achieve an energy density four times greater.
But a huge problem remains in making the lithium-sulfur battery's lifetime comparable to that of li-ion batteries. The prototypes lose one-third of their energy storage capacity after just five discharge and recharge cycles, and stop working completely after 40 to 50 cycles. That's because of polysulfide chemicals that dissolve into the battery's liquid electrolyte and interfere with charging and discharging.
Technology Review noted two possible solutions, including electrolyte additives that protect the electrodes or membranes that keep the polysulfides contained. But for now, consumers can look forward to from the same Stanford group.
[via ]