It’s human nature to fantasize about the future. But have you ever imagined your mobile changing its shape to fit your pocket or having a two inch music player, which can store all your music achieves?
This is how technology around you is evolving and in five to ten years from now, companies including IBM, Intel and Microsoft will commercialize many of these technologies which were once, just a fantasy.
SkinDisplay
The technology was developed by Clara Gaggero, head of Vitamins Design Ltd in a BlackBerry sponsored project. SkinDisplay uses piezoelectricity to display raised-up letters on the back of your phone, which can be imprinted into your thumb with a press. The raised-up message includes caller name, reason for call and the urgency, which is represented by three dots.
"If you're in a meeting and you hear your phone ring, you immediately get stressed out because you can't answer it. Is it an emergency? Is something wrong with the kids? We wanted to give the phone a chance to be discreet," Gaggero says.
So you simply put your hand in pocket, press the raised portion in mobile and read the imprinted message in your hand without anybody knowing it. The technology was patented by Research In Motion, the BlackBerry maker in 2011.
Microsoft’s Future Home
People who visit Microsoft’s executive briefing home in Redmond, Wash will be welcomed with a full scale model home of the future including kitchen, living room, dining room and a foyer. As soon as you enter the home, it will start briefing you on things that happened since you left including news that your son got A grade in math test, The air conditioner stopped working, your electric scooter will be charged in 27 minutes and you have six voice mails.
The home is completely equipped with micro sensors which help it to learn a lot including your daily routines. It will tell how to cook a dish, referring the things you have in fridge, remind you to take the medicines and automatically send a message to you or relatives if it finds anything out of ordinary like leaving the doors unlocked. According to Microsoft, the technology based on internet and “cloud” will become affordable and common within five years.
Intel’s Programmable matter
Imagine you stretching the mobile to make it big or pressing a button to convert it instantly to a lap top. It seems impossible, but that is what Intel is currently working on i.e. shape shifting technology and the company things it will be possible within next decade.
Intel has already built sphere shaped microrobots called “catoms,” which has enogh computing power to be self programmable. Millions of them work together to take a particular shape. Intel currently is successful in making catoms with 1 millimeter diameter and is trying to make the diameter tenth of a millimeter. If this material were used to make a device's casing, it would be theoretically possible for your smartphone or tablet to change shape whenever you want.
Intel plans to use the technology first in health field, where doctors can model the 3-D structure of organs for diagnosis
IBM’s 12 atom memory storage
To store one bit of data, you now need about 1 million magnetically charged atoms, a main reason why hard drive capacity is not getting much bigger related to physical size. But in January this year, IBM announced that it stored one bit in just 12 atoms, a technology which could increase the capacity of hard disks to 100 times without increasing size.
Eventhogh IBM achieved the success in limited conditions in a lab with an electron microscope, the company believes that it can eventually use the results to bring something significant into market.
So you could see a 2 inch iPod shuffle which can store an entire archive of pop songs back from 1950’s or a hard drive with 300 TB capacity in the near future.
IBM’s Lithium Air battery
The batteries currently used in electric cars have the same limitation as the magnetic tapes. If you want more mileage on a single charge, you will have to pack more batteries into the vehicle.
That is where IBM’s next generation Lithium- Air battery technology will play. It can power a car for 500 miles on a single charge.
The battery generates electricity from a reaction between Lithium and Oxygen ions and it will be much denser and can store more than the existing Lithium-ion batteries.
IBM plans to produce a working prototype next year and is collaborating with several labs on the project.
Seeweed-powered supersonic airplane
Aero planes are the fastest means of travel but on the other hand it’s a major contributor to air pollution. But imagine travelling 3 times faster than the airplane which has zero emissions- offered by aircraft manufacturer EADS's Zero Emission Hyper Sonic Transport (ZEHST).
A prototype was first unveiled in Paris Air Show last year and is due out in 2050. The high speed aircraft uses bio-fuel made of seaweed and has three engine types- jets, rockets and “ramjets” which is the supersonic version. It speeds the aircraft to 5000 kmph, which will significantly cut down the time. For a clear picture it will take you from Paris to Tokyo in 2.5 hours which now takes 11 hours.
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