wammo

MsBehaviour talks to Radio Wammo on Kiwi Fm about using Mindmaps for brainstorming, planning and organising large amounts of data.

Chelfyn talks to the Radio Wammo breakfast on Kiwi FM about Nanotechnology and  the scientific breakthroughs being made on a tiny scale.

Chelfyn talks about taking part in the RPM Challenge this years which is to record an album throughout February.

This coming new year of 2010 seems like a columnist's perfect storm for top tens. So in that spirit I've tried to put together a list of the 10 Emerging Technologies I've reported on in the last ten years, that I think will have the greatest impact in the next decade.

• Augmented Reality : Advances in Computer vision, cheap multi axis accelerometers (Wii remotes), Higher resolution GPS and mobile phone apps are now leading the way apps leading the way.
   
• Wireless Power and Data - Witricity systems safe as link is magnetic coupling, not transmitted as radio waves. Ubiquitous bus-speed wireless is a game changer. These combine to move the processing, powering and sensing of technology into the walls, making it much easier to make...
   
• Robots that can finally walk, run  (without falling over) and dance. I've already seen robotic paddles that can bounce superballs faster than a human eye can follow. The robot revolution that's been 10 years away from the last 70 years or so, is finally under 10 years away.
   
• Realtime language translation - All the parts are there waiting for assembly: Fast accurate speech recognition, available mobile computing power, lightweight wireless noise-cancelling microphones, realtime translation tools  and realistic vocal synthesis will create something akin to the promised babel fish from the hitchhikers guide.

  Lets hope that the ability to talk to anyone will bring about peace instead of, as Adams said of the Babel fish "More and bloodier wars than anything in the history of the universe". I recently played with a small mobile device loaded up with wikipedia - effectively an electronic multi-authored encyclopaedia that was predicted by one of the first science fiction authors I ever read, the late great Douglas Adams. Great examples here of why I choose science over religion or superstition - our prophets are frequently right.
   

• Teleprescence - Marrying all the technologies I've mentioned, teleprescence will reduce our need for fossil fuels by making global travel instantaneous, and opening up a whole new way of looking at space exploration and LEO industry.
   
• Commercial Space Race - First Xprize was won, even NZ in on the race to commercialise space. Because the space industry has been driven primarily by 2 forces, military and communication, it has been limited to LEO and restricted in scope. There is a new space industry developing started by small private companies with huge dreams.
   
• Nanotechnology/Materials Science - supercaps/batteries, superlight, superstrong, carbon nanotubes and beyond. Even without the tiny self-assembling robots of Erik Drexlers dreams and the staple of sci-fi literature of the past decade, the ability to engineer surface detail on the nanoscale is bringing about a whole new era of discovery in materials science. 
   
• Neurobiology/Mind Machine interfacing - luke skywalker arm already a reality. There are 2 of these neuro-connected arms around that I know about - the first was from DARPA, the second more recent from a consortium of universities in northern Europe the Smarthand,. Non-invasive brain scanning technologies are finally emerging and it's scarily exciting.
   
• Free/Open source ethos moving out from it's early successes in web and server software, especially when applied to thing-printers and things they can print.
   
• Clean renewable energy - hedging my bets by mentioning LFTR (Liquid Flouride Thrium Reactors)/Cheap Printable Solar, burning our waste, but lets forget about inefficient ways of using wind like big concrete towers with generators on top, lets sail big kites up into the constant winds of the upper atmosphere and tether them with conductive kite strings once we really get the hang of our new carbon nanotube revolution.