GLIMPSES OF THE FUTURE
A monthly digest of technologies, developments and trends that will shape our lives. (If you would prefer not to receive these digests, flip back 'NO THANKS' and you will be removed from the list).

Honda Kickstarts 'The Hydrogen Economy'

Every responsible driver knows that hydrogen is the ideal form of energy for vehicle transportation (if the electricity used to produce the hydrogen is from renewable sources). The problem is that car manufacturers won't produce hydrogen powered cars until there are plenty of hydrogen filling stations and the filling stations won't convert until there are plenty of hydrogen cars.

To break this chicken-and-egg situation, Honda has just announced that in 2008 it will produce the FCX Clarity, a hydrogen-powered, electrically-driven saloon car AND it will also manufacture and distribute the Home Energy Station - a do-it-yourself hydrogen production unit which will allow drivers to produce their own hydrogen to power both their cars and their homes.

Here's to you, Honda.

If you've just decided the trade your Sony ebook Reader in for the new Amazon Kindle ebook, you'd better prepare yourself for updating your electronic reading gizmo every few months,

E-Ink, one of several pioneers of 'electronic paper' screens has just announced that it has developed a colour version of its low-energy displays and it has also shown off a video version.

Although these technologies are not immediately available in new readers, expect to see them appear over the next couple of years. The conventional printed book may not yet be dead, but it's loosing a heck of a lot of blood.

Do You Need Broadband In Your Car? Here's The Answer

WAAV, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company, has just announced the AirBox CM3, a mobile broadband cellular router engineered to maintain a broadband speed connection on the go by turning any vehicle into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot. The toughened mobile router provides an 'always on' 3G link that allows multiple devices such as PDA's, laptops and gaming consoles to be connected simultaneously.

The AirBox uses a 3G digital cellular telephone network for an Internet connection, which in most areas is an EV-DO network - a type of high-speed 3G cellular network. The EV-DO network averages speeds of 400-800 Kbps with bursts up to 2.4 Mbps, which are comparable to an average DSL or cable Internet connection.

New Developments In Genetically-Modified Crops

Researchers at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, in Canberra, Australia.have now created plants that kill destructive insects by disrupting their gene expression.

The crops, which initiate a gene-silencing response called RNA interference, are a step beyond existing genetically modified crops that produce toxic proteins. Because the new crops target particular genes in particular insects, some researchers suggest that they will be safer and less likely to have unintended effects than other genetically modified plants. Others warn that it is too early to make such predictions and that the plants should be carefully tested to ensure that they do not pose environmental problems.

But most researchers agree that it's unlikely that eating these plants would have adverse effects on humans.

Broadband Speeds 200 Times Faster On Old Phone Lines? Can It Be Real?

A PhD student in Melbourne, Australia has developed new algorithms that, he claims, can make broadband internet up to 200 times faster without having to install expensive fibre optic cables.

Harnessing the potential power of telephone lines and DSL broadband, the new algorithms will deliver internet speeds up to 250 megabits per second, compared with current typical speeds of between one and 20 megabits per second.

Dr John Papandriopoulos, who has patent applications for the technology being processed in the US and Australia, won one of Melbourne University's top academic prizes recently, a Chancellor's Prize for Excellence in the PhD.

Dr Papandriopoulos's research, which took a year to complete, uses mathematic modelling to reduce the interference on phone lines that slows down downloading.

Why Your Dreams Seem To Happen So Fast

Brain scientists working at the University of Arizona have measured human brain cell activity during sleep and have discovered that 'thought speed' is six or seven times faster than real-time, real-world speed. This is why our dreams seem to happen so much more quickly than our waking experiences.

Bruce McNaughton, a professor of psychology and physiology, and his colleague David Euston demonstrated that, during sleep the reactivated memories of real-time experiences are processed within the brain at a much higher rate of speed than real-world events occur.

The brain is generally thought to do all of this during sleep, specifically slow-wave sleep, when the brain is not busy with processing real-time inputs. McNaughton has developed multiple probes, each of which can track the activity of a dozen or more brain cells.

A portable dew-harvesting kit inspired by a spider's web is being developed by Israeli architects for use in areas where clean and safe water is scarce.

In February 2007, UK engineering firm Arup and charity WaterAid held a competition aimed at finding new technologies to help people gain access to clean water in areas where it is scarce. This is a problem for about one billion people worldwide.

The contest was won by Israeli architects Joseph Cory of company Geotectura and Eyal Malka of Malka Architects who suggested a dew-harvesting contraption.

Cory and Malka were inspired by seeing drops of water caught on desert spiders' webs first thing in the morning. Their design, called WatAir, consists of an inverted pyramid of sheet material, which collects dew and channels it into a collector and filtration unit in the centre.

The architects have now built and tested a prototype – a 10 metre square canopy of canvas attached to trees by rope. In this, dew was channelled into a gravity-driven filter and collecting tank hanging from the centre. 'In one day we collected more than 20 litres of water,' reported Cory. They are now developing an improved, portable version.

Solar Powered 'Cat's Eyes' Are Ten Times More Visible

Percy Shaw, the reclusive British inventor of reflective cat's eyes earned millions from his 1933-patented idea for road safety. In the dark or in poor visibility cat's eyes can been seen up to 90 metres away.

But Shaw's technology has now been superseded by new solar-powered cat's eyes that are visible up to 900 metres away

Produced by British company Astucia - the SolarLite 'smart' road stud uses stored solar power to run built-in Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs), providing an effective guide for drivers at up to a distance of 900 meters and extending reaction times from 3.2 to over 30 seconds when driving at 60mph.

'Always On, Always Connected, Always And Everywhere'

I use the above phrase when I talk to my audiences about the new always connected world we are all speeding towards.

But what about situations where there is no electrical power supply? How can a logistics chain, or a security system work when the items that need tracking are miles from a power grid?

Now Lockheed Martin subsidiary Savi Technology has begun deploying solar-powered Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) readers and signposts, saving energy and negating the need for installing electrical infrastructure in remote areas.

Designed for use in the defence and commercial sectors, the solar-powered signposts activate RFID tags attached to vehicles or pieces of equipment. The tags then report the assets’ positions to nearby RFID readers, which relay the information to software that automatically updates the assets’ latest location. The system is capable of tracking more than 25,000 tags per day.

Problem solved - at least in principle.

www.rayhammond.com

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