The state of superconductors

Its been awhile since my last posting. News on accelerating technology & science seems to have slowed down a bit compared to February.
However, this article did spark my interest. It gives a good high level overview of the current state of superconductors. It notes that progress has been slower than expected since the late 80's when high temperature superconductors were first discovered. Yet, as the article points out, this technology has been moving into the commercial world lately in the form of high capacity power lines, compact electric motors for ships, magnetic levitation for maglev trains, etc. This is actually pretty impressive progress considering high temperature superconductors were only in the lab two decades ago.

The 'new age' of super materials

The article ends with a hint that more breakthroughs in superconducting are on the way.

"There has been a crescendo of research, while at the same time the first commercial HTSC products are rolling out of factories. According to Dr Yurek, this is a sign that the new age promised by Ronald Reagan is finally here. "I think we're on a launching pad here and we're now ready to take off," he said. "

What increasing computational power in home computers will mean

Putting what amounts to a supercomputer into everyone's home will mean dramatic increases in software power and utility. Things that today can be done effectively only by clusters of computers running in data centers will be done by average home computers, appliances, and electronic entertainment devices...

The Promise of Personal Supercomputers

"Intel thinks that recognition, mining, and synthesis (RMS) applications will be key. These technologies could allow for real-time language translation via cell phones, real-time video search by spoken phrase or image, and better recommendation systems for shopping, meal planning, and even health care."

Producing Nuerons

This is another stepping stone in the steady advance of regenerative medicine.

Scientists produce neurons from human skin

Memory/Inteligence Augmentation

If you have the ability to digitaly record your day to day activities and then search back through them with a search engine of some sort, then haven't you achieved some pretty radical enhancement of your inteligence? Imagine having what amounts to a photographic memory. And, in fact, this would be better than photographic memory since all this data would be available not only for recall - but for all the uses that can be put to digital information.
This is nothing less than a major enhancement of human inteligence - and projects to achieve this digital life record are already well underway....

A Digital Life

"New systems may allow people to record everything they see and hear--and even things they cannot sense--and to store all these data in a personal digital archive"

Robotics moving ahead, and computer driven cars...

It seems that the old sci-fi stand by's of the robotic home butler and the self-driving car are actually going to happen, as soon as within the next 15 years. A lot of cynics would scoff at this prediction, but the fundamental technologies to make these things happen are finally starting to come together.

Paranoid androids 'in 10 years'

...At present, commercially available robots such as automatic vacuum cleaners are little more than drones capable of carrying out only one task. However, speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco yesterday, a panel of robotics experts said robots capable of multiple domestic tasks, that can also provide companionship for their owners, will be available within 10 years. And the scientists claim it is already possible to give robots such "feelings"...

Making the right robot for the right job

"Within a decade cars could start driving themselves on highways and in less than 25 years automakers may be producing vehicles "smart" enough to chauffeur passengers through city streets, Stanford computer scientist Sebastian Thrun predicted Saturday in San Francisco."

Deafness to be cured?

Its really starting to look like there won't be that many un-treatable physical disabilities a few decades from now. Progress is being made across the entire spectrum of physical disabilities. For example...

Tech Could End Deafness

"The science of hearing is moving beyond traditional hearing aids and cochlear implants into a world where patients may be able to regain their hearing through manipulation of their own biology. New techniques, such as combining stem-cell transplants with the "recharging" of cells that power an amplifier in the ear..."

Cybernetic monkey

Check out this cool/eerie video of a monkey using a robotic arm to feed itself. The money is controlling the arm via brain-machine interface, by thought alone.

Tech roundup

Here's a roundup of recent interesting articles. Even just the titles say a lot.

Scientists prepare way for bionic man

"The goal is to give quadriplegic patients an electronic brain implant, linked to an electrical system of muscle stimulation, enabling them to move their limbs by thought alone – just like healthy people."

Science Finding Ways to Regrow Fingers

Robot-driven cars on roads by 2030: scientist

Self-Assembling Batteries

"By measuring nanoscale forces, researchers learn to make lithium-ion batteries that pull themselves together."

Why people don't get that progress IS being made in the field of AI

One of the things that often frustrates me in discussions about "AI" is that many people have unreasonable expectations of what AI should be. Take a look at this quote from an article about Intel's new 1.1 teraflop chip...

"Intel suggested one possible consumer use: a program that intelligently monitors a televised sporting event and automatically identifies and compiles key highlights like a slam dunk or a home run by a favorite player based on the spectator's preferences.
Other uses could be artificial intelligence, realistic 3-D computer modeling and real-time speech recognition."

So, the article talks about the chip allowing the capability for a home entertainment system to intelligently compile key highlights from sporting events. Then, in the next sentence, the article states that "other uses could be artificial intelligence". Excuse me, how is the ability for a computer to intelligently compile key highlights from a sporting event not "artificial intelligence"? Granted, the ability to intelligently compile highlights from a sporting game is not a generalized human-level intelligence but it certainly is a rather narrow form of artificial intelligence.
It seems that many people have this flawed perception that no progress is being made in "AI" because they have this expectation that "AI" has to mean a human-level intelligence. This is like saying that no progress has been made in space travel because humans have not yet traveled to another solar system.

Google working on true AI?

Call me a Google fanboy, but when I hear Google talking about working on real AI I get pretty darn excited. Larry Page has been hinting at this for awhile now, I'd bet Google has some secret project in the works. Of course, Google already is a form of AI - albeit its more of a "machine intelligence" rather than a true AI in the classic sense. Imagine a service called something like "Google Assistant" accessible via a phone number which allows you to interact with an advanced software agent that can pass the turing test while giving a single point of access to all of Google's services - a personal assistant for everyone. I think we could be within 5 years of seeing something like this.
What got me thinking along these lines is this video of Larry Page talking about AI and Google...


Video: Google at work on AI

Cybernetics moving ahead....

These are two key advances in the field of cybernetics, supplementing the brain implants and advanced prosthetics we've been seeing lately.

Researchers set to test bionic eye implant












Neural Implants Control When You Go

"Now, scientists are developing and testing implants that allow patients to control when they urinate and even get warnings about when their bladders are full."

Brain implants getting more robust

I think most people simply aren't aware of how much progress is being made in the area of brain implants and brain-machine interfacing. This article does a good job of demonstrating just how far this field has come in the past decade.

Medtronic discloses component for "brain radio"

"We want to measure the average activity of thousands of brain cells," said Tim Denison, a senior principal engineer at Medtronic Neurological Technologies, who presented the ISSCC paper. "Essentially we want to build a brain radio that we can tune to the particular frequencies of the patient," he added.

"...The Medtronic system is part of a broad category of neural stimulators, implantable devices that send electrical pulses to areas of the brain to control diseases such as Parkinson's disease, epilepsy and depression. The paper gave a rare glimpse look inside a next-generation device, revealing design struggles in power management and signal sensitivity..."

Two significant memory chip breakthroughs in one day

Continuing the torrent of recent developments in electronic chip manufacturing, two more major breakthroughs were announced yesterday.

IBM to Announce Breakthrough Caching Innovation at ISSCC

Carbon Nanotube-Based NVRAM In 2-3 Years?

In just a few years we'll all have the equivalent of 1997's ASCI Red supercomputer on our desktop and even our cell phones will "merely" have the power of a high end multi-core work station of today.
I think that we're getting close to crossing a threshold into an area where the continued doubling of computer performance every year is going to push us over a tipping point. What lies on the other side of this tipping point isn't entirely clear, but it could look something like the early chapters of Stross's "Accelerando".

Speaking of which, I'm planning on starting a series of posts where I'll try to make 5 year predictions for various fields of technology. 2012 sure feels like a long way out in terms of trying to make technology predictions. One thing I will try to do is to not think in a linear fashion when making my predictions. Instead I will adhere to the exponential rate of progress favored by Kurzweil and other "accelerating inteligence" advocates.

mPhase Technologies Sets Date for Nanobattery demo video

LITTLE FALLS, N.J.-(Business Wire)-February 14, 2007 - mPhase Technologies (OTC:XDSL), today announced that it is posting a video demonstration of its Smart Nanobattery on the popular YouTube web site on Friday, February 16th at 5 p.m. Eastern time. The video explains the technology behind its breakthrough development of a "smart" battery based on nanotechnology.

"...The prototype battery is based on a discovery that liquid droplets of electrolyte will stay in a dormant state atop nanotextured surfaces until stimulated to flow, thereby triggering a reaction producing electricity. This effect can permit precise control and activation of the batteries when required..."

I'll be interested in seeing this demonstration video, will post the video here if it lives up to expectations.

RFID "powder" developed. Smart Dust has arrived

RFID 'Powder' - World's Smallest RFID Tag
















Those tiny specs are individual fully functional RFID chips shown next to a human hair. This RFID chip is delivered in the form of a powder and can be embedded in paper.

Update on that new commercial quantum computer

So, apparently this is for real. Its a functioning 16 qubit quantum computer. They expect to have a 1000 qubit quantum computer up and running by next year. Presumably we'll see the number of qubits continue to rise over time.

Start-up demos quantum computer

Optical computing takes a major step forward

Just in time to help transfer the increasing flood of data over the internet and within circuitry comes the beginning of practical optical computing, brought to you by MIT...

MIT team details optics-on-a-chip device
















"...Fiber-optic networks transmit massive amounts of information quickly, but the signals weaken as the data-carrying light travels long distances. Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said they've overcome a major obstacle in harnessing the full power and speed of the light waves..."

"...They're also trumpeting the innovative method they devised to integrate the optical circuitry with electronic circuitry on the same silicon chip..."

"...It's a big step forward - no one was able to do this before in a way that is manufacturable and takes advantage of the manufacturability of silicon technology," said Erich Ippen, an MIT electrical engineering and physics professor and one of the study's co-authors..."

Total amount of digital information on the Internet to double every 11 hours by 2010 according to IBM

Found this interesting nugget of information buried in a Cnet article about a new IBM software release...

"According to an IBM study, by 2010, the amount of digital information in the world will double every 11 hours."

That figure sounds really high to me, but if the actual rate is anywhere near that fast....wow


Full Article

Web 3.0 ?

The Third-Generation Web -- Web 3.0 -- is Coming in 2007

What to expect from Web 3.0

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense

Web 3.0 - You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet!


Looks like this "Web 3.0" term/idea is starting to gain steam. Basically, Web 3.0 seems to be the inteligent web, or the semantic web.


"Their goal is to add a layer of meaning on top of the existing Web that would make it less of a catalog and more of a guide — and even provide the foundation for systems that can reason in a human fashion. That level of artificial intelligence, with machines doing the thinking instead of simply following commands, has eluded researchers for more than half a century..."

"...Web 3.0. -- Using the same pattern as the above Wikipedia definition, Web 3.0 could be defined as: "Web 3.0, a phrase coined by John Markoff of the New York Times in 2006, refers to a supposed third generation of Internet-based services that collectively comprise what might be called "the intelligent Web" -- such as those using semantic web, microformats, natural language search, data-mining, machine learning, recommendation agents, and artificial intelligence technologies - which emphasize machine-facilitated understanding of information in order to provide a more productive and intuitive user experience..."

Simulating the Human Brain

There are at least two significant projects currently underway to simulate major aspects of the human brain.

Building the Cortex in Silicon

This Stanford University project is taking a hardware based approach, where the nueral structure of the Cortex is being emulated in hardware.

"The first-generation design will be composed of a circuit board with 16 chips, each containing a 256-by-256 array of silicon neurons. Groups of neurons can be set to have different electrical properties, mimicking different types of cells in the cortex. Engineers can also program specific connections between the cells to model the architecture in different parts of the cortex.
The million-neuron grid will have a processing speed equivalent to 300 teraflops, meaning that unlike computer-software simulations of the cortex, the hardwired silicon model will be able to run in real time. "


Blue Brain: IBM and Swiss university to model human brain
















"The team will start by modeling the electrical structure of neural circuits repeated throughout the brain and then map and model their behavior. Once complete, they will move onto creating a molecular model of the neurons involved and a complete neocortex (the largest and most complex part of the human brain) before modelling the rest of the brain"

This IBM/Swiss project seems to take more of a software approach, using a customized 22+ teraflop Blue/Gene Supercomputer to model the human brain down to the molecular level. This seems to be a long term project and no results have been made public yet as far as I know.

The sci-fi fantasy devices of 1992 have become the mundane gadgets of 2007

I find it quite telling that we are now deluged with products that could have fit comfortably into cutting edge science fiction novels of the early 1990's but that we now largely dismiss as commonplace gadgets.

Cases in point...

















OQO Model 02 goes HSDPA at 3GSM - Engadget

















Clarion's DrivTrax P5 nav unit for Japan

Computer price/performance continues to race ahead

Intel shows off 80-core processor

Intel has officially demonstrated a functioning 80 core prototype CPU capable of achieving 1 teraflop, or 1 trillion calculations per second. To put this in perspective, ten years ago it took an entire data center to achieve this level of processing power in the ASCI Red Supercomputer.

1 teraflop ASCI Red Supercomputer circa 1997...

...vs 1 teraflop CPU today(2007)...










Intel expects to be manufacturing a refined, commercialized, version of the 80 core, 1 teraflop, processor within the next five years. And so, Moore's Law marches on.

Powered Exoskeletons are NOT just sci-fi any more...

This technology is advancing rapidly, here is one of the latest developments....

Robotic exoskeleton replaces muscle work

"A robotic exoskeleton controlled by the wearer's own nervous system could help users regain limb function, which is encouraging news for people with partial nervous system impairment, say University of Michigan researchers"

"...Initially the wearer's gait was disrupted because the mechanical power added by the exoskeleton made the muscle stronger. However, in a relatively short time, the wearers adapted to the new strength and used their muscles less because the exoskeleton was doing more of the work. Their gait normalized after about 30 minutes."


One of the most advanced exoskeletons in the world is the Japanese HAL robotic suit...

Of course, it was inevitable that the Pentagon would show interest...

Pentagon to Develop Super-Suits

First commercial Quantum computer?

First quantum computing system running commercial applications live to be unveiled

If this is for real its pretty interesting. Everyone has been assuming quantum computers are still decades away, this would represent a big leap if it pans out.

Mind reading technology advances...

Brain scan 'can read your mind'

The technology for observing the brain is advancing in leaps and bounds. Combine this with the advances happening in brain-computer interfaces and the future looks....interesting.

Still think we'll never achieve real AI?

Check this out...

First computer model based on the brain works well for artificial vision

Machine vision has a been a real intractable problem in the field of AI research and this seems like a big step in the right direction. Its also evidence that computational models of how the human brain works can be applied in computers with success.

Flexible, rollable, displays have arrived

This is one of those things thats been "five years away" for the last decade or so, but it finally seems to have arrived...

Philips unit to launch rollable-screen handheld

Lost in the Future?

I was wondering recently if I've become so obsessed with the future that I fail to appreciate what we have right now in the present. I carry more computer power in my pockets than existed in all the world just a few decades ago. If I went back in time and showed my ipod and cell phone to someone in say 1985 they would have been amazed. In a very real sense we're already in the future. Sure, we don't have flying cars or mars colonies...but we have so many other things.

However, I just can't help but dream about whats around the corner.

TechBloom : Evolution of the Cell Phone

Originally, before I decided to start this blog, I was intending to create a video podcast with videos that visualize the steady, methodical, march of technology. Here is the first video of several I hope to create...

Why "TechBloom" ?

I wanted a name that conveys the concept of accelerating technological progress, the constant advance that we're seeing across all fields of technology. I thought about "intelbloom" but 'tech' is more easily recognized I think.

Why create the billionth blog?

Well, why not? I tried starting a blog back in 2002 and never stuck to it. Now the tools are more powerful and blogging has become even easier than it was back then, so why not delve back in?
I spend half my time day dreaming about the future and tracking the latest gadgets anyway, so why not log my musings somewhere?