Emerging Technology

Its been a busy few months since the video dropped. I've been keeping odd hours and the days are all starting to blend together like a badly mixed Margarita. I guess its the price for chasing success....work long hours and get little rest. To combat the rigors of daily life I took a few weeks off to celebrate my birthday in Thailand. I'll write about that experience next time. 

While most of us are trying to figure out ways to make our lives easier. There are a few ingenious men and women who have achieved that goal. A few individuals made life easier for themselves by developing technology that can help all of mankind. Below are some emerging technologies that will change peoples perception...on what can and cannot be done. There was a wise man who said the "impossible" doesn't exist. Impossible problems are only impossible until the right mind provides an acceptable solution. (I'm paraphrasing a quote from Nikolai Tesla.)

Concept Plastics take the old adage..."One mans trash is another mans treasure." to a whole new level. The Colombian based company builds new low cost homes from discarded plastic that isn't being recycled. The waste plastic is melted down then remolded into Lego style bricks. The bricks are cut into various sizes, which are then built into homes. Their goal is to make housing affordable for all families while helping the environment.



The media is always talking about how expensive raw materials and energy costs are to manufacture almost anything. The Solar Sinter Project, provides a solution by utilizing the most abundant energy source on Earth...sunlight. The engineers took a 3D printer and refurbished it with solar panels and glass molding machinery. Sunlight is used for raw energy and to power the device. Sand is used as the building material to produce glass objects created using 3D the printing process. 

This device is only a concept project meant to get a dialog started on how people think about energy and resources. All that aside...its a pretty cool toy. Who doesn't want an authentic crystal sand castle...or glass sword?

Last but by far the most interesting is the Bioo Lite. This amazing little gadget uses a houseplant to charge your phone. I know you're thinking..."This dude is crazy". You are correct....I am. BUT I'm also speaking the truth. Bioo Lite, uses the natural process of plant photosynthesis to provide electricity to your phone. What makes it so amazing is all you need is a phone, USB cable and a plant. 

The technical aspects and materials used in the Bioo Lite are explained in the video. So far the Bioo Lite is one of the most environmentally safe way to generate electricity. By the way, the plant is not damaged by charging the phone and no plants were harmed in the making of this video.   

Robotic Lover

Every science fiction fan has seen a film where there's a robotic sex slave. Although the idea of a sex robot from toy makers, engineers, and mad scientists has been around since the 1930's. Now in 2015 is that ambition close to reality. 

Matt McMullen is a synthetic life (sex dolls) designer and engineer. He makes life-like, fully functional and poseable sex dolls for people to enjoy. Matt and his team have ventured beyond dolls into the field of robotics and A.I. (artificial intelligence) to create a robotic lover. 

Matt McMullen is aware of the potential for moral outcry from religious and human rights groups. So he isn't focusing on making the dolls as real as a human. Matt and his team want to keep the doll looking human but still with doll skin and eyes so users know it's a robot. He states that "he doesn't want the distinction between a person and a robot to get blurred." This allows users to enjoy the experience knowing that they're with a doll not a human being. 

Making a robot look and feel "real" isn't the biggest challenge that the team face. According to Matt McMullen, the biggest challenge is making the user feel like the robot is actually deriving pleasure from the sexual interaction. This is a challenge many world renown scientists face in the rapidly developing field of A.I.. 

Creating robots that have human facial expressions and movements is one difficulty. The second is generating a human personality for the A.I. that is user friendly and easily programmable. In that way the robots personality can be augmented to each owners individual taste. To overcome this hurdle in A.I., the team plans to utilize new virtual reality tech to give users a more complete 3D immersion experience. 

While wearing a virtual reality headset by a company like Oculus Rift. The user could run a program of their fantasy woman, while physically interacting with their robotic lover. The whole thing may sound like a x-rated science fiction film but... it's being made. This is cutting edge technology. Matt McMullen's dedication to making his dream into a reality makes me believe it won't be long before this product is selling world-wide.

Check out the video below to learn more about Matt McMullen and the team making "Denise" the first sex robot.

Cloaking Spray

Man has been fascinated with invisibility since ancient times. 

In Greek mythology, Perseus used a cloak of invisibility to slay the Gorgon Medusa. Back in the era of alchemists before modern science, the quest for invisibility was almost as important as the formula to trans-mutate lead into gold.

Let's just propose for a moment that the information in the video below is true. That fictional characters are describing a real project...currently in development. The industrious (fictional) engineers at the University of Michigan have moved one step closer to achieving that goal. They developed a cloaking spray that once dry, renders any object its sprayed upon almost invisible to the naked eye. Light moves in the size of Nanometres. Once engineers began working on the Nanoparticle scale they could directly interact with light.

These engineers have created a cloaking spray composed of a liquid Nanoparticle solution that bends light. There have been several inventions that bend light to give the illusion of invisibility. Yet none have achieved the level of success as the engineers in Michigan. Their cloaking spray is unique in it's versatility. It can be sprayed, coated, or painted on any surface and make that object... disappear.

This may be science fiction, but it describes advanced nanotechnology...and it's awesome. Curved objects like spheres and bottles work better than straight edged forms, like squares or triangles. When shapes with straight edges are coated with the cloaking spray the edges are visible when it drys. Although this is a minor setback, the team have already successfully coated gloves, clothing, fruit and numerous other objects and materials with success.

The military is funding the project (of course) so they have funding to overcome any problems that may arise. Plans for invisible drones, and reconnaissance vehicles are already on the way. The engineers hope to begin human testing in the next few years. The whole idea makes me think of the movie Hollow Man...imagine that. 

For more information on the cloaking spray (prank...or project in development) and the science behind it, check out the video below. 

Original Ostrich Helicopter

In the past I posted about a man who turned his dead feline Orville into a modern helicopter.

Since then there have been strange developments in the field of Animal Aeronautics. In July 2013 inventors in the Netherlands released their Original Ostrich Helicopter at the annual Zwarte Cross Festival. The helicopter was made from the carcass of a male specimen that died of disease on an ostrich farm. The ostrich copter has four rotating propellers, is radio controlled and is much larger than its counterpart Orville.

The inventors reasoned that this original piece of art and technology would be a good selling item for their company. I personally think its a bit creepy…but I judge no ones taste in aerial devices or art. The Ostrich copter is a mix of both. Once you get past the ideal that you’re looking at a motorized flying corpse. You can appreciate the engineering and technological skill it took to get an Ostrich to fly.

Below I posted a video of the new Ostrich copter, if you like strange flying devises, check it out.

Designer Babies

We are at the point technologically where humans can play God. 

Up to this point all a parent could do was give their child advantages after they were born. Such as wealth, status, education etc. Now thanks to advancements in genetics a parent can design their ideal child at conception. Enter the designer baby.

Science has identified the genes for intelligence, obesity, depression, heart, liver, kidney disease, alcoholism, addiction and numerous other conditions that affect society. Now they can isolate the desired traits a parent desires in their future child…say tall, blue-eyes, blond hair and have it created. 

Sound familiar? It should. Hitler used that as the description of his master race. Some scientists believe this technology will be used to create a master race. Which will eradicate all people weaker, different, or disabled. With techno-evolution (technology sped-up evolution) we could alter the course of mankind or destroy it. 

History has shown, for just as many experiments that are successful there are an equal number of failures. This fact has led to speculation that the technology will be used to breed mutants, which are abnormally gifted in all things. The whole subject sounds like a bad sci-fi novel but the science exists and is already in use. Watch the documentary below for more details.

Future Cars

Modern car designs don’t stray far from the original design from the 19th century. The doors are fixed in place by two separate hinges attached to the body of the vehicle. Over the years some designers switched the locations of the hinges. Placing the hinges at the top of the car was the inception of the Lamborghini style wing doors. Placing them at the opposite side of the door frame, created the suicide doors. They were given the name because of their popularity amongst 1930’s criminals. They found suicide doors easier to open, when throwing victims from the moving vehicle.

Jatech offers a brand new design to automobiles. They offer luxury automobiles with a seamless drop down door system unlike any created before. The doors slide down and under the car out of view..literally disappearing. That may sound like a large claim but if you watch the video below it will prove it.

Dolphin Speed Boat

I read this awesome interview on Popular Science talking about future water transportation. Some ingenious engineers decided to use nature as inspiration and made a speed boat named the Seabreacher designed after a dolphin. Not only does the Seabreacher look like a dolphin it also moves like one through the water and can emulate the dolphins ability jump into the air up to 18 feet. If you read my other article Animal Technology you know that this isn’t the first time designers used nature as inspiration. 

What makes the Seabreacher unique is that the engineers didn’t just take a few ideas from watching dolphins and add them to a speed boat. They tried to make a mechanical one. Its animal technology on steroids…take a look at the video below.

Animal Technology

As the 21st century grows more technologically advanced, science and medicine have found that some of the most complex problems have simple answers. Housing and energy are becoming big issues in most developing countries. Modern architects have turned to mother nature for their inspiration.

They have found that designing a building with a structure similar to a termite hill allows better ventilation and needs less electricity to power. Others found that the inner structure of a bee hive provided structural strength, conserves energy and requires less heat. These innovations are barely scratching the surface of what can be found from observing the animal kingdom.

Aside from architecture and engineering using animal designs for robotics has become incredibly popular. The robotic snake is considered one of the best technological achievements of the decade. It moves like a real reptile, is amphibious and can be remotely operated.

Most zoologist agree that if they had a robotic proxy animal in an environment the behavior of the animal being studied would be different. For example in marine biology when studying whales their behavior changes when humans are introduced into their environment. If they put a robotic fish with a camera in place of a person the whales behavior would be more natural and science could learn more about all aspects of their life.

The designers proposed that the robotic snake could be used for search and rescue as well as numerous stealth and surveillance operations. The military applications for this type of technology are enormous. Below I've placed videos of some amazing robotic animals that simulate the motion of their real-life counter-parts.