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.   

Future Tech

A US company with a branch in Taiwan recently revealed a prototype transparent phone. The new phone is composed of a conductive glass that is toughened to resist scratches and shattering. It’s thinner and twenty-five percent lighter than an iPhone 5, and features a larger 4.3 inch screen. Both front and backsides of the phone can display images but it can only be touch activated from one side.

The good news (aside from it being cool tech) is that its going to be sold cheaper than the iPhone 5. Although the company has yet to reveal how much cheaper. You don’t have long to wait for the answer. The new phones will be on shelves this year. To see the phone and learn more about the product check out the video below.

Controller Free Gaming

Have you ever imagined using your hands to control the character in your favorite game? Or moving a few fingers and turning down the television from across the room... like magic? Well now you can.

The good people at Thalmic Labs have created the "wearable gesture control device". Its a band that's worn on the forearm which allow the user to manually control electronics, such as video games, radios, RC vehicles, televisions and more with hand gestures.

When you see the demo video below its going to show the versatility of the device. By flexing muscles in the forearm, wrist and fingers users are given manual control over electronics in every type of environment including the snow. This is the tech of the future available now. Check it out.

Electronic Pick Pockets

Technology is moving at a frightening speed and to keep up thieves and criminals must find new and innovative ways to steal. Back in the day when you would ride the subway or bus you had to watch out for pick-pockets. Now you have to worry about electronic pick-pockets, guys that steal all your credit card information without ever taking it out of your wallet. Check out the clip below. 

Meet the Jetsons

If you’ve never heard of the Jetsons its okay cuz the show is older than dinosaurs. The Jetsons were a family who lived in the future and would go to work, school and shop using Jetpacks. This was a revolutionary concept at the time cuz it depicted humans flying as the next step in technology.

We’ve now reached that point...in steps the Martian Jetpack. The Martin Jetpack is the world’s first Jetpack made for commercial use. Unlike the Jetpacks you see in the movies which use strings and other devices to assist with flying, this actually works. It consists of a gasoline engine driving twin ducted fans which produce sufficient thrust to lift the aircraft and a pilot in vertical takeoff and landing, enabling sustained flight. I posted a clip below, take a look cuz this is your future too.

Here is another Jetpack. This one is cooler cuz it's faster and looks similar to the ones worn in Japanese Anime. This is a powerful Jetpack that reaches speeds up to 300kph and has wings like a jet plane. Its completely developed and functioning but do to its many applicable military uses will most likely not be available commercially for another decade. Check it out!

Summer Toyz

As you know I'm a huge extreme sports enthusiast. I luv riding anything with a board or wheels. My current addiction is snowboarding but in the summer its a little difficult to ride, unless you go to indoor slopes. That's where the Dirt Surfer comes in. Its a cross between a mountain bike and a skateboard...and its awesome! It can be ridden on all down hill terrain, is equipped with disk brakes and easy excess foot bindings just in case u need to bail quickly. Check out the clip.

Another innovative summer toy I found is the OrbitWheel. Its rides like a wave board without the board and you wear it like roller skates. I like the idea but this is not my type of ride because it limits my forward motion...but different strokes for different folks, so I posted it anyway. The clip is below.

Cool Toyz

Get ready to lose yourself in videogames—literally.  In May, the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas installed the first public Virtusphere, a human-sized hamster ball that lets you move through virtual worlds by walking, running, or crawling inside it.  Until now, the sphere has been used primarily for military and police training.  Now, wearing a virtual-reality visor, anyone inside can play a first-person-shooter game, tour historic Russian architecture or do any number of leisure activities.

The 10-foot sphere is made of the same plastic as Legos, and its curvature helps to cushion players if they fall.  The ball spins on a platform fitted with 45 caster-mounted wheels.   Beneath, an optical sensor tracks motion the same way a computer mouse does, watching for relative movement across x and y axes.  To make the experience truly immersive, the player is fitted with a head-mounted display with two internal LCD screens.  A laptop wirelessly collects the data from the sensor and the gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers on the headset to create the image the player sees.  Below is a video showing how the system works and for more info on Virtual Ventures go to  360virtualventures.com