MemeBox FutureBlogger

What Augmented Reality Might Look Like

Accel Rose — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:03:51 +0000

Augmented reality will become a widespread reality once projectors, visual recognition system and computers processors get cheap enough and companies develop compelling software for it.

Here’s a very cool and comprehensive vision of what that future might look like:

(via thefutureisawesome.com)

Category: Communication
Year: General
Tags: augmentedreality, augmented

David Houle on the Benefits of Space-Based Solar

Accel Rose — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 08:41:07 +0000

Futurist David Houle of EvolutionShift is confident space-based solar power can answer our rising energy needs, while fueling a nascent private space industry during its critical early stages.

Category: Space
Year: General
Tags: space, spacebasedsolar, houle, davidhoule, evolutionshift

Dixon: Death of Paper More Than a Decade Away

Accel Rose — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:46:23 +0000

In his latest YouTube video futurist Patrick Dixon says paper use is up because it “has this extraordinary capacity to deliver bandwidth to human beings” due to higher resolution as compared to digital screens.

“The sheer physicality of books makes them supremely readable. It’s a very high definition source for the eye,” says Dixon, adding that books are “very convenient. You can read through [them] incredibly quickly. You can flip pages around.”

As to how long will paper continue to dominate communication, Dixon forecasts that the industry “will continue for a very long time despite all the advances that are being talked about for the next 10 years.”

Category: Technology
Year: General
Tags: paper, dixon, patrickdixon, endofpaper

Future Robots Will Be Transformers

Accel Rose — Thu, 29 May 2008 08:55:38 +0000

If you’re a big Transformers fan, as am I, then you’re going to dig this video of a new robot that can drive on wheels one moment, then reconfigure to walk on eight legs the next:

Seeing this functional version of a bot that can change its form leads me to believe that multi-function, multi-shape robots are likely to be the future. I mean, why not cram as many features as you can into a single robot? We’re already doing that with every other device ever made.

Category: Technology
Year: 2008
Tags: robot, transform, transformer, transformerrobot, bot, robotics, robotic

Web Video Viewers to Grow 4x by 2013

Accel Rose — Wed, 28 May 2008 03:16:22 +0000

A new study from ABI Research forecasts the number of viewers who access video via the Web to nearly quadruple in the next few years, reaching at least one billion in 2013. ““

“The rapid expansion of broadband video creates opportunities across a number of market sectors,” comments senior analyst Cesar Bachelet. “A wide variety of actors aim to gain a share of this fast-growing market: not only content owners such as the BBC and NBC Universal, and Internet portals such as AOL and Yahoo!, but also a range of new entrants including user-generated content sites such as YouTube and Dailymotion, broadband video sites such as CinemaNow and Lovefilm, and Internet TV providers such as Apple, and Zattoo

Sparked by increasing broadband penetration and rising connection speeds available to a growing percentage of the world’s population, online video is growing as quickly as the supporting infrastructure can be built. (cont.)

Category: Entertainment
Year: 2013
Tags: video, onlinevideo, webvideo, youtube

The Future of Tennis

Accel Rose — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:03:00 +0000

Here’s a cool vision created by tennis equipment manufacturer Lacoste of the sport as it may look 75 years from now:

My hunch is that if tennis does evolve in such a direction that robotic exoskeletons and augmented reality will make this vision possible sometime before 2030.

Category: Entertainment
Year: Beyond
Tags: tennis, lacoste, futureoftennis

Real-Life Winged Rocketman Flies Like Ironman

Accel Rose — Fri, 16 May 2008 16:46:35 +0000

How long would it take for this guy to deliver your pizza?

This rocket man is a trained pilot and engineer, so it doesn’t look like us laymen will be flying with these wings any time soon, but I can see a lot of benefits such as first medical response, amazing camera work, high-speed delivery and of course military applications. However, I am optimistic that going tandem will be a near term option.

Category: Transportation
Year: 2008
Tags: rocketman, rocket, wings, pilot

Extinction Timeline Through 2050

Accel Rose — Mon, 05 May 2008 17:33:00 +0000

Wondering when national currencies, intimacy, natural childbirth and Rocky films will go the way of the dodo? Here’s a fun timeline of extinction events for the 1950-2050 range by futurist and Future Trends Book author Richard Watson:

Category: Culture
Year: Beyond
Tags: 2050, timeline, forecast, watson, richardwatson

Intel's Mash Maker: The Web Evolves?

Accel Rose — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 19:34:37 +0000

“What if you could take data elements from multiple websites and mash them together into a single, integrated view?”

Intel’s new Mash Maker, a suped-up take on Yahoo Pipes, now allows us web surfers to take pieces of sites and to assemble them into a single super-site. It’s kind of like RSS, but instead of modules of standardized text feeds you can clip most of the visual and interactive portions of sites that you find useful. Like Pipes, the data flowing through these micro interfaces can be threaded together to make for more efficient browsing, seaching, sorting experiences. For example, you can use Mash Maker to easily connect your Facebook friends’ profiles with a google map, creating a image of where they’re all located on a map that’s located on the same page as the profiles.

Overall, Intel’s new product represents the next stage in user-friendly web mashing and is a big step up from the less accessible Yahoo Pipes. It’s most powerful feature may well prove it’s ability to suggest pre-made mashups as you browse. If it can attain critical mass, this may be the the first web masher to gain incredible market share – it looks as though it’s got a shot. Otherwise, we’ll just have to wait for an improved version or a slicker, more dummy proof product from Company X to truly transform our web browsing experience. Either way, big changes in the way we browse are coming sooner or later, but definitely within 2 years, or so I’m betting.

Category: Social Media
Year: 2008
Tags: intel, mashups, mash, mashmaker, mashing, web, theweb

Stewart Brand: Why squatter cities are a good thing

Accel Rose — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:05:55 +0000

Futurist Stewart Brand explains that the global rise of squatter cities is a good thing because it enables people to connect with others and gain access to education. He points out that unemployment in squatter cities is generally near zero.

Check out his short and sweet presentation at TED:

Brand projects that the number of people living in squatter cities will grow three-fold to $3 billion over the coming decades. Makes me wonder if these regions will become the new hot-beds of innovation as technology rapidly lifts their inhabitants up the hierarchy of needs, provides cheaper connectivity and better education.

Category: Culture
Year: General
Tags: city, urban, cities, squatter, squatters, squattercities

Google Maps Now Predicts Traffic

Accel Rose — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:56:04 +0000

Google Maps has now added a traffic feature that allows you to see the level of expected traffic for a given time on a given day. This marks the first of what I believe will be many prediction components or layers to the Earth platform.

I expect we’ll soon see more robust traffic forecasts displayed by Google. Later on, I’m betting the company will integrate visual forecasts of local crowd traffic, business hours and even recurring annual/holiday events at given locations, perhaps using a combination of time of day, Google Street View footage and geo-tagged flickr photographs to build up these prediction composites.

Eventually, it seems rather likely that Google Earth will develop a robust time toggle feature, as predicted by David Gelertner in his seminal work Mirror Worlds (an absolute must-read if you’re interested in Google or the future), that will save us all a great deal of travel time, gas money and grief; not to mention point us in the direction of useful and fun events.

Category: The Web
Year: 2008
Tags: google, traffic, googlemaps, googletraffic

Visual Search via iPhone Now Possible

Accel Rose — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:01:56 +0000

A new consumer-ready system called ViPR , by Evolution Robotics , lets machines – from your cell phone to robots – recognize objects. Already, this software permits consumers to snap photographs, then to search for image matches, returning relevant image and text results. In other words, you can take photos of product packaging, movie art, billboards, etc and instantly get more information related to the image you have just captured.

Take a look at this demo to see for yourself:

Eventually, such systems will be essential for robots and other systems that either need to navigate a complex environment or serve to input and index information.

In the near term it will be interesting to see how software like ViPR will function in concert with the new image barcodes being used on billboards in Japan and in newspapers by Google. Once optimized, such systems will undoubtedly lead to consumer efficiencies and new behaviors.

Category: Technology
Year: 2008
Tags: search, vipr, visualsearch, visual, evolutionrobotics

Where will China and other nations invest as the U.S. dollar continues to fall?

Accel Rose — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:47:34 +0000

Futurist Patrick Dixon compellingly argues that the global economic environment is ripe for Chinese investment in bargain priced banks and U.S. property holdings:

Dixon asserts that it is in U.S. interests to allow direct Chinese investment, lest the rising economy allocate its money elsewhere.

He also expects sovereign wealth fund managers representing other powerhouse economies to diversify into technology, pharmaceuticals, manufacturing, mining and oil industry if prices continue to fall.

Category: Economics
Year: 2008
Tags: chinese, china, property, dixon, us, economy, realestate, usdollar, economics, currency, banking, banks, partickdixon, sovereignfunds, dollar, holdings

UK joining Euro - less likely after sub-prime crisis

Accel Rose — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:35:42 +0000

Futurist Patrick Dixon argues that the current sub-prime mortgage crisis is likely to further discourage the UK from joining the European Union currency bloc any time soon:

Category: Economics
Year: General
Tags: patrickdixon, dixon, uk, eu, england

Gerd Leonhard Breaks Down Music 2.0

Accel Rose — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:02:54 +0000

Media futurist Gerd Leonhard thinks the production of music is about to open wide thanks to a new infrastructure that supports rapid licensing and sharing of components. Check out his take on how music 2.0 is shaping up:

Category: Entertainment
Year: General
Tags: gerdleonhard, leonhard, music20, music, recording

An Electric/Magnetic Car Highway That Runs Parallel to Current Roads

Accel Rose — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:43:10 +0000

Here’s a cool concept animation of a highway system that would incorporate lanes for electric/magnetic cars:

The company behind the mock-up is a Barcelona-based outfit called New and Better Opportunities for a World on the Move that seems to be developing some cool product visions.

Category: Transportation
Year: 2010
Tags: electriccar, road, highway, magneticcar, magnetic, highwaysystem

Culture Is Your Operating System : Terence McKenna

Accel Rose — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:35:11 +0000

Here’s a trippy yet provocative YouTube piece by Terrence McKenna, creator of Novelty theory (which predicts the ebb and flow of novelty in the universe as an inherent quality of time), that explores the the notion of culture as an operating system that sits atop the natural human brain, conditioning our experiences (it certainly could do without the spooky music). If more or less accurate, this concept means that we’ll have the ability to transform mindset, or to “download a new operating system”, as we develop the requisite technologies. According to McKenna, that requires “clearing the necessary disk space”. Take a look for yourself, if you dare:

What operating system are you running?

Category: Information
Year: General
Tags: mckenna, terencemckenna

Kamen Demos Water Purifier on the Colbert Show

Accel Rose — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:29:51 +0000

Check out Dean Kamen’s latest water-purifying device in action on the Colbert Show:

Unlike the Segway, this seems like an invention with a large demand for it. Let’s hope it can be deployed quickly to the regions that need clean water most urgently.

Category: Environment
Year: 2008
Tags: deankamen, water, kamen, colbert, stephencolbert, deka, waterpurifier, osmosis

Car Catcher Nets May Help End Chases

Accel Rose — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 17:33:23 +0000

All those live car chases we see on television may be coming to an end. A company called Engineered Arresting Systems Corporation that specializes in pop-up safety nets for all sorts of vehicles (cars, trucks, planes, UAV’s) has now developed a car catcher that can safely stop cars moving at speeds up to 50 mph. Check out the demonstration video:

I can easily see such devices built into LA highways, perhaps at narrow on- and off-ramps, or used sporadically at strategic locations all across the town. They would also work great as a non-lethal form of ambush in war zones – although shooting out or puncturing tires is probably a more effective way to go.

Combined with increasingly popular automobile kill switches that can remotely disconnect an engine from its fuel supply, devices like these nets have the potential to make the roads quite a bit safer, as well as to deter a good amount of auto theft.

Of course, one possible counter to that is to simply train robots to steal cars instead, or simply hack the car systems.

Category: Transportation
Year: General
Tags: carcatcher, arrest, highspeedchase

Mini Helicopter to Hit Market in 2009 or 2010

Accel Rose — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 06:23:01 +0000

Check out this fully functional new co-axial helicopter set to go into production sometime in 2009 or 2010. The manufacturer, Wieland Helicopter Technologies, says it plans to build versions that seat 1-5 passengers as well as a UAV which I’m sure the U.S. government will load up with machine guns and send into battle.

Category: Transportation
Year: General
Tags: helicopter, uav, chopper