Technology Visit

While most articles here on Opinion Dump are rather somber and serious, sometimes you'll find one that's a bit more on the fun side. Well, fun if you're into technology.

There are any number of sites on the internet that talk about technology. Here are some gems that you may not have heard of.

1. A team at the New York University Media Research lab has come up with an interesting way to interact with a computer by using a large touch screen that permits you to use all ten fingers in a very natural way. No more mouse. They even have a way to use an on-screen keyboard (you get to use all ten fingers on the screen after all). There's a nice video showing exactly how it works.

2. There is an effort underway to create what boils down to a time-lapse video of the entire night sky. Imagine seeing the planets moving about, with comets and other celestial bodies streaking by, all in one vast video.

3. It's been around for a couple decades, but Aerogel is now starting to get some use as a practical material. Nicknamed "frozen smoke", it's odd stuff. It's incredibly light and an excellent insulator - among other things.

4. Likely in the "too good to be true" category, the company EEStor isn't saying much about its ultra-capacitor product (i.e. a battery) other than some claims about being able to provide a very short charge time and hold a huge amount of power. Nay-sayers suggest that it's unlikely to actually work.

5. Returning to the land of the real, Sony has a gadget that works like an electronic book. You carry the thing around with you like you would a book, and read a page at a time from its neato-whizbang screen. That screen is possible because of electronic paper, which is a thin sheet of stuff that can be electronically drawn to over and over again, unlike actual paper. It's not like a computer monitor because once it has been drawn onto, it keeps whatever was drawn even when the power is turned off. It really does work like paper.

6. Although fuel cells, electric cars and such are fascinating technologies that piles and piles of people are trying to get going, here's an alternative: a rather different take on the bicycle that is stable, safe and fast. It will actually get the rider up to 50 MPH. It's called the Hyperbike.

7. Thoroughly impactical and likely something you haven't heard about, NASA has a mission to Pluto well underway. The spaceship New Horizons will be passing Jupiter in the next month or two, and then it's on past the orbits of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, ultimately zipping by what it now referred to as the Pluto System. That little guy has been sitting out there for a long time and we've never been able to look closely at it. Now the science books can have real pictures of the cold little ball.

There are countless more advances in genetics research, artificial limbs, direct brain-to-computer interfaces, spacecraft engines, understanding animal behavior, countless electronic gadgets, machine intelligence, fuel cells, stem cells, and many, many more areas besides. Mankind is pursuing seemingly every avenue of understanding that we can think of. It can be awe-inspiring to witness and follow.

Once upon a time, someone who made a new discovery was hailed for weeks, months or even years. These days, most inventors and discoverers receive recognition for only moments before the next invention or discovery is announced. When computers cease being tools and become the actual investigators, the pace of discovery will stun even the most ambitious visionary.

I wonder what we'll do with all our newfound powers.