"Cyberculture Future: The Next One Hundred Years"

Hi guys ,

Hope you can catch our farewell production for year 2008 ( resting for the Christmas season ) ...











The Manila Futurists Society, in cooperation with the Webmasters Guild of Mapua Institute of Technology (MIT) , is holding the fifteenth and last leg of the MFS campus tour seminar-series for year 2008 , entitled "Cyberculture Future: The Next One Hundred Years" ---- set on Wednesday November 19 2008 330 PM at the AVR1 Audiltorium of Mapua Makati City .


See you there!

World's Fastest Computer

( dubbed as one of 2008's 50 best inventions , as per Time Magazine )


IBM's Roadrunner , dubbed as “the world's first hybrid supercomputer" is breaking global records through the "petaflop barrier" and swaggering with its 1,000 trillion operations -- per second.

That’s one quadrillion calculations per second.

www.futureculture.tk









Imagine a hard drive linked directly to your mind enabling you to “download” memory implants for skill enhancements.

Actions will be performed though these have not been learned directly.


You could master any subject, or learn a foreign language – without studying.

www.positivefuturist.com








Cognitive Computing In Year 2020


This will enable efficient brain-machine connections,which in the next decade, will be used mostly for research and neuroprosthetics.

But the immense prospect for enhancing human minds will drive this technology forward and by mid-2020s, human-machine interface will become routine.

Cybernetics Expert Christof Koch









Will tomorrow’s computers develop human-like intelligence and become
smarter than us?

Most scientists say yes; it’s only a matter of time.

IBM’s ASCI Purple processes 100 trillion operations per second – or 100 teraflops.

Scientists believe our brains process 10,000 teraflops, 100 times faster than ASCI Purple.
Futurist Dick Pelletier






Year 2020
By Futurist Ray Kurzweil

So when can we expect a computer with human-like processing speed?

In “The Age of Spiritual Machines, When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence” Kurzweil predicts this will happen by 2020.

At that time computers will equal the human brain in calculation speed, but they will still lack self-awareness and a sense of being conscious.









Year 2025 to Year 2030

If technology takes its course, possibly between years 2025 and 2030, our computer/robot of tomorrow will achieve human-like intelligence and look amazingly like us.

Imagine the benefits : It could serve as personal assistant, generate income, become an artificial companion, or even replace soldiers in battle.


www.positivefuturist.com









Hologram Technology

On CNN’s election night episode, CNN News Correspondent Jessica Yellin from Chicago appeared right on the set of CNN’s New York studios , doing a “Star Wars” feat ala Princess Leia.
Hologram Technology will reign in cyberculture future for the next one hundred years.

www.cnn.com








The Future of E-Learning

E-learning is beset with a host of challenges and issues that continue to make it controversial , yet it is already widely recognized as an invaluable resource for students, educators, and parents.

www.techlearning.com







As we progress deeper into the 21st century, the primary challenge may lie more in moving beyond the traditional ways of teaching and learning that still cling to both in-person and virtual learning environments, and into the broadening realm of possibility that the newest technologies have opened to us.

www.techlearning.com






By year 2025:
Futurists predict, nano-replicators will appear on kitchen counters to fill all our material needs.

We could eat a nutritionally-perfect meals created automatically with information downloaded from the Internet, using only dirt, air, or water as raw materials.

www.positivefuturist.com







"We're about moving the state-of-the-art forward."
"Ultimately, we're about making sure Microsoft and its products are around in 10 years."
“In the past , we have produced technology that has gone into Xbox graphics, the company's videoconferencing device RoundTable, speech-recognition tools and cryptography libraries.”

Microsoft Research
Senior Vice President Rick Rashid







Cyber Schools

Cyber schools, where students receive instruction via internet connected computers—is one restructured model of schooling.

They interact with teachers via e-mail , meet in groups where they ask questions with a microphone, indicate they don't understand with the click of the mouse and receive live instruction through Web-based chats.

www.techlearning.com






But there are ethical questions and risks. Are these Computers of tomorrow
a form of life or just a machine? How about legal rights?
And what safeguards might be necessary to prevent these powerful machines from harming us?

This overwhelming technology will surely mark the beginning of a “brave new world” for humankind.

Futurist Dick Pelletier










Future Directions In Computing are now exploring other techniques to deliver powerful computers.

A quantum computer is a theoretical device that would make use of the properties of quantum mechanics, the realm of physics that deals with energy and matter at atomic scales.

It is a new paradigm for computation.


University of Oxford’s Professor Arthur Ekert







The Future of Computing


In the future, the number of tiny but powerful computers you encounter every day will number in the thousands, perhaps millions.

You won't see them, but they will be all around you.

Your personal interface to this powerful network of computers could come from a single computing device that is worn on or in the body.


www.futureforall.org









IT will also encourage breakthroughs in genetics, nanotech, and materials industries.

Forward-thinkers dream of a future time when human aging and death will become just bad memories of our ancient past.

www.positivefuturist.com









BrainGate of the Future:

BrainGate is a device that enables paralyzed people to control computers directly with their brains – and eventually could help them regain complete mobility.

“The goal of BrainGate is to develop a fast, reliable, and unobtrusive connection between the brain of a severely disabled person and a personal computer .”


www.positivefuturist.com






Year 2015:

Inexpensive chips and advance networking will eliminate cable, satellite, VCR, and DVR boxes, and merge all our communication needs – TV, phones, radio, and the Internet – into a single invisible device that responds to our voice and understands our thoughts.

We will view images from this system on wall-size screens in our homes, or directly on our retina with active contact lenses.

Futurist Dick Pelletier









Intel Research: “Technology That Works”

While the capabilities and versatility of computing devices continue to grow, so does their complexity at both the hardware and software level.

As more devices become essential to our daily lives, it will become increasingly important to conceal their complexity by reducing what people need to learn to operate them.








Intel’s “Intelligent Assistance“
and “Universal Mediator”

This involves using high-level understanding and modeling of complex digital environments and configurations to develop simple diagnosis, presentation and repair.

We are also working on a "universal mediator" that uses intelligent broad spectrum analysis and mediation to handle a wide array of coding, protocol, application and security layers.






The development of the personal computer and the Internet has "enabled man to transcend the barriers of physical distance" .


The future of technology will enable people to be life-long learners . Learning will continue into the work place where there is a "need to keep up with current information“.


www.helium.com





IT is the driving force for change as we progress into our “magical” 21st century future.


Today, we are just beginning to exploit this knowledge, but there is much more to learn.

In this century, science and technology advancements will rush by us at breathtaking speeds – fueled by information technologies.

Futurist Dick Pelletier





Essential Computing:

“Simplifying and enriching all aspects of work and daily life through applications and systems technologies that collectively empower individuals, connect them to each other and into the fabric of networked society.”"

Andrew Chien ,
Intel Director

The Orbital Internet
( dubbed as one of 2008's 50 best inventions , as per Time Magazine )

Orbital Internet is here, a new internet protocol based on the idea of providing Internet to remote locations by satellite, and the ambitious communications technology is including inter-planetary internet-surfing in its agenda.

So don't be surprised if you receive an email from somebody from outer space.
Coming soon.


www.futureculture.tk







Schools Of The Future


Classrooms will be outfitted with the latest in interactive technology.
Out are chalkboards.
Instead, rooms will have smartboards, which combine the functions of a computer, projector and whiteboard.
And no more lugging around a dozen textbooks.

http://abcnews. go.com







By Year 2020, Or even before:

Experts believe, tiny microchips placed under our skin will enable us to control electronic devices and browse the Internet with just our thoughts.

We could place these chips into the upper layers of the skin and arrange them into useful circuits to power and control our electronic world.

Futurologist Ian Pearson






Quantum Computers

Scientists have "entangled" two sub-atomic particles separated by about a millimetre, a feat that might pave the way for powerful quantum computers in the future.

Entangled particles may be useful to make logic circuits for computers that have a far greater capacity and speed than today's machines.

http://news. bbc.co.uk







The world's fastest silicon-based microchip has been demonstrated by scientists in the US.
The prototype operates at speeds up to 500 gigahertz (GHz), more than 100 times faster than desktop PC chips.

IBM’s Professor David Ahlgren







Computers, cell phones, music players, and other devices could be implanted on our wrists and hands, with full keyboards.
These would remain invisible until our touch made them light up.

This is the future of IT.

Futurist Dick Pelletier









By 2015, household robots will satisfy our every whim.
By 2020, accident-free driverless cars will keep us safe.
And by 2030, scramjets will whisk us to anywhere on Earth in an hour or less.

Will this "magical future" happen?
Absolutely, say experts: because it’s all driven by information technologies.

Futurist Dick Pelletier







Computers Will Be “Oxygen Of The Future”

By the year 2010, scientists predict we will be immersed in a sea of
miniature computers.

Many of us carry three or four digital devices with us, but soon that figure will be in the hundreds.

http://news. bbc.co.uk






The next milestone in the relentless pursuit of smaller, higher performance microchips has been unveiled.


Chip-maker Intel has announced that it will start producing processors using transistors with features just 45 nanometres (billionth of a metre) wide.

Shrinking the technology that underpins the basic building blocks of chips will make them faster and more efficient.

http://news. bbc.co.uk







The Quantum Computing World

Fortune Magazine describes a “quantum computing” world that includes microscopic sensors embedded in our homes, vehicles, and workplace that monitor our well-being 24/7; and a thin headband of ultrasonic transducers that wirelessly transmits information both ways between the Internet and our brain, and to other headbands.



Quantum computation is still in its infancy. Teleportation so far is only restricted to the teleportation of information.”

Dr Ping Koy Lam, Australia National University









By Year 2010 or sooner:

IT’s amazing digital wizardry:
Personal lifelike avatars with compelling characters will be available for home TV displays.


You will interact with a sharp 3-D life-size image of a character you created. Its design, temperament, and voice style will all be of your making.

www.positivefuturis t.com







From cell phones and PDAs to personal music players, digital devices are becoming increasingly personal and important for social use, personal enjoyment, and awareness of what's going on in people's immediate world.

In the future we may have a "wardrobe" of personal devices to help us pursue short- and long-term goals and personal enhancement. .
www.techresearch. intel.com








Moore’s Law So True For The Next 100 Years

Moore's Law is a prediction made by Intel's co-founder Gordon Moore in 1965.
Moore predicted that computing technology would increase in value at the same time it would decrease in cost.

Thanks to the innovation and drive of Moore and others like him, computers will continue to get smaller, faster and more affordable.

www.futureforall. org








"The Moore's Law for computer technology states that in every 18 months, there will be a doubling of computer memory, speed and other performances, "


"In a few years' time, this law will have to confront quantum theory when transistors are shrunk to the size of a few atoms."

Chinese-Australian Physicist Dr. Ping Lam






Andrew Chien, Intel Research Director

“One of the things that we're very focused on is this idea of inference and understanding the world.

The big idea is all about whether inference and sensors are really the missing piece to make ubiquitous computing come to fruition.

We can build small devices that fit into our pocket, but the things we're falling short on are inference, making the devices work together well, and making them interact with us in natural ways.






A good percentage of Microsoft research focuses on improving current products or creating brand new ones for the company .

The company's research projects include work on quantum computing, spam-fighting technology and a new user interface.
Microsoft Research Senior Vice President Rick Rashid






Singularity, a prototype operating tem for the computer science research environment, will be available in the USA at no charge for academic and noncommercial use.

The goal of Singularity is to help improve software dependability and foster inventive research in systems, programming languages and tools.

Microsoft’s Research Department







New Super Computer For Medical Science Progress


This new computer will be the one of the world’s fastest, with a sustained capacity of 50 trillion calculations, or teraflops, per second and a peak capacity of 250 teraflops per second, enable breakthrough discoveries that will change medical science and its impact across society.
Futurist Dick Pelletier







Computers With The Speed of Light

Light travels at 186,000 miles per second.
That's 982,080,000 feet per second – or 11,784,960,000 inches.

In a billionth of a second, one nanosecond, photons of light travel just a bit less than a foot, not considering resistance in air or of an optical fiber strand or thin film.

Just right for doing things very quickly in microminiaturized computer chips.

www.futureforall. org

2008's 50 Best Inventions , says Time Magazine

The year 2008 is inching its way to a close ... And there are lots of reminders galore: what with all the media hype screaming and wheezing in my ears, both print and broadcast media's hallelujah cheers hyperventilating with its pronouncements of Christmas countdowns .

So how in the world can you miss the fact that 2008 is about to end?


Good thing Time Magazine took note of the good things of 2008, specifically the year's so-called "50 Best Inventions" ----- including the world's fastest supercomputer to date, Dubai's dynamic and moving skyscrapers ( coming soon in Moscow) , a camera for the blind (!?) , an electric car zooming from zero to 60 kph in less than ten seconds, high-tech running shoes, man's first unmanned moon-bound spaceship in 11 years, an airconditioned motorcycle ( Hark!) , biomechanical energy harvester ( stores energy with each big stride ) , bionic contacts, dexterous and smiling new robots, bionic hands, internet for outer space and Internet-savvy Martians ( !) , bullets that shoot bullets before they shoot you, and ...

Tah -daahhh! Invention of the Year: the retail DNA test which is so affordable for everyone to have their own DIY DNA tests.

1. The Retail DNA Test

Time Magazine reports:

"Learning and sharing your genetic secrets are at the heart of 23andMe's controversial new service — a $399 saliva test that estimates your predisposition for more than 90 traits and conditions ranging from baldness to blindness. Although 23andMe isn't the only company selling DNA tests to the public, it does the best job of making them accessible and affordable. The 600,000 genetic markers that 23andMe identifies and interprets for each customer are "the digital manifestation of you," says Wojcicki (pronounced Wo-jis-key), 35, who majored in biology and was previously a health-care investor. "It's all this information beyond what you can see in the mirror."

"We are at the beginning of a personal-genomics revolution that will transform not only how we take care of ourselves but also what we mean by personal information. In the past, only élite researchers had access to their genetic fingerprints, but now personal genotyping is available to anyone who orders the service online and mails in a spit sample. Not everything about how this information will be used is clear yet — 23andMe has stirred up debate about issues ranging from how meaningful the results are to how to prevent genetic discrimination — but the curtain has been pulled back, and it can never be closed again. And so for pioneering retail genomics, 23andMe's DNA-testing service is Time's 2008 Invention of the Year."

Whoopee .

So this means this "digital manifestation" of me , via that do-it-yourself $399 saliva test would be a "show-all-and-tell-all" peek show for each individual, revealing your what-nots: whether it be your schizophrenic leanings, your fetish for calloused toes and carbon dioxide smoke , and explaining to yourself why your OC ( obsessive-compulsive) syndrome seems to have just gone a bit overboard .

But isn't that too much: a quick link in your resume about your genetic information for your would-be boss, or no-holds-barred honesty for your significant other --- who may think twice before getting serious?

Wojcicki and Brin, the couple behind the US firm 23AndMe and its "controversial service", seems unperturbed with genetic privacy issues, as US President George W. Bush recently inked a bill that makes it "illegal for employers and insurers to discriminate on the basis of genetic information", and others silently up in arms against genetic data about their family's health history being made public.

The detractors: Dr. Muin Khoury, director of the National Office of Public Health Genomics at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, contends that people are "wrongly charged" with "preliminary and incomplete data", as diseases stem from different genes and are triggered by environmental factors. National Institutes of Health's Dr. Alan Guttmacher sighs that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. "

23AndMe's plan , they say is "to amass everyone's genetic footprint in a giant database that can be mined for clues to which mutations make us susceptible to specific diseases and which drugs people are more likely to respond to... We could make great discoveries if we just had more information. We all carry this information, and if we bring it together and democratize it, we could really change health care."

I'd say it's a yes. Great ideas have always been plagued by flak during its intro period, but give these guys wider leeway ( check out Google's chipping in of almost half of the company's US$8.9 million funding ) , and room to improve their discoveries, and it's all thumbs up for a revolutionary health and medicine future.

2. The Tesla Roadster

Candylab


Hot, hot hot !


She's a beauty: the Tesla Roadster is no mean cheap trick, with a pricey kitsch of a whopping $100,000 . No wonder George Clooney lined up when Tesla
announced that it's up for grabs, with Wired Magazine going bonkers with its rave reviews.


Check out Tesla's sales pitch :

"The battery-powered Tesla is based on a modified Lotus Elise chassis. Its maker, Tesla Motors, of San Carlos, California, claims it'll zap 60 mph in four seconds, juice it to 130 mph, and spin the meter for up to 250 miles between charges (the GM EV1 did up to 150 miles). And, unlike the Lotus, the Tesla Signature One Hundred Collector's Edition (the first 100 cars, in other words) will have a cup holder. "


While the company, named after inventor Nikola Tesla, who patented the first induction electric motor in 1888, won't admit it, the financial crunch may have cost the company to say bye-bye to some of its employees via its lay-offs this year, even with a variety of customer bigwigs buying the Roadster early this year.

Through it all, Silicon Valley millionaire and Tesla CEO Martin Eberhard remains positive.

"We've got to change the way people think about electric cars ... This car won't be a punishment with bad styling and a terrible range."

NASA

3. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

According to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) : "The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the first mission in NASA's Vision for Space Exploration, a plan to return to the moon and then to travel to Mars and beyond. The LRO objectives are to finding safe landing sites, locate potential resources, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology."


Feb 2009 is LRO's target date for NASA's first unmanned spaceship trip to the moon in 11 years, and the itinerary includes scouting for future moon landing bases, water prospects, possible access to solar illumination, and continuous study based from previous planetary science missions by the past 6 Apollo lunar expeditions.


One more thing: a side trip to Mars will also be in the agenda.


NASA explains that while the space mission is "exploratory" in nature, the LRO mission by February next year " will allow us to test technologies, systems, flight operations and exploration techniques to reduce the risk and increase the productivity of future missions to Mars and beyond. It will also expand Earth's economic sphere to conduct lunar activities with benefits to life on the home planet."

Gabor Ekecs for TIME

7. The Chevy Volt

Hark! A gas-less and zero-emission dream future for motorists from the brand new electric Chevy Volt's battery-powered engine? Something to look forward to: this early, motorists and analysts are awaiting the Chevy Volt's "electrifying" grand entrance by year 2010.


And it's more than just an electric car.

"Chevy Volt is designed to move more than 75 percent of America's daily commuters without a single drop of gas.. That means for someone who drives less than 40 miles a day, Chevy Volt will use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions."

Unlike traditional electric cars, Chevy Volt has a revolutionary propulsion system that takes you beyond the power of the battery. It will use a lithium-ion battery with a variety of range-extending onboard power sources, including gas and, in some vehicles, E85 ethanol(3) to recharge the battery while you drive beyond the 40-mile battery range. And when it comes to being plugged in, Chevy Volt will be designed to use a common household plug."

While valleywags may be tossing and turning for its possible pricey catch, the rewards may be amazing. A gas-less and environment-friendly future on the road?

Chevy Volt's manufacturers assure us that the sedan has an electric motor with a battery that can provide up to 40 miles (about 65 km) of range on a single charge, so if you drive less than 40 miles, you get a gas-free everyday dream altogether.

Fasten your seatbelts calmly, you have more than a year of waiting for this beauty. See her in 2010.

8. Bullets That Shoot Bullets

Raytheon, working in partnership with the Army, the Future Combat Systems Lead Systems Integration team of Boeing and Science Applications International, and BAE Systems, has passed a major milestone: via the Active Protection System ( APS).


APS works in split-second speed , intercepting and "defeating multiple incoming projectiles" : monitoring incoming ammunition , rocket-propelled grenade attacks and other short-range combat attacks in the battlefield and intercepting said attacks.

With an intelligent computer system powered with multiple sensors enabling ground combat forces to conduct their missions safely and more effectively, this provides a big help for the Army in more efficient and effective warfare , even saving the ranks' own lives.

9. The Orbital Internet

There's no stopping them.

Orbital Internet is here, a new internet protocol based on the idea of providing Internet to remote locations by satellite, and the ambitious communications technology is including inter-planetary internet-surfing in its agenda.


Proponents reveal: "Orbital Internet is using satellites to distribute Internet service and deliver a highly reliable communication ... wherever located and despite of existing communications infrastructure. The system is using the latest features and standards in the IP world to enable a highly efficient use of the capacity."

So don't be surprised if you receive an email from somebody from outer space. Coming soon.

10. The World's Fastest Computer

IBM's Roadrunner , dubbed as "the world's first hybrid supercomputer" breaking global records through the "petaflop barrier" and swaggering with its 1,000 trillion operations --- that's one quadrillion calculations --- per second, is in the limelight.

Named after New Mexico's state bird and manufactured by IBM for the Department of Energy and the Los Alamos National Laboratory , the super machine is said to be " twice as fast as the world-leading Blue Gene, which is itself three times more powerful than the remaining contenders on the industry's Top500 list of supercomputers."

With a computing power of 100,000 of today's most powerful laptops—or a stack of such laptops one and a half miles high --- it is the latest claimant to the title of world's fastest computer.

IBM maintains that supercomputers' improving features each decade by a factor of 1000 "propels the global economy as more business sectors begin to ride the industry's advantageous price/performance curve."

Getty

11. Green Crude

Arizona State University Laboratory for Algae Research & Biotechnology's professor-scientists Qiang Hu and Milton Sommerfeld have stumbled upon new discoveries that will make the global oil economic crunch feel a lot better.


The duo's eureka announcement for all: they discovered " algal strains capable of converting portions of their cellular mass into oil that contains high concentration of medium chain fatty acids. When the oil is deoxygenated, the resulting hydrocarbon chains are similar to those found in kerosene. When mixed with small amounts of fuel additives, called JP8 or Jet A, the fuel is suitable for jet planes."

The project, focusing on the commercial production of kerosene from algae using technology patented by the two scientists , won't collide with agricultural scientists' interests contending that food supplies will be cut --- such as in the case of arguments in producing ethanol biofuels using sugar cane and corn.



The lowly algae cannot be eaten , but is now put to good use with kerosene production.

13. The Memristor

Wait a minute.

Now let me tell you all that the "memristor" , or "memory store" , is one of the latest and greatest Filipino inventions --- courtesy of Mapua Institute of Technology graduate Dr. Leon Chua , with his doctorate degree from that other MIT in Massachusetts.


Newsweek Magazine may have overlooked that fact.

How it works: “The memristor’s memory has consequences: the reason computers have to be rebooted every time they are turned on is that their logic circuits are incapable of holding their bits after the power is shut off. But because a memristor can remember voltages, a memristor-driven computer would arguably never need a reboot. ‘You could leave all your Word files and spreadsheets open, turn off your computer, and go get a cup of coffee or go on vacation for two weeks,’ says Williams. ‘When you come back, you turn on your computer and everything is instantly on the screen exactly the way you left it.’


It all started way back in 1971 when , as a California-based professor, Chua wrote a paper in which he argued that in addition to the resistor, the capacitor and the inductor, there had to be a 4^th element which would be a memory resistor or memristor.


More than three decades after , HP senior fellow Stanley Williams, after reading and rereading Chua's paper for several years, finally got a glimpse of his eureka moment. ‘Hey guys, I don’t know what we’ve got, but this is what we want,’ ‘ Williams remembers. ‘It was several years of scratching my head and thinking about it.’ Then Williams realized their molecular devices were really memristors. ‘It just hit me between the eyes.’

“The reason that the memristor is radically different from the other fundamental circuit elements is that, unlike them, it carries a memory of its past. When you turn off the voltage to the circuit, the memristor still remembers how much was applied before and for how long. That’s an effect that can’t be duplicated by any circuit combination of resistors, capacitors, and inductors, which is why the memristor qualifies as a fundamental circuit element."

Williams says : ‘People have been reporting funny current voltage characteristics in the literature for 50 years. I went to these old papers and looked at the figures and said, ‘Yup, they’ve got memristance, and they didn’t know how to interpret it. Without Chua's circuit equations, you can't make use of this device. It's such a funky thing. People were using all the wrong circuit equations. It’s like taking a washing machine motor and putting it into a gasoline-powered car and wondering why it won’t run.’

Touch Bionics

14. The Bionic Hand

Touch Bionics introduces the i-LIMB Hand , dubbed as "the world's first fully articulating and commercially available bionic hand".

Research began in the 1960s, but now hundreds are enjoying the prosthetic device, developed using "leading-edge mechanical engineering techniques and manufactured using high-strength plastics."

The result: "a next-generation prosthetic device that is lightweight, robust and highly appealing to both patients and healthcare professionals representing a generational advance in bionics and patient care."

Gone are the Captain Hook "hand impostors" which functions more like claws -- these new prosthetics have individually-functioning motors for each finger. And when a finger needs fixing? Only problematic finger goes to servicing for a short clinic visit, so no need to go "hand-less" for weeks.

Let's ask Touch Bionics if the fingers go as far as signaling naughty come-hither-dither tricks, or going businesslike with a quick hand-flip extending a business card for "business as usual."

Chances are, the fingers can do both ... And more .

Dynamic Architecture

16. The Dynamic Tower

This early, Dubai gets the crown in being tagged as the "City of the Future". Thanks to Italian maverick and revolutionary architect Dr. David Fisher , together with the developer group Rotating Tower Dubai Development Limited of Dynamic Group, as Dubai becomes the seat of the first building in motion, "heralding a new era of architecture."


Dubai's Dynamic Tower has the rotating floors at varying speeds in 360 degrees full circle --- all 80 of them -- with a height of 1,380 feet , complete with residential apartments and condominiums, luxury villas , parking spaces inside the apartments, with elegant offices, to boot.

Estimates for the pre-fab wind-powered tower reaches a whopping $700 million, residences up for grabs from S3.7 million to $36 million. The whole project ready for a look-see by 2010 .

Dubai ruler and UAE Vice President Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum may have an "influential" hand in Fisher's project, nudging him with his words of wisdom . “Do not wait for the future to come to you…face the future.”

17. The Mobile, Dexterous, Social Robot

Michael Siegel / MIT Media Lab

Add "social" to the specs of new robotic inventions: we've already heard of mobile humanoids and dexterous androids. Does this mean these new robots raise their hand for an "Up Here" hand clap with a genuine human being and laugh out loud --- as in LOL --- with its customized humor-recognition software?

Meet Nexi of the MIT Media Lab, the first of the android prototypes that promises to be " a different kind of robot " . The group's platform purportedly focuses on developing small mobile humanoid robots that possess a novel combination of mobility, moderate dexterity, and human-centric communication and interaction abilities.

While Japan has its own ASIMO robots, maid and nurse robots, and even baby bots ( "Did you hug your robot today ?") , MIT Media Lab , a group which is at it for years and getting attention from Wired Magazine , international robotics competitions, among others, may have also been lucky in getting Newsweek's attention.

18. The New Mars Rover

Mike Lorrig

Don't look now , Martians, but seems like you'll be getting company come 2009.

The Mars Exploration Rover mission , part of NASA's Mars Exploration Program and a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the red planet, launches next year, and looms like a gargantuan spider with menacing heft.

Check its specs : with a diameter of 9 feet . , the airbag-protected landing craft runs on plutonium chunk and carries 176 lb. (80 kg) of scientific instruments, including a panoramic camera, magnets for collecting Mars' dust particles, Mössbauer Spectrometer for close-up investigations of the mineralogy of the planet, and a microscopic imager for catching close-up , high-resolution images of its rocks and soil.

19. Montreal's Public Bike System

Montreal's public bike system is something else, not exactly one to be overlooked: this one's got web-enabled and solar-powered bikes, easily tractable and registered in a computer system --- ready to resist bike-nappers and abusive cyclists from the days of yore when cheap public bikes get robbed in a jiffy.

Bixi, that's how the mod public bicycle system is called, with the tech designers "packing in all the technology they could find, in a desperate attempt to out-engineer human iniquity"


Meantime, Time Magazine did not specify if the bikes have built-in spy cameras for a look-see on who the bikers are, or functioning as naughty "Peeping Toms" figuring out the lady bikers ' underwear color .

EPA

22. The Shadowless Skyscraper

Paris , not to be outdone, have Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron putting their act together for their 50-feet tower right in the heart of the city . The first edifice built after the lifting of a 31-year-old ban on high-rise buildings in Paris, the Swiss duo --- the same couple behind Beijing's "birds' nest" Olympic stadium --- this time leaving their mark in the European city with the building named Le Projet Triangle.


Still, the skyscraper didn't fail to spur raised eyebrows with its sharksfin design and Egyptian architecture look --- like a huge triangular chunk pointing upwards and leaving no shadows for its neighboring buildings. Paris' skyline will never be the same again with the new steel-and-glass menacing edifice, sitting in the heart of Paris' Port de Versailles area.

Herzog and de Meuron's innovative design, is said to also allow “optimum solar and wind power generation.” Coming soon in year 2014.

University of Washington

24. Bionic Contacts

Picture yourself wearing one of these , University of Washington Professor Babak Parviz's creation of a bionic contact lens prototype , creating a display over the wearer's visual field, with images, maps and data appearing to float in mid-air.

The lens works using tiny LEDs, which are powered by solar cells, and a radio-frequency receiver.


Never mind if you get train and bus passengers' ridiculous and lengthy stares , as if seeing a Star Trek citizen "eye to eye" : the prototype is said to equip the wearer with a virtual touch screen, enabling him to surf the Internet or type as if having a keyboard in mid-air.

There's more: the lens has light-emitting diodes, basic wiring for electronic circuits and even a mounted tiny antenna.


"Future versions, the scientists believe, could serve as a flexible plastic platform for applications such as surfing the Internet on a virtual screen, immersing gamers in virtual worlds and monitoring patients’ medical conditions."


The future looks bright, and you gotta wear shades ... and your bionic contacts. Soon.

26. The Speedo LZR Racer

Speedo


Olympian cream-of-the-crop performer Michael Phelps couldn't have gotten better help from his friends ... from Speedo, via the Speedo LZR Racer, said to be the "secret" behind the astounding winning streak ( eight gold medals , including his 0.01-second victory in the 100-meter butterfly category).

Dubbed as the world's fastest swimsuit , check out Speedo's co-designers: NASA, Ansys, Inc. (which supplied fluid flow analysis software and support), and the Australian Institute of Sport . It's a second skin suit " with a built-in corset to improve buoyancy and is constructed with compression fabric that keeps muscles from vibrating in the water", the first to be made with ultrasonically bonded seams .

More like a birthday suit used for skinny dipping : and patented technology comes from Portugal's Petratex, a textile factory in Paços de Ferreira.

62 broken world records by Speedo LZR Racer-donning swimmers , and 33 of the first 36 Olympic medals have been won wearing it. Now that's technology working for you, even helping break records, to boot.

28. The Invisibility Cloak

TechFresh.Net explains how the invisibility cloak works:

"This feat is accomplished by using Metamaterials able to reroute light, forcing light around objects like water flowing around boulders in a stream. The waves of light come in and are swept around the cloak and reconstructed on the other side while avoiding the interior region, so it looks as if they just passed through free space."

Hmmm, refreshing your memory on Harry Potter scenarios? UC Berkeley scientists explain that the principle at work in said invisibility cloaks is refraction which is what makes a straw appear bent in a glass of water.

30. The Internet Of Things

Now, this is taking the Internet to the next level: as "smart objects", enabled with sensors and actuators, take their turn in communicating with each other, just like communications technology enabling people to communicate with one another.

The IP for Smart Objects (IPSO ) Alliance are behind it all, tech vendors and users from an exclusive roster: Arch Rock, Atmel, Cimetrics, Cisco, Duke Energy, Dust Networks, eka systems, EDF (Électricité de France) R&D, Emerson Climate Technologies, Ericsson, Freescale Semiconductor, Gainspan, IP Infusion, Jennic, Kinney Consulting, Nivis, PicosNet, Proto6, ROAM, SAP, Sensinode, SICS, Silver Spring Networks, Sun Microsystems, Tampere University, Watteco and Zensy

"Smart Objects are objects in the physical world that – typically with the help of embedded devices – transmit information about their condition or environment (e.g., temperature, light, motion, health status) to locations where the information can be analyzed, correlated with other data and acted upon. Existing applications already cover a broad range of domains from building automation yielding energy-efficient homes and office buildings, industrial automation and asset management & tracking to hospital patient monitoring and safety and compliance assurance – with many more emerging applications in the near future."

Simply put: your lost rubber shoes may send signals where you last placed them, or your leather jacket giving you "alerts" that you may need it come December with the colder weather coming up.

IPSO Alliance Technical Advisory Board chair and Cisco distinguished engineer Jean-Philippe Vasseur explains : "IP allows users virtually limitless flexibility, thanks to a layered architecture. It works on any physical layer from wired to Wi-Fi to low-power radio and more ... As a result, the IPSO Alliance isn't defined by a narrow focus on a single medium, but embraces a broad spectrum of options that address various user requirements.""

Getty

31. Einstein's Fridge

Under Einstein's freaky hairdo is a brilliant mind indeed: as Oxford University scientists are currently working on a fridge prototype based on Einstein's original concept, but with a twist.

As fridge manufacturers commercialized their products using freon to cool the fridge interiors --- which is seriously hastening and worsening the scourge of global warming, Oxford's scientists rummaged through Einstein's fridge concept and gave it a second look . They realized that Einstein's original fridge concept -- which uses ammonia, butane and water --- is eco-friendly and uses very little energy.


Oxford engineer Malcolm McCulloch says that the prototype is nowhere in being commercialized, but promises : 'Give us another month and we'll have it working.'

33. Biomechanical Energy Harvester

Greg Ehlers / SFU


No kidding: the recycling concept may have gone a bit too far with this one. Energy recycled, and even "harvested" and "stored" ... Whaaaaat ???


Inventor Max Donelan, who's also director of the Locomotion Laboratory at Simon Fraser University in Canada. says: "Since muscles are the powerhouses of the body, my colleagues and I designed our device to generate electricity from the motion of the knee joint ... It resembles a knee brace and weighs about 1.5 kilograms [3.3 pounds] including the gearing and generator."


Newsweek tagged Donelan's invention as "perhaps the most promising in a class of products that harvest energy — all the more important at a time when portable tech, from Blackberries to iPods, is becoming ubiquitous."

39. Enhanced Fingerprints

Remember that Charlie's Angels series where that sexy triumvirate --- Sabrina, Jill and Kelly -- eternally flipped their hair locks and flaunted their hip-whips while giving the TV audience tips on detective tricks : such as wiping off their thumbprints as they wiggle their way through each episode.

But those tricks, now we realize, are so very 20th centuryish.


Enter English physicist John Bond developing new technology for tracking down fingerprints even after they're wiped clean "Sweat corrodes metal, so Bond applied an electrical charge and a fine carbon powder to a gun's corroded part, revealing a fingerprint pattern . "

Brilliant. Now let's see how the modern-day Sherlock Holmes use this technology in reopening cases, and getting to the real bottom of things.

41. The Peraves MonoTracer

Wow.

Looking like a modern-day motorcycle-jetski but tweaked in hip 21st century fashion : air-conditioning for the driver and passenger, windshield wipers and BMW engine zooming to a speedy 62 mph in 4.2 seconds ( 100 kph) , a suave cruise harrumphing to 62 miles per gallon , or 28 kilometers per liter.

So this will save your complexion from getting more tanned, swerve you askew away from the looming danger of skin cancer , and also saving you from metropolis smog and more.

Raves galore for this beauty abound at last March's 78th International Motor Show in Geneva, dubbing the vehicle as "the ultimate low drag high performance vehicle".

"With minimal weight, skillful design and extremely low drag, this revolutionary new production vehicle offers superior drive performance coupled with greatly reduced space requirements and sensationally low CO2 exhaust emissions."

Way to go. Vroom, vroom .

John Huet for TIME

43. High-Tech Running Shoes

46. Aptera Electric Car

... And it's not your TV set, folks.


Look again: yes, it's the 21st century; and yes, it's not The Jetsons' flying car come alive at your doorstep . The two-seater, three-wheeled vehicle classified as a motorcycle is founder Steve Fambro's brainchild , initially thinking of a vehicle which is " safe, comfortable, and more fuel-efficient than anything ever produced."

Engineering background , an intensive study of aerodynamics, and composite aircraft construction --- all these resulted to "a low-drag, aerodynamic body shape could be achieved without sacrificing comfort, drivability or safety." And Fambro's prototype is now up for grabs with reservations in the works, before it hits the market soon.

Top that with an enticing sales pitch : "Aptera is one of the first eco-friendly cars to get high mileage: the all-electric model gets 120 miles (193 km) per charge, and the hybrid gets 300 (483). Extra points for cool design and acceleration from zero to 60 (97 km/h) in under 10 seconds — living up to its name, Greek for "wingless flight."

50. A Camera For the Blind