11 Technologies Poised to Transform our World

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1. Social indexing

It is a fact that the websites you visit remember your preferences so that they can continue to return and make recommendations that match their specific interests.
Social indexing takes surveillance to the next level.
Bret Taylor, CTO of Facebook, plans to create the social index to accumulate information "like" buttons now appear in most of the websites and the use of these data to determine the most visited areas on Internet. Each time you click "Like" Social Index back to Taylor.
According to Technology Review, "is how the Wall Street Journal highlights the elements like the friends of a person in place. This is what allows Microsoft search engine Bing to promote pages please the friends of a person. Y that is how Pandora creates playlists based on songs or bands of a person who has enjoyed elsewhere. '
Thank you for indexing social websites can get an idea of ​​what is likely to be interested, even if you've never visited before.

2. Intro

Science journalists in the MIT Technology Review magazine has released its annual list of "Ten technologies that will transform our world." Batteries static esoteric concepts as homomorphic encryption, know what the future holds.

3. Smart transformers

Almost everyone is concerned about energy efficiency and save money through "green" projects.
This is why Alex Huang, professor of electrical engineering at North Carolina State University, is developing a transformer that reduces our dependence on fossil fuels, making it easier for small energy sources own to help the network. Transformers Huang linking a solar panel or an electric car network as simple as connecting a digital camera or printer to a computer.
Conventional transformers only accept sector and require a large manual or electromechanical switches to redirect energy. Huang hopes to build a transformer that can handle Compact DC and AC, which could be electronically controlled to respond to fluctuations in supply and demand. If a neighbor connected to an electric car in an AC charger, for example, could respond by pressing CC otherwise useless solar panels from another neighbor.
In addition, this system would balance supply and demand, so that less power would be required to ensure energy supply.

4. Gestural interface

Alexander Shpunt the meaning of the first Tel Aviv has developed a 3-D view which allows anyone to control a computer with a simple gesture in the air. When you get the computer to see the world in three dimensions instead of two normal cameras captured, he was able to get the computer to measure the depth. Thus, the team was able to distinguish, for example, an arm of the furniture in the room, then follow the movement of the arm.

Microsoft co-opted Shpunt system for use in the Xbox Kinect, but Kinect is only the beginning.

. "A small army of pirates and redesign driver for other purposes," Technology Review says: "Researchers at the University of Louisiana rigged one helmetless without gloves Kinect virtual reality system unit and an outside-Platform- 3 - .. D TV In Australia, a logistics software company quickly gesture control system for air traffic control "

5. Cancer Genomics

Cancer develops when cells accumulate genetic errors that allow them to grow and divide more rapidly than healthy cells. The identification of mutations underlying this transformation can help to predict the prognosis of a patient and identify which drugs are most likely to work.

This research is conducted at the Genomics Institute of the University of Washington, who has a machine that allows you to read DNA at a faster pace than ever before. Elaine Mardis, co-director of the center, was used to sequence cancer tissues, crossing their DNA for mutations.

She and her colleagues have developed hundreds of patients and used this information to identify tens of thousands of mutations. Their findings have led to new approaches for the treatment of cancer and has opened new avenues of research.

6. Solid-state batteries

Batteries for electric cars cost about $ 100,000, so that the most expensive part of the vehicle. Ann Marie Sastry and his company, Sakti3, trying to develop cell semiconductors that are half the size and cost of conventional batteries of electric cars.

For now, electric cars using lithium batteries. Electrolytes and cathodes flammable liquids are used to dissolve, so keep the electrolyte in flames requires security systems. And prolong the life of the electrode and prevent heat buildup, the battery must be cooled and totally prevents the loading or unloading. All this requires a lot of space.

Solid state battery Sastry replacing the liquid electrolyte with a thin layer of a material which is not flammable. Batteries semiconductors are also durable and can withstand high temperatures, which makes it possible to use materials that double or triple the amount of stored energy.

The batteries are still several years to hit the market, but when they do, it could revolutionize the electric car industry.

7. Homomorphic encryption

As more information is stored on remote servers in the cloud, companies and individuals have become concerned about the security of having all your eggs in one basket numerical data. The inability cloud computers to keep your encrypted data as it arrives on the server was particularly scary and confusing.

Craig Gentry of IBM uses homomorphic encryption to solve this problem. According to Technology Review, "has shown that it is possible to analyze the data without decrypting. The key is to encrypt the data so that the realization of a mathematical operation on this information and then decode the result produced the same response as operation even data encryption. "

Suppose you want to add 1 and 2, for example: Data is encrypted so that it becomes 1 2 becomes 33 and 54. Once the encrypted data is sent to the cloud and transformed: The result (87) can be downloaded from the cloud and decoded to provide the final answer of 3.

At this time, the system works Gentry too slow for practical use, but works to optimize for specific applications, such as databases to find records. Imagine that the system could be ready for market in five to 10 years.

8. Cloud streaming

Thank you to the combination of cloud computing and video games, PlayStation or Xbox physicist DVD soon seem as obsolete as a Nintendo cartridge. OnLive CEO Steve Perlman has created a way to compress a video sequence that overcomes the problems that occur when someone tries to use remote terminals for graphics-intensive applications.

Company technology enables mobile devices to access the video editing software, design tools, architecture and other powerful graphical applications running in data centers. With this technology, streaming movies could rewind and fast real-time, any place and schools could have easy access to the software. "The long-term vision is to actually move the entire cloud computing," said Perlman Technology Review.

9. Crash-proof code

Even if your computer appears to be down the end of the world would not be nearly as bad as the computer systems that run the fall of emergency medical devices.

Researchers across Australia's national IT research center (NCITA) work to ensure that medical devices and vehicles that run on your computer is protected against shocks. June Andronick and his team are designing the most important part of an operating system kernel, so they can ensure that never crash.

The current system for creating reliable software controls is based on trial and error, where the designers to imagine many situations as possible, then run the tests. The NCITA worked with a technique known as formal verification, which was considered too cumbersome to be effective.

But Andronick and his colleagues were able to use it to formally verify that the code is essentially the core of an operating system designed for processors in smartphones, automobiles and portable medical devices. Since this code is what happens ultimately software instructions elsewhere in the system implementation in hardware, bulletproof system that is essentially foolproof.

10. Separation of chromosomes

Great strides have been made since the first genome was sequenced, but there are still quite a few mysteries which researchers. Stephen Quake, a biophysicist at Stanford University, has found a way to get this information.

Chromosomes come in pairs: one copy is inherited from your mother and one from the father. At that time, conventional techniques of combining genetic data of the two chromosomes to produce a single sequence. Another earthquake is physically separate chromosomes by genomic analysis. The cells are channeled into a microfluidic chip; When an earthquake marker in preparation for dividing (a stage where chromosomes are easier to handle), it traps the cell in a chamber and membrane fragments, causing reverse chromosomes . Each ends in a small room in itself, and can not undergo a normal scan.

This technology will more easily identify variations between chromosomes and could have a significant impact on fundamental research and personalized medicine genomics.

According to the report from Technology Review, "Fluidigm, Quake co-founded the company to commercialize the chips, now looking for a way to automate the separation of chromosomes chip so that no knowledge is required to use both. "

11. Synthetic cells

Last year, biologists have finally succeeded in large enough pieces to create a DNA genome. Since then, they have worked to create the first living beings with a completely artificial genome.

Daniel Gibson, Craig Venter Institute and colleagues used yeast cells join thousands of DNA fragments made by a machine, we have grouped the longer pieces, and the process is repeated until the genome was complete. Then inserting the DNA into bacteria. You now have the complete collection of microbes whose genes are edited on a computer and assembled by machines.

From the moment, Gibson has also developed a faster way without yeast assemble large pieces of DNA in a bottle. He and his colleagues believe that in the future, synthetic biology could be used as a basis for cells producing cells minimum biofuel efficiently, drugs and other industrial products.