Group Video on the Future

This video is a quick 3 minutes wrap-up for our previous blog posts. It features our short monologues discussing specific aspects of the futuristic world e.g. future Internet, the possibility of migrating to outer space, futuristic cities, phones and computers etc. Please enjoy…

Will immortality become a reality?

Date: 15/05/2014

Growing old and the idea that death may be around the corner is one of the ever present realities of life. Or is it? Immortality is a major idea among many popular movies and works of fiction in this day and age because, let’s face it, the idea of being able to live forever is exciting to say the least.

While our physical bodies grow old and deteriorate, it has been proposed that in years to come it may be possible to upload the entire human consciousness into a computer or virtual machine. This will effectively make the ‘person’ – if you can call them that now that they are without a physical, human, body – immortal. It is also hoped that a software replica of the person will be created in the form of a holographic virtual body to replace their deteriorated human body.

This is not the stuff of science fiction, this is hypothesised based on current research. Neurosynaptic computer chips (machines that mimic the neurons and synapses of the brain) are currently being developed and there has been promising progress to date. These chips may have the ability to learn and remember as though they were real brain cells. The implication of this is that we will be able to keep learning and ‘living’ well beyond the death of our original human bodies.

This begs the question: will such beings be considered human? Or will we end up with a Blade Runner-esque future? I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Sources:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/future-tech/5-ways-society-will-be-affected-by-cognitive-technology.htm#page=5

http://www.popsci.com.au/robots/will-people-alive-today-have-the-opportunity-to-upload-their-consciousness-to-a-new-robotic-body,377254

http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/facts.html

Image 1: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/imagenes_ciencia/artificialhumans36_01.jpg

Image 2: http://www.crystalinks.com/braingridcircuitboard.jpg

By Morgan

Future VEHICLES

Today is memorable day in my life.
I buy a car myself !!!!

It is a brand new BMW sports car. I do not actually like BMW though, but this one is just amazing !




It is two-seats sports car, zero to 100 is 2 seconds! Just freaking in 2 seconds, it can go on 100 km/h!!!!


I actually wanted to buy this car !




AUDI, my favourite flying car.
With this audi, I can go to the USA where my love is living.

However it is alright, I got an awesome BMW :))

that video is about the 22nd century vehicles ! Enjoy it guys





-------------------------yhoon--------------------

Internet Glasses and Contact Lenses

Today, we can communicate with the Internet via our computers and cell phones. But in the future, the Internet will be everywhere - in wall screens, furniture, on billboards, and even in our glasses and contact lenses. When we blink, we will go online.

There are several ways we can put the Internet on a lens. The image can be flashed from our glasses directly through the lens of our eyes and onto our retinas. The image could also be projected onto the lens, which would act as a screen. Or it might be attached to the frame of the glasses, like a small jeweler’s lens. As we peer into the glasses, we see the Internet, as if looking at a movie screen. We can then manipulate it with a handheld device that controls the computer via a wireless connection. We could also simply move our fingers in the air to control the image, since the computer recognizes the position of our fingers as we wave them.

A much more advanced version would have the Internet flashed directly through our contact lenses by inserting a chip and LCD display into the plastic. Babak A. Parviz and his group at the University of Washington in Seattle are laying the groundwork for the Internet contact lens, designing prototypes that may eventually change the way we access the Internet.

He foresees that one immediate application of this technology might be to help diabetics regulate their glucose levels. The lens will display an immediate readout of the conditions within their body. But this is just the beginning. Eventually, Parviz envisions the day when we will be able to download any movie, song, Web site, or piece of information off the Internet into our contact lens. We will have a complete home entertainment system in our lens as we lie back and enjoy feature-length movies. We can also use it to connect directly to our office computer via our lens, then manipulate the files that flash before us. From the comfort of the beach, we will be able to teleconference to the office by blinking.

This may alter the educational system. In the future, students taking a final exam will be able to silently scan the Internet via their contact lens for the answers to the questions, which would pose an obvious problem for teachers who often rely on rote memorization. This means that educators will have to stress thinking and reasoning ability instead. Your glasses may also have a tiny video camera in the frame, so it can film your surroundings and then broadcast the images directly onto the Internet. People around the world may be able to share in your experiences as they happen. Whatever you are watching, thousands of others will be able to see it as well. Parents will know what their children are doing. Lovers may share experiences when separated. People at concerts will be able to communicate their excitement to fans around the world. Inspectors will visit faraway factories and then beam the live images directly to the contact lens of the boss. (Or one spouse may do the shopping, while the other makes comments about what to buy.)

Winston Pi
Sources:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1028876/Contact-lenses-boost-sight-sleep.html
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/515666/contact-lens-computer-like-google-glass-without-the-glasses/

Photographing a Human Dream

One new line of research is to try to reconstruct the precise image that the brain is thinking of, so that one might be able to create a video of a person’s thoughts. In this way, one might be able to make a video recording of a dream.

Since time immemorial, people have been fascinated by dreams, those ephemeral images that are sometimes so frustrating to recall or understand. Hollywood has long envisioned machines that might one day send dreamlike thoughts into the brain or even record them, as in movies like Total Recall. All this, however, was sheer speculation. 

Until recently, that is. Scientists have made remarkable progress in an area once thought to be impossible: taking a snapshot of our memories and possibly our dreams. The first steps in this direction were taken by scientists at the Advanced Telecommunications Research (ATR) Computational Neuroscience Laboratory in Kyoto. They showed their subjects a pinpoint of light at a particular location. Then they used an fMRI scan to record where the brain stored this information. They moved the pinpoint of light and recorded where the brain stored this new image. Eventually, they had a one-to-one map of where scores of pinpoints of light were stored in the brain. These pinpoints were located on a 10 × 10 grid.

Then the scientists flashed a picture of a simple object made from these 10 × 10 points, such as a horseshoe. By computer they could then analyze how the brain stored this picture. Sure enough, the pattern stored by the brain was the sum of the images that made up the horseshoe.

In this way, these scientists could create a picture of what the brain is seeing. Any pattern of lights on this 10 × 10 grid can be decoded by a computer looking at the fMRI brain scans.

In the future, these scientists want to increase the number of pixels in their 10 × 10 grid. Moreover, they claim that this process is universal, that is, any visual thought or even dream should be able to be detected by the fMRI scan. If true, it might mean that we will be able to record, for the first time in history, the images we are dreaming about. Of course, our mental images, and especially our dreams, are never crystal sharp, and there will always be a certain fuzziness, but the very fact that we can look deeply into the visual thoughts of someone’s brain is remarkable.

By Winston Pi

Resource:
http://annawrites.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/naked-lost1.jpg
http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/2014/03/physicist_michio_kaku_talks_te.php

SURROGATES AND AVATARS

HUMAN AVATARS


In the movie Avatar, instead of living our lives as perfect humans. Scientist believe in the year 2154 we might be able to live as alien beings. In the movie, our bodies are placed in pods, which then allow us to control the motion of specially cloned alien bodies. In a sense, we are given entirely new bodies to live on a new planet. In this way, we can better communicate with a native alien population on other planets. The movie plot thickens when one worker decides to abandon his humanity and live out his life as an alien, protecting them from mercenaries.  These surrogates and avatars are not possible today but may be possible in the future.

Recently, ASIMO has been programmed with a new idea: remote sensing. At Kyoto University, humans have been trained to control the mechanical motion of robots by using brain sensors. For example, by putting on an EEG helmet, students can move the arms and legs of ASIMO by simply thinking. So far, four distinct motions of the arms and head are possible. This may open the door to another realm of AI: robots controlled by the mind.

Such an arrangement might actually prove useful for space exploration, when we have to manage a permanent moon base. Our surrogates may perform all the dangerous tasks of maintaining the moon base, while the astronauts are safely back on earth. The astronauts would have the super strength and superpowers of the robots while exploring a hazardous alien landscape. (This would not work if the astronauts are on the earth controlling surrogates on Mars, however, since radio signals take up to 40 minutes to go from the earth to Mars and back. But it would work if the astronauts were sitting safely in a permanent base on Mars while the surrogates went out and performed dangerous tasks on the Martian surface.)

Sources: http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/military-robots/darpa-wants-to-give-soldiers-robot-surrogates-avatar-style
http://worldtracker.org/media/library/Metaphysics%20&%20Spirituality/Michio%20Kaku%20PHYSICS%20OF%20THE%20FUTURE.pdf

By Winston

Medicine in the year 2100 and beyond

Date: 14/05/14

Life spans have increased dramatically over the past few centuries and are expected to continue to do so well into the future. Modern medicine and a deeper understanding of what it is that makes us healthy have played a large role in lengthening our lives. It is predicted that with advancements in technology and medicine humans will continue to live for longer periods of time.

Nanotechnology

Nanotechnology (the manipulation of matter on an atomic, molecular, and supramolecular scale), is expected be crucial in future medicine. Consumable fluids containing nanorobots which are programmed to attack and reconstruct the molecular structure of cancer cells and viruses will be available. Some speculate that nanorobots may be able to slow or reverse the aging process, directly leading to an increased life expectancy. There is currently research into nanorobots, about the size of 4 human hairs, which will be able to perform surgeries at a minute scale.

Stem Cells

Stem cells (undifferentiated biological cells that can differentiate into specialized cells and can divide, through mitosis, to produce more stem cells), like nanotechnology, are expected to play a large role in future medicine. While some consider research into stem cells in this day and age to be controversial due to the involvement and manipulation of the human embryo, I believe that stem cell research is a positive thing and will help improve lives in the future. Stem cells potentially may help us grow new organs and limbs and possibly even replace our dying, aging body parts with fresh ones. This will of course increase human life expectancy.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanotechnology

http://science.howstuffworks.com/nanotechnology4.htm

http://mashable.com/2013/07/07/nanobots-eye-surgery/

http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/world-150-years-from-now-130702.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/info/stem_cell/

Image 1: http://www.rac105.cat/media/asset_publics/resources/000/016/739/very_big/nanorobot1.jpg?1291968823

Image 2: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01742/stem-cell-research_1742102c.jpg

By Morgan