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Penny Glen’s Rants
Having written a series on new technology, Penny has ventured further into the future. This pushes the boundaries just that bit further on, some of which are virtually here and others still in the minds of inventors. We hope you enjoy these.
Penny writes: “The following article has been written for two reasons: Primarily for my ranting amusement and partly to entertain you as readers of Rochford Life. I’d like to add that the following technologies and their descriptions are mainly theories and/or prototypes put forward by reputable scientific communities based on what already exists and what is going to exist in the future. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank www.gizmag.com for being a brilliant resource for me, this article and scientific minds across the western scientific board.
Penny writes: “The following article has been written for two reasons: Primarily for my ranting amusement and partly to entertain you as readers of Rochford Life. I’d like to add that the following technologies and their descriptions are mainly theories and/or prototypes put forward by reputable scientific communities based on what already exists and what is going to exist in the future. I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank www.gizmag.com for being a brilliant resource for me, this article and scientific minds across the western scientific board.
To return to Penny’s ‘front’ page, please CLICK HERE
12. More Future Technologies (Part 3)
5th Aug 2011
10. The Concept Plane
5th Aug 2011
10. The Concept Plane
The Paris Air Show earlier on this year was the set of a grand unveiling by Eads Innovation Works. Primarily working in aeronautics, the company announced their new concept plane (dubbed ‘Zehst’) and reported that they would be able to solve some problems to do with the combination of comfort and speed.
You see, when planes go faster they will inevitably need a larger engine, which means more noise or ‘air pollution’ as the environmentalists call it and more degradation of environments in higher altitudes. Think what happens when a space rocket takes off and how massive the explosion looks like when it comes out of the bottom exhaust funnels.
The folks at Eads have said that their plane will be a commercial flyer and as well as taking care of the previous problems – it will be able to get from London to Tokyo in two hours as opposed to the normal flight time of ten to twelve hours. The longest flight I’ve been on is one over the Atlantic to Colorado in the States, which took fourteen hours as I remember it. It was the most boring and annoying thing I have ever done, but the end result of being surrounded by American snow for Christmas was definitely worth it.
Most certainly something I can get on board. No pun intended.
11. Cultured Meat
Unfortunately we as a population are increasing too fast and eating too much. Not necessarily a bad thing, until you think about the costs of more animal farming, the environmental cost of depleting food sources, the amount of endangered species in the ocean (BAD, especially since 80% of our oxygen comes from the oceans) and the ethical treatment of slaughtered animals. This is really not a good thing I suppose.
Cultured meat or In-Vitro meat as it is supposed to be called; is flesh of animals that is grown in a laboratory. It has never been part of a live animal, so the ethics of clones and their potential treatment won’t come into it. The animal won’t have to go through a horrific death, and it will leave all of the live animals to re-populate themselves to keep up with us. Eventually this theoretical process will be that we can just simply grow our meat whenever we need it. The next step of course if this is successful, is to grow organs for human being who need them – but let’s not get into that one right now.
I know it sounds quite disgusting, but the positive aspect of this is being able to feed the starving across the world without depleting our livestock in the process. One day, when most of the animals do become extinct (and they will judging by how fast our population is increasing) this process will be the only way to feed ourselves.
At the moment again, this is only theoretical. Think back to Dolly the sheep though, so cloning is definitely possible in this day and age. I look forward to thinking whether chicken will still taste like chicken..
12. Wireless Energy Transfer
Here is something amazing – because it solves the problem of my mother tripping over my laptop cord when she goes into the kitchen. After unrepeatable swearing from her, I realise that every time it happens that not only is it annoying my mother, but my laptop charger is also at risk of being damaged.
So since I’ve heard of this new technology idea, I’ve been very excited.
Wireless energy transfer is going to be the act of switching on the power in our homes, and not needing a cord or batteries to power our electrical gadgetry. I’m not sure entirely sure how this would work, but it sounds marvellous does it not?
Yet the word ‘wireless’ puts me off. I’ve already had enough problems with my broadband Internet thank you very much, I know that I’m going to be ringing up someone at Scottish Power and complaining for relatively the same problem. It’ll be like Déjà-Vu for me.
13. Artificial Intelligence
The scariest one on the list. Science fiction novels have warned us, as has Morpheus from the Matrix – but this is a reality people. Machines have already been programmed to learn and retain information at a level that could almost mimic the human brain.
Will machines have souls? Could we transfer our consciousness to machines and live forever? Will machines see us as obsolete and dispose of us? Lots of questions, but very few answers exist at the moment to settle our minds.
All that is known is that A.I. would make things safer for us at the moment, especially machines that could operate for the military. Sending in self-aware drones could save lives, or end them if you’re thinking of the other side – but it could create a lot of problems too.
However the worlds scientific minds decide to solve this debate, I guess we’ll have to trust their judgement. It is up to us however, whether we decide to think for ourselves – or let the toaster make our decisions for us in the future.
So that is it for this week and I hope I have given you a lot to think about Rochford Life readers!
If you would like to give me some feedback or ask any questions about what I’ve covered here, please email in.
Next time I’ll be going back to films and wondering ‘Is there anything good coming out in the future? Or should we succumb to boredom right now?’
You see, when planes go faster they will inevitably need a larger engine, which means more noise or ‘air pollution’ as the environmentalists call it and more degradation of environments in higher altitudes. Think what happens when a space rocket takes off and how massive the explosion looks like when it comes out of the bottom exhaust funnels.
The folks at Eads have said that their plane will be a commercial flyer and as well as taking care of the previous problems – it will be able to get from London to Tokyo in two hours as opposed to the normal flight time of ten to twelve hours. The longest flight I’ve been on is one over the Atlantic to Colorado in the States, which took fourteen hours as I remember it. It was the most boring and annoying thing I have ever done, but the end result of being surrounded by American snow for Christmas was definitely worth it.
Most certainly something I can get on board. No pun intended.
11. Cultured Meat
Unfortunately we as a population are increasing too fast and eating too much. Not necessarily a bad thing, until you think about the costs of more animal farming, the environmental cost of depleting food sources, the amount of endangered species in the ocean (BAD, especially since 80% of our oxygen comes from the oceans) and the ethical treatment of slaughtered animals. This is really not a good thing I suppose.
Cultured meat or In-
I know it sounds quite disgusting, but the positive aspect of this is being able to feed the starving across the world without depleting our livestock in the process. One day, when most of the animals do become extinct (and they will judging by how fast our population is increasing) this process will be the only way to feed ourselves.
At the moment again, this is only theoretical. Think back to Dolly the sheep though, so cloning is definitely possible in this day and age. I look forward to thinking whether chicken will still taste like chicken..
12. Wireless Energy Transfer
Here is something amazing – because it solves the problem of my mother tripping over my laptop cord when she goes into the kitchen. After unrepeatable swearing from her, I realise that every time it happens that not only is it annoying my mother, but my laptop charger is also at risk of being damaged.
So since I’ve heard of this new technology idea, I’ve been very excited.
Wireless energy transfer is going to be the act of switching on the power in our homes, and not needing a cord or batteries to power our electrical gadgetry. I’m not sure entirely sure how this would work, but it sounds marvellous does it not?
Yet the word ‘wireless’ puts me off. I’ve already had enough problems with my broadband Internet thank you very much, I know that I’m going to be ringing up someone at Scottish Power and complaining for relatively the same problem. It’ll be like Déjà-
13. Artificial Intelligence
The scariest one on the list. Science fiction novels have warned us, as has Morpheus from the Matrix – but this is a reality people. Machines have already been programmed to learn and retain information at a level that could almost mimic the human brain.
Will machines have souls? Could we transfer our consciousness to machines and live forever? Will machines see us as obsolete and dispose of us? Lots of questions, but very few answers exist at the moment to settle our minds.
All that is known is that A.I. would make things safer for us at the moment, especially machines that could operate for the military. Sending in self-
However the worlds scientific minds decide to solve this debate, I guess we’ll have to trust their judgement. It is up to us however, whether we decide to think for ourselves – or let the toaster make our decisions for us in the future.
So that is it for this week and I hope I have given you a lot to think about Rochford Life readers!
If you would like to give me some feedback or ask any questions about what I’ve covered here, please email in.
Next time I’ll be going back to films and wondering ‘Is there anything good coming out in the future? Or should we succumb to boredom right now?’