technology/progress

Overview

This page is about recent progress in technology, especially innovations which have not yet become widely available.

Index

• artificial intelligence (see also the singularity)
• Artificial Life

  see also Reality Simulation, genetic algorithms

  • breve simulation environment: open source library and applications for 3d simulation of creatures evolved using genetic algorithms
  • 2006-02-17 Web program simplifies artificial gene design
  • 2006 Is This Life?
  • Avida "is an artificial life software platform to study the evolutionary biology of self-replicating and evolving computer programs (digital organisms)."
  • International Society of Artificial Life (this site doesn't seem to have much content; may remove it soon.)
• Computing (see also computing)
  • 2006-12-11 Disk Drives Face Challenge If New Chip Comes to Market
  • 2005-12-07 Breakthrough Chip Delivers Better Digital Pictures For Less Power
  • Moving print adverts coming soon: printable display technology
• Cryogenics
  • 2006-07-14 Stuck Pig: progress in short-term cryogenic suspension for surgical purposes
• Cybernetics, the technology of human-computer interfacing
  • speech assistive technology
    • speech processing software: text-to-speech and speech-to-text
  • touchscreen technology, especially multi-touch
  • 2007-10-03 MIT develops brain-to-machine algorithm: "Lakshminarayan "Ram" Srinivasan, lead author of a paper on the subject, said MIT's new graphical models are applicable no matter what measurement technique is used."
  • 2007-03-04 Nanoparticle Research Offers Hope of Artificial Retinas, Prostheses
  • 2006-10-09 Teenager moves video icons just by imagination: an epileptic 14-year-old boy with electrodes implanted inside his cranium to study the epilepsy volunteered for another experiment in which those same electrodes were used to carry signals enabling him to play "Space Invaders" without any physical movement
  • 2006-03-09 'Mental typewriter' controlled by thought alone: apparently somewhat like Dasher and practical only if finger-typing is not an option
  • 2006-02-08 Chips that really get under your skin
  • 2006-01-30 Missing a few brain cells? Print new ones
  • EyeTap Personal Imaging Lab
• Energy (see also sustainability)
  • 2007-11-26 THE MAGLEV: The Super-powered Magnetic Wind Turbine: produces ~1 gigawatt
  • Green Car Congress: "sustainable mobility"
  • 2007-05-05 Navy Heats Up Cold Fusion Hopes: "New proof that cold fusion works could fuel additional interest in generating power from low energy nuclear reactions."
  • 2007-02-16 Self-Assembling Batteries "By measuring nanoscale forces, researchers learn to make lithium-ion batteries that pull themselves together."
  • 2007-01-22 Battery Breakthrough? "A Texas company says it can make a new ultracapacitor power system to replace the electrochemical batteries in everything from cars to laptops."
  • 2005-10-18 White Light, No Heat: extremely efficient form of broad-spectrum lighting using quantum dots
• Fabrication
  • CandyFab 4000: low-cost, low-resolution fabrication using sugar
  • MIT Fab Lab (article)
  • RepRap: Replicating Rapid-prototyper, a practical self-copying 3D printer (in development)
  • RepRap Research Foundation: "To promote research in self-replicating manufacturing systems and to distribute the results of that research freely to everybody using open-source licensing."
  • 2007-05-07 Beam It Down From the Web, Scotty: "One company that wants to be the first to deliver a 3-D printer for consumers is Desktop Factory, started by IdeaLab, a technology incubator here. The company will start selling its first printer for $4,995 this year."
• Longevity
  • 2006-03-11 For The First Time: Longevity Modulated Without Disrupting Life-sustaining Function
• Medicine
  • 2008-04-11 New hope for Alzheimer's sufferers after new treatment 'restores memory in minutes': see Institute for Neurological Research
  • 2007-02-21 Cheap, 'safe' drug kills most cancers: latest information is at the Official University of Alberta Dichloroacetate (DCA) Site; there is also a dichloroacetic acid article at Wikipedia with some related information.
  • 2006-04-04 Wake Forest Physician Reports First Human Recipients Of Laboratory-grown Organs
  • 2004-02-18 Researcher Uses Bioprinter To Print Three-Dimensional Cellular Structures: possibility of growing fresh, genetically-compatible replacement organs
• Nanotechnology
• Nutrition
  • Fighting Global Warming with Lab-Grown Meat
• Physics
  • 2006-01-05 Hyperdrive?
  • Quantum Physics
    • 2007-03-15 The universe is a string-net liquid: possible progress towards a Unified Theory of Everything, or at least a new way of doing quantum computing
    • 2006-02-23 Is our universe about to be mangled? (quantum reality? cosmology?)
    • 2006-02-22 Quantum computer works best switched off
• Poverty Reduction (for lack of a better term)
  • Kiva: micro-loan finder/seeker site
  • cell phones in the Third World: Loose Talk Saves Lives
• Psychology
  • 2007-07-15 MIT finds cure for fear
• Reality Simulation
  • (Open)Croquet: collaborative P2P virtual reality
  • Ping: Open-content Virtual Earth project
  • Pleasing plant shapes explained by new computer model
  • 2006-05-18 Searching for the soul in the machine: simulation of social interaction & cultural development (New-Ties project)
  • 2006-03-14 Scientists Model Entire Virus (Slashdot)
  • 2005-11-25 first computer simulation of a ribosome
• Robotics: see Artificial Intelligence
• Self-Replication: see Fabrication
• The Singularity
  • Reference
    • Wikipedia (Technological singularity)
  • Discussion
    • SL4 ("(future)shock level four")
    • Kurzweil AI: Accelerating Intelligence
    • The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
    • Singularity.org: links to several related sites
    • Vernor Vinge's 1993 lecture explaining the concept, and a 2003 update
• Space Exploration
  • ESA and ANU make space propulsion breakthrough: much more efficient ion engine
• Time Travel
  • 2007-09-21 Parallel universe proof boosts time travel hopes: "Parallel universes really do exist, according to a mathematical discovery by Oxford scientists that sweeps away one of the key objections to the mind boggling and controversial idea."
  • 2007-01-21 Science hopes to change events that have already occurred: retrocausality using quantum physics
    • 2007-02-16 Experimental Realization of Wheeler's Delayed-Choice Gedanken Experiment: apparently the experiment succeeded... but where are the details?
• Transportation see also sustainability
  • 2008-03-21 Kite-Assisted Cargo Ship Successfully Completes Maiden Voyage