Stretchy Artificial Skin Lets Prosthetic Hand Sense Heat, Humidity, and Pressure It’s so sophisticated, it can even tell the difference between a dry and soggy diaper

Prosthetic limbs that can be controlled by an amputee’s thoughts or muscle movements already exist. But what if they could also sense the environment and then send that information back to the amputee’s nervous system?

 

In order to create prosthetics that can function more like real body parts, scientists are designing artificial skins that pick up on tactile information. So far, these skins have gotten very good at sensing pressure—in fact, a skin designed by Stanford engineers is 1,000 times more sensitive than human skin. Another is self-healing.

But a new skin built by researchers in South Korea may be the smartest artificial skin yet. It’s stretchy, like real skin, and it can sense pressure, temperature, and humidity. It even has a built-in heater so it feels like living tissue. The researchers tested the artificial skin on a prosthetic hand, and they hope that some day, it will interface with a patient’s nerves so amputees can feel everything the fake skin feels.

“For prosthetic devices and artificial skin to feel natural, their temperature profile must be controlled to match that of the human body.”

“The prosthetic hand and laminated electronic skin could encounter many complex operations such as hand shaking, keyboard tapping, ball grasping, holding a cup of hot or cold drink, touching dry or wet surfaces and human to human contact,” they write in the paper, which was published today in Nature Comunnication

The bulk of the new skin is composed of a flexible, transparent silicone material called polydimethylsiloxane — or PDMS. Embedded within it are silicon nanoribbons that generate electricity when they’re squished or stretched, providing a source of tactile feedback. They can also sense whether an object is hot or cold.

The humidity sensors are made up of capacitors. When the polymer surrounding a capacitor absorbs water, the moisture changes the polymer’s ability to store a charge. The capacitors measure that storage change and use it to determine the moisture levels of the environment.

The researchers tested the humidity sensors in a somewhat unconventional way. First, they compared the artificial skin’s humidity readings to the measurements of a commercial humidity sensor, and the results matched up pretty well. That’s normal protocol. But just to be extra scientifically rigorous, the researchers had the prosthetic hand prod various diapers, and it turned out it was able to distinguish between wet and dry diapers. Success!

Next came the heating element.

“For prosthetic devices and artificial skin to feel natural, their temperature profile must be controlled to match that of the human body,” the authors write. Thermal actuators control how much heat the artificial skin emits. And although there are very simple ways to measure whether or not the skin maintains a steady 98 degrees Fahrenheit, the researchers preferred to place the hand on a plastic baby doll (hopefully it was washed after touching those soggy diapers) and then measured the amount of heat the hand transferred to the doll. It was within the normal human range.

Zhenan Bao, an artificial skin engineer at Stanford, who was not involved in the new paper, called the work exciting. She said that although the authors have created artificial skins with temperature, pressure, and humidity sensors before, integrating it with the stretchy substrate is novel.

By adjusting the shape of the silicon nanoribbon patterns, the researchers can adjust how stretchy the skin is. For regions where the skin doesn’t need to stretch, such as the fingertips, the nanoribbons are packed in a tight linear pattern to maximize sensitivity. For areas like the wrist, which need more flexibility, the nanoribbons form a more loopy pattern, allowing for more room to expand by up to 16 percent.

“This is an important demonstration of the applications of stretchable electronics,” said Bao.

The team is still working out the best way to get the sensory information from the artificial skin to the brain of the amputee. They did manage to transfer pressure information from the skin into the brain of a rat, but the paper cautions that the method may not be safe to use in people.

At the very least, perhaps this invention will fulfill every parent’s dream: Diaper-changing robots.

This Device Reads Your Mind Through Your Veins

In recent years, scientists have been developing new and creative ways to put electronics in the brain. These devices are useful for paralyzed patients to control prosthetic limbs with their minds, to help locked-in patients communicate with the outside world, or to help researchers better predict seizures in epileptic patients. But implanting them requires opening the skull, an intrusive procedure. Now researchers from the University of Melbourne have created a device that can be inserted into the brain through the blood vessels, no invasive surgery required. The study was published this week in Nature Biotechnology.

The device, about an inch long, looks similar to a stent, an apparatus placed around the heart to open up clogged blood vessels—in fact, the researchers named it a “stentrode.” To insert it, the researchers put a catheter into a vein in the neck, then snake it through the blood vessels into the head until the end is in the desired part of the brain, next to the motor cortex. Once the catheter reaches the right spot, the stentrode sticks to the sides of the blood vessel, where it can collect data from the activity of neurons nearby. The data reaches the researchers’ computers through a wire that comes out of the neck.

When the researchers tested the device on sheep, they found that the stentrodes were sensitive and transmitted good data. They also stayed in the sheep for 190 days without issue, indicating to the researchers that the devices could stay in humans for a long time without issue.

The stentrode, and similar devices that can be implanted in the brain without opening the skull, might even be useful beyond a medical capacity, becoming commonplace and changing the way we interact with computers. Of course, the necessity of a wire coming out of a user’s neck is less than ideal, so these devices might first have to become wireless if they’re going to become widespread among the population.

The researchers hope to test the stentrode in humans next year.

Scientists Create Artificial Tissues With A Cotton Candy Machine

Cotton candy artificial tissue

A research assistant creates artificial tissues using a commercial cotton candy machine.

What do cotton candy and artificial tissues have in common? They are both made of layers of thin, fibrous material. And now they can both be made with a $40 cotton candy machine, according to Vanderbilt News and reported today by Fast Company. The researchers published their proof-of-concept study last week in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials.

The researchers were making hydrogels, a matrix of gelatinous fibers that can support living cells and replace any number of tissues in the body, especially muscle tissue like those in the heart. Hydrogels are about as close as researchers can currently get to emulating human tissues because the moist fibers that make up the hydrogel allow oxygen and nutrients to flow to and from the living cells. To create these gels, researchers spin polymer fibers together into a mass using a process called electrospinning. However the process of making viable hydrogels would often take weeks and the water-soluble gel material frequently would not dry or cool properly.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University wanted to see if electrospinning using a cotton candy machine would work as well as the traditional processes. After fiddling with the contents and concentration of the polymer solution, the researchers figured out that they could sprinkle in the human cells and an enzyme called transglutaminase–colloquially called “meat glue” in the food industry–to make the gel coalesce. The resulting material looks a lot like cotton candy, as you might imagine, but it’s a mass of living cells connected by fibers about the same size as a human capillary. Once the mass had cooled, the researchers pumped it full of oxygen and other nutrients the cells needed to survive. After a week, 90 percent of the cells were still alive, compared to the typical 60-70 percent in solid synthetic tissue that doesn’t have the fibers.

This is the latest in scientists’ recent efforts to create low-cost artificial organs—3D printing is the other popular method. But since the distribution of polymer fibers is more complex in the cotton candy hydrogel, this might be the most life-like technique to date.

In future studies the researchers hope to test their cotton candy technique with other types of cells to create tissues similar to those found in several different organs in the body.

Technology

 

Technology (“science of craft”, from Greek τέχνη, techne, “art, skill, cunning of hand”; and -λογία, -logia) is the collection of techniques, skills, methods and processes used in the production of goods or services or in the accomplishment of objectives, such as scientific investigation. Technology can be the knowledge of techniques, processes, etc. or it can be embedded in machines, computers, devices and factories, which can be operated by individuals without detailed knowledge of the workings of such things.

The human species’ use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire and the later Neolithic Revolution increased the available sources of food and the invention of the wheel helped humans to travel in and control their environment. Developments in historic times, including the printing press, the telephone, and the Internet, have lessened physical barriers to communication and allowed humans to interact freely on a global scale. The steady progress of military technology has brought weapons of ever-increasing destructive power, from clubs to nuclear weapons.

Technology has many effects. It has helped develop more advanced economies (including today’s global economy) and has allowed the rise of a leisure class. Many technological processes produce unwanted by-products, known as pollution, and deplete natural resources, to the detriment of Earth’s environment. Various implementations of technology influence the values of a society and new technology often raises new ethical questions. Examples include the rise of the notion of efficiency in terms of human productivity, a term originally applied only to machines, and the challenge of traditional norms.

Philosophical debates have arisen over the use of technology, with disagreements over whether technology improves the human condition or worsens it. Neo-Luddism, anarcho-primitivism, and similar reactionary movements criticise the pervasiveness of technology in the modern world, arguing that it harms the environment and alienates people; proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and techno-progressivism view continued technological progress as beneficial to society and the human condition.

Until recently, it was believed that the development of technology was restricted only to human beings, but 21st century scientific studies indicate that other primates and certain dolphin communities have developed simple tools and passed their knowledge to other generations.

Definition and usage

The use of the term “technology” has changed significantly over the last 200 years. Before the 20th century, the term was uncommon in English, and usually referred to the description or study of the useful arts. The term was often connected to technical education, as in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (chartered in 1861).

The term “technology” rose to prominence in the 20th century in connection with the Second Industrial Revolution. The term’s meanings changed in the early 20th century when American social scientists, beginning with Thorstein Veblen, translated ideas from the German concept of Technik into “technology”. In German and other European languages, a distinction exists between technik and technologie that is absent in English, which usually translates both terms as “technology”. By the 1930s, “technology” referred not only to the study of the industrial arts but to the industrial arts themselves.

In 1937, the American sociologist Read Bain wrote that “technology includes all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing, clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which we produce and use them.” Bain’s definition remains common among scholars today, especially social scientists. But equally prominent is the definition of technology as applied science, especially among scientists and engineers, although most social scientists who study technology reject this definition. More recently, scholars have borrowed from European philosophers of “technique” to extend the meaning of technology to various forms of instrumental reason, as in Foucault’s work on technologies of the self (techniques de soi).

Dictionaries and scholars have offered a variety of definitions. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers a definition of the term: “the practical application of knowledge especially in a particular area” and “a capability given by the practical application of knowledge”. Ursula Franklin, in her 1989 “Real World of Technology” lecture, gave another definition of the concept; it is “practice, the way we do things around here”. The term is often used to imply a specific field of technology, or to refer to high technology or just consumer electronics, rather than technology as a whole. Bernard Stiegler, in Technics and Time, 1, defines technology in two ways: as “the pursuit of life by means other than life”, and as “organized inorganic matterhttps://wordpress.com/post/worldcornerblog.wordpress.com/310.”

Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, or more complex machines, such as a space station or particle accelerator. Tools and machines need not be material; virtual technology, such as computer software and business methods, fall under this definition of technology. W. Brian Arthur defines technology in a similarly broad way as “a means to fulfill a human purpose”.

The word “technology” can also be used to refer to a collection of techniques. In this context, it is the current state of humanity’s knowledge of how to combine resources to produce desired products, to solve problems, fulfill needs, or satisfy wants; it includes technical methods, skills, processes, techniques, tools and raw materials. When combined with another term, such as “medical technology” or “space technology”, it refers to the state of the respective field’s knowledge and tools. “State-of-the-art technology” refers to the high technology available to humanity in any field.

Technology can be viewed as an activity that forms or changes culture. Additionally, technology is the application of math, science, and the arts for the benefit of life as it is known. A modern example is the rise of communication technology, which has lessened barriers to

human interaction and, as a result, has helped spawn new subcultures; the rise of cyberculture has, at its basis, the development of the Internet and the computer. Not all technology enhances culture in a creative way; technology can also help facilitate political oppression and war via tools such as guns. As a cultural activity, technology predates both science and engineering, each of which formalize some aspects of technological endeavor.

Science, engineering and technology

The distinction between science, engineering and technology is not always clear. Science is the reasoned investigation or study of natural phenomena, aimed at discovering enduring principles among elements of the phenomenal world by employing formal techniques such as the scientific method. Technologies are not usually exclusively products of science, because they have to satisfy requirements such as utility, usability and safety.

Engineering is the goal-oriented process of designing and making tools and systems to exploit natural phenomena for practical human means, often (but not always) using results and techniques from science. The development of technology may draw upon many fields of knowledge, including scientific, engineering, mathematical, linguistic, and historical knowledge, to achieve some practical result.

Technology is often a consequence of science and engineering — although technology as a human activity precedes the two fields. For example, science might study the flow of electrons in electrical conductors, by using already-existing tools and knowledge. This new-found knowledge may then be used by engineers to create new tools and machines, such as semiconductors, computers, and other forms of advanced technology. In this sense, scientists and engineers may both be considered technologists; the three fields are often considered as one for the purposes of research and reference.

The exact relations between science and technology in particular have been debated by scientists, historians, and policymakers in the late 20th century, in part because the debate can inform the funding of basic and applied science. In the immediate wake of World War II, for example, in the United States it was widely considered that technology was simply “applied science” and that to fund basic science was to reap technological results in due time. An articulation of this philosophy could be found explicitly in Vannevar Bush’s treatise on postwar science policy, Science—The Endless Frontier: “New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature … This essential new knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research.” In the late-1960s, however, this view came under direct attack, leading towards initiatives to fund science for specific tasks (initiatives resisted by the scientific community). The issue remains contentious—though most analysts resist the model that technology simply is a result of scientific research.

History

Paleolithic (2.5 million YA – 10,000 BC)

Further information: Outline of prehistoric technology

The use of tools by early humans was partly a process of discovery and of evolution. Early humans evolved from a species of foraging hominids which were already bipedal, with a brain mass approximately one third of modern humans. Tool use remained relatively unchanged for most of early human history. Approximately 50,000 years ago, the use of tools and complex set of behaviors emerged, believed by many archaeologists to be connected to the emergence of fully modern language.

Stone tools

Hominids started using primitive stone tools millions of years ago. The earliest stone tools were little more than a fractured rock, but approximately 40,000 years ago, pressure flaking provided a way to make much finer work.

Fire

The discovery and utilization of fire, a simple energy source with many profound uses, was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind. The exact date of its discovery is not known; evidence of burnt animal bones at the Cradle of Humankind suggests that the domestication of fire occurred before 1,000,000 BC; scholarly consensus indicates that Homo erectus had controlled fire by between 500,000 BC and 400,000 BC. Fire, fueled with wood and charcoal, allowed early humans to cook their food to increase its digestibility, improving its nutrient value and broadening the number of foods that could be eaten.^[

Clothing and shelter

Other technological advances made during the Paleolithic era were clothing and shelter; the adoption of both technologies cannot be dated exactly, but they were a key to humanity’s progress. As the Paleolithic era progressed, dwellings became more sophisticated and more elaborate; as early as 380,000 BC, humans were constructing temporary wood huts. Clothing, adapted from the fur and hides of hunted animals, helped humanity expand into colder regions; humans began to migrate out of Africa by 200,000 BC and into other continents, such as Eurasia.

Neolithic through classical antiquity (10,000 BC – 300 AD)

Man’s technological ascent began in earnest in what is known as the Neolithic period (“New stone age”). The invention of polished stone axes was a major advance that allowed forest clearance on a large scale to create farms. Agriculture fed larger populations, and the transition to sedentism allowed simultaneously raising more children, as infants no longer needed to be carried, as nomadic ones must. Additionally, children could contribute labor to the raising of crops more readily than they could to the hunter-gatherer economy.

With this increase in population and availability of labor came an increase in labor specialization. What triggered the progression from early Neolithic villages to the first cities, such as Uruk, and the first civilizations, such as Sumer, is not specifically known; however, the emergence of increasingly hierarchical social structures and specialized labor, of trade and war amongst adjacent cultures, and the need for collective action to overcome environmental challenges such as irrigation, are all thought to have played a role.

Metal tools

Continuing improvements led to the furnace and bellows and provided the ability to smelt and forge native metals (naturally occurring in relatively pure form). Gold, copper, silver, and lead, were such early metals. The advantages of copper tools over stone, bone, and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native copper was probably used from near the beginning of Neolithic times (about 8000 BC). Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper ores are quite common and some of them produce metal easily when burned in wood or charcoal fires. Eventually, the working of metals led to the discovery of alloys such as bronze and brass (about 4000 BC). The first uses of iron alloys such as steel dates to around 1400 BC.

Energy and transport

Meanwhile, humans were learning to harness other forms of energy. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat. The earliest record of a ship under sail is shown on an Egyptian pot dating back to 3200 BC. From prehistoric times, Egyptians probably used the power of the annual flooding of the Nile to irrigate their lands, gradually learning to regulate much of it through purposely built irrigation channels and ‘catch’ basins. Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for much the same purposes. But more extensive use of wind and water (and even human) power required another invention.

According to archaeologists, the wheel was invented around 4000 B.C. probably independently and nearly simultaneously in Mesopotamia (in present-day Iraq), the Northern Caucasus (Maykop culture) and Central Europe. Estimates on when this may have occurred range from 5500 to 3000 B.C., with most experts putting it closer to 4000 B.C. The oldest artifacts with drawings that depict wheeled carts date from about 3000 B.C.; however, the wheel may have been in use for millennia before these drawings were made. There is also evidence from the same period for the use of the potter’s wheel. More recently, the oldest-known wooden wheel in the world was found in the Ljubljana marshes of Slovenia.

The invention of the wheel revolutionized trade and war. It did not take long to discover that wheeled wagons could be used to carry heavy loads. Fast (rotary) potters’ wheels enabled early mass production of pottery. But it was the use of the wheel as a transformer of energy (through water wheels, windmills, and even treadmills) that revolutionized the application of nonhuman power sources.

Medieval and modern history (300 AD – present)

Main articles: Medieval technology, Renaissance technology, Industrial Revolution, Second Industrial Revolution, Information Technology and Productivity improving technologies (economic history)

Innovations continued through the Middle Ages with innovations such as silk, the horse collar and horseshoes in the first few hundred years after the fall of the Roman Empire. Medieval technology saw the use of simple machines (such as the lever, the screw, and the pulley) being combined to form more complicated tools, such as the wheelbarrow, windmills and clocks. The Renaissance brought forth many of these innovations, including the printing press (which facilitated the greater communication of knowledge), and technology became increasingly associated with science, beginning a cycle of mutual advancement. The advancements in technology in this era allowed a more steady supply of food, followed by the wider availability of consumer goods.

Starting in the United Kingdom in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution was a period of great technological discovery, particularly in the areas of agriculture, manufacturing, mining, metallurgy and transport, driven by the discovery of steam power. Technology later took another step with the harnessing of electricity to create such innovations as the electric motor, light bulb and countless others. Scientific advancement and the discovery of new concepts later allowed for powered flight, and advancements in medicine, chemistry, physics and engineering. The rise in technology has led to the construction of skyscrapers and large cities whose inhabitants rely on automobiles or other powered transit for transportation. Communication was also greatly improved with the invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio and television. The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw a revolution in transportation with the invention of the steam-powered ship, train, airplane, and automobile.

F-15 and F-16 flying over a burning oil field in Kuwait in 1991.

The 20th century brought a host of innovations. In physics, the discovery of nuclear fission has led to both nuclear weapons and nuclear power. Computers were also invented and later miniaturized utilizing transistors and integrated circuits. The technology behind got called information technology, and these advancements subsequently led to the creation of the Internet, which ushered in the current Information Age. Humans have also been able to explore space with satellites (later used for telecommunication) and in manned missions going all the way to the moon. In medicine, this era brought innovations such as open-heart surgery and later stem cell therapy along with new medications and treatments. Complex manufacturing and construction techniques and organizations are needed to construct and maintain these new technologies, and entire industries have arisen to support and develop succeeding generations of increasingly more complex tools. Modern technology increasingly relies on training and education — their designers, builders, maintainers, and users often require sophisticated general and specific training. Moreover, these technologies have become so complex that entire fields have been created to support them, including engineering, medicine, and computer science, and other fields have been made more complex, such as construction, transportation and architecture.

Philosophy

Technicism

Generally, technicism is a reliance or confidence in technology as a benefactor of society. Taken to extreme, technicism is the belief that humanity will ultimately be able to control the entirety of existence using technology. In other words, human beings will someday be able to master all problems and possibly even control the future using technology. Some, such as Stephen V. Monsma, connect these ideas to the abdication of religion as a higher moral authority.

Optimism

Optimistic assumptions are made by proponents of ideologies such as transhumanism and singularitarianism, which view technological development as generally having beneficial effects for the society and the human condition. In these ideologies, technological development is morally good. Some critics see these ideologies as examples of scientism and techno-utopianism and fear the notion of human enhancement and technological singularity which they support. Some have described Karl Marx as a techno-optimist.

Skepticism and critics

Luddites smashing a power loom in 1812

On the somewhat skeptical side are certain philosophers like Herbert Marcuse and John Zerzan, who believe that technological societies are inherently flawed. They suggest that the inevitable result of such a society is to become evermore technological at the cost of freedom and psychological health.

Many, such as the Luddites and prominent philosopher Martin Heidegger, hold serious, although not entirely deterministic reservations, about technology (see “The Question Concerning Technology”). According to Heidegger scholars Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Spinosa, “Heidegger does not oppose technology. He hopes to reveal the essence of technology in a way that ‘in no way confines us to a stultified compulsion to push on blindly with technology or, what comes to the same thing, to rebel helplessly against it.’ Indeed, he promises that ‘when we once open ourselves expressly to the essence of technology, we find ourselves unexpectedly taken into a freeing claim.'” What this entails is a more complex relationship to technology than either techno-optimists or techno-pessimists tend to allow.

Some of the most poignant criticisms of technology are found in what are now considered to be dystopian literary classics, for example Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and other writings, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. And, in Faust by Goethe, Faust’s selling his soul to the devil in return for power over the physical world, is also often interpreted as a metaphor for the adoption of industrial technology. More recently, modern works of science fiction, such as those by Philip K. Dick and William Gibson, and films (e.g. Blade Runner, Ghost in the Shell) project highly ambivalent or cautionary attitudes toward technology’s impact on human society and identity.

The late cultural critic Neil Po distinguished tool-using societies from technological societies and, finally, what he called “technopolies,” that is, societies that are dominated by the ideology of technological and scientific progress, to the exclusion or harm of other cultural practices, values and world-views.

Darin Barney has written about technology’s impact on practices of citizenship and democratic culture, suggesting that technology can be construed as (1) an object of political debate, (2) a means or medium of discussion, and (3) a setting for democratic deliberation and citizenship. As a setting for democratic culture, Barney suggests that technology tends to make ethical questions, including the question of what a good life consists in, nearly impossible, because they already give an answer to the question: a good life is one that includes the use of more and more technology.

Nikolas Kompridis has also written about the dangers of new technology, such as genetic engineering, nanotechnology, synthetic biology and robotics. He warns that these technologies introduce unprecedented new challenges to human beings, including the possibility of the permanent alteration of our biological nature. These concerns are shared by other philosophers, scientists and public intellectuals who have written about similar issues (e.g. Francis Fukuyama, Jürgen Habermas, William Joy, and Michael Sandel).

Another prominent critic of technology is Hubert Dreyfus, who has published books On the Internet and What Computers Still Can’t Do.

Another, more infamous anti-technological treatise is Industrial Society and Its Future, written by Theodore Kaczynski (aka The Unabomber) and printed in several major newspapers (and later books) as part of an effort to end his bombing campaign of the techno-industrial infrastructure.

Appropriate technology

The notion of appropriate technology, however, was developed in the 20th century (e.g., see the work of E. F. Schumacher and of Jacques Ellul) to describe situations where it was not desirable to use very new technologies or those that required access to some centralized infrastructure or parts or skills imported from elsewhere. The eco-village movement emerged in part due to this concern.

 

Complex Technological Systems

Thomas P. Hughes pointed out that because technology has been considered as a key way to solve problems, we need to be aware of its complex and varied characters to use it more efficiently. What is the difference between a wheel or a compass and cooking machines such as an oven or a gas stove? Can we consider all of them, only a part of them or none of them as technologies?

Technology is often considered too narrowly: according to Thomas P. Hughes “Technology is a creative process involving human ingenuity”. This definition emphasizing on creativity avoids unbounded definition that may mistakenly include cooking “technologies”. But it also highlights the prominent role of humans and therefore their responsibilities for the use of complex technological systems.

Yet, because technology is everywhere and has dramatically changed landscapes and societies, Hughes argued that engineers, scientists, and managers often have believed that they can use technology to shape the world as they want. They have often supposed that technology is easily controllable and this assumption has to be thoroughly questioned. For instance, Evgeny Morozov particularly challenges two concepts: “Internet-centrism” and “solutionism”. Internet-centrism refers to the idea that our society is convinced that the Internet is one of the most stable and coherent forces. Solutionism is the ideology that every social issue can be solved thanks to technology and especially thanks to the internet. In fact, technology intrinsically contains uncertainties and limitations. According to Alexis Madrigal’s critique of Morozov’s theory, to ignore it will lead to “unexpected consequences that could eventually cause more damage than the problems they seek to address”. Benjamin Cohen and Gwen Ottinger precisely discussed the multivalent effects of technology.

Therefore, recognition of the limitations of technology and more broadly scientific knowledge is needed — especially in cases dealing with environmental justice and health issues. Gwen Ottinger continues this reasoning and argues that the ongoing recognition of the limitations of scientific knowledge goes hand in hand with scientists and engineers’ new comprehension of their role. Such an approach of technology and science “[require] technical professionals to conceive of their roles in the process differently. [They have to consider themselves as] collaborators in research and problem solving rather than simply providers of information and technical solutions”.

Competitiveness

Technology is properly defined as any application of science to accomplish a function. The science can be leading edge or well established and the function can have high visibility or be significantly more mundane but it is all technology, and its exploitation is the foundation of all competitive advantage.

Technology-based planning is what was used to build the US industrial giants before WWII (e.g., Dow, DuPont, GM) and it what was used to transform the US into a superpower. It was not economic-based planning.

Project Socrates

In 1983 Project Socrates was initiated in the US intelligence community to determine the source of declining US economic and military competitiveness. Project Socrates concluded that technology exploitation is the foundation of all competitive advantage and that declining US competitiveness was from decision-making in the private and public sectors switching from technology exploitation (technology-based planning) to money exploitation (economic-based planning) at the end of World War II.

Project Socrates determined that to rebuild US competitiveness, decision making throughout the US had to readopt technology-based planning. Project Socrates also determined that countries like China and India had continued executing technology-based (while the US took its detour into economic-based) planning, and as a result had considerably advanced the process and were using it to build themselves into superpowers. To rebuild US competitiveness the US decision-makers needed to adopt a form of technology-based planning that was far more advanced than that used by China and India.

Project Socrates determined that technology-based planning makes an evolutionary leap forward every few hundred years and the next evolutionary leap, the Automated Innovation Revolution, was poised to occur. In the Automated Innovation Revolution the process for determining how to acquire and utilize technology for a competitive advantage (which includes R&D) is automated so that it can be executed with unprecedented speed, efficiency and agility.

Project Socrates developed the means for automated innovation so that the US could lead the Automated Innovation Revolution in order to rebuild and maintain the country’s economic competitiveness for many generations.

Other animal species

This adult gorilla uses a branch as a walking stick to gauge the water’s depth, an example of technology usage by non-human primates.

The use of basic technology is also a feature of other animal species apart from humans. These include primates such as chimpanzees, some dolphin communities, and crows. Considering a more generic perspective of technology as ethology of active environmental conditioning and control, we can also refer to animal examples such as beavers and their dams, or bees and their honeycombs.

The ability to make and use tools was once considered a defining characteristic of the genus Homo. However, the discovery of tool construction among chimpanzees and related primates has discarded the notion of the use of technology as unique to humans. For example, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees utilising tools for foraging: some of the tools used include leaf sponges, termite fishing probes, pestles and levers. West African chimpanzees also use stone hammers and anvils for cracking nuts, as do capuchin monkeys of Boa Vista, Brazil.

Future technology

Theories of technology often attempt to predict the future of technology based on the high technology and science of the time

Air Into Water

 

 

Air Into Water

Johathan Ritchey has invented the Watermill, which is an atmospheric water generator. It converts air into fresh water.

This latest technology invention produces fresh water at a cost of about 3 cents a liter (1 quart). Originally designed for areas that do not have clean drinking water, the Watermill is for households that prefer an eco-friendly, cost effective alternative to bottled water.

Atmospheric water generators convert air into water when the temperature of the air becomes saturated with enough water vapor that it begins to condense (dew point).

“What is unique about the Watermill is that it has intelligence,” says Ritche. This makes the appliance more efficient. It samples the air every 3 minutes to determine the most efficient time to convert the air into water.

It will also tell you when to change the carbon filter and will shut itself off if it cannot make pure clean water.

– See more at: http://www.inventor-strategies.com/Latest-technology-inventions.html#sthash.us0CrFXa.dpuf

Car Gps Tracking

 

 

Car Gps Tracking is fairly common in new vehicles, providing drivers with tracking and navigation.

However, latest technology inventions have made car gps tracking systems more sophisticated, allowing for a wide range of additional uses.

Smartbox technology is one example of how car gps tracking systems are being used to lower car insurance.

A comprehensive recording of a driver’s habits allows insurance companies to provide “pay-as-you-drive” car insurance.

City officials in New York City are considering how car gps tracking could be used as “Drive Smart” technology.

Most large cities have a limited capability to change the infrastructure of their roadways.

A car gps tracking system that integrates with traffic information would give drivers the ability to select routes in real time that were more fuel efficient, less congested, faster or shorter.

A driver’s recorded routing selection could then be used to penalize or reward drivers by lowering or increasing their related licensing fees or by calculating mileage based “road-use” fees.

Eventually, such a system would replace gasoline tax since these revenues will decline as more vehicles become less dependent on fossil fuels.

3D Printed Car

 

The latest technology inventions in 3d printing are

rapidly changing how things are being made.

It’s an emerging technology that is an alternative to the traditional tooling and machining processes used in manufacturing.

At the International Manufacturing Technology Show in Chicago, a little known Arizona-based car maker created a media sensation by manufacturing a car at the show.

It was a full scale, fully functional car that was 3d printed in 44 hours and assembled in 2 days. The video below shows the car being made.

The car is called a “Strati”, Italian for layers, so named by it’s automotive designer Michele Anoè because the entire structure of the car is made from layers of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (A.B.S.) with reinforced carbon fiber into a single unit.

The average car has more than 20,000 parts but this latest technology reduces the number of parts to 40 including all the mechanical components.

“The goal here is to get the number of parts down, and to drop the tooling costs to almost zero.” said John B. Rogers Jr., chief executive of Local Motors, a Princeton and Harvard-educated U.S. Marine.

“Cars are ridiculously complex,“ he added, referring to the thousands of bits and pieces that are sourced, assembled and connected to make a vehicle.

“It’s potentially a huge deal,” said Jay Baron, president of the Center for Automotive Research, noting that the material science and technology used by Local Motors is derived from their partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Oak Ridge,Tennessee.

This technology can use a variety of metal, plastic or composite materials to manufacture anything in intricate detail.

People tend to want what they want, when they want it, where they want it, and how they want it, which makes this technology disruptive in the same way digital technologies used by companies like Amazon and Apple disrupted newspaper, book and music publishers.

Imagine if you could customize and personalize your new car online and pick it up or have it delivered to you the next day at a fraction of the cost of buying one from a dealership?

What if you could make a fender for a Porsche, or a tail light for a Honda, for a fraction of the cost of buying from a parts supplier? How revolutionary would that be for the automotive industry?

It’s already happening.

Jay Leno, the former Tonight Show Host and avid car enthusiast is famous for his collection of vintage automobiles.

One of the challenges with collecting antique cars is replacing parts. You can’t buy them because they’re obsolete and having a machinist tool the part doesn’t always work and often requires costly modifications until the part fits.

So Leno uses 3d printing technology to make parts for his cars. “These incredible devices allow you to make the form you need to create almost any part”, says Leno.

John B. Rogers Jr. believes that in the near future a car will be made in just 60 minutes.

The company is already organizing a worldwide network of “Microfactories” where you can order and pickup your personalized, customized car.

Batman Envy? Cool New Cars Could Drive Themselves, and Talk

This week’s CES trade show goes beyond robotic dogs, smart bras, and curved TVs. It’s unveiling smart, energy-saving cars of the near future.

 

Automakers are showcasing new battery-powered and hydrogen smart vehicles, including a car that will sell for about $30,000 and a futuristic one that’s so sleek it could be the envy of Batman.

These cars promise to go farther on a single charge, drive themselves (at least partly), or operate the lights, appliances, and garage doors of our homes. Some are just concepts that may never get built, but others like General Motors’ all-electric Chevy Bolt will go on sale next year.

We see the vehicle of the future as more than just a mode of transportation.

Bob Carter

They debuted this week in Las Vegas at CES, a consumer electronics trade show that’s gaining cachet in the auto world as cars increasingly become computers on wheels. At least nine automakers and 115 auto-tech companies showed their products, taking up 25 percent more square footage than last year—even though a major auto show takes place next week in Detroit.

“Automakers are seeing that technology is playing a bigger part in the car,” said Laura Hubbard, spokeswoman of the Consumer Technology Association, which organizes the annual show. “They don’t talk about themselves as auto companies,” she said in an interview of the shift. “They see themselves as mobility companies.”

So the companies didn’t unveil just cars, they announced partnerships and plans. General Motors will invest $500 million in Lyft, the ride-hailing service, to create a network of on-demand autonomous vehicles. Toyota named the team for its $1 billion research effort, in connection with Stanford and MIT, to develop artificial intelligence and robotics. Ford described how it’s using Amazon products to marry smart cars with smart homes so drivers can operate wifi-connected home devices.

Why Solar and Wind Thrive Despite Cheap Oil and Gas

Low oil prices are rattling stock markets, but investors remain bullish on solar, wind, andother clean energy. Here are three reasons why.

 

The prolonged plunge in fossil fuel prices is rippling across the globe. Yet it’s barely put a dent in the booming market for clean energy, heralding perhaps a new era for wind and solar.

Oil prices of less than $30 a barrel—the lowest in 12 years—have shaken stock markets and ravaged the budgets of major producers such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. Along with falling gas prices, they’ve slashed the profits of fossil fuel companies, which are delaying dozens of big projects worth an estimated $380 billion and laying off thousands of workers.

In Texas, home to shale-rich oil deposits, once-crowded trailer parks that housed workers are now largely empty.

But solar, wind, and other clean energy? They’re expanding. Last year, they attracted a record $329 billion in investment—nearly six times the total in 2004, according to a report this month by Bloomberg New Energy Finance or BNEF. Wind and solar also installed a record amount of power capacity.

Yet the clean energy revolution is not immune to market forces. In the United States, where gas prices are now below $2 a gallon in many places, sales of SUVs rose last year while those for electric or fuel-sipping hybrid cars fell.

“We’re not saying there’s no impact, but we’re not seeing a significant impact yet,” says Angus McCrone, BNEF’s chief editor. “There’s a lot of momentum behind clean energy.”

He and other experts explain why:

1. Prices have fallen as government incentives have risen.

Oil and gas may now be a lot cheaper than a few years ago, but solar and wind are cheaper, too. Since 2008, according to U.S. government data, prices have plummeted 60 percent for large-scale solar, and 40 percent for wind.

Solar and wind are “competitive in many countries,” says Alex Klein, senior research director of renewables at IHS Energy, a research firm. He notes they don’t compete much with oil, used mostly as a transportation fuel, but they do compete with natural gas, used to power plants that produce electricity.

Despite low natural gas prices, solar and wind accounted for 60 percent of new U.S. power capacity last year and will likely account for 70 percent this year, says Marlene Motyka, U.S. alternative energy leader at Deloitte.

Such competitiveness is new. “The last time oil was at this price, the cost of renewables was much higher,” says Jonathan Grant, director of the climate change team at PwC (also known as PricewaterhouseCoopers.)

Their economics could improve. “For renewables, particularly solar, substantive improvements in cost and efficiency are not only possible but likely,” writes Sott Nyquist, director of McKinsey & Company’s Houston office. In contrast, he says, coal is facing steeper costs partly because of tighter U.S. regulations, and gas is already using technologies that are highly efficient.

Solar and wind got a huge boost in December, when the U.S. Congress renewed their tax credits for another five years. BNEF expects this extension will add an extra 20 gigawatts of solar power—equal to the total amount installed via solar pnaels in the U.S. prior to 2015.

2. Demand has expanded, driven partly by public policy.

Countries are looking to renewable energy to meet the pledges they made as part of the UN climate accord last month in Paris. They agreed to cut the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that are emitted when oil, gas, or coal are burned.

Some, such as India, also see renewables as a way to reduce their severe air pollution. China is cutting back its use of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, even though it’s cheap.

Developing countries in Africa, where many people don’t have access to a central power grid, are pursuing solar projects as a quicker and less costly way to provide electricity. Wealthier countries are using solar to create microgrids that can keep the lights on when storms like Hurricane Sandy knock out the grid.

States and local governments are pushing low-carbon or carbon-free energy alternatives as well. In the U.S., dozens of states now require they account for at least a certain amount of their electricity. Hawaii has pledged to get all its power from renewables by 2045, Vermont has pledged to get 75 percent by 2032 and California, 50 percent by 2030.

I don’t see businesses stepping back.

Marlene Motyka

3. Corporate and investor support is strong.

Companies are making similar pledges. The Paris climate summit prompted a “tipping point” in corporate support, says a report this month from Influence Map, a nonprofit based in the United Kingdom. The report says more than half of the world’s largest companies now back steps to cut heat-trapping emissions and a third support putting a price on carbon.

“The corporate side is here to stay. I don’t see businesses stepping back,” says Deloitte’s Motyka. In a recent Deloitte analysis, more than 55 percent of companies report generating some of their electricity on-site, 13 percent of which comes from solar panels or wind turbines.

Renewables are attracting capital. A recent study by Goldman Sachs says the combined market size of low-carbon technologies—including wind, solar, LEDs, and hybrid or electric vehicles—now exceeds $600 billion, about the size of the U.S. defense budget.

Investments are expected to rise. Some oil-importing countries, including China and India, have saved money from low prices that they can invest in renewables. Even some oil-exporting countries are investing in solar. Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Kuwait are trying to curb fossil fuel use at home so they can maximize profits for oil exports.

“Fossil fuels will be here for decades to come, but their share will fall,” says PwC’s Grant. Even in the transportation sector, where oil is so important, he expects electric vehicles will eventually catch on—but not because of price.

Arfa Karim

Arfa Abdul Karim Randhawa (Urdu: ارفع کریم رندھاوا‎‎, 2 February 1995 – 14 January 2012) was a Pakistani student and computer prodigy who, in 2004 at the age of nine, became the youngest Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP). She kept the title until 2008. Arfa represented Pakistan on various international forums including the TechEd Developers Conference. She also received the President’s Award for Pride of Performance. A science park in Lahore, the Arfa Software Technology Park, was named after her. She was invited by Bill Gates to visit Microsoft Headquarters in the U.S.

Early life

 Arfa was born into a Punjabi family from the village of Chak No. 4JB Ram Dewali in Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan.

After returning to Pakistan from a visit to Microsoft headquarters, Arfa gave numerous television and newspaper interviews. S. Somasegar, the vice president of Microsoft’s Software Development Division, wrote about her in his blog. On 2 August 2005, Arfa was presented the Fatimah Jinnah Gold Medal in the field of Science and Technology by the then Prime Minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz on the occasion of the 113th anniversary of the birth of Fatima Jinnah. She also received the Salaam Pakistan Youth Award again in August 2005 from the President of Pakistan. Arfa is also the recipient of the President’s Award for Pride of Performance, a civil award usually granted to people who have shown excellence in their respective fields over a long period of time. She is the youngest recipient of this award. Arfa was made brand ambassador for Pakistan Telecommunication Company’s 3G Wireless Broadband service, “EVO”, in January 2010

Representation at international forums

Arfa represented Pakistan on various international forums, and was invited by the Pakistan Information Technology Professionals Forum for a stay of two weeks in Dubai. A dinner reception was hosted for her there, which was attended by the dignitaries of Dubai including the Ambassador of Pakistan. During that trip, Arfa was presented with various awards and gifts including a laptop. In November 2006, Arfa attended the Tech-Ed Developers conference themed Get ahead of the game held in Barcelona on an invitation from Microsoft^. She was the only Pakistani among over 5000 developers in that conference.

Cardiac arrest and death

 

In 2011, at the age of 16, Arfa was studying at the Lahore Grammar School Paragon Campus in her second year of A-levels. On 22 December 2011 she suffered a cardiac arrest after an epileptic seizure that damaged her brain, and was admitted to Lahore’s Combined Military Hospital (CMH) in critical condition.

On 9 January 2012, Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, contacted Arfa’s parents and directed his doctors to adopt “every kind of measure” for her treatment. Gates set up a special panel of international doctors who remained in contact with her local doctors through teleconference. The panel received details about her illness and provided assistance in diagnosis and treatment. Local doctors dismissed the option of moving Arfa to another hospital owing to her being on a ventilator and in critical condition. Members of Arfa’s family have lauded Bill Gates for offering to bear her treatment expenses.On 13 January 2012, Arfa started to improve and some parts of her brain showed signs of improvement. Her father, Amjad Abdul Karim Randhawa, said Microsoft had raised the possibility of flying Arfa to the U.S. for care.

Arfa died in hospital at Lahore on 14 January 2012, aged 16. Her funeral, which was held on the following day, was attended by the Chief Minister of Punjab, Shahbaz Sharif. She was buried at her ancestral village Chak No. 4JB Ram Dewali, Faisalabad.

Arfa Software Technology Park

On 15 January 2012, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif announced that the name of Lahore Technology Park would be changed to Arfa Software Technology Park.