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Blogging the future

A new kind of intraoral camera has been created that allows people at home to view plaque and tartar build-up without having to go to the dentist for a check-up.

According to the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, 12% of adults age 20 to 64 have not been to the dentist within the past 5 years. Lack to proper dental treatment can lead to many health problems, including tooth decay and gingivitis. Now, however, Miharu has created a way to save you a trip to the dentist’s office, while still keeping your teeth clean. With the Miharu Intraoral Dental Camera, people will be able to quickly and easily view plaque and tartar build-up at home.

The intraoral dental camera is powered only by a pair of AAA batteries and comes with protective covers, a 3.5 ft (1 meter) video cable, and a macro lens cap. The lens cap and covers also allow you to use the camera to check other parts of the body that you may want to check such as your facial skin, your scalp and your back. The device plugs into the television, allowing people to view their teeth on a large screen. Using the mode change button the user is able to see how much plaque build-up he or she has by illuminating the problem areas in pink.

Dr. George Freedman, DDS, points out that this convenient tool is used by many dentists in the office because of its convenient design and size. The camera can be bought for under $200, which is quite reasonable when compared to other intraoral cameras used by dentists in the office. Education is the key to good oral health, and intraoral cameras can be a very effective way of getting patients to improve both their oral health and their awareness.

More Info:

• http://www.miharu.co.jp/eng/

A new drivable wheelchair with the power of mind has been designed for people with severe neuromuscular disabilities, and can even be used in crowded or unfamiliar surroundings. To direct the wheelchair, users concentrate on one of several possible destinations in a 3D map of their surroundings, which appear on a screen in front of them.

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People pride themselves on being independent; it is one of our most prized freedoms as a human being. Imagine, however, being a quadriplegic, confined to a wheelchair and dependent on others for assistance. The Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Lab at the Polytechnic University of Milan has developed an innovative technology that allows people who cannot use their own limbs (because of accidents or congenital illnesses) to drive their own wheelchair using the power of their brain.

This wheelchair, named LURCH, has many new capabilities that other wheelchairs do not posses. LURCH, which stands for “Let Unleashed Robots Crawl the House”, uses a cerebral interface called BCI (Brain Computer Interface) – an electroencephalograph detects the cerebral activity, which is then analyzed and interpreted by an Artificial Intelligence program.

To direct the wheelchair, users concentrate on one of several possible destinations in a 3D map of their surroundings, which appear on a screen in front of them. Users wear a skullcap with 16 electrodes positioned around their scalp, which detect millisecond-long fluctuations in brain activity happening when the user looks at the point on the screen that coincides with a target destination. The wheelchair uses this map and its sensors to steer the user to their destination, avoiding any obstacles along the way. It is the only wheelchair design to incorporate mind-control in a system capable of real-time navigation, route planning and collision avoidance.

This wheelchair, which should be available by 2012, can and will change the life of many people with neuromuscular disorders such as quadriplegia, muscular dystrophy and multiple sclerosis.

More Info:

• http://www.english.polimi.it
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77KsE–Adp8

Professor Paolo Dario from the Sant’Anna School in Pisa, Italy has developed a project that will change the way we clean. The DustBot project consists of two robots, DustClean and DustCart that have the ability to clean and disinfect the streets, as well as keep track of carbon dioxide levels and air quality.

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We are in the year 2085 and our planet is covered in waste. Humans now live in a giant spaceship that orbits around the planet and life on Earth seems to have ceased. Does this remind you of anything? It is the world that exists in WALL-E, the movie from Pixar Entertainment. WALL-E is one of the last robots that collect garbage, and his mission on Earth is to gather waste and build mountains from it.

The future shown by WALL-E certainly isn’t assuring, and as we know, the waste problem is severe. Every year in Italy, a billion tons of garbage is created. Changing the situation is not an easy task, but there is a solution.

The DustBot project, coordinated by Professor Paolo Dario from the Sant’Anna School in Pisa, Italy, has developed two robots, DustClean and DustCart. DustClean cleans and disinfects the streets, while the DustCart moves around the city, picking up waste discreetly. The robots are equipped with a touch screen that demonstrates statistics about the air quality, and also has sensors which pick up the CO2 levels, oxides, and thin dust particles. The DustCart has a belly where it inserts the waste, and it debuted for the first time in Osaka, Japan, thanks to the collaboration of the bio-robot laboratories of the Sant’Anna school, and the International Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute of Kyoto.

Robots like the DustCart are projected to improve the quality of life for us, and also for the people in charge of waste disposal. The DustBot will bring the trash back into a warehouse, where the operators won’t be in direct contact with the garbage anymore. Humans and machines will work side by side in a way that is faster, more precise, and above all, healthier.

More Info:

• www.dustbot.org

A new iPhone RFID prototype has been created which uses physical objects to control media playback. iPhones will soon be able to play videos just by coming into close contact with a physical object, allowing us to take advertising and marketing to another level.

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When cellular phones first came out, were fascinated with the fact that we could now communicate without the need of a landline. The first mobile phones were enormous, and over the years became more compact and sophisticated. Although we are now able to access the internet and play video games with our cell phones, the technology is about to get even more interactive.

Radio frequency identification (RFID) is a generic term that is used to describe a system that transmits the identity of an object or person wirelessly. RFID is used in mobile phones under the term Near Field Communications (NFC). Incorporating a NFC reader into the iPhone would allow the phone to interact with other objects around it. If a person were to tag a toy and link it to a video on the phone, when iPhone came near it, the video would automatically play. Of course this is very basic now, but the potential for the future is huge. This could completely change the way marketing works.

Imagine walking through the mall and your iPhone would go off when going by tagged objects, or merchandise that is trying to be sold to you. Maybe there will be a way to personalize marketing for different demographics as well. It would drastically change the way that our cell phones help people get through daily life. Although this technology could eventually make shopping a nightmare (imagine the iPhone going off constantly), but one thing is certain: cell phones are undergoing another major breakthrough that will change them forever.

More Info:

• http://www.rfid.org
• http://www.nearfield.org/2009/04/iphone-rfid-nfc

Scientists at UC Berkeley, California have engineered materials that can modify the natural visible direction of light, and make the object appear invisible to human eyes. These 3D materials curve light waves around the object in which they are applied. Thanks to this new technology, it may actually be possibility to walk around with an invisibility cloak in the near future.

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It was 1961 when Stan Lee and Jack Kirby designed “The Fantastic 4”, giving life to a very popular series of comedies, including personalities that entertained millions of readers. Out of you readers, who has heard of the adventures of Susan Storm, the “invisible woman”. After around 40 years, the fiction that seemed to remain confined to comics, spread to scientific laboratories.

Some interesting trials have been conducted since 2006. Researchers from Duke University, directed by Prof. David Smith, created a “meta-material”, made from electromagnetic waves, which rendered objects visible only to specific detectors. In only 3 years, this field has taken a giant leap forward.

At the University of Berkeley in California, a team of scientists led by Prof. Xiang Zhang, from the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center put together for the first time a 3-D material capable of deflecting the natural direction of visible light through infrared lighting. Xiang has created a carpet cloak from nanostructured silicon that conceals the presence of objects placed under it from optical detection.

This discovery could contribute to further create a base material that will have an optic effect on images and render them invisible. A creation like this would be a hit with fantasy film fanatics. One can only wonder than limitless possibilities and applications that will come from this discovery, and hoping that not only the military sector will benefit from the innovation.

More Info.:

• http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/08/11_light.shtml
• http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/01/15/invisibility-cloak.html
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4zwzlnExVU
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQ-aLyiU_i0&NR=1
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja_fuZyHDuk
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeiFcJC7diA

The artificial tree—product of GRT (Global Research Technologies of Tucson, in Arizona)—holds carbon dioxide, thanks to an absorbent coating formed by water and calcium; but in contrast to natural trees, it is not capable of releasing oxygen back into the air.

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According to the EPA, the median amount of CO2 emissions produced by a family of two amounts to 13 tons of CO2 in the atmosphere every year, without taking into account transportation. We thought that we could solve the problem of pollution by simply increasing the “green spaces” and nature and let photosynthesis take care of the rest. Unfortunately, this isn’t an efficient proposal.

Perhaps some of you may remember the Sleipner project, active from off the shores of Norway since 1995: one of the many project developed for entrapment of carbon dioxide. Due to these activities it has been possible to acquire a lot of significant experience for the future development of CO2 recycling systems.

Professor Klaus Lackner, a geophysics professor at Columbia University in New York—interviewed in the video by BBC for the series “Five Ways to Save the World”—has in fact worked since 2003 on a car that would be capable of capturing carbon dioxide and transform it into dust, and in this way allow us to store it underground or in the ocean, lowering the consumption of petroleum or gas.

Lackner has also studied ways to store CO2 based on the process of rock weathering: when the gas that bonds to magnesium forms carbonic rocks that hold the carbon in a permanent and safe manner.

Lackner’s project is truly interesting, but the cost and amount of energy in order to capture the carbon dioxide is greater than what we could achieve by recycling the CO2.

Respecting the protocol of Kyoto, there is no doubt that there is a need to go down the path of reduction of consumption of fossil fuels. Above all, if we are conscious of the demand for energy coming from developing countries, and of the serious environmental damages and problems we will face should we not succeed in balancing our energy consumption within a few years.

More Info.:

• http://www.grestech.com/
• http://www.americanenergyindependence.com/recycleco2.aspx

Alternative fuel methods are springing up all over the world, showing that gasoline is not our last source of hope to power vehicles. Everything from electricity, to solar power, to hydrogen, and now: vegetable oil, has been shown to power cars just as effectively while also helping the world with pollution.

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Vegetables: often seen as health food items with countless positive benefits for the body, now can have a positive impact on the environment as well.  The following invention shows that when vegetables are manipulated to the fullest extent, they can be used for virtually anything imaginable.

The first ever race between cars was in 1887, the cars were mind numbingly slow, and the wheels seemed more like that of a bicycle instead of a modern day race car. Today formula one cars have intricate, powerful engines that can push the boundaries of speed to new limits. They all ran on gasoline powered engines, and lightweight metallic frames, until now.

A formula-3 race car made entirely from vegetables? The thought at first might be absurd, but one needs to see what James Meredith has materialized using this concept over the past few months. The vehicle has a two liter biodiesel engine that can run on vegetable oil left over from frying foods, or also on chocolate powder. The wheel has a carrot base and the wing mirror is made using potato starch. The list goes on and on, showing how every unique part of the race car has pieces of vegetable integrated inside: the body is made from recycled bottles, the seats from soybean oil and recycled foam.

If environmentalists thought the new generation vehicles could not get any greener, the vegetable race car is as environmentally friendly as it gets.

More Info.:

• http://www.worldfirstracing.co.uk/
• http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/

Washing clothes by barely using any water? As impossible as that sounds, a system has been put in place where environmental friendliness meats cleanliness. In the future, doing the laundry won’t be nearly as wasteful for our limited and precious natural resources, and it doesn’t include going to the lake and washing clothes like they did centuries ago.

The first ever washing machine was patented in 1858 by Hamilton Smith. This rotary machine accomplished the simple deed of washing away dirt from clothes. As the years rolled on, washing machines became more and more effective, being able to use detergents as well to make clothes smell like new, while also washing away stains. Now, theses machines are used in most households all over the world. But the environmental consequences are noteworthy, namely: the millions of gallons of water needed for washing machines to operate at optimum capacity.

Researchers at the University of Leeds have developed a washing machine that uses an astonishingly low amount of water. It only consumes a mere 2 percent compared to any other conventional washing machine. This technology is already being dubbed as the “virtually waterless washing system”. The process uses plastic granules that are mixed with the clothing and have the power to remove stains singlehandedly. This process is capable of removing virtually any type of dirt or build up, and when the clothes are taken out, they are almost dry.

The process being developed will have beneficial effects for the earth and water usage. Each washing cycle will lead to less build up at industrial sites such as wastewater treatment centers. As this technology spreads around the globe, fresh, usable water will be available for other services, rather than wasting by the gallon as it washes clothes.

More Info.:

• http://www.leeds.ac.uk/media/press_releases/current/washing_machine.htm