In an earlier post, Jack gave us a glimpse of real technological advance in mobile energy. The dream (…er, nightmare) of limitless energy is fast becoming a reality. The main problem, of course, with “quick charge” technology is the need for a power source. But what if you don’t have a power source? What we need are self-charging systems that constantly pull in energy from the environment around them to avoid the need for dedicated charging times. Turns out, that a new cell phone technology aims to do just that…using solar.
Speaking of energy, researchers at Tufts seem to have overcome a major hurdle for Fuel Cell technology. In fact, they think that high powered fuel cells may be powering whole cities in the not so distant future. While everyone has been predicting that the 21st century will be the biotech century, I’ve thought for a long time that it will be the century of energy revolution. It will be a revolution with great benefits (limitless supplies and unrestrained mobility) and great dangers (imagine what terrorists could do with no energy limitations). Watch the energy revolution happen, right here at Gadzooki.
But if the US is going to be part of that revolution, it’s going to need some bright young techies to lead the charge. Unfortunately, our school systems just aren’t training students for the tech economy. Our schools still emphasize how to analyze War & Peace or a Shakespearean play over how to analyze a piece of code or an engineering problem. Spelling doesn’t matter anymore. Just look at all the bloggers;-) Let’s update the curriculum already!
Bet you didn’t know that one of your neighbors isn’t really a neighbor. Huh? Did that make sense? Well, an electrical company in Toronto has been building electrical substations disguised as houses. Who knows how widespread this type of thing is? So, for all we know (now how many of us actually know our neighbors?) one of your neighbors might be a secret Microsoft Vista development team or maybe even a Google cluster;-)
In the world gaming, Nintendo’s latest handheld (is it their ninth or their tenth?) the DS Lite managed to outsell the PSP by 10 times in its first week of sales in Japan. Remember, the DS Lite is just a slicker, slightly better, repackaged DS. Nothing radically new. But the flocks came.
Speaking of the big N, looks like the Wii might be launcing late October. The word is that Nintendo wants to beat Sony to the release of its PS3. 3rd party release dates seem to confirm this speculation. Does this lend credence to the idea that Sony will come in 3rd place after two generations of dominance?
Looking for future tech? Check out this video of a guy’s Ph.D. project developing multi modal table top control. Don’t know what multi modal table top control is? Well, I suspect you’ll know about it soon enough. Not only can you control things by gesture and voice command, but you can integrate the two to acheive new control mechanics previously unavailable. Plus, whereas with a mouse you can only use one cursor at a time, with the table tob you can effectively use two cursors for spreading techniques, etc. Very, very nice.