Breakthroughs and trends in the world of technology
Algorithms
Walking on Air
Taking computer-aided design to new heights, Italian architect Arturo Tedeschi and computational designer Maurizio Degni created Cloudbridge, a conceptual pedestrian span of delicate mesh that seems to float between two mountains. The pair set out an arbitrary, nonlinear path, and programmed dimensions, weights, and construction constraints into a computer. An algorithm then generated a 3-D grid that balanced the path’s asymmetric loads. “Before the algorithm computes the solution, the final shape is unknown,” Tedeschi says. The intent is to “reach an optimized structure where art and technique merge.” He envisions using digital fabrication technology to build the steel structure in clusters of square sections joined together. As for testing its strength and durability, he says, “We will rely on engineering and consulting services firms which have avant-garde laboratories to test the behavior of complex structures.” Cloudbridge has drawn the attention of Wired and Phaidon, a publishing house and blog specializing in art and architecture. There are, Tedeschi claims, “some interesting proposals from private investors.” – Mark Matthews
Image Courtesy of © Arturo Tedeschi
Sci-Fi Cinema
Artistic License
Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity, a 3-D thriller about two astronauts (played by Sandra Bullock and George Clooney) who get stranded when debris destroys their spacecraft, has drawn critical acclaim for its beautiful – albeit computer-generated – views of deep space. But some experts fault the film for scientific inaccuracies. Writing for Time.com, astronaut Marsha Ivins catalogued a host of errors, from the altitude of the broken satellites that cause the ship to break apart to the seeming indestructibility of the stars’ space suits. In an interview with Wired, Cuarón says he tried to be as scientifically accurate as possible but “needed to take certain liberties” to tell the tale. That’s fine with Cady Coleman, the real scientist/astronaut who advised Bullock about life in space. She told Popular Science that the movie “shows a lot of things very accurately.” She cuts the director some science slack because the movie is mainly a human drama that happens to be set in space, not true sci-fi. Coleman, who met Sally Ride, the first female astronaut, in college, also is ecstatic that Gravity’s popularity could encourage more girls to become astronauts: “It’s very meaningful to me that the hero in this movie is a woman.”– Thomas K. Grose
Image Courtesy of © WARNER BROS/Album/Newscom
Privacy
False Font
The National Security Agency’s ability to break encryptions and sift through email and other digital data has been in the headlines since ex-contractor Edward Snowden began a leak spree. Now another former NSA contractor, Sang Mun, has developed a typeface he calls ZXX that he says can thwart machine readers but remains comprehensible to humans. ZXX comes in four fonts: Camo, False, Noise, and Xed. Mun, a U.S.-educated South Korean who worked on codes for the NSA while serving his two-year military obligation back home, told Wired he was motivated to design ZXX by Google Glass – a wearable computer that resembles a pair of glasses – and other Google scanning technologies that he considers intrusive. Two computer scientists, however, told CNN that the fonts could easily be cracked, especially by the NSA. It might confuse standard optical character recognition (OCR) programs, says Matthew Green of Johns Hopkins University. “But if the NSA really wants to detect this data? Not really.” OCR allows Google and others to read and digitize printed words. CNN quotes Mun as saying that the typeface is “a call to action” that aims to “raise questions about privacy.” Apparently, it’s more an act of protest than protection. – TG
Image Courtesy of © Sang Mun/ZXX
K-12 Stem Education
Do the Math
PBS Kids, the public television network’s educational division, drew an impressive 80 percent of kids ages 2 to 8 with its lineup of Sesame Street and other popular shows during the 2011-12 season. But online games and mobile apps are drawing an increasing share of eyeballs. To help prepare children for kindergarten – and perhaps prime some for STEM careers – PBS Kids has launched a new show aimed at teaching math to tots 3 to 5 years old. Peg + Cat features a rounded-headed, red-haired girl and her feline friend who have adventures that require solving problems using math. Along with the program, PBS is unleashing a plethora of Peg + Cat online games and videos. Given the huge number of educational apps already available, and the head start in the marketplace that giants like Disney and Fisher-Price have, Peg plus her cat may have to count on quickly charming millions of preschoolers in a crowded commercial space. – TG
Image Courtesy of © PBS
Alternative Energy
Power Pathway
Sidewalks can soak up lots of sunshine, so why not put that solar energy to use? That was the thinking behind a new, 100-square-foot walkway constructed of 27 solar panels that was recently unveiled at the George Washington University’s Virginia Science and Technology Campus. The semitransparent panels can, under perfect conditions, generate 400 watts of power, which is used to illuminate the sidewalk’s 450 LED at night. The tough, slip-resistant panels were designed and built by Onyx Solar, a Spanish photovoltaic technology company that sometimes takes on such unusual projects as creating America’s largest integrated photovoltaic skylight, which sits atop Novartis Pharmaceuticals’ New Jersey headquarters. The university also installed a solar trellis created by Studio39 Landscape Architecture that generates electricity to help light Innovation Hall, a nearby building. The “sustainable Solar Walk,” as it’s called, seems like a bright idea. But will snow dim the lights? – TG
Image Courtesy of © GWU
Biometrics
Telltale Heart
Security systems that use a person’s DNA, iris, or other distinctive biological characteristics took a big leap from James Bond fantasy into the mainstream with the introduction of the iPhone 5S in September. The device features a fingerprint sensor to confirm the user’s ID. Just two days after Apple’s latest debut, however, a group from Germany’s Chaos Computer Club hacked the protection. That only stoked Toronto-based Bionym’s quest to take biometrics to the next level with some human marker that cannot be photographed or copied. Its Nymi wristband is outfitted with an electrocardiogram sensor that authenticates a person’s identity by his or her heartbeat and transmits the information to a computer or smartphone. Bionym’s founder and CEO, Karl Martin, hopes his device will not only replace passwords but also enable wearers in future “smart” environments to unlock the car or pay for a meal with the wave of a hand. – Pierre Home-Douglas
Image Courtesy of © Bionym
Remote Control
Hidden Hand
Recent passersby in London’s Trafalgar Square and Berlin’s Breitscheidplatz may have been startled to see an industrial-size robot drawing a portrait on a canvas. Was there a ghost in the machine? Nope. Each bot was simultaneously following the lead of Austrian artist Alex Kiessling as he sketched out the drawing — a portrait of one full face between two half-heads he called “hybrid head” — at a gallery back in Vienna. Kiessling claims it is the first work of art to be created in three different places at once. An infrared sensor was attached to his pen, which sent signals, via a computer and a satellite link, to the two bots in London and Berlin. Whatever he drew, they drew. The 33-year-old artist says it took him six months to perfect the technique and write the software for the project he dubbed “Long Distance.” Kiessling, who’s been fascinated by robots since childhood, says the project blurs the line between what’s original and what’s a copy. All three versions of “hybrid head” will be attached into a triptych, and exhibited in Vienna and London. Not, however, simultaneously. – TG
Image Courtesy of © Vienna/Alex Kiessling
Autonomous Vehicles
Home, James!
Are driverless cars coming to a street near you? Just five years ago, Carnegie Mellon University researchers unveiled an SUV that could safely steer itself at speeds of up to 14 mph. Google’s autonomous cars – a Toyota and a Lexus – began cruising last year. Then, in September, CMU engineers put pedal to the metal, sending a self-driving Cadillac SRX to whisk Pennsylvania Congressman Bill Shuster from the town of Cranberry to a press conference at the Pittsburgh airport some 33 miles away. CMU’s Caddie can not only reach highway speeds but also change lanes, handle traffic, and stop for lights and signs thanks to a computer under the floorboards that processes massive amounts of data from radars, remote sensors, and infrared cameras. CMU researchers say falling equipment costs will make autonomous cars commercially viable within five years, but consulting firm KPMG says this “profoundly disruptive” technology will hit the fast lane sooner than most people expect. Advances to come include radar, which now is heavy and requires the scanner to constantly move. A Duke University researcher has devised an inexpensive metamaterial that could produce radar images using a static scanner. While every major automaker is working on self-drive technologies, automatic collision-avoidance systems are likely to debut before driverless cars. Ford is testing a system in Germany that takes control of a vehicle to avoid a crash if it senses that the driver isn’t acting quickly enough. – TG
Image Courtesy of © Carnegie Mellon University
Biomedical Imaging
Aging Hipsters
Broken hips can be a life-threatening experience for seniors. In the United Kingdom, for instance, fully one quarter of patients over the age of 65 don’t survive a hip injury. To help reduce that fatality rate, a multiuniversity team led by biomechanical engineering researchers at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University is developing a diagnostic tool to determine if elderly patients’ bones are fragile before they suffer a fracture. The method uses advanced imaging techniques that peer inside bones on a microscopic level to figure out the quality and strength of the tissue. Current diagnoses are made using radiography that merely measures mineral density, but bone is not wholly composed of solid materials. A device that measures porousness and how well bone tissue at the microscopic level handles daily loads could help patients better manage the wear and tear on their bones throughout their lives. Having better insight into the state of aging bones also could lead to more effective treatments for breaks. – TG
Image Courtesy of © Yuhang Chen
Student Contests
Sky’s the Limit
NASA is always on the lookout for new aircraft design ideas, and it’s also an enthusiastic partner in a lot of educational activities, particularly those set up to encourage budding engineers. So it recently held a contest that combined the two missions. It asked students ages 13 to 18 to design one of two types of craft: either a next-generation airplane that used shapes and technologies to increase efficiency and cut emissions and noise, or a futuristic space vehicle. Beyond sketching out their concepts, contestants had to construct their designs using LEGO, the popular toy building bricks. The results looked very cool. The winner of the aircraft category, Claes Sundstrom of Sweden, came up with a hydrogen-powered regional airliner that could carry 189 passengers and cover 3,500 miles. It has a manta-ray-like blended-wing body. Judges wrote: “We can see this type of plane flying through our skies in the near future.” Britain’s Jay Semlis won the spacecraft category with his Sunbeam, an unmanned ship designed to probe the outer regions of the sun’s corona. America’s William Nodvik won the young student builders’ category for his Flying Extinguisher 4000 Fish Eagle, a tanker capable of vertical takeoffs that would be used to fight wildfires. – TG
Image Courtesy of © NASA/Jim Banke
Robotics
Tumbling Blocks
Are M-Blocks some sort of new electronic toy? Viewers of a fun video of the energetic, cube-shaped robots in action would certainly be excused for thinking so. But M-Blocks are no playthings. Designed by researchers at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the cubes have no external moving parts. Nevertheless, they can leap and roll and climb over one another, and link themselves together into countless configurations. Inside each cube-bot is a flywheel that spins at 20,000 revolutions per minute. When it’s braked, it creates a momentum that sets the cube into motion. The cubes have eight small magnets on each side, which they use to attach themselves together. Their edges are each lined with a spinnable rolling-pin-shaped magnet that enables them to flip themselves atop one another. Currently the researchers control the cubes using computer commands sent via WiFi. But they anticipate that at some point they’ll be able to load algorithms into the blocks that will allow them to act autonomously. Ultimately, it’s hoped that the M-Blocks can be miniaturized into swarms of self-assembling microrobots. But even at their current size, the MIT researchers say, the cubes could assemble themselves into useful, temporary objects — chairs or ladders, for instance — or be used to make temporary repairs to damaged bridges or buildings. – TG
Image Courtesy of © M. Scott Brauer