10 inventions that could change the world
THE TECHNOLOGICAL BREAKTHROUGHS THAT MIGHT LEAD TO A BETTER TOMORROW.
01 Artificial intelligence
IF THERE’S ONE thing that elicits thoughts of the future, it’s artificial intelligence (AI). But AI is already changing our lives in more ways than you might think, such as stopping violence and flying our planes.
Driverless cars might hog the headlines, but in June 2017, Boeing tested an autonomous plane that could take off, cruise and land with little human input. Whether a self-flying cockpit would be trusted by the public is another matter, but most are already comfortable with autopilot technology, so who knows where this may go.
A company out in the US called ShotSpotter, meanwhile, has been looking at using acoustic sensors to pinpoint the location of gunfire during a shooting or crime. Machine learning confirms that a gun produced the sound and then counts how many there are, telling police what to expect.
These are just some of the many ways AI might change our lives in the coming years.
02 Hi-tech mosquito traps
WHAT IF WE could stop diseases before they spread? That’s the goal of Microsoft’s Project Premonition, which hopes to prevent epidemics like the Zika virus from taking countless lives. The idea is to use mosquitoes as the ultimate field biologists. By setting up specialised traps in hot spot areas, mosquitoes will be captured and then studied, analysing what viruses — if any— they are carrying. Ultimately, the team hopes to use drones to identify hotspots.
The traps have smart compartments equipped with infrared laser beams. When the flutter of a mosquito’s wing is detected, the compartment automatically shuts its door, trapping the mosquito for later study. An algorithm can then determine the species by scanning the bug, taking into account the time of day and the amount of light available, before the data is then transmitted to researchers. It’s hoped this can be used to spot outbreaks before they spread.
03 Global internet access
WHAT IF YOU could access the internet anywhere in the world? That’s the idea behind Project Loon, Google’s ambitious project run by its secretive X branch to create a global web. The plan is to use high-altitude balloons 20 kilometres up to transmit Wi-Fi to the ground, bringing connectivity to the remaining portions of the world that aren’t currently online.
Filled with helium, the balloons are about 15 metres across. Beneath them hangs a small box that enables the Wi-Fi signal to be transmitted to the ground. Running on solar power, the balloons can stay aloft for up to 200 days. It’s not yet clear when the service might come online, although a pending patent dispute may delay efforts somewhat. Originally planning to build hundreds, Google now says it can bring the system online with just dozens, using machine learning to direct the balloons to certain areas.
04 Pollinator drones
IT MIGHT SOUND like an episode of Black Mirror, but researchers have begun using insect-sized drones to pollinate flowers in place of bees. The idea is not necessarily to replace bees but to compliment them as agricultural needs increase.
Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan unveiled the drones in early 2017, which use a special ionic gel to attach onto pollen. The team flew drones that dangled bristles made of horse hair (like a bee’s fuzzy exterior) laden with this gel. In tests on Japanese lilies, the team found the drones were able to successfully begin the process of seed production.
The research still has a long way to go, but the potential benefits are plain to see. While we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to bee decline, this research provides a promising back-up as needs increase.
05 3D-printed buildings
SURE, 3D-PRINTED TOYS and tools are pretty cool. But printing an entire building would be a whole lot better, and that’s what a team from MIT is working on. Their robotic system uses a vehicle with tracks to carry a large, industrial robotic arm. A nozzle at the end can then be used to lay concrete or spray insulation, allowing a structure to be built up over time. In a test, they were able to build a dome made of polyurethane foam moulds filled with concrete in 14 hours, measuring 3.7 metres high and 15 metres wide.
The idea is that these machines could optimally build structures using on-site environmental data, such as giving walls varying thickness depending on which way they are facing. It’s still in its early stages, but one day, you might be stepping into a 3D-printed home.
06 Super batteries
A NUMBER OF breakthroughs in battery technology could lead to ones that are longer-lasting and charge faster. In July 2017, a team of scientists from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) came up with a novel solution to the former by using ‘molecular pulleys’ to increase lifetime. These held silicon inside the battery’s anode in place, allowing it to remain 98% effective even after hundreds of cycles.
In 2015, meanwhile, Samsung unveiled a new rapid-charging technology that could recharge a phone in minutes. They used synthesised organic molecules inside their batteries to achieve the results, with ions moving more quickly in these batteries than others and thus charging faster.
And if capacity is your thing, we’ve got you covered. In 2016, scientists from the University of Central Florida (UCF) revealed their supercapacitor battery prototype, using metal materials the width of an atom wrapped in nanowires to greatly increase storage capacity.
07 Smog-busting buidings
SMOG IS A serious issue in cities across the globe, threatening the health of many people. But steps are underway to tackle it using some innovative new technologies that can pull it out of the air.
One such idea is the Vertical Forest project in Milan. This pair of residential towers hosts 20,000 trees and plants to absorb nearly 20,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide every year and turn it into oxygen. The trees can also keep the temperatures of buildings down and filter out dust particles from traffic. Specialised aerial arborists scale the buildings to keep the plants and trees fed and watered.
Similar projects have since sprung up in China (the Liuzhou Forest City), Canada and elsewhere. While one would hope the problem of pollution might be stopped at the source by reducing emissions, these at least offer another solution.
08 Waterless toilets
WATERLESS TOILETS MIGHT not sound too appealing, but they could be a hugely important health breakthrough across the globe. More than 2.4 billion people live without access to clean running water, and approximately 1.5 million children die each year from food and water that has been tainted with faecal matter.
In 2012, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation sought to change all that, awarding funding to several teams developing waterless toilets. Now one of those, the Nano Membrane toilet from Cranfield University in the UK, is making strides.
Using nanotechnology, their device directly converts human waste into water and ash. The water is removed from urine by passing it through a membrane chamber and heating it, while faeces is burned to turn it into useful ash. The team are hoping to begin field testing their idea, which could be a game-changer for many.
09 Biodegradable plastics
PLASTIC WASTE IS a huge problem, taking centuries to degrade when discarded in landfills. Biodegradable plastics, however, could be a lifesaver. Using materials that break down in much shorter periods of time, the wastage problem could be dramatically reduced.
One idea comes from researchers at Harvard, who created a bioplastic from a substance found in shrimp shells. The substance is chitosan, a form of a polymer called chitin that’s responsible for the hardiness of shrimp shells. It is the second most abundant organic material on Earth, so there’s no short supply. It breaks down in just weeks, leaving behind nutrients that can support plant growth.
Another idea comes from the Indonesian company Avani, who have made plastic bags and other objects out of cassava starch, a shrub found in South America. Their resultant bioplastic is completely biodegradable and compostable. Looking indistinguishable from regular plastic bags, these might just be the future of shopping.
10 Advanced solar power
WHILE SOLAR POWER is becoming increasingly widespread, one problem is that solar cells are not that efficient, being able to convert only around 32% of incoming sunlight into electricity. However, that could all change with hot solar cells, which could double the efficiency.
The idea is not just to absorb light but to absorb heat too. So-called thermo-photovoltaics have been around for a while, but in 2016, a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) worked out how to boost their efficiency. They made the spectrum of the incoming light more useful for the solar cell, first by converting it into heat and then back into light. This is the first design to absorb more energy than a standard solar cell. The technology may still be a decade away, but the potential benefits are enormous.
HOT SOLAR CELLS DON’T JUST ABSORB LIGHT, THEY ABSORB HEAT, TOO.