By Nick True

Executive Summary:

We are entering a new world of human body augmentation.  Genetic, chemical, and even technological resources can be used to customize the human body.  We are rapidly approaching a time in human history where human evolution is not limited or even dictated by the ‘selection of the best adapted’, because we can now change ourselves within our own lives consciously.  We are entering an era where humans can make themselves better, faster, and stronger.  It is no longer our genetics that determine how well we are physically adapted to the environment, but our conscious decisions and actions. 

A Brief History of Body Augmentation:

Humans have already been doing simple body augmentations for centuries, but so far it has mostly been superficial. Simple body modifications include body art such as ceremonial tribal decorations, tattooing, or piercings.  Historical body augmentations have been met with a wide range of cultural and societal responses, far too many to list here, and these augmentations have served just as many purposes, ranging from those of deep religious and spiritual significance, to mere rebellions against modern society.  They can be a simple as a simple ear piercing to as extreme as the following picture, where whole facial structures are changed.

Current Advances in Body Augmentation:

We are now at the beginning of an era where body augmentation is beginning to have true biological and even psychological impacts.  Steroids have been around for a near half century, and have allowed individuals to far exceed natural physical feats.  Belgium Blue cattle are a new breed of cow that have a genetic mutation that give them a very dense muscle structure good for  beef, this mutation or trait is now being selected by ranchers to create a new breed of ultra-muscled cattle.  You may be surprised, but even Lasik eye surgery is a form of body augmentation where the cornea of the eye is modified and reshaped to give better vision.  Cochlear implants are being used to allow some deaf patients to hear for the first time.  Many students and even adults are giving brain chemistry, and even personality changing drugs to treat conditions such as Bi-polar disorder, and ADHD.

Possible Future Advancement in Body Augmentation:

Now this is where it gets truly exciting; augmentations are in the works that allow humans to push the boundaries of human capability to unseen lengths, people will soon be able to augment their bodies in extreme facets that will change the fundamental way in which the world is interacted with.  National labs funded by the Department of Energy have created a third generation ‘artificial retina’ for the blind that allows them to see at extremely low resolutions, proving that artificial retinas can partially restore sight.  It is the hopes of this second sight project that in the next decade, sight can be restored to the blind that has resolutions similar to that of a computer screen.  There is also much work being done in exoskeletons, a device that is worn outside of the body that allows for augmented and increased strength, or even allow partial paraplegics to have motion again.  Defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin have very promising prototypes that have already been field-tested and show great promise, check out the video here.  A company in Japan is already renting out their primitive exoskeletons for $2300 a month, and in a bit of savage irony, the company is named Cyberdyne.  Video here

Executive Summary

We are facing a new frontier, an era where humans can modify the very way in which their bodies work to achieve goals before thought impossible.  As a great idol of mine once said “another glorious dawn awaits”.

Additional Resources

Belgium Blue Bull

second sight

Lockheed Martin exoskeleton video

Cyberdyne exoskeleton and video

Executive Summary:

Augmented reality is our real world reality augmented by technology.  This could be a very simple augmentation that we can hardly perceive, or something that changes the very essence in which we interact with the world.  This emerging technology is already starting to show up in many facets of our lives and will soon be invading on a much larger scale.  This will change the way we navigate our roads, compare prices at the store, and even interact with our flesh and blood friends.  -By Nick True

Example of Existing Augmented Reality:

The IPhone already has a functional AR (Augmented Reality) program called ‘Nearest Tube’ developed by Acrossair.  This program uses the IPhone camera, internal compass, and GPS tracking to show you where the nearest subway lines (tubes) or stations are in England.  When you point your IPhone to the ground, you see that patch of ground on your screen thanks to the camera.  Then, with the help of the internal compass and GPS tracking, the subway tunnels are overlaid on the real world picture of the ground on your IPhone, those ones out of the frame are represent by arrows pointing in their direction.  When you tilt your IPhone up to the horizon, instantly the nearest real world station is highlighted and pointed out if it is in view, if it is not, an arrow in the sky will appear pointing to it.  Then as you walk toward the station, you are given turn by turn directions in real-time.  Check out the video demonstration here.  Gone are the days of 2-D maps!

Another example of AR using the IPhone includes the application Wikitude.  This app works very similar to ‘Nearest Tube’ except when you look at a national monument, of point of interest through your IPhone camera it gives you information on that physical landmark that is gathered from internet sources such as Wikipedia.  So if you are in Berlin, you can point your IPhone toward the Reichstag and the application will use the IPhone hardware its internet connection to identify the Reichstag.   The application will then gather and display relevant information such as history, what it is used for, and other useful facts right along side the real-world image.

Personal AR products on the Horizon (or maybe just my wishful thinking):

Now, all these products I am about to mention are in their extreme early infancy stage, if not still on the drawing board.  The big goal for AR in the next five to ten years is personal, fully incorporated devices that are so integrated into our personal lives that we hardly know that they are there.  One vision includes using personal micro projectors (picture to left) to project images and information directly onto the cornea.  Images can then be displayed along real world physical objects.  This coupled with a micro computer and advanced camera can create limitless possibilities.

One possible application of this that I can foresee includes Facebook integration.  Imagine this: you are walking down the street and see an acquaintance that you do not remember too well.  The camera of your AR unit can quickly scan your acquaintance’s face.  The micro-computer will then cross reference facial data with your Facebook friend’s list.  The projector will then project that person’s Facebook profile data directly onto your cornea (so that only you can see it), voila, you now have all the information you need to remember this person.  Not only that, but other photos of them in social situations you may be familiar with can be displayed to the right of their real world body, putting how you know this person into perspective for you.

Other possible applications with this system include:

• Road hazards are highlighted on the windshield of a car before a driver can even see it, and an audible alarm is given to the driver.
• More information about what you are seeing: a word you are not familiar with in a physical book can be selected–a definition and other cross-referential information will be displayed.
• A song you are listening to can be identified and artist, album, and other information would be displayed
• When looking at a physical business or store, information will be displayed such as its website, store hours, menu, prices, and offerings would be displayed.
• An interactive number pad being projected on your hand so that you can dial your friend without ever removing your phone from your pocket.  See title picture from HowStuffWorks.

Last Thoughts

The future of Augmented Reality is extremely exciting, albeit a bit uncertain and hard to predict.  With Augmented Reality we will hopefully be able to augment every aspect of our life with more data relevant to the physical world around us and increased usability of the technology that already is so integrated in our lives.  Technology is constantly striving to become more integrated within our lives, and AR is the next natural step. At its most successful AR will become a sixth sense of sort, an ability we have without actually noticing its presence.

Last Links:

Nearest Tube by Accrossair

Augmented Reality on Wikipedia

How AR reality will work on howstuffworks.com

Wikitude by Mobilizy and Imprint

By Nick True

Executive Summary:

According to Wired (this is a link to my source article, go ahead, click it) the newest, fastest, most face-melting supercomputer known as Jaguar actually belongs to civilian science, not the military which usually dominates the work of ultra-fast supercomputing.  This computer achieves the great feat of computing at a staggering 1.79 petafops, or 1,759 trillion calculations per second.  This blows the previous fastest supercomputer out of the water which broke the petaflop barrier.  To put this in perspective, the computer you are reading this on probably runs at about 100 gigaflops, this means that jaguar does about 20,000 times more calculations per second than your computer

Background:

Since the 1970’s the fastest supercomputers in the world were used for nuclear explosion modeling.  The jaguar, however, is used for climate modeling.  This is significant because it represents a shift in what humanity is using its computation power; instead of modeling nuclear scenarios we are modeling climate.  This shift in our computational goals represents a larger shift in global trends, a shift away from using our scientific and technological resources war and instead using them for peace-time research.

What it means for the world and you:

The implication of this computer for weather and climate research is far reaching.  Alexis Madrigal of Wired writes:

This has great implications on how we use climate data and do climate research:

• We can now look at climate on a much more micro and intimate level.
• The more localized we can look weather and climate, the more accurate our models are.
• This not only has implications on our weather forecasting abilities, but also for our learning and research concerning climate change.
• Climatologists can use the terabytes of data collected from climate satellites to track individual occurrences of carbon emissions and even track man-made carbon as is moves throughout our atmosphere over days, months, or even years.

But, most of us are not interested in large-scale climate modeling, or don’t see it as affecting our personal lives.  This supercomputer, however, represents much more than just the standard progress of computational and technological power.  With jaguar our computational power is being used for peace-time research and scientific progress, not war-making capability.  This represents an essential shift that our culture is undertaking from being preoccupied with war and what threats us to larger and more peaceful goals.  As a culture, we are starting to shift away from being preoccupied and over-worried about what threatens us and starting to focus on what we can achieve.  This is a truly monumental change, and we are monumentally lucky to be a part of it.

Last Thoughts:

The future is upon us, we are living at the forefront of scientific and technological achievement and discovery.  With each passing month we are breaking boundaries of what we previously thought possible with computational power and data processing capabilities.  As our many models of the world become more complete and more capable, the more we will learn about our world, our reality, and possibly even ourselves.

Last Links/More Resources

Wired.com full article

Official National Center for Computational Sciences website explaining Jaguar

History of Supercomputing (Wikipedia)

Photo Credit- Wired Magazine Supercomputer Article

Super computers?…. We got it.

Augmented Reality?… Yep that too!

All the newest hipest tech-gadgets?  Oh ya, we are soo there.

Nick True will write about it all! So, stay tuned and we will bring you the hottest Tech Trends that everyone is talking about (well at least all our friends).  Ok so, ALL might be an overstatement too but it definitely will melt your face off*

*(that’s just a fancy term for it’s really cool to tech people!)