Tag: technology

Surveying technology

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/surveying-technology.mp3[/podcast] I’m working on a history of the Saskatchewan Land Surveyor’s Association—and, as with everything I work on, learning stuff I never knew before. In this case, stuff about the technology of surveying. The ancient Romans did pretty well using just three simple instruments: the groma, the chorobate, and measuring rods. The groma consisted of …

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The artificial scientist

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/the-artificial-scientist.mp3[/podcast] As I’ve noted before, the very first science column I wrote, ca. 1991, was entitled, “What is a scientist?” Last year I re-ran that column with minor editing: the answer to the question hadn’t changed in 17 years. But it may have changed now. That’s because researchers at Cornell University have created a computer …

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Programming matter

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/programmable-matter.mp3[/podcast] Remember the shape-changing T-1000 robot in the 1991 movie Terminator 2? It could disguise itself as anything—a policeman, the floor, whatever—and sprout tools and weapons as required. It turns out it may very well have given us a glimpse of a very real future (though hopefully without the whole Armageddon-like-conflict-between-robots-and-humans thing). Researchers right now …

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A Canadian satellite proves small is beautiful

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/canx-2.mp3[/podcast] Space satellites, typically, are big, expensive beasts, which is one reason we all cringe when one fails to achieve orbit, as happened on February 24 with NASA’s $280 million Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO). Complex satellites like the OCO, which was intended to monitor atmospheric carbon dioxide, are of course absolutely necessary for some tasks. …

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My recent Futurismic posts

I’ve managed to post more regularly to Futurismic in the last little while, so I thought I’d provide some links to what I’ve recently put up over there, should you be looking for more cool-tech-and-science blogging: Life-size telepresence robots make their appearance Universal Robots take over the world…on stage MIT researchers create cheap “sixth-sense” ubiquitous …

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Ten sci-fi gadgets that may soon be real: Part 1

As I have not exactly been shy about pointing out (Buy my book! Buy my book!), I write science fiction novels as well as science fact. As a science fiction writer, I have the luxury of equipping my characters with futuristic gadgets that don’t exist yet, but might some day. Now New Scientist magazine has …

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High-tech cooking

If you are my age or older, you still think of microwave ovens as pretty fancy high-tech gadgets. But microwave ovens (like me) have been around for decades. There are many more high-tech gadgets landing in kitchens all the time, and if most of them are currently found in expensive restaurants, that doesn’t mean they …

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High-tech cooking

If you are my age or older, you still think of microwave ovens as pretty fancy high-tech gadgets. But microwave ovens (like me) have been around for decades. There are many more high-tech gadgets landing in kitchens all the time, and if most of them are currently found in expensive restaurants, that doesn’t mean they …

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007’s gadgets no longer just fiction

A few years ago, I decided my cinematic education had been sadly lacking and I decided to watch all of the James Bond movies in sequence. (I was single then.) Somewhere in the Roger Moore era I petered out, partly because I was finally running into films I had seen in theatres, partly because…well, some …

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Milestones in musical technology

I’ve always had an interest in the myriad ways art and science intersect: not surprisingly, Leonardo da Vinci is a hero of mine. Few arts have been altered more by advances in science and technology than music, a point made by New Scientist’s Technology Blog recently when it listed five milestones in music technology (and …

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Mind-reading machines

Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. I’m a hard-line skeptic when it comes to the topic of ESP (extra-sensory perception). I don’t believe in telepathy, precognition, telekinesis, or people bending flatware just by looking at it. That said, I’m pretty confident that in the near future mind-reading will be possible. …

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Coolest microscope ever!

Download the audio version.Get my science column weekly as a podcast. When I was seven years old, I received a microscope for Christmas. It was my favorite gift ever, a window to a whole new world, especially when I turned it on pond water teeming with protozoa. Last week, scientists got their own belated Christmas …

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