Have you ever felt like your computer knew what you wanted to accomplish—and was determined to stop you from doing so? Right now, that’s just anthropomorphic thinking—but in the not too distant future, a computer may know what you’re thinking. It might even be doing some thinking—or, at least, data processing—for you, without you having …
Tag: technology
Artificial muscles
It’s not often that a three-year-old makes a significant scientific contribution, but one did recently–inadvertantly. Ron Pelrine, a senior research engineer with Stanford Research Institute International, wanted to keep his toddler out of the refrigerator, so he and his wife purchased a latch which attached to the side of the refrigerator with a special adhesive. …
Best of Popular Science’s “What’s New,” 1999
In 1899, Charles H. Duell, commissioner of the U.S. patent office, proclaimed, “Everything that can be invented has been invented.” He was wrong, as Popular Science‘s recent awards for “the best of what’s new” from 1999 reveals. These inventions and breakthroughs give us a glimpse of what’s in store for us in the 21st century, …
The bandwidth bonanza
August 30 was the 30th birthday of the Internet. On that day in 1969 a group of scientists and technicians at UCLA plugged two computers together through a refrigerator-sized box designed to let them talk to each other–and it worked. Originally involving just four university-based computers used by only a few dozen people, the Internet …
Airships (1999)
It’s one of the most familiar newsclips of the 20th century: the giant airship Hindenburg approaching the mooring mast in New Jersey, the sudden rush of fire, the announcer choking out “the humanity, the humanity!” as the Hindenburg settles to the ground in flames. Many people think giant, passenger-carrying airships died forever with that crash. …
Digital cameras
My wife and I recently returned from a vacation and, naturally, forced family members to sit through a slide-show detailing our adventures. There was, however, one big difference between our slides and the family slides I remember from childhood: my “slides” were shown on a computer, and involved no film whatsoever. That’s because they were …
Hearing aids
Hearing is a remarkable sense that most of us take for granted–but not everyone can. Due to physical damage or simple aging, many people have lost some or most of their hearing. Enter the hearing aid, a device for amplifying sound and directing it into the ear. The original hearing aid was the hand cupped …
Nanolithography
My roommate in university had a quirk that annoyed teachers no end: he had the smallest handwriting of anyone I’ve ever met. While I used big old Bic pens on wide-lined notebook paper, he was using fine-point mechanical drafting pencils on the narrowest-lined paper he could find, and still leaving lots of room for any …
Wearable computers
Computers have become so ubiquitous they’re in most of our gadgets and on most of our desks. But guess what? They’re on the verge of becoming even more widespread: soon, we may be wearing them. The quick definition of a wearable computer is one that is always with you (and always on), is comfortable and …
Biometrics
Are you fed up with having to carry 2,762 separate plastic cards in your wallet for buying gas, getting Air Miles, withdrawing money, renting videos and collecting frequent-ice-cream-eater points? Then you’ll be glad to hear about biometrics. Biometrics is the measurement of tiny differences among individuals for the purposes of identification. Fingerprinting is probably the …
Breakthroughs of 1998
New Year’s is traditionally a time of looking back at the previous year’s accomplishments. Every year brings a flood of new scientific discoveries, and 1998 was no exception. Choosing which to mention would is a daunting task; fortunately, the editors of Science magazine already did all the work. Briefly, I want to pass along to …