10 modern technologies of a given year is a very interesting combination of technical innovations. After reading the article, I think I have to refer to each of these 10 technologies. Therefore:
1. 3D printing. A technology that has fascinated me personally since the day I heard about it. I used 3D printouts in implementation of prototype tasks actualy. Always sitting down to modeling or printing the task, I was wondering when it would be possible to print from other materials like stainless steel e.g. I heard that in Afghanistan, US soldiers were printing repair components for some military vehicles on 3D printers. The only thing missing was printing technology from other materials such as stainless steel. Maybe it is this moment ...
2. So, Dolly the sheep. We're growing up cloning and making - just a step to real avatars. Synthetic embryos, gene edition, SEXMISSION !!! Although reading Juliusz Vern, watching Leonardo da Vinci's projects, people also said - It's not possible. What to do with the ethical side in this project? Hm ....
3. Oh these new technologies, however, probably go beyond my little brain ;-). I read a book (six parts of this novel - the first one is Tunnels), in which a man discovered tunnels under his house. And there's a whole civilization. Transitions to every home around the world! At the end strange creatures that want to take over the Earth. Do we really want it?
4. AI is really a considerable expense. It is not surprising that only the biggest market giants took it. The average Kowalski did not afford such investments. I share the view that AI cloud can revolutionize the world.
5. Neural or deep networks are today's future. It is no surprise to try to make them think. But in this case I am calm, more than in the case of genetic modifications, probably still our humanity is safe. With emphasis on perhaps, because the development of neural networks is so dynamic that the thinking computers 2001 Odyssey may appear in 2020.
6. As I wrote earlier. Neural networks are limitless possibilities. We just need to learn how to use them or adapt them to our needs. Does appearance matter? According to my opinion, absolutely not! If I buy something, it's not because it looks like it's just because it serves me for something. The color of the car does not drive.
7. We should look for alternatives to coal or other minerals. Environmental pollution can cause major problems. They can get us or our children. Alternative sources of energy production are worth of interest. Sun, wind, and today it can only have natural gas with limited exhaust emissions. I will monitor this work of scientists.
8. Online payments, especially those anonymous today, do not exist, just as there is no 100% anonymity on the internet. The idea is cool. Many people want to be anonymous especially when making payments. On the other hand, it has become fashionable, for example, to pay ransom in cryptocurrencies. Is there not to be a wicket that gives the possibility to identify the recipient? Too much anonymisation can cause a lot of trouble and confusion.
9. Each new technology raises fear and fascination. However, burying in genetics is not an easy piece of cake. However, these studies give a lot of knowledge about the behavior of the human body and in my opinion, of course, should be continued. To the battle !
10. Quantum computers are the future. Qubits are the future. Recently I read that Russian scientists have withdrawn the qubit in time. Unfortunately, it can not be moved into the future. With three of qubits it was already hard - but they are trying. This technology and neural networks have to be developed.
The article indicates that very soon babies just after birth will get a certificate with all the information about their DNA results with information about all diseases and chances for suffering from them, as well as potential addictions and their success level based on how smart they will be.
This all can be done thanks to huge genetics studies that involves millions of people. All those results (intelligence, diseases and so on) can be easily predicted by checking few gens responsible for it, which are called “polygenic risk scores”.
Of course this are only predictions on what person should really be careful about - for instance if you have higher risk of particular cancer, you know that you should take annual tests and really be careful.
It is not only a benefit for those people but also a great opportunity for pharmaceutical companies who can directly offer testing new drugs on those patients that are more likely genetically to get sick.
As mentioned in article still those DNA predictions are not perfect, and there is a lot to improve. And there is a risk that someone who just "might" have a disease will take high-risk tests like screening and actually get a cancer because of the test.
Still there is an ethical problem that those results might be used for both good and bad reasons.
I like this type of articles because they collect very interesting innovations in one place, which we may have overlooked in the multitude of other information. I haven't heard about the possibility of printing 3d with metal and this creates interesting possibilities such as printing a replacement part for an aging car, whenever someone needs it. Since in 2017 such a printer cost $100,000 it is not yet a technology that reaches the masses, but with the development I think that the price of such a solution will also decrease. Another technology, i.e. the creation of artificial embryos, is a very controversial topic and may raise ethical questions. However, I believe that we must get to know the human body better and without such steps it will not be possible. I think that the development of technology that will turn the city into a smart city, is also unavoidable. In the near future the streets will be full of autonomous cars and more and more internet of things are being developed. It is natural that it is necessary to ensure the communication of all these devices and enable them to work together in the best possible way, I think that the development of the 5G network will also contribute to this. The development of Artificial Intelligence and its increasing availability gives more and more opportunities. In today's world we produce so much data that we have to use better and better technologies when processing them. AI can be used in many areas of our lives and we can try to use it to solve many existing problems. As far as Babel-Fish Earbuds is concerned, looking at the current development of tranlators and the use of artificial intelligence in them, translations are getting better and already make it possible to communicate at least partially with a person whose language we do not know. I don't know, however, whether it makes sense to make such headphones if we can achieve the same with a smartphone, which is currently owned by almost all of us. The creation of plants that will absorb the carbon dioxide produced by burning gas also seems very promising, although I do not know how future-proof this technology is and how large are the natural gas resources in the world and whether its extraction will still not be harmful to the natural environment. The topic "Perfect Online Privacy" is not so obvious to me, looking at current computer systems there is always a gap that allows you to breach this privacy. I'm not sure if we will ever be able to say that something is 100% safe. Reading and modifying the human genome is another controversial topic. If we are able to detect various traits and diseases already at the embryonic stage, whether it carries with it the threat of trying to design the ideal human being. As the example from China shows, there are already tests in which two sisters have been immune to the HIV virus. Quantum computer technology is also becoming more and more developed. At this point in time, it is expected to be about 5-10 years before it reaches a more mature period. However, this may mean that in the future we will have to look at computers in a completely different way and also at the problems that we want to solve with them.
This kind of articles may be inspiring in some way, but I always miss some criticism in them (as well as the date of publication, those breakthroughs are not so recent).
Too optimistic tone, very high level of abstraction and simplifications make them sound more salesy than informative.
If I was to focus on the specific part of the article, the idea of sensing city looks like something that isn't achieved yet, but there are many efforts on various fronts to make it real. In particular self-driving cars outnumbering manually operated ones is something I can't wait for. I find driving a quite pleasant activity, but being honked for respecting traffic rules is one of the most irritating things I experience in my daily life.
To be honest...when I first time read this article I thought that some of that information are april fool's day joke...but then I start finding newest information and get shocked! First topic was printing 3D metal element...I have never heard about this before. Maybe that isn't as important as printing human organs,but let's we think how possibility that get! We can send in space just printer with a lot materials which then will be changed in ready to use space ship (I know that this scenario is science fiction,but technology evolving so fast that we can't even imagine what will happen after 50 years! In the case of artifical embrions...I heard about it in the past,but it's to hard topic for me. We don't understand the gene mechanism,but trying make fun with them... I will skip some topic which aren't important for me and focus on Babel-Fish Earbuds...that awesome gadget! Very often I had to communicate with person which know only one language (nor polish nor english)and that was really really hard...If I had that earphones that would be much more easier to talk with someone and don't have to gesticulate to show what I need or what I'm asking. An only think which need improve is natural language translation algorithm, because most of us know that they don't working very well when the sentence are long or are breaking in half/mixing two case at once. Every year all algorithm trying to get better result. If they could translate well all language from the whole world then we could cooperate like one international nation and get better result than any in the past.
I will refer to the pedestrian sub-clause Using the "printing" method they will not make a shaft, combustion chamber or compressor/turbine blades. Every technologist before the practice will explain to you that there is a gigantic difference between e.g. casting and forged steel. And here we have a method of such pad welding. For the time being, surfacing is mainly used for the application of various layers - protective, abrasion-resistant and so on. But in terms of strength properties it is a hopeless treatment. In the case of aviation - it is more profitable to invest in good and proven technology, which will give a good strength-to-weight ratio and reliable, than cheap, but not yet proven. Aviation does not like technical novelties. They can produce one million engines, but until 20-30 years of testing in other areas, where reliability is not so madly required, so long as aviation will not enter (or otherwise - it should not enter, not without reason aviation is one of the safest transports in the world).
3D Printing is a very interesting technology. It helps designers to build prototipes to show investors and get money for final product. Using metal will help companys build replace parts of products. Artificial embryos are very intersting for the researcher. I think we play god. I know that better understandig proces of creating life could help people. I saw a film when people are clonening himselfs to repleace a part of his body. I have mixed feelings about it. Smart City is a good idea. It can incrase our life in city. Cars monitoring could help fast detect car crashes and call a rescue team to help people. Mayby an automous car could prevent crashes. A big problem is security of systems controling city and privacy. AI is a good help for people. It can help improve photos, calculating a best way to travel etc. AI for everyone is a great idea but we need be carefully using it. Many companies dont’t know how to used AI for improve performacne of its own comapny. AI could generate false results when we dont’t have knowladge about it. GAN is vey interesting. It could be a great tool. AI could be generate more realistic results. I think its a future of AI. All the technology mentioned in this article are vey interestnig and could improve our life. Earbuds could help us communicate with other person how speak different languages. Reduction of Carbon emission is important to our healthy and natural environment. The technology to improve our online privacy is a good idea. Quantum computers are very interesting and i think they are future of computers. Using DNA to tell taht some child will be bad for example in math is a bad idea. People can break limits when work hard on it. Everything is posible for us but we need is some case spend more time to do it.
An article with lots of interesting facts. Metal 3D modeling is not new to me because at my old university we have two LENS devices for 3D printing using metal powders. The question is whether small 3D home printers can be reproduced on metal as we already have printers made of plastic. Artificial intelligence does not cease to amaze me all the time. Soon, Artificial Intelligence will create another AI for any area of life and will use it themselves. An interesting concept seems that AI create training data for other AIs. It certainly reduces the time of data acquisition and allows for better representation. However, I would prefer that the self-driving cars of the future are also tested under natural driving conditions, because people on the road are unpredictable and it is difficult to generate such data in the vacuum. Playing with evolution and genes seems pure fiction. The creation of embryos from stem cells seems to be an abstraction and the perfect beginning of the path to human cloning. Like a picture from a sci-fi film where rich people can afford to create their clones that serve as surrogate organs in the event of some disease. On the other hand, these types of solutions may allow growing organs for transplanting purposes or allow the infertile couples to conceive offspring at a lower cost. It will also be possible to restore extinct species or to reproduce a population of species threatened with extinction. Ethical issues in this case may be very contentious, and what will become of this research. I also find the contentious issue of the ethics of providing DNA reports of small children seem to be disputable. The big plus is certainly the fact that thanks to this data we can prevent most of the diseases that may happen to our child in the future. Unfortunately, the availability of knowledge about the expected child's IQ is in the negative. As a parent, I would certainly be happy if I gave birth to a genius, or more capable than the average child. However, many parents knowing about the possibilities of their child from birth could exert too much pressure on him and instead of encouraging to develop his intellect, discourage him from too big expectations. When it comes to environmental issues and the use of less and less harmful gases, I am always happy that someone is dealing with such topics. We should try to reduce the release of heavy gases and exhaust gases into the atmosphere. The idea for a zero-carbon natural gas seems very interesting and I wonder if countries or large companies will start using it more widely. I am also interested in whether it will be an alternative to energy coming from hydrogen. Quantum computers are still an area of science not understood by me, but I am looking forward to their significant development. At the end something that interested me the most is Babel-Fish Earbuds. I would like to try them out and see how well they translate eg from Polish to Mongolian or Chinese. For people who like to travel the world, especially in places where English is not very common, the device seems to be the ideal solution. Of course, there is the issue of convenience of use and correctness of the translation, but it is always a better alternative than going everywhere with a dictionary, or translating it on a regular basis in a google translator.
THis artcile presents 10 most interesting and innovative technologies. For me the most interesting is one described in paragraph perfect online privacy. This tool is very important nowadays when everyone should be carefull about revealing sensitive data. Unfortunately as authors callaim it has computation-heavy and slow which may be a huge disadvantage for most of internet users who want everything to happen immediately.
I find the article very interesting, though some of the presented technologies seem of questionable ethics to me. Especially artificial embryos. Even though they can help better understand the human body, evolution, genetics, I'm not sure if playing God is the best way to do that. Some things should be left, as they are or rather should be researched in a different way, not posing ethical dillemas and unnecessary discussions and fights.
The article presents the short summary of the new technology which becomes more and more popular and widely applied. Personally, I am not a big fan of 3D printer but it makes me amazing constantly. When I hear that the 3D heart was printed I am shocked how fast the science is developing! Here, it is a link to youtube about 3D heart printing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4uidJgq7gA&feature=youtu.be The second described technology is artificial embryos. I think that is could be the new way to start the human cloning. Nowadays the human cloning seems to be like science fiction but it could be more imaginable in the future. If the scientists are able to grow human organs, the organ transplantation will be more developed and the patient who need some organs will not have to wait several years for transplantation. The another issue - The Sensing City project which seems to be very interesting for me. I have not met much information about this kind of city until today, when I read the presented article. I think that a lot of people may say that it is dangerous and scary. In my point of view, it could be a breakthrough in humanity so why not to try? The next mentioned issue is the artificial intelligent and the machine learning becoming more and more popular. The biggest companies in the world use the AI and deep learning for their applications. The AI and deep learning are very fast developing and the range of their use constantly increase. I am a little bit curious where the AI and deep learning will be applied within one or two years. The mentioned Babel-Fish-Earbuds makes the greatest impression on me. It is very amazing and useful. I love travelling and I sometimes travel the places where the people do not speak in English at all, so I would be glad to use this device to communicate with the local people. The next issue is topic which concerns zero-carbon natural gas. I am not an expert of sources of electricity but I think that it is very important issue to consider because the changes in the environment can be irreversible so the zero-carbon natural gas may be one of the solutions to improve the state of environment. The following issue is the online privacy. The private online payment sounds very interesting but I think if the people are totally anonymous, it may cause the problems. When the person knows that nobody knows who he/she is, the person can behave awfully. The part of the article which concerns the genetic fortune-telling is very promising. The knowledge about the human DNA allowed, allows and will allow to discover unexplored information and learn your body better. The last mentioned issue in the article is materials’ quantum leap. The appliance of the quantum computer could be a revolutionary solution in a lot of areas, for example: in chemistry.
Technological innovations are always interesting, especially for people who work in the area of technical sciences on a daily basis. Time will tell us whether these 10 presented inventions will actually be groundbreaking. My attention was drawn to metal printing because I have been working for several years for a company that offers a full printing outsourcing service. I agree with the author of the article that using 3D metal printers widely can be a breakthrough in mass-production. On the other hand, the still high price of such devices will certainly delay their mass usage. Unfortunately, the same thing happens with many technologies: they have to be cheaper to become widely known and available. Personally, I am waiting for an invention that allows a 2D printing but does not require any consumables - it would be a breakthrough: saving money and the environment...
Old news, and maybe just heating up the discussion about 3D printing of firearms. Much more interesting: Generative Design (for manufacturing): https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/generative-design/manufacturing (there are nice videos about it)
Artificial Embryos
Well, vegetative reproduction of humans? We don't need this technology yet, although it was the dream of one German doctor in the 1930s.
Sensing City
First Smart City, then a Social Credit System - I'll just ask if it has to be like this every time around.
AI for Everybody
AI in the Cloud is old news, but bringing it to the edge and IoT would be much better. I prefer Personal Computing over cetralized 'trusted computing, but I can see cases where it would be impractical to have a mass ownership of 'supercomputers' - which would be only needed a few times a day for a split second. Then it makes sense to pool and centralize, but individual freedom and privacy must be preserved.
Dueling Neural Networks
Another reminder I should do some playing with GANs. But - see above - generative design is probably based on something of this kind.
Babel-Fish Earbuds
Even less people will put any effort in learning foreign languages now.
Zero-Carbon Natural Gas
I'm not a chemical engineer, so I don't know how how much energy comes from Hydrogen and how much from Carbon in natural gas, but straight up burying it in cement might not be reasonable on a large scale. What happens if the atmosphere becomes depleted of CO2? This processing also needs energy, which will have to come from other sources. But maybe it'll be a form of energy storage?
Perfect Online Privacy
I think we'll have some rest from blockchains, and are stil recovering from the crypto crash of 2017.
Genetic Fortune-Telling
Like the authors - I think we need to be weary of temptations of eugenics, and genetic determinism. Also, what genes are best can change throughout the lifetime of these children. And by shoving the 'predictions' down people's throat, we could get a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' effect, perhaps far greater, than the actual predictive power of these revelations.
Materials’ Quantum Leap
I don't care about quantum computing at the moment. There are a lot of promises (the number of qbits will double every... something), but IMO, if everything goes perfect, it will be more like atomic clocks (a few instances here and there in the richest countries), and not like a PC (on every desk). Maybe it will be controlled like atomic waepons.
I think that the article is quite interesting due to the collection of interesting things in one place. Referring to some of the technological achievements, you can not look at everything only from the point "how it will be done, we will see it". Unfortunately, I am particularly concerned about artificial embryos, because this is not in line with my views and I would not like to refer to it. As far as 3D printing in metal is concerned, in fact the object thus made may differ significantly from the other embodiment in terms of its properties. However, the development of autonymous cities is actually a very good idea, for which the governments of other countries will be ready to pay a lot. Of course, I'm afraid that some of the new technologies will remain in the hands of such companies as Google and will not hit the market soon, due to the increased competition.
I have to admit that reading this article was surprisingly interesting way of spending part of my evening tonight ;) And as I truly like the idea - used in the mentioned article - of giving the description of new technologies in points, I think that it will be suitable if my comment includes some kind of numeration too. So I would like to give a little lists by myself - list of my 3 favorite technologies from these given above, and second list of 3 technologies that are not as interesting or doesn’t have a potential - in my opinion of course - to have a profound effect on our lives (as it was the base for the authors in the process of choosing technologies). Firstly, I will go with 3 best technologies for me: 3-D Metal Printing - I know, that it is not very new technology, but as we can read in the article, currently some companies are implementing solutions, which make the process of printing faster and easier. It is possible to print parts from stainless steel, and these parts can be lighter, stronger than the ones producing in manufacturing plants, and have complex shapes. What is more, it will be soon available to print the large parts also. In my opinion it is a great step to make producing a lot of things way easier then in the traditional manner. Thanks to that technology, new parts may be more efficient, more accurate. Moreover, in the future it will be possible to have such 3-d metal printer is the household, and then when something is broken, we could just print new part by ourself. Of course there may be a problem with projects of such parts, if the producers would make them free to download, and use in the process of printing, but I think that is the matter that should be considered later on. Artificial Embryos - this is the one invention I am looking forward to be expanded and researched the most. As we can get from the article, nowadays artificial embryos are mostly used to observe the process of forming embryos from individual cells, in the outside conditions. But studies on this issue could later lead to greater discoveries, connected with producing some human organs in the labs. Of course, on this stage it is highly unlikely, that human body will accept such organs and cooperate properly with them, but I hope that farther studies provide some answers to that problem. If it would be possible, than that would be one of the greatest, most important steps In medicine and fighting with diseases. Genetic Fortune - Telling - although the autor in this case wasn’t so sure of the importance of this technology as he was at other points, I think that it is truly interesting and useful.
If I could get such DNA card while having a child, then it will be only for good. The predictions give some prospective on disease, which the child is most vulnerable to, what habits he or she can have, what are the probable IQ. All of these information could be used in rising a child, for example I would pay more attention to check any early symptoms of diseases, avoid places and things which can activate bad habits or adjust activities to child’s IQ level. And as for the concerns brought up by the author - first of all, it is obvious that predictions won’t be 100% accurate, but I’d better know that I am more open to diabetes than cancer and focus on preventing this diabetes than don’t know at all what disease I could have in the future; secondly in my opinion it is good to know about potential intelligence level and I don’t think that such knowledge may be used for bad purposes. And after what I wrote before it is time for 3 technologies I am not so fond of: Perfect on-line privacy - mostly because of the fact, stated at the end of the point connected to that matter, that it contains a cryptographic key, which makes it easier to take it over and than have a free access to data secured by such key. Babel-fish earbuds - unfortunately problems given by authors, and related to the fact that such earbuds may not fit well with the ear and that there may be some problems with setting them up with the phone, are rather bigger ones. I really don’t like to use devices which are uncomfortable. And if there will be trouble connected all the components, than I would rather try different ways to communicate with the person using different language. Sensing city - this idea is really interesting, but currently I don’t think that it would be in actual use at some foreseeable future. As it was said, it is very expensive. It also demands a great amount of different technological solutions, and really specific links between them, and I am afraid that the world is not ready for sensing cities build on a large-scale. Also other inventions, like Zero-Carbon natural Gas or Dueling Neural Networks are extremely interesting, but I found more appealing the ones I mentioned above.
1 Metal printing - it's not new, metal sintering is well established process. Maybe the "cheaply" part is a breakthrough. 2 Second one, the artificial embryos. I find it amusing that interviewed researcher evokes magic, and at the same time shows there is no magic behind embryo development, just chemical signaling. 3 As for sensing cities, every time I read about such projects, I see no mechanisms to incentivise good players and punish bad ones. And also: who will pay for this. 4 AI for Everybody: while there are many AI libraries, there are two trends I like: emergence of common APIs (like Gluon mentioned in article) and trained model interchange. While training a neural network is computation-heavy task, using trained model often is not, and can be done on mobile and embedded devices. 5 GANs - the idea is so brilliantly simple, and yet created whole new class of architectures. But I see no "sense of imagination" there - just vectors in latent space. 6 Pixel earbuds. Once again life catches up to fiction. But automatic translation is really hard, and I'm afraid there will be huge difference is quality depending on language, epecially if some language pairs will be funneled via English. 7 Zero-carbon Natural Gas. I see it sort of like creative accounting: the plant will not emit any CO2, just "produce pipeline-quality CO2, that can be sequestered or used" - it's not their problem anymore. But there is a problem - the amounts of CO2 produced would be huge, and there is no energy-efficient way to sequester CO2 (which is obvious - we've just extracted energy from the fuel, to get anywhere with CO2 we need to put back in some energy). 8 Perfect online privacy. My personal rule of thumb: if it mentions cryptocurrency, then it's a hype, a hoax or misunderstanding. In this case, it's misunderstanding, proponents are presenting solution to trivial part of the problem, while ignoring the complex part. 9 Genetic Fortune-Telling. I'm afraid mankind is not ready for universal DNA tests. In almost every online discussion there is someone who confuses probability with certainity of cause and effect, or does not understand quantifiers and difference between data and anecdote. 10 Materials’ Quantum Leap. Now this is something! Precisely designed molecules, given we are able to produce those in quantities, might begin whole new era. But as usual - old problems will be solved, while new ones created.
Hello, It turned out that reading a lot, working with technology and being fascinated with all news, especially engineering ones, it is still possible to be surprised with the ideas and projects appearing in the world. Obviously, there are some topics in the article I didn’t find as new for me, as “Sensing city” – because the smartgrid idea has been fascinating me for 2 years already and my dream is to create at least small smart-island in my city, as city would be too much in Polish circumstances. I’ve taken part in international consortium spreading this idea, we’ve built two demonstrative centers, one bigger in Germany and smaller in Poland, working in island, remote and scalable systems, combining traditional energy sources with renewable ones. I hope this is the beginning and it will be possible to continue this idea developing process. Also “AI for Everybody” is the topic I am familiar with, interesting for the reasons corresponding to smartgrid idea mentioned above. The intelligent and renewable components work together in one intelligent, self-sufficient and self-regulating system. If we add ecologic aspects, we receive the ideal goal we should pursue to as society and humans. But apart from well-known for me ideas, I’d like to indicate those very surprising ones. The most fascinating for me is “Dueling Neural Networks”. I am really interested in gathering more knowledge about the way it works and what are the mechanisms ruling over this inventing idea. I’d like to go deeper with understanding the phenomena. Other topics, like “The Babel-Fish Earbuds” or “3D Metal Printing” are the tool which was probable to appear sooner or later. For the other hand, “Perfect Online Privacy” seems to be utopian ideal project, for me not so realistic. If we want to be anonymous, we should stay out of the systems at all, that’s my opinion in this respect. It was interesting to read about “Genetic Fortune-Telling” and “Artificial Embryos”. Such biological topics are very exotic for me, like fairytale, and those ones are very fascinating because on their potential meaning for us, indeed. Summarizing, very interesting article, many thanks, Best regards Marta
10 modern technologies of a given year is a very interesting combination of technical innovations. After reading the article, I think I have to refer to each of these 10 technologies. Therefore:
ReplyDelete1. 3D printing. A technology that has fascinated me personally since the day I heard about it. I used 3D printouts in implementation of prototype tasks actualy. Always sitting down to modeling or printing the task, I was wondering when it would be possible to print from other materials like stainless steel e.g. I heard that in Afghanistan, US soldiers were printing repair components for some military vehicles on 3D printers. The only thing missing was printing technology from other materials such as stainless steel. Maybe it is this moment ...
2. So, Dolly the sheep. We're growing up cloning and making - just a step to real avatars. Synthetic embryos, gene edition, SEXMISSION !!! Although reading Juliusz Vern, watching Leonardo da Vinci's projects, people also said - It's not possible. What to do with the ethical side in this project? Hm ....
3. Oh these new technologies, however, probably go beyond my little brain ;-). I read a book (six parts of this novel - the first one is Tunnels), in which a man discovered tunnels under his house. And there's a whole civilization. Transitions to every home around the world! At the end strange creatures that want to take over the Earth. Do we really want it?
4. AI is really a considerable expense. It is not surprising that only the biggest market giants took it. The average Kowalski did not afford such investments. I share the view that AI cloud can revolutionize the world.
5. Neural or deep networks are today's future. It is no surprise to try to make them think. But in this case I am calm, more than in the case of genetic modifications, probably still our humanity is safe. With emphasis on perhaps, because the development of neural networks is so dynamic that the thinking computers 2001 Odyssey may appear in 2020.
6. As I wrote earlier. Neural networks are limitless possibilities. We just need to learn how to use them or adapt them to our needs. Does appearance matter? According to my opinion, absolutely not! If I buy something, it's not because it looks like it's just because it serves me for something. The color of the car does not drive.
7. We should look for alternatives to coal or other minerals. Environmental pollution can cause major problems. They can get us or our children. Alternative sources of energy production are worth of interest. Sun, wind, and today it can only have natural gas with limited exhaust emissions. I will monitor this work of scientists.
8. Online payments, especially those anonymous today, do not exist, just as there is no 100% anonymity on the internet. The idea is cool. Many people want to be anonymous especially when making payments. On the other hand, it has become fashionable, for example, to pay ransom in cryptocurrencies. Is there not to be a wicket that gives the possibility to identify the recipient? Too much anonymisation can cause a lot of trouble and confusion.
9. Each new technology raises fear and fascination. However, burying in genetics is not an easy piece of cake. However, these studies give a lot of knowledge about the behavior of the human body and in my opinion, of course, should be continued. To the battle !
10. Quantum computers are the future. Qubits are the future. Recently I read that Russian scientists have withdrawn the qubit in time. Unfortunately, it can not be moved into the future. With three of qubits it was already hard - but they are trying. This technology and neural networks have to be developed.
"Genetic Fortune-Telling"
ReplyDeleteThe article indicates that very soon babies just after birth will get a certificate with all the information about their DNA results with information about all diseases and chances for suffering from them, as well as potential addictions and their success level based on how smart they will be.
This all can be done thanks to huge genetics studies that involves millions of people. All those results (intelligence, diseases and so on) can be easily predicted by checking few gens responsible for it, which are called “polygenic risk scores”.
Of course this are only predictions on what person should really be careful about - for instance if you have higher risk of particular cancer, you know that you should take annual tests and really be careful.
It is not only a benefit for those people but also a great opportunity for pharmaceutical companies who can directly offer testing new drugs on those patients that are more likely genetically to get sick.
As mentioned in article still those DNA predictions are not perfect, and there is a lot to improve. And there is a risk that someone who just "might" have a disease will take high-risk tests like screening and actually get a cancer because of the test.
Still there is an ethical problem that those results might be used for both good and bad reasons.
I like this type of articles because they collect very interesting innovations in one place, which we may have overlooked in the multitude of other information. I haven't heard about the possibility of printing 3d with metal and this creates interesting possibilities such as printing a replacement part for an aging car, whenever someone needs it. Since in 2017 such a printer cost $100,000 it is not yet a technology that reaches the masses, but with the development I think that the price of such a solution will also decrease. Another technology, i.e. the creation of artificial embryos, is a very controversial topic and may raise ethical questions. However, I believe that we must get to know the human body better and without such steps it will not be possible. I think that the development of technology that will turn the city into a smart city, is also unavoidable. In the near future the streets will be full of autonomous cars and more and more internet of things are being developed. It is natural that it is necessary to ensure the communication of all these devices and enable them to work together in the best possible way, I think that the development of the 5G network will also contribute to this. The development of Artificial Intelligence and its increasing availability gives more and more opportunities. In today's world we produce so much data that we have to use better and better technologies when processing them. AI can be used in many areas of our lives and we can try to use it to solve many existing problems. As far as Babel-Fish Earbuds is concerned, looking at the current development of tranlators and the use of artificial intelligence in them, translations are getting better and already make it possible to communicate at least partially with a person whose language we do not know. I don't know, however, whether it makes sense to make such headphones if we can achieve the same with a smartphone, which is currently owned by almost all of us. The creation of plants that will absorb the carbon dioxide produced by burning gas also seems very promising, although I do not know how future-proof this technology is and how large are the natural gas resources in the world and whether its extraction will still not be harmful to the natural environment. The topic "Perfect Online Privacy" is not so obvious to me, looking at current computer systems there is always a gap that allows you to breach this privacy. I'm not sure if we will ever be able to say that something is 100% safe. Reading and modifying the human genome is another controversial topic. If we are able to detect various traits and diseases already at the embryonic stage, whether it carries with it the threat of trying to design the ideal human being. As the example from China shows, there are already tests in which two sisters have been immune to the HIV virus. Quantum computer technology is also becoming more and more developed. At this point in time, it is expected to be about 5-10 years before it reaches a more mature period. However, this may mean that in the future we will have to look at computers in a completely different way and also at the problems that we want to solve with them.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of articles may be inspiring in some way, but I always miss some criticism in them (as well as the date of publication, those breakthroughs are not so recent).
ReplyDeleteToo optimistic tone, very high level of abstraction and simplifications make them sound more salesy than informative.
If I was to focus on the specific part of the article, the idea of sensing city looks like something that isn't achieved yet, but there are many efforts on various fronts to make it real. In particular self-driving cars outnumbering manually operated ones is something I can't wait for. I find driving a quite pleasant activity, but being honked for respecting traffic rules is one of the most irritating things I experience in my daily life.
To be honest...when I first time read this article I thought that some of that information are april fool's day joke...but then I start finding newest information and get shocked!
ReplyDeleteFirst topic was printing 3D metal element...I have never heard about this before. Maybe that isn't as important as printing human organs,but let's we think how possibility that get! We can send in space just printer with a lot materials which then will be changed in ready to use space ship (I know that this scenario is science fiction,but technology evolving so fast that we can't even imagine what will happen after 50 years!
In the case of artifical embrions...I heard about it in the past,but it's to hard topic for me. We don't understand the gene mechanism,but trying make fun with them...
I will skip some topic which aren't important for me and focus on Babel-Fish Earbuds...that awesome gadget! Very often I had to communicate with person which know only one language (nor polish nor english)and that was really really hard...If I had that earphones that would be much more easier to talk with someone and don't have to gesticulate to show what I need or what I'm asking. An only think which need improve is natural language translation algorithm, because most of us know that they don't working very well when the sentence are long or are breaking in half/mixing two case at once. Every year all algorithm trying to get better result. If they could translate well all language from the whole world then we could cooperate like one international nation and get better result than any in the past.
ReplyDeleteI will refer to the pedestrian sub-clause Using the "printing" method they will not make a shaft, combustion chamber or compressor/turbine blades. Every technologist before the practice will explain to you that there is a gigantic difference between e.g. casting and forged steel. And here we have a method of such pad welding. For the time being, surfacing is mainly used for the application of various layers - protective, abrasion-resistant and so on. But in terms of strength properties it is a hopeless treatment. In the case of aviation - it is more profitable to invest in good and proven technology, which will give a good strength-to-weight ratio and reliable, than cheap, but not yet proven. Aviation does not like technical novelties. They can produce one million engines, but until 20-30 years of testing in other areas, where reliability is not so madly required, so long as aviation will not enter (or otherwise - it should not enter, not without reason aviation is one of the safest transports in the world).
3D Printing is a very interesting technology. It helps designers to build prototipes to show investors and get money for final product. Using metal will help companys build replace parts of products.
ReplyDeleteArtificial embryos are very intersting for the researcher. I think we play god. I know that better understandig proces of creating life could help people. I saw a film when people are clonening himselfs to repleace a part of his body. I have mixed feelings about it.
Smart City is a good idea. It can incrase our life in city. Cars monitoring could help fast detect car crashes and call a rescue team to help people. Mayby an automous car could prevent crashes. A big problem is security of systems controling city and privacy.
AI is a good help for people. It can help improve photos, calculating a best way to travel etc. AI for everyone is a great idea but we need be carefully using it. Many companies dont’t know how to used AI for improve performacne of its own comapny. AI could generate false results when we dont’t have knowladge about it.
GAN is vey interesting. It could be a great tool. AI could be generate more realistic results. I think its a future of AI.
All the technology mentioned in this article are vey interestnig and could improve our life. Earbuds could help us communicate with other person how speak different languages. Reduction of Carbon emission is important to our healthy and natural environment. The technology to improve our online privacy is a good idea. Quantum computers are very interesting and i think they are future of computers. Using DNA to tell taht some child will be bad for example in math is a bad idea. People can break limits when work hard on it. Everything is posible for us but we need is some case spend more time to do it.
An article with lots of interesting facts. Metal 3D modeling is not new to me because at my old university we have two LENS devices for 3D printing using metal powders. The question is whether small 3D home printers can be reproduced on metal as we already have printers made of plastic.
ReplyDeleteArtificial intelligence does not cease to amaze me all the time. Soon, Artificial Intelligence will create another AI for any area of life and will use it themselves. An interesting concept seems that AI create training data for other AIs. It certainly reduces the time of data acquisition and allows for better representation. However, I would prefer that the self-driving cars of the future are also tested under natural driving conditions, because people on the road are unpredictable and it is difficult to generate such data in the vacuum.
Playing with evolution and genes seems pure fiction. The creation of embryos from stem cells seems to be an abstraction and the perfect beginning of the path to human cloning. Like a picture from a sci-fi film where rich people can afford to create their clones that serve as surrogate organs in the event of some disease. On the other hand, these types of solutions may allow growing organs for transplanting purposes or allow the infertile couples to conceive offspring at a lower cost. It will also be possible to restore extinct species or to reproduce a population of species threatened with extinction. Ethical issues in this case may be very contentious, and what will become of this research. I also find the contentious issue of the ethics of providing DNA reports of small children seem to be disputable. The big plus is certainly the fact that thanks to this data we can prevent most of the diseases that may happen to our child in the future. Unfortunately, the availability of knowledge about the expected child's IQ is in the negative. As a parent, I would certainly be happy if I gave birth to a genius, or more capable than the average child. However, many parents knowing about the possibilities of their child from birth could exert too much pressure on him and instead of encouraging to develop his intellect, discourage him from too big expectations.
When it comes to environmental issues and the use of less and less harmful gases, I am always happy that someone is dealing with such topics. We should try to reduce the release of heavy gases and exhaust gases into the atmosphere. The idea for a zero-carbon natural gas seems very interesting and I wonder if countries or large companies will start using it more widely. I am also interested in whether it will be an alternative to energy coming from hydrogen.
Quantum computers are still an area of science not understood by me, but I am looking forward to their significant development.
At the end something that interested me the most is Babel-Fish Earbuds. I would like to try them out and see how well they translate eg from Polish to Mongolian or Chinese. For people who like to travel the world, especially in places where English is not very common, the device seems to be the ideal solution. Of course, there is the issue of convenience of use and correctness of the translation, but it is always a better alternative than going everywhere with a dictionary, or translating it on a regular basis in a google translator.
THis artcile presents 10 most interesting and innovative technologies. For me the most interesting is one described in paragraph perfect online privacy. This tool is very important nowadays when everyone should be carefull about revealing sensitive data. Unfortunately as authors callaim it has computation-heavy and slow which may be a huge disadvantage for most of internet users who want everything to happen immediately.
ReplyDeleteI find the article very interesting, though some of the presented technologies seem of questionable ethics to me. Especially artificial embryos. Even though they can help better understand the human body, evolution, genetics, I'm not sure if playing God is the best way to do that. Some things should be left, as they are or rather should be researched in a different way, not posing ethical dillemas and unnecessary discussions and fights.
ReplyDeleteThe article presents the short summary of the new technology which becomes more and more popular and widely applied.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I am not a big fan of 3D printer but it makes me amazing constantly. When I hear that the 3D heart was printed I am shocked how fast the science is developing! Here, it is a link to youtube about 3D heart printing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4uidJgq7gA&feature=youtu.be
The second described technology is artificial embryos. I think that is could be the new way to start the human cloning. Nowadays the human cloning seems to be like science fiction but it could be more imaginable in the future. If the scientists are able to grow human organs, the organ transplantation will be more developed and the patient who need some organs will not have to wait several years for transplantation.
The another issue - The Sensing City project which seems to be very interesting for me. I have not met much information about this kind of city until today, when I read the presented article. I think that a lot of people may say that it is dangerous and scary. In my point of view, it could be a breakthrough in humanity so why not to try?
The next mentioned issue is the artificial intelligent and the machine learning becoming more and more popular. The biggest companies in the world use the AI and deep learning for their applications. The AI and deep learning are very fast developing and the range of their use constantly increase. I am a little bit curious where the AI and deep learning will be applied within one or two years.
The mentioned Babel-Fish-Earbuds makes the greatest impression on me. It is very amazing and useful. I love travelling and I sometimes travel the places where the people do not speak in English at all, so I would be glad to use this device to communicate with the local people.
The next issue is topic which concerns zero-carbon natural gas. I am not an expert of sources of electricity but I think that it is very important issue to consider because the changes in the environment can be irreversible so the zero-carbon natural gas may be one of the solutions to improve the state of environment.
The following issue is the online privacy. The private online payment sounds very interesting but I think if the people are totally anonymous, it may cause the problems. When the person knows that nobody knows who he/she is, the person can behave awfully.
The part of the article which concerns the genetic fortune-telling is very promising. The knowledge about the human DNA allowed, allows and will allow to discover unexplored information and learn your body better.
The last mentioned issue in the article is materials’ quantum leap. The appliance of the quantum computer could be a revolutionary solution in a lot of areas, for example: in chemistry.
Technological innovations are always interesting, especially for people who work in the area of technical sciences on a daily basis. Time will tell us whether these 10 presented inventions will actually be groundbreaking.
ReplyDeleteMy attention was drawn to metal printing because I have been working for several years for a company that offers a full printing outsourcing service. I agree with the author of the article that using 3D metal printers widely can be a breakthrough in mass-production. On the other hand, the still high price of such devices will certainly delay their mass usage. Unfortunately, the same thing happens with many technologies: they have to be cheaper to become widely known and available. Personally, I am waiting for an invention that allows a 2D printing but does not require any consumables - it would be a breakthrough: saving money and the environment...
3-D Metal Printing
ReplyDeleteOld news, and maybe just heating up the discussion about 3D printing of firearms.
Much more interesting: Generative Design (for manufacturing):
https://www.autodesk.com/solutions/generative-design/manufacturing
(there are nice videos about it)
Artificial Embryos
Well, vegetative reproduction of humans? We don't need this technology yet, although it was the dream of one German doctor in the 1930s.
Sensing City
First Smart City, then a Social Credit System - I'll just ask if it has to be like this every time around.
AI for Everybody
AI in the Cloud is old news, but bringing it to the edge and IoT would be much better. I prefer Personal Computing over cetralized 'trusted computing, but I can see cases where it would be impractical to have a mass ownership of 'supercomputers' - which would be only needed a few times a day for a split second. Then it makes sense to pool and centralize, but individual freedom and privacy must be preserved.
Dueling Neural Networks
Another reminder I should do some playing with GANs. But - see above - generative design is probably based on something of this kind.
Babel-Fish Earbuds
Even less people will put any effort in learning foreign languages now.
Zero-Carbon Natural Gas
I'm not a chemical engineer, so I don't know how how much energy comes from Hydrogen and how much from Carbon in natural gas, but straight up burying it in cement might not be reasonable on a large scale. What happens if the atmosphere becomes depleted of CO2? This processing also needs energy, which will have to come from other sources. But maybe it'll be a form of energy storage?
Perfect Online Privacy
I think we'll have some rest from blockchains, and are stil recovering from the crypto crash of 2017.
Genetic Fortune-Telling
Like the authors - I think we need to be weary of temptations of eugenics, and genetic determinism. Also, what genes are best can change throughout the lifetime of these children. And by shoving the 'predictions' down people's throat, we could get a 'self-fulfilling prophecy' effect, perhaps far greater, than the actual predictive power of these revelations.
Materials’ Quantum Leap
I don't care about quantum computing at the moment. There are a lot of promises (the number of qbits will double every... something), but IMO, if everything goes perfect, it will be more like atomic clocks (a few instances here and there in the richest countries), and not like a PC (on every desk). Maybe it will be controlled like atomic waepons.
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ReplyDeleteI think that the article is quite interesting due to the collection of interesting things in one place. Referring to some of the technological achievements, you can not look at everything only from the point "how it will be done, we will see it". Unfortunately, I am particularly concerned about artificial embryos, because this is not in line with my views and I would not like to refer to it. As far as 3D printing in metal is concerned, in fact the object thus made may differ significantly from the other embodiment in terms of its properties. However, the development of autonymous cities is actually a very good idea, for which the governments of other countries will be ready to pay a lot. Of course, I'm afraid that some of the new technologies will remain in the hands of such companies as Google and will not hit the market soon, due to the increased competition.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit that reading this article was surprisingly interesting way of spending part of my evening tonight ;) And as I truly like the idea - used in the mentioned article - of giving the description of new technologies in points, I think that it will be suitable if my comment includes some kind of numeration too. So I would like to give a little lists by myself - list of my 3 favorite technologies from these given above, and second list of 3 technologies that are not as interesting or doesn’t have a potential - in my opinion of course - to have a profound effect on our lives (as it was the base for the authors in the process of choosing technologies).
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I will go with 3 best technologies for me:
3-D Metal Printing - I know, that it is not very new technology, but as we can read in the article, currently some companies are implementing solutions, which make the process of printing faster and easier. It is possible to print parts from stainless steel, and these parts can be lighter, stronger than the ones producing in manufacturing plants, and have complex shapes. What is more, it will be soon available to print the large parts also. In my opinion it is a great step to make producing a lot of things way easier then in the traditional manner. Thanks to that technology, new parts may be more efficient, more accurate. Moreover, in the future it will be possible to have such 3-d metal printer is the household, and then when something is broken, we could just print new part by ourself. Of course there may be a problem with projects of such parts, if the producers would make them free to download, and use in the process of printing, but I think that is the matter that should be considered later on.
Artificial Embryos - this is the one invention I am looking forward to be expanded and researched the most. As we can get from the article, nowadays artificial embryos are mostly used to observe the process of forming embryos from individual cells, in the outside conditions. But studies on this issue could later lead to greater discoveries, connected with producing some human organs in the labs. Of course, on this stage it is highly unlikely, that human body will accept such organs and cooperate properly with them, but I hope that farther studies provide some answers to that problem. If it would be possible, than that would be one of the greatest, most important steps In medicine and fighting with diseases.
Genetic Fortune - Telling - although the autor in this case wasn’t so sure of the importance of this technology as he was at other points, I think that it is truly interesting and useful.
If I could get such DNA card while having a child, then it will be only for good. The predictions give some prospective on disease, which the child is most vulnerable to, what habits he or she can have, what are the probable IQ. All of these information could be used in rising a child, for example I would pay more attention to check any early symptoms of diseases, avoid places and things which can activate bad habits or adjust activities to child’s IQ level. And as for the concerns brought up by the author - first of all, it is obvious that predictions won’t be 100% accurate, but I’d better know that I am more open to diabetes than cancer and focus on preventing this diabetes than don’t know at all what disease I could have in the future; secondly in my opinion it is good to know about potential intelligence level and I don’t think that such knowledge may be used for bad purposes.
ReplyDeleteAnd after what I wrote before it is time for 3 technologies I am not so fond of:
Perfect on-line privacy - mostly because of the fact, stated at the end of the point connected to that matter, that it contains a cryptographic key, which makes it easier to take it over and than have a free access to data secured by such key.
Babel-fish earbuds - unfortunately problems given by authors, and related to the fact that such earbuds may not fit well with the ear and that there may be some problems with setting them up with the phone, are rather bigger ones. I really don’t like to use devices which are uncomfortable. And if there will be trouble connected all the components, than I would rather try different ways to communicate with the person using different language.
Sensing city - this idea is really interesting, but currently I don’t think that it would be in actual use at some foreseeable future. As it was said, it is very expensive. It also demands a great amount of different technological solutions, and really specific links between them, and I am afraid that the world is not ready for sensing cities build on a large-scale.
Also other inventions, like Zero-Carbon natural Gas or Dueling Neural Networks are extremely interesting, but I found more appealing the ones I mentioned above.
1 Metal printing - it's not new, metal sintering is well established process. Maybe the "cheaply" part is a breakthrough.
ReplyDelete2 Second one, the artificial embryos. I find it amusing that interviewed researcher evokes magic, and at the same time shows there is no magic behind embryo development, just chemical signaling.
3 As for sensing cities, every time I read about such projects, I see no mechanisms to incentivise good players and punish bad ones. And also: who will pay for this.
4 AI for Everybody: while there are many AI libraries, there are two trends I like: emergence of common APIs (like Gluon mentioned in article) and trained model interchange. While training a neural network is computation-heavy task, using trained model often is not, and can be done on mobile and embedded devices.
5 GANs - the idea is so brilliantly simple, and yet created whole new class of architectures. But I see no "sense of imagination" there - just vectors in latent space.
6 Pixel earbuds. Once again life catches up to fiction. But automatic translation is really hard, and I'm afraid there will be huge difference is quality depending on language, epecially if some language pairs will be funneled via English.
7 Zero-carbon Natural Gas. I see it sort of like creative accounting: the plant will not emit any CO2, just "produce pipeline-quality CO2, that can be sequestered or used" - it's not their problem anymore. But there is a problem - the amounts of CO2 produced would be huge, and there is no energy-efficient way to sequester CO2 (which is obvious - we've just extracted energy from the fuel, to get anywhere with CO2 we need to put back in some energy).
8 Perfect online privacy. My personal rule of thumb: if it mentions cryptocurrency, then it's a hype, a hoax or misunderstanding. In this case, it's misunderstanding, proponents are presenting solution to trivial part of the problem, while ignoring the complex part.
9 Genetic Fortune-Telling. I'm afraid mankind is not ready for universal DNA tests. In almost every online discussion there is someone who confuses probability with certainity of cause and effect, or does not understand quantifiers and difference between data and anecdote.
10 Materials’ Quantum Leap. Now this is something! Precisely designed molecules, given we are able to produce those in quantities, might begin whole new era. But as usual - old problems will be solved, while new ones created.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteIt turned out that reading a lot, working with technology and being fascinated with all news, especially engineering ones, it is still possible to be surprised with the ideas and projects appearing in the world.
Obviously, there are some topics in the article I didn’t find as new for me, as “Sensing city” – because the smartgrid idea has been fascinating me for 2 years already and my dream is to create at least small smart-island in my city, as city would be too much in Polish circumstances. I’ve taken part in international consortium spreading this idea, we’ve built two demonstrative centers, one bigger in Germany and smaller in Poland, working in island, remote and scalable systems, combining traditional energy sources with renewable ones. I hope this is the beginning and it will be possible to continue this idea developing process.
Also “AI for Everybody” is the topic I am familiar with, interesting for the reasons corresponding to smartgrid idea mentioned above. The intelligent and renewable components work together in one intelligent, self-sufficient and self-regulating system. If we add ecologic aspects, we receive the ideal goal we should pursue to as society and humans.
But apart from well-known for me ideas, I’d like to indicate those very surprising ones. The most fascinating for me is “Dueling Neural Networks”. I am really interested in gathering more knowledge about the way it works and what are the mechanisms ruling over this inventing idea. I’d like to go deeper with understanding the phenomena.
Other topics, like “The Babel-Fish Earbuds” or “3D Metal Printing” are the tool which was probable to appear sooner or later.
For the other hand, “Perfect Online Privacy” seems to be utopian ideal project, for me not so realistic. If we want to be anonymous, we should stay out of the systems at all, that’s my opinion in this respect.
It was interesting to read about “Genetic Fortune-Telling” and “Artificial Embryos”. Such biological topics are very exotic for me, like fairytale, and those ones are very fascinating because on their potential meaning for us, indeed.
Summarizing, very interesting article, many thanks,
Best regards
Marta