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Tuesday, April 30, 2013

WE WANT INNOVATION AND WE WANT IT NOW!

Flying cars were always a pie-in-the-sky proposition, but hologram calls and many other bold tech ideas have hit snags.

1. Hologram calls


The hope: Soon we'll be chatting with our friends in life-size, 3-D, holographic form -- beamed right into our living rooms! Even cell phones will pop out little avatar versions of the person at the other end of the line.

The reality: Video chat services like Skype and Apple's (AAPL) FaceTime are something of a replacement for, er, face time. But hologram calls remain relegated to sci-fi movies and experimental labs.

What's the deal? Until very recently, the technology required to create hologram calls was overly complicated and expensive. 3-D was still a pipe dream. Videos were too large to transmit quickly.

Now, all of those technologies exist in our living rooms -- and researchers are harnessing those advances in order to develop hologram technology. It's still experimental and expensive, and most consumer Internet speeds are still too slow to make 3-D videos stream reliably. But the tech is getting close.

The Human Media Lab at Canada's Queen's University is working on holographic chat called "TeleHuman," which uses Microsoft (MSFT) Kinect sensors, a 3-D projector, and cylindrical displays. RGBD Toolkit, which is backed by Carnegie Mellon, works with Kinect-DSLR camera combinations.

2. Cryonics and zombies

The hope: Why be dead forever, when we can just freeze our bodies and reanimate decades later when someone figures out how to revive us?

The reality: The Cryonics Institute and Alcor Life Extension Foundation have already cryo-preserved hundreds of people. But no human "patient" has yet been brought back to life.

What's the deal? The prospect of cryo-preservation has been around since 1962, when Robert Ettinger published a book called "The Prospect of Immortality." It's been popularized in movies like "Vanilla Sky", and the body of baseball great Ted Williams was frozen in 2002.

According to the Cryonics Institute, the process involves "cooling legally-dead people to liquid nitrogen temperature where physical decay essentially stops, in the hope that future technologically advanced scientific procedures will someday be able to revive them." No cryopreserved mammal has been revived, but insects (and something called "vinegar eels") have come back to life. A few types of human tissue, cells, and organs have also been "revived."

But Williams may have to wait a while to swing the bat again. Robert Freitas, senior research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, predicts the first human reanimation won't happen until around 2040 or 2050.

3. Spam-free inboxes


The hope: "Two years from now, spam will be solved," Bill Gates proclaimed in 2004.

The reality: Er, not so much. According to Gates' own Microsoft, spam accounted for an astounding 97% of all email sent in 2008. The anti-spam technology has improved somewhat, but progress is slow: 71% of last month's email was spam, says Kaspersky Labs.

What's the deal? As spam-blocking technology becomes more advanced, so do the spammers.

"These days, spam is moving into a realm of truly professional development," said Christopher Budd, threats communications manager at Trend Micro (TMICY). "Some spammers are even hiring editors to make sure their English is good."

Budd pointed out that any security system has limits. Spammers are cooking up increasingly more technical ways to infiltrate victims' computers, and spam-blocking technology has to catch up.

So a completely spam-less world will likely never come to pass -- and you should still delete that email from the prince of Nigeria.

4. Robots to do our bidding


The hope: I really don't feel like doing the dishes. Can't someone make a robot to do this stuff?

The reality: You still have to do the dishes.

What's the deal? Scientists have made major advances over the past decade in robotics and artificial intelligence, but you'll be waiting a long time for affordable, autonomous robots that can do your chores.

Measuring the progress of robot development depends on your definition of "robot." IBM's (IBM) Watson supercomputer is one of the most famous examples of machine intelligence: It battled humans on "Jeopardy," learned Urban Dictionary slang, and is being used to help physicians diagnose ailments. But "he" won't do your laundry.

Annual tech shows routinely showcase humanoid robots. However, most are early prototypes that can walk around and dance -- but not learn. Honda (HMC) unveiled its ASIMO robot in 2000. Newer versions can kick a soccer ball or step aside when a human walks in its path. But ASIMO doesn't really have real-world applications yet.

Buy yourself a Roomba in the meantime.

5. Cord-cutting

The hope: Thanks to Netflix (NFLX), Hulu, Amazon (AMZN) Prime, and other streaming services, no one will need to shell out $100 a month for cable.

The reality: The streaming-video space is now choked with competitors, and they're falling all over each other to sign exclusive contracts. So no provider offers all (or even most) TV shows and movies. According to the most recent data available from Nielsen, more than 58 million households still have a pay-TV subscription.

What's the deal? Pay-TV's biggest advantage is that streaming services can't offer shows as quickly as cable. Forget about live events like sports.

Still, some services aren't content to merely stream older, licensed content. Netflix is now churning out several original series, including the Kevin Spacey vehicle "House of Cards." Amazon Studios greenlighted six original pilots in December and has added a handful more since then.

Meanwhile, even sports and other live events are slowly trickling out of the cable realm. MLB.tv lets users stream baseball games for $20 a month, and the NFL offers a variety of streaming and audio-only options.

6. Connected home

 
The hope: Sensors, wireless connections and special routers can create a Jetsons-esque connected home. Your fridge and cabinet will "talk" to each other and let you know that if you pick up some chocolate, you'll have all of the ingredients for a killer devil's food cake.

The reality: The components necessary for a connected home are finally cheap enough to make this a reality. AT&T (T) and Sony (SNE) have already shown off lots of cool home-control technology -- but each company's platform is incompatible with the others.

What's the deal? Each connected-home system works differently, and the platforms don't talk to each other. So consumers either have to stick to one platform, or shell out for extra equipment to bridge the gap. That severely limits consumer choice.

Still, connected-home demos are finally catching up to the Jetsons fantasy. AT&T's home security platform, expected to roll out nationwide this year, lets customers control door locks, lights, ovens, and thermostats using a smartphone or tablet. Intel (INTC) has a similar experimental platform that links household gadgets through machine-to-machine connections.

Mainstream adoption is likely still a few years away though. Earlier this month, Microsoft posted a connected-home "conceptual" video of technology the company says could be 5-10 years down the road.

Read the full article at: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/6-cool-innovations-we-re-still-waiting-for-161604174.html

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