New Technologies I have to admit it, the Russian moon Rover looks like something out of a horror movie. It is based on the humanoid robot named Fedor. The robot had been previously sent to the International Space Station where it was programmed to be more of a cosmonaut even though it started out being a humanoid robot which could carry weapons. The robot is scheduled to lose its legs so it can be mated with a Rover. Can you imagine what this device will look like as he runs all over the moon? If I were an astronaut sent to the moon, I wouldn’t want to come across Fedor. It sort of reminds me of a more horrible version of Robbie the robot when it drove across the planes of Forbidden Planet while being locked into a sort of wagon. One technology which is becoming more advanced every day is the technology to read people’s minds. Many of us believe privacy is a thing of the past because everywhere we go there are cameras watching us and microphones picking up what we say, the last bastion of privacy is actually inside our bodies and is located in our brains. Unfortunately, this fortress of privacy is going to disappear, so it is just a matter of time before our lives are truly an open book. There have been many science fiction movies written about what life would be like when this happens and none of them show this is a good thing. If one can read the thoughts in someone’s mind it is only a matter of time before they can control that mind by introducing custom-made thoughts. The world is crazy enough now without getting into this area. Artificial intelligence is getting closer to becoming smarter than we are. When Big Blue, the IBM supercomputer beat the chess grandmaster Kasparov, it should have been a warning heeded by us that it was only a matter of time before machines would be superior to humans at least in some areas. One has to wonder how humans can compete with the machine which has so much more data programmed into it than any of us could ever remember. While machines can become superior to humans if the problem facing them is one which has already been solved and has been archived into the machines memory, they may not fare so well when a problem is discovered which they have no reference to. So many people are hypnotized by speed. I am talking about the speed of data flowing down to their computers, phones and televisions. For most of us we already have all the speed we need, but many crave more. Groups of people meet and discuss their download speeds when each person trying to outdo the other. This is something I could never figure out, who cares if one person has a faster speed than the other as long as the first person is satisfied he or she has enough speed when using their software. Sometimes more speed means more powerful waves going through the air and some technicians think the new 5G, which stands for fifth generation wideband, is too powerful and could make us ill as all this energy flows all around us. Once again, we are being promised as computers switch over to quantum computing, we will be fully protected from hacking. We have been told this many times in the past and what has happened? Many of the people and companies who have our data with or without our permission don’t even bother to protect it at all. Those that do protect it are certainly not hack proof. Once quantum computers become the mainstay for computing, if they do, hackers with quantum computers will be trying to break into company’s quantum computers and human nature being what it is, they won’t give up until they succeed. No, I do not believe any protection created by man will be foolproof. When we think of rockets in space shuttles, we usually think of aerospace companies. After all, would a sneaker company or food company want to build a space shuttle? What about an auto company? It just so happens there was one auto company that wanted to build what it thought was a better space shuttle and that company was the Chrysler Corporation. Over fifty years ago they proposed a ship which could make 100 flights before becoming worn out. The ship was supposedly able to carry cargo and crew to a future space station. The vehicle was known as Project SERV. SERV stood for Single-stage Earth-orbit Reusable Vehicle. Needless to say, it was rejected. When we think of steam as a source of energy, we may think of the 1800s and part of the 1900s. I don’t think too many people would think of steam as an advanced system for powering anything today. Yet, scientists believe steam power could be used again only this time as a source of power for interplanetary transportation. A college and a company have teamed up to try and build a small steam powered craft which would get its fuel every time it landed on heavenly bodies. The fuel I am talking about is water. The tiny Lander would then turn the water into steam allowing it to go on forever as long as it finds water when it lands. Could this technology be scaled up to larger devices? Right now, nobody is talking about that. I hate to say this because it has been said many times before, but never turned out to be true. It seems nuclear fusion may be right around the corner. One of the things holding it back was scientists were not able to find an acceptable method to stabilize the superheated plasma fusion reactors needed. There is a good chance the answer has been found, but we won’t know until 2025 when an experimental reactor goes online. If the technique works, this could be the end of our energy problems but then another problem looms. Will the energy companies join together to defeat fusion energy? There have been a lot of rumors stating we have developed antigravity. They also state we will not know about it possibly in our lifetimes, because it is buried in black ops. Another words it is being used on secret weapons and therefore the technology will not appear in consumer products. We do get deprived of a lot of things when technologies are discovered which could be useful to the department of defense. Some have guessed if the Department of Defense would release it secret technologies it would push our technology hundreds of years into the future.
|
