There is no stopping the progress of technology. One of the areas in which there has been tremendous technological advances is in the field of medicine. While these advances have been of tremendous help they have also been extremely costly. In some places these expensive medical devices can’t be purchased due to their high cost but then the survival rate for some of the people with cancer is only half of what it is in areas where these medical devices exist. This is why what I am about to tell you is so astounding. Scientists and technicians have just developed a medical device which costs less than one cent to manufacture. It is the newest version of the lab on a chip. Its purpose is to provide fast analysis. It examines very tiny fluids and does it fast. The time to create one of these chips is said to be about twenty minutes. The chip is able to perform several different tests such as sequencing tumor DNA and others. At the price these chips sell for, there is no reason why they shouldn’t find their way in every lab all over the world. The chips were created using ink jet technology among other things.

Scientists are eagerly awaiting the development of a large-scale quantum computer. Due to the design of these computers they offer more variations than just the zeroes and ones found on our digital computers. While it may be hard for us to understand, the quantum computers not only offer the same zeroes and ones, but also include zeroes and ones existing at the same time. Here is what I mean by this. Think of a switch, zero is off and one is on. These are the only two choices we have with our home computers right now, but if we had quantum computer we would have a third choice and that would be on and off at the same time. This allows a quantum computer to perform more complex calculations in far less time. Instead of bits the quantum computer relies on qubits. One of the setbacks is the more qubits the quantum computer uses the harder it is to keep them in their current states. Recently scientists from Google, Denmark’s Aarhus University, the Riken research institute in Japan, the University of Sussex in the U.K., and the University of Siegen in Germany have joined forces and believe they can build a huge quantum computer which eventually could be billions of times faster than our current computers.

Until recently a completely paralyzed patient had no way of interacting with the world around them. All he could do was lay there. A new brain reading device has been invented which will let paralyzed patients communicate with others. It was developed by Swiss researchers and uses infrared light variations in blood flow circulating through the brain. They claim the patterns of the blood flow behave in a certain way depending on what the patient is thinking. For paralyzed patients this is a godsend since the best they could do previously was try and communicate by blinking.

Recently many of us have been blown away by the 4K televisions. It turns out the resolution on our televisions is nearing its limits, however a team of scientists has found a way to jam even more pixels into our TV picture. They now claim they can triple the resolution of the 4K televisions using liquid crystal displays known as LCDs. This is because of a new type of blue phase liquid crystal. It turns out the blue phase liquid crystal can be turned on and off ten times faster than the ones currently used in televisions today. The on and off procedure is so fast filters are not needed, because our brain cannot process the switching and we perceive it as a continuous picture. It is being said it will also reduce the energy requirements making the televisions a little cheaper to run. It is believed the working prototype will be ready by 2018.

The day of the bifocals may be coming to an end. New liquid base glasses can automatically adjust the focus to what a person is looking at, eliminating the need for bifocals. Liquid glasses came out a couple of years ago as an alternative to ordinary glasses and were basically designed for the Third World. They still seem to have a way to go to become stylish, but I am sure this is only a matter of time. These new liquid glasses have a glycerin liquid which makes up the lenses. There is a membrane on the back which is adjustable forward and back and this changes the curvature of the lens.

One of the biggest killers of humans are tsunamis. Previously it was thought there was just no way to stop one of these gigantic waves which travel at incredible speeds, but now scientists are telling us they think they can. They claim if they can blast the tsunamis with high-powered acoustic sound waves they could break up their advance before they reached land. In the last twenty years it is said tsunamis have killed about half a million people worldwide and have caused incredible damage. One scientist claims we can even get advanced warning using acoustic gravity waves by detecting the high-pressure on the seabed caused by a tsunami. I’m sure many nations who experience periodic tsunamis would be very glad to hear we may be able to stop them.

There is a new robot in town, but this one may never be seen in the open. Scientists have developed a soft customizable robot which fits around the human heart and helps it to beat. The robot has nothing to do with blood. It does however eliminate the need for blood thinners. Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital scientists developed this for a treatment for people suffering from heart failure.

There’s been a new breakthrough in lowering the cost of printed electronics. The problem with printing electronics was you needed to apply heat to the nanoparticles in the inks to make them melt together, so they can conduct electricity more efficiently. Scientists at Duke University think they can now address this problem and all we have to do is change the shape of the nanoparticles in the ink and heat will no longer be needed. This process may be just what we need for even cheaper electronics.