The battery of the future : 10 times more autonomous.

SiNode Systems announced earlier that they won the grand prize of Rice Business Plan Competition, which recognizes start-ups and promote the most innovative projects. In addition to the main prize, the young company has obtained various other rewards for a total of 911,400 dollars.
  

The company founded by six students from Northwestern University under the guidance of their teacher is developing technology that could significantly extend the life of our batteries by adding a layer of Graphene(a substance composed of pure carbon).

 

Simply put, they use a Graphene layer pierced instead of graphite found on the anodes of the current lithium-ion batteries. According to initial tests, this "simple" change multiplies by ten the life of the battery and allows to significantly accelerate the cool down process while being suitable for traditional batteries.

The results are already conclusive: all that's left is to industrialize the process for the market by carrying themselves to manufacturing, selling the license of this technology. It may therefore happen sooner than we think.

Handwriting with your eyes

I know what you're thinking. But you're all wrong, I'm not high nor drunk and not on any type of drugs.

Dr. Jean Lorenceau of the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris has developed a medical device that translates eye movement into cursive handwriting.

Even that this was an impossible idea before because of the impossibility of controlling the eyes movements,  Lorenceau found that an optical illusion called reverse phi motion allowed him to create a tracking system for the voluntary smooth eye movements.

He said that cursive eye writing can be generated at will after little training with a 90-minute training session, a person could use the system to write 20 characters in a minute. For persons deprived of limb movement, this offers a fast, creative, and personal means of linguistic and emotional expression.

A paper discussing Lorenceau's invention appeared in the journal Current Biology


Note: 'Reverse-phi motion' is an optical illusion helps explain how we view moving objects.
          Stanford Report, September 12, 2011

Predictions For the Next 110 Years

WITHIN 20 YEARS...
Self-driving cars will hit the mainstream market.
Battles will be waged without direct human participation (think robots or unmanned aerial vehicles).
The first fully functional brain-controlled bionic limb will arrive.

WITHIN 30 YEARS...
All-purpose robots will help us with household chores.
Space travel will become as affordable as a round-the-world plane ticket.
Soldiers will use exoskeletons to enhance battlefield performance.

WITHIN 40 YEARS...
Nanobots will perform medical procedures inside our bodies.

WITHIN 50 YEARS...
We will have a colony on Mars.
Doctors will successfully transplant a lab-grown human heart.
We will fly the friendly skies without pilots onboard.
And renewable energy sources will surpass fossil fuels in electricity generation.

WITHIN 60 YEARS...
Digital data (texts, songs, etc.) will be zapped directly into our brains.
We will activate the first fusion power plant.
And we will wage the first battle in space.

WITHIN 100 YEARS...
The last gasoline-powered car will come off the assembly line.



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