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January 17 2012
Rule #6: Meet People’s Expectations
For past entries and an introduction to the 11 Golden Rules of Anthropomorphism and Design, click here.
People expect many things from each other: Expect them to say hi in the morning; expect them to buy a ticket for the bus; expect them to watch out when driving a car; expect them to do their jobs well. People also expect certain behaviors from anthropomorphic products. When a product works differently than promised, this can cause confusion or anger. When a person gives commands to a product and the product ignores him, he becomes frustrated, because the product feels like a person who rudely turns his back. You wouldn’t accept that behavior from a person, so why would you accept it from a product?
The robot Saya has been developed to teach elementary-grade school children. She can speak different languages and make facial expressions, and hopefully confirm to what the kids expect of an instructor.
Image via The Daily Mail.
December 12 2011
Crickets Inspire New Sensitive Sensor
Inspired by crickets, researchers of the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology of the University of Twente in the Netherlands have build a biomimetic sensor that can measure changes in airflow and pressure. It resembles the same sensory system of ‘filiform hairs’ that crickets use to perceive their predators.
The tiny artificial hairs, made of polymer SU8, are broader at the base and thinner near the top. The base of each hair rests on a flexible surface that, when moved, changes its electrical capacity, thus providing a means to meassure movement. By alternating the voltage, the hairs can be made more or less stiff, changing the sensitivity to movement. If the hairs are limper, they can measure smaller movements in airflow and pressure, up to ten times as much compared to a stiff hair.
Via University of Twente.
November 24 2011
Bugged Bugs
Some of you might remember the Next Nature article by Rolf Coppens called Withus Oragainstus. Since then there have been occasional newsreports on cyborg insects. For instance this article from 2009 describing partly succesful attampts to wirelesly control the flight of beetles by connecting electrodes, a small battery and antenna’s to their nervous system.
Now professor Khalil Najafi, the chair of electrical and computer engineering, and doctoral student Erkan Aktakka at the University of Michigan have incorporated thin-film solar cells, piezoelectric and thermoelectric energy harvesters to extend the batterylife that could be used to supply sensors and even a small camera with the needed juice. Imagine a swarm of these as first responders at hazardous sites like Fukushima, gathering information on radiation and other dangerous substances.
October 28 2011
Earth 2.0 with Rachel Armstrong
Click here to view the embedded video.
Forthcoming Next Nature Power Show speaker, Rachel Armstrong describes some of the differences between so-called Earth 1.0 and Earth 2.0 technologies. The video is especially recommended for connoisseurs of fortissimo synthesizer music. If this is not you, you can also read Rachel’s Self-Repairing Architecture essay.
October 03 2011
E.Coli produced Spider Silk
In a previous post we have reported on spider silk, it’s applications and the way it is produced. Adding the gene responsible for the production of the spider silk protein to other animals has given us silkworms and spidergoats that produce spider silk. We can now ad a harmless version of E.Coli to the spider silk production list.
Via Physorg. Image via University of California.
September 09 2011
Tattoo 2.0
As a child you probably had one of those temporary tattoos that come packed with over-sweetened chewing gum. It was a nice decoration, and a way to stand out. Recently researchers have brought temporary tattoos to the next level with small, flexible electronic circuits.
These electronic patches consist of tiny semiconductor circuits, and are able to stretch with the skin. Scientists from the University of Illinois have created demonstration versions of these “tattoos” using a diverse array of electronic components mounted on a thin, rubbery substrate. Possible applications include sensors, LEDs, transistors, radio frequency capacitors, wireless antennas, and conductive coils and solar cells for power.The patches are mounted on a thin sheet of water-soluble plastic and then laminated to the skin with water, just like a temporary tattoo. The circuits can also be applied directly to a temporary tattoo, hiding the appearance of the electronics.
This is an important advancement in wearable electronics. Such patches could allow us to measure brainwaves and other mental activity in an everyday setting. Currently this is only possible in a lab with a complicated helmet and a lot of wires. Imagine what else might be possible. In the near future we may be able to exchange contact information through a handshake, or finally find that mysterious six sense.
Via Physorg
August 31 2011
Beetle Egg
Our peculiar image of the week presents us the lustrous uncannyness of a Beetle car in its embryonic stage. Rest assure: this is fiction, however, metaphorically the sculpture by artist Olav Mooij represents a profound truth we are only gradually getting attuned to: how mankind is co-evolving with its technology and thereby enabling non-genetic evolution.
The beetle egg is currently on display at the Natuur Apps expo at the Gouverneurstuin in Assen (NL), where it will remain until September 1th. The expo is closed with a Next Nature lecture, so if you happen to be in the neighborhood..
July 23 2011
What Robots dream of…
Click here to view the embedded video.
You may think it’s a cliché, but deep down inside robots want to be birds and fly high in the sky. Hooray for the good people of Festo, that demonstrate at TED how they turn the dream into a reality.
July 11 2011
First Lab-Grown Organ Transplanted
Another step in the fusion of the made & the born: Surgeons in Sweden have successfully transplanted a fully synthetic, tissue-engineered organ – a trachea– into a man with late-stage tracheal cancer.
The synthetic trachea was grown in a bioreactor, using a scaffold built out of a porous polymer, and tissue grown from the patient’s own stem cells. The surgery was performed last month by Paolo Macchiarini at Karolinska University Hospital in Huddinge, Stockholm. The patient has now made a full recovery and has been discharged from the hospital.
The transplant of the lab grown organ is a significant moment for regenerative medicine, although a trachea is much simpler than a lung, kidney or a heart, which are still far more challenging for the scientits.
Lab grown organs are expected to be superior to ordinary donor organs in several ways. They can be made to order more quickly than a donor organ can often be found; being grown from a patient’s own cells, they also do not require dangerous immunosuppressant drugs to prevent rejection.
Source: Technologyreview.
July 09 2011
Who will Question Bio-Engineering?
Click here to view the embedded video.
Bioethicist Paul Root Wolpe presents a parade of recent bio-engineering experiments, from glowing monkeys, to genetically boosted salmon, to cyborg insects. He asks: isn’t it time to set some ground rules? Sure. Bring it on Paul!
Now regular readers of this website already know most of the lustrous & monstrous examples, yet throughout the talk you feel a certain suspense: you-are-now-listing-to-a-real-bioethicist-who-any-minute-now-is-going-to-lay-out-some-crystal-clear-ground-rules-for-bio-engineering. Unfortunately Paul constrains himself to a call for rules, but doesn’t deliver them himself. Who will?
Thanks anyway Ewelina Szymanska.
July 07 2011
Bare necessities
According to a research by JWT AnxietyIndex the changing mediascape is upon us. Do to the recession people are forced to validate their luxuries and it turned out that teens and twentysomethings are willing to cut back on a lot of things, except on the internet connection and mobile phone. Within their mediascape these are more important then traditional entertainment. Connectivity is entertainment.
Via: We Are Organized Chaos.
May 18 2011
Humane Technology #5: Empower People
Principle number five: Humane technology doesn’t outsource people, but instead empowers them.
How healthy or humane is it to have an escalator to the gym? Humane technology should not aim to replace the human mind and body. Rather, it should be used as a tool to augment existing capabilities. The Cheetah Flex-Foot, a prosthetic foot and lower leg, integrates with a user’s existing knee and upper leg to enable comfortable walking and running. Users are at least as fast as those with flesh-and-blood feet, and may even be faster thanks to the mechanical efficiencies of springy metal. The initial design was closely modeled on the human foot, but evolved into a sleeker blade-like shape that’s more cheetah than person. The Flex-Foot is therefore not an exact replacement for the human form, but a way to radically re-imagine it.
May 10 2011
New steps to meld mind and machine
Until now we’ve seen the types of brain-computer interface where the human has to put on some sort of bulky hat full of wires to control a machine. It won’t be like that for long: the future of organic electronics may already be here. In 2009, a team of Swedish scientists created the first artificial nerve cell that communicates with nerves in their own language of neurotransmitter chemicals, rather than with electrical impulses. More recently, another team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison scratched the surface of a new kind of brain-machine interface by wiring computer chips with living nerve cells.
These technologies are radically shifting conventional brain-computer interfaces. Not only can they help people with diseases such as schizophrenia or Parkinson’s, but they also present exciting possibilities for neurotypical humans. For example, such devices could allow you to control the machines around you, and to communicate with them as well. Yes, creepy if it gets hacked. Or here’s another idea: what if you could communicate your thoughts to another person just by thinking? Then it wouldn’t be brain-machine interfaces anymore, but brain-machine-brain interfaces.
Photo: link
April 16 2011
Think Breast is Best? Try Udder
Scientists in China have created transgenic cows that produce ‘human’ milk. The researchers boosted the fat content of the milk and added three types of proteins, unique to humans, that help to bolster the immune systems of infants. Due to hit shelves in ten year’s time, the genetically modified milk would help infants whose mothers cannot or chose not to nurse – and would perhaps put predatory formula companies out of business. As for the taste? According to the lead researcher, it’s “stronger than normal milk.”
April 02 2011
Vertical Farming
Click here to view the embedded video.
Columbia professor Dickson Despommier imagines filling New Yorks skyscrapers with farms. As over 50% of the world population now lives in urban areas, this scenario could solve distribution problems and reconnect people with their food. Unsure if the pig skyscraper is also incorporated in the plan.
March 15 2011
Tree Temple
So we may think ‘guided growth‘ is a typically 21th century design methodology, yet apparently it was also in vogue in the 19th century.
According the original description in the Picture magazine 1893, this century old Maple tree “has been turned into a kind of temple of two stories, each of its compartments being lighted by eight windows, and capable of containing twenty people wit ease. The floors are constructed of boughs skillfully woven together, of which the leaves make a sort of natural carpet. The walls are formed of thick leafage, in which innumerable birds build their nests”
We are unsure if this tree ever existed or that is a 19th century design fiction.
March 09 2011
Latro Algue Lamp
As advances in nanotechnology bring us increasingly energy efficient products, plant life such as algae could become attractive sources for tapping energy. The Latro lamp by designer Mike Thompson is a speculative product responding to this potential future market. It utilizes living algae as its power source.
The idea was inspired by a scientific breakthrough by scientists from Yansei and Stanford University that allows a small electrical current to be drawn from algae during photosynthesis. Placing the lamp outside in the daylight, the algae use sunlight to synthesize foods from CO2 and water.
The energy produced is stored in a battery ready to be called upon at night. Owners of Latro are required to treat the algae like a pet – feeding and caring for the algae rewarding them with light. A light sensor monitors the light intensity, only permitting the leeching of electrons when the lux level passes the threshold – avoiding algae malnourishment.
Click here to view the embedded video.
The video shows the Latro Lamp in the Science Gallery Dublin. The lamp is currently on display at Transnatural and our own Nano Supermarket.
March 07 2011
Robots Love Animals Too
Someday robots may lead fish to safety. At least, that’s the hope of Dr. Maurizio Porfiri, an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and expert on the dynamics of schooling fish. His knowledge has lead him to develop robotic leaders for groups of fish. To our eyes they look distinctly un-fishy, but in the water, they are surprisingly lifelike swimmers. It’s their action, not their appearance, that convinces living fish to accept the robots as one of their own. Porfiri hopes that his biomimetic robots may one day lead fish away from environmental hazards such as oil spills or underwater turbines. Robots have long borrowed from nature- Maybe it’s time they return the favor.
Robots Love Animals Too
Someday robots may lead fish to safety. At least, that’s the hope of Dr. Maurizio Porfiri, an Assistant Professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University and expert on the dynamics of schooling fish. His knowledge has lead him to develop robotic leaders for groups of fish. To our eyes they look distinctly un-fishy, but in the water, they are surprisingly lifelike swimmers. It’s their action, not their appearance, that convinces living fish to accept the robots as one of their own. Porfiri hopes that his biomimetic robots may one day lead fish away from environmental hazards such as oil spills or underwater turbines. Robots have long borrowed from nature- Maybe it’s time they return the favor.
February 27 2011
Augmented Ecologies
Click here to view the embedded video.
It might take a while before this goes mainstream, if ever, but there is a certain luster in being a plant VJ.
Augmented Ecologies is an installation by Guido Maciocci, who rigged up plants with sensors to create a kinesthetic user experience with movement, touch, sound and light. When the user touches the plants or pressure sensitive moss they create different types of musical notes.
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