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Could other successful toys provide similar cues for robot designers? Perhaps – and it needn’t even be toy robots. The most important thing for a child is to be proud about the toy and that it surprise them. So the question for the future have to be how the devoleper of robots create it to surprise the humanity to be surprise about robots and learn to like them. | Could other successful toys provide similar cues for robot designers? Perhaps – and it needn’t even be toy robots. The most important thing for a child is to be proud about the toy and that it surprise them. So the question for the future have to be how the devoleper of robots create it to surprise the humanity to be surprise about robots and learn to like them. | ||
Benefits from the toy development could be a good first step to reach their targets. | Benefits from the toy development could be a good first step to reach their targets. | ||
=Long-distance virtual telepathy= | |||
Telepathy is an very interesting thema. Not for nothing this it is used in so many films which surprise their tans. An international team of neuroscientists and robotics engineers study how the viability of direct brain-to-brain communication in humans could work. The highly novel findings describe the successful transmission of information via the Internet between the intact scalps of two human subjects – located 5,000 miles apart. | |||
One of this professors says: "We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distances by leveraging existing communication pathways," explains co-author Alvaro Pascual-Leone, PhD, Director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. "One such pathway is, of course, the Internet, so our question became, 'Could we develop an experiment that would bypass the talking or typing part of Internet and establish direct brain-to-brain communication between subjects located far away from each other in India and France?'" It turned out the answer was "=yes.=" | |||
To get an better overview about this complex thema I will give you two experiments to this study which I found on an internet page with whom I hope you could better follow what happened here: | |||
In the neuroscientific equivalent of instant messaging, Pascual-Leone and his colleagues successfully transmitted the words "hola" and "ciao" in a computer-mediated brain-to-brain transmission, from a location in India to a location in France, using internet-linked electroencephalogram (EEG) and robot-assisted and image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technologies.Previous studies on EEG-based brain-computer interaction (BCI) have typically made use of communication between a human brain and computer. In these studies, electrodes attached to a person's scalp record electrical currents in the brain as a person realises an action-thought, such as consciously thinking about moving the arm or leg. The computer then interprets that signal and translates it to a control output, such as a robot or wheelchair. | |||
But, in this new study, the research team added a second human brain on the other end of the system. Four healthy participants, aged 28 to 50, participated in the study. One of the four subjects was assigned to the brain-computer interface (BCI) branch and was the sender of the words; the other three were assigned to the computer-brain interface (CBI) branch of the experiments and received the messages and had to understand them. | |||
Using EEG, the research team first translated the greetings "hola" and "ciao" into binary code, then emailed the results from India to France. There a computer-brain interface transmitted the message to the receiver's brain through non-invasive brain stimulation. The subjects experienced this as phosphenes, flashes of light in their peripheral vision. The light appeared in numerical sequences that enabled the receiver to decode the information in the message, and while the subjects did not report feeling anything, they did correctly receive the greetings. | |||
A second similar experiment was conducted between people in Spain and France, the end result being a total error rate of just 15 percent, 11 percent on the decoding end and five percent on the initial coding side. | |||
"By using advanced precision neurotechnologies including wireless EEG and robotised TMS, we were able to directly and noninvasively transmit a thought from one person to another, without them having to speak or write," says Pascual-Leone. "This in itself is a remarkable step in human communication, but being able to do so across a distance of thousands of miles is a critically important proof-of-principle for the development of brain-to-brain communications. We believe these experiments represent an important first step in exploring the feasibility of complementing or bypassing traditional language-based or motor-based communication." | |||
[[File:brain.jpg]] | |||
==History== | ==History== | ||
Revision as of 11:48, 22 October 2014
Technology covers the use of tools, techniques and systems. It is often dependent on a knowledge of science, as well as the evolution of design.
Appropriate technology and sustainable technology are particular focuses in technology. While they often overlap, sustainable technology may be very simple or complex, cheap or expensive; while appropriate technology emphasizes affordability and robust design.
History of Technology
The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques, and is similar in many ways to the history of humanity. Background knowledge has enabled people to create new things, and conversely, many scientific endeavors have become possible through technologies which assist humans to travel to places we could not otherwise go, and probe the nature of the universe in more detail than our natural senses allow.
The history of technology proceeds parallel to the history of humanity. It focuses the invention of tools and techniques. The timeline reaches from the Stone Age to the medieval and modern history until present.
Prehistory
Stone Age
Homo sapiens evolved around 200,000 years ago, but homo erectus, now extinct are known to have used fire for heat and cooking and may have built rafts for ocean travel.
A huge number of stone tools have been discovered, which date from the Paleolithic period. Flint was commonly used in this period. When struck for example with a hammerstone, a sharp edge is produced which can be used as a chopper or scraper.
Copper and Bronze Ages
The Stone Age developed into the Bronze Age after the Neolithic Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution involved radical changes in agricultural technology which included development of agriculture, animal domestication, and the adoption of permanent settlements. These combined factors made possible the development of metal smelting, with copper and later bronze, an alloy of tin and copper, being the materials of choice, although polished stone tools continued to be used for a considerable time owing to their abundance compared with the less common metals (especially tin).
Iron Age
The Iron Age involved the adoption of iron smelting technology. It generally replaced bronze, and made it possible to produce tools which were stronger, lighter and cheaper to make than bronze equivalents. In many Eurasian cultures, the Iron Age was the last major step before the development of written language, though again this was not universally the case.
Ancient
It was the growth of the ancient civilizations which produced the greatest advances in technology and engineering, advances which stimulated other societies to adopt new ways of living and governance.
The Egyptians invented and used many simple machines, such as the ramp to aid construction processes.
The peoples of Mesopotamia (Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians) have been credited with the invention of the wheel, but this is no longer certain. They lived in cities from c. 4000 BC, and developed a sophisticated architecture in mud-brick and stone.
Greek and Hellenistic engineers were responsible for myriad inventions and improvements to existing technology. The Hellenistic period in particular saw a sharp increase in technological advancement, fostered by a climate of openness to new ideas, the blossoming of a mechanistic philosophy, and the establishment of the Library of Alexandria and its close association with the adjacent museion. In contrast to the typically anonymous inventors of earlier ages, ingenious minds such as Archimedes, Philo of Byzantium, Heron, Ctesibius, and Archytas remain known by name to posterity.
Medieval to early modern
Medieval Europe
European technology in the Middle Ages may be best described as a symbiosis of tradition and innovation.
Industrial Revolution
The British Industrial Revolution is characterized by developments in the areas of textile manufacturing, mining, metallurgy and transport driven by the development of the steam engine. Above all else, the revolution was driven by cheap energy in the form of coal, produced in ever-increasing amounts from the abundant resources of Britain. Coal converted to coke gave the blast furnace and cast iron in much larger amounts than before, and a range of structures could be created, such as The Iron Bridge. Cheap coal meant that industry was no longer constrained by water resources driving the mills, although it continued as a valuable source of power. The steam engine helped drain the mines, so more coal reserves could be accessed, and the output of coal increased. The development of the high-pressure steam engine made locomotives possible, and a transport revolution followed.
20th century
20th century technology developed rapidly. Communication technology, transportation technology, broad teaching and implementation of the scientific method, and increased research spending all contributed to the advancement of modern science and technology. Due to the scientific gains directly tied to military research and development, technologies including electronic computing might not have developed as rapidly as they did in part due to war. Radio, radar, and early sound recording were key technologies which paved the way for the telephone, fax machine, and magnetic storage of data. Energy and engine technology improvements were also vast, including nuclear power, developed after the Manhattan project. Transport by rocketry was another significant 20th century development. Making use of computers and advanced research labs, modern scientists have recombinant DNA.
21st century
In the early 21st century, the main technology being developed is electronics. Broadband Internet access became commonplace in developed countries, as did wireless Internet on smartphones that are capable of multimedia playback (video, audio, and eBooks) and running other applications (e.g., navigation, productivity tools, and games). The price of 3D printers is steadily decreasing and finding uses in many areas.
Research is ongoing into quantum computers, nanotechnology, bioengineering/biotechnology (cheap and accessible whole genome sequencing and personalized medicine, gene therapy, stem cell treatments, vaccine development, bionic body parts, cloning, regenerative proteins), nuclear fusion (see ITER, National Ignition Facility, DEMO, General Fusion and Lawrenceville Plasma Physics), Thorium- (e.g., LFTR) and Generation IV-nuclear reactors, advanced materials (e.g., graphene), the scramjet and drones (along with railguns and high-energy laser beams for military uses), superconductivity, the memristor, and green technologies such as alternative fuels (e.g., fuel cells, self-driving electric & plug-in hybrid cars), augmented reality devices and wearable electronic devices (see Project Glass and smartwatch), artificial intelligence (IBM Watson and the simulation of the human brain: Human Brain Project, Blue Brain Project), and more efficient & powerful LEDs, solar cells, integrated circuits, wireless power devices, engines, and batteries (e.g., molten salt battery, flywheel energy storage, and lithium-ion).
Technologies in our daily life
Today, in the 21 centuary it is hard to find a place, where no modern technologies are used. Nearly every where a modern technology is used.
Network communication
As a result of the history of technology the world "connected" with the establishment of the Internet in the last 40 years. Thanks to technology communication became easier and we're able to communicate with people from all over the world now.
In order to connect personal computers, establish networks and communicate over them some protocol were developed. The Internet protocol (IP) is the most common one these days. It's used for communication between networks and in the internet aswell. So far there are two major IP implementations. The first one was version 4 and is often referred to as IPv4. An IPv4 address consists of 32 bits in binary notation. When reading such an address it's usually devided into four seperate 8 bit parts. To make it easier for the end-user to use these addresses they are usually displayed in a decimal notion with dots between the four 8 bit parts.
An example: Decimal: 192.168.100.1 Binary: 11000000 10101000 1100100 00000001
In theory it would be possible to have about 2^32 (4.294.967.296) addresses using all 32 bits of an IP address. However there are some restrictions in practice due to different address spaces for different purposes. These days we're in the situation that there's not much address space left in the IPv4 address pool whilst the number of network-braced devices rapidly increases. Whereas some people didn't believe that the IPv4 address pool will not be enough at some point others investigated counter measures. Starting in the nineties another IP procotol implementation was developed which is now often referred to as IP version 6 or IPv6. Its purpose was to offer more address space, but also solve other problems in the IPv4 implementation.
An IPv6 address consists of 128 bits. Without its restrictions for different address spaces it would allow for a total of 2^128 (340.282.366.920.938.463.463.374.607.431.768.211.456 ≈ 3,4 · 10^38) addresses. Using decimal notation the addresses would be quite long, so that it was decided to use the hexadecimal notion in favor. An IPv6 address in hexadecimal notation consists of eight seperate 16 bits parts which are divided by colons.
An example: 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7347
For various reasons the development of IPv6 was rather slow. It took about twenty years until the majority of companies started to experiment with and use it. The optimum isn't reached yet since the IPv4 and IPv6 implementations coexist.
However thanks to the free address pool in IPv6 it's possible to connect a lot of devices with the Internet - and this is exactly the development that's happening these days.
Mobile devices are getting a higher marketshare every month and other uses for the Internet Protocol are explored.
In example some people already connect their homes with the internet..
Mobile telecommunication technology
The newest of mobile telecommunication technology is the fourth generation (4G). Apart from the usual voice and other services 3G, it provides mobile broadband internet access, for example to laptops with wireless modems, to smartphones, and to other mobile devices. Potential and current applications include amended mobile web access, IP telephony, gaming services, high-definition mobile TV, video conferencing, 3D television, and cloud computing.
Smart Devices and Environments
Smartphones
Smartphone existed long before the IPhone from Apple came on the market. Steve Jobs had a version to revive the market and revulotionieren. With the presentation of the iPhone started a revolution of modern and above all really smart smartphone. A quick user interface which can be operated easily and intuitively, there was not really before the iPhone.
Tablets
It seems to me that tablets have become a new category itself, just as how we distinguish smartphones from laptops and desktops. If you want to position tablets into this group, it probably falls between smartphones and laptops. With the portability of a smartphone but the functionality of a laptop, tablets seem to serve users with top-notch on-the-go entertainment. The tablet screen is large enough to enjoy a movie on, yet the tablets are light enough for you to carry around.
Entertainment aside, one benefit of the tablet is the option for a good sketching, either with a good stylus pen or just with your fingers. In other words, it can afford the user more artistic freedom than the standard laptops can. Smartphones are pretty limiting due to its screen size, which fundamentally rules out the possibility of drafting and other similar activities. Tablets are also great tools to jot down any ad hoc detail or idea, and they allow the user to share almost anything instantly without reproducing the text, photo or picture, making it a very convenient tool for designers.
In terms of organizational capabilities, tablets make it easier for you to manage your life: your finances, schedules, reviews, etc. Again, smartphones are absolutely restricting in that sense due to its screen size, although they are great in providing useful reminders for your daily chores.
Smartwatches
Smart Home
Smart Home includes all technical procedures and systems in the home. The goal is an increase of living and quality of life, safety and efficient use of energy. This is achieved through the intelligent integration of home automation, home appliances and entertainment media.
Gaming Technology
The Gaming Technology has been constantly improved. The first "Gaming-System" was so big, it needed a whole room to fit, just to play PONG. Compared to the Technology we have today it is nothing, but then again in a couple of decades we will most probably be able to enter the games themselfs in a virtual reality.
3D Printing
The 3D printing is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. Such objects can be shapes or geometric figures made of plastic or metal. A 3D print based on complex procedures. Frequently additive processes are used, in which successive layers of material are laid down under computer control.
Holography
Holography is a technique which enables three-dimensional images (holograms) to be made. It involves the use of a laser, interference, diffraction, light intensity recording and suitable illumination of the recording. The image changes as the position and orientation of the viewing system changes in exactly the same way as if the object were still present, thus making the image appear three-dimensional.
How holography works
Holography is a technique that enables a light field, which is generally the product of a light source scattered off objects, to be recorded and later reconstructed when the original light field is no longer present, due to the absence of the original objects.[20] Holography can be thought of as somewhat similar to sound recording, whereby a sound field created by vibrating matter like musical instruments or vocal cords, is encoded in such a way that it can be reproduced later, without the presence of the original vibrating matter.
Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is an experience in which a person is "surrounded by a three-dimensional computer-generated representation, and is able to move around in the virtual world and see it from different angles, to reach into it, grab it, and reshape it."[1]
While most current VR systems are mainly a visual experience, research has been done in the last years to expand the current systems into fields like sound (mostly surround sound), haptic (also know n as ForceFeedback) or more exotic fields like smell, taste etc.
The simulated environment can be very similar to the real world, like in military flight simulators, but every environment is currently limited by processing power, image resolution or communication bandwidth bottlenecks.
A very well known project, called the CAVE (CAVE Automatic Virtual Environment) - which is also present in the labs at the RWTH Aachen - has been around since 1992, using stereoscopic displays, head tracking, projection paradigms and real-time image manipulation to achieve a VR system which provides real-time viewer-centered head-tracking perspective with a large angle of view, interactive control and a binocular display.
How toys will shape future robots
Toys in future will shape future robots. What was it about this robot that had appealed so much to its owner? It’s a question that Tilden and other roboticists think is important – not just for toy design, but the future of robotics. For too long, robots have suffered from an image problem.
They are often perceived as mechanical, cold and threatening in our culture and it’s difficult to reverse that impression. This view of robots could be changed if they were designed to appeal to us with the same familiarity and, indeed, personality that our childhood toys once possessed.
More and more children want a toy which can speak or do something. The best example for this is Furby. Evrybody like this toy and in the past it was the most famous toy in the world. an other example was the Robosapien. He was developed to give children the feeling that robots aren't something threatening. The Robosapiens can dances, raps and a lot of more funny things. Seeing the Robosapien as a pal was far more important than seeing it as a hyperintelligent, futuristic machine.
Could other successful toys provide similar cues for robot designers? Perhaps – and it needn’t even be toy robots. The most important thing for a child is to be proud about the toy and that it surprise them. So the question for the future have to be how the devoleper of robots create it to surprise the humanity to be surprise about robots and learn to like them. Benefits from the toy development could be a good first step to reach their targets.
Long-distance virtual telepathy
Telepathy is an very interesting thema. Not for nothing this it is used in so many films which surprise their tans. An international team of neuroscientists and robotics engineers study how the viability of direct brain-to-brain communication in humans could work. The highly novel findings describe the successful transmission of information via the Internet between the intact scalps of two human subjects – located 5,000 miles apart.
One of this professors says: "We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do so across great physical distances by leveraging existing communication pathways," explains co-author Alvaro Pascual-Leone, PhD, Director of the Berenson-Allen Center for Noninvasive Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School. "One such pathway is, of course, the Internet, so our question became, 'Could we develop an experiment that would bypass the talking or typing part of Internet and establish direct brain-to-brain communication between subjects located far away from each other in India and France?'" It turned out the answer was "=yes.="
To get an better overview about this complex thema I will give you two experiments to this study which I found on an internet page with whom I hope you could better follow what happened here:
In the neuroscientific equivalent of instant messaging, Pascual-Leone and his colleagues successfully transmitted the words "hola" and "ciao" in a computer-mediated brain-to-brain transmission, from a location in India to a location in France, using internet-linked electroencephalogram (EEG) and robot-assisted and image-guided transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) technologies.Previous studies on EEG-based brain-computer interaction (BCI) have typically made use of communication between a human brain and computer. In these studies, electrodes attached to a person's scalp record electrical currents in the brain as a person realises an action-thought, such as consciously thinking about moving the arm or leg. The computer then interprets that signal and translates it to a control output, such as a robot or wheelchair.
But, in this new study, the research team added a second human brain on the other end of the system. Four healthy participants, aged 28 to 50, participated in the study. One of the four subjects was assigned to the brain-computer interface (BCI) branch and was the sender of the words; the other three were assigned to the computer-brain interface (CBI) branch of the experiments and received the messages and had to understand them.
Using EEG, the research team first translated the greetings "hola" and "ciao" into binary code, then emailed the results from India to France. There a computer-brain interface transmitted the message to the receiver's brain through non-invasive brain stimulation. The subjects experienced this as phosphenes, flashes of light in their peripheral vision. The light appeared in numerical sequences that enabled the receiver to decode the information in the message, and while the subjects did not report feeling anything, they did correctly receive the greetings.
A second similar experiment was conducted between people in Spain and France, the end result being a total error rate of just 15 percent, 11 percent on the decoding end and five percent on the initial coding side.
"By using advanced precision neurotechnologies including wireless EEG and robotised TMS, we were able to directly and noninvasively transmit a thought from one person to another, without them having to speak or write," says Pascual-Leone. "This in itself is a remarkable step in human communication, but being able to do so across a distance of thousands of miles is a critically important proof-of-principle for the development of brain-to-brain communications. We believe these experiments represent an important first step in exploring the feasibility of complementing or bypassing traditional language-based or motor-based communication."
History
Applications of Virtual Reality
Education
Military
Sience
Engineering
Entertainment
Outlook
Full Immersion?
More to expand on :
1 Hardware
2 Software
3 Usage
4 Implementation
5 Concerns and challenges
Communication
• (mobile) phone
• world wide web
• networking ○ intranet ○ globalization
• knowledge ○ e-learning ○ social aspects (facebook etc.)
Digital infrastructure
Smart Grids
A smart grid is the plan of a new electrical grid which uses communications technology to improve the efficiency of the production and distribution of electricity. The behaviour of the suppliers and the consumers are gathered in an automated way and then used for dynamic adjustments of the grid.
intelligence city
military
○ IT warfare
○ inventions
Disadvantages of technology
• abuse • privacy and security • dependence • unemployment --> automation
Notes
1. ^ Rheingold, H. Virtual Reality. Summit, New York, 1991.