10 Tech
Concepts For 2011
1. Flywheel Energy Storage
If we are going to retool our electric grid
to incorporate more renewable energy
sources, we need to find better ways of
storing energy. One solution that has been
talked about for decades is the use of
flywheels: large, heavy wheels that store
energy by spinning rapidly and release it
through a generator that converts it back
into electricity. The upshot: A utility can
swiftly ramp up supply or taper it off to
meet demand. After years of false starts,
the first large-scale flywheel plant is set
to open in 2011. Beacon Power’s 20-Mw plant
in Stephentown, New York, features 200
flywheels, each with a magnetically
levitated rotor that spins at up to 16,000
rpm.
2. White-Space Wireless
The electromagnetic spectrum is a crowded
space, what with a world full of wireless
signals bumping up against each other. And
the sliver of spectrum left open for
unlicensed use (meaning it can be used by
any gadget, including Wi-Fi routers and
cordless phones) is tiny. That’s why
technology companies are celebrating one
side effect of the 2009 switch from analog
to digital TV—the FCC ruled last September
that the spectrum space once used by TV
broadcasters will now be unlicensed. Even
better, these so-called white-space wireless
bands use short wavelengths that make them
better than a typical Wi-Fi signal at
traveling long distances and passing through
obstacles such as walls and trees.
Microsoft’s corporate campus already has a
wireless network using the technology, and
Google is working with white-space equipment
maker Spectrum Bridge on a pilot project at
a hospital in Ohio, as well as a “smart
grid” system for wirelessly managing
electricity consumption in some California
communities.
3. Fracking
Thanks to hydraulic fracturing—or fracking,
as it’s often called—America’s shale fields
are now capable of yielding massive
quantities of previously inaccessible
natural gas. Last year alone, estimates of
unproved shale gas reserves jumped by 30
percent. Here’s how it works: Sand, water
and lubricating chemicals are mixed in a
slurry blender, then injected into a well at
pressures high enough to make cracks form in
the surrounding rock, releasing the gas or
oil trapped within its pores. Although the
method has been used for decades, its use in
horizontal shale wells is new—and attracting
new controversy. Opponents cite the
technique’s environmental impact
(drinking-water contamination is a
particular concern), and studies suggest it
may cause minor earthquakes. Energy
companies and environmental groups are
gearing up for a fight in the coming year.
4. Medical Isotope Shortages
Radioactive isotopes are used in more than
50,000 medical procedures in the U.S. every
day, from bone scans to cancer treatment.
But America was left scrambling when the
Canadian and Dutch reactors that supply most
of the country’s medical isotopes
unexpectedly shut down for extended periods
in 2009 and 2010. Both reactors are now
online again, but shortages will likely
return—the reactors are a half-century old
and may not last much longer. And then there
are the security problems associated with
exporting weapons-grade uranium to other
countries—even friendly ones like Canada—for
processing.
A bill aimed at promoting domestic
isotope production is now making its way
through Congress, and the Department of Energy has kicked in
millions of dollars to develop new ways to
produce isotopes.
5. Complex-Event Processing
Corporations and governments routinely comb
through enormous databases of information
and images (such as those pulled from
surveillance cameras) in search of patterns.
But in today’s data-rich world, an
unfavorable signal-to-noise ratio can make
it time-consuming and expensive to find
anything relevant. A new generation of
software is shifting the focus from “data”
(a record of what’s happened) to “events”
(what’s happening right now). Companies like
StreamBase Systems and Tibco offer
complex-event processing systems that
analyze enormous flows of data in real time
using new database and pattern-recognition
approaches. This allows them to make instant
decisions about whether to make a stock
trade, initiate surveillance on a potential
terrorist or halt a suspicious credit-card
transaction. As the technology matures, we
can expect these capabilities to trickle
down to consumer devices. This would allow,
for example, a GPS-enabled cellphone to sift
through a constant stream of location-aware
offers and alert users only to ones they
would actually be interested in—such as
deals on coffee along their morning commute
route during the hours when they make the
trek.
6. Optogenetics
Until now, researchers looking to stimulate
specific neurons had to rely on bursts of
electricity—an imprecise and
difficult-to-control technique. That's why
the new field of optogenetics is so
exciting. By combining fiberoptics and
designer viruses, researchers can now
stimulate neurons with a high degree of
precision. This could allow, for example,
the development of implants that can take
over the functions of a brain region that
might have been damaged by a wound or
stroke. First, the brain is injected with a
virus that is engineered to activate
specific neurons when light hits them. A
fiber-optic cable combined with an electrode
then sends light into the brain, turning the
neurons on and off, on command. Initial
experiments used rodents, but researchers
have now applied the technique to monkeys,
and DARPA recently announced a project aimed
at using optogenetics to help injured
veterans.
7. Mechanophores
America's infrastructure needs renewal, but
we can't just rebuild everything at once: We
need effective ways to figure out which
structures are closest to failure. One
approach is to integrate tiny wireless
sensors into new construction. Another is to
incorporate “mechanophores,” a class of
materials recently developed at the
University of Illinois that change color
when they are stressed. Mechanophores could
give an engineer a quick visual indication
of whether a bridge is at risk and where the
trouble lies. The researchers are currently
working to tune the reaction so that it can
occur at any desired level of stress. They
also hope to develop new mechanophores that
undergo a self-healing response when they
are damaged.
8. Cellphone Diagnostics
While trained medical care is a rare
commodity in the developing world,
cellphones are increasingly common. In fact,
between 80 and 90 percent of the world's
population now lives within range of a cell
tower. That makes phones a powerful tool for
bringing modern medicine to remote and poor
areas. One approach pioneered by MIT
spinoffs Sana Mobile and ClickDiagnotics is
to have rural health workers transmit X-rays
and other medical information via cellphone
to far-off experts for diagnosis. Meanwhile,
scientists at University of California,
Berkeley, and a PM Breakthrough
Award–winning researcher at UCLA have
combined inexpensive microscope parts with
off-the-shelf phones to produce devices that
can record and instantly analyze microscopic
images, detecting malaria parasites or
tuberculosis-causing bacteria. The
Berkeley-designed diagnostic tool, called
CellScope, will be deployed in field trials
in 2011.
9. Homomorphic Encryption
Researchers at IBM recently cracked a
decades-old problem: how to encrypt data so
that other people can sort and search it
without actually revealing the contents. As
cloud computing becomes more pervasive over
the next year, this “homomorphic” encryption
will allow companies to store sensitive data
on remote servers, where it can be kept
secret from the server's host, but still be
easily accessed and searched. Users will
also be able to enter search-engine queries
and receive results without the search
engine ever knowing or having a record of
their query. The key breakthrough was a
“double-blind” scheme that can check for
encryption errors and fix them without
revealing the data. Best of all, the
researchers demonstrated that the technique
can be implemented in just a few minutes on
a standard PC, not just high-priced
super-computers.
10. 100 GBPS Fiberoptics
Thanks to data-hungry devices such as
smartphones, the world now has an almost
unquenchable thirst for bandwidth. A new
generation of fiberoptic cables promises to
meet the need, reaching a threshold of 100
gigabits per second—a significant jump from
existing 10- and 40-gigabit-per-second
cables, and enough to carry 15,000 HDTV
channels simultaneously. Because the new
cables encode two bits each in the
polarization and phase of a light pulse,
rather than a single bit in its intensity,
they can pack four times as much data into
the signal and reduce the impact of
microscopic imperfections in the cables.
Alcatel-Lucent has installed a 38-mile test
link between two German universities and
separately tested its 100 gigabit-per-second
Ethernet equipment on Verizon's network in
Dallas. The higher-speed cable is now
available commercially and will likely carry
some of the data you use in the coming year.
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