Oops, I dropped it again
Even the clumsiest klutz needn’t worry about dropping an expensive new phone, camera or laptop if it is protected by a “smash-proof” case. Made using a combination of granular materials, ceramics and polymers, such cases will be engineered to away from sensitive components, and then trap or cancel them out. A , funded by the US Department of Defense, hopes to produce prototypes by 2014. The military are interested because it would make munitions safer to handle.
The vodkamatic
Freshly distilled and drip-fed to your own hip flask, a steady supply of vodka could be produced by a that runs a continuous fermentation and . All the necessary components, mostly based on microfluidics, are under development and could be turned into consumer products – local liquor laws permitting.
Everlasting power
Imagine putting a battery in your latest gadget knowing that you’ll never have to replace it. Several industrial and teams are competing to develop a new generation of small, long-lasting batteries powered by radioactive decay. Among the most promising are betavoltaics, which use a simple semiconducting device to generate current by capturing electrons from a radioactive material. One approach is to , which helps the battery last longer. Betavoltaics promise energy densities well beyond ordinary batteries, but there’s one inevitable problem: how to dispose of them.
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Lord of the ringers
This phone will let you listen to digital radio, watch TV, check the weather, find buried treasure – and, yes, even call your friends. To manage all this it will use software that reprograms the radio circuitry so it can pick up any number of different signal types, including Wi-Fi, 3G phone networks and digital TV. Throw in – under development at the Pentagon’s – and the phone could also measure pressure, temperature and even magnetic fields.
Space invader
Fill the space around you with glowing images that hang in the air and you will be able to step inside a computer game. A powerful laser projector generates streams of ultra-short, precisely focused pulses that ionise the air, creating point-flashes of light that can be used to construct virtual 3D objects. While the US army wants to use the technology to put snipers off their aim, engineers at , a company based in Kawasaki City, Japan, are aiming to have a demo system ready for the high street by 2011.
Follow that footwear
Your car has one and soon your shoes could too: a personal navigator that guides you to wherever you want to go, indoors or out, with perfect precision – to the right entrance of the maternity ward, the pizza shelf at the supermarket or even to a particular filing cabinet in a sprawling office. Conventional satnav can’t offer this accuracy and is only reliable outdoors, hence for inertial navigation systems based on chips small enough to fit in the heel of a shoe.
Six legs good
Need a runaround that goes well cross-country? In 2000 Finnish company Plustech developed a that took the roughest terrain in its stride. It was abandoned, but DARPA has kept the dream alive with its own walking machines: Big Dog, that can lug an adult about 20 kilometres, and now , with range and carrying capacity boosted by 30 per cent.
Fluttering by
Yearning for the sights of summer all the year round?
A flock of colourful artificial butterflies that take off and follow you round the room should be just the thing. Closely modelled on their biological counterparts, and relying on the same aerodynamic principles, they are being developed from nano air vehicles (NAVs) commissioned by DARPA in 2007 to give troops a flying eye. , and field tests are planned for 2010.
Make like a gecko
If life is driving you up the wall, super-grip shoes will let you go one better and walk across the ceiling too. at the Polytechnic University of Turin in Italy has already made gloves that can support around 10 kilograms each. The grippy surface is covered in millions of ultrathin nanotubes that mimic the way the fine hairs that coat a gecko’s feet behave.
The secret lies in the accumulation of van der Waals forces between the nanotubes and the surface they are adhering to.
Shoes could be, well, the next step.
Crash-proof choppers
Lightweight batteries have brought us remote-controlled helicopters small enough to fly indoors. Unfortunately, they are so hard to fly that most of us struggle to keep them airborne, let alone swoop them round the furniture. So DARPA’s plan for an autopilot-on-a-chip is good news. Aimed at military uncrewed aerial vehicles, it will contain sensors and inertial guidance. Built into tiny choppers, it will help keep them stable so we can concentrate on having fun: dodging chairs and pets, or just dogfighting over the dinner table.
