Future Technology Trends

The idea of smart dust has been around for decades, but now researchers are working to make it a reality.  A nanoprocessor coupled with a nanomemory, nanoantenna and an energy source would be the basic building blocks for such a device.  A difficult problem for scientists is figuring out how these sensors can communicate with one another and send their data back to be examined.  The concept of wireless nanosensor networks (WNSN) would be to use electromagnetic radiation in the terahertz spectrum (100 gigahertz to 10 terahertz).  Terahertz (THZ) radiation has been adapted for a number of applications, which include higher resolution medical imaging and surveillance.   Read More »

A European project is seeking to develop a unique neural chip.  It is called nanobrain and would be a CPU based on a memristive platform.  This is a hardware version of an artificial neural network but will use a relatively novel technology.  Spintronics has been around in the preliminary stages for decades.  The spin of an electron is a quantum mechanical phenomenon that could be utilized to store and process information.  Scientists have faced considerable difficulties in introducing more intricate appliances based on this science.  It has found rudimentary uses in current hard drives.  Room temperature spintronic transistors have been long sought after and some good progress has been made in this domain recently.  Julie Grollier is the the main scientist working on this nanobrain device. Read More »

NeuroP is a newly  funded European project that aspires to develop a microchip that will model cortical circuits.  This could potentially allow for brain-inspired computation.  In the first part of this ambitious endeavor, the researchers are using advances in neuroinformatics to investigate the functioning of cells located in the neocortex.  This region of the brain is important for a number of higher cognitive functions.  A second phase will emulate those biological neural networks using neuromorphic technology.  Ultimately the hope is that that the synthetic synapses can process images visually in real time or perform other practical jobs.  This work is being carried out by scientists  at the Institute of Neuroinformatics University of Zurich and ETH Zurich in Switzerland.   Read More »

Researchers have upgraded the capacity of transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) to better serve patients with disorders.  TDCS uses weak 1- 2 milliamp electric currents by way of electrodes attached to the head in order to influence brain activity.  It causes a barely noticeable sensation for the patient.  ECT by comparison needs over 500 milliamps to work and requires anesthesia.  The lower amount of electricity has the capability of gently altering the voltage potential of the neuronal membranes.  TDCS either increases or decreases neurons basal excitability in response to stimuli and is not as likely to cause a flurry of uncontrolled cell activity as with TMS. Neural functioning can either be enhanced or diminished in relatively select areas. This is basically taking advantage of neuroplastic mechanisms that are inherent to the brain.  With repetitious parameters, the technique may induce longer lasting synaptic alterations by affecting glutamate signaling or perhaps other molecules (long term potentiation or long term depression).  If used properly, it can speed up the rate at which the mind is able to acquire specific tasks or skills.  Research using basic TDCS devices has been published in prestigious journals such as Nature.  It has been shown to improve working memory and video game performance as just a few examples.  The military is following recent developments with interest.   Read More »

The first 20 petaflop/s supercomputers should be in service by 2012 and after that comes a machine in the 100 petaflop/s range (2015).  Scientists are moderately optimistic that exaflop/s (1000 petaflop/s) mainframes can be constructed by 2018-2020.  However, are some of these expectations just plain irrational?  A workshop discussed the hardware and software upgrades that will be needed to best exploit this kind of computational muscle.   Read More »

The US Air Force envisions a future where autonomous vehicles, brain machine interfaces and augmented humans are deployed by the military.  A paper entitled “Technology Horizons” details some of the intriguing possible scenarios.  The outline seeks to be more realistic than some futurism about what will be possible in the 2010-2030 time frame.  Many different technologies are evolving at a fairly rapid pace and will alter significantly the ways wars are fought. Improved radar capacities, advanced missile seekers, high speed ramjet propulsion systems, directed energy weapons and remote piloted air-crafts are just a few of the research areas that the paper briefly covers.  The introduction of intelligent planes is mentioned as another major goal for the year 2018.   Read More »

Surface plasmons are oscillations of charge density located on metal surfaces. They are of interest due to their ability to enhance the performance of nanophotonic devices.  Plasmonic circuits may eventually have much higher frequencies than what is possible with current electronics.  Some scientists have claimed that CPU’s based on this technology might operate at speeds over 100 times greater than what can be bought at a store today.  With grandiose proclamations like this, there is reason to be skeptical.  For high performance computing, the limitations of current CMOS chips are obvious.  While it is too soon to say whether this will actually find its way into the market, there have been promising new developments.  Chinese scientists have been able to synthesize logic gates based on the technology.  Logic gates are the fundamental units that allow microchips to swiftly carry out calculations.   Read More »

HRL, in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, is developing computer hardware inspired by the human brain.  Future neuromorphic technology could augment the capabilities of autonomous military vehicles and usher in a new era of advanced next generation robotics.

CNES promotes the idea that the neural system in the brain is an example of such a complex adaptive system. A key goal of CNES is to explain how computations in the brain can help explain the realization of complex behaviors such as perception, planning, decision making and navigation due to brain-body-environment interactions.  

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The race to assemble supercomputers that are over a hundred times faster than the current record holder is heating up. Japan’s K computer is presently the top machine in the world, benchmarked at 8 petaflops. One thousand petaflop/s (1 exaflop/s) systems are expected to become operational by the end of this decade. There are enormous challenges to constructing these behemoths that may be difficult to circumvent. However, the promise of this much raw power has numerous governments working intensely to make it a reality. The Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing Program (SciDAC) had a meeting to discuss the engineering obstacles to obtaining this level of brute computational strength. Read More »

Georgia tech researchers and other organizations are helping to lay the groundwork for the development of powerful wireless nanosensor networks. This technology has been the cornerstone of many futurist projections for decades and has tantalizing implications for a wide swath of fields. These networked sensors could potentially read biological processes and rapidly send that that data to a central supercomputer for analysis.  This could have a revolutionary impact on how health care is administered.   Environmental surveying, assessing disaster damages and military operations are other potential future uses.   Read More »