Soul Integration and Re-Creation

The Energy Centre

Presents

Futures Innovation Invention High Technology and Natures Designs

Biomimcry

Biomimicry is the title of an inspiring book by science writer Janine Benyus, and the seed of the Biomimcry Guild, which is further developing the tools and cataloging the evolving body of practice.

I've long maintained that Earth's living systems have nearly four billion years' experience in developing efficient, adaptive, resilient, sustainable systems. Why reinvent the wheel, I wonder, when the R & D has already been done?

As I wrote in a 1997 review, Biomimicry explores the quietly gathering trend toward what Benyus calls "doing it nature's way," -- using nature as model, or inspiration, for design to solve human problems; as measure of what works, what's appropriate, and what lasts; and as mentor, focusing us on what we can learn from nature, rather than extract from it. Biomimicry, Benyus suggests, "has the potential to change the way we grow food, make materials, harness energy, heal ourselves, store information, and conduct business."

Benyus spoke recently at NASA's Ames Research Center, presented a breathtaking array of biomimcked products from businesses and universities around the world:
Adhesives inspired by geckos toes, self-cleaning paint by lotus leaves, super-efficient propellers and impellers inspired by

The idea's not new -- humans have been learning from nature for just about forever -- but the systematization may be., taking the form of both the book itself, and the pilot Biomimicry Guild Database. Our friends at World Changing described it as a "'growing, open source, peer reviewed' resource that would link biomimicry concepts to known problems . . . along with ready information on who in the public or private sectors is already working on a product or application. It would be a clearinghouse for new scientific discoveries, available for multiple industries to use, promoting more biomimetic successes by making research easily available across disciplines."

How can you apply this approach in your business? Read the book, use the database, open your mind and eyes to the wonders of nature… and take the time to look deeply and patiently at the design inspiration that's all around you.

Virtual Keyboard learn more at http://imtranslator.net/keyboard

Invisible Digital Pen

4. Amazing Vanishing Ink Pens

This is a state-of-the-art fine point pen that contains ink which will disappear without a trace after 72 hours (depending on surface).

Now you see it, now you don’t. This timesaving pen lets you draw wherever you would normally draw pencil lines. Then, simply expose the page to natural light until the ink has vanished.

Your sensitive files can be marked today and you can rest assured your notes will be gone in a couple of days. This amazing pen may also be used to mark clothing without staining (pretest small area of fabric before using). 

The image cannot be retrieved with UV or any other light.   For those occasions when you want to say something - temporarily - this is the pen to have.  (Not to be used for check writing or any legal documents.)

Also your erasing days are over!  No more tracing your templates and mats in pencil then erasing the lines.   Our Vanishing Ink Pen is photoing safe, non-toxic and works on most colors of paper.  It's the perfect tracing tool for all your paper craft projects.

How does Vanishing ink work?

Disappearing Ink has long been a favorite toy of practical jokers...but how does it work? Much like invisible ink, it operates on the principle of acid/base chemistry. The reason the "ink" is blue to start with is because a particular molecule in the solution, thymophthalein, is blue in solutions that are basic.

That same molecule is colorless under neutral conditions.  When disappearing ink is sprayed on your clothes, part of the solution evaporates (the part is normally an alcohol of some sort - in our case it is ethanol), and instead of being basic the result is a neutral residue (left-over solid). With the evaporation, the thymophthalein is no longer experiencing basic conditions so it changes colors and "disappears." Order yours today!

 
Wearable Screen Computer over one eye  

A virtual retinal display (VRD) is a head-mounted display system that projects an image directly onto the human retina with low-energy lasers or LCDs. VRDs can give the user the illusion of viewing a typical screen-sized display hovering in the air several feet away. In principle the technology can provide full-color, high-resolution dynamic displays, but in practice the components necessary to achieve the full potential of the technology are either highly expensive or simply not built yet. Although the technology was invented by the University of Washington in the Human Interface Technology Lab (HIT) in 1991, development did not begin until 1993; the technology still needs much refinement and has only been commercialized in specialized sectors of the display market such as automobile repair and some parts of the military.

A VRD unit consists of 4 modules; drive electronics to break down an incoming source image into an information stream, a light source made up of laser(s) or LED(s), a scanner bank made up of horizontal and vertical scanners, and a lens to expand the image that projects through the scanners. As in a television, the scanners rapidly oscillate left-to-right or down-to-up, selectively permitting colors through in precise configurations that produce a high-resolution 2mm x 2mm field of pixels. Then a lens acting as an expander boosts the size of the image to something like 18mm x 18mm, allowing for a larger and more natural image. The pixel field is then projected onto the eye, where the eye's lens focuses the image onto the retina. Aside from tapping into the optic nerve itself, there may be no more effective way to display an image.

The virtual retinal display is highly efficient with respect to power consumption, requiring far less power than the postage-stamp LCD screens used commonly in today's mobile devices. A VRD display uses about a microwatt of power. Since VRD displays project images directly onto the retina, they provide a sharp, clear image regardless of external lighting conditions. VRD displays require a fraction of the hardware of conventional display devices, allowing for lighter and more elegant mobile devices, in high demand for today's electronics market. VRD shows strong potential to replace LCD screens in cell phones, handheld computers, handheld gaming systems, and eventually even larger computers such as laptops.

VRD technology is being exclusively commercialized by the Seattle-based tech company MicroVision, Inc. Two products available so far include Nomad(tm), a head-mounted VRD system that displays a monochromatic overlay of relevant information to a task at hand, and Flic(tm), a laser bar code scanner. Nomad uses Windows CE and the 802.11b wireless protocol. As the components of VRD displays decrease in cost and the manufacturing processes used to create them improve, distribution of the product will surely expand to a very large market.

Flash Stick Victorinox Swiss Memory Knife

It was bound to happen. Given that you can buy a Victorinox Swiss Army Knives with just about every gadget known to man, from horse-hoof awl to Hubble Space Telescope lens polisher, it's no real surprise that the company - in association with flash memory outfit Swissbit - is now offering cutting tools plus USB flash memory stick. The gadget will be unleashed on an incredulous world at CeBIT next week.

The USB Swiss Army Knife is available with 64 or 128MB memory, plus all the usual extras - knife, corkscrew and tin-opener. The 64MB version will cost €55; the price of the 128MB version is tba.

Swissbit is not just any old company trying to make a buck from ingenious vehicles for memory. It grew out of Siemens and has been producing DRAM and flash memory modules - including Compact Flash and the 1 gigabyte SwissBitKey USB Memory key - for over ten years.

USB flash memory pops up everywhere these days. Indeed, our own Cash'n'Carrion already sells a popular 256MB USB Memory Watch. Whether or not the USB Swiss Army Knife proves as successful remains to be seen.

GENE GENIES.

  That's a prerequisite for a future in which doctors will rely more heavily on computer-based clinical-support systems to diagnose illnesses and prescribe treatments. According to Stanford's Lowe, nearly 40% of the nation's hospitals have either installed such systems or plan to in the near future.

Of course, such advances will only be as useful as the basic medical knowledge behind them. And that will depend a lot on how successfully drug makers exploit the recently completed mapping of the human genome, the 30,000 to 60,000 genes that make up the human body. No company has been able to win U.S. Food & Drug Administration approval for a gene-based drug, yet scientists continue to build the foundations for such breakthroughs.

Consider: On Oct. 10, researchers from the University of Cincinnati published a study in the New England Journal of Medicine identifying two genes that, when they occur together in a patient, appear to raise the likelihood of congestive heart failure tenfold. As such discoveries proliferate, they'll lift the veil on the complex genetic interactions that lead to physical infirmities or diseases.

BETTER TARGETS.  Genetic research is painstaking and technologically intense. "We take [gene] samples from sick people, look at which [genes] are active, then compare the diseased [individual's genes] to a normal person's," says Jeffery Cossman, medical director of GeneLogic (GLGC ), a Gaithersburg (Md.) company that compiles genetic databases and sells them to drug companies. "We generally find relatively few differences -- 500 to 1,000 genes -- between diseased patients and normal people."

Cossman says statistical analysis further winnows the field until scientists can possibly pinpoint the specific gene interactions that cause a condition -- methodology that has become possible only within the last few years, as scientists have fine-tuned the necessary computer tools.

GeneLogic's aim is to simply provide better targets for drug companies. But ultimately, such research could yield a detailed roadmap for personalized health care that includes everything from gene-specific medications to lifestyle recommendations and an opportunity to learn from unprecedented observation of the body in action. Explains Cossman: "During disease and cure, we can profile the steps cells took and determine how they regenerate and repair themselves."

Invention Convention

 
In one vision of the future, the world will have flying cars, coats that make people "transparent,'' digital cameras that translate foreign signs and robots that can attend classes for sick children.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether this vision of the future remains a science fiction dream. For now, the prototypes for these and about a hundred other inventions will be on display this weekend at the first-ever NextFest, a high-tech exposition at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center.

Organized by the San Francisco technology publication Wired magazine, the three-day NextFest is designed to give the general public a close-up, hands-on view of innovations that may someday become as commonplace as cell phones and the Web are today.

The exhibition spotlights the future of seven main categories -- entertainment, communications, transportation, space and oceanographic exploration, health, design and security. Wired Publisher Drew Schutte said the magazine's research staff waded through about 2,500 research and development projects being done by universities and corporations worldwide to cull the 110 exhibits that will be on display.

"We went to our researchers and said, 'Find stuff that amazes you, find stuff that surprises you,' '' said Schutte. "None of this stuff is commercially available yet.''

NextFest opens its doors today for about 4,000 Bay Area students who have pre-registered for Education Day. The expo, held in the Fort Mason's Festival Pavilion, will open to the public Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. each day.

The event, expected to draw between 10,000 and 20,000 people, is also sponsored by General Electric, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard Co., Motorola, T-Mobile, the Science Channel, Yahoo and The Chronicle.

The exhibits include the two-passenger Moller Skycar from Moller International of Davis. The Jetsons-style craft on display is not operational, but a working prototype can take off vertically and fly as fast as 380 mph.

Then there's a "transparent cloak,'' technology from the Tachi Lab at the University of Tokyo that seems straight out of a Harry Potter book. The raincoat-like cloak is made out of "retro-reflective'' material covered with tiny beads that reflect light back in the same direction it came.

The cloak is designed to make whatever it is covering, a body or object, appear transparent by projecting video shot with a camera from behind the cloak onto the front of the cloak.

Naoki Kawakami, an assistant professor in the university's department of information physics and computing, said the cloak could be useful in helping pilots see through the floor of a plane's cockpit at a runway below or for drivers trying to see through a fender to park a car.

HP Labs will demonstrate a "translating camera'' under development that could help travelers trying to read street signs and directions in a foreign language. The prototype uses a digital camera, an HP iPaq handheld computer and special optical character recognition software to translate the signs through a Web-based language site.

"We're hoping to raise awareness of all the different uses of digital imaging'' besides snapping photographs, said Dan Tretter, a project manager with HP Labs' imaging technology department.

GE Medical Systems will demonstrate a prototype medical technology designed to give surgeons access to patients' data while operating, without having to touch a computer or other object that would require them to re- sterilize their hands.

The technology, being developed with Microsoft, uses simple hand gestures and voice commands to allow a surgeon to select data displayed on a flat-panel monitor.

Other health-related technology on display will include an antibacterial powder developed at the University of Alberta that, when sprinkled on food, can block the harmful effects of bacteria.

The students attending today might enjoy "Pebbles,'' a device that combines PC-based videoconferencing with simple robotics technology to allow an ill child in the hospital to see, hear and interact with students and teachers in a classroom miles away.

A video monitor that can turn left and right transmits a live shot of the student's face.

Telbotics Inc. of Toronto designed the remote-controlled robots to help children who require long-term hospital care. They are being tested in hospitals in Canada, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ohio, Maryland, Florida and Illinois.

A company called IRobot, best known for a robotic vacuum cleaner called the Roomba, will demonstrate other robots being used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. And NASA will have moon rocks and a Mars Rover replica on display.

For fun and games, there's Brainball, which is best described as an anti- game, because the goal is to achieve nothing.

Developed by Sweden's Interactive Institute, Brainball players wear headbands with biosensors that measure brain waves. The brain activity is then transmitted by wire to a special game table to control a small ball. The object of the game is to move the ball into an opponent's goal area, but the more relaxed a player is, the more he or she controls the ball.

The effect is the opposite of a player's reaction during a standard game, in which thinking and stress are the norm, said Magnus Jonsson, an Interactive Institute researcher.

Brainball has been played by more than 300,000 people, including yoga gurus, the artist and musician Brian Eno, children with attention-deficit disorders, and the king and prime minister of Sweden.

For those seeking something more physical, there's a game that combines soccer, tennis and the popular computer game Breakout, in which two players in different locations face off using videoconferencing technology.

In Breakout for Two, from the Irish company Media Lab Europe, players throw or kick a ball against a wall. On each wall is a projection of the remote player, enabling the participants to interact with each other through a life-size video and audio connection.

To score, a player has to strike a number of semi-transparent blocks on the screen. These virtual blocks are connected over the network. If you hit a block, it disappears. The player who hits the most blocks wins the game.

The first hit produces a crack. When hit again, it cracks more. On the third hit, the block breaks and disappears.

To encourage intense physical activity, Media Lab Europe added an impact- intensity measurement. So if a player hits a block really hard, it could break and disappear on the first strike.

Schutte said this is the first time the magazine has tried to sponsor such an event, which it hopes will reach an audience far wider than its largely male, mainly tech-oriented readership. It plans to sponsor another NextFest in New York next year, then one in Los Angeles the year after, before returning to San Francisco in 2007.

"What we've created is a mini world's fair,'' Schutte said.

DESERT LIVING CENTER

If there were a competition for the least sustainable city, Las Vegas would be a tough one to beat. Putting a mecca of lights, fountains and hotels in the middle of a desert is patently unsustainable. Luckily, Vegas has recently been taking some ideas from greener pastures. From tree-planting efforts to greening the Mirage, things are looking up.

In the heart of Vegas, the Springs Preserve occupies 180 acres of historic land. Architecture firm Lucchesi Galati has been working with the valley water district to redesign "Big Springs" with community and conservation in mind. 

As a quick follow-up to our Green Roofs post from last week, we wanted to call attention to a great article in the Villager about the growing Green Roof movement in NYC.

Although New York City is still lagging far behind Chicago and many European and Asian cities, green roofing is finally started to pick up here. Community arts center ABC No Rio is renovating its dilapidated four-story tenement building in the Lower East Side to include an extensive green roof. The Lower East Side Girls Club is also renovating with plans to build two green roofs, one of which they will use to grow herbs for their cafe. (All this greening in my neighborhood!)

Still, as Leslie Hoffman, director of Earthpledge, points out: there are probably about 50 green roofs in New York City at the moment. Compare this to Chicago's estimated 2 million square feet of green roofs, and you can see we have a lot of catching up to do.

Here are some resources to help get started:

+ Greening Gotham, a fabulous interactive website with a green vision for New York City.

If there were a competition for the least sustainable city, Las Vegas would be a tough one to beat. Putting a mecca of lights, fountains and hotels in the middle of a desert is patently unsustainable. Luckily, Vegas has recently been taking some ideas from greener pastures. From tree-planting efforts to greening the Mirage, things are looking up.

In the heart of Vegas, the Springs Preserve occupies 180 acres of historic land. Architecture firm Lucchesi Galati has been working with the valley water district to redesign "Big Springs" with community and conservation in mind.

At Inhabitat, we are often seduced by precious products and elegantly designed dwellings, intoxicated by the cutting edge approach to sustainability. While this technology and beauty is alluring, it’s important to recognize broader progress toward a more livable planet through urban redevelopment and government policies. On Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency announced five communities to win a National Award for Smart Growth Achievement for 2005.

One of the more intriguing (and completed) projects to receive an award is the redevelopment of the abandoned Elitch Gardens amusement park, five miles from downtown Denver.

For those who’ve dreamed of getting away from the pace of urban life without giving up their platform bed, BlueSky MOD has developed a modern cabin that can be prefabricated, delivered, and erected- in 10 days no less- on your wilderness of choice. The 640 sq-ft prototype has some similar appeals as the Tiny Tumbleweed Houses profiled last month; the cabin is designed to be ecologically responsible, flexible, and modular, all within a relatively small footprint.

 
Paul Cocksedge is a young British designer whose elegant lighting incorporates rarely considered materials and exploits their properties through illumination.

In “Bulb,” Cocksedge takes three natural elements- electricity, water, and a flower, to create a remarkably simple lamp with dazzling- yet organic properties. Inserted into a vase of water, the flower stem is used to switch on a small halogen light at the base of the “lamp.” The water within the vase then projects the light- as would a lens- and the flower is silhouetted from the glow. Because the conductive property of the sap is what creates the path for currnet, once the flower dies, the light will go out.

Paul Cocksedge has used other unusual materials such as styrofoam cups and pencil drawings to create designs of both technical and visual beauty.

I had the great pleasure this past weekend of being invited to a little town outside of Seattle, where I witnessed the work-in-progress prototype of Cargotecture's Studio 320. Had I arrived by chance in the industrial neighborhood to which my directions guided me, I might not have noticed the faded yellow and orange cargo containers that sat at the back of a large, mostly vacant parking lot. They were barely discernable from the backdrop of discarded industrial material. But closer inspection revealed that something surprising was afoot. These two metal boxes are the seed of an ingenious plan by two Seattle architects to turn old shipping containers into sustainable modular dwellings. 

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