Here Are 4 Astonishing Technologies That Are Becoming Real
Just when we thought they were ‘futuristic’
Think back to when you and your friends were engaged in a future technology ‘what if’ conversation over a few beers. Do you remember all the outrageous thoughts and ideas you shared?
Remember how many of those futuristic suggestions drew some hearty belly laughs?
Now step back and imagine if some of those crazy ideas actually became true.
This might be your first reaction to these recent technologies that are becoming a reality. Those of us who are technological laymen would’ve considered most of them completely implausible just a few years ago.
Not anymore. Take a look at this list, and you’ll wonder not only what comes next but how quickly.
Sending taste across the Internet
High tech researchers and engineers have fully embraced two of the five human senses online, as we can experience sight and sound on the Internet in countless ways.
Amazingly, they are very close to adding human sense number three to our online experience. Imagine being able to send and receive various tastes across the web.
In a study at the University of Singapore, scientists successfully transmitted an amount of sourness from a lemon drink into a container of water at another location¹. Several people acknowledged that this occurred by tasting the water.
Admittedly, this is the first baby step down a lengthy path, but these results are quite amazing nonetheless.
3D printed nanobots
If you have followed nanotechnology, then you are already aware of its incredible future. One of the many anticipated applications is creating bots that are so tiny that they could be injected into our bloodstreams. Perhaps one day, they could be doing things like manually destroy cancer cells in our bodies.
Researchers from Hong Kong have actually created 3D printed nanobots using titanium, nickel, and stem cells². Then they used them to insert cancer cells to precise locations in mice successfully.
Yes, the idea would be to remove cancer cells, but this wasn’t the study's objective.
Their goal was to ascertain if these nanobots could deliver a payload to a specific location within a living creature’s body. Cancer cells were used for this purpose, as they are very easy to track.
Self-healing skin
Every industry in the world has to deal with wear and tear in some form or fashion across the life of their products. In fact, this is the entire premise of maintenance programs — to address normal wear and tear.
Our bodies also suffer from the prolonged rigors of aging. We begin to feel weaker and become much more vulnerable to injuries as we get older.
Apparently, more researchers from the University of Singapore addressed this human problem of wear and tear by developing a self-healing material that models jellyfish's skin³. As a result, the skin will be able to repair itself in just minutes of being torn, cut, and ripped. This material can work even when getting wet.
Scientists anticipate other uses for this material as well. It could be used to develop realistic prostheses and could easily be combined with other new technologies. This high tech skin would be quite sustainable as any material that heals itself will never need to be thrown away.
Remote touching
One huge limitation of achieving tasks is that we have to be there to get them done. Yes, that’s a ridiculous example of stating the obvious.
Just imagine for a moment if you could have a remote conference, and that electronic version of yourself could duplicate any physical thing you could do — at that remote location. This concept is nothing short of what you might see on Star Trek, and it’s a challenge even to wrap your head around.
At MIT, researchers have created a technology that can accomplish this remote touching to a large extent⁴. It is referred to as inFORM, and it is a shape-shifting interface that takes input from one location and precisely replicates that input in another location. The term ‘inFORM’ refers to the interface itself, and there are other applications created to work with it.
One such app is called ‘Materiable,’ which would allow you to touch and handle objects remotely. It has performed successfully in the lab. Materiable can actually mimic the properties of several Earth materials like rubber, water, and sand.
Sources
[1]: Timothy Revell. (March 24, 2017). Virtual lemonade sends colour and taste to a glass of water. https://www.newscientist.com/article/2125761-virtual-lemonade-sends-colour-and-taste-to-a-glass-of-water/.
[2]: Jon Markman. (July 31, 2018). Killer Nanorobots Are Coming For Your Cancer. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2018/07/31/killer-nanorobots-are-coming-for-your-cancer/.
[3]: Jackson Ryan. (March 18, 2019). Scientists build a self-healing, stretchable electronic skin. https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-build-a-self-healing-stretchable-electronic-skin/.
[4]: John Brownlee. (May 9, 2016). MIT’s Latest Tangible Interface? Shape-Shifting Digital Clay. https://www.fastcompany.com/3059672/mits-latest-tangible-interface-shape-shifting-digital-clay.
