How far we have come from the Montgolfier balloon flights of 18th century France to today. How much farther will we go in the 21st century? In Part 7 of our look at transportation we will look at the evolution of flight technologies not including space. When we started talking about transportation we briefly introduced
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Renewable energy sources represent our best 21st century bet in replacing fossil fuels for generating electricity. Water, wind, waves and tides, solar and geothermal technologies have been in use in different forms for several centuries. Deriving new efficiencies through invention should dramatically alter the way the human species generates and uses energy in the 21st century and beyond.
Easily accessible oil and gas finds, usually referred to in the industry as conventional hydrocarbon reserves, are a thing of the past. Instead resource developers are increasingly turning to unconventional alternatives such as deep ocean exploration and extraction, the mining of bitumen deposits and oil shales, and the creation of oil products from biomass and
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What is the current state of fossil fuels on Earth? Are we facing an oil crisis in the near future? In Part 2 of Energy in the 21st Century we try to answer these two questions.
The marriage of computers and manufacturing is rapidly moving us towards mass customization. Called fabbing, digital fabrication is becoming rapidly affordable and doable. We are not far away from the replicators of Star Trek here in the 21st century.
In this posting we look at the history of machines and the move to introduce a machine-computer interface.
The rise of intelligent computing machines is the focus of Part 4 of this series. We look at the role emotion and consciousness play in the creation of human-like artificial intelligence.
The search for the ultimate medium upon which to create artificial intelligence appears to be biological. Using the building blocks of life for computing makes a lot of sense. Biological computers are energy efficient, have little negative environmental impact, use materials that are plentiful, are powerful information processors and have the capability to self improve.
In Part 2 of this 4-part blog we look at the evolution of computers from the ENIAC to quantum and neuromorphic-chip based computing.
From Deep Blue to the creation of self-aware artificial intelligence, this four-part series of blogs looks at the evolution of computers in the 21st century.
