https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehHfTcQ8rQI

Carbon dioxide (CO2) conversion and use

Long-promised technologies for the capture and underground sequestration of carbon dioxide have yet to be proven commercially viable, even at the scale of a single large power station. New technologies that convert the unwanted CO2 into saleable goods can potentially address both the economic and energetic shortcomings of conventional CCS strategies. One of the most promising approaches uses biologically engineered photosynthetic bacteria to turn waste CO2 into liquid fuels or chemicals, in low-cost, modular solar converter systems. Individual systems are expected to reach hundreds of acres within two years. Being 10 to 100 times as productive per unit of land area, these systems address one of the main environmental constraints on biofuels from agricultural or algal feedstock, and could supply lower carbon fuels for automobiles, aviation or other big liquid-fuel users.

Scientists are working on creating artificial trees, that can remove carbon dioxide from the air to be stored underground. It works with a specific plastic material that absorbs the CO2. Then by using water to douse the material, the CO2 is deposited (underground) where it can stay for thousands of years. Very exciting stuff! This could be the next big technology to reducing the amount of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.

Carbon Nanotubes! Stronger than steel!

A Carbon Nanotube is a tube-shaped material, made of carbon, having a diameter measuring on the nanometer scale. A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter, or about one ten-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair. The graphite layer appears somewhat like a rolled-up chicken wire with a continuous unbroken hexagonal mesh and carbon molecules at the apexes of the hexagons. 

This (left) is what each individual carbon nano-tube would look like, strings of carbon fused together in a hexagonal pattern. Below is the structure of the nano tubes once they are made into thread (like in the video). The tubes hook onto one another and form tight bonds, like if you were to join 2 books page over page and try to pull them apart. Carbon Nanotubes have so many functionalities; being incredibly strong, very, very, very thin AND being a great conductor! 

Carbon nano-tubes are also being used to grow human organs! They provide an important scaffolding, when coated with a growth medium, that mimics the processes that goes on around our organs as they grow. Their conductivity is essential to this mimicry.  

Being used to make human hearts:http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/148526-carbon-nanotubes-make-it-possible-to-grow-human-hearts

Google Now

Google Now is an emerging technology for the android platform that was released with the update jelly bean. This allows users to find all the information around them at the appropriate time, I personally use this everyday to see the upcoming weather, when I have to leave for class and if traffic is congested and I have to leave early.

One of the biggest benefit is that it will also find out any information from where you are and what you have been doing recently. When you start searching for movie times it displays the time on your phone and where the closest cinema is. If you are near a train or bus station your be shown the time table from the app. If you have the lock screen widget all of this information is easily available without even unlocking your phone!

I highly suggest anyone who has an android phone to try this fan tasting application out!

http://www.google.com.au/landing/now/

QR Code

You may have seen these recently in various places, you may have heard people talking about them in the realm of mobile and wondered what the heck they are. Quick response codes (known as “QR” codes) are a very convenient way to display a small bit of information that is easily scanned and processed typically by mobile devices. Allowing physical items to almost become interactive, by providing information that is easily scanned like a website URL.
To make a simpler analogy, most people are familiar with Universal Product codes (known as UPC codes). Everything you buy at the grocery store (and almost any store these days) has one of those that the cashier will scan. The computer then immediately knows what the product is based on the code that it picked up.
Does anyone remember the days of grocery shopping and the cashier had to punch in the prices and codes for every single item you purchased. They had to memorize most of these in their head and if they forgot? They had to pickup the loud phone, make an announcement in the store asking for someone in that department to help them out.
Think of QR codes as UPC codes but instead they’re used in a much broader spectrum, not just to ‘identify’ products but to convey ‘information’ of some kind.

Basic QR Code Usage

The most basic (and popular use) of QR codes is to display website information (a website address). Lets say you’re at a trade show and you’re walking by my booth. You want to find out more information about my company, so you open up your phone and start fumbling away trying to type in some long URL (that is on my display) into your browser, and off you go.

The other option would be for me to display a QR code (on my display), you take your phone and scan it just like cashiers scan items at the grocery store, and your phone automatically starts loading my website, how is that for convenience?
What about billboards outside on the street, or bus shelters while waiting for public transportation. You can place these little codes anywhere. People with free scanners on their phones (iPhones, BlackBerrys, Androids, Nokia, etc.) can quickly scan the QR code and find out more information, like opening up a website.



Whole Foods Market (popular in the US/Canada) uses these in their stores. I was recently sitting down to have a bite to eat at the one in Yorkville Toronto, and on the table where I was sitting was a table tent with two QR codes.
It was obvious where they would take me if I scanned them, one would take me to their twitter account, the other would take me to their facebook page.
If I was interested in checking out their twitter or facebook page, rather than opening up each respective app and going to the search function and typing in their name etc. (I likely wouldn’t, too much effort) I could pick up my phone, scan the QR code and automatically open each page!
You can find a lot of examples of QR codes online, here are a few more

 How does  it works?

To read a QR code, a smart phone set up with a camera and a QR code reader is required. The QR code reader is an application (to install on your smart phone) which uses the camera to capture the code and decode it.

A wide range of QR code readers is available, below are the main ones.

i-nigma
NeoReader
ScanLife
BeeTagg

These QR code readers are freely available on iPhoneOS/iOS, Android, Windows Mobile and the Blackberry and Nokia devices. To upload them, you need to use the platform associated to your smart phone.

 

3D Printing and Gun Control

3D Printing:

This emerging technology brings more than just excitement and anticipation. The above video displays the ability to manufacture, with CIM (computer aided manufacturing), gun parts with 3D printing. He talks about making the designs open source, and what that could bring; if anyone with the right equipment could potentially become an arms manufacturer. Thuis opens a can of worms with this technology. How accesible is too accesible? There will surely be policies and regulations created to keep up to pace with new technologies (as there always has been) and to what extent they will control this market is the question that is on my lips. I wonder how the open source distribution of designs (for potentially anything) will affect society and how the population will react.

Emerging internet connections.

The inside of a fiber optic cable.

The most common  connection around the world according to Netindex.com is 13.76Mbs with Australia having and average of 13.04Mbps and ranking overall 42nd place in the world. To combat this the Australian government has created the national broadband network to increase the speed with a theoretical 1000 gigabit download and upload speed, this would put us at the frontier of the world for internet speed.

This is created by using fiber optic connection, this technology works by light being sent down a cable which has total internal reflection. Because the cladding absorbs none of the light, it can be used over extreme distances and not lose energy unlike copper. It will still degrade because the glass is not 100% pure so it will have to be renewed over a long distance.

What does this mean for you? This means you will be able to watch your favorite YouTube videos in higher quality and be able to watch high resolution movies on demand without having to buy physical media. When the higher resolution TV's (4k) come out, cable will not be able to produce full HD because of its maximum speed, while fiber optics will be able to, showing crisp footage from your favourite stations.