Innovation Awards 2007

Its that time of the year again when committees all over the world review applications for innovation awards.

I thought I'd highlight two worth a look.

The Engineer Online: You can have a scout around and even vote for the ones you like ! How's that for democracy. One of the things I like about these awards is how they have segmented the categories into collaboration rather than functional area.

Wall Street Journal Europe Innovation Awards 2007: Click here for background. Sadly these ones are slightly more exclusive in terms of how gets to vote.

Other awards worth keeping an eye on are MacRobert Awards from the Royal Academy of Engineering.

You can get a real feel for the major technology trends by keeping an eye on who is winning what.

More about the winners as they are announced over the Autumn.

One million sensors per person in fifty years

This piece on BBC Online based on the opinions of Martin Sadler from PC firm Hewlett Packard. Better sensor technology combined with ubiquitous storage and communications will create the "Cloud" some people have been predicting for a while.

What's scary for me is that people see the combinations in such obvious ways, the surveillance society etc. But what will the really innovative people do with this technology. Can we use it to completely change the electoral process by being able to judge people moods intimately or inform our partners when we are in a bad mood and best avoided ? Will this technology finally lead to a better understanding of cognitive function something sadly lacking right now.

The UK where I live is already the world's most watched society with 1 camera per 14 people.....

Windream One

I love this story I saw in The Times yesterday about a french woman Peggy Bouchet who is going to make a world first attempt to cross the atlantic in "solar powered sail ballon."

This brilliant idea combines solar power with an innovative carbon keel, the "chien de mer" that will allow her to sail almost directly into the wind. It is also powered by wind turbines. It can make 17mph and will fly between 150 and 300ft above the waves. The journey is expected to take 8 - 12 days.

The 3,000 mile journey is from West Africa to the French West Indies. I will watch with interest.

Historically our propulsion machines have relied on one primary power source maybe with an inferior back-up for short term use. We seem to be entering a world of dual or triple powered machines, in this case solar and wind working synergistically or the Prius with its synergistic drive.

You can see a video of the Windream One in action here.

I think I've found a new hobby.

Images source: Theolia

Nice Technology: Where's the junction ?

PLEDs: Plastic light emitting diode.

Fancy a screen you can roll-up ?
Like the idea of longer battery life on your laptop ?

Maybe replacing your LCD screen with a PLED is the answer.

Unfortunately these solutions aren't too compelling, to date PLEDs seem to be a technology looking for a junction that can give them a real leg-up into the market.

Maybe if it gets cheap enough, really big screen in place of projectors might help but again where is the link to another great technology ? Maybe the migration to flash drive laptops will bring the answer. Maybe in combination with a 64gb memory stick laptop we will get a rollable laptop that will last 12hrs without a charge.

I quite like the idea of that...

As ever, Sony are pioneering with an 11 inch screen, lets see what happens.

Green energy breakthrough or greenwash ?

I think its great that everybody is worried about Green issues but where is the major tech breakthrough to reduce our carbon footprint. I feel like the Prius, wind energy etc is nice but ultimately just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. With India and China coming online the kind of energy use we have coming up is incredible.

We need to a major break through in primary energy generation away from coal. If nuclear energy is not the answer then maybe home generation from gas (combined heat and electricity) and solar is going to have to be the way. I also like ground effect heat pumps for rural locations.

I'm waiting for an electricity generating power unit now before upgrading my boiler.

gmail hijacking revisited

Looks like my post on my gmail account being compromised touched a nerve. It's been a really popular post. We really need robust online information storage systems. Where is the equivalent of a Swiss bank for information. Judging by the response to the post someone could make some money ahead of the curve here.

I tried out Symantec's Norton 360 "secure" online storage but it is so slow and I'm an a T1 line that it's next to useless.

gmail hijacking

My Gmail account was recently hijacked and it got me thinking, I'd pay to have a high security email system that I could store things with secure in the knowledge that security and not advertising is their main priority. Maybe the Paypal guys can move into information security.

Yes, I did get my account back but it took 7 days of stressing out and emailing gmail anonymous email addresses.....

reacTable

A new instrument that uses modern video recognition and projection techniques to allow the user(s) a new way to interface with the music they are trying to project.

I love the unusual nature of this device which allows a composer to try out and experiement in a much more interactive way. See the video. It's getting a lot of publicity right now because Bjork's been using one.