Mely 2009-es találmányok lehetnek komoly hatással az ICT jövőjére?
From a rocket of the future to a $10 million lightbulb, here are TIME's picks for the best new gadgets and breakthrough ideas of the year. The Best Invention of the Year: NASA's Ares Rockets. 2. The Tank-Bred Tuna. 3. The $10 Million Lightbulb. 4. The Smart Thermostat. 5. Controller-Free Gaming. Since time immemorial — or at least since Pong — one barrier that has stood between gamers and total Tron-like immersion in their video games has been the controller: the joystick, trackball, mouse, light gun or whatever. This year Microsoft demonstrated a technology, code-named Project Natal, that enables players to control games using only body movements and voice commands, no controller required — the gamer's body becomes the controller. Project Natal uses several cameras, plus a highly specialized microphone and a lot of fancy software, to track the gamer's body and interpret his or her voice. 6. Teleportation. Inching our reality ever closer to Star Trek's, scientists at the University of Maryland's Joint Quantum Institute successfully teleported data from one atom to another in a container a meter away. 7. The Telescope for Invisible Stars. 8. The AIDS Vaccine. 9. Tweeting by Thinking. Plenty of people's Twitter feeds appear to be connected directly to their egos, but one scientist's is actually wired to his brain. In April, University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson tweeted 23 characters just by thinking. He focused his attention on one flashing letter after another on a computer screen while wearing a cap outfitted with electrodes that monitored changes in his brain activity to figure out which character he wanted. The feat marks a major step forward in establishing communication for people with "locked in" syndrome, which paralyzes the body, except for the eyes, but leaves the mind alert. 10. The Electric Eye. MIT researchers are developing a microchip that could help blind people regain partial eyesight. 11. The Mercury Probe. 12. The Personal Carbon Footprint. Negotiations over carbon emissions resemble the end of a Quentin Tarantino film, when everyone has a gun pointed at everyone else and no one can make a move. Researchers from Princeton University suggest working on the individual level. 13. The Solar Shingle. 14. The Handheld Ultrasound. On Oct. 20, GE unveiled the Vscan, a medical imaging tool as compact as a cell phone and as powerful as a large ultrasound console. Doctors can use it to look inside a patient's body and instantly see fluid around the heart, for example, or a baby in the breech position.
IT3 komment: Év végi szokás szerint a tudományos-technológiai, infokommunikációs szaklapok is visszatekintenek az eltelt tizenkét hónapra, s tízes, húszas, ötvenes stb. listákat állítanak fel az esztendő találmányairól, újdonságairól, legőrültebb ötleteiről. A listák ugyan szubjektívek, és a tapasztalat szerint nem kevés újításra merül a feledés homálya, ugyanakkor jó pár valóban kihat mindennapjainkra, könnyebbé teszi azokat.
Forrás: www.time.com
