Intel Corporation's chief technology officer took a fascinating look at how technology will bring man and machine much closer together by 2050. Justin Rattner, during his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, predicted big changes are ahead in social interactions, robotics and improvements in computer's ability to sense the real world. He said Intel's research labs are already looking at human-machine interfaces and examining future implications to computing with some promising changes coming much sooner than expected. "The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago," Rattner said. "There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future."Wireless Power or Witricity Imagine being able to walk into an airport or room with your laptop and instead of consuming battery, it is recharged. Based on principles proposed by MIT physicists, Intel researchers have been working on a Wireless Resonant Energy Link (WREL). Rattner demonstrated powering a 60-watt light bulb without the use of a plug or wire of any kind, which is more than is needed for a typical laptop. The technology relies on strongly coupled resonators, a principle similar to the way a trained singer can shatter a glass using her voice. Programmable Matter: Computers that Change ShapeIntel researchers are also investigating how millions of tiny micro-robots, called catoms, could build shape-shifting materials. If used to replace the case, display and keyboard of a computing device, this technology could make it possible for a device to change physical form in order to suit the specific way you are using it. A mobile computer, for example, could be tiny when in a pocket, change to the shape of an earpiece when used as a mobile phone, and be large and flat with a keyboard for browsing the Internet or watching a movie. Robots: From the Factory Floor to Your Kitchen Robots today are primarily used in the factory environment, designed to perform a single task repeatedly and bolted down. However, two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel's research labs were demonstrated towards electric pre-touch as a novel sensing modality and another demo was towards recognizing faces and interpret and execute commands as generic as "please clean this mess" using state-of-the-art motion planning, manipulation, perception and artificial intelligence. So robots would becoming more human-like and more innovation will emerge to make human and machine interaction more robust. Also an exercise was carried out on brainwave patterns, processes them in real time and enacting them as a game what conscious or non-conscious thoughts the user has had, like facial expressions, conscious actions or emotions. A user with lets say EPOC headset could think about smiling or lifting an object, and an avatar in a game would execute it. EPOC can currently identify more than 30 different "detections" through the 16 sensors on the headset. Deepa Sayal/ITvoir Network |
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