Tech Times - Future Greenhouses - By Regardt Voges

Futuristic skyscraper greenhouses
July 03, 2007 Edition 1

Regardt Voges

Imagine a 20-storey glass covered skyscraper in the heart of the city, not filled with offices and business executives, but rather filled with beds of fruits and vegetables.

And instead of designer office furniture, it has designer irrigation systems. A building that doesn't drain our weak energy grid, but rather produces its own clean electricity and even purifies our waste water.

A building that could feed thousands and be completely self-sustainable.

It seems like a utopian dream, but according to Dr Dickson Despommier, professor of microbiology at Columbia University, it is a very viable alternative to traditional farming.

Taking into account that the Earth's population is growing at a very rapid rate and that more farmland is needed every day to feed everyone, the future of traditional farming is anything but clear.

Earth's population is expected to reach 9 billion people in 50 years and there just won't be enough land left for farming. That's why Despommier and his team started looking at new kinds of farms.

Their idea started with a traditional greenhouse, but soon grew into a skyscraper made of titanium oxide-plated glass, giant solar panels, hydroponic irrigation systems and an abundant variety of crops.

A vertical farm can be placed in an urban centre, cutting the need for excessive transport and allowing farmland to be returned to natural forests.

Abandoning the use of fossil fuels and leaving no carbon footprint, the potential advantages of a vertical farm quickly become obvious.

There can be year-round organic crop production in the controlled environment.

Waste water from the city can be used and purified into drinking water.

Agricultural run-off and the use of toxic pesticides will be eliminated. And there will be a constant supply of delicious, fresh produce.

Social benefits of vertical farming include the creation of a sustainable urban environment, which encourages good health for those who live there, and provides an abundant supply of clean air and drinking water.

New employment opportunities will arise and, because of high land costs, vertical farms are most likely to be built in poorer parts of the city, where they will also be most beneficial.

Unfortunately, the vertical farm as Despommier sees it is still just an idea, albeit a very feasible one. We can only look forward to the day when all cities will be self-sustainable and nature can reclaim the farmland we borrowed.

See www.verticalfarm.com for more information on this innovative approach to agriculture. - bigeyeddeer@ yahoo.co.uk

Tech Times - The Future is Facebook - By Sebastian Stent

Facebook - the fastest growing internet tool
July 17, 2007 Edition 1

Sebastian Stent

Facebook. You might have heard of it, unless you've been languishing in some remote forest. It's an online social networking tool developed by a smart young lad called Mark Zuckerberg.

It was created in 2004 from his Harvard dorm room, and was designed to bring students together. Its place on university campuses, as well as the fact that it required your real name and e-mail address to log on, bred a culture of honesty and integrity, which has made Facebook the fastest growing tool of its kind in the world today - the sixth most trafficked site in United States.

While Myspace receives about 57 million US visitors a month and Facebook only 14 million, Facebook is growing three times as fast as the Rupert Murdoch-owned Myspace and should soon eclipse it in terms of both members and use.

While its roots are on campuses, its appeal has spread, especially since it opened its doors to non-campus members last year.

Now there are about 24 million members worldwide, with an astonishing 140 000 new sign ups a day.

What sets it apart from its competitors is its focus on connections - as it is not just the people you know as "friends", but your connections through groups and networks. This has been jumped on by advertisers, who see it as the perfect place to sell, as information is so quickly and efficiently disseminated.

Many thought Zuckerberg would sell out, but his control on the program he started seems unlikely to wane. Last year, he signed a deal with Microsoft, which is now brokering advertising on the site, for a sum many expect to top $100 million a year.

However, what really makes the new Facebook exciting is the Facebook Platform, which was recently released and announced at a briefing entitled "F8" (fate?).

Here Zuckenburg explained the future of Facebook, as a kind of online, open source internet operating system, from which applications from hundreds of other developers could be accessed and used.

In this way, the producers of the programs are able to exponentially increase their customer base, mere-ly using Facebook as the conduit with which to reach their audience.

At the same time, Facebook does not charge these companies for its service, leaving it up to the software designers to popularise their products and thus reap the rewards.

As we step into the age of Web 2.0 - a user-enabled open source internet in which everyone is welcome and ideas are free - it will be interesting to watch the growth of this phenomenon, and how it impacts on our lives in the not too distant future. - bigeyeddeer@yahoo.co.uk

Tech times - HAL suit

July 10, 2007 Edition 1

Sebastian Stent

We have all dreamt of having superhuman strength and being able to lift massive objects with the greatest of ease. This dream is now a reality thanks to some amazing work at the Tsukuba University of Japan, where the HAL bodysuit has been developed.

The Japanese have long been obsessed with robots - from the very first appearance of AstroBoy - and have been working towards robotic-assisted suits for many years.

While there are a number of commercially available artificially intelligent robots, the HAL bodysuit is the first technology to combine robotic elements with an able-bodied human user.

The name, for everyone who has watched 2001: A Space Odyssey, is unfortunate. In the film HAL was the on-board computer which went crazy, killing off the crew.

However, HAL is an acronym for Hybrid Assistive Limb suit, which does exactly what it says.

Powered by a 100-volt battery attached to the waist, the suit senses any movement of the wearer then translates it into equal movements in the bionic exoskeleton, so that the wearer can move normally, but do extraordinary things with the actions they perform.

The sensors are located across all extremities and so any movement, no matter how small, is immediately turned into movement in the suit. This means the suit's responses are not active but reactive, making the consequences of each action relative to the effort put in by the wearer.

The HAL suit has been rigorously tested, including on a trip up Mont Blanc in the French Alps, where two climbers wearing HAL suits carried two disabled people up the mountain - one being carried on the back of a HAL user and the other being dragged up on a sled.

Now the HAL is entering active service and being rented out in Japan. For manual work, the HAL is unsurpassed - a body-worn forklift truck that means the workers can move much more fluidly and shift heavy objects in a confined space.

And if you want a HAL? The HAL 5 is commercially available and can be bought for as little as 1 500 000 yen, which is about R84 900. - bigeyeddeer@yahoo.co.uk

Tech Times - Clever Car

Clever way to get around town
July 03, 2007 Edition 1

Sebastian Stent

The Clever Car is a breakthrough in automotive design, and a radical rethink of the way in which personal transport should both look and function.

The Clever (Compact Low Emission Vehicle for Urban Transport) project was a collaboration between nine Eropean Union countries.

The project was co-ordinated by Heiko Johannsen of the Technical University of Berlin, who oversaw the design and construction of the vehicle.

Alongside him was award-winning designer Peter Naumann, who drew on a number of different sources to create the unique look of the Clever vehicle, which is both practical and visually arresting.

As the name implies, the Clever is a city vehicle, both fun to drive and economical. It is made with two rear wheels and a single front wheel, with the passenger compartment tilting in much the same way as a motorbike.

It has enough space for two passengers in the enclosed cockpit, and its single cylinder 213cc engine is capable of taking it from 0-60km/h in less than seven seconds.

A priority during design was how it would be powered. The team focused on renewable energy sources, and created a unique CNG (compressed natural gas) refuelling system, which will probably become a more successful commercial tool than the vehicle itself, especially with the rapid growth of interest in alternative fuel sources.

Costing approximately R80 000, the car reaches a top speed of about 90km/h. The car is 3 metres long, less than a metre wide and 1.4m tall, allowing it to squeeze through the traffic and into any parking space with ease.

Because of its low weight, the car is capable of an incredible carbon efficiency of only 60g/km, and has a range of more than 200km.

Safety is also a focus on the vehicle, with a unique chassis that protects the occupants, and a hydraulic tilting array to allow amazing stability when cornering at high speeds.

Whether or not this breakthrough vehicle will ever reach our shores is entirely up to South African entrepeneurs.

What is for sure, however, is that it is just one of many new technologies re-inventing the way we travel, and it is only the will of manufacturers and distributors that is keeping the future vehicles from our door. - bigeyeddeer@yahoo.co.uk

Tech Times - This delicious slice of Apple lives up to all expectations - by Sebastian Stent

This delicious slice of Apple lives up to all expectations


July 10, 2007 Edition 1
Sebastian Stent

Last week I got a phone call from Bonnie Schneider, a Capetonian who lives in New York. She had some interesting news - her fiancé, Benjamin Rouah, had just bought an iPhone, and they were both in town. Did I want a go? Have a go on possibly the first iPhone on the continent? What a proposition. Of course …
My interest piqued, it was with bated breath that I awaited their arrival. Would the iPhone live up to expectations? And was it really that hard to get?
Rouah was quick to dispel the rumours. Apparently, although the AT&T stores sold out enormously quickly, and there was queueing at the Apple stores, Rouah only had to wait an hour or so to get his hands on one, and not the three days parked on a kerb that many of us believed was de rigeur for those intent on purchasing one.
Schneider was unimpressed by the hype and had tried to dissuade Rouah from being sucked in.
As they stood in a lift, she had commented that all the fuss was a prime example of everything that was wrong with America. A fellow lift-traveller had told her to go back where she came from then. It's funny, but Americans really do defend their right to spend rabidly.
However, Benjamin got to the front of the queue and was quite surprised to be able to buy his iPhone with relative ease. He hasn't looked back since.
As he went through its functions, it was amazing to see the way in which all of the functions of the iPhone are so intuitive to use.
Every application is laid out on a central menu, and the interaction between these different functions make it almost appear as if the iPhone is thinking for you.
Rouah gave me an example. One day, travelling on a subway, he was listening to his music using the iPod function.
The volume dimmed and the phone rang, alerting him to the fact that he had an incoming call. Just touching the tiny bar on the headphones linked him to the call.
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It was Schneider - calling to tell him to meet her at a restaurant in Manhattan. She rang off, the music returned to its previous volume and with a simple touch of the screen Rouah was in the Google Maps application. Merely typing in the name of the restaurant brought up its location, and by spreading his fingers across the screen, he was able to zoom in and see exactly where it was, where he was and exactly how to get there. Simple.
The phone has a number of great utilities. YouTube works so fast it is hard to believe that it is streaming, with no buffering or waiting around.
Web pages appear as they do on a computer and you can zoom in and out with a flick of your fingers.
SMSes are revolutionised and a conversation plays out in speech-bubble boxes, showing who said what in a clear and accessible way.
Then there is the iPod, whose display is like a three-dimensional jukebox, allowing you to rotate through your albums by their cover and then access songs therein immediately, compiling your playlists in a visually arresting and simple way.
Finally, Rouah showed me the shareprice function. While this was cool, the coolest thing about it came when he pulled up the Apple stocks.
A jump of $13 dollars since the iPhones release? Now that's the true power of Apple - building hype to such great heights that their shares skyrocket. An investor's dream.
This couple had come back to South Africa to visit Schneider parents and Rouah had been given strict instructions to make sure that this time he came with a ring.
Maybe the Schneiders were about to introduce Mr Rouah to the South African concept of lobola. Not so much a ring, as ring, ring …
bigeyeddeer@yahoo.co.uk