TECHNOLOGY: A Leap to Nowhere
It was this weekend I’d planned to show you an incredible piece of technology. It’s the Leap motion controller for PC and Mac. It’s a little device you plug into your computer and use hand motions to control. I’d written about it 3 months ago and mentioned how excited I was about this great technology. I also had expected delivery in May…it’s now almost August.
The Leap is ground-breaking. No more computer mouse, no more grubby, fingerprint coated screens. The ability to simply use hand gestures to control my computer is, or was, very exciting for me.
I should now be flipping through webpages like a symphony conductor. But I’m not. I’m still using the track ball on my computer mouse. Wires still shackle me to my computer. And I still have to point and click to get stuff done.
You see here’s the thing when you’re an early adopter. When you get a new piece of consumer technology, the technology might be amazing but the company is usually crap.
And unfortunately the whole experience with Leap from pre-ordering through to ‘delivery’ has been bad.
I’ve written about this very dilemma before, The Difference Between Great Technology and Great Technology Businesses. Sometimes the company can’t match the hype of its technology.
You can make as many cool YouTube videos as you want. Tweet to your heart’s content and blog like it’s something new. But at the end of the day sometimes the company just plain outright fails the end user.
What this also does is highlight the weakest link between technology and growth…people.
What if computers, robots and algorithms had been in charge of the whole process? I’d probably be posting a video to you this weekend showing the Leap in action.
But I’m not. Leap has not just let me down, but you too.
The upside of all this is affirmation that automation is the way of the future. Sure you need people to invent, design and bring a technology like Leap to market. But when it comes to the part of getting the thing from the warehouse to the consumer I say, ‘Bring on the Robots.’
Imagine…I click ‘Buy’ on the Leap website. A robot in the Leap warehouse picks a unit off the shelf. The robot sends it along a production line, its parcelled up and stamped with my address. It finds its way to a distribution centre. There it’s get an allocation to Australia with other Leap controllers heading in the same direction.
A self-driving delivery van takes the Aussie orders to the airport. They’re loaded onto a freight drone which leaves on time and lands on time. It’s then loaded into another self-driving delivery van and driven out to the addresses.
Running complex algorithms, the delivery van customises a route to avoid traffic and road hazards, ensuring all deliveries are on time.
Oh I can dream…excitingly the technology is available now to do all that. But simply, the technology isn’t being utilised.
Until it does I will stay patient. I sit and hope the Leap will find its way to me eventually. I hope technology will help to forget the experience that the company has so far provided.
HEALTH: Why a Flatworm Holds The Key To Eternal Life
Nature demonstrates the most amazing miracles. Looking at the potential of what exists around us, scientists can unlock new discoveries in biotechnology and science.
What I mean is scientists often look to nature for the answers to their scientific problems. What nature can provide can also be used in modern medicine.
Take the Lotus flower as an example. Lotus flowers have superhydrophobicity. Meaning they are highly water resistant and self-cleaning. The reason why this occurs is due to the nano sized structure of the flower’s leaves.
If you take a microscope and look at a Lotus leaf you see tiny protrusions on the leaf. It’s a whole bunch of little spikes sticking out of it.
Therefore as a water droplet hits the leaf only about two to three percent of the water surface area actually touches the leaf. Since this discovery scientists have applied this principle to everything from NASA rockets to shoe coatings and paint.
And when it comes to the future of health and medicine, nature has a lot more to give.
Two of the most intriguing phenomena in nature are thanks to the Salamander and the Milk-white Flatworm. The Salamander can regrow its limbs and the Flatworm can regrow its head from its tail.
The key to both of these regenerative miracles is the structure of the creatures’ stem cells.
And it’s in the potential of stem cells that Regenerative Medicine holds the key for humans to live longer and healthier than ever before.
But don’t just take my word for it. Through extensive and lengthy research we’ve discovered a company involved in the science of stem cells that holds the key to eternal life.
You see scientists are on the verge of unlocking the full potential of stem cells. And when they crack it, it will turn the practice of medicine on its head.
I know it might sound a bit gross regrowing limbs and body parts, but that’s because it’s likely you still have yours intact.
Take a moment to think of someone that doesn’t have two arms and legs. They might have lost an arm or a leg while serving in the army. Maybe they were involved in a car crash.
But if through science they had the chance to get all limbs back and intact do you think they’d take the chance?
It won’t happen overnight, it might not even happen in our lifetime. And it’s more than likely you won’t be able to regrow a head.
But the science that nature gives us will lead to great breakthroughs in medicine. And it’s really thanks in part to a Salamander and a Flatworm.
ENERGY: A Little Bit Of Wind Could Be Making People Sick
This last week has seen some controversial news reports about the potentially harmful effects of wind turbines. Yes that’s right, claims that wind turbines are harmful to people’s health.
Before you burst into laughter…apparently the ‘infrasound’ from the turbines can lead to insomnia, anxiety and nausea. This is what the findings from a report completed in 1987 (26 years ago) said anyway.
Maybe wind turbines do create unintended medical issues for people? Maybe it’s an exacerbated form of paranoia, I don’t know. It does feel as though anti-turbinists have some ulterior hidden agenda though.
Seriously, how can you bring up a report from 1987 to strengthen an argument that wind turbines are detrimental to people’s health today?
Anyway, regardless of the lunacy that supports that argument, let’s say hypothetically that wind turbines might have some detrimental impact to health.
There is a simple solution to the problem. Take the wind turbines offshore. Don’t have them near domestic residences.
Source: http://graysharboroceanenergy.com
A report from the European Wind Energy Association highlights offshore wind is one of ‘the fastest growing maritime sectors’. And that by 2020, ‘4% of Europe’s energy demand could be met by offshore wind turbines.’
The offshore wind farms would be a mix of floating turbines and fixed turbines.
Harnessing the wind makes sense. The lucky part of living on Earth is that we’re never short of wind.
It’s not something we’re going to run out of anytime soon. So why not make the most of one of the most abundant sources of energy we have?
Wind turbines and wind farms are will be a part of the answer to achieving energy independence for countries around the world.
Australia has only recently started to appreciate that point and hence started building some of the world’s largest wind farms. The biggest in the Southern Hemisphere is here in Victoria, the Macarthur wind farm. It opened in April this year and has a 420 Megawatt capacity.
Apparently no one has dropped dead from any infrasound from Macarthur. But just in case, maybe it’s worth sticking some turbine farms off the coastline. There’s certainly enough wind, and certainly enough coastline.
It all might contribute to the future of Aussie energy being entrenched in the wind. We’re off to a good start with Macarthur. Here’s hoping it doesn’t stop there.
Sam Volkering+
Technology Analyst, Revolutionary Tech Investor
From the Archives…
Why Invest ‘Hard’ When You Can Invest ‘Easy’?
19-07-2013 – Kris Sayce
Read This Before You Buy Another Stock or Bond…
18-07-2013 – Murray Dawes
Could Uranium be the Best Investment in 2013?
17-07-2013 – Dr Alex Cowie
Asteroid Mining and the Commercialisation of Space
16-07-2013 – Sam Volkering
Why the Australian Share Market is Heading Even Higher
15-07-2013 – Kris Sayce
