Piezoelectricity update

I've spoken very briefly about piezoelectricity in blog posts here, here, here, and here, so I think it's worth giving a quick update on the recent goings-on in that space. At last week's Paris Marathon, piezoelectricity took a bit of a leap into the mainstream, with a creative project from British company Pavegen Systems. From a Bloomberg article written prior to the race:

Paris Marathon organizers will lay energy-harvesting tiles across the course on Sunday to ensure not all the effort expended by the race’s 40,000 runners goes to waste.

The flexible tiles made from recycled truck tires will span a portion of the Champs Elysees for about 25 meters (82 feet) of the 42.2-kilometer course, according to Pavegen Systems Ltd., the U.K. maker of the tiles. Each footstep generates as much as 8 watts of kinetic energy, which is fed back to batteries that can charge display screens and electronic signs along the route, the company said.

Schneider Electric SA (SU), the race sponsor, aims to eventually make the Paris Marathon an event that generates energy rather than consumes it, Aaron Davis, the company’s chief marketing officer, said in Pavegen’s statement. London-based Pavegen aims for its tiles to help cut carbon emissions and boost energy efficiency in cities around the world in the future, it said.

“Imagine if your run or walk to work could help to power the lights for your return journey home in the evening,” Pavegen Chief Executive Officer Laurence Kemball-Cook, who invented the technology, said in the statement. It’s “a viable new type of off-grid energy technology that people love to use and which can make a low-carbon contribution wherever there is high footfall, regardless of the weather.”

Pavegen declined to say how much energy the tiles will produce because there is a competition for the public to guess. Schneider Electric will donate an extra 10,000 euros ($12,850) to charity if generation tops 7 kilowatt hours. That’s enough to run a light bulb for about five days, according to Pavegen.

According to this article, it was unclear immediately after the race whether the 7 kWh goal had been met, but I nevertheless applaud the race organizers and the company for their creativity.

It's of course way too early to know if this technology is realistically scalable or viable, but it's clearly a step in the right direction. The more energy we can harvest from our own activities, the less we have to "produce" or mine or burn. I'm hopeful that this is a method that can catch on and become economical enough to achieve wide acceptance.

[Bloomberg]

Smart highways

I feel like I might have posted about these things before, but given my past blog posts on the topic, I figured it was worth sharing either way. Via Barry Ritholtz comes a quick summary of these so-called "smart" highways, which are scheduled to debut in the Netherlands later this year. Pretty cool stuff.

From their own fact sheet (with some funky translations):

Smart Highway are interactive and sustainable roads of today. Designer Daan Roosegaarde and Heijmans Infrastructure are developing new designs and technologies for this Route 66 of the future. 

New designs include the ‘Glow-in-the-Dark Road’, ‘Dynamic Paint’, ‘Interactive Light’, ‘Induction Priority Lane’ and ‘Wind Light’. The goal is to make roads which are more sustainable and interactive by using light, energy and road signs that automatically adapt to the traffic situation. 

Awarded with a Best Future Concept by the Dutch Design Awards 2012 the first meters Smart Highway will be realized mid 2013 in the Netherlands. 

The "Dynamic Paint" design, for example, puts designs on the road that will change based on temperature and general road conditions, to better inform drivers of what to expect. And the "Induction Priority Lane" has induction coils underneath the surface, which can allow electric cars to recharge their batteries as they drive on them.

Here's a short video showing what these guys are doing, and what's possible.


Futuristic highways glow in the dark by Daan Roosegaarde and Heijmans from Daan Roosegaarde on Vimeo.

While this still seems like pretty crude and early-stage technology, I think it's a good step toward being more creative with how we think about our roads and their functions. The days of having a piezoelectric national highway system that powers the cars that drive on it may not be so far away, after all.

Finally, some real innovation

You see, guys, what have I always been telling you? If we really want to get some real innovation in this country to get us out of our economic doldrums, we just have to start taking our cues from Russia. Wait, that can't be right...

In October, design practice Y/N studio caused a stir by designing a blueprint for a swimming lane along Regent's canal in London, so that people could swim to work. Now, the Estonian architecture studio Salto has built an equally inventive solution to the boredom of the morning commute – a 51m (170ft) -long trampoline, so that you can bounce to your destination. 

 

The trampoline, called Fast Track, has been built and installed at arts festival Archstoyanie, and has been a hit since it was opened at the end of November in the Nikola-Lenivets forest, in south-west Russia. Made of black rubber, it is, according to Salto "an attempt to create [an] intelligent infrastructure that is emotional and corresponds to the local context, giving the user a different experience of moving and perceiving the environment".

Hey, that's a fantastic idea! It's green, it gets us off our butts and exercising a little bit, it encourages our long-lost love of nature... what could possibly go wrong? Oh... right.

3-D printing meets Skyfall

Yeah, I know, shut up about the 3-D printing already... but this is seriously cool, and it's becoming clear that 3-D printing is being used in more and more applications all the time these days.

If you thought producers spent millions on James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, which was put through a series of huge explosions and stunts during the filming of Skyfall, including one scene where the priceless vehicle exploded in flames – think again. 

Three replicas of the classic car were created using a large scale 3D printer for the filming of the latest installment from the spy series. 

The models double for the now priceless original vehicle from the 1960s in the film’s action scenes. 

The models were made by British firm Propshop Modelmakers Ltd, which specialise in the production of film props, and used Voxeljet to print the cars, the Daily mail reported. 

“Propshop commissioned us to build three plastic models of the Aston Martin DB5,” voxeljet CEO Dr. Ingo Ederer, said. 

“We could have easily printed the legendary sports car in one piece at a scale of 1:3 using our high-end VX4000 printer, which can build moulds and models in dimensions of up to eight cubic metres,” Ederer said. 

But the British model builders were pursuing a different approach. 

“To ensure that the Aston Martin was as true to detail as possible, and for the purpose of integrating numerous functions into the film models, they decided on an assembly consisting of a total of 18 individual components,” Ederer said. 

“The entire body is based on a steel frame, almost identical to how vehicles were assembled in the past. In addition to the automotive industry, foundries, designers and artists, the film industry represents an entirely new customer base for voxeljet. 

“3D printing is on the cusp of a great future in the film industry. The technology offers fantastic opportunities, since it is usually much faster, more precise and more economical than classic model construction,” Ederer added.

Awesome. That's a perfect example of what this stuff is so great for, and I'm glad to see the creativity and innovation being put to good use. I can't wait to see what comes up next.

[Zee News]

More on 3-D printing (Japan edition)

Since I'm always talking about 3-D printing, this little news item seemed like it had to be passed along here.

3D printers – it’s a word that offers glimpses into the future that seems so far, and yet is so close. The technology, which allows you to replicate 3D objects the same way you make a photo copy, has been around for a couple years now, but, for the most part, has been far too expensive and inaccessible to the public. 

But now, what’s being called the world’s first 3D printing photo booth is set to open for a limited time at the exhibition space EYE OF GYRE in Harajuku. From November 24 to January 14, 2013, people with reservations can go and have their portraits taken. Except, instead of a photograph, you’ll receive miniature replicas of yourselves. 

Reservations are taken only through the website. You can pick from 3 sizes, S (10cm), M (15cm) and L (20cm) for 21,000 yen, 32,000 yen and 42,000 yen, respectively. But there are group discounts! This would be really fun to do with your kids, who seem to grow up just way too fast.

For those wondering about the conversions, the sizes are roughly 4 inches, 6 inches, and 8 inches, for $264, $403, or $529. Obviously not cheap, but still sort of awesome if you happen to be passing through Tokyo in the next few months (and who isn't, right?). Check out the pics:

I assume the thing is capable of capturing some sweet action poses as well, even though our Japanese models seem to have been angling for the "coffin" pose for some reason. For anyone who ever grew up wishing they could have their own action figure, this is about as close as you're gonna get. Well, unless you feel like enlisting...

[Spoon & Tamago]
(h/t Marginal Revolution)

There are 250,000 patents impacting smartphones

I'll keep this one short and sweet, because I've been writing about the topic of patents and smartphones a fair amount lately. But I thought this piece from Techdirt did an excellent job of illustrating my recent points, and I'd be remiss if I didn't share it here.

A new analysis shows just how insane the patent thicket is today. Done by "defensive" patent aggregator RPX..., the estimate is that a stunning 250,000 active patents today impact smartphones. 250,000. As the article notes that's one in six active patents today -- and for an industry that is certainly less than 1% of US GDP. As a comparison, the pharma industry, often put forth (inaccurately, in my opinion) as an area where patents make sense, has accounted for a little over 6% of US patents over the past 15 years. Also, there's this: 

... in the pharmaceutical industry, there are approximately 46.8 patents per every 1,000 jobs, whereas in the computer and peripherals equipment sector, there are 277.5 patents per 1,000 jobs. Even the semiconductor industry, known for its highly complex products, has a patent/job ratio of 111.6 patents per 1,000 jobs -- approximately 40% the rate of patents to jobs as the computer and peripherals market. 

It definitely appears that there's something of a "bubble" going on around smartphone patents -- which is what happens when you have a hot emerging area, combined with ridiculously broad patents. It also makes for an astounding minefield for anyone new who wants to enter the space, especially if you don't have a massive war chest to license or fight in court.

Wow. I'm not sure what else to add here, except to say that Apple has very definitely contributed to this growing bubble. Obviously, though, they're not alone.

[Techdirt]

The cult of the smartphone

Tim Iacono tipped me off to an interesting Wall Street Journal article about cell phones that I hadn't yet seen. It raised some points that I've been thinking about for quite some time, and I thought they were worth sharing here.

Heidi Steffen and her husband used to treat themselves most weeks to steak at Sodak Shores, a restaurant overlooking a lake near their hometown of Milbank, S.D. Then they each got an iPhone, and the rib-eyes started making fewer appearances. 

"Every weekend, we'd do something," said Ms. Steffen, a registered nurse whose husband works at a tire shop. "Now maybe once every month or two, we get out." 

More than half of all U.S. cellphone owners carry a device like the iPhone, a shift that has unsettled household budgets across the country. Government data show people have spent more on phone bills over the past four years, even as they have dialed back on dining out, clothes and entertainment—cutbacks that have been keenly felt in the restaurant, apparel and film industries... 

Labor Department data released Tuesday show spending on phone services rose more than 4% last year, the fastest rate since 2005. During and after the recession, consumers cut back broadly on their spending. 

But as more people paid up for $200 smartphones and bills that run around $100 a month, the average household's annual spending on telephone services rose to $1,226 in 2011 from $1,110 in 2007, when Apple Inc.'s iPhone first appeared. 

Families with more than one smartphone are already paying much more than the average—sometimes more than $4,000 a year—easily eclipsing what they pay for cable TV and home Internet... But the question for the industry is how much bigger bills can get before the cuts in other parts of the family budget grow too painful. 

The article goes on to discuss an interesting developing battle with respect to smartphone data plans—with data usage now skyrocketing, cell phone carriers like Verizon are now eliminating unlimited data plans for customers who wish to buy smartphones at the subsidized rate. This means that many customers will have to either choose to actually pay full price for their iPhones (which very few can afford to do), or else pay even more in their bills each month.

I've always found it amazing how much people will be willing to pay on a per-month basis in order to avoid actually paying full price for their phones—in many cases, over the course of two years with an iPhone, people will pay 4 to 5 times the actual retail cost of the device just on monthly bills, without even thinking about what they're doing.

It's a topic that blogger Karl Denninger has tackled at length on multiple occasions, especially when Sprint announced that they would be allowing iPhones on their prepaid network without a contract. Citing a Fox Business article, Denninger wrote:

Virgin Mobile USA, a prepaid brand of Sprint, on Thursday announced it will offer the Apple iPhone on a no-contract basis to customers starting on  June 29, but you may want to think twice before jumping ship from your current  carrier if you're already an iPhone owner. 

The "garf" is that you're going to have to pay cash for the phone -- in this case, $549 or $649, depending on the model you want.  No subsidy. 

But.... the plan is $35/month for 300 minutes of voice and unlimited text and data. 

Now consider that over two years if you buy the phone from AT&T it breaks down like this: 

$199 up front for the iPhone 4S 

$39.99/mo for base 450 minute service 

$30.00/mo for 3gb of data 

$20.00/mo for unlimited text messages 

====== 

$89.99/mo * 24 months = $2,159.76 + $199 = $2,358.76 over two years 

Now on Virgin, it's $649 up front and then $35/month * 24 months, or $1,489.00 over two years. 

Want to pay an extra $869 plus additional taxes and fees on the AT&T service that are billed separately but not on Virgin, which simply charges sales tax (this can easily be $200 or more over those two years.) 

Go right ahead. 

For everyone else just tell AT&T and Verizon to***** off.

Interesting analysis. For what it's worth, the cost of using an iPhone on Virgin is still pretty damned expensive, but at least you're not locked into a two-year contract at exorbitant rates just to pay off the effective "loan" that you took out to buy your overpriced phone.

Either way, even though I personally continue to do it (not with an iPhone, with an Android, but that's a story for a different day), I really can't figure out how so much of America can justify spending so much on phone service even as they're cutting back on just about everything else.

Sometimes I wonder, in our desperate attempts to stay "connected" to the world with our phones, are we risking becoming completely disconnected instead? Once we choose to stay home and play with our phones rather than going out and having meals with friends, I think that choice has already been made. It's a weird choice, but we are where we are.

[Wall Street Journal]
[Market Ticker]

3-D printing and patents

I've been writing a lot about 3-D printing lately (because I think it's awesome), and I also recently wrote a post about our nation's patent system (because I think it's broken). Last week, I came across an article from The Economist that brought those two topics together—in a way that might not make me particularly happy.

What could well be the next great technological disruption is fermenting away, out of sight, in small workshops, college labs, garages and basements. Tinkerers with machines that turn binary digits into molecules are pioneering a whole new way of making things—one that could well rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way as the PC trashed the traditional world of computing. 

The machines, called 3D printers, have existed in industry for years. But at a cost of $100,000 to $1m, few individuals could ever afford one. Fortunately, like everything digital, their price has fallen. So much so, industrial 3D printers can now be had for $15,000, and home versions for little more than $1,000 (or half that in kit form). “In many ways, today’s 3D printing community resembles the personal computing community of the early 1990s,” says Michael Weinberg, a staff lawyer at Public Knowledge, an advocacy group in Washington, DC. 

As an expert on intellectual property, Mr Weinberg has produced a white paper that documents the likely course of 3D-printing's development—and how the technology could be affected by patent and copyright law. He is far from sanguine about its prospects. His main fear is that the fledgling technology could have its wings clipped by traditional manufacturers, who will doubtless view it as a threat to their livelihoods, and do all in their powers to nobble it. Because of a 3D printer's ability to make perfect replicas, they will probably try to brand it a piracy machine. 

Manufacturers of famous brands have had to contend with ripoffs since time immemorial. Whole neighborhoods exist in Hongkong, Bangkok and even Tokyo that turn out imitation designer handbags, shoes and watches. China has flooded the world with cheap replacement parts based on designs pirated from the original equipment manufacturers. 

But while the pirates' labour rates and material costs may be far lower, the tools they use to make fakes are essentially the same as those used by the original manufacturers. Equipment costs alone have therefore limited the spread of the counterfeiting industry. But give every sweatshop around the world a cheap 3D printer coupled to a laser scanner, and pirated goods could well proliferate... 

As with any disruptive technology—from the printing press to the photocopier and the personal computer—3D printing is going to upset existing manufacturers, who are bound to see it as a threat to their traditional way of doing business. And as 3D printing proliferates, the incumbents will almost certainly demand protection from upstarts with low cost of entry to their markets. 

Manufacturers are likely to behave much like the record industry did when its own business model—based on selling pricey CD albums that few music fans wanted instead of cheap single tracks they craved—came under attack from file-swapping technology and MP3 software. The manufacturers' most likely recourse will be to embrace copyright, rather than patent, law, because many of their patents will have expired. Patents apply for only 20 years while copyright continues for 70 years after the creator's death.

Oh, boy. I firmly believe that 3-D printing has the potential to transform the way that many industries—particularly those involved in manufacturing—operate in this country, and that it could even help our country to break its long-standing dependence on imported crude oil (if I don't have to ship a product to you, because you can print it yourself at home, then I can pretty much put UPS and FedEx out of business overnight, significantly cutting into the amount of fuel used in this country).

But it won't happen if we don't allow for the elimination of businesses made irrelevant by new technologies. Creative destruction has always been at the core of economic progress in this country (note: "economic progress" does not necessarily mean the same thing as "economic growth", as measured by the circulation of dollars—not all "wealth" is denominated in paper currency), and to the extent that patents impede this economic progress, they must be abolished.

I think we're reaching a very dangerous point in this country when it comes to patents and the way they are used—instead of being used as a tool to protect inventors and small business owners from being ripped off, they're now being used as a cudgel by the largest companies to protect their dominant industry position and create barriers to entry for smaller competitors.

If you doubt this assertion, please refer to this piece in yesterday's New York Times, which notes that Apple and Google this year spent more money on patent lawsuits and patent purchases than they did on research and development for new products. That's a new dynamic (it's the first year that this has been the case), and it's definitely not a positive one for our country.

When we put the interests of big business ahead of the interests of society at large, we put ourselves on a dangerous path toward economic stagnation and irrelevance. Unfortunately, the majority of public policy that has come about in the last decade has done just that—from auto industry bailouts to TARP to overly broad patent law to a whole laundry list of other programs and court rulings, the past decade has been a great one for big business, typically at the expense of the ordinary American.

We need this dynamic to reverse itself, because the nation's economic future is worth more than the income statements of its largest companies. Yes, they are different things.

[Economist]

P.S.- Another interesting dynamic to watch in the 3-D printing space is discussed in this article, which I didn't have the opportunity to address in this post. I don't think that guns are the best use of 3-D printers, but they're clearly drawing a lot of attention for various reasons. Interesting developing issue.

The future of automotive transportation

While I spend a lot of time on this blog decrying the current state of our economy (and political environment), I try my best to balance that cynicism with a fair amount of optimism about our future, especially where new technologies are concerned. If we can be courageous enough to allow for the breaking down of old paradigms (and for the failure of outdated and obsolete business models), the future for our nation is indeed incredibly bright.

In that vein, a pair of articles that I read over the weekend have me particularly excited. First up, from US News & World Report:

Last week, California became the third and by far the most important state to legalize driverless cars, joining Nevada and Florida. Google has been getting most of the attention here for its work developing driverless vehicles. But it is hardly alone. Major automakers have their own projects under development. 

Google may want to leapfrog existing technology to point the way toward a driverless future. Existing auto companies will seek incremental changes that protect their franchises while moving toward an automated future. It's not clear what the pace of commercialization will be for driverless cars. 

After all, many of the improvements promised at the 1939 World's Fair in New York still have not come to pass. And there will be no shortage of open-road lovers and skeptics reluctant to cede control of their cars to a bunch of computers—shades of Skynet and The Terminator. 

But as Google, Apple, and other new-tech giants have demonstrated, the pace of change is likely to be much faster when it comes to automated vehicles. Using increasingly sophisticated sensors and software, driverless cars hold out the promise of saving lives, fuel, and time. They react more quickly to accident threats. They don't panic. They can tie into traffic grids and do a much better job of balancing traffic flows. They can optimize fuel consumption. 

We already trust a lot to technology when we drive. We generally believe traffic signals and respond to GPS guidance and traffic congestion reports. We expect speed and fuel flows to respond properly when we use cruise controls. We use digitized cameras and back-up sensors. Newer cars monitor weather conditions and automatically trigger any number of safety responses. Increasingly, we even pay for auto insurance using on-board computers to record where and how we are driving. And many of these functions are voice-activated on newer vehicles.

For more on the Google Car project, check out this video on Bloomberg—you have to admit, it looks pretty awesome. But in case driverless cars don't get you all excited, I've got another car-related article that is equally awesome. From Yahoo Finance:

Tesla Motors today unveiled its highly anticipated Supercharger network. Constructed in secret, Tesla revealed the locations of the first six Supercharger stations, which will allow the Model S to travel long distances with ultra fast charging throughout California, parts of Nevada and Arizona.  

The technology at the heart of the Supercharger was developed internally and leverages the economies of scale of existing charging technology already used by the Model S, enabling Tesla to create the Supercharger device at minimal cost. The electricity used by the Supercharger comes from a solar carport system provided by SolarCity, which results in almost zero marginal energy cost after installation. Combining these two factors, Tesla is able to provide Model S owners1 free long distance travel indefinitely. 

Each solar power system is designed to generate more energy from the sun over the course of a year than is consumed by Tesla vehicles using the Supercharger. This results in a slight net positive transfer of sunlight generated power back to the electricity grid. In addition to lowering the cost of electricity, this addresses a commonly held misunderstanding that charging an electric car simply pushes carbon emissions to the power plant. The Supercharger system will always generate more power from sunlight than Model S customers use for driving. By adding even a small solar system at their home, electric car owners can extend this same principle to local city driving too. 

The six California locations unveiled today are just the beginning. By next year, we plan to install Superchargers in high traffic corridors across the continental United States, enabling fast, purely electric travel from Vancouver to San Diego, Miami to Montreal and Los Angeles to New York. Tesla will also begin installing Superchargers in Europe and Asia in the second half of 2013. 

The Supercharger is substantially more powerful than any charging technology to date, providing almost 100 kilowatts of power to the Model S, with the potential to go as high as 120 kilowatts in the future. This can replenish three hours of driving at 60 mph in about half an hour, which is the convenience inflection point for travelers at a highway rest stop. Most people who begin a road trip at 9:00 a.m. would normally stop by noon to have lunch, refresh and pick up a coffee or soda for the road, all of which takes about 30 minutes. 

"Tesla's Supercharger network is a game changer for electric vehicles, providing long distance travel that has a level of convenience equivalent to gasoline cars for all practical purposes. However, by making electric long distance travel at no cost, an impossibility for gasoline cars, Tesla is demonstrating just how fundamentally better electric transport can be," said Elon Musk, Tesla Motors co-founder and CEO. "We are giving Model S the ability to drive almost anywhere for free on pure sunlight."

Make it through that whole thing? Good. To date, I haven't been particularly excited about electric cars, in large part because previous models have mostly relied upon existing sources of electric energy, the majority of which is generated from the burning of fossil fuels (largely oil and coal). In other words, there's no real fundamental change, just a shifting of where the fuel is burned—in a power plant instead of in your car.

But if we can make a shift to solar, then that's a legitimate game-changer in the automobile world. Of course, as I've mentioned on here once before, what would be even cooler is if we could figure out a way to turn all of our highways into piezo-electric energy generators, with the cars effectively powering themselves, at least in part. Spray some transparent solar film on the outside of all the car's windows, and we could take this whole thing even another step further.

Yes, I know that some of this probably sounds insane, but I also think it's completely possible and plausible. The technology all exists, it's just a matter of harnessing it in a way (and scaling it up to a point) that makes it broadly useful and usable.

Do I think that a future of self-driving cars which use virtually no energy is possible? Absolutely. Do I think that we as humans have the courage to embrace that future, if it means destroying entire companies and industries in the process? That jury's still out. But I certainly hope so.

[US News]
[Yahoo Finance]

Clip of the Week (NASA edition)

With all my posting this week, I still can't seem to make a dent in my backlog of unfinished drafts. So be it, some day I'll catch up. For now, it's Clip of the Week time.

In light of today's financial news, this realistic depiction of Ben Bernanke and Mario Draghi's policy proposals (h/t Red Cowboy) seems particularly appropriate. I also love it because animals make me smile.

I've also already mentioned that it's election season, which probably means that you can get ready to see a whole lot of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart clips around here in the coming weeks (I highly recommend the awesomeness of that Stewart clip, by the way... great satire, with a terrific Glengarry Glen Ross reference to boot).

In the sports world, outfielders continue to make great catches, as do wide receivers (just like last year). Also, for all you golfers out there, Charl Schwartzel's four-putt is just painful to watch. Enjoy.

But this is going to be a week for science and for recognizing NASA. I came across a couple of videos that showed some of the awesome stuff they're doing down there, even if their funding is coming under fire as we apparently shut down all government functions in order to save Social Security and Medicare. Crap, I'm ranting again, huh?

Anyway, this time-lapse image of all the ocean's currents was pretty awesome, but not nearly as awesome as this depiction of the Mars rover's journey, which is your Clip of the Week. Keep up the good work, NASA. Don't let the bastards get you down.

As for the rest of you, blow this up full screen and enjoy. Remember, America is still a pretty awesome place if we'll let it be, just not on Wall Street...

More on 3-D printing

Amid all my rants and raves and complaints around here, there's one thing that I've consistently touted as being seriously awesome, and that's 3-D printing. I think the potential for this technology is simply mind-blowing, and that it could completely revolutionize the way we think about manufacturing and manufactured products and shipping and basically anything you associate with our "modern" economy.

Like any technology, it's taken a little while for 3-D printing to emerge from its infancy and work out the kinks, but I think (hope?) we're rapidly approaching the point where this could be a viable consumer technology.

Early desktop printers were horrible. For the price of thousands of dollars one got lo-res dot matrix printouts on paper that had tractor-feed holes punched into the margins. It wasn’t pretty, but those early models paved the way for high-resolution, low-cost laser printing.

Today’s hobby grade 3-D printers are similarly crude. They all use Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) technology and are essentially robotic hot glue guns. Fortunately, a new generation of higher-resolution, faster, and more reliable machines are starting to come to market.

This new type of hobbyist printer use Stereolithography (SLA) technology, utilizing light instead of heat to make models. How? A high powered light source hardens a cross section of light-sensitive liquid plastic. The machine then raises the build platform a smidge and the process is repeated. It’s very dramatic — models look like they are being pulled from a puddle of goo.

For those interested in seeing what this looks like in real time (okay, time-lapse), check out this video:



Are there potential issues with this technology? Yes, most definitely, and I certainly hope that the government doesn't fall all over itself to pre-emptively restrict the usage of 3-D printers. But I think that may in fact end up happening, if only because of this:

An American gunsmith has become the first person to construct and shoot a pistol partly made out of plastic, 3D-printed parts. The creator, user HaveBlue from the AR-15 forum, has reportedly fired 200 rounds with his part-plastic pistol without any sign of wear and tear. 

HaveBlue’s custom creation is a .22-caliber pistol, formed from a 3D-printed AR-15 (M16) lower receiver, and a normal, commercial upper. In other words, the main body of the gun is plastic, while the chamber — where the bullets are actually struck — is solid metal.

So, yeah, I can see where the government might step in and try to heavily regulate the usage of these printers. A world in which an individual can print himself a gun (or a grenade, or whatever else) on a whim might make it pretty difficult to regulate the things that government likes to regulate.

But that, in my opinion, would be a significant shame. I believe that this technology has significantly more upside than downside, and I think that there are reasonable ways to limit the potential negative impacts that government might fear. We'll see, but this is one of the few recent innovations that truly gets me excited for the future of our country and the world. If we have to break some eggs to make an omelette, so be it. This stuff is just way too cool.

[Wired]
[Extreme Tech]

Back in the Saddle

I'm back home after a brief New England vacation, reconnecting with family and realizing that I definitely need to do that more often. I'll be catching up on things around here slowly but surely, and I'll be announcing my presence with authority with your Quote of the Week this afternoon. After that, all bets are off.

For now, I'm sharing with you this cartoon that somehow seems pretty apt in the wake of my recent vacation. Hope you all didn't miss me too much. And would it kill you to call your mother?

Jay Leno's 3-D Printer

I've posted about 3-D printing here once before, and it's awesome. I don't particularly like Jay Leno (especially after what he did to Conan), but this is also awesome.

Jay Leno has a lot of old cars with a lot of obsolete parts. When he needs to replace these parts, he skips the error-prone machinist and goes to his rapid prototyping 3D printer. Simply scan, print and repeat. 

"One of the hardships of owning an old car is rebuilding rare parts when there are simply no replacements available. My 1907 White Steamer has a feedwater heater, a part that bolts onto the cylinders. It's made of aluminum, and over the 100-plus years it's been in use, the metal has become so porous you can see steam and oil seeping through. I thought we could just weld it up. But it's badly impregnated with oil and can't be repaired. If we tried, the metal would just come apart.  

So, rather than have a machinist try to copy the heater and then build it, we decided to redesign the original using our NextEngine 3D scanner and Dimension 3D printer. These incredible devices allow you to make the form you need to create almost any part. The scanner can measure about 50,000 points per second at a density of 160,000 dots per inch (dpi) to create a highly detailed digital model. The 3D printer makes an exact copy of a part in plastic, which we then send out to create a mold. Some machines can even make a replacement part in cobalt-chrome with the direct laser sintering process. Just feed a plastic wire--for a steel part you use metal wire--into the appropriate laser cutter.  

Inside the printer, the print head goes back and forth, back and forth, putting on layer after layer of plastic to form a 3D part. If there are any irregularities in the originals, you can remove them using software. Once the model is finished, any excess support material between moving parts is dissolved in a water-based solution. Complexity doesn't matter, but the size of the object does determine the length of the process. Making a little part might take 5 hours. The White's feedwater heater required 33 hours.  

Any antique car part can be reproduced with these machines--pieces of trim, elaborately etched and even scrolled door handles. If you have an original, you can copy it. Or you can design a replacement on the computer, and the 3D printer makes it for you. 

That is so completely awesome, and I can't wait for stuff like this to become more widespread (and it will, eventually, as resistant as we all may be to change).

When I see amazing innovation like this, I instantly become a little upset at our societal tendency to continually prop up old failed businesses with terrible business models (like airlines, banks, and car manufacturers). In order for our economy to make progress over the long run, we need to be willing to let older companies die off. In this case, traditional car repairmen would certainly resist the introduction of NextEngine scanners and printers on a wide scale. But if we cave to their concerns, we'll never get anywhere. This technology is awesome, and I want it.

[Popular Mechanics]

The changing business of education

I've come across a couple of interesting articles recently that have made me wonder if (some) schools are actively anticipating the bursting of the student loan bubble, and responding in advance by streamlining their processes and making education less expensive (and more democratic). The most intriguing of these articles was cited in this post on the Marginal Revolution blog, discussing a new approach to math classes at Virginia Tech.

There are no professors in Virginia Tech’s largest classroom, only a sea of computers and red plastic cups. 

In the Math Emporium, the computer is king, and instructors are reduced to roving guides. Lessons are self-paced, and help is delivered “on demand” in a vast, windowless lab that is open 24 hours a day because computers never tire. A student in need of human aid plants a red cup atop a monitor. 

The Emporium is the Wal-Mart of higher education, a triumph in economy of scale and a glimpse at a possible future of computer-led learning. Eight thousand students a year take introductory math in a space that once housed a discount department store. Four math instructors, none of them professors, lead seven courses with enrollments of 200 to 2,000. Students walk to class through a shopping mall, past a health club and a tanning salon, as ambient Muzak plays... 

Virginia Tech students pass introductory math courses at a higher rate now than 15 years ago, when the Emporium was built. And research has found the teaching model trims per-student expense by more than one-third, vital savings for public institutions with dwindling state support. 

“When I first came here, I was like, ‘This is the dumbest thing ever,’” said Mike Bilynsky, a freshman from Epping, N.H., who is taking calculus. “But it works.” 

No academic initiative has delivered more handsomely on the oft-stated promise of efficiency via technology in higher education, said Carol Twigg, president of the National Center for Academic Transformation, a nonprofit that studies technological innovations to improve learning and reduce cost. She calls the Emporium “a solution to the math problem” in colleges.

This is an interesting development, particularly in light of Stanford and Harvard's recent decisions to begin streaming online courses for free to the masses over the internet.

While Stanford and Harvard's programs' ostensible purpose is to "democratize education", it's hard to understand why they would be so willing to give their product away for free (of course, we could argue that their real product is "diplomas", not "education", but that's an argument for another day). One answer might be that they're experimenting with new (and cheaper) ways of delivering their educational product to consumers, using the public as guinea pigs rather than their tuition-paying students. It's just a theory, but I think it makes a lot of sense.

The simple fact is, the traditional model of education (professor lecturing to a room full of bored students) has in many ways outlived its usefulness (a topic I first explored in this blog post). It's wildly inefficient, and it's now becoming overly expensive to deliver. Many schools on the cutting edge of education are wondering whether there might be a better model out there, and they're beginning to experiment with new options.

Granted, the schools are only doing this experimentation out of necessity, recognizing that the trend of ever-skyrocketing tuition costs simply cannot continue forever. If the schools don't adapt now, they risk being left behind (or left for dead) if and when the bubble bursts. But regardless of the reasons for the experimentation, the outcomes are nevertheless intriguing, and I'm interested to see if projects like the Math Emporium start to catch on elsewhere.

I'm certain that similar experiments will face an extraordinary amount of pushback in the short term (particularly from professors who earn their living from the old model), and maybe they should. But I'm hopeful that a new and more efficient higher education model awaits--and that I won't have to mortgage my house to send my daughter to receive it.

[Marginal Revolution]

YouTube takes over the music industry

Given that I've posted about the rapidly changing music industry a few times before, I was intrigued by my old friend The Red Cowboy's post this morning about the increasing number of musical acts that are getting discovered on YouTube these days. He wrote:

You've all seen the video of the group playing one guitar and singing Gotye's Somebody That I Used to Know and it's extremely impressive. I didn't post the video here because the song simply isn't one of my favorites but on a long drive to Louisville this weekend one of my buddies shared with me that they cover a bunch of songs. So check out Walk off the Earth because some of their other covers are more impressive than the Goyte one, like this one... 

As you can see the video is from October of 2010 and this just goes to show what YouTube has done to the music industry. Soon to be gone are the days of touring to get noticed and here is a time where you can make a name for yourself and get signed by playing on YouTube.  The one thing that I really enjoy about these successful covers is that the bands tend to be really, really good musicians which is something that has been sorely missing from mainstream music. I'm looking at you Beiber.

I thought the Cowboy's take in the second paragraph there was both interesting and ironic, and I couldn't help but post a comment on his blog, which I'll reprint here:

It's ironic that you finish off your post with a shot at Bieber, who (along with Soulja Boy) basically pioneered the YouTube-to-stardom path in the music industry.  

You'll still see plenty of untalented acts in the YouTube-ized music industry (see Rebecca Black). In fact, you'll probably see more of them than ever before, because there's no need for a label to make any upfront investment. But it's also less likely that true talent will remain undiscovered for very long, and that's a good thing. Unfortunately, I don't think we can get the good without accepting some of the bad. Nature of the beast.

Progress in the music industry has been and will continue to be uneven, as it tends to be in all areas of society and the economy. Sometimes good developments bring unintended consequences along with them, and we simply have to accept those unintended consequences (or else figure out how to deal with them).

In the case of the music industry, YouTube has helped break down the significant barriers to entry that previously existed (and those barriers were stronger in the music world than in almost any other industry). That means that it's easier for ALL artists--both talented and untalented--to get noticed these days. Sometimes, it's difficult for us to sort out the good from the bad, especially since we as consumers aren't used to having to do this kind of sorting (we're accustomed to having been force-fed whatever the labels wanted to sell).

Untalented acts like Rebecca Black will sometimes find a way to slip through our filters, and we won't necessarily pick up on all of the truly talented acts that are out there. There will be growing pains as the artists and consumers both adjust to the new paradigm, but I think it's clear that the more democratic system is better for all parties in the long run. But in the meantime, we're probably going to have to deal with more crappy music, not less. So be it.

[The Red Cowboy]

The tail is still wagging the dog at UF

Well, this is a fun one. I've written a couple of times before about the role of athletics at our nation's universities, and whether the tail may be wagging the dog. On both occasions, I discussed the University of Florida, which has been one of the more aggressive institutions in terms of spending on athletics while making cuts elsewhere (like, in academics).

UF clearly believes in the "front porch" theory of running an academic institution, which I've discussed (and partially debunked) in my previous posts. But even for them, this most recent decision is a head-scratcher, and makes one wonder just what the hell the senior administration at UF is thinking.

The University of Florida announced this past week that it was dropping its computer science department, which will allow it to save about $1.4 million.  The school is eliminating all funding for teaching assistants in computer science, cutting the graduate and research programs entirely, and moving the tattered remnants into other departments. 

Let’s get this straight: in the midst of a technology revolution, with a shortage of engineers and computer scientists, UF decides to cut computer science completely?... 

Meanwhile, the athletic budget for the current year is $97.7 million, an increase of more than $2 million from last year.  The increase alone would offset the savings supposedly gained by cutting computer science.

Yeesh. Ironically, Florida Governor Rick Scott just last week approved the creation of a brand new state college, Florida Polytechnic University, specifically to address the state's significant shortage of qualified workers in the so-called "STEM" fields (science, technology, engineering, and math).

Perhaps UF's cutting of the computer science department was done as part of a broader re-allocation of resources within the state's education system, perhaps not. Either way, something doesn't smell quite right here--why spend millions to create an entire new college when you can just keep (or expand on) what you've already got? It makes little to no sense to slash this department entirely (especially a department that caters to a growing industry) while plowing even more money into athletics, and the indignation throughout the blogosphere is entirely warranted. What is going on here?

[Forbes]

Clip of the Week

Unfortunately, there wasn't a whole lot to choose from this week. It happens sometimes, right? But there were still a few interesting things to watch, so let's do this.

In the world of sports, we had this impressive dunk by Russell Westbrook, as well as this ridiculous throw from Rick Ankiel (which wasn't even the most impressive YouTube effort of Ankiel's career--this was).

We also love animal-related posts here in Clip of the Week, so this guy who almost ran into a bear while texting was a serious contender for this week's top honor.

But the most amusing video I saw this week (in an admittedly weak field) involved this "Safe Sound" device on a Domino's Pizza electric scooter from the Netherlands, which uses a recorded human-generated engine noise to warn passengers that the otherwise-silent vehicle is in its midst. While I can see this getting extremely annoying, it's nevertheless a creative and humorous solution to a growing problem, and maybe it can help prevent issues like, oh I don't know, these accidents from happening.

Tacocopter? Yes, please

I occasionally speak to people who think that I'm too much of a critic, too much of a pessimist, a "downer", if you will. For what it's worth, I'm not really a natural pessimist, nor am I pessimistic about all things. I happen to think we live in an absolutely amazing time, where technological possibility is so incredible as to almost be overwhelming (I can communicate with somebody thousands of miles away, instantly, using only my thumbs! I can work from home, wherever I want home to be!), and the prospects for the future in some ways couldn't be brighter. I wouldn't trade being alive today for being alive in any other time--I like my technology too much.

It's just that I think that the existing economic and political paradigms that we've lived under for the past several decades are hopelessly broken in fundamental ways, and that these will need to be torn down (probably in a disorderly manner, because there's rarely any other way) in order for future generations to fully enjoy and appreciate the possibility that these technological advances afford. Furthermore, I think that such a collapse is not only necessary, but inevitable. Make sense? Alright, cool. Because this is freaking awesome.

The Internet is going wild for Tacocopter, perhaps the next great startup out of Silicon Valley, which boasts a business plan that combines four of the most prominent touchstones of modern America: tacos, helicopters, robots and laziness. 

Indeed, the concept behind Tacocopter is very simple, and very American: You order tacos on your smartphone and also beam in your GPS location information. Your order -- and your location -- are transmitted to an unmanned drone helicopter (grounded, near the kitchen where the tacos are made), and the tacocopter is then sent out with your food to find you and deliver your tacos to wherever you're standing. 

You pay online, so the tacos are simply dropped off at your feet by the drone helicopter, which then flies back to the restaurant to pick up its next order.

That... is... AWESOME. I want two chicken tacos, delivered by a robot helicopter, now. Oh, but of course, there's a catch:

Well, put down your smartphones, because here comes some bad news: The launch of Tacocopter... is being blocked by the U.S. government. 

"Current U.S. FAA regulations prevent ... using UAVs [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, like drones] for commercial purposes at the moment," [company cofounder Star] Simpson said over Gchat. "Honestly I think it's not totally unreasonable to regulate something as potentially dangerous as having flying robots slinging tacos over people's heads ... [O]n the other hand, it's a little bit ironic that that's the case in a country where you can be killed by drone with no judicial review." 

Simpson told HuffPost that because of the FAA's regulations -- as well as other minor problems, like navigating the treacherous terrain of an urban environment, keeping the food warm, finding a city map precise enough to avoid crashes 100 percent of the time, avoiding birds, balconies and telephone wires, delivering food to people indoors, delivering food to the right person, dealing with greedy humans who would just steal the Tacocopter as soon as it got to them, etc. -- the Tacocopter website exists more as a conversation starter about the future of food delivery (and delivery in general), as well as about the commercial uses of unmanned vehicles, than an actual startup plan or business.

Boooooo, government. To be fair, this is one area where I think the government has a right to be a little wary of what's being proposed, for the reasons that the cofounders enumerated. Still, I think this idea is awesome, and I want to see what other stuff people come up with using drone/robot technology (stuff like this, for example).

As I said before, I really couldn't be more excited to see what kind of stuff the next several decades bring in terms of technological advancement--if the last two decades are any guide, I literally can't even imagine what things will look like by 2035. I just hope we're all ready to embrace the changes that technology can so rapidly bring--this is no time to be clinging to old, broken paradigms, however good they may have been to us in the past. We need to change along with our technology, and those changes won't always be so easy.

[Huffington Post]

When innovation doesn't lead to progress

MIT News has a pretty fascinating article up this week that gives a slightly surprising answer to the question of why average automobile fuel efficiency has not improved in recent decades, despite near-constant efforts to solve the fuel efficiency puzzle. Let's let them tell the story (emphasis mine).

Contrary to common perception, the major automakers have produced large increases in fuel efficiency through better technology in recent decades. There’s just one catch: All those advances have barely increased the mileage per gallon that autos actually achieve on the road. 

Sound perplexing? This situation is the result of a trend newly quantified by MIT economist Christopher Knittel: Because automobiles are bigger and more powerful than they were three decades ago, major innovations in fuel efficiency have only produced minor gains in gas mileage. 

Specifically, between 1980 and 2006, the average gas mileage of vehicles sold in the United States increased by slightly more than 15 percent — a relatively modest improvement. But during that time, Knittel has found, the average curb weight of those vehicles increased 26 percent, while their horsepower rose 107 percent. All factors being equal, fuel economy actually increased by 60 percent between 1980 and 2006, as Knittel shows in a new research paper, “Automobiles on Steroids,” just published in the American Economic Review.

The puzzle basically boils down to an earn-more, spend-more cycle, where we continually fritter away the gains that technology has given us. Simply put, the technology of 20 years ago simply could not have produced a heavy, powerful SUV with any sort of fuel efficiency whatsoever. Now that it's feasible, we want it, and consumers want the power and size more than we care about the added fuel economy. As a result, overall fuel economy stays pretty much constant, while the cars we drive change drastically.

This is a pretty difficult problem to solve, and not just in the arena of automobile manufacturing. When we as a nation earn more money or become generally more productive, we rarely redirect our newfound earnings (or time) into productive avenues--instead, we fritter it away on conspicuous consumption or myriad time-wasting activities. If we ask ourselves why, the answer is invariably hidden among many layers of complex and bizarre human psychology, often augmented or reinforced by a herd mentality. Yes, I'm rambling.

Ultimately, though, this is just another obstacle to technological progress, the first of which--our societal aversion to change--I mentioned in this post several months ago. Having good ideas available is a necessary condition, but not sufficient. To move forward as a society, we must be willing and able to truly embrace the new possibilities that have been opened up for us--and not to fritter those possibilities away mindlessly. In the case of fuel efficiency, it seems, we've been our own worst enemy. That's too bad.

[MIT News]

On power lines

Fortune had an interesting piece today discussing the economics of power lines--specifically, the economics that lead utility companies to suspend most wires from utility poles (subjecting us to frequent power outages, especially in the winter) rather than burying them underground. Per the article:

The freak snowstorm that hit the Northeast on Halloween weekend felled branches and trees at a dizzying rate -- New York City's Central Park alone lost 1,000 trees -- and downed hundreds of power lines. The blizzard left some 2 million without electricity -- many for more than a week. The even weirder thing is that this didn't really need to happen. As severe storms become more frequent and the losses from closed businesses and absentee workers add up, one is tempted to ask a very simple question: Why don't we bury our power lines?

Well, it turns out the answer isn't so simple. Numerous studies conducted by utilities over the years conclude that it is not economically feasible to bury lines. The most common estimate is that it costs 10 times more to bury them than to string them on poles. The North Carolina Utilities Commission said that burying wires statewide would cost $41 billion, take 25 years, and would more than double monthly electric bills. The news gets more discouraging. Some experts say that underground cables are more reliable than those above ground but only by about 50%, and that advantage is somewhat counteracted when you consider that it takes much longer to find, dig up, and repair a faulty wire. Why do underground cables fail at all? Floods and earthquakes can short lines. There's more: The roots of a tree toppled in a storm could destroy a buried wire.

Is it that hopeless? Maybe not, argues Gerry Sheerin, an engineer and consultant in Ontario, who thinks the studies on cost and reliability are out of date and too high, perhaps by a factor of two. "Putting wires underground is absolutely a last resort with utilities, so they don't have much experience doing it and tend to overestimate the difficulties involved." That said, most new housing developments today bury their cables, helping the industry to gain experience. A nationwide program to bury wires could create economies of scale that would drive down costs. Also, new sensor technology could help spot breaks in underground lines, speeding repairs.

Down here in Virginia, I live in a (relatively new) development where the majority of lines are buried. This doesn't eliminate power outages entirely, but it definitely speeds the repair process--most of the outages we experience are exceedingly temporary.

But what's most noteworthy to me about this article isn't so much that the economics of air-versus-ground may be shifting toward ground, but that it's presumed that these are the only two options. With all of the fantastic technological advances that we're seeing elsewhere, how is it that we haven't been able to come up with a more efficient alternative?

I'm of course just spouting random nonsense off the top of my head here, but doesn't it seem like there could be some other options--like embedding or attaching power lines to the sides of roads, or embracing/augmenting wireless technology, or basically anything that straddles the line between "hanging in the air" and "buried under the ground"? There seems to be a whole lot of uncovered territory between the two extremes that we're discussing, but for some reason it gets ignored completely. Why is that?

[Fortune]