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How breakthrough technology helps us stay healthier and happier
This year, the health and fitness theme has rocketed with a boost of wearable technology and all kinds of other sensory devices that help enhance physical abilities. In 2013, food brands became more health-conscious, design labels sought for solutions to make physical activity and moderate eating experiences more sophisticated, and tech brands channeled their expertise into making pieces that extend the limits of what a human body can do.
Below, there are six major trends, along with sub-trends, that have been mainstreaming in this field throughout 2013.
Physical disability as incentive to innovate
Physical illnesses are now positioned not as an end of the life journey but rather as a transition to a whole new level. The lack of ability to do something in a traditional way is now perceived as a gap that is to be filled with new solutions based on a creative technological approach. Tech-powered projects are emerging fast to support physically challenged individuals in the process of overcoming the boundaries.
Left to right: 1. The active accessible icon 2. Cortex 3. Sign Language Ring
- Image of a disabled person gets a positive facelift. This year, some cities across the USA, including NYC, agreed to adopt a new, energy-packed sign that symbolizes wheelchair accessibility. Guinness launchedan emotional heartwarming video featuring a team of friends in wheelchairs who are playing basketball. In the end of the ad, five of six friends get up except one, a guy with a physical disability who stays in the chair. After the game, all of them go to a pub to celebrate their friendship with beer.
- Prosthesis as a technological masterpiece. The rapid development of bionic technologies allows to create artificial body parts that look similar to the real ones and offer similar level of performance. In February, Channel 4 aired a documentary titled “How to Build a Bionic Man” that explores the innovation in this field—on the dedicated site, one can also bionicise their body online. Mind-controlled prosthesis start a new era in the niche, bringing new possibilities to people who don’t have limbs. 3D-printing technologies allow to reduce the time and cost of creating artificial body parts—from arms to eyes—and also can be used in creating chick casts for fractured bones, like Cortex.
- Improving the damaged sensory experience. The blind people are getting a chance to experience the world in a better way with a range of new devices. These include the Kinect Eyes-Free yoga instructor that analyzes the movement and gives audio instructions, and also the UltraBike ultrasound sensor kit that enables visually impaired people to ride a bicycle and “see” the obstacles. Bikes get equipped with special device featuring sensors that detect various objects ahead and alert the rider through vibrating handlebars. Yahoo! created a dispenser that creates 3D replicas of everyday objects for blind kids—children name the objects they would like to touch, and the machine produces the tiny copies of these items right away. The Sign Language Ring allows deaf people to communicate freely with any person—the rings analyze the moves of fingers and then translate the words and phrases into an audible form through a special bracelet.
What to expect: From the practical point of view, disability coupled with technology now means even more than ability in its basic form. With the rise of bionic science and easy-to-create 3D body parts, it’s possible to deliver missing body limbs and organs that are almost as good as original ones. With the development of transport technology and sensory devices, physically challenged people can get the same amount of activity as healthier people. Mind-controlled prosthesis and other devices are to dominate in the life of people who lost physical ability, partly or completely. A human body becomes a strategic design and technology project of the coming years.
To sum up, the year of 2013 can be characterized by the boost of conscious food consumption (eating less, opting for healthier food), tracking all body signals (both physical and mental), and the rise of technology aimed to drive more ability into the live of the handicapped.
Source: http://popsop.com/2013/12/how-breakthrough-technology-helps-us-stay-healthier-and-happier-6-trends-to-watch-in-2014/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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