Blind Drivers, Human Body Shops and Bottling the Sun - NIWeek Day 3 Keynote Recap

[Dave Brown]

The final day of NIWeek 2010 opened with keynote demonstrations of projects that are sure to drive the future of innovation.

First, NI VP of marketing for core platforms Ray Almgren introduced the NI myDAQ, a portable device that makes it possible for college students to "do engineering anywhere, anytime, for the price of a textbook." He then invited university teams to demonstrate how they are using NI technology to improve the world. The Racing Green Endurance team from Imperial College London showed how they quickly prototyped and deployed an electric car, which can drive 350 miles on a single charge, within eight months using LabVIEW and CompactRIO. Next came the team that is participating in the EcoCAR Challenge, wich aims to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles by minimizing the vehicle’s fuel consumption and reducing its emissions while retaining the vehicle’s performance, safety and consumer appeal. The team is using multiple NI products in their vehicle. Almgren then introduced the Virginia Tech Blind Driver Challenge team, demonstrating a car that the blind can drive, which they prototyped in just four months using NI products.

Dr. Michio Kaku, theoretical physicist, author, professor and host of numerous scientific documentaries, closed NIWeek 2010 with informed projections about the future of science, technology and innovation. He explained how with Moore’s Law doubling computer power every 18 months, innovation is happening faster than ever.

Perhaps most interesting were the numerous emerging technologies that Kaku mentioned, including...

• Contact lenses that use the Web to augment reality ("supervision")
• Disposable e-paper and scrap computers (chips and other components will become ultra-cheap in the near future)
• 360-degree vision in vehicles
• Invisibility cloaks
• Tricorders (portable MRI machines)
• Driverless cars
• Shift from mass production to mass customization

• Computer-based telepathy and mind reading, as well as brain-computer interface and a thought dictionary (currently in development)

• Human genome dictionary that will allow creation of body parts from scratch -- a human body shop (first human bladder was grown three years ago, and there are already prototypes of human liver)
• Major disruption in fossil energy industry -- solar will replace fossil fuels
• Fusion technology will be the next major iteration of solar energy production -- in essence, capturing the sun in a bottle.

In addition to detailing such technologies that will drive the future, Kaku also mentioned how NI is helping advance those technologies. With examples such as NI involvement in the CERN Large Hadron Collider and ITER fusion projects, he declared that, “NI has set the gold standard for data processing.”

So, according to not only NI, but also according to one of the world's smartest individuals, NI definitely remains at the forefront of technology. And it was a great close to another impressive NIWeek.

See you next year!