Check out this video. It’s not a force field like I remember from the superhero and outer space cartoons of my youth, but for all intents and purposes, what you are about to see is the closest I’ve ever seen to a true force field. It’s pretty amazing, and makes me wonder just how this type of technology will change the way wars are fought. What’s the point of shooting at your targets if the chances of hitting drop below 1%? Very interesting…
Actual statistics indicate that street crime in Japan is on the decline, nevertheless sensational media has made the issue of personal safety a hot topic in Japan. In answer to the heightened concern for safety, Japanese inventors have created a genre of safety products that may seem totally off the wall to some, but are gaining popularity in Japan. Tsukioka, a 29-year-old fashion designer, for instance, has designed a skirt that pulls out to cover the wearer in a vending machine disguise. A version for children disguises the wearer as a fire hydrant! If you aren’t already aware, the streets of Japan are literally lined with vending machines that sell everything from space age snacks to used school girl panties (I kid you not), so disguising oneself as a vending machine seems logical, albeit in the hide-under-a-cardboard-box logic of cartoon world. Check out the link for an interesting discussion on the interplay between fashion and personal safety in Japan.
When I was 8 or 9, I remember hearing about how certain people, after they had gotten fillings in their mouths, had inexplicably inherited the ability to hear radio stations. I thought the very idea was the coolest thing I had ever heard. Imagine sitting in class, or in church, Sunday school…slightly clenching your teeth and hearing the sweet sounds of Huey Lewis and the News being snatched from the air by your molars. Years later we’ve got the iPod, which is small in size, but still detectable enough to get confiscated in class…but now Scientists have produced the first working radio that receives radio waves wirelessly and then converts those waves into sound through a nano-sized detector made of carbon nanotubes. Just imagine the potential ramifications of this…all of the equipment and electronics that clutter up our homes, and eventually our landfills will soon be reduced to the size of a few grains of rice.
Probably more likely to happen first is Big Advertising will get a hold of the technology, and we’ll have them float in our ears while we sleep, as they hum subliminal straight into their target: our brains. Zestfully, zestfully, zestfully cleeeeeaaaaan…wait, why am I singing that? At least in the future, I will have the nanos to blame.
