Drones

If you told someone a couple hundred years ago that humans in the future would have the ability to fly they would never believe you. Airborne devices are becoming more and more efficient and you could bet that there is still room for improvement.
As a rule, over time technology gets smaller and more mobile and Edoardo Stroppiana has created a mini-drone of sorts, that anyone can buy. The "AirSelfie" is a pocket-sized camera drone that hovers above you to take a picture. It's controlled through a cellphone app and it can store up to 4GB of data on a a mini SD card inside of the drone that is smaller than the phone used to control it.  They are expected to hit the market in March, 2017 around the price of $300.
Facebook has teamed up with a few of the worlds best experts on aerospace technology and they have been working on a new infrastructure drone that gives internet to people from the sky. This aircraft is similar to a satellite in that it doesn't have a human pilot and it is meant to orbit the earth with periodic pit stops in an effort to create world-wide available internet.
One type of drone that I may have mentioned earlier would be an actual hover board. Basically it's a giant drone that you strap to your feet and fly around with, the only problem would be the energy. It can only fly for a couple of minutes before the battery goes dead. While lithium-ion batteries are extremely efficient compared to batteries beforehand, they can't sustain enough power for large flying machines. Some scientists predict that the next big breakthrough in technology will be a more powerful battery. All we really need is that little thing on Iron man's chest and we would be set.
One of the most elite drones would be the DJI Matrice 100. This is considered one of the most stable drones there is, and it is favored by the military and film industries for its monitoring. Equipped with state of the art software and hardware this drone is highly capable and the favorite of many professionals.
While there are a few setbacks, it is possible in the future that people will be flying to and fro on their large drones with their mini drones taking selfies of them. We have all wished that we had the ability to fly and it just may happen in a few years.

Robots

The world is becoming more and more robotic. Expensive they may be, robots are being created left and right to do simple tasks. The technology and material is improving so that robots will come in all shapes and sizes, allowing them to do things that humans never could.
Inventors will oftentimes use Bio-mimicry (copying nature) to create more efficient robots. As I list the robots below you will notice that many of them are knock-offs of something nature does.

• Jumping Robots: Inspired by small monkeys known as bush babies, these robots can rapidly bounce off walls giving them jumping ability that no previous robot has ever had. In the future these could help scan disaster areas.
• Improved Flying Robots: Scientists are testing parrots as they fly through laser-lit airborne particles so they can completely understand how animals fly. This shows that current flying-robots can be improved.
• Artificial Intelligence: No, these robots don't actually think, but they can observe current strategies in one area and be able to help researchers with tasks that they already do. 
• Deep Diving Killer-Robots: Years ago the Lionfish was introduced to the Atlantic Ocean and has been preying on the natural fish that keep the reef clean and healthy. So how do we deal with these threatening (and quite ugly) predators? We send in killer-robots that remotely zap the lionfish to control the population.
• Soft Robots: Most robots are made from "nuts and bolts" and are almost completely metal. Researchers have started to try and make soft robots. As a result they are developing air muscles on robots to make them safer to interact with people.
• Biobots: What if there was such thing as a cyborg? Well, actually there kind of is. Researchers have taken living cells from animals and put them inside of man-made devices. When electricity is applied to the cells to make them move, they usually just fire at random rates and directions. Recently they have lined up the cells in patterns so when electricity is added they all work together and can move the device.

More and more robots are coming and I will probably look more into this subject, considering all of the information it's providing. Most inventions are a robot of some kind. We can create robots that can do nearly everything a person can. Lets just hope that they don't go crazy and enslave the humans.

2016 Edison Award Winners

One of the world's highest scientific achievements would be an Edison Award. No, it's not a science fair project, this is a global contest for new scientific inventions. As the website says "Being recognized with an Edison Award™ is one of the highest accolades a company can receive in the name of innovation and business success."

There are tons of different categories, each with Gold, Silver and Bronze awards. Here are some of the Gold winners.

• Cyber Safety: Project Ares gives online security teams an opportunity to test out what they can do in a realistic gaming platform that gives them real-world problems. 
• Financial Solutions: A handheld device called Clover Mobile won this award. It can securely do any method of payment anywhere with a mobile device.
• Food Manufacturing: 3M™ Condensation Management Film can be applied to any surface to help speed up the evaporation process with its microscopic capillary channels. Therefore making the sanitation much easier.
• Agriculture: The Vegetable Factory is the worlds very first indoor garden environment that can be built basically anywhere. Producing nearly 30,000 heads of lettuce a day this factory could help feed future generations.
• Space Exploration: Given to NASA for their space probe New Horizons  that traveled 3 billion miles and reached Pluto on July 14, 2015. This provided super cool information that was previously unavailable. 
• Athletics: The worlds smallest flotation aid, Kingii, can keep swimmers safe and comfortable with its emergency wristband that shoots out a balloon and pulls you to the water surface.
• Entertainment: Sphero's BB-8 app-enabled Droid won this award. This star wars toy will respond differently to your commands and is controlled through a smartphone app.
• Personal Technology: A small device called goTenna can pair to your smartphone and allow you to send and receive text messages even when you don't have service.
• Food and Beverage: The Farmers Fridge is a vending machine that provides handmade salads and snacks at an automated vending kiosk.
• Sustainable Solutions: Every year there is a massive waste in seafood production. To prevent this SmartCatch has created a monitor that helps fishermen catch the fish they want and avoid the fish they don't want.

The list goes on and on. As you can see, there are many incredible new innovations out there as the world becomes increasingly more mechanical. Soon the world will be operated by machines that will benefit mankind.

Pocket Technology

Technology seems to be getting smaller. Phones used to basically be bricks before the lithium-ion cell battery was created. Now we have drones, mini-cameras, I think I mentioned a portable washing machine a few weeks ago, etc.
Well going along with this theme Zuta Labs has just created the Pocket Sized Printer. I know what you're thinking, I thought it too when I first saw this, "How the heck does that work?"  Being about 4 inches wide and 3 inches high it seems impossible. Actually, it's quite simple. Modern Printers are basically operated by a small printer-head that slides back and forth along the paper to print the image. The Pocket Printer is one of the printer-heads on top of a set of wheels and the creators stated that "in principle it could print on any surface." It uses the same type of battery that modern cell-phones use and can constantly print paper for up to one hour before being charged. Available in early 2017. This is a super awesome development and could lead to some great technology in the future.

Then you have the Square. Invented by Jack Dorsey, the square is a small plug-in to your mobile device that reads credit cards/debit cards right off the spot, making electronic shopping incredibly easy.

If you want to get even smaller than try these microscopic chains that were developed at Drexel University. By manipulating magnetic fields engineers can link and unlink tiny chains of beads. Why is this cool? Because over time scientists could use these beads to create more complex shapes to do more things on a microscopic level. They could prove to be extremely useful later on.

Even smaller? How about the Superlens. No it's not pocket tech, since I doubt anyone who isn't a millionaire scientist is going to be walking around with one of these babies in their pocket. Researchers have developed a microscope that has broken the size limit on what we can look at. Made out of millions of beads of Titanium-Dioxide (look it up) this lens uses these beads and has them organized into a certain pattern that amplifies the microscopic view.

That's about as small as you get, new pocket tech. is just beginning to be developed. Who knows what it's going to be like in 20 years?

The Age of Innovation

Many would argue that the 20th Century was the world's greatest time period of advancements in technology and science. I went to this Historical Website to research how and why the world has changed so much in just a hundred years.
While there are many new products now days lets be honest, none of them are huge advancements when you compare it to the stuff below.

Improvements in Transportation

• Airlines: Airplanes are now available to public making transportation extremely fast and efficient.
• High Speed Trains: Trains are faster than ever allowing quick and easy transportation of goods and people within an area.
• Space Travel: Man walked on the moon, can't get much cooler than that.

Improvements in War

• New Guns: War was transformed forever with tanks and rapid fire guns, strategies had to be greatly changed. The destruction of WWI and WWII leave all other wars in the dust.
• Air Attacks: Bombs started being dropped from the sky, now people need to be protected from air raids not just attacks from the ground.
• Nuclear Weapons: One of the greatest threats ever created is the Atomic Bomb from WWII, changed the way war is fought forever.

Improvements in Entertainment

• Radio: People no longer need to rely on newspapers to get the news and entertainment, easily accessed.
• Television: Honestly, we don't think about it much but it's pretty amazing how we can watch something going on millions of miles away so easily.
• Computers: We don't need nerds now days to calculate everything, just plug it into the computer. (But we still have those nerds around....)
• Internet: Anybody anywhere can put anything on the internet for everybody to see. (Is that a good thing?)

Improvements in Society

• Medical Inventions: Cures for diseases, medication, etc. People live a lot better now.
• Civil Rights: Lets not forget that the 20th century was when America started to really recognize everyone as equal human beings.

While it is true that there a plenty inventions made before and after the 20th century, those time periods just don't compare in technological advancements. I don't know what happened there but for some reason people progressed a lot. Maybe it was in the water....

Crazy Ideas

Some ideas are so far fetched Silicon Valley refers to them as "Moon Shot Ideas." These are the products that if someone somehow figured out a way to create these, they would instantly take over the market. An example would be a hoverboard (one that actually floats). If it was possible and someone manufactured it everybody would go bananas to try and get one. Those crazy ambitious ideas are the ones that can produce the most success.
"The one's who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the one's who do."         -Steve Jobs
So the items that I am listing here from this website, are some of the crazy ideas that can be turned into reality and some of them have been.
Ideas such as Amazon.com's innovation to deliver their products through drones are in this category. While drones exist the possibility of them delivering things to your doorstep is basically impossible...and a little freaky. But their still working on it and trying to find a loophole or something that will allow them to do something similar.
Yves Rossy did more than think of a crazy idea, he did it. Being an inventor and former Swiss Air fighter Pilot this guy can literally fly with his new wingsuit. With four minature jet engines and a set of wings connected to his body Yves jumped out of a plan and flew 200 mph above the Swiss Alps. Now Rossy has got to be just a little bit crazy to do this but it could seriously change the world's transportation. He isn't quite ready to release his invention to the public but he says it will be available in a couple of years.
One more crazy but effective invention would be the honeycomb tires. Using Biomimicry (science that imitates nature to create new products) Resilient Technologies in Wisconsin has created a tire that will never go flat because they don't actually have air in them. These wheels are based off  a matrix found in nature: the honeycomb. The tires have six sided cells aligned in them that provide flexibility and hopefully improve transportation on vehicles as a whole.
One thing you may have heard of is the TV show Sharktank. When you think about it Sharktank is an invention about inventions. Produced by Mark Burnett this show is about a group of people who loan money to modern inventors after they have analyzed and approved that the product could make them profit. If the product doesn't satisfy the host's then no dice. If you have an invention that you want to introduce then try this TV show. (That is if you can deal with the drama)

Improvements

This next blog post is mainly about inventions whose purposes are to improve things that have already been created. Like a bike helmet that gives the user a better view of the road behind them. I revisited this website and found that almost all the innovations posted are just improvements of current products.

• Bendable Batteries: These could be used to make all sorts of interesting machines. Such as wearable devices or bendy smartphones. 
• Emotion Device: This new system ,that will probably be installed on a smartphone, can read human expressions with 87% accuracy by bouncing wireless signals off them. 
• Time Recorder; No it's not a time machine (but that would be wicked), It's a wearable camera that lets you record something after you've seen it happen so that those moments you don't want to miss won't be missed.
• Snow-Making Tech: You know those huge cylinders that spit out snow at ski resorts? Well some researchers are developing one that can apparently simulate January snow in July.
• Octobot: Though it may sound like Optimus Prime's long lost cousin, an octobot is actually a soft n' squishy robot that is run on liquid fuel. No batteries required.
• Interactive Video Games: Currently being developed, these new video games can allow you to interact with real objects. Allowing for a more realistic experience. If Pokemon Go is such a big deal now think of what this will do.