Whatever Next?

An occasional look at how science interacts with communications and what it means for us all. 

By now, everybody knows all the stats about how some of the world’s most valuable businesses didn’t exist 15 years ago, about how much data Google processes each day and how many hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every second, so I won’t bore you with trotting it all out again.

But one thing is clear: computing and data management are now irreplaceable in how and what we communicate in business and in our everyday, personal lives. Once we’re up in the cloud – probably some years away from true fulfillment despite what peddlers of the technology would have you believe – and on the grid structure of matrix internet, we’re going to be able to do everything faster, more accurately and with even more fanciful gizmos and gadgets to play on it with. In the near future, Smart Phones will be the way everything, everywhere is done, from paying for your paper and coffee in the morning, to monitoring your health to projecting holographic images for conferencing or entertainment wherever you are.

But look beyond all this stuff into what’s happening right now and there are developments – real, if evolutionary – that will change the way we shop, live and perhaps even affect life span and how we evolve as a species.

Today, we can print in 3D. What started as an engineering exercise a few years ago is now almost reaching commercial viability – the millions invested meant that this was a game only the biggest manufacturers – people like Boeing, for example – could play in. Now, you can buy a simple home version for under $2000 dollars. See something you like whilst on line shopping? Don’t wait for the courier, print it right now, in your living room. Far-fetched? Watch this space in the next 5 years. The technology is already being used medically, with replacement organs being viably printed.

Then there’s 4D printing. This is when the 3D article that you have printed in subjected to a separate chemical reactive process, still in your home. Print your shape, mix a catalyst – which can be water, at its most basic, – and the shape will change to ‘assemble’ itself, before your very eyes. Ikea will never be the same again.

And whilst computers will get smaller, the data drivers behind all of this – the supertanker sized rooms full of servers – will get bigger and bigger. And, incidentally, hotter and hotter. Experts estimate that in the US alone, the bill for cooling datacenters to prevent meltdown is estimated to be over $7 Billion. That’s why right now, scientists are developing alcohol-based chemicals to remove the heat by running liquid through the circuitry. That way, you can have bigger and bigger servers that cost less to run and are more reliable. More and bigger servers mean better data handling and consequently more ways that it can be ’cut’ , analysed, stored, and ultimately used to provide content that can be creatively exploited to commercially communicate and make that sale.

However, like all science, there is disagreement about this as the certain way to go. Others think that the day of the conventional server is numbered. Just as close to 2 centuries of printing are now being wiped out in 5 years by e readers, so the end of computing as we know it could come to an end. How?

Scientists at Cambridge University have found a way of converting the 2 digit language – ones and zeros – of computer speak into the 4 letter alphabet of the DNA code. This means that it is estimated that you could put all of the information in the world into the back of a lorry, rather than in several billion square feet of server rooms.

This science is proven to work and takes us one step closer to the biosynthetic blending of data storage with human tissue – the chip in the brain that has been the staple of science fiction for years. Chips in the brain give a whole new meaning to ‘fried brain cells’

Talking of brains and somewhat closer to home, if you’re into the gym and want the maximum benefit from your hard work, make sure that you listen to classical music whilst going for the burn. Neuroscientist Jack Lewis has discovered that the forth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No 4 is the perfect track to accompany your work-out as it lowers the level of perceived exertion.

All gain and no pain. Now that’s what I call a breakthrough.