The concept of radar, while revolutionary at the time of its creation, seems deceptively simple today. Preteens playing military-themed video games see and track their enemies on the radar display in the lower right corner of their screen. Speeding motorists pulled over by police officers hear their exact radar-verified velocity when told why they were stopped. Television meteorologists casually instruct viewers to look at the Doppler radar as an impending storm approaches.  The term "radar" itself is so common and widely understood in today's lexicon, it's easy to forget its origins. RADAR was an acronym first used by the U.S. Navy in 1940 to stand for radio detection and ranging that found its way into the public conscience.  But what if a radar does more than the detection and ranging the technology's primary forefather, Scottish physicist Sir Robert Watson-Watt, envisioned? Is it still a radar? As military technology becomes more sophisticated and threats continue to evolve, the need for multifunctional and adaptable equipment on the battlefield continues to grow. As a result, the radars of today and the future are doing far more than their predecessor's mission of detection and tracking. "In today's warfare environment, as we try to pack more capability in to less space and weight, single-function systems are being replaced by multifunction systems," said Curtis Pearson, director, strategic captures, Northrop Grumman. "This allows the space that used to be occupied by only a radar to contain a radar, a communications node or an electronic attack system based on the need of the warfighter." Modern actively-scanned electronic array (AESA) radars, including the APG-81 for the F-35 and APG-83 for the F-16 Viper, incorporate counter-jamming measures and can even act as electronic attack assets, affecting other radars, sensors, and communications nodes in the battlespace. "For the warfighter, having the ability to quickly toggle between multiple functions on a single sensor provides a more efficient and effective means to meet and defeat unexpected threats or circumstances while completing the mission," said Dan Dixon, Director, F-35 development planning, Northrop Grumman. "Another advantage is the ability to reduce the overall SWAP [Space, Weight and Power] requirements as compared to traditional federated mission system solutions. If one system can perform a variety of tasks at near simultaneous speeds, there's potential to optimize next-generation system performance."  An example of radar multifunction is the company's Vanguard radar. Each Vanguard array contains a scalable number of small radar panels that link together. During missions, the panels can be programmed to either operate together as one large antenna unit or act separately as individual radars, jammers, or communications nodes. For example, in a six-panel array, four panels could be devoted to creating a synthetic aperture resolution map of an area below while two panels could be communicating out the data being collected.  "Vanguard redefines the way we produce radars and the capabilities that are possible within one flexible, scalable design," said Paul Kalafos, Vice President of Surveillance and Electromagnetic Maneuver Warfare, Northrop Grumman. "Vanguard's modular radar panels are the building blocks for a multitude of future radar aperture applications." In other words, Vanguard is an indication that a new era of radar is upon us. If you can still call it that. 

When is a Radar Not a Radar Anymore?

 Humans are obsessed with technology. According to CNN, 80 percent of teens now check their phones hourly for updates and 72 percent feel the need to immediately respond if they receive a text. More than half of adults put themselves at risk by checking phones while they're driving and almost as many make regular efforts to "cut down" the amount of time they spend on their device. Meanwhile, advances in future technologies like VR and augmented reality make it easier than ever for users to lose themselves in virtual worlds or change their perception of reality. So it's worth considering: What's the next step? Here's a look at five technologies from season three of terrifying sci-fi series "Black Mirror" — could they really exist, and what's the potential public impact?1) "San Junipero": Eternal Life Let's start with arguably the most hopeful episode of the series: San Junipero. It's simple: The titular town is actually a VR construct which houses the consciousness of the dead or dying and allows them to enjoy a kind of eternal life as their younger selves. The living are allowed to "visit" five hours per week and those on their deathbed can choose an upload to San Junipero or a natural demise. Could it happen in real life? Possibly. MMOs (or Massively Multiplayer Online) are massively popular and advancements in VR now make it possible to see, hear and feel in virtual space. Neurological progress is also being made — for example, researchers may have discovered a way to give amputees direct control over artificial limbs with better neuron readings. Simply put, don't expect to see eternal life advertised next week but don't rule it out. Potential problems? People ending their lives early to enjoy paradise, or a server failure that "crashes" eternal life consciousness.2) "Nosedive": Continual Person-to-Person Ratings What if social media had bigger teeth? That's the idea behind the future technologies in "Nosedive," which imagines a world where everyone rates everyone else and these ratings directly inform social status, allowing highly rated people access to medical treatments and better living conditions. In reality, this tech already has legs: Consider controversial app Peeple, which lets users write "reviews" of other human beings. Not surprisingly, the creation of the app caused an online ratings backlash for the creator — who was oddly surprised by this effect — and already there's talk of letting people pay to access everything that has been written about them. The potential impact? Social judgment on an entirely new scale.3) "Hated in the Nation": Artificial Bees With the bee population at critical levels, an episode involving artificial insects was timely. But the problem didn't stem from pollination — instead, the bees were given kill-commands using facial-recognition technology to seek out "hated" targets as judged by social media. While current robotics don't match this level of sophistication, the notion of co-opting cybernetic devices for nefarious purposes isn't new and big companies like Google are shoveling money into better facial recognition.4) "Men Against Fire": Augmented Reality In "Men Against Fire" soldiers have their strength, speed and senses enhanced with a device called the MASS. As it turns out, the device changes the way they see potential targets, making regular humans seem like monsters and therefore easier to attack. Military desensitization training isn't exactly new, but consider the social implications: Already, tech like Snapchat and its Spectacles let you apply filters to faces in real time; what if this became commonplace, allowing users to see who and what they wanted to see, when they wanted to see it? Not only could this make for some awkward interactions — but if devices were hacked, the results could be disastrous.5) "White Christmas": The Z-Eye It's not from season 3 but it deserves a mention on the list of future technologies — the Z-Eye tech from "White Christmas" which lets users "block" others and appear as nothing more than white static. It works in a few different ways: as a kind of restraining order which prevents one of the main characters from seeing his estranged girlfriend or their daughter, and a government-imposed whiteout for another "peeping tom" who sees everyone as white static while they see him as red. Sure, mandatory implants aren't on the docket just yet but wearables are on the way up and given the connection obsession prevalent worldwide, it's not hard to imagine a world where social tech is used to restrict interaction based on personal preference or as punishment for crimes. The concern? Extremes — for instance, what happens in the case of a wrongful conviction or device malfunction? Whiteouts seem harmless enough but what happens when being part of an overly social world means you're entirely alone? Technology isn't inherently good or evil. As evidenced by "Black Mirror," it's our interpretation and implementation of new devices which ultimately determines their public impact.

5 Future Technologies From Black Mirror and Their Potential Public Impact

In today's world of digital communications, 5G, the fifth-generation mobile network, is fast becoming the global standard for wireless communications. It offers multi-gigabit-per-second data rates, very low latency, high reliability and massive network capacity.
Industry observers, however, are already predicting the development of 6G technology, a successor to 5G that could potentially offer terabit data rates, ultra-low latency and improved network coverage and connectivity. So, what's holding us back?
The Role of the Electronic Oscillator
Inside every digital device in your life — think: cellphone, laptop, tablet, etc. — is a tiny circuit called an electronic oscillator. The oscillator generates a periodic signal, typically a sine wave or a square wave, whose frequency serves as the clock, or pacemaker, for your device. The higher the clock rate, the faster your device can process, send and receive information.
A cellphone, for example, uses the clock to synchronize timing between signals it receives (what you hear) and signals it transmits (what you say). Poor synchronization can result in poor sound quality, interference between signals and dropped calls. Laptops use an electronic oscillator to synchronize the operations of the computer's microprocessor and other components. The clock defines the rate at which instructions are executed and data is transferred within the computer.
Electronic oscillators, which typically operate at frequencies ranging from a few hertz (Hz) to several gigahertz (GHz), are also used in consumer audio equipment, such as music synthesizers, and military applications, such as radar and space communication systems.
Minimizing Phase Noise
Unfortunately, the frequency of the signal generated by an electronic oscillator is degraded by something called phase noise, which is a measure of random, short-term fluctuations in the phase of that waveform.
"In the time domain, phase noise is observed as 'jitter,' or a distortion in the signal," explains Sid Ghosh, a consulting engineer for optical technologies in Northrop Grumman's Strategic Space Systems Division. "Increased phase noise in an electronic system contributes to a lower signal-to-noise ratio, which reduces the accuracy and quality of a signal."
Systems based on 6G technology, which promises operating speeds in the 100s of gigahertz — the upper limit for 5G is 40 GHz — will require components that can minimize jitter to reach their full performance potential.
Taking a New Approach
That's why Northrop Grumman has teamed up with UCLA, Nexus Photonics and the University of New Mexico to develop a new type of oscillator — a compact, portable device based on microwave photonic technology, one that can deliver a very stable, low-phase-noise signal. This research is funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Generating RF with Photonic Oscillators for Low Noise (GRYPHON) program.
"Think of this new device as an integrated circuit based on optoelectronic components," says Ghosh. "Nexus Photonics will use a technique called heterogeneous integration to lay out components, such as lasers, photodetectors and passive components, such as waveguides and modulators, on a conventional semiconductor substrate."
Northrop Grumman will provide high-performance photodetectors for the chip-scale device and perform all required integration, packaging and testing. When fully packaged, Ghosh expects the new device to be about one-third the size of an average smartphone.
Operating at Light Speed
A powerful characteristic of the new oscillator is its ability to integrate optical and RF technologies.
"The RF input to our electronic oscillator goes to an electro-optic modulator, which modulates the RF signal onto a laser operating in the optical domain at 193 terahertz [THz]," explains Ghosh. "We do all of our signal processing in the optical domain, then use a photodetector on the chip to convert the signal back to RF. The large amount of fractional bandwidth available using the terahertz signal would dwarf the bandwidth required to process the RF signal."
The RF output (carrier) frequency for a system using this new oscillator would notionally be in the 10s of GHz, he notes, but could be scaled up as high as 500 GHz in the future with novel detector technologies. Certain 6G technology applications would require RF carrier frequencies in the 100s of GHz.
Where Would 6G Technology First Appear?
The overriding characteristic of Northrop Grumman's new electronic oscillator would be its very high stability. Graphically, that means its output power is focused narrowly on a single frequency with very low power (phase noise) residing in adjacent frequencies.
"Having an extremely stable clock is a necessary condition for us to even contemplate a system that would use 6G technology," he says.
Commercial applications most likely to see the arrival of 6G first, Ghosh predicts, will be augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and gaming systems — all applications that require the high precision, high bandwidth and very low latency offered by 6G technology.
Should We Expect 6G Technology in Cellphones?
Whether 6G handsets become a consumer reality remains to be seen.
"Our new electronic oscillator will certainly be small enough to go into a cellphone," says Ghosh. "The question is whether there will be a need for it. So far, standards for 6G handsets have not been set."
The more likely endpoint for consumer applications of 6G technology, he believes, will be wearable, high-fidelity headsets for AR and VR applications.
What's Needed to Reach a 6G Reality?
Ghosh is confident that 6G will push the frequency limits of certain applications to the 100s of GHz. He also believes Northrop Grumman's low-phase-noise photonic oscillators will play a key role in the success of 6G devices and networks. But other key challenges to the deployment of 6G remain.
To reach 6G nirvana, the wireless industry will also have to:

 Figure out how to open the sub-THz spectrum for increased bandwidth and take advantage of that bandwidth.
 Push the limits of semiconductor technologies to operate in sub-THz bands.
 Achieve microsecond latencies at the network level to achieve 6G key performance indicators.

First Things First
For now, the Northrop Grumman team's work developing a microwave photonic-based electronic oscillator is strictly a technology demonstration. They expect to have their first products packaged in the 2024–2025 timeframe.
As to if and how this technology will speed the development and deployment of 6G, Ghosh advises, "We'll just have to wait and see."
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* The views, opinions and/or findings expressed are those of the author and should not be interpreted as representing the official views or policies of the Department of Defense or the U.S. Government.

Photonic-Based Electronic Oscillator Could Speed Rollout of 6G Technology 

Imagine bringing home a piece of "some-assembly-required" furniture from IKEA and discovering, to your utter delight, that your new table or stereo console actually assembles itself. Or that those new shades for your home windows autonomously close themselves at night and open themselves in the morning. Both of these fantasies may be coming soon to a city near you, thanks to 4D printing technology. And both may be part of a new paradigm of smart city technology.   Paradigm Shift   4D printing was first defined on the TED stage in 2013 by Skylar Tibbits, an assistant professor of design research at MIT and founder of the school's Self Assembly Lab.    "4D printing is multi-material 3D printing plus a new capability called transformation," Tibbits explained. "We program 3D materials to transform their shape, properties or even their function autonomously in response to external stimuli such as heat, moisture, light, vibration or electromagnetic energy." These new materials, he added, can actually build themselves.   Tibbits emphasized, however, that 4D printing — the fourth dimension is time — is no longer strictly about printing. It includes many types of production techniques such as printing, lamination, injection molding and even knitting.   "The unifying concept is that we are integrating materials that change their behavior in response to external stimuli," Tibbits said.   Material Differences   Tibbits is careful to distinguish the 4D work being done in his Self Assembly Lab from traditional smart city technology.   "The conventional approach to building 'smart' cars, 'smart' shoes, or 'smart' buildings has been to add a bunch of robotics — sensors, actuators, processors — to that application," he said. "What we are proposing is eliminating all of the robotics, making the same 'smart' product, but doing it strictly through materials." Eliminating those traditional electronics can reduce a product's weight and cost, simplify its design and improve its reliability, he added.   Promising Apps   To date, Tibbits and his team have explored multiple applications of 4D printing to future smart cities, primarily in the areas of building materials, transportation and adaptable infrastructure.   For example, they developed a new paradigm for water delivery in which pipes — sans pumps or valves — can expand or contract on their own to change capacity or flow rate or even undulate to move water themselves. For cars, they have developed self-morphing skins that adapt their aerodynamic shape in response to increased airflow, air pressure, etc. And for coastal cities dealing with beach erosion caused by rising sea levels, they are working with researchers in the tropical island nation of Maldives to develop a system of underwater structures that use wave energy to create sand accumulation in strategic locations. This technology could be used to literally grow new islands or to rebuild beaches.   Industry Resistance   Unfortunately, 4D work remains largely a laboratory demonstration science. Its biggest limiting factor, as Tibbits sees it, is human adaptation, not the technology itself.   "4D printing is really just a different way of designing and making things," he said. Historically, engineers have been focused on making things that do NOT move. By contrast, Tibbits' team is focused on making highly active garments, buildings, cars and planes that are always moving, always transforming, always morphing and adapting to their environment.   "The limitation is not about the fundamental technology or material performance. It's more about getting people to understand what's possible," said Tibbits.   Physics First   The notion of using 4D materials to protect buildings from earthquakes — imagine stiff structural materials that transform into resilient, shock-absorbing materials in response to vibration — remains tantalizing. The reality, however, is that the technology is still constrained by physics.   "4D objects need to be made from relatively soft materials such as polymers that can change shape rapidly in response to external stimuli," explained Jerry Qi, professor of mechanical engineering at Georgia Tech. "Unfortunately, these softer materials do not perform well in applications such as buildings or highway structures that have to support a lot of weight."   Stiffer materials such as stainless steel, concrete or iron are more practical for structural applications, he continued, but they generally do not respond quickly enough to external stimuli, which limits their usefulness as 4D materials.   A more achievable, near-term application in tomorrow's smart city, suggests Qi, might be to embed 4D printed sensors in the exterior shell of electronic devices. "With 4D printing, you could integrate a thermometer, for example, in your bedside clock radio in a simple, elegant way while making that device more adaptive to its environment," he said.   Scale Matters   Other issues to consider, said Howon Lee, assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Rutgers University, are the scale of the object being produced and the capabilities of the 3D printing device. The key factor here is called resolution, i.e. the smallest feature you can print in detail.   "The larger the object you hope to print," he explained, "the larger your smallest feature size will be." Larger feature size means that molecules have to travel farther within the material to effect the desired transformation, which limits a 4D object's ability to change quickly.   "If the length or thickness of a 4D object becomes 10 times larger, for example, its response time will become 100 times slower," said Lee.   He equated this dilemma to trying to print a large-scale photograph using a digital file that contains only a small number of pixels, a situation that produces a coarse and "out-of-focus" image. The best approach is either to limit the size of your 4D printed object or to use a 3D printer that can print features with higher resolution.   Lee and his research team at Rutgers are trying to resolve this size limitation of 4D objects by decoupling the overall response time of 4D objects from their underlying physics. One way, he suggests, is to embed a series of smaller 4D objects with a characteristically shorter response time within a larger object. By placing these smaller objects strategically, Lee believes they can create larger objects that morph on the faster time scale of the smaller objects.   Fad or Future?   So will 4D printing become a ubiquitous part of the future or languish as a passing fad?   "The most important property for moving any research out of the lab into commercially viable products is reliability," said Lee. "A product has to be proven to be functional, durable, and reliable for the long haul. If it is not reliable, no one will buy it." Proving that reliability, he adds, will fall on the shoulders of investors and third-party testers.   Even more important to the future, however, will be industry awareness. For most people, it remains a very new concept.   "People tend to think of solutions to a problem only in terms of what they know," said Lee. "Once they become aware of 4D printing, they realize that their problem could be solved easily with this technology. Our challenge, therefore, is to disseminate knowledge about the technology, get more people involved in the field, and encourage them to collaborate with 4D industry and university experts to discover smart solutions to their most urgent problems."   If you'd like to add a new dimension to your career, please check out the latest opportunities at www.careers.northropgrumman.com. 

4D Printing Promises Smarter Cities

The Rydberg sensor is a technology rooted in the fundamental structure of nature on the smallest scales that points to a complete revolution in the detection of radio waves. And it may be coming soon to that cell phone in your hand.
The current cell phone radio frequency network is an engineering marvel that most of us never think twice (or even once) about — except when a call gets dropped and we find ourselves talking into dead air. The engineers who designed and operate the cellular network work very hard to maintain it, but let's take a look at this new technology and how it may change cell service forever.
Switching Heavy Traffic
As outlined by UCSB, a cellular handset (aka your phone) contains a compact, low-powered two-way radio, with sufficient range to connect to a nearby "base station" mounted on a cellular tower. The base station, in turn, uses higher-powered long-range equipment to connect to broader regional and global networks.
The whole point of this system is to enable users to move around freely, including moving from one base station's reception area to another's. According to Dr. Sid Ghosh of Northrop Grumman, the normal sequence of operations when making a phone call on the move is as follows:

    You make a call and your phone connects to and communicates with the nearest cell tower.
    If you move, you step out of the range of the first tower.
    Your phone seamlessly connects to another nearby tower.
    You continue your call completely unaware that this just happened.

All of this works impressively well, says Ghosh, and a call being dropped during handoff is "quite rare." But mobility does put challenging demands on cell phone radio frequency technology. "When you are driving or on a train," explains Ghosh, "the handovers tend to get tricky since the user may not be optimally located for cell tower coverage."
Even if dropped calls are rare, multiply the basic technology challenge by the number of calls being made, and the problem of dropped calls and generally poor cell phone reception becomes serious — especially when it's your call that gets dropped or garbled.
The Antenna Fiddling Challenge
A key component of any radio frequency detector is the antenna that picks up the signal. This is, in principle, simply a length of wire. If the wire is the right length and oriented in the right direction, the electric field of passing radio waves will trigger an electric current in the wire, which can be detected and amplified.
This has been the principle of every standard radio receiver since, as noted by the AAAS, Heinrich Hertz first demonstrated and reported on the existence of radio waves in 1889. But it is not ideal for rapid and frequent handoffs from one cell phone radio frequency base station to the next. The thing about antennas is that their ability to pick up a signal depends on the antenna's physical size and geometry, which need to be adjusted to pick up a signal well.
Anyone who's moved a radio around to improve reception or fiddled with old-fashioned TV rabbit ears will appreciate that this can be tricky. But as Ghosh explains, quantum physics now provides an entirely different way of detecting radio waves that can revolutionize cell phone reception.
Giant Atoms and a Tiny Detector
Under the right circumstances and hit with the right frequency of laser light, atoms of rare alkaline metals, such as cesium and rubidium, can swell up enormously to a diameter of about 1/25,000 of an inch — still submicroscopic but about 10,000 times the size of ordinary atoms.
This atomic bloat is an effect of quantum mechanics. The atomic nucleus is unchanged, but the orbits of its outermost electrons are "pumped up" by the laser and pushed outward to the atom's far outer envelope, where they are only tenuously bound to the nucleus. This loose binding makes these outer electrons extremely sensitive to electric fields, such as those produced by radio waves.
In effect, the radio signal's fluctuating signal "jiggles" the loosely bound outer electrons, producing changes in the optical spectrum of the Rydberg atoms, and an optical sensor can detect these spectrum changes. It adds up to a nifty physics bank shot: radio waves jiggle the outer electrons of Rydberg atoms, producing spectrum changes in the (vastly shorter wavelength) optical band.
Moving Beyond the Antenna
What makes this one weird physics trick so important to radio technology is that — unlike any conventional radio antenna — Rydberg atoms do not need to be arranged in a particular length or pointing in a particular direction to pick up a signal. The only thing that needs to be adjusted is the frequency of laser light used to pump up the Rydberg atoms. This property drew the particular interest of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), most famous for having developed the internet.
Changing a laser frequency is a much faster and simpler process than physically adjusting the size and orientation of an antenna, particularly when the receiver is on the move and must continually switch frequency as it passes from base station to base station. Size also matters when it comes to mobile radio devices. Conventional antennas need to be proportionate in size to the radio waves they are intended to detect — a major constraint on the available radio frequency spectrum when it comes to devices, like cell phones, that must be physically compact.
In contrast, explains Ghosh, "Rydberg atoms can act as electrically small antennas and detect the modulation of a carrier wave. They can detect and demodulate AM, FM and phase modulation over a broad range of carrier frequencies, making them a promising platform for advanced communication receivers."
Moreover, he adds, "the Rydberg receiver is frequency agnostic over a wide range of operating frequencies, and thus, the size of a Rydberg receiver does not need to scale with operating frequency to maintain optimal performance." The current standard for Rydberg sensor elements, notes Ghosh, is that the sensor must fit inside one cubic centimeter. This is far more compact than most conventional antennas.
The Future of Rydberg Sensors
The Rydberg sensor technology is currently still in its research and development stage in the Quantum Apertures program. But as Ghosh outlines, the gas cell technology for producing Rydberg atoms is maturing rapidly, while similar rapid development is taking place in "adjacent peripheral technology development … in the commercial optical communication domain that's helping move the concept of a Rydberg receiver toward a viable product that can operate over a wide range of frequencies in various application scenarios."
As reported by EE Times, the wide scope of capabilities offered by Rydberg sensor technology has drawn the interest of NASA as well as DARPA, pointing toward space-based as well as ground-based applications. The possible range of applications is enormous, but few are more ubiquitous than the cell phone network, which makes it likely that people will soon be holding Rydberg sensor technology in their hands. But with improved reliability and performance, they'll probably spend even less time thinking about the technological marvel they're holding than they do now.
 
Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Learn more about life at Northrop Grumman, and check out our career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology and engineering. 

Transforming Cell Phone Radio Frequency

Virtual reality seems to get all of the attention. But there's another technology that's just as captivating and perhaps more practical: augmented reality (AR). Unlike how virtual reality creates a new sensual environment, AR uses digital tools to offer an interactive experience that is grounded in reality. This perspective helps. With users still partially in their realities — a hospital floor, shopping aisle or even Mars — AR gives professionals practical training experience that's not too far from the real world. It has also started to provide consumers with an advanced, contextual look of a product even if the product is not there. That's why the future of augmented reality looks bright, even though it is sometimes viewed with less excitement than virtual reality. Maybe that's because right now consumer-based virtual reality applications outnumber those for augmented reality, but it might not be long before consumers join working professionals in seeing the value of an augmented viewpoint. Lucas Stephane, an assistant professor at the Human Centered Design Institute at Florida Institute of Technology, neatly summarizes the potential adoption of augmented reality by comparing it with how people view any new technology. "If it's going to be useful, then I will use this stuff," he said. From Pokemon to Surgery Virtual reality (VR) requires the complete use of equipment, either through goggles or a helmet, for users to fully immerse into the virtual experience. While AR can involve the projection of images onto clear glasses, the more widely used form places an overlay of images or information — or both — over the live view that also appears on a smartphone or tablet. Because of its accessibility, it is easier to use in work environments and often cheaper than VR. VR gets a fair share of acclaim probably because it allows people to truly escape. If you haven't yet worn a big VR headset that looks like a bit like a stripped-down welding helmet, you might have seen people in arcades or video game stores making wild gestures in the air. They're deep into an imaginary world, possibly fighting medieval armies or flying a plane. VR is for more than just games, though. Industrial companies use VR-based training to show employees how to navigate occupational dangers without getting hurt. And militaries take advantage of the relative safety of a VR battlefield to give soldiers hands-on combat training. AR has made headlines mostly through cultural appreciation. Who can forget the Pokemon Go craze of 2016? With Pokemon characters appearing over real images of streetscapes on smartphones, players walked city streets and actually walked off cliffs as they played the AR-based game. Snapchat filters are now all the rage, as app users benefit from AR trickery to make themselves look younger or become a virtual animal. But augmented reality isn't all about fun and games. It has also found a foothold as a training device in several professional fields: manufacturing, medical, military and education, to name a few. Not that organizations are dismissive of the benefits of VR, but they tend to like AR because it overlays internal information and other digital aspects over a real-world perspective, said Tim Bajarin, a technology consultant and analyst. Trainees are thus grounded in reality while enjoying the act of learning through augmented features. Right now, the AR market is a snapshot of many separate vertical niches — the industries that use the technology for training — but it largely lacks consumer use cases, he said. Still, training applications have been a profitable endeavor for AR manufacturers. The applications revitalized traditional and often stale training methods. For example, in manufacturing, safety officers and technicians examine and repair equipment with the help of AR, Bajarin said. Training and instruction manuals are fed through the AR headset or electronic tablet, giving workers an augmented viewpoint of how a repair should proceed while they get to touch equipment. It's a hands-on experience with a high-tech touch of virtual assistance. Airline mechanics "used to have to bring out giant printed manuals and had to use a magnifying glass to see the print," Bajarin said. That's not exactly conducive to training, and many other mechanics in other fields can undoubtedly attest to balancing a printed material with actual repair work. Now, AR displays on the device the "expectations of what it will look like when you fix it and shows you how to fix it," Bajarin added. Doctors in training can't consult manuals while operating, but they do need to practice surgery without harming a patient. The medical industry long had a work-around solution by having new doctors practice on cadavers. But, Bajarin said, fewer people are donating their bodies to science and doctors are having trouble finding cadavers. The medical field might have found a solution, not just to overcome the lack of cadavers but to also give budding and experienced medical professionals a better sense of medical procedures while also providing in-the-moment data on patients. As outlined in Harvard Business Review, several universities are prototyping AR applications for medicine. They envision a surgeon someday seeing, for example, a hovering display of an echocardiogram with vital signs and data on the characteristics of a patient's aneurysm directly above the surgical field. With an AR headset, the surgeon won't have to look away from the patient to interpret the information. Enhancing the Retail Experience Consumer brands also have their eyes on integrating AR into the shopping experience, and some have already started to dabble with this new dimension. Brent Leary, a customer relationship management consultant, remembers being impressed at this year's Adobe Summit by a demonstration of an AR-supported shoe rack. It showed all shoes for a particular size and in all available colors and, when used in a store, would eliminate the "traditional back-and-forth of the salesperson running to the stockroom," he said. AR will help brands convey information more quickly to consumers, enabling them to make faster decisions and thus not look to another brand, he added. In 2017, the furniture retailer IKEA introduced an AR shopping experience on its mobile app, allowing a shopper to "see" a piece of furniture in their homes by holding out their smartphones. IKEA recently upgraded the feature and now fills up an entire virtual room with furniture. Leary believes AR-enhanced support will take time to develop in retail, though. "Retailers will need to see what kind of phones customers have and see if it will be easy to leverage this stuff and be able to build it onto a customer's technology," he said. "Some of this stuff is way out there, maybe so far out that it yet can't be achieved." Indeed, there are hurdles for AR to clear. Perhaps the biggest challenge for AR is that its data needs to be rendered in the moment so that information and images flow without lagging. "You'll need to stream all of these types of content," said Florida Institute of Technology's Stephane. "The larger the content, the better the communication link needs to be, whether it will be 5G or enhanced bandwidth." Also, Bajarin contends consumers won't want to deal with the high cost or "geeky" appearance of bulky AR headgear that mirrors those that support VR. It will most likely be a simple set of eyeglasses, with a smartphone as the support base, that delivers more advanced consumer-based AR applications, he said. AR for training, however, should continue apace because workers are "more than willing to use goggles that make you look like a geek," Bajarin said. Form apparently trumps fashion when it's related to work. Another Technology to Embrace Stephane has high hopes for the future of augmented reality. He believes that if the technology improves, AR will become an accepted part of life and work. He would know; he's a researcher for a NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium project that aims to use AR to continuously monitor astronauts' health while in space. The idea is to visualize the information taken from biosensors on astronauts so that mission leaders can easily observe health data in real time. AR and VR have stirred occasional debate about whether leaving reality for something that's not entirely real could lead to unknown psychological and social consequences. Quoting the Canadian philosopher Marshall McLuhan, Stephane believes the "medium is the message," meaning how information is relayed is more important than the information itself. "When computers came, there were all of these debates about learning with people saying computers are not good for education and that we need to stay with books. But books went digital and now there's online education," Stephane said. "Every new technology enhances what we already have."

The Future of Augmented Reality Blends Virtual With Real-life Perspectives

If astronauts are going to live and work on the moon — and, eventually, on Mars — for months or even years at a time, they'll need fresh food. They'd need to garden on the moon.
Now that NASA's Artemis program plans to establish a long-term base there, it's important that researchers find the answer to this important question: Can we grow plants on the moon?
Nurturing Life in Space
A major challenge to growing crops off-world is finding a decent place to create a garden on the moon to farm the plants. The lunar surface is covered in regolith, a mixture of dust and broken rock, that seems harmless but is like a sticky powder made from shards of glass that can damage scientific equipment and be harmful to human health.
Lunar regolith is different from terrestrial soil. It contains no organic matter, such as worms, bacteria or the decaying plant matter that's characteristic of Earth soils. It also has no inherent water content. Nevertheless, lunar regolith does have many of the same minerals as terrestrial soils, which means that scientists who envision a dedicated, long-term commitment to lunar exploration are busy exploring if it's possible to garden on the moon.
Researchers working to answer the question, "Can we grow plants on the moon?" started by taking samples of lunar surface materials that were brought back to Earth in the early days of space exploration. Then, they chose a hardy and well-studied plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, to test in the nutrient-poor lunar regolith.
Apollo Astronauts Were Visionaries
The reason today's scientists have access to 50-year-old lunar surface materials is because the Apollo astronauts took part in a visionary plan. They decided to bring back lunar regolith and save it for future research, even though they couldn't have imagined what the future research would be at the time. But now, for the first time ever, three of those Apollo samples from the surface of the moon have been used to successfully grow plants.
The plant they chose, Arabidopsis thaliana, is a relative of mustard greens and other calciferous vegetables, like broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts. It's a small and easy-to-grow plant that is found along the shoulders of roads and in disturbed areas and is generally considered to be a weed. But it's also one of the most studied plants in the world because it has a small genome. In fact, the Arabidopsis thaliana plant was the first to have its genome sequenced, so scientists already know how it behaves in different circumstances, including how it grows in space.
To find out if it's possible to garden on the moon, researchers compared the growth of the Arabidopsis thaliana in lunar regolith to the plant grown in terrestrial soil. They found that Arabidopsis thaliana seeds germinated at the same rate in lunar regolith as they did in the terrestrial soil, but the plants in the terrestrial soil went on to develop root stocks and leaves, while the lunar regolith seedlings were stunted and had poor root growth.
Growing Plants in Desolate Conditions
They also found the stress reaction in the lunar regolith seedlings came from salts, metal and highly reactive oxygen in the lunar samples. The researchers suspected that glassy agglutinates, which are small mineral fragments mixed with melted glass that are common on the lunar surface, were a potential reason for the lack of growth in the lunar regolith. These agglutinates contain tiny particles of iron metal formed by space weathering, and this is what most likely caused the lunar regolith seedlings to struggle.
Despite these challenges, scientists haven't given up. For a stable colony on the moon, resupply shipments would be too costly, and for a multi-year journey to another planet, they'd be impossible. Prepackaged freeze-dried meals get old and less tasty over time, and the vitamins in them break down. That's why it's mandatory to figure out if we can grow plants on the moon or send autonomous food-growing systems to places like Mars, so they'll be there ready to go when people arrive.
Thanks to the Vegetable Production System on the International Space Station, astronauts have been growing high-energy, healthy food products for a long time. Not only do astronauts on station get to enjoy a fresh salad in orbit and the emotional health benefits that come with gardening, but their work has also helped us understand how a garden on the moon will allow future explorers to stay there.
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Can We Grow Plants on the Moon?

You don't need an engine to fly. A balloon can carry you aloft with no means of propulsion, while sailplanes can stay in the air by exploiting rising air currents. You don't even need an engine to travel in space once you're in orbit. The moon needs no propulsion system to keep orbiting Earth.
But practical air and space travel require some controlled means of getting where you want to go, and that's where a propulsion system comes in. The technologies that provide this capability are commonly grouped together as "aerospace propulsion," because they all rely on Sir Isaac Newton's principle of action and reaction.
Action and Reaction
This principle states that, if you exert a force in one direction — for example, by throwing a heavy weight in a certain direction — that same action will produce a force in the opposite direction. This is most dramatically visible during a rocket launch. The rocket engine directs a powerful blast of hot gas downward, pushing the rocket vehicle upward.
A jet engine works on the same principle, though the jet exhaust is usually not so dramatically visible. An important but subtle difference is where the hot exhaust gas comes from.
A rocket produces its exhaust entirely from the propellant it carries onboard. The good news for rocket propulsion is that this means it works perfectly well in the vacuum of space. It carries the stuff it pushes against. The bad news is all that propellant is penalty weight it needs to carry up with it until expended as reaction mass.
Air-Breathing Propulsion
In contrast to a rocket, a jet engine grabs most of its reaction mass from the air it is flying through. The jet still needs fuel to heat the air passing through the engine, giving it the extra oomph that produces thrust, but the fuel requirement is much less than the total reaction mass. This means the jet aircraft needs to carry a much smaller load with it to power the engine.
Where do airplane propellers fit into this? They work on the same principle as a jet, but instead of heating the passing air to produce thrust, the spinning propeller produces aerodynamic lift by grabbing passing air and hurtling it backward. This reaction drives the propeller — and the plane it's attached to — forward.
Most modern jet engines combine these techniques. A jet engine uses ducted fans that grab air and throw it back but only pass a fraction of it through the combustion chamber, where fuel is then burned to power the whole thing.
The Newtonian principle of aerospace propulsion, in its self-contained rocket and air-breathing jet variations, has been sufficient to make air travel commonplace and open the door to space. But the climb from Earth to orbit is so demanding, and the needed rocket propellant adds such enormous penalty weight, that getting into space by rocket remains a terribly expensive proposition.
Too Hot to Handle?
From the dawn of the space age, people have wondered if the air-breathing principle could be adapted to space lift. A jet engine won't work in space, but in principle, a jet flying in the upper atmosphere could approach orbital speed and only need rocket propulsion for the final insertion into orbit.
The problem is heat. Atmospheric flight at very high speed produces enormous frictional heating, and jet engines must produce even more heat to generate thrust. Conventional turbine jet engines are limited to roughly three times the speed of sound, or Mach 3. Ramjet engines, which have no moving parts but need to be boosted up to high speed before they work at all, could reach about Mach 6 before they, too, overheat.
Decades ago, engineers came up with a possible solution called the supersonic combustion ramjet, or scramjet. ("Supersonic" here refers not to the speed of the aircraft but to the speed of airflow through the engine.) If air could flow through a ramjet without having to slow down to give time for the fuel to burn, frictional heating inside the engine would not be so enormous.
The science is clear, but the engineering has been incredibly demanding. According to the University of Notre Dame, "the internal aerodynamics of a scramjet engine are extremely complicated and not well understood." Aviation Week Network gives a different expression of the same challenge: "A drop of kerosene sprayed into the combustion chamber of a scramjet engine has a lot of work to do in 1/1,000th of a second."
Progress at Mach Speed
On top of these engineering challenges, the only real way to test a scramjet engine is to launch it into the upper atmosphere at hypersonic speed — upward of Mach 5, or about a mile per second. Thus, it's taken decades to develop scramjets from experimental testbed to a practical working technology.
But, at last, those years of work are paying off. The first practical hypersonic scramjet aerospace craft will be for defense — in particular, for engaging hypersonic glide vehicles boosted by rockets (the only currently operational form of hypersonic propulsion). Several countries have already deployed these as weapons intended to evade antimissile defenses.
In 2021, reports Design and Development Today, a Northrop Grumman scramjet engine powered the successful first flight of the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept. According to Military & Aerospace Electronics, this program is now developing a Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, "a scramjet-powered hypersonic weapon designed to hold high-value targets at risk in contested environments from standoff distances."
This initial defense application is a long way from hypersonic aerospace liners crossing the Pacific in two hours, much less flying to orbit. But air-breathing hypersonic propulsion has arrived, and revolutions in traveling through air and exploring space are likely to follow.
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Breaking Down the Science Behind Aerospace Propulsion

Humans are unique because of our ability to use language to communicate complex ideas. Back-and-forth conversations can be helpful and enjoyable but surprisingly difficult to arrange. Until recently, even people who lived or worked in the same building could find themselves playing phone tag for days, as they each tried to guess when the other person might be available for a conversation. Email helped speed up the process, but in the early days, it required the recipient to sit down at a desk computer and connect to the internet through their phone line.
The solution was presence technology, which could tell you if someone on your contact list was available online in real time. Popularized by AOL Instant Messenger in 1997, it allowed for texting a full decade before smartphones became common, explains Smithsonian Magazine. Texting has changed remarkably little since those early days — nowadays, we just have better internet access and more websites and apps we can use for texting. It's especially useful when people only have a little to say (perhaps a single question for customer service) or when they want to choose their words carefully.
In the quarter-century since AOL Instant Messenger was introduced, however, presence technology has gotten much smarter and is being used to improve other modes of communication.
Network Awareness in the Evolving Workplace
The COVID-19 pandemic supercharged how technology is transforming the workplace. Many employees found that they can be as productive at home as in the office, but they need effective ways to communicate with their coworkers. Many also missed the informal conversations that occur in hallways or at the water cooler, which can build camaraderie and lead to new ideas and solutions.
Many of these problems can be addressed by integrating presence technology into the suite of tools used by company employees. These tools can automatically determine whether someone has recently been active online (and, therefore, potentially available) and whether they are currently on a call or in a scheduled meeting. People can also indicate whether they are out for lunch, gone for the day, on vacation or otherwise don't want to be disturbed. You can then decide to wait for that person to become available (and send a message or tell the system to notify you) or find someone who is available.
You don't need to consider whether someone is working from their office, their home, their car or any other location that has internet access. Network location awareness allows a device to move between different networks and selects the proper configuration based on information about its available network connection.
Location information can be used to automatically adjust meeting times to the appropriate time zone for each participant. Many systems also allow users to have the same experience on different devices, so messages can go to your work phone, your personal phone, your laptop and your desktop computer. All of these tools working together leads to "unified communications and collaboration," which is a popular buzz phrase and an important goal for companies with distributed workforces.
By working seamlessly in the background, these tools can help increase efficiency (so workers can finish their work more quickly) and productivity (so companies can improve their bottom line).
Better Video Chats
Presence technology has also greatly improved large-group video conferences, especially when some participants are onsite and others are remote. Here, the challenge is to make sure all participants feel like they are in the same room and able to hear and be heard by all other participants.
One major improvement comes from artificial intelligence (AI) powered cameras pointed at each participant that can automatically center the person in the video. That can be combined with technology that automatically mutes background noise, spotlights the person speaking and allows participants to easily share their computer screens. This keeps the focus on people and their ideas and makes managing the technology an afterthought.
Improved video conferencing is not just good for company meetings — it's also a great way for grandparents who are not media savvy to connect with grandchildren who may not stay still for the camera. It's also ideal for telemedicine, allowing patients to see their regular physician or a specialist even if they cannot travel to the clinic. A video visit isn't appropriate for everything, but it can be ideal for simple tasks, like checking blood pressure, reviewing medications and discussing lab results and possible next steps. According to Harvard Business Review, the appropriate use of telemedicine can actually improve patient health and reduce costs.
Improved Convenience and Security
A more advanced level of presence technology is the use of facial recognition to unlock your phone. The goal is for the device to unlock almost instantaneously for you but stay locked for anyone else. Higher-end laptop computers are now available with a similar feature, as Windows Central notes.
Presence detection can be paired with sophisticated artificial intelligence to track people and their movements. The network location awareness that allows your device to be used on different networks can also allow some platforms to monitor all wireless devices emitting signals within a space. This is a reasonably good proxy for the people in that space.
Facial recognition software can be used to identify individuals as they move in and out of different areas. This technology could be paired with video AI to flag people who are moving in unexpected ways — perhaps more quickly or more slowly than expected or in an unusual direction or someone who seems to have fallen. An assisted living facility, for instance, could use it to keep track of vulnerable residents.
When combined with building security, facial recognition software can be used to determine how many people are in a space in case of an emergency or to identify suspicious individuals, but as with any technology, humans can use it for good or for ill. For example, an oppressive government could use this same technology to track down known dissidents.
Regardless of use case, it's clear that presence technology has changed the way we connect with people online, and even today, it's evolving with us as the world becomes more globalized and more digital.
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What Is Presence Technology?

The future of 3D holograms holds endless possibilities. Although we see real holograms all around us on items like our credit and debit cards, holography has a multitude of applications that don't directly involve the 3-D visual effect. For example, holographic computer memory devices can be read more rapidly than any present memory device. But let's be honest. What you really want to know is whether genuine 3D images — true holograms — will be coming soon to a movie theater or concert venue near you.  Visualizing 3D and the Theater of Illusion In a way, theater arts are all about optical illusions — actors only seem to fall in love, and characters killed off in the third act come out to take a bow at the end. On a similar note, what may appear to be a 3D hologram is often not.  According to holographer Fernando Catta-Preta, there are multiple ways to create a 3D effect for the human eye. Some — such as Pepper's Ghost, a special effects technique for creating ghostly images — are time-honored tricks of the illusionist's trade. These remain popular, for example, at Disney World. They are also common in the stage tricks that make Frank Sinatra or Elvis Presley appear onstage with Tupac Shakur.  Others, such as the familiar movie effect produced by 3D glasses, rely on the fact that what we see is a creation of our optic nerves, not just our eyes. Show a slightly different image to each eye, and the mind will integrate them into a single 3D image.  Bringing Real Images Onstage  But a hologram is an actual image — not an illusion.  Oddly enough, the realness of a hologram makes its future something of a challenge for Hollywood. The audience sits in their seats, looking up at a screen where events take place. But if a genuine 3D image is projected into the theater, audience members would see it from different angles depending on where they are sitting. People in the front row might need to turn around to even see anything.  This is not a problem with today's 3D movies, because the 3D glasses produce a subtle optical illusion rather than an actual image.  Holographic movies would be different. Similar to stage plays where the action onstage sometimes spills out into the aisles, images could be projected into the theater to intermingle with the audience. Of course, in the case of holographic movies, the film prints would have to allow adjustment so that the filmed aisles aligned correctly with the actual aisles of the theater where the film is being shown.  Complications like this suggest that the first widespread use of holograms in popular entertainment will likely be at concerts, not in theatrical films. These holograms would not be illusions of former entertainers — as they are now — but actual images of performers, perhaps playing live at another venue. 3D holograms may also find a home on the live stage, allowing actors to directly interact with holographic images. Such interactions could include walking through each other, something that could not be done with Pepper's Ghost or other forms of optical illusions.  More work needs to be done, technologically and artistically, before the full potential of the holographic medium can be expressed in popular entertainment. Still, the future of holograms is bright — and likely to surprise us.

The Future of 3D Holograms Looks Bright

If you own a smartphone, you're familiar with apps that allow you to remotely lock or unlock your home's doors, turn on a garden irrigation system or perhaps monitor your home's surveillance cameras. Underpinned by a robust wireless communications infrastructure, this network — part of the Internet of Things (IoT) — works because every device uses the same rules or Internet Protocols for how it connects to the network and how it packages, addresses and routes data. Warfighters operating in austere environments using disparate sensors and communication systems are hungry for such advanced networking. That's why the Department of Defense is focused on creating over the next five to 10 years an Internet of Warfighting Things (IoWT). Sometimes known as the Internet of Military Things, this separate and ultra-secure network would model the robustness and reliability of the IoT and allow every military asset to communicate, in theory, with every sensor, regardless of service affiliation. "The current challenge for the military is that they have to bring their current infrastructure with them," explained Colin Phan, director of strategy for Northrop Grumman's Networked Information Solutions Division (NISD). "In the past, platforms have had trouble communicating with each other due to services acquiring technology in silos. Today, the DOD is moving to an interconnected network that will make IoWT a reality for our warfighters."   Mobilizing a Well-Connected Future To make IoWT a reality, the DoD is currently undertaking a number of key initiatives with an effort called Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) sitting at the center. "JADC2 aims to connect platforms and sensors from all military services — Air Force, Army, Navy, Marines, and Space Force — into a single network, accessible by all services," explained Bruce Swett, a Northrop Grumman Fellow in NISD. "The goal is to take the commercial model of the Internet — the network, the computing, the AI — and bring it to warfighters so that they can get better information more quickly and make better decisions with a more complete understanding of what's going on around them." The IoWT could also be used in conjunction with data analytics to predict the maintenance requirements of a fleet of military vehicles, which would reduce costs, increase the availability of these platforms and keep troops safe, he added. "The major services are contributing to JADC2 by developing their own complementary advanced networking initiatives to link sensors and weapon systems across the tactical battlefield," explained Colin Phan, director of strategy for Northrop Grumman's Networked Information Solutions Division (NISD). Phan noted. These efforts include the U.S. Air Force's Advanced Battle Management System, the U.S. Army's Project Convergence and the U.S. Navy's Project Overmatch. "If the services can connect their assets together — satellites, ships, planes, ground vehicles, etc. — and make them work together, that's a force multiplier and helps the DoD maintain a strategic advantage in an age of data-driven conflict," he suggested. "The goal is to overmatch adversaries' capabilities by connecting all sensors, shooters and nodes together, doing things more intelligently to create a force that's collectively more effective than individual platforms." Integrating Military AI According to Swett, military AI will be a ubiquitous part of the IoWT. "I think of the IoWT as comprising two main sides: an intelligence side and a decision-making or battle management side," he explained. "If the warfighter wants to know what's happening across a lot of manned and unmanned platforms equipped with sensors, we'll want them to be talking to each other, and we'll also want to put military AI at the edge so that those platforms can aggregate and process information locally, then send appropriate alerts to the warfighter." Swett believes that these military AI algorithms will be analogous to algorithms used by top commercial AI providers to suggest additional content based on a consumer's purchasing or viewing habits. However, these IoWT algorithms will be geared toward making "recommendations" to help warfighters understand and make better decisions in complex battlefield environments. Bridging Reality With Gateways According to Phan, one of the key challenges of developing the IoWT will be integrating dissimilar platforms and sensors into a transparent, interconnected network architecture. "In the same way that smart homes are now using wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and smart hubs to allow these technologies to communicate with each other, the military has systems called gateways that translate tactical data from disparate systems and share it securely among warfighters operating in different domains." "A gateway can either be a separate platform or it can be incorporated on an existing platform to make it interoperable with systems it was not originally designed to communicate with," he said. "It can provide a very effective interface between older and newer systems." Phan points to the Northrop Grumman-developed Battlefield Airborne Communications Node (BACN) as an example of a separate gateway platform that supports the DoD's move to JADC2. BACN has been in service with the Air Force since 2008; it's a high-altitude, long-endurance airborne communications gateway that delivers interoperable voice communications and data translation between pilots and ground units—regardless of military branch. Shifting to Advanced Networking Phan also expects the IoWT to reflect a DoD shift away from relying on conventional, standalone systems in favor of interconnecting platforms, nodes, sensors and other battle assets. "In the past, the DoD might have opted to use a front-line fighter jet equipped with exquisite sensors to perform a mission," he observed. "Under the evolving vision for IoWT, however, they're now asking 'What if we network this fighter with another fighter or even an unmanned platform? Can we achieve the same or better level of performance with a networked approach instead of that standalone asset?'" The DoD's priority in the near future, he believes, will be to connect those sensors that will enable U.S. and allied forces to maintain a strategic advantage in future conflicts. Repurposing Proven Constructs Swett expects the IoWT to take advantage of many proven constructs from the commercial IoT, even though it will be operating with far more stringent security standards. He points to the IoT's now-common crowdsourced ride-sharing models, for example, as a way to pair up commanders with nearby battlefield assets. "Let's say I'm a commander who needs to create a video or still image of a local area to see what's going on," he said. "Wouldn't it be cool if I could call up my local airborne asset dispatcher and identify platforms that plan to pass over my target location in the near future and that could shoot and send me the desired imagery?" This crowdsourcing example illustrates another vital aspect of the IoWT that should not be overlooked: human-machine interactions. "If we're using military AI algorithms to do predictive maintenance on a bunch of military vehicles, we're going to need some sort of web page to display the output of those algorithms for humans," Swett proposed. "That's where we'll have to move from machine-to-machine communication to machine-to-human communication and start asking ourselves: Who should get the information? Is it timely? Is it correct? And is it easily understandable?" Making the IoWT A Reality Northrop Grumman is investing today in the future of the connected battlespace. We are pushing the boundaries of what's possible to bring forward new and emerging capabilities, and expanding the functionality of existing technologies to enhance mission effectiveness to help bring the IoWT to life across the battlespace. Northrop Grumman is pioneering innovation as we seek to solve the world's most challenging problems. To ensure our warfighters have the confidence to make real-time decisions in complex environments, we are enhancing our capabilities with human-centered machine intelligence to take advantage of emerging digital system capabilities. Many of the company's innovative technologies integrate leading-edge solutions into distributed, dynamic mission systems that are essential to our national security. Northrop Grumman's advanced networking offerings provide the foundation needed to implement the use of the advanced IoWT applications such as secure and ethical artificial intelligence, real-time situational awareness, machine learning, cloud computing and connected battlefield applications, among others. View Northrop Grumman's Advanced Networking Technologies and Artificial Intelligence webpages to learn more." Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Advanced Networking is Creating an Internet of Warfighting Things

Well-known wearable gadgets include smartwatches that sync with your phone and fitness trackers. The future of wearable technology is predicted to go far beyond exercise trackers, however. Advances in material fabrication for flexible electronics coupled with the availability of smaller power sources that power up in an instant are already reducing the size of wearables. Combine these with an enhanced IoT (Internet of Things), connectedness for rapid data exchange could put wearables for personal safety, comfort and information right at your fingertips, wrist or even your dog's collar. Beyond Steps: Wearable Gadgets for Smart Healthcare The convenience factor of immediate on-the-body access to a wearable and its data could help you stay healthy. PC Mag's report on wearables at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES19) highlights a smartwatch with electrocardiogram (ECG) functionality. As previously reported, the Internet of Bodies (IoB) is poised to accelerate with enhanced interconnectedness; this means wearables could even help track elusive cardiac arrhythmias. Other wearables highlighted at CES19 include a device to monitor fetal health during pregnancy and a device to track bladder function for individuals prone to urine retention. Both wearables use skin sensors placed over the abdomen, which send data on baby kicks or bladder levels to a smartphone app. Turning Disability Into Accessibility With Wearables Repurposing the senses, allowing one sense to be amplified in the absence of another, is another advancement in wearable technology. For example, IEE Spectrum mentions a wrist device that uses sensory substitution to relay speech as patterns of vibration for deaf people; users learn to recognize the patterns, associating each with sounds. Another project uses woven conductive textiles to drape a body in haptics. In the form of a shirt, this technology can translate the sounds of an orchestra into different vibrations played over the surface of the skin. Fortune describes how micro-actuators direct sound from each instrument to different areas on the torso, immersing users in the orchestral experience. Security and Smart Healthcare The future of wearable technology is on the lookout for your safety. For instance, this year's CES19 promoted a personal alarm button worn on the wrist. Also available are RFID-blocking wearables that prevent identity theft. Esub describes two wearable gadgets that can help worker safety — one of which catches you before you nod off. Micro-sleeps are a risk in many industries where workers operate heavy machinery, but the smart cap wearable checks in on brainwaves and alertness to give drivers or construction workers a heads up that they are fatigued. Another device comes as a personal tag that tracks worker activity and location; linked to a central monitoring station, a supervisor can keep a virtual eye on construction sites, for example. Falls automatically trigger an emergency response and the tags will also send out a distress call when triggered by the wearer. Heard About Hearables? If you haven't, you will soon. A Nieman Reports article describes how sunglasses laden with positional sensors will be able to tell not only where you are but which direction you are facing. This could be good for the directionally challenged, but even better if you are interested in the location-specific audio relayed to your ears. Imagine being alerted to construction diversions or security incidents while on your usual walking route. Hearables are predicted to be more visible as wearables this year. Fitness Tracking for All Four Paws It's not just humans that need to count steps, apparently; fitness trackers for your pet are a growing market, too, with wearable gadgets to track all four paws. The furry future of wearable technology also includes GPS or accelerometer capabilities to track your pet's location. Wareable lists a number of collars and tags that will upload data on walks, body temperature and calories burned. Apart from tracking a lost pet, data uploads could be useful for monitoring health. As the tech gets smaller and more convenient for 24/7 access, even your cat can benefit from the future of wearable technology. Dare we say, purrfect?   https://esub.com/top-construction-wearables-watch-2018/ 

Smart Healthcare: The Future of Wearable Technology

Buried under the news of ski jumps, half-pipe competitions and triple salchows at the Pyonghchang Winter Olympics in South Korea was the debut of 5G, a new high-speed fifth-generation wireless network. Organizers of this year's Olympic Games used 5G to power systems that emitted rays, gases and fake tiger roars to ward off wild boars, according to Fortune. 5G and IoT — the Internet of Things, i.e., networks of devices — will dramatically change the way we interact with technology. What is 5G? The most salient benefit of 5G is speed. It is estimated that 5G will be up to 1,000 times faster than 4G, and users will be able to download an entire HD film in about one second, according to 5G.co.uk. That speed will be a boon to mobile-based media, augmented reality, virtual reality and IoT devices. To get a sense of how 5G might change mobile-based media, consider how the introduction of 4G has helped to hasten the spread and introduction of streaming services like Netflix and Spotify. Nelson Granados, a professor at Pepperdine University, posited in Forbes that 5G will allow customers to download media rather than stream it. Meanwhile, live streaming will become more of an option on 5G since the platform offers lower latency and will avoid the buffering that can make watching video on a mobile device so annoying. Another disruptive element of 5G is that it can conceivably replace a wired broadband connection, whether cable, DSL or fiber optic, which can potentially entice more consumers to cut the cord. Will 5G Benefit AR and VR? The lack of a need for a wired connection and 5G's low latency also mean that consumers will be able to easily use mobile augmented reality and virtual reality. For instance, a 5G network will allow for support for richer images for AR interfaces in a store environment. Using their phone or smart glasses, a shopper can use AR to identify the items that they are looking for in-store and point them to products that are on sale, Forbes said. Mobile VR, meanwhile, will allow consumers to virtually attend events (picture grandparents virtually experiencing their grandchild's first steps, for instance) and allow for immersion into mobile-based VR experiences like live sporting events, concerts, meetings and games. What Is The Future of IoT? 5G and IoT are inexorably linked; the introduction of 5G coincides with the rise of IoT. Approximately 8.4 billion IoT devices existed in 2017, according to ZD Net. 5G will make IoT devices ranging from smart parking meters to household devices to autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles work better because they can send and receive data much faster, USAToday noted. For that reason, 5G and IoT will be a potent combination. Coming Soon USAToday reports that AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint and Verizon aim to rollout 5G networks by 2019. Of course, 5G's success isn't assured. The service will likely be expensive, so many consumers might stick with 4G for a while. It's possible that 5G won't work as well as promised. Barring consumer indifference or unsolvable tech glitches, 5G is likely to make a big splash and usher in a new wave of wireless usage in the 2020s. So, what is 5G? Soon enough you won't even have to ask. 

Will 5G and IoT Revolutionize Technology?

 3-D printed objects are no longer mere curiosities. As the technology continues to improve and fall in price, more consumers use them to create everything from soap holders to piggy banks to customized hooks. That's just the beginning. It's been half a decade since Wired's Chris Anderson predicted that 3-D printing would usher in a new industrial revolution. Since then, technologies like wearables and artificial intelligence have overshadowed 3-D printing, at least in the press. However, the industry has been quietly building. The 3-D printing industry surpassed $5 billion in 2015 as consumers purchased 278,000 desktop printers worldwide. The industry as a whole grew 25.9 percent. Gartner predicts that by 2019, additive manufacturing, as it's also known, will be a $14.6 billion business. The growth has been impressive on the business side as well. Manufacturers like GE, Ford and Nissan are now using additive manufacturing. A 2016 survey from PricewaterhouseCoopers found 71 percent of manufacturers were using 3-D printing for prototyping and final products.Prototyping and Replacing, Not Mass Production Those firms are mostly using additive manufacturing to create prototypes. The idea of 3-D printing cars or even car parts on an assembly line is years off. How many years, though? That PricewaterhouseCoopers survey showed that 52 percent of manufacturers said that they thought 3-D printing would be used for high-volume production within three to five years. At this point, printers are far too slow to produce at volume. The 3-D printed objects that most manufacturers are producing are prototypes. Making a prototype in a traditional factory is an arduous process that requires remaking molds and then flowing in liquid plastics or metals. 3-D printing is a much easier way to create such prototypes. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and entrepreneur Jim McKelvey created the first prototype for Square, the credit-card swiper, with a 3-D printer. Another use for 3-D printing is to create replacement parts. A far-flung satellite office, for instance, could use its own 3-D printer to produce a broken machine part rather than waiting for headquarters to recreate and send the part. Daimler AG, the world's largest truck manufacturer, is using additive manufacturing to create replacement parts.Medical Miracles? Another segment that's creating 3-D printed objects is medicine and health care. 3-D printers can already create prosthetic devices, like a mechanical hand for a Sudanese refugee. They have also been used to create splints to be used in operations on newborns. Doctors have used 3-D printers to replace skull parts. A Massachusetts company called Conformis prints hundreds of knee implants every year.Makers These use cases are occurring as small companies using 3-D printers appear ready to give traditional manufacturers some new competition. The Brooklyn-based Voodoo Manufacturing, for instance, uses 160 printers that cost $2,000 each to print up to 160 items at the same time. The company says it can undercut traditional factories producing runs of 10,000 pieces. The company hopes to cut its costs by 90 percent during the next few years as printers get cheaper and more efficient. While such upstarts have an opportunity to disrupt manufacturing, most business leaders are aware of the threat. They've also lived through the past few years in which "digital disruption" has become a fact of daily life. Most likely, manufacturers will use 3-D printing to create disruption themselves and bring down costs for everyone.

3-D Printed Objects Usher in a New Industrial Revolution

Depression is a serious, and unfortunately quite common, health condition. According to the American Psychiatric Association, it affects one in 15 adults every year, while one in six people will experience depression sometime during their life. That's a lot of people! It's not always clear what causes depression — it can be an imbalance in brain chemistry or a byproduct of personality, environmental factors, or genetics. The good news, though, is there are many treatment options, from medication to psychotherapy to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). And now, there may be a new treatment on the horizon: brain implants. Researchers have been experimenting with brain implants to treat depression, and the results have been surprising. While they may not be widely available anytime soon, it bodes well for the future of treating this insidious disease. One day it could even be a depression cure. Why Are Brain Implants Effective as a Depression Cure? Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, is an effective treatment for severe depression cases, but it's not a depression cure. While it's more conventionally known as shock therapy, it's very different from the historical practice. It's done under general anesthesia, according to The Mayo Clinic, and involves passing electrical currents to parts of the brain. The end goal is to trigger a seizure which will alter brain chemistry. While there's no guarantee it will work, it can have an effect on the most serious depression cases that don't respond to other treatments. Brain implants work similarly. In a paper published in Nature Medicine, scientists detail how they treated an individual with major depressive disorder who didn't respond to any other treatment, including ECT. A team at the University of California, San Francisco implanted a device called NeuroPace RNS, originally approved for epilepsy treatment, into the right hemisphere of the patient's brain, and thanks to a wire, it was able to monitor the patient's amygdala for signs of depression and provide electric stimulation to counter the effects. What Does a Brain Implant Look For? Before implanting the NeuroPace RNS, researchers studied the patient's brain closely. They engaged in "stimulus-response mapping," according to the study, which monitored the effects of stimulating different parts of the brain. As a result, scientists were able to discover treatment locations to stimulate in order to counter the effects of the patient's deep depression. As a Scientific American article notes, the team found that by activating an area of the patient's brain in the ventral striatum, they were able to produce feelings of glee and happiness. But it wasn't enough to know which area to stimulate in order to provide treatment. Scientists also needed to know when to administer this treatment. In order to do that, they mapped the patient's brain and found that gamma oscillations in the amygdala were a reliable indicator of when the patient's depression symptoms were about to spike. What Does a Brain Implant Do to Fight Depression? Thanks to the wire placed into the patient's amygdala, the implant knew exactly when to administer treatment. It did so in six-second bursts, stimulating the area of the ventral striatum that increased the patient's happiness until the gamma oscillations decreased. Once that happened, treatment was deemed effective and the implant was turned off until the next time gamma oscillations triggered another wave. It provided the patient gentle stimulation as needed throughout the day. According to a University of California San Francisco study, the patient reported that her depression symptoms have virtually disappeared over the months she's been using the implant. What's Next for Brain Implants and Depression? It's important to note that this is just a study of one person, so it's definitely too early to label this brain implant a depression cure. But it's incredibly promising. The next step for scientists is to work with the patient to spend six weeks off the device and six weeks with it turned on in order to evaluate whether the disappearance of symptoms could be a placebo effect. This brain implant has a long way to go before it's available for wider use. But it's certainly an interesting start, and it might offer people with major depressive disorder a real chance at living a life free from depression symptoms. Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

Brain Implants Could Help Treat — and Possibly Cure — Severe Depression

We're stressed — and it's getting worse. According to the Stress in Americaâ„¢ 2020 report, 67% of adults have experienced increased stress over the last year, with 49% saying their behavior has been negatively affected. And while the report highlights the considerable impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also points to the compounding effect of "societal stressors that have been pervasive in previous years," noting that many Americans now report stress-related symptoms such as increased bodily tension, reduced patience with family members and unexpected mood swings. There's no quick fix to this problem. Even an end to pandemic pressures won't prompt an immediate return to normalcy, and concerns around issues such as rising debt load, climate change and affordable health care will remain long after the "next normal" gets off the ground. But it's not all bad news. Recent advancements in wearable device development may offer new ways to mitigate stress, improve focus and manage mental health. Here's a look at the potential future of wearable technology — and why it may all be in your head. The 10% Solution Despite repeated and thorough debunking, the myth that human beings only use 10% of brains remains pervasive. As Psychological Science notes, this mental misunderstanding may trace its origins to a statement made by William James in 1907. "Most of us feel as if we lived habitually with a sort of cloud weighing on us," James wrote, "below our highest notch of clearness in discernment, sureness in reasoning or firmness in deciding. Compared with what we ought to be, we are only half-awake. Our fires are damped, our drafts are checked. We are making use of only a small part of our possible mental and physical resources." Despite its development into a defense of hidden human potential, the statement itself rings true — as the pressures of daily life and work continue to ramp up, many people feel they're not making the best use of mental resources. Even more worrisome? For almost half of all adults, these challenges eventually manifest as mental illness. Effective treatment for these issues is unfortunately hit or miss — there's still significant stigma attached to many mental illnesses, and according to the World Health Organization (WHO), 40% of countries worldwide have no mental health policies in place. The result? Finding help for everything from everyday stress to more serious mental issues is no easy task — but wearables may offer a workaround. What's New in Wearable, Mental Machinery? In much the same way that fitness and health wearables have captured consumer interest in recent years with diversified offerings capable of tracking steps, monitoring heart rates and even alerting physicians to potential problems, there's now significant movement in the mental wearable device market. And while many of these technologies are still in their infancy, they promise a host of possibilities that could help humans better manage their mental health. Here are some of those interesting and innovative approaches. Focused Feedback Tools such as Foci are designed to capture breathing signals with a small device kept close to the abdomen. In theory, even slight alterations in air intake and outflow can indicate changing stress levels, which are represented by color-changing orbs in Foci's mobile app. Lose focus, and the orbs change color, even as the app "nudges" users to become more focused, both by automatically switching smartphones into do-not-disturb mode (if desired) and tracking focus patterns over time. Reviews are mixed — positioning and pairing the device correctly can be challenging — but this focused feedback idea has potential. Medication Monitoring There's also a push to monitor medication intake for patients who require it. Devices such as Abilify MyCite use a combination of sensor-equipped pills and smart patches worn on the torso to confirm when medication is taken as prescribed, which in turn may help patients stay on track and reduce the risk of severe schizophrenia or bipolar disorder episodes. De-Stressing Stimulation Other wearable solutions, such as TouchPoint, look to mitigate anxiety by providing tactile, bilateral alternating stimulation — buzzing or pulsing stimuli that occur in a left-right pattern — using devices worn on the wrists or carried in pockets. While there is some evidence for the efficacy of bilateral alternating stimulation for stress management, more research is needed on the effect at scale. Care Connections At Texas A&M, researchers are developing a continuous monitoring tool that collects physical data, such as heart rates, along with self-reported information about students' mental states to connect users with relevant mental health services such as mindfulness exercises, self-assessments and virtual counseling sessions. Emotional Engagement Work from the University of Calgary is looking to solve challenges around emotional stress, such as feelings of being lonely or isolated. Art student Alex Mai develop a "loneliness pillow," which uses heating pads and pressurized air to create a large-scale wearable capable of simulating a human hug. Meditation Management Mindful meditation is also on the horizon for mental health wearables. Solutions such as Muse leverage smart headbands capable of tracking brain signals that are then interpreted and applied to meditation sessions. If users are focused, they hear calm and soothing winds while they meditate. If they become stressed or distracted, wind speed and intensity will increase. Building a Better Brain The future of wearable technology exists at the intersection of another intellectual effort — the quest to develop artificial neural networks capable of mimicking human mental frameworks. Work in both machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) has already produced substantive results with the creation of ML algorithms that can "learn" over time given a large enough data input, and AI tools that are very, very good at very specific tasks. The challenge is matching the more generalized ability of human minds to connect multiple, loosely linked constructs into a cohesive whole. But the work on wearable devices designed to help manage mental stress and mitigate the risk of serious outcomes may offer a way to bridge the gap between artificial and biological systems at scale. For example, a device designed to help humans manage stress based on conditional self-reporting might be repurposed to evaluate the cognitive ability of AI tools. Rather than waiting for these neural networks to make an obvious mistake that requires human intervention, the application of mental health models could be used to proactively detect decision-making issues. And this street runs both ways. As AI tools become more adept at categorizing and connecting the signs and symptoms of mental illness, the infrastructure of wearable devices will improve, paving the way for technologies capable of capturing and correlating individual behavior patterns. This can help wearables better detect signs of impending stress and offer users effective mitigation strategies ASAP. Ultimately, work on wearables is about building better brains — both human and machine — to improve the efficacy and stability of both. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

The Future of Wearable Technology? It's All in Your Head

The future of grocery stores may rely on finding new uses for AI, partly because of how we've all been forced to change our habits lately. Instead of just being a routine but necessary part of domestic life, shopping for groceries has recently come with potential health risks, supply chain issues leading to reduced inventories, and socially distanced interactions. Buying habits and the push for contactless shopping are shaping the way we shop, and AI technology underpins much of the innovation we're seeing in the grocery store. An Adapting Grocery Store The COVID-19 pandemic has brought forward features such as contactless payment, online order and delivery, and social distancing in stores. These new experiences have accelerated consumer expectations for the retail experience. According to Forbes, the future of grocery stores depends on making shopping a good experience for shoppers. Customers want not only ease and convenience but also less frustration, a personalized shopping experience and the ability to switch from in-person to online browsing with delivery to the home. But, far from heralding a no-contact, machine-only, isolated experience, artificial intelligence could also free up in-store personnel for more personal interaction with shoppers. According to Itrex Group, the top AI functions in retail will be customer care and personalization, quality control, inventory management and pricing, and fraud detection. There is the potential to collect massive amounts of data within grocery stores using AI, and leveraging this for consumer and business benefit is the way forward. An Intelligent Cart Salon describes the Caper Cart as the world's first AI-powered shopping cart. Instead of outfitting the retail bricks and mortar with sensors and other tools needed for automation, the Caper Cart trundles along the aisles fully equipped. Sensors in the cart monitor purchases. Cameras in the four corners of the cart record what goes in or coming out. There's a built-in weighing pad that can calculate the weight of all those bananas and even prices them. While you're shopping up and down the aisles, Caper Cart is keeping tabs on your buying habits and can make personalized recommendations based on what you've added. For example, adding one produce item could trigger a suggestion for an ingredient that pairs well with it or point you toward an on-sale item that matches what you're looking for. This type of 'sensory' shopping also makes inventory management easier for the store. Canadian Grocer notes that the retail chain Sobey's is trialing Caper Cart. Solutions like this make it easier for any size of business, not just the giants, to add AI tech without having to equip an entire store. Smart Grocery Stores Fitting out an entire store to take advantage of AI technology could make sense for larger chains in particular. For instance, Amazon Go stores were configured as completely cashier-free — a series of cameras and other sensors monitor what shoppers take from shelves for automatic check out. Removing the need to check out means no more queuing for the till. Described as 'Just Walk Out' technology in a Seattle Times article, the concept may also be rolled out in Amazon Fresh stores. The smart grocery store also keeps an eye on produce: AI-enabled cameras can watch the store's fruit and vegetables to ensure that ripeness is optimal and quality produce is always available to the shopper. Smart Brief notes that AI technology like this can help manage store workflows, increase efficiency and even enable voice assistance for a hands-free experience. Robo Global Insights describes how Walmart is using an autonomous workforce paired with an AI network to achieve greater efficiency. Shelf-stocking robots can reach both high and low, and can keep an eye on inventory levels, scanning shelves for missing items and then replacing them. Smart shelves can also help with monitoring inventory, keeping the aisles filled at just the right level to encourage consumer purchases. If there's a spill, smart sensors can alert a clean-up crew for rapid response. Robot-Assisted AI AI technology coupled with robots can make the delivery process more smooth as well. In addition to stocking shelves, automated robots can select items from them too. When a customer order comes in, an automated system can select and pack items for delivery. In the United Kingdom, Ocado uses robots to scan the inventory and prepare a customer's order ready for delivery. Once the order is packed, the next step is delivery to the door, and driverless vehicles are on the way to take it from there. Fortune notes that grocery deliveries via Waymo could be coming to some San Francisco shoppers this year. Despite how rapidly the world has changed and adapted to new public health concerns, the grocery store remains a constant in most people's lives. New technologies repurposed for the supermarket will push groceries to be more accessible, safer, and maybe even more fun to use. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery.

The Future of Grocery Stores Lies with AI Technology

In the Star Wars universe, lightsabers — which are a sort of advanced laser technology — are how the Jedi battle their dark-side Sith opponents. These incandescent swords look beautiful on screen, but of course, in reality, they're just special effects. In the original Star Wars trilogy, it was a physical effect — a rotating pole swathed in reflective tape. Only the colors were added in post-production. In later movies and trilogies, as the lightsaber duels grew more intense, actors used prop swords to ensure that the fighting looked real; the glowing effect and color was added in after the fact. The one thing that remains consistent throughout the history of lightsabers on screen in real-life productions is that much of the lightsaber visuals are a combination of practical and digital effects. But now, scientists have discovered a way to create real-life lightsaber effects that you can see with the naked eye, not just on a screen. In a study published in Scientific Reports, two researchers at Brigham Young University detail their findings on how to create a sort of digital holography — full-color virtual images in air. Their method is called "optical trap displays" (OTDs), and it uses laser technology to 3D print light displays onto air. What Are Optical Trap Displays? Wesley Rogers and Daniel Smalley, who pioneered optical trap displays, called it the "Princess Leia" project, and it had one simple goal. "Our group has a mission to take the 3D displays of science fiction and make them real," Smalley said in a release. "We have created a display that can do that." It isn't just lightsabers that Rogers and Smalley have created. The project's nickname comes from the famous Princess Leia hologram that R2-D2 displays at the beginning of the first movie, A New Hope. But what the BYU team is creating aren't simply images you can view from one perspective, like a traditional image projected onto a screen. While "hologram" and "digital holography" may be convenient words to use to describe these new images, they are not technically correct. These are actually volumetric images that you can walk around, see and interact with from any angle. Holograms can be three-dimensional but are not viewable from every angle. How Did Researchers Project Light Onto Air? The simplest way to describe what Rogers and Smalley have done is to think of it like 3D printing light onto the air. Laser technology traps a single cellulose particle and heats it, which allows researchers to manipulate the particle. They can use mirrors to push and pull the cellulose to create the image they want people to see. Then, a separate laser comes in and projects red, blue, or green color onto the particle as it moves through space, making it visible to humans. According to Ars Technica, this technique is called photophoresis. Because of the limitations of human vision, if this particle moves fast enough, it appears to our eyes as a solid line. "This display is like a 3D printer for light," Smalley said in the release. "You're actually printing an object in space with these little particles." It's not exactly a real-life lightsaber; two Jedi couldn't fight a battle or harm each other with these optical trap displays. But people could absolutely see the real-life effects. What Could This Be Used For? Optical trap displays could lay the foundation for an entirely new way of viewing and interacting with images. Current holographic technology requires so much processing power that it doesn't scale well. "Unlike OTDs, holograms are extremely computationally intensive and their computational complexity scales rapidly with display size," the researchers said in their paper. In other words, larger holograms require vastly more processing power. This isn't a problem for OTDs. If researchers can figure out how to scale optical trap displays using laser technology, it could be a new way to project limitless virtual 3D images onto air — a sort of holodeck, as seen in the Star Trek franchise. They could create entire virtual worlds people could walk through and interact with — virtual reality, but without a bulky headset. Are you interested in all things related to technology? We are, too. Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery. 

Researchers Use Laser Technology to Create Real-Life Projections

About 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, robotic 3D printers have started creating 100 homes. In Houston, a two-story structure could be one of the tallest 3D-printed houses yet.
Home is where the heart is, but these innovative projects also stimulate the brain. It's mind-boggling to think a printer can create something of such significance, but the houses demonstrate the very real pace of 3D printing trends in the building and construction industry.
After starting small (jewelry and toys) and getting bigger and more essential (prosthetics), 3D printers finally seem to be getting a handle on creating the large and livable. Still, despite the progress in Texas and other places, 3D-printed construction has a way to go before becoming mainstream. Questions of safety, scale and practicality aren't fully answered. But there seems to be little question that, eventually, a substantial number of people will make meals, watch TV, read bedtime stories and live in 3D-printed houses.
Possible Relief for the U.S. Housing Shortage
As a new and potentially less expensive and eco-friendly way of constructing homes, 3D printing could jump-start the sluggish U.S. housing market by overcoming a shortage of building materials and trained builders. The country needs anywhere from 1.5 to 5 million homes to fill the gap, according to the Washington Post.
As noted by Business Insider, a lack of housing widens social and economic inequalities and perpetuates environmental harm, because many people have long car commutes between their urban jobs and the rural homes they can afford.
"We recognize that limitations around materials and labor are constraining factors [to] building the homes that the country needs," Stuart Miller, the executive chairman of the second-largest home builder in the U.S., Lennar Corp., told Bloomberg. "So, we have been very focused on looking at techniques and solutions to build more effectively, more efficiently and more affordably."
Lennar has teamed up with the 3D-printing company Icon to build 100 of the 2,500 planned homes in a community outside Austin. Advocates of automated, 3D-printed houses point to this project, known as the "Genesis Collection," as a possible blueprint for quickly erecting affordable housing with minimal waste.
A Printer Squeezes Out "Toothpaste" Walls
As CNBC describes it, a worker on the Genesis site loads a digital floor plan for a home into a software system that maps out the structural reinforcement of the structure. Only three workers are needed on the site of each new home: one on a laptop, another to monitor the dispersing of the concrete mix and another in a support role. They watch as a 46.5-foot-wide robot printer on a crossbar squeezes out row after row of a concrete mixture that looks like toothpaste.
It takes a printer about three weeks to complete these layers of exterior and interior walls, which is about 30% less time than traditional building methods, according to Bloomberg. Other machinery adds reinforcing rebar and insulation. A printer leaves space for windows and doors, which are installed manually, and workers carve out space for outlets and light switches. While Icon does its 3D printing onsite, other companies print offsite and transport components.
Potentially Resetting Cost and Environmental Standards
Icon's CEO estimates that 3D printers could build homes for as much as 30% less than the cost of conventionally constructed homes. Genesis homes are expected to sell in the mid-$400,000 range. A CEO of a separate 3D-printing construction company that intends to build affordable homes in lower-income communities told Yahoo News that houses made from a printer are already as much as 10% less costly.
The printers could also help the environment. They can process cement alternatives — including one that is a mixture of hemp, sand and other materials — that should create less greenhouse gas emissions than the production of traditional cement.
Figuring Out the Growing Pains of a New Industry
As with any new wave of innovation, these 3D printing trends in the building and construction industry come with questions. First, there's the matter of safety and numbers. The fledgling industry lacks experienced companies that are qualified to build at scale — not to mention that governments haven't yet set standards for 3D builders.
Mallikarjuna Nadagouda, an Environmental Protection Agency researcher, told Yahoo News, "There are no codes or standards relating to manufacturers or specifications, and very few design professionals know how to design, specify and procure these for commercial clients." Also, not enough concrete manufacturers are creating the environmentally friendly concrete mixtures, causing the sort of material shortage seen in traditional home construction.
Weighing the pros and cons of 3D-printed homes, construction law specialist David Morris wrote in Construction News that this new crop of builders should work with traditional builders to ensure homes are efficiently and safely made. "Ultimately, someone will need to guarantee the quality of materials and the machinery involved to assure customers that the printer will do what has been agreed and the house will be safe, comfortable and insurable."
The few homes that are being built by a printer are also relatively small. As NPR reported, the first 3D-printed two-story home was only recently built in Houston. But considering that building a home on a 3D printer seemed to be the stuff of dreams not long ago, don't be surprised to someday see 3D printers squeezing out skyscrapers' worth of cement mix.
Are you interested in science and innovation? We are, too. Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.

3D Printing Trends in the Building and Construction Industry Take Off 

A humble bacterium discovered in river mud is actually an energy harvesting dynamo. New research shows that protein filaments from a microbe called Geobacter sulfurrenducens can be made into a paper-thin device that pulls electricity from humid air. This innovative renewable energy, which came about serendipitously in the lab, works in air of normal ambient humidity (about 40% to 50% relative humidity), but also works in air as dry as the Sahara Desert's or as humid as Florida's. "We found a way to continuously produce electricity from the ambient environment — anywhere, anytime," says electrical engineer Jun Yao, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In laboratory experiments, Yao and his team linked 17 energy harvesting films together to generate 10 volts of electricity, which is enough to power a cellphone. He says that because humidity is ubiquitous, this renewable energy solution can produce electricity day and night, no matter the environmental conditions. It can also be stacked vertically to take up less space than solar panels, for instance. He and his team published their research in February 2020 in the journal Nature. Based on the energy density in a thin film, Yao estimates that a multi-layered device the size of a refrigerator could power an average home, provided that the environment has the right humidity. He envisions stacks turned into a variety of shapes ranging from artistic and futuristic to those that blend seamlessly with the natural environment. "The potential is endless," he says. Accidental Discovery Yao and his team didn't set out to invent a renewable energy device. It happened by chance after a university colleague, microbiologist Derek Lovley, introduced Yao to the Geobacter microbe and described how it grew tiny wires made of protein in order to transfer charges to other microbes. When Lovley showed Yao images of the protein nanowires, Yao says he was amazed by the bacterium. "I didn't know it existed or that it was conductive," he says. As an electrical engineer, Yao figured that an obvious use for protein nanowires was to turn them into a wearable health sensor that could, for instance, monitor a person's respiratory rate or their skin hydration or detect how well a wound was healing. Yao enlisted first-year graduate student at the time, Xiaomeng Liu, to test the feasibility of such a device by sandwiching a thin film of the nanowires between two electrodes plugged into an electrical outlet and then measure how much charge the nanowires conducted. By accident, Liu forgot to plug the device in one day but noticed that the device was still getting power and could recharge itself. After conducting some investigations and ruling out a handful of explanation, the scientists discovered that when they put the protein nanowire device in a chamber and lowered the humidity, the current decreased. After exposing the energy harvesting device to different levels of humidity, the team found that it worked in a wide range of humidity from different geographical environments. As long as part of the film is exposed to the air and can absorb moisture, a moisture gradient develops, with water molecules constantly diffusing in and out of the top. At that spot, charges begin to build up. The difference in charge between the top and bottom of the film causes electrons to flow, Yao told Science. His colleague Derek Lovley suggested he name the device Air Gen. Making More Calculations showed that they could increase energy harvesting by putting more devices together, just like connecting many solar panels together in solar cells. To do this, they needed more protein nanowires from the bacteria. But growing massive amounts of Geobacter microbes in order to harvest their nanowires is difficult. These bacteria live in environments that have little to no oxygen and so culturing lots of them in a lab requires an expensive chamber that can create anaerobic conditions. Lovley, who had discovered the microbes, found that he could genetically engineer the easy-to-grow bacterium Escherichia coli to produce protein nanowires that have the same diameter and conducting power as Geobacter's. They're also just as durable. Yao says that the organic protein nanowire is more robust than those made of inorganic substances like silicon. Lovley conducted experiments showing that the nanowires remain stable in harsh solutions ranging from vinegar to saltwater, which quickly corrodes metal. "That's attractive in terms of practical implementation," says Yao. He says that the device could be shaped into interesting forms, too, to give off the appearance of art or even merge with the natural surroundings. Imagine a power plant that, at first glance, looks like a tree orchard, for instance. Many questions remain about the protein nanowires, says Yao. Some of them are around the fundamental mechanisms and why they conduct as they do. No one really knows for sure. Other questions have to do with the efficiency of this new green technology and discovering its upper limits. But that's where Yao thrives. "From a research perspective, it's good because we want to continue to investigate this," says Yao.

Energy Harvesting Tech Pulls Electricity From the Air

Carbon capture can't reverse climate change, but it's one part of the equation for reducing greenhouse gases. Earth's atmosphere currently contains 415.26 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO2), the highest concentration in human history. Phys.org reports that, "The last time our air contained this much CO2 was more than three million years ago."  The Carbon Problem Excess amounts of CO2 are warming the planet's atmosphere and oceans, melting ice caps, increasing acid in the oceans, and contributing to extreme weather events and rising sea levels. When CO2 concentrations were last this high, global sea levels were several meters higher and parts of Antarctica were covered in forest. While the evidence of climate change is staggering, environmental technology could provide some assistance. The latest improvements in wind and solar technologies are making alternative energy cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels. Still, switching to clean energy takes time, and carbon capture and storage (CCS) could help us keep up with the fast pace of rising global temperatures. Plus, many industries may still rely on applications that require old-fashioned energy sources. Alternative energy sources are helping to decarbonize the power sector, but there are many industrial processes that will require CCS if they are ever going to decarbonize. Cement, iron and steel manufacturing, as well as petroleum refining, are all industries that produce CO2. How Carbon Capture Can Help According to MIT Technology Review, most energy researchers say that CCS will be necessary to address the growing dangers of climate change. "A number of studies have found that without this technology, it's unlikely the world can prevent temperatures from rising more than 2ËšC," writes James Temple. The obvious way to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations is to stop putting carbon into the air. But there are also ways to pull CO2 from the air.   Current Developments in Environmental Technology With the latest technology, carbon emissions can be scrubbed from the air and stored underground. The main reason global temperatures are rising, according to Vox, is that we are removing too much carbon from the geosphere (below ground) and putting it into the biosphere (above ground). Take coal, for example. It starts as a solid underground, but then we mine for it, bring it above ground, and burn it for fuel. The burning process turns it into a gas that then disperses into the atmosphere, where it traps the sun's heat. Several facilities around the world are currently practicing CCS. They capture CO2 from the exhaust stream of a fossil-fuel power plant or heavy industrial process and bury it underground. It's an expensive process, but the cost has dramatically reduced in recent years. CCS is one strategy that can reduce the impact of CO2 on the climate while keeping fossil fuels as options. Existing power plants or industrial equipment could be retrofitted with carbon capture systems that would snatch carbon from the exhaust pipes before it is emitted into the atmosphere. Vox points out that CCS could help power plants become carbon neutral — but not carbon-negative. To get negative emissions, you have to take more carbon from the atmosphere than the ground. How it Works How do you pull carbon from the air? Chemicals. Popular Science breaks down the two capture processes:   Pre-combustion: Carbon is separated from the fuel before it is burned. For coal, you turn it into a gas called syngas, then filter out the carbon. With natural gas, a chemical reaction separates carbon from the methane molecule before it is burned, leaving behind a clean-burning hydrogen gas.  Post-combustion: Plants continue to burn fossil fuels, but they add an extra step that extracts the CO2 before it enters the atmosphere. This is accomplished using aqueous amines, which are liquid chemicals that bind to carbon. Later, the byproduct is burned to release CO2, which can then be pressurized and piped away to underground storage.  Where Does Carbon Go Now? With all the talk about greenhouse gases, it's easy to forget that carbon isn't actually bad for the planet. The problem is that we've been moving it around too much. After carbon is captured from the air, it can be stored underground in porous rock formations. Other than saving the earth in the long term, there isn't much incentive for industries to make an effort to put carbon into these underground saline reservoirs — but what if they could sell the carbon they capture? There are several startups experimenting with new ways to take carbon out of the air. For example, the Allam cycle recycles CO2 from combustion into a high-pressure fluid that can run a turbine — in other words, taking a waste product that is bad for the Earth's health and turning it into energy storage, according to Popular Science. Carbon Engineering, a Canadian startup, has reduced the cost of capturing carbon and is aiming for commercialization in 2021. According to Vox, the cost to capture a ton of CO2 was approximately $600 in 2011, but it's now somewhere between $94 to $232. This is still expensive, but at least Carbon Engineering proves that carbon capture is possible and the technology is improving with time. They plan to use solar-powered electrolysis to draw CO2 from the air. Then, they will use the carbon as an ingredient in low-carbon synthetic fuels. We've put so much carbon into the air that simply reducing emissions might not be enough — but carbon capture could help pull carbon molecules out of the atmosphere and put them to good use, or at least put carbon back into the ground, where it came from.

What Can Carbon Capture Technology Accomplish?

With NASA planning to bring astronauts back to the moon by 2024 and make lunar missions sustainable by 2028, the space race part two is on. The challenge this round? Go there to stay. In the drive to produce water, power, fuel and food, we're going to tap into every readily available resource: lunar soil, solar energy and even somewhat threadbare helium, neon and hydrogen atmosphere clinging to our moon's rugged surface. It's all up for grabs, but what can we do with it?
For starters: We can make oxygen on the moon.
Lighting Up the Night: Making Oxygen and Power on the Moon
Making something out of nothing usually involves breaking the laws of physics — making oxygen on the moon only involves using water to break up lunar soil.
To make oxygen on the moon, researchers at Nanjing University recently proposed using a process a bit like terrestrial photosynthesis. The process starts with lunar soil, which is rich in iron and titanium. Thanks to the presence of those elements, when scientists added water to lunar soil samples returned by the Chang'e 5 moon rover, it kicked off a very useful chemical reaction. As has been observed in some places on Earth, including Antarctica, iron in the water-hungry soil donated electrons to the oxygen and hydrogen in the water. The result: both O2 and H2 were released.
The research team noted that with this simple maneuver, the lunar samples readily produced not only breathable air, but also a potential source of fuel. In a future lunar base, carbon dioxide from astronauts' exhaled breath could be added to the H2 released by rehydrated lunar soil. Under the right conditions, H2 and CO2 create methane. Methane is a component of rocket fuel.
If future denizens of the moon's surface add even more oxygen and hydrogen to the methane mix, they might make methanol — which is toxic to humans if ingested, but also an excellent source of energy. If burned purely, methanol returns all of its original components in the form of water and carbon dioxide. This kind of combustion on Earth is the basis for gasoline engines, among other things. It could be used as a similar source of propellant on the moon or simply stored until more water and carbon dioxide are needed. If there are no leaks in the system, this kind of process would make a future lunar base more energy-independent than most homes in America.
This is one possible approach to making oxygen on the moon, and has the advantage of not requiring an external power source. In this reaction, the lunar loam itself acts as a battery. But this method of turning the moon's resources into humanity's air and water 238,855 miles (384,400 km) from home is not the only one, not by a long shot. Another approach involves cooking lunar soil instead of adding water to it.
An Alternative to Extraterrestrial Photosynthesis
Part of the reason that the iron in lunar soil is ready and able to give up oxygen when hydrated is that this iron is bound up with oxygen in the form of iron oxide. Another pairing, silicon oxide, the most abundant component of sand, is plentiful on the moon. Like iron oxide, silicon dioxide (SiO2 or silica) has been shown to release oxygen when heated. In previous eras, silicon dioxide was a problem for lunar explorers. It is fine, sticky and reactive. Silica from lunar dust clung to the Apollo astronaut suits, followed the crew into their cabins and even gave astronaut Jack Schmitt a nasty case of nasal congestion.
This time around, the gun-powder-smelling lunar dust could be a source of easier breathing instead of clogged sinuses. For this second process to successfully leach the O2 out of SiO2, it takes two steps instead of one, but, as a bonus, does not require adding precious water. Quite the contrary: it requires hydrogen and methane. As luck and science would have it, the first process described here, where lunar samples are rehydrated, produces both. So both processes could come in handy, depending on whether the lunar base is rich in water or rich in hydrogen at any given time. Both processes require carbon dioxide. Fortunately, owing to the respiratory efforts of every human being on the moon, future lunar bases are likely to be well-supplied with CO2.
Making Moonshine
The moon shines brightly in our sky partly because of the SiO2 its surface — SiO2 that tends to burn rapidly in the presence of oxygen or anything reactive. Last time we went to the moon, those same shining dust particles clogged up spacesuit visors, coated equipment and cut through all of the seals on the supposedly air-tight containers the Apollo astronauts used to collect lunar samples. Nothing on the moon was safe from it. This time, building habitats and life support systems that survive long-term with minimal support from Earth is going to require that we do more than survive the lunar dust. Settling on our nearest satellite for the long haul is going to require us to dig in and master it.
Cooking or hydrating lunar soil to make oxygen on the moon is not just a matter of breathing, but of using chemistry to turn the tables on one of the most confounding substances humankind as encountered in space to date. Neutralizing reactive lunar soil with water or heat converts an explorer's natural enemy into an invaluable friend: one that could fuel lunar exploration for generations to come.
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Using Lunar Soil to Make Oxygen on the Moon

In 2008, research into understanding the human brain made an extraordinary breakthrough. Researchers found just the right conditions to coax human stem cells into becoming a miniature lab-grown brain, according to the stem cell biology journal Cell Stem Cell. These brain "organoids" are tiny, measuring ~4 millimeters in diameter and containing 2 million to 3 million cells specific to one brain region, according to Nature. For comparison, an adult human brain contains an estimated 86 billion neurons, with many cell types connected in complex ways across multiple brain regions.While organoids have been developed for the gut, lung, heart, liver and many other organs, the miniature lab-grown brain organoid has perhaps been the most impactful for biomedical research. Human brain organoids are much less complex than human brains, but they've greatly accelerated discoveries about schizophrenia, autism spectrum disorders, Alzheimer's disease, brain cancers and how the brain is affected by COVID-19 or Zika virus. These conditions do not affect laboratory mice but can have a devastating effect on humans.Since organoids can be generated from adult skin cells (after they are induced to become stem cells), it's possible to test potential therapies on a miniature version of a patient's own tissue. The potential here is huge for future biomedical discoveries, as well, but it raises some interesting questions and ethical concerns.Can Lab-Grown Brains Become Conscious?Brain organoids are small because they lack the cells that form blood vessels; however, researchers are developing methods to make lab-grown brains more complex. Brain organoids can be generated for different parts of the brain — such as the forebrain, cerebellum and cerebral cortex — then mixed together to form a more complex structure. Human brain organoids have been transplanted into adult mice, where they made neural connections with the rodent brain cells and acquired blood vessels, as Nature Biotechnical reports.Cell Stem Cell also describes how the human brain organoids produced coordinated waves of neural activity (EEG patterns), resembling what's seen in preterm human babies. The waves continued for months before the research group stopped the experiment. This type of brain-wide, coordinated electrical activity is one of the properties of a conscious brain. These results brought urgency to discussions of how to ethically regulate research on organoids, particularly brain organoids.Can lab-grown brains become conscious? The definition of consciousness varies, even among the scientists and ethicists discussing the issue. Very generally, it means being aware of one's surroundings. One simple measure of consciousness is the ability to feel pain. The brain does not have pain receptors, but the membranes surrounding the brain do have pain receptors. As brain organoids become more complex, it's possible these membranes could develop and allow a brain organoid to feel pain.Detecting light is another way of being aware of one's surroundings. In 2017, scientists created brain organoids containing photoreceptor cells that responded to light, according to Nature. However, it's unlikely these organoids could process the visual information, since they lacked the anatomical structures necessary to create complex EEG patterns.Most neurobiologists don't believe the currently available brain organoids are conscious. After extensive discussion, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine recently concluded that existing regulations governing stem cell research are currently adequate for overseeing research into brain organoids, per Science. While the prospect of conscious brain organoids still seems far off, the field is moving quickly, and specific regulations should be developed.Ethics in Animal ResearchIf consciousness is defined as the ability to feel pain and sense light, then fruit flies, laboratory mice and most other animals are conscious. Nonetheless, animal research is permitted with reasonable restrictions, because the knowledge gained has the potential to significantly improve human life. Research institutions and funding agencies have strict rules for animal care that researchers must follow. With some minor modifications, these rules can also apply to organoid research, as the Cambridge University Press explains.The basic rules can be considered the three Rs — reduce, refine and replace: Reduce the number of potentially conscious brain organoids to the minimum necessary to achieve the research goals. Refine the experimental techniques to reduce possible harms (e.g., by administering anesthetic or preemptively using gene editing to reduce the possibility of pain). Replace potentially conscious brain organoids with non-conscious organoids or other material, if possible, to achieve the same research goals.For organoids — especially brain organoids — the potential for improving the human condition is so great that abandoning the research because of a currently theoretical concern may itself be unethical. Even so, it's worth exploring these questions and agreeing on restrictions and regulations that should be in place to address ethical concerns around brain organoids.Check out Northrop Grumman career opportunities to see how you can participate in this fascinating time of discovery in science, technology, and engineering.

Could a Miniature Lab-Grown Brain Become Conscious?

In 1962, an animated TV show about a family living a century into the future captivated viewers with its depiction of cutting-edge technologies. Flying cars, personal robots and smart devices were everywhere.
While "The Jetsons" didn't necessarily try to predict the future, in many ways it did. Thanks to syndication, several generations of viewers wondered if their lives would ever mirror those seen in the fictional Orbit City. Six decades later, did it happen? What inventions did The Jetsons get right?
Let's take a look at Jetsons technology with the sharp clarity of hindsight. While the answers might assess what the show got right or wrong today, they might also speak to the future we want tomorrow.
Vertical Living Is Starting to Take Off
Unlike the "The Flintstones" — the animated show set in the Stone Age that inspired "The Jetsons" — George, Jane, Judy, Elroy and pooch Astro Jetson lived in the clouds. Homes, schools, shopping centers and George's employer, Spacely Space Sprockets, Inc., all sat on platforms high in the sky.
It took a few decades to happen, but high-rise residential living has taken off. In 2019, the apartment news and data source Rent Café found that the number of new residential high-rise buildings in the U.S. nearly doubled in the 2010s from the previous decade and more than tripled from the output of the 1990s. Two of the tallest high rises in the country are in New York, standing tall with more than 90 floors each.
Almost as Personalized as Rosie — But More Productive
Rosie, a steel, blue-tinted robot, cleaned the Jetsons' home and was a sounding board for their children's problems. She squeaked and clanked as she moved and occasionally malfunctioned. Today, life-sized talking robots aren't an affordable mainstream purchase or even available to rent as the Jetsons did, but we're surrounded by robots that listen and talk to us — they're just smaller. For example, Siri, Alexa and other AI-powered personal assistants provide information and execute tasks on small-scale digital devices, and like Rosie, they also glitch every now and then.
Although lacking the full-bodied shape of Rosie and the voice of Siri, larger robots for business use have advanced more than personal ones. They've found a home in automotive plants and other manufacturing processes where they can perform repetitive and precise movements. They're also performing surgery. In hospitals, surgeons use a console to maneuver a robotic system that has surgical instruments attached to its arms. The robotic arms make tiny incisions with the tools, while a camera offers a magnified view of the surgical site for the surgeons.
Despite Our Big Dreams, Flying Cars Aren't Zipping Around (Yet)
Perhaps the most enviable part of "The Jetsons" was how George and his family could travel in spaceship-like crafts. Sure, they'd run into traffic jams in the sky, but it didn't seem as stressful as the gridlock on our terrestrial roadways. The cars could fly, after all.
Flying cars aren't yet a reality, but private enterprises and public agencies are working on it. Three years ago, the U.S. Air Force said that it wants 30 flying cars in its fleet within the decade. That effort runs parallel with those of several commercial ventures that are trying to perfect electric vertical takeoff and landing machines that won't need much horizontal space to take off and land, giving commuters and delivery services the room and freedom needed to go up, up and away.
Video Communications Isn't Just for The Jetsons
George took orders from his boss, Mr. Spacely, over a video screen, even when they were down the hall from one another. He also relied on video technology to talk to his family, and they each looked at screens to communicate with friends, take exercise classes and consult their doctor. They even wore watches that streamed video.
Seem familiar? It's only a relatively new experience, but our interactions with loved ones, colleagues and physicians through video screens don't seem extraordinary anymore. It's part of everyday life, just as it was for the Jetsons.
Standing Still on Treadmills to Get Somewhere
Because the Jetsons didn't have a yard to walk Astro, they relied on a treadmill attached to the outside of their elevated home. The closing credits show George furiously trying to stay on an out-of-control treadmill while shouting, "Jane, stop this crazy thing! They also used treadmills to move through buildings like the shopping mall — something we've seen in real life in airports.
The Tiny Doctor Is in: Nanotechnology Comes to Medicine
Many ideas from "The Jetsons" seemed big in imagination but were actually small inventions within the cartoon itself. Remember how George's car would fold into a suitcase when he arrived at Spacely Space Sprockets? Another big-small moment came when George swallowed a "peek-a-boo capsule," a pill that revealed the health of his inner body.
While no one has invented a car that can be shrunk to size, nanotechnology has started to make inroads in medical treatment and research, including nanofibers that aim to prevent the rejection of donated tissue. And while you haven't swallowed a "peek-a-boo capsule," chances are a small camera has explored your body if you've had certain medical procedures.
So, What Inventions Did The Jetsons Get Right?
Predicting the future is a big ask for a cartoon, but as the areas of technology listed here prove, the show was uncannily prescient — or at least in the ballpark. Was it luck, or was the show simply an expression of the dreams of that time?
Even if some Jetsons technology hasn't yet materialized, the ideas are now slowly progressing. Maybe 10 years from now we will finally have flying cars. Automation, miniaturization, video screens and other inventions made life easier for the Jetsons, and isn't that what we'd like, too?
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What Inventions Did The Jetsons Get Right?

Key Takeaways Many animals have rudimentary forms of communication, and AI may help to better understand what these species are saying. Efforts such as the Earth Species Project (ESP) are using natural language processing (NLP) to classify and interpret animal sounds. Along with communication, AI animal analysis has helped develop gecko-like adhesives and improve robot agility.What does the fox say? In the future, we might have an answer that goes beyond a catchy tune. Scientists are using artificial intelligence (AI) to study how to talk to animals — and it's proving to be a challenging endeavor. Researchers have made progress analyzing and classifying animal sounds, but they can only go so far. They're only human. Computers, however, can sort through massive amounts of data to find patterns that aren't obvious."Communication is just a series of repeated sounds, gestures, signals, etc.," said Jay Thakore, a consulting engineer systems architect at Northrop Grumman. "We learn the sound the letters of the alphabet make to form words or that the wave of a hand means 'hello' using repetition. In that same manner, AI can learn the sounds and gestures of animals and then equate those repeated behaviors to words for humans."Interspecies Communication ChallengesIt's hard enough for people to learn a second language, such as a native English speaker studying Mandarin Chinese. There's also body language to consider, such as eye contact, hand gestures and the subtle meaning behind sighs. What's more, humans are only one of the millions of species of animals on Earth.Humans have taught animals to speak in ways we can understand, such as chimpanzees using American Sign Language or pets ringing a bell when they need to go to the bathroom. However, we haven't gotten very far in understanding animals' perspectives. When we're lucky enough to hear quacks, growls and clicks, humans don't often know what they mean. And some animals "speak" in sounds beyond our ears' frequency range.Animals also communicate in other ways, such as dogs sniffing each other, whales slapping their tales in the water and insects producing chemicals called pheromones. To an untrained ear, critter chatter seems nonsensical and random. But experts can translate languages, and AI is a helpful tool because it's particularly good at classification.AI for AnimalsRecent technological advances have opened new pathways for humans to talk with animals. No matter how dedicated and intelligent they were, previous generations of zoologists were limited by the tools invented before or during their lifetimes. Now, technology — such as miniature microphones and drones — make it easier for scientists to eavesdrop on nature. Notably, the type of AI behind streaming apps, voice-controlled assistants and self-driving cars can extract meaning from plentiful animal communication data."People have been exploring and studying animal behavior for years," says Thakore. "AI is in the forefront of everyone's mind because it's everywhere, and people are getting smarter about how to take advantage of it."For example, a nonprofit organization called the Earth Species Project (ESP) is building machine-learning models to understand crow caws, bat screeches and more. Their technology is based on natural language processing, a branch of AI focused on giving computers the ability to understand spoken and written language.But how do developers write algorithms for machine learning, such as an algorithm to classify animal vocabulary? As Thakore explains, AI algorithms are math- and logic-based and adjust themselves to perform better as they're exposed to more data. For the case of animal vocabulary, the algorithm could be a combination of a regression model that expresses a relationship between an input and the output and a decision tree that catalogs the outputs and can be used to determine which outputs happen most often for a particular input. From there, you can build the animal vocabulary.Now What?We humans have a lot to learn from our furry friends. As we get better at AI for animals, the next step is figuring out what to do with this new information and how to use it ethically. Here are a few potential industry use cases: Engineering: A plethora of innovations have already been inspired by animals — robots emulating the way animals climb, adhesives that copy geckos and astronauts landing with cat-like agility. Imagine what we could do if we knew how to 3D print like spiders or build homes as efficiently as ants dig tunnels. Conservation ecology: Some organizations aim to find out how people are harming the environment so we can stop the damage and repair the planet. Animal husbandry: If farmers could talk to animals, they could optimize their care and make informed decisions about raising livestock. Veterinary care and companionship: Who wouldn't want to know what their dog is thinking? Pets can't communicate how they're feeling or what symptoms they're experiencing, but with the help of AI, we could get a better idea of what they're going through. That could affect how we care for them and improve veterinarian diagnoses and treatments.It's still being determined whether AI will help us communicate with animals soon or if this is a futuristic dream, but Thakore remains hopeful: "As far as actually talking to animals, I think that is still a little in the science-fiction realm. But you never know — if someone were to devote enough resources, time and money, the future might not be that far away."Discover more communication use cases for AI.

Is It Possible to Talk to Animals With AI?

Future transportation could include bullet trains, supersonic air travel or even flying cars, but Gulu Gambhir, vice president, CTO of Northrop Grumman Technology Services, believes the biggest change is already underway: automation for vehicles. Self-driving cars, a.k.a. autonomous vehicles, are essentially robots that transport passengers. They are revolutionizing commuting — a huge part of life as a working professional. Transportation Technology Needs an Upgrade As transportation technology continues to progress, cities could upgrade public transit systems to modern versions that rely on electric vehicles, integrate ride-sharing services like Uber, or even some combination of subway systems, autonomous vehicles and smart infrastructure. Harvard Business Review estimates that by embracing innovative mobility technology by 2030, densely populated cities in developing economies could save $600 million annually, and advanced cities could save $2.5 billion per year. With these compelling figures, it seems that we are on the verge of a revolution in transportation technology. Ride-sharing apps have already disrupted rental cars and the taxi industry. "For the first time, more people are using Uber in New York than the city's fabled yellow cab," reported The New York Times. Automation Is Inevitable New cars are equipped with automated features such as autopilot for highway driving, and several cars with full automation — no driver needed — are being tested in the United States and around the world. Perhaps in the near future, we won't have to choose between investing in an expensive car and fighting traffic, or being restricted to a crowded train's schedule to get to work each day. Instead, a whole new model for transportation could emerge. We typically use our cars for commuting to work, and then they sit idly in a parking spot all day. "For most of us, the duty cycle that our cars use is pretty modest, less than 10 percent of the time on an annual basis," said Gambhir. Integrating Systems Thinking and Transportation Gambhir envisions future transportation models where you can summon a car on demand that is personalized and reliable. If you don't need a driver, he says, you don't even need a seat for the driver. Instead of a limousine with a passenger compartment in the back, a car could have a handful of individual compartments for riders. It would be similar to taking a bus, but in a more comfortable and customized way. "The vehicle could pick you up at your home and you could get into a compartment that's only yours, and have this personalized, almost limo-like experience," he said. The car might stop and pick up other passengers along the way, but automated routes would still save time overall, and you would be spending your commute in comfort. At Northrop Grumman, Gambhir's team focuses on systems thinking, which means thinking about not just the initial implications of a change of a system or a process, but also the second order and third order changes that will follow. Applying systems thinking to future transportation, he wondered, "What are the implications for vehicle design in this model where you don't have a driver and you don't even want to own the asset but you still want that kind of personalized experience?"  He suggested that in the future, instead of owning cars, people could have their own passenger compartments that a vehicle could pick up and transport to the destination. This change would have widespread effects. Will Roads Be Safer? According to the United States National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), 94 percent of serious crashes are due to human error, and an estimated 35,092 people died in motor vehicle-related crashes in the U.S. in 2015. If self-driving cars can eliminate human error, they could save tens of thousands of lives each year. "If the algorithms are better than people and won't make those human mistakes, and in general they make fewer mistakes, what are the implications of that?" Gambhir mused. "Car insurance as we know it today should fundamentally change. With reduced accidents, there may be fewer body shops in the future," he added. Many of the familiar features of today's infrastructure could become obsolete. Road to the Future In a future where commuters subscribe to car services instead of owning cars, we won't need nearly as many parking garages or parking spots on the street, and that space could be used for other purposes. Street lights, for example, would be useless and replaced with sensors.  "In the future, if we're really talking about an autonomous system, a car isn't going to need to read a street sign or a speed limit sign ... If it has a good up-to-date database of the roadways, it will know how to go from point A to B optimally and safely," Gambhir said.

Transportation Technology Is Changing the Future of Commuting

Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging technology that most people today associate with immersive video games, examining planned structures before construction starts or safely practicing complex tasks.But VR has more surprising applications. Alongside other technologies from videoconferencing to big data analytics, VR is even finding a place in providing returning veterans with treatments for PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder.Looking Fear in the EyeSoldiering has always been stressful. And people have known for ages that the traumatic effects of battle do not always end when a soldier comes home. A hundred years ago, World War I called new attention to this hazard, first referred to by soldiers as "shell shock". During World War II, Life magazine artist Tom Lea created the unforgettable portrait of a shell shocked marine after the battle of Peleliu. The haunting image further raised America's awareness of the condition and impact of war on their returning veterans.After the Vietnam War, the condition came to be known as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and intensive research began into helping veterans overcome its effects. And since the 1980s, technology has been enlisted to provide treatments for PTSD.Researchers discovered that familiar old sayings — facing down fear, or looking fear in the eye — reflect a basic truth about the human mind. Reliving a terrifying experience might seem like the very last thing that would help you get past it. But it turns out that one of the most powerful ways that the mind's innate healing powers can overcome traumatic experiences is by recalling them in a controlled — and safe — way, literally looking at terrifying memories.A basic technique for doing so involves describing the experience while a clinician monitors a vet's eye movement, a technique now known as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing, or EMDR.Virtually Back to the BattlefieldEMDR has now acquired a powerful ally in defeating PTSD. When virtual reality technology was developed, defense researchers knew that it could be used to help train service members to face tomorrow's threats. But more surprisingly, VR can also help veterans by allowing safe recall of traumatic experiences.Using VR technology, clinicians can create immersive experiences that reproduce a traumatic experience such as an ambush or dealing with an improvised bomb. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), this is an application of the general principle known as exposure therapy. Virtual reality, says the NCBI, "creates fictitious, safe, and controllable situations that can enhance emotional engagement and acceptance" of a traumatic experience.VR therapy for PTSD survivors is still in the developmental stage, says the NCTI, and larger-scale studies must be carried out to determine its strengths and limitations, and how best to deploy it. But it is already playing a part in helping veterans complete their return home.Making Contact With Friendly ForcesTechnology is also playing a more indirect role in providing veterans with treatments for PTSD. One of the greatest challenges these vets face is that the very characteristics that helped them survive on the battlefield — such as cultivating the stiff upper lip and a self-conception as tough — can make it harder to defeat PTSD.The VA and veterans' organizations are thus enlisting allies such as the internet and videoconferencing technology to connect with veterans who may find it difficult to talk openly about PTSD and their experiences or who simply live a long ways from clinical support.And while PTSD was first identified among returning warriors, they are not the only ones who can benefit from new technologies that provide treatments for PTSD. First responders such as police and firefighters, and survivors of rape and other traumatic experiences, also battle its effects, and may soon benefit from these technologies.Northrop Grumman is committed to working with military veterans transitioning to a new career.