From Gollum Electric planes Mr Segway’s to “Avatar” take to the skies diffi cult path TechnologyQuarterly June 12th 2010

And now, the electricity forecast Better weather prediction for more reliable wind power

TQCOVERJune12.10.indd 1 01/06/2010 14:01 2 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

Contents

On the cover Wind power is booming. But there is no use building all those turbines if the wind does not blow reliably. And integrating wind power with other sources is made diˆcult by its unpredictable nature. That is why wind forecasting is vital, both when planning Power from thin air new wind farms and running existing ones: page 10

Monitor 2 Harvesting ambient energy to power mobile devices, genetically modi†ed trout and Wireless technology: It is already possible to send electricity without wires. salmon, vegetarian robots, Can devices be powered using ambient radiation from existing broadcasts? squishy robots inspired by amoebas, self•healing metals, NYONE whose mobile phone has ever strated the ability to send enough energy using a car’s bodywork as a Arun out of juice‹which means, these across a room to run a ‡at•screen televi• battery, using straw as a days, more than half the world’s pop• sion using its approach, called Œresonant building material, listening to ulation‹will like the idea of getting electri• magnetic coupling. This is di erent from computer keyboards, teaching cal power out of the air. The notion is far Tesla’s approach, but the †rm’s founders machines to recognise nods, from new. A little over a century ago, the have acknowledged his pioneering work. and software that makes you inventor Nikola Tesla drew up ambitious In the long run, however, it may be more productive by disabling plans to transmit electrical power without Morgan who is vindicated, as researchers bits of your computer wires. He carried out a series of experi• †nd ways to pull power out of the air ments in which electric lights were illumi• without paying for it‹a technique known nated via electrostatic induction, by con• as Œenergy scavenging or Œenergy har• Wind forecasting necting them to metal sheets suspended in vesting. It is already possible to power 10 Now, the electricity forecast a strong electric †eld produced by a distant small electronic devices, such as wireless Making wind power predictable transmitter. In 1898 he proposed a Œworld sensors installed in buildings and industri• system of giant towers that would form al machinery, using a dedicated micro• Inside story both a global wireless communications wave transmitter nearby. The sensors pick 12 From Gollum to ŒAvatar network and a means of delivering elec• up the microwaves with an antenna and How Œperformance capture tricity over large areas without wires. convert the signal into electrical energy. technology works The construction of the †rst such tow• But as power requirements drop and er, the Wardencly e Tower, on Long Is• energy•scavenging technology improves, Electric planes land, began in 1901. Tesla’s backers includ• it will become increasingly practical to 15 High voltage ed the †nancier J.P. Morgan, who invested power these and other devices using just Now ready for take•o $150,000. But before the tower was com• Œambient energy‹the sea of existing pleted, Morgan and the other backers radio waves produced by television, radio Missile technology pulled out. They worried that the delivery and mobile•phone transmitters. of electricity through the air could not be It sounds too good to be true. ŒThere is 17 Peril on the sea metered, and there would be nothing to something magical about it, says Joshua A new arms race looms stop people from helping themselves. Smith, a principal engineer at Intel’s re• But has Tesla had the last laugh after search centre in Seattle. But the science is Brain scan all? Today several †rms‹including Fulton sound, he says. Last year Dr Smith and 19 Mr Segway’s diˆcult path Innovation, eCoupled, WiTricity and Alanson Sample, a researcher at the Uni• A pro†le of Dean Kamen, a Powercast‹are pursuing various technol• versity of Washington in Seattle, powered proli†c self•taught inventor ogies that deliver electrical power without a small humidity and temperature sensor wires (though over shorter distances than using nothing more than the energy Tesla had in mind). WiTricity has demon• gleaned from a television station 4.1km (2.5 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Monitor 3

2 miles) away. With their receiver tuned speci†cally to pick up signals from this one megawatt transmitter, they were able to generate 60 microwatts of power. It Dawn of the does not sound like much, but it was enough to power the device and demon• Franken†sh strate the principle. In recent weeks Dr Smith and Dr Sample, working with Scott Southwood, another researcher at the Food science: Fast•growing University of Washington, have built a genetically modi†ed trout and weather sensor that measures tempera• salmon could soon be the †rst ture and light levels and sends a packet of data every †ve seconds by radio. It is transgenic animals on the table entirely powered by ambient energy. HE Belgian blue is an ugly but tasty Ambient radio waves have largely Tcow that has 40% more muscle than it been ignored as a potential power source should have. It is the product of random until recently, because the power of a mutation followed by selective breed• broadcast radio signal rapidly decreases ing‹as, indeed, are all domesticated crea• with distance. That is not to say that radio tures. But where an old art has led, a new waves cannot pack a punch from a dis• one may follow. By understanding which Behold, the transgenic salmon (top) tance. Advocates of Œsatellite solar pow• genetic changes have been consolidated in er, for example, dream of beaming giga• the Belgian blue, it may be possible to taken from a chinook salmon, is a version watts of solar power down to Earth from design and build similar versions of other of the growth•hormone gene itself. Un• geostationary satellites more than species using genetic engineering as a modi†ed salmon undergo a period of 35,000km up. The same approach has short•cut. That is precisely what Terry restricted growth when they are young. been used in ground•based experiments Bradley, a †sh biologist at the University of Together these two pieces of DNA produce to beam one kilowatt of power over a Rhode Island, is trying to do. Instead of growth hormone during that lull, abolish• distance of several kilometres, notes Peter cattle, he is doing it in trout. His is one of ing it. The result is a †sh that reaches mar• Fisher, a physicist at the Massachusetts two projects that may soon put the †rst ketable size in 18•24 months, as opposed to Institute of Technology. But ambient biotech animals on the dinner table. 30 months for the normal variety. radiation is much weaker. Belgian blues are so big because their It is one thing to make such †sh, of One way to address this problem is to genes for a protein called myostatin, a course. It is quite another to get them to harvest radiation from multiple sources. hormone that regulates muscle growth, do market. First, it is necessary to receive the Last year Nokia, the world’s largest hand• not work properly. Dr Bradley has approval of the regulators. In America the set•maker, raised eyebrows with research launched a four•pronged attack on the regulator in question is the Food and Drug showing that this approach could scav• myostatin in his trout. First, he has in• Administration, which Aqua Bounty says enge nearly 100 times as much energy as troduced a gene that turns out a stunted it has been petitioning for more than a Dr Smith’s approach. Markku Rouvala, an version of the myostatin receptor, the decade and which published guidelines engineer at Nokia Research Centre in molecule that sits in the surface mem• for approving genetically engineered Cambridge, England, harvested as much brane of muscle cells and receives the animals in 2009. Aqua Bounty has now as 5 milliwatts of power using a Œwide message to stop growing. The stunted †led its remaining studies for approval, band receiver capable of mopping up receptor does not pass the message on and hopes to hear the result this year. Dr radio signals between 500MHz and properly. He has also added two genes for Bradley has not yet applied for approval. 10GHz‹including radio, TV, Wi•Fi and non•functional variants of myostatin. It seems unlikely that either of the new mobile•phone signals‹from nearby trans• These churn out proteins which bind to procedures will yield something that is mitters. It takes at least 20 milliwatts to the receptors, swamping and diluting the unsafe to eat. But what happens if the keep a mobile phone operating in standby e ect of functional myostatin molecules. creatures escape and start breeding in the mode, but Nokia hopes that power scav• Finally, he has added a gene that causes wild? For that to be a problem, the mod• enging might eventually deliver 50 milli• overproduction of another protein, folli• i†ed †sh would have to be better at surviv• watts, enough to trickle•charge a phone. statin. This binds to myostatin and renders ing and reproducing than those honed by At the Consumer Electronics Show in it inoperative. millions of years of natural selection. On January, RCA showed o a gadget de• The upshot of all this tinkering is a the face of it, this seems unlikely, because signed to harvest energy from nearby trout that has twice the abdominal muscle the characteristics that have been engi• Wi•Fi transmitters, which can then be mass of its traditional counterparts. More• neered into them are ones designed to used to recharge a mobile phone. RCA over, this muscle is low in fat, like that of make them into better food, rather than says it plans to launch the device, dubbed its bovine counterparts. That, and the fact lean, mean breeding machines. Airnergy, later this year. that the animal’s other organs are unaf• But there is a chink in this argument. As The †rst devices to be powered entirely fected, means it does not take twice as Mark Abrahams, a biologist at Memorial by ambient energy are likely to be sensors, much food to grow a †sh to maturity. University in Newfoundland, points out, calculators and clocks. But the hope is that The genetic engineers at Aqua Bounty, it is not just the †sh that have been mod• music•players, e•readers and mobile a company based in Waltham, Massachu• i†ed by man, but also the environment in phones will eventually follow, says Dr setts, have taken a di erent route using a which they could escape. Many of the Smith. There are other means of harvest• di erent species. They are trying to grow creatures that eat salmon and trout, such ing ambient energy, from vibrations, supersize salmon by tinkering with the as bears and some birds, have had their movement or heat. But the attraction of genes for growth hormone. Two snippets ranks thinned by human activity. Dr Abra• radio waves is that they are pretty much of DNA are involved. One, taken from a hams thinks it possible that fast•growing everywhere. It’s like recycling energy, says relative of the cod called the ocean pout, salmon could displace the natural sort in Dr Fisher. ŒIt’s energy that’s around, and is promotes the activity of the gene that places where predators are rare. not doing anything else, he says. 7 encodes growth hormone. The other, Aqua Bounty is addressing such con• 1 4 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

2 cerns by subjecting developing eggs to America’s Defence Advanced Research be used has not yet been decided, al• high pressures. This alters their comple• Projects Agency, is seen as a way to help though it could be a High Mobility Multi• ment of chromosomes, giving them three soldiers reduce their dependence on fuel purpose Wheeled Vehicle, popularly sets per cell instead of the usual two. Such supplies. The robot could, for instance, known as a Humvee, modi†ed to drive Œtriploid †sh are perfectly viable, but they forage for biofuel while a unit on a long• itself under robotic control. Dr Finkelstein are sterile. Only a small, sequestered endurance mission rested. It could then be thinks an EATR prototype could be scur• breeding stock is allowed to remain dip• used to recharge their electrical devices, rying around woodland by around 2013. loid. The company claims a 99% success carry some of their equipment or even Such a machine would be extremely rate with its pressurising technique which, transport the soldiers. useful for the army. With no dependence according to John Buchanan, its research The EATR uses a robotic arm to gather on external fuel supplies, an EATR would director, meets the FDA’s requirements. As and prepare vegetation, which it feeds be able to perform long reconnaissance for the trout, Dr Bradley says his †sh have through a shredder into a centrifugal missions in areas which might be deemed enough trouble breeding on their own for combustion chamber, where it is ignited too dangerous for soldiers to venture. it to be unlikely that they would do well in and then heats a series of coils. The coils There are also civilian applications, such the wild. To get them to lay eggs and pro• contain deionised water (to stop them as a forestry patrol over large swathes of duce milt (seminal ‡uid) you have to from furring up like a kettle). As the water territory where traditional fuel may be squeeze them by hand. But he says his †sh inside the coils is superheated the steam is hard to †nd, but where there is plenty of could also be made triploid if necessary. piped to a radial steam engine, which biomass to keep the EATR going. An agri• Whether people will actually want to consists of six pistons. The steam drives cultural version might navigate around buy or eat the new †sh is another ques• the pistons, turning a generator which farmland, checking for weed and insect tion‹though they buy the meat of Belgian produces electricity. This is stored in bat• infestations, and feeding itself as it went. It blue cattle at a premium. If people will teries that power the electric motors would be a return, in a way, to a time pay extra for meat from a monstrosity like which drive the EATR along. when old•fashioned steam engines once the Belgian blue, anything is possible. 7 The steam engine is designed to be a worked in the †elds. 7 Œclosed•loop system, in which water escaping from the cylinders through the exhaust valves is captured and cooled in a condensing unit. This turns the steam Munching back into water, which is then returned to Return of the combustion chamber. As well as using biomass, EATR’s engine could also run on machines petrol, diesel, kerosene, cooking oil or the blob anything similar than could be scavenged. Robotics: A vegetarian robot that The ability to consume a wide range of Robotics: Amoebas have provided forages for fuel and runs on steam fuels would be important if the vehicle the inspiration for new, squishy power would have a range of military found itself in areas like deserts, where kinds of robot capable of squeezing vegetation may not be available and into con†ned spaces and civilian uses alternative fuel would be needed. ROBOT with dietary requirements Image•recognition software linked to a RAPPED under a pile of rubble, you Amight sound a bit far fetched, but a laser and camera would allow EATR to Twait for rescue. Then, to add to your team of American researchers is devel• recognise plants, leaves and wood. Robert troubles, you see a small blob ooze oping a machine that will fend for itself by Finkelstein, Robotic Technology’s presi• through a nearby crack. Soon afterwards it gathering biomass (wood, leaves and dent, estimates that about 68 kilograms is followed by the emergency services grass) to be used as a biofuel to run its (150 pounds) of vegetation would provide digging down to †nd you. This scene is steam•driven engine. Who might want enough electricity for the machine to science †ction now, but it might not be for such a device? The American army. travel around 160km (100 miles). The much longer. Traditionally, people have The Energetically Autonomous Tactical company recently received EATR’s engine, thought of robots as whirring bits of met• Robot is known, of course, by its acronym: which has been developed by Cyclone al, but there are those in the †eld who ask EATR. It is the brainchild of Robotic Tech• Power Technology of Florida. The next why that need be so. Instead of trying to nology of Washington, DC. So far it is only stage is to integrate the EATR technology build a robot that looks like a human, an a concept, but a working prototype is in into a military vehicle to prove that the insect or even a tank, some roboticists the works. The research, in part funded by idea works. The type of vehicle that will have decided to look to the humble amoe• ba for inspiration. America’s Department of Defence has taken the idea seriously enough to provide a $3.3m grant via its research arm, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, to iRobot (a †rm best known for its vacuum•cleaning robot, the Roomba). Chris Jones of iRobot says DARPA’s criteri• on for the robot was that it had to †t through an opening half its full diameter. The result is the blob•like Chembot, which moves by deforming one side. To achieve this, iRobot’s engineers used a concept called Œjamming, which takes advantage of the fact that some particulate materials are quite sti when compressed What’s on the menu? but, given space, ‡ow like liquids. Dr Jones 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Monitor 5

2 says the phenomenon is much like that ooze restorative liquids, in the form of observed in a vacuum•packed co ee compounds called trivalent chromates. brick. An unopened brick is sti and These react with nearby metal atoms and strong because the external air pressure is Metal, heal form tough, protective †lms a few mole• compressing it. When the foil is cut, how• cules thick to ameliorate the damage. ever, air gets in, equalising the pressure. thyself The idea of doing this has been around The co ee then acts like the pile of parti• for years, but it has proved diˆcult in cles it is, and the brick can change shape. practice because the capsules used were The Chembot is a vaguely spherical Materials science: Researchers have too big. Surface coatings tend to be about structure made of soft triangular panels, devised an ingenious way for the 20 microns (millionths of a metre) thick. each of which is †lled with particles. The damaged surfaces of metals to repair The capsules were 10•15 microns across‹ control system, which uses tiny compres• large enough to disrupt the coatings, and sors to pump air in and out of the panels, themselves when they come to harm thus do more harm than good. The trick is in the centre. The triangular panels ADLY for engineers, inanimate objects worked out by Dr dos Santos and Dr remain sti until a small amount of air is Scannot yet repair themselves. But work Mayer is how to create capsules a few pumped into them. That lets the particles by Claudia dos Santos at the Fraunhofer hundredths of this size. move around and allows the panel to Institute for Manufacturing Engineering The capsules the researchers have deform. Increasing the pressure inside a and Automation, and Christian Mayer at come up with are made by mixing butyl• panel on one side of the robot’s base Duisburg•Essen University in Stuttgart, cyanoacrylate, a chemical found in su• makes it bulge and causes the robot to roll has brought the day when they will be perglue, with an oil carrying the healing over slightly; many such in‡ations and able to do so a little nearer. They and their compounds. This mixture is then mixed de‡ations make the robot roll along. The colleagues have invented a way for dam• with dilute hydrochloric acid. The result is deformability also allows the robot to aged metals to heal themselves. an emulsion of droplets between 100 and enter any space no smaller than its fully The surfaces of many metal objects are 300 nanometres (billionths of a metre) compressed state, more or less regardless coated with other metals for protection. across. Each droplet has an oil core sur• of the shape of that space. Iron, for instance, is frequently galvanised rounded by a thin layer of butylcyano• Nor is the Chembot the only contender with zinc. The basic idea of the new tech• acrylate. To make the droplets stable, for the arti†cial•amoeba crown. Dennis nology is to in†ltrate this coating with tiny, phosphate is added to the emulsion. This Hong, a mechanical engineer at Virginia ‡uid•†lled capsules. When the metal triggers the polymerisation of the butyl• Tech, has taken a di erent approach. He coating is punctured or scratched, the cyanoacrylate into a tough plastic, which has looked at the way amoebas move and capsules in the damaged area burst and forms the outside of the capsule. tried to replicate it. The Chembot moves The greatest challenge for the team, by pushing itself along. Real amoebas, however, was not making the capsules in however, pull themselves. They extend a the †rst place, but stabilising them during pseudopod in the direction they wish to the plating process. Though galvanisation travel, and the rest of the amoeba then is often done by dipping steel in liquid ‡ows forward into the pseudopod. zinc, it is sometimes done by electrolysis‹ Dr Hong could not exactly duplicate nickel and copper plating are normally that, but he came up with something done this way. The capsules, though, tend similar: the idea of an extended torus, or to stick together in the liquids used as doughnut shape, which turns itself inside electrolytes during electroplating, and out. For large robots, he accomplishes this are also destroyed by the extreme with a series of hoses, arranged like ribs, acidity or alkalinity that is often to form the torus. Each hose can be ex• involved in the process. To overcome panded and contracted independently. these problems, Dr dos Santos and Dr Doing so in sequence along the length of Mayer used special detergents that stick the torus generates forward motion. to the polymerised butylcyanoacrylate For small robots Dr Hong has used shell around each capsule, which stops rings made of a polymer that changes them sticking together and protects them shape in response to a speci†c chemical from the electrolytes. stimulus. The result is a robot that scuttles The researchers have now proved along when an appropriate chemical is their techniques in electroplated layers brushed on one end. Dr Hong will not yet of copper, nickel and zinc, and believe say which chemicals he uses, but the robot that self•repairing metals should com• moves impressively fast. It can also, like monly be available in the years ahead. the Chembot, squeeze through openings Moreover, their nanocapsules may have smaller than its initial diameter. other applications. Lubricants such as Search and rescue is one obvious appli• silicone oils can be included in them, to cation for robots like this. Another is en• make the damaged surfaces of ball•bear• doscopy‹the process by which doctors ings that have run out of oil more slippery, insert a camera into someone through an so that they are not scratched too rapidly. ori†ce to perform an internal examina• Anti•fouling compounds can be placed in tion. At the moment, the camera has to be capsules on the surfaces of metals intend• †tted to the end of a sti , yet ‡exible cable. ed for use in marine environments. And, A soft, squishy robot, suˆciently small, in a nod to butylcyanoacrylate’s origins in could be an alternative. How patients superglue, capsules containing chemicals would feel about having an autonomous that will react to form adhesives when blob roaming around inside them is an• two surfaces are put together are also on other matter. 7 the horizon. 7 6 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

or the other. Dr Greenhalgh’s solution was to use a polymer gel•based resin that combines two networks of cross•linking structures, one that holds the material together and the other providing a conduit for charged particles. The result is a material that has an energy density of about 0.005 watt•hours per kilogram. Not much, admittedly, when compared with the 150 watt•hours per kilogram of a lithium•ion battery, like that found in many electric cars. But increasing the operating voltage will boost the ener• gy density of the composite signi†cantly, says Dr Greenhalgh. And by covering the †bres with carbon nanotubes, at least 20 watt•hours per kilogram is expected by the end of next year. Using a single material for two func• tions has great potential for carmakers, says Per•Ivar Sellergren, a senior engineer Making the bodywork at Volvo’s Material Laboratory in Gothen• burg. If the energy density of composites could be boosted close to that of existing lithium•ion batteries, then it would take only the roof, the bonnet and the boot lid Materials science: A special kind of carbon composite bodywork could also to power an electric vehicle for 130km, he says. Multi•function composites could store energy and double as a battery in an electric car also reduce the amount of wiring in vehi• OMPARED with other electric vehi• interested in extending the range of ro• cles, says Dr Greenhalgh. C cles, the Tesla Roadster is what you botic drones, and Volvo, a carmaker. Moreover, compared with most rechar• might call a hot rod. With an impressive Like traditional composites, Dr Green• geable batteries, supercapacitors tend to range of 380km (236 miles) between char• halgh’s material consists of woven sheets have a longer working life. In time that too ges, the two•seater sports car is capable of of carbon †bres which are made rigid would become a more obvious bene†t. going from zero to 96kph in just 3.9 sec• using a cured resin. To enable this material Most drivers of electric cars have not had onds. But as is so often the case, such to store electrical energy, two layers of their vehicles long enough to have had to performance comes at a cost. For a vehicle woven †bres are made into a sandwich, pay thousands of dollars to replace their that weighs around 1,200kg (2,645 pounds) separated by a thin layer of a glass•based worn•out battery packs. 7 a whopping 450kg of that is taken up by insulating material. The resin within the the car’s batteries. carbon layers is laced with lithium ions, so Although new battery technologies are that each layer acts like an electrode, emerging, their weight and size is likely to causing the positively charged lithium remain a drag on the development of ions to collect in one layer when a voltage I’ll hu and electric and hybrid cars, forcing manufac• is applied, and a current to ‡ow when the turers to come up with new and inventive sandwich is placed in a circuit. All this is ways to shed weight and free up space. encapsulated within further layers to I’ll pu ð One solution which researchers are ex• ensure that it is electrically isolated. ploring is to build cars using a hybrid Strictly speaking the composite be• material: a carbon composite that is also haves less like a battery than a capacitor, Materials science: Straw has a capable of storing electrical energy. That or rather a supercapacitor, says Dr Green• terrible reputation as a building way, car designers could combine structur• halgh. Batteries are good at storing large material. This is unfair, say its al form with electrical function. amounts of charge but slow at delivering growing band of defenders Carbon composites are extremely it; for capacitors the reverse is the case. strong and light. They are already used in Supercapacitors have a big internal sur• HE English•speaking world does not products ranging from tennis racquets to face•area that allows a large amount of Tlook kindly on straw. Grasping at aircraft wings. Some supercars are built energy to be delivered rapidly To get simi• straws, straw•man arguments, the last with the material, but it is generally too lar characteristics from composites, the straws and the straws that break so many expensive for mass•produced vehicles. carbon †bres are †rst chemically treated camels’ backs all attest to that. There is With the additional ability to store energy, with an alkali which creates lots of tiny also the cautionary tale that straw is the however, carbon composites could be• pits on their surface. This massively in• worst material from which to build a come a lot more attractive for the automo• creases their surface area and hence the house, particularly if you are a pig with a tive industry, says Emile Greenhalgh of charge they can hold, but without impair• hungry wolf around. So the cards were Imperial College, London, who is leading ing their physical strength. stacked against Warren Brush, the director the research as part of a broader European Another challenge lies in resolving the of a not•for•pro†t farm in Cuyama, Cali• Union project called STORAGE into incor• two con‡icting requirements of the resin. fornia, when local oˆcials learned in porating di erent battery materials into ŒYou want it very rigid and sti , but from 2006 that he had several buildings made the bodywork of a car. The work’s aca• an electrical point of view you also want it of straw bales on his land. demic and industrial partners include the to allow ions to ‡ow, says Dr Greenhalgh. They have tried to †ne him. A lot. But British Ministry of Defence, which is With traditional resins you either get one the case is still unresolved. The problem is 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Monitor 7

2 that California’s building codes make no California, of course, is already thor• provision for the use of straw. And Mr oughly earthquake•proofed. But straw Brush has many defenders‹among them buildings might do well in seismically Peek•a•boo several university scientists and David active places that are less wealthy. After an Eisenberg, the chairman of the United earthquake devastated Pakistan in 2005, States Green Building Council’s code Darcey Donovan, a structural engineer committee. They would like to see the from Truckee, California, set up a not•for• prejudice against straw houses eliminat• pro†t straw•bale•construction operation Security technology: A new ed, for straw is, in many ways, an ideal that has since built 17 houses there. She has approach to airport security tests building material. been designing straw•bale houses in travellers’ recognition of It is, for one thing, a great insulator. California for ten years and lives in one incriminating stimuli That keeps down the heating bills in that she and her husband built in 2007. It houses made from it. It is also a waste has two ‡oors, three bedrooms, two bath• ESPITE all the e ort put into it, and product that would otherwise be burned, rooms and a two•car garage. Dthe annoyance caused to innocent and is therefore cheap. And‹very much to There are, as it were, other straws in the travellers, airport security is a pretty the point in a place like California‹it is wind: a post oˆce in suburban Albuquer• haphazard a air. That could change if earthquake•resistant. Last year a test con• que, a Quaker school in Maryland, an Ehud Givon has his way. Mr Givon is ducted at the University of Nevada’s oˆce complex in suburban Los Angeles head of a small Israeli †rm called large•scale structures laboratory showed and an urban•renewal project in Bingham• WeCU, which thinks its technology can that straw•bale constructions could with• ton, New York, have all been built from spot suspicious individuals that tradi• stand twice the amount of ground motion straw. Even California is having a rethink, tional methods miss. recorded in the Northridge earthquake and may change its rules to accommodate WeCU’s approach relies on dis• that hit Los Angeles in 1994. Mr Brush’s straw•bale construction. As Mr Eisenberg playing stimuli, such as photographs of ranch is a mere 18km (11miles) from the observes, Œthe lesson of the Three Little individuals who might be known to San Andreas Fault. Instead of prosecuting Pigs isn’t to avoid straw. It’s that you don’t terrorists but not to ordinary people, or him, his supporters argue, the state should let a pig build your house. 7 code words that intelligence has discov• be installing seismic sensors on his ranch ered are associated with particular to see what happens if and when there is operations, and observing what hap• an earthquake there. pens. The trick is that the observation is Modern straw buildings start with a done automatically, and does not rely foundation of gravel held in the kind of Loose clicks on the subjective impressions of tired plastic bags used for vegetables at a groc• and bored security guards. ery store, and covered with a soil mortar. When confronted with such stimuli, The walls are made of tightly packed straw sink ships someone who is unfamiliar with them bales held together with bamboo pins and will merely be bemused and ignore covered with †shing nets. These are then them. Someone who knows what they coated with a clay•based plaster. Aestheti• Computer security: The sounds of are, however, may become concerned, cally, the †nal product is similar to stucco individual keystrokes can be and undergo an increase in body tem• or adobe, but because its components‹ distinguished, making it possible to perature, heart rate and breathing rate. CU clay, gravel, straw and netting‹are more eavesdrop on computer users We ’s apparatus is able to monitor the ‡exible than brick, concrete or steel, it is †rst two of these using an infra•red much more ductile and thus better able to LATTERING keyboards may seem the camera. This captures the heat pattern absorb seismic energy. C white noise of the modern age, but of blood vessels near the skin, betraying they betray more information than un• both changes in overall temperature wary typists realise. Simply by analysing and in heart rate. If necessary, the indi• audio recordings of keyboard clatter, vidual can be ushered away for further computer scientists can now reconstruct questioning. an accurate transcript of what was typed‹ The beauty of this system is that the including passwords. And in contrast with bank of stimuli is varied and unpredict• many types of computer espionage, the able. Even a skilled, well practised sus• process is simple, requiring only a cheap pect who is aware of the system and microphone and a desktop computer. who tries to prepare for the screening Such snooping is possible because cannot know where the stimuli will each key produces a characteristic click, come from and how they will appear. shaped by its position on the keyboard, The system has been demonstrated the vigour and hand position of the typist, to the authorities in Germany, Israel and and the type of keyboard used. But past the United States. Mr Givon claims that attempts to decipher keyboard sounds tests with hundreds of subjects in both were only modestly successful, requiring a laboratory and real•life situations have training session in which the computer shown that 95% of those ‡agged up are matched a known transcript to an audio indeed Œpersons of interest. America’s recording of each key being struck. Thus Department of Homeland Security has schooled, the software could still identify shown particular interest in WeCU. If only 80% of the characters in a di erent further tests con†rm its advantages, transcript of the same typist on the same travellers in America may soon †nd machine. Furthermore, each new typist or themselves looking at unexpected and keyboard required a fresh transcript and ba‰ing slide•shows when they pass training session, limiting the method’s through the airport. How not to build a straw house appeal to would•be hackers. 1 8 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

2 Now, in a blow to acoustic security, a recording. And as he points out, ing human interactions to try to work out Doug Tygar and his colleagues at the Uni• would•be eavesdroppers might not even what it is that makes someone nod. The versity of California, Berkeley, have pub• need their own recording equipment, as results have been poor. Studying inter• lished details of an approach that reaches laptop computers increasingly come actions is gruelling and time•consuming 96% accuracy, even without a labelled equipped with built•in microphones that work. The rule of thumb in the †eld is that training transcript. The new approach could be hijacked. each recorded minute of interaction takes employs methods developed for speech• To protect against these sonic incur• an hour to analyse. Moreover, many social recognition software to group together all sions, Dr Tygar suggests a simple remedy: cues are subtle, and not easily noticed by the similar•sounding keystrokes in a re• turn up the radio. His computers were less even the most attentive psychologists. cording, generating an alphabet of clicks. successful at parsing recordings made in Dr Morency therefore set out to devel• The software tentatively assigns each click noisy rooms. Ultimately, though, more op a computer system to automate the a letter based on its frequency, then tests sophisticated recording gear could over• process. It can analyse video and audio the message created by this assignment come even background noise, rendering recordings in order to recognise gestures of using statistical models of the English any typed text vulnerable. Dr Tygar there• both posture (moving the head in partic• language. For example, certain letters or fore recommends that typed passwords ular ways, for example) and voice (such as words are more likely to occur together‹if be phased out, to be replaced with biomet• changes in pitch). The system logs the an unknown keystroke follows a Œt, it is ric scans or multiple types of authorisa• sequence of these cues, and then com• much more likely to be an Œh than an Œx. tion that combine a password with some pares sequences from di erent speakers to Similarly, the words Œfor example make form of silent veri†cation (clicking on a see which combinations routinely lead to likelier bedfellows than Œfur example. In pre•chosen picture in a selection of im• a listener nodding, and which do not. The a †nal re†nement, the researchers em• ages, for example). Loose lips may still sink result is a Œcookbook detailing which ployed a method many students would ships, but his research demonstrates that recipes (combinations of cues) are most do well to deploy on term papers: auto• an indiscreet keystroke could do just as likely to make listeners nod. mated spellchecking. much damage. 7 To try the system out, the team per• By repeatedly revising unlikely or formed an experiment with 100 partici• incorrect letter assignments, Dr Tygar’s pants, all of whom were asked either to software extracts sense from sonic chaos. watch a short video and describe what That said, the method does have one they saw, or to listen to the description and limitation: in order to apply the language Nods and winks describe what they heard. Dr Morency model, at least †ve minutes of the record• knew from past experiments that low• ed typing had to be in standard English ering of vocal pitch and pausing were (though in principle any systematic lan• both cues likely to draw a nod from a guage or alphabet would work). But once listener, so these were things that he pro• those requirements are met, the program grammed the system to look out for. He can decode anything from epic prose to Computer etiquette: Teaching and his colleagues suspected, however, randomised, ten•character passwords. computers to recognise nods and that the cues for nodding were far more This sort of acoustic analysis might other human gestures could be complicated than previous studies had sound like the exclusive province of spies useful in educational software indicated. They therefore programmed and spooks, but according to Dr Tygar, their system to look at a great many other such attacks are not as esoteric as you VEN when one person is doing all the characteristics, including body posture, might expect. He says it is quite simple to Etalking, a conversation is an interactive direction of gaze and even the speci†c †nd the instructions needed to build a process. The listener participates through words that were being spoken. parabolic or laser microphone on the expression, posture and movement, and Their paper reveals that there is much internet. You could just point one from the speaker interprets what he sees to more to eliciting a nod than simply low• outside towards an oˆce window to make determine what the listener does and ering the pitch of the voice and pausing. does not understand. Computers, how• Although those two things are certainly ever, cannot make such interpretations. relevant, the new system picked up two Or, at least, they have not been able to do more cues that nobody had noticed be• so until now. But a study by Louis•Philippe fore. One was that speakers frequently Morency of the University of Southern make a gaze shift towards a listener just California and his colleagues may change before a nod is given. The other is that they that. In a recent edition of the Journal of often use the word Œand to generate a Alternative Agent and Multiagent Systems responsive nod. they demonstrated that a computer can be Dr Morency plans to build on this given the ability to understand at least one research to analyse other aspects of hu• signi†cant human gesture: the nod. man interaction, such as how gaze and The nod is one of the most important Œanding trigger nods. By integrating his signals a person can send. When made at †ndings into educational software, he the right time, it means ŒI am engaged in hopes, it might be possible to determine what you are saying or ŒI understand. whether the lessons being delivered have For computer programs and robots that been learned. The armed forces, too, hope are designed to interact with people, being to bene†t. America’s army is already using able to notice nods and respond with the technology to analyse interactions nods of their own (through an on•screen between people in other countries, with a character in the case of a computer, and view to including this information in with actual nods in the case of robots) programs designed to teach cultural di er• might be useful. Unfortunately, nobody ences to soldiers stationed in foreign has yet been able to get it right. lands. For once, the politics of gesture may Psychologists have spent years analys• be positive rather than negative. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Monitor 9

product. ŒI’m much more relaxed, and I get a lot more done, he says. ŒI can use Free• dom for a day and write 3,000 words. The term Œcontinuous partial atten• tion was coined by Linda Stone, a former Microsoft and Apple executive who stud• ies and writes about the cognitive de†cits that computer•users experience. Most recently she has encountered a condition she calls Œe•mail apnea. Ms Stone de†nes this as literally holding one’s breath while reading e•mail instead of breathing nor• mally. Ms Stone says Freedom and other such programs are Œa †rst step, since anyone who installs and uses one of them is admitting that there is a problem, and Œsomething needs to shift. But the next step is to go beyond a software crutch, Ms Stone says, and to learn to change one’s behaviour without the need for full• screen modes and internet•disabling Stay on target utilities. People should rely on their feel• ings, rather than technology, to dictate what they can or cannot do, she says. But fans of Freedom are not concerned by such philosophical niceties; they use it Computing: Software that disables bits of your computer to make you more because it makes them more productive. Peter Sagal, the host of the American productive sounds daft, but may help keep distractions at bay public radio show ŒWait WaitðDon’t Tell LEAR your screen and clear your that lack a dedicated full•screen mode, Me!, is one such fan. He has no trouble ŒC mind. That is the philosophy two utilities, Isolator and Think, can create writing to a strict deadline at work. But behind a new wave of dedicated software a similar form of focus, hiding or blurring outside work, ŒI simply can’t resist the call utilities, and special modes in word•pro• anything but the active program. of a website or an RSS feeder or now my cessing packages and other applications, But in its severity and simplicity, Free• Twitter feed. I simply can’t do it, he says. that do away with distractions to enable dom (for Macintosh and Windows) may Before he started using Freedom he man• you to get on with your work. The pro• be the ultimate tool to ward o distrac• aged to write a book, but only by un• blem with working on a computer, after tions: the virtual equivalent of retiring to a plugging his cable modem to cut o his all, is that computers provide so many remote getaway, or going on a writers’ internet access. ŒBut that was too easy to appealing alternatives to doing anything retreat, to get things done. Launch the $10 plug back in, he says. The internet, he useful: you can procrastinate for hours, program and it asks you how long you grumbles, has Œmurdered his ability to do checking e•mail, browsing social•net• would like to disable internet access for: extracurricular creative work, such as working sites or keeping up with Twitter. you can specify anything from one minute writing books, plays and screenplays. Keeping such diversions at bay in• to eight hours. A second screen asks if you volves some technological jiu•jitsu, using would like local network access to printers When worse is better the power of one piece of software as a and other computers, or none at all. The Freedom, however, has set him free, he defence against distraction from others. program requires that you enter your says, for three reasons. First, Œit’s hard to Some programs †ll the whole screen to system password, and then neatly severs turn o . Second, you can set it for a short keep disturbing alerts hidden; others your information feed. The only way to duration at †rst, then longer; Mr Sagal disable speci†c websites, such as Face• regain network access before the allotted likens this to the Alcoholics Anonymous book, or even cut o internet access alto• time has passed is to reboot the computer. Œone day at a time credo. Finally, he says, gether. The idea is similar to parental• (For those who need to access some web• Œit’s the name. They don’t call it Internet control programs that prevent children sites in order to work, but want to block O , they don’t call it Shut Down. They call from accessing inappropriate content: but others, LeechBlock provides selective it Freedom. Mr Sagal wrote his play ŒMile these are controls that grown•up users blocking, so that Facebook, say, can be 22, which was staged in April in Chicago, deliberately impose upon themselves. accessed only at lunchtime.) with help from Freedom. ŒI wouldn’t have The programs’ varied but allied intent Freedom’s author, Fred Stutzman, a †nished it otherwise, he says. is revealed in their names: Freedom, Isola• graduate student in information science at Hardware and software are usually tor, LeechBlock, Menu Eclipse, Think and the University of North Carolina at Cha• sold on the basis that they can do more, do Turn O the Lights, to name a few. And pel Hill, says the social demands of the things faster or have whizzy new features. many other programs, including word• internet led him to create the software. There is clearly a place for products that processing packages Ulysses, Scrivener, ŒJust being online means you have this are simple to use and hide complexity‹a WriteRoom, Dark Room and Writespace, continuous partial attention, or this sense hallmark of Apple’s products. It is perhaps now include a full•screen, no•distraction that at any point in time, you can dip into more surprising that there also seems to mode, with all unnecessary screen Œfurni• the stream, he says. Many people’s work be demand for products that disable ture (menus, palettes and so on) disabled requires them to collaborate with others features. But for people trying to get things or hidden. This forces the user to confront online; but the very connectivity that done, a hobbled computer may in fact be the equivalent of the blank page in the makes such collaboration possible also more useful than a fully functional one, typewriter‹an exhilarating and terrifying o ers unlimited scope for distraction. Mr for an hour or two at least. Temporarily prospect for many authors. For programs Stutzman is a regular user of his own worse can, in some ways, be better. 7 10 Wind forecasting The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

And now, the electricity forecast

Unlike coal•†red power plants or nuclear reactors, each wind farm’s electricity•gen• Energy: New forecasting techniques eration potential is determined largely by make wind power more predictable its local physical environment. and thus more practical for The main tool for assessing the wind re• widespread use sources at prospective wind•farm sites is Œmeasure, correlate, predict (MCP) analy• HEN Mitsubishi Power Systems Eu• sis. This involves comparing a short•term Wrope, a subsidiary of a Japanese in• sample wind measurement at the site it• dustrial conglomerate, announced on Feb• self with years’ worth of historical wind ruary 25th that it was investing £100m data taken from a nearby airport or perma• ($145m) to establish a new wind•turbine re• nent weather station. Using statistical search and development facility in Britain, models to take account of the di erence the deal was heralded as another step for• between the target site and the reference ward for wind power. But the timing was site, developers can then build a detailed in some ways unfortunate. Although Brit• picture of the potential wind resources. ain is indeed a good place to put wind tur• bines, the wind, like the weather, is notori• Don’t bet the farm ously variable. And according to data from Uncertainty lurks in all three aspects of the Met Oˆce, Britain’s national weather MCP analysis. Technical problems with service, February 2010 was in fact the least anemometers can make it diˆcult to estab• windy month for seven and a half years. lish a reliable record of wind patterns. Giv• Wind power is widely seen as the en the sensitivity of wind to the shape of source of renewable energy with the best the landscape, there may be little correla• chance of competing with fossil•fuel pow• tion between the target site and the refer• er stations in the near term. The European ence site. And wind turbines are often Union has committed itself to getting 20% much taller than measurement towers, of its electricity supply from renewable en• making it necessary to take account of the ergy sources, mainly wind power, by 2020. variation of the strength of the wind with In America the Department of Energy reck• altitude, which is known as Œwind shear. ons that wind could provide a similar pro• This can be particularly diˆcult in the portion of the country’s electricity by vicinity of complex terrain or forests. A the average wind speed in which they can 2030. China recently tripled its wind•ca• study by America’s National Renewable be 90% con†dent. The closer the P90 read• pacity target to 100GW by 2020. Energy Laboratory in Indiana in 2009 ing is to the measured average speed, the But capacity does not equal electricity. found that a 50•metre di erence in eleva• more attractive the site becomes to inves• For all those turbines to be worthwhile, the tion resulted in a variation in average wind tors. If the P90 wind•speed is within 12•15% wind has to blow in speci†c places at spe• speed of more than 4kph (2.5mph). Since of the average, banks are usually happy to ci†c strengths for speci†c periods of time. power output is proportionate to the cube stump up. But a di erence of 20% or higher What if it doesn’t? Such questions are at of the wind speed, even such an apparent• renders a wind farm Œun†nanceable, says the root of a growing interest in the †eld of ly small variation can result in a 15% change Mr Murley. Conversely, reducing the error wind forecasting. It can help developers of in a wind farm’s generating capacity. margin to 7•10% can reduce a project’s cost new wind farms decide where to build, Producing an MCP forecast with a small of funds by 0.5•0.75 percentage points, re• and help operators of existing ones fore• error margin‹in other words, a high de• sulting in higher investor returns. cast output more accurately. gree of certainty‹is critical to establishing To establish a more accurate picture of Wind power may be free, goes an in• a site’s commercial viability, says Tom wind speed and direction at prospective dustry adage, but it is far from cheap. Glo• Murley at HgCapital, a private•equity †rm sites, some companies are turning to laser bal investment in wind farms worldwide with investments in renewable energy. Be• and sonar•based measurement instru• was $14.1billion in the †rst quarter of 2010, fore stumping up a loan for a wind project, ments to complement MCP. SgurrEnergy, a according to Bloomberg New Energy Fi• banks need to be convinced that a site has Scottish engineering †rm, for example, has nance, a market•research †rm. To secure †• suˆcient wind resources. Rather than bas• developed the Galion Lidar, a device that nancing for their capital•intensive projects, ing this estimate on the average of the ob• measures wind speed, direction and shear developers need to convince sceptical served wind measurements, banks lend by measuring the distortion of pulsed laser lenders that they will deliver the promised on so•called Œconservative wind. beams as they are bu eted by microscopic returns. This requires credible estimates of To calculate this, developers use a statis• wind•borne particles. The company says the future wind capacity of a given site. tical model to obtain a ŒP90 wind value‹ the use of lidar can reduce the error margin 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Wind forecasting 11

2

investment that has been put into wind uses a Œnested grid con†guration based forecasting in the past decade, persistence on overlapping 30km, 10km, and 3.3km Œis still the benchmark for short•term fore• grids. According to David Johnson of casting, says James Cox at Pöyry, an energy NCAR, the higher•resolution models en• consultancy. But this approach is less accu• able his researchers to observe the e ects rate when looking further ahead. of di erent terrain such as gullies or val• To improve upon persistence forecast• leys within a single wind farm and to make ing, companies rely on numerical weather an individual prediction for each turbine. prediction (NWP), the approach used by This high•resolution model shows en• meteorologists to produce national weath• couraging results, especially when cou• er forecasts. This involves modelling the at• pled with real•time observations from the mosphere as a three•dimensional grid, wind farms themselves. With the aid of each cell of which is a few kilometres on ever more powerful computers, the in• each side, and combining physical data on crease in model resolution will Œcontinue initial conditions such as pressure, tem• to reap rewards for wind forecasting, says perature and humidity, collected from sen• Daniel Kirk•Davido , a meteorologist at sors and satellites, with equations that the University of Maryland. simulate the behaviour of the atmosphere. The resulting estimate for wind speed in a What’s it worth? particular location can then be converted Another way to take account of the unique into an estimate of electricity generation characteristics of individual wind farms is using a power curve, based on the capabil• through the use of arti†cial neural net• ities of speci†c turbines. works, which compare forecast results A big challenge for NWP in wind pre• from NWP with actual turbine data from diction is that local variations in topogra• the wind•farm operators in order to phy or terrain can produce large variations Œlearn the biases of a speci†c site and in wind resources over relatively small ar• make more accurate predictions in future. eas. One way to address this is to increase But persuading wind•farm operators to by several percentage points, which in turn the resolution (ie, reduce the cell size) of part with the data‹which many regard as increases a project’s internal rate of return the grids that NWP models use to map the commercially sensitive‹is often easier by around one percentage point. prediction area. In some cases the resolu• said than done. Bruce Bailey of AWS says Once wind turbines are up and run• tion of the computational grid is increased the reluctance of operators to part with tur• ning, the forecasting focus shifts from long• around areas of interest, such as moun• bine data is Œthe biggest barrier to improv• term averages to short•term speci†cs. For tains, coastlines or individual weather fea• ing the state of the art of forecasting. grid operators trying to balance a portfolio tures. This approach is taken by AWS True• For independent wind•farm operators of di erent power sources, intermittency power, a consultancy, with its eWind selling power into the grid, accurate short• is no longer an abstract statistical anomaly, forecasting service. The †rm says eWind term prediction can mean the di erence but determines whether they can keep the can reduce the hour•ahead prediction er• between large pro†ts and even larger †nes lights on. In Denmark, which already gets ror from as high as 7.5% for persistence fore• for non•compliance. More accurate fore• nearly 20% of its electricity from wind casting to as low as 4% of a wind farm’s rat• casts also bene†t grid operators and their power, a change in wind speed of one me• ed capacity. For next•day forecasts the customers, because less fossil•fuel•based tre per second can translate into a change prediction error is reduced from over 35% reserve capacity needs to be kept on hand of 450MW in national power output, for traditional NWP models to 14•22%. Sim• in case the wind drops. Xcel expects to save equivalent to the entire capacity of a coal• ilar results have been achieved in Den• $10m•12m in the †rst two years of its col• †red power station, says Poul Mortensen mark, where the next•day forecast error laboration with NCAR, which should of Energinet.dk, the main grid operator. has been reduced from 36% to 18•20% over eventually show up in lower utility bills. For very short•term predictions (up to the past ten years, says Mr Mortensen. The biggest challenge facing wind farms is an hour ahead), the dominant technique is A collaborative project between Xcel to Œlook as much as possible like power sta• Œpersistence forecasting, which works on energy, a large American utility, and Amer• tions, says Andrew Garrad of GL Garrad the simple assumption that wind speed in ica’s National Centre for Atmospheric Re• Hassan, a consultancy. More reliable fore• an hour’s time will be the same as it is at search (NCAR), based on data from Xcel’s casts of the vagaries of their free but †ckle the moment. Despite the huge amount of 2,500 wind turbines in the United States, fuel supply will help them do so. 7 12 Inside story The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

frame rate. Typically the actor wears an all•black suit, to which spheres of re‡ec• From Gollum to ŒAvatar tive material are attached. Software then analyses the markers’ positions in each frame to reconstruct the exact posture of the actor. A variation of this approach uses small light•emitting diodes (LEDs) instead of re‡ective markers. Inside story: The technology of Œperformance capture, which allows actors Once the motion•capture data has to control computer•generated characters using their movements and facial been obtained, it can be used to drive the expressions, has made rapid progress in the past decade movements of a virtual character, which may be a very di erent size and shape URING the ten years leading up to the so that they can have more than just from the original actor. Views of the char• Drelease of ŒThe Wizard of Oz in 1939, walk•on parts in live•action †lms, does not acter within a scene can be calculated the world of cinema underwent a dramat• always require them to look human; they from any angle, allowing the placement of ic transformation. Films that had been may, after all, be aliens or robots or mon• virtual cameras to be decided after the silent and colourless suddenly gained sters. But there is a huge leap in realism event. Because they are acting within a vibrant hues, sound e ects and speech. and audience engagement when virtual space, rather than towards a particular Indeed, ŒI’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas characters’ movements and facial expres• camera, and because every nuance of anymore was as much a commentary on sions can be controlled by actors. The their movement is captured‹nothing is the state of the †lm industry at the time as technology that makes this possible‹in Œo screen‹some actors have described it was about being dropped into a magical e ect, using the performance of an actor the intense experience of motion•capture world by a tornado. Colour and sound led as a means of operating a virtual pup• performance as akin to theatre acting. to huge changes for actors and designers pet‹is called Œperformance capture. Just The creature Gollum, in ŒThe Two alike. The over•expressive acting tech• as ŒThe Wizard of Oz illustrated Hol• Towers (2002), the second †lm in the niques demanded by silent †lms were lywood’s embrace of colour over the ŒLord of the Rings trilogy, was a pioneer• dropped, and designers scrambled to previous decade, the progress of perfor• ing example of a virtual character con• work with colour materials. Hollywood mance capture over the past decade is trolled in this way. The †lm’s visual e ects really did enter a new world. vividly highlighted by ŒAvatar, James supervisor, Joe Letteri at Weta Digital, in Since then imagination and technol• Cameron’s recent science•†ction epic. New Zealand, and his team created a ogy have pushed the boundaries of †lm sculpture which was scanned using lasers ever farther. In modern disaster movies, Catch me if you can to create a digital, three•dimensional New York is routinely destroyed, in vivid Performance capture poses two distinct model. The team then treated the scanned detail. Actors †t seamlessly into computer• problems: capturing body movements, sculpture very much like a puppet. They generated landscapes depicting this and known as motion capture, and capturing attached hundreds of digital strings to other worlds. Gone are the dodgy models, facial expressions. The †rst problem is di erent parts of its body, which could be unconvincing scenery and painted back• easier to solve. A simple form of motion manipulated to move the digital creature drops of days gone by. But the ability to capture is to †lm somebody performing a around. But rather than using animation, create convincing computer•generated or particular motion, and then trace over Mr Letteri wanted an actor’s performance Œvirtual characters has not kept pace. individual frames. This produces more to pull the strings. Andy Serkis, the actor Historically, such characters have been life•like motion than having an animator who provided Gollum’s voice, †lmed depicted using animation or puppets‹ draw each frame from scratch. scenes with other actors while wearing a think of the animated monsters in ŒClash A more elaborate but more eˆcient white suit, so that he could be digitally of the Titans (1981), or the puppet Yoda in approach is to attach dozens of tiny mark• overpainted later. He then donned a black ŒThe Empire Strikes Back (1980). More ers to an actor’s body, and use them to suit studded with re‡ective balls, and his recently, however, computer animation determine the precise position of the body movements were captured, with each ball has extended the possibilities. while recording a particular sequence on his body tethered to a virtual string Making virtual characters convincing, using several cameras running at a high attached to the corresponding point on 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Inside story 13

ŒCapturing facial expressions is harder than motion capture because the movements are much smaller.

2 Gollum’s virtual body. Mr Serkis’s move• ments thus controlled Gollum’s. Mr Letteri and his team won an Oscar for their work. This was a big step forward, but several problems remained. The motion capture had to be done separately from the †lm• ing, because re‡ective materials on cos• tumes and sets interfered with the mo• tion•capture system. Even then, Mr Letteri and his team were able to control Gol• lum’s movements solely using Mr Serkis’s captured performance only 20% of the time. The rest of the time they had to manipulate the character manually, in a manner inspired by his performance. Gollum’s face was particularly proble• matic. The team †lmed Mr Serkis’s face to What a performance: Andy Serkis as Gollum in ŒThe Two Towers (on previous page, determine which muscles he used for courtesy New Line Productions/Weta Digital); Tom Hanks in ŒThe Polar Express di erent expressions, so that these could (above); Alfred Molina being scanned by Light Stage 2 for ŒSpider•Man 2 (below) guide the expressions made by Gollum. But in the end Mr Serkis’s facial perfor• imposed upon a computer•generated †lm, through both motion• and facial• mance inspired, rather than drove, Gol• character, depending on the angle of capture of his performances. During the lum’s facial movements. lighting required. shooting, 80 markers were attached to his For ŒSpider•Man 2 Dr Debevec’s team body and 152 to his face, with eight cam• Getting in your face used a new version of their technology, eras performing the motion capture for Capturing facial expressions and using Light Stage 2, based on a semicircular arc the body and 56 cameras for the face. For them to drive the expression of a virtual of 30 bright strobe lights, mounted on an some sequences as many as four actors character is more diˆcult than motion arm that rotates quickly around the actor. were motion•captured at once. capture, because the movements involved This allows images of the actor’s face, lit The images of the facial markers were are much smaller and more subtle. from every angle, to be captured in analysed to determine Mr Hanks’s expres• One of the †rst †lms to tackle eight seconds. Using this de• sion, and his performance was then Œre• the problem was ŒSpider• vice, the team created a targeted onto the faces of the digital Man 2 (2004). Unlike the digital model of Mr Moli• models of the †lm’s characters: the con• †rst ŒSpider•Man †lm, in na’s face that could be ductor, the boy, Father Christmas and so which masked characters added to a computer• on. The positions of the various facial leapt from tall buildings, generated character and muscle•groups were determined from the the sequel had an un• digitally lit from any markers’ positions, and the characters’ masked villain in the angle. It looked realistic virtual muscles were moved accordingly. form of Doctor Octopus, even in close•ups, because The results were technically impres• played by Alfred Molina. individual wrinkles could sive, but did not quite look convincing. Despite having eight robotic be clearly seen. One problem was that the facial•capture arms sticking out of his back, To allow for di erent ex• system used in ŒThe Polar Express could Mr Molina’s character was hu• pressions, Mr Molina had small not capture eye movements. For ŒBeo• man, but he needed to engage in chal• re‡ective beads glued to his face and then wulf (2007), his next computer•generated lenging acrobatics. ŒWe considered using was †lmed making di erent expressions. †lm, Mr Zemeckis solved this problem by wires and a stunt double, but ultimately The movements of the beads were then attaching electrodes to the actors’ faces, in the shots Sam Raimi [the director] wanted used by artists to manipulate the digital addition to the usual markers. The electri• and safety concerns made us realise some• double’s face to produce the same expres• cal activity of the muscles that control the thing else had to be done, says Scott sions. As a result, Doctor Octopus could eyes could then be picked up, allowing eye Stokdyk, the †lm’s visual•e ects director. snarl and sneer realistically during the movements to be captured along with He approached Paul Debevec, a com• †lm’s acrobatic rooftop †ghts. As with body motion and facial expression. Some puter scientist at the University of South• Gollum, an actor’s expressions were being scenes involved as many as 20 actors, ern California in Los Angeles, whose team used to guide, rather than drive, the ex• †lmed by nearly 300 cameras. had developed a device called Light Stage pressions of a virtual character. But the Meanwhile an even more ambitious to capture images of an actor’s face. The digital Doctor Octopus did not speak, and project was brewing in the form of the actor sits inside the device, and a light its body movements were still entirely science•†ction †lm ŒAvatar (2009), direct• source, mounted on an arm, is moved based on computer animation. ed by James Cameron. The story concerns around his face over the course of a mi• A further step forward came with ŒThe a race of aliens, called Na’vi, living on the nute. During this time around 2,000 digi• Polar Express (2004), directed by Robert moon of Pandora in the Alpha Centauri tal images are taken, showing the face lit Zemeckis, the †rst entirely computer• solar system. These characters were to be from every direction and angle. The ap• generated †lm to use facial capture. Tom entirely computer generated, but with propriate facial image can then be super• Hanks played most of the characters in the their movements and facial expressions 1 14 Inside story The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

ŒThis technology will probably be used to bring actors back to the screen who have long since died.

A real•time preview generated on the set of ŒAvatar, and the †nished scene (courtesy Twentieth Century Fox/Weta Digital)

2 controlled by actors. Humans and Na’vi camera to be generated, complete with tion, and many facial details did not come had to appear together in many scenes, alien characters and scenery, during †lm• through because there was not enough and Mr Cameron wanted to be able to ing. While the actors saw each other in computing power, explains Mr Letteri. direct the †lming while moving around on motion•capture suits running around in a ŒWe are really hoping directors will be the set, as with an ordinary live•action warehouse littered with cameras, Mr able to see a clearer live image as comput• †lm. This posed huge challenges for the Cameron saw Na’vi moving through the ers get faster, he says. That will come as visual•e ects team, led by Mr Letteri. alien landscape. ŒIt was like †lming live on the technology matures, says Mr Landau. Pandora, says Jon Landau, one of the How the †lm industry itself will be And so to Pandora producers of ŒAvatar. transformed as performance capture Actors performing as Na’vi wore motion• The removal of the barrier between becomes more widespread is unclear. As capture suits in the usual way, and their performance and post•production was actors are transported into virtual worlds scenes were performed in a warehouse just as helpful for the actors. With ŒAvatar where props, costumes and sets are drawn where re‡ective items were entirely ab• there were 197 cameras in e ect capturing rather than built, there is the potential for sent, to prevent any interference. ŒBut that wide, medium and tight shots all at once, job losses, but Mr Letteri thinks job trans• was still just motion•capture technology‹ and in such a way that di erent actors’ fers are more likely. After all, somebody with ‘Avatar’ we transformed this into performances could be combined from still needs to create all those virtual land• performance capture, says Stephen Ro• di erent takes. ŒIt was really liberating for scapes, props and characters. ŒOne of the senbaum, one of the visual•e ects su• me because I didn’t have to save my ener• people who helped us with Gollum was a pervisors who worked with Mr Letteri. gy for close•ups, says Laz Alonso, who professional make•up artist, he says. ŒHe To capture facial performances, the performed the role of the Na’vi character showed us how to paint with silicon and actors wore tiny video cameras, about the Tsu’tey. The absence of heavy make•up we showed him how to paint with a size of lipstick containers, in harnesses and masks was also liberating. After †lm• computer. Now he heads up the Weta around their necks, so that the Œlipstick ing ŒAvatar, Mr Alonso worked on a †lm department responsible for painting the cameras were held in front of their faces. in the Caribbean in which he played an surfaces of characters. The key muscles on each actor’s face were old man. This involved many prosthetics Dr Debevec predicts that performance painted with 52 tiny green dots so that and lots of glue. ŒIt took hours of prep• capture will become commonplace. their movements could be tracked, and aration and then we had to worry about ŒThere’s a new genre rising here, he says. the actors’ expressions could be deter• the sun melting the make•up, he says. ŒThis technology will probably be used to mined. Unlike marker beads, the dots ŒWith performance capture the hands of bring actors back to the screen who have were painted directly on surface tissue, the director are far less tied. long since died. Mr Stokdyk is excited by which allowed more detailed expression Yet the technology also caused new the prospect of applying human perfor• capture. The actors’ bodily and facial problems. The virtual camera that Mr mances not just to virtual humans or movements could then be applied to their Cameron used revealed the Pandoran aliens, but to other things entirely. ŒWe are Na’vi character models, giving them con• landscape in front of him, but it gave him going to see performance applied to really vincing motion and facial expressions. no peripheral vision. ŒHe’d be †lming and abstract stu with †re, sand and water The lipstick cameras meant it was not then suddenly the screen would go dark being given human elements, he says. ŒI necessary to perform the laborious task of because he stepped into a solid virtual think this is analogous to the 1932•39 per• compensating for the actors’ bodily move• object, says Mr Landau. ŒJim walked into iod of development in colour and sound. ments in order to determine their facial lots of walls and trees on Pandora. Appropriately enough, Dorothy’s expressions, as is usually the case. As a Although ŒAvatar represents the state remark crops up in Avatar. ŒYou are not in result, the facial•capture and motion• of the art in performance capture, it is Kansas any more‹you are on Pandora, capture data could be roughly determined arguably more of a beginning than an says the colonel at the start of the †lm. in real time, allowing a live, low•resolu• end. The preview produced in real•time on Hollywood, it seems, is about to be picked tion preview of the scene from a Œvirtual the virtual camera was quite low•resolu• up by another tornado. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Electric planes 15

High voltage

density of a lithium•ion battery is 0.15 kilo• watt•hours per kilogram (kWh/kg). The Transport: As electric cars make equivalent †gure for petrol is 12.5kWh/kg, steady progress on land, battery• and although only 30% of this energy is powered aircraft of various kinds are captured, the energy density is still quietly taking to the air 3.7kWh/kg, or 25 times as much as a bat• tery. Even so, Dr Robertson says it is feasi• ANDALL FISHMAN, a retired jeweller ble to build electric aircraft‹provided they Rfrom New Jersey, is a keen pilot who have eˆcient wings to provide lots of lift. has spent a lot of time hang•gliding over In aerodynamic terms, lift is a function the Hudson river when he should have of weight, thrust and drag (air resistance). been working. Despite some 30 years’ ex• The aerofoil of a wing creates more lift perience as an aviator, he yearned to ‡y in than drag, but exactly how much depends a new and purer way. So in 2006 he con• on its design and the speed of the air pass• verted a powered hang•glider, removing ing over it. A light aircraft typically has a its small combustion engine and replacing lift•to•drag ratio of around 10:1; for a hang• it with a battery and an electric motor. He glider, the ratio is about 15:1. (This ratio also was not trying to be green. ŒI just did not means that an unpowered hang•glider ‡y• like all the vibration and noise from a com• ing at a constant speed moves 15 metres for• bustion engine, he says. ŒWith electric ward for every one metre it descends.) Dr power it was like that dream you had as a Robertson is working on a twin•engined kid‹of soaring and ‡ying silently. electric microlight with a wingspan of 10 Mr Fishman is among a growing group metres (33 feet) and a lift•to•drag ratio of of aviators in America, Europe and Asia 18:1. This means it requires an unusually who are ‡ying under electric power. What small amount of thrust in order to stay air• began with hang•gliders and microlights borne. He expects to be able to ‡y it for has moved on to full•sized gliders and now around 40 minutes, and longer with addi• two•seater aircraft. A dozen or so electric tional battery packs. Flying electric, says Making sparks ‡y: Solar Impulse (top); aircraft are expected to turn up at the Dr Robertson, is a pleasantly quiet and Yuneec E430 (middle); Antares 20E Green Aviation Show, which will be held low•cost way of taking to the air. (bottom); Antares DLR•H2 (on next page) at Le Bourget, France, this month. And they A modern sports glider, with long, slen• will also be out in force at the Experimen• der wings, is the most aerodynamically ef• ing a mostly unpowered ‡ight. The Antar• tal Aircraft Association’s annual gathering †cient aircraft, with a lift•to•drag ratio of es 20E is thought to be the †rst fully certi• at Oshkosh, Wisconsin, in July. around 50:1. Lange Aviation, a glider †ed and commercially produced electric manufacturer based in Zweibrücken, Ger• plane. So far 50 have been sold. Mr Lange is Fly high, ‡y silent many, started developing a self•launching also supplying the power system to The idea of ‡ying electric has lots going for electric glider in 1996. Some gliders can Schempp•Hirth, another German glider• it. An electric motor can deliver a huge launch themselves with a retractable pro• maker, which is developing a two•seater amount of torque, or turning force, which peller turned by a small combustion en• version called the Arcus E. is what gives electric cars such rapid accel• gine. The propeller is usually mounted on Gliders are all very well, but the most eration, and is good for turning propellers, a mast behind the pilot and raised for take• exciting area of development is the con• too. Electric motors do not need a gearbox, o (or to gain more height or distance once struction of electric aircraft that are quite which reduces weight and mechanical airborne) and then lowered back inside good at gliding but, like a small Cessna or complexity. This means less maintenance the fuselage. The trouble is, says Axel Piper, can also be used for longer journeys. is required and there are fewer things to Lange, the company’s founder, combus• Mr Fishman, who went on to build a sin• break‹which is comforting in an aircraft. tion engines are noisy, vibrate a lot and re• gle•seat electric plane and then moved into And if things do go wrong, there is no tank quire plenty of maintenance. the electric•aircraft business, is completing of fuel to rupture and explode. Lange’s Antares 20E is a single•seat glid• development of a two•seater called the The problem is that batteries tend to be er with a retractable propeller powered by ElectraFlyer•X. It will be able to ‡y for two heavy. What has changed the game are a 40kW electric motor and 72 lithium•ion hours and reach a top speed of 128kph lithium•ion batteries, which are a lot cells mounted in the leading edges of its (80mph). It can be recharged in around lighter than other rechargeable batteries. wings. On a single charge it is capable of three hours from a built•in charger, has a 15• Paul Robertson of the University of Cam• taking o and soaring to 3,000 metres, metre wingspan and a lift•to•drag ratio of bridge’s engineering department, who has though the same amount of energy could around 30:1. The plan is to sell the Electra• also converted hang•gliders to ‡y under also be used for multiple launches to a Flyer•X in kit form for around $65,000; the electric power, calculates that the energy lower altitude, or for range•extension dur• batteries cost an extra $15,000. Regulations 1 16 Electric planes The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

2 vary around the world, but in America and bon•†bre fuselage has only enough room as auxiliary power units to produce elec• some other countries, home•built aircraft for one pilot. The idea is that Solar Impulse tricity when an aircraft is on the ground, do not have to undergo the complex certi†• will take o and ‡y under its own power for example, allowing its engines to be cation processes that commercial aircraft using electricity from the 11,628 solar cells turned o . They could power electrically do, and can be ‡own as Œexperimental. covering the upper surfaces of its wings driven wheels, letting an aircraft taxi with• Indeed, there are all kinds of rules in and tailplane. With an average speed of out using its main engines. Fuel cells are America and elsewhere for various forms 70kph, it will spend the day climbing as its also being used to power unmanned sur• of lightweight recreational aircraft. But lithium•polymer cells (which account for veillance drones. A small, fuel•cell pow• very few were written with electric power about a quarter of its 1,600kg weight) are ered electric helicopter might be possible, in mind. That means it is slow and frustrat• recharged. It will then descend slowly un• reckons David Parekh, director of United ing to obtain certi†cation, says Tine To• der low power throughout the night to Technologies’ research centre. But for any• mazic of Pipistral, a Slovenian maker of conserve energy. The idea is to circle the thing much bigger, the energy density of light aircraft, which has produced an elec• globe in †ve stages, each taking four or †ve aviation fuel still looks to be unbeatable. tric version of its Taurus self•launching days of continuous ‡ight (which is about Perhaps that will always be the case. glider and has been granted permission to as much as a pilot could endure). A proto• But it is worth remembering that just over sell it in France. Mr Tomazic believes the type ‡ew in April and test ‡ights will con• a century ago, heavier•than•air ‡ight lack of a universal certi†cation process for tinue this year, culminating in a 36•hour seemed an impossible dream. The Wright electric aircraft is holding up a technology ‡ight. A second aircraft will then be built brothers proved otherwise on December that is Œmature and ready to go. for the record attempt in 2012. 17th 1903, making a series of short ‡ights in Another company seeking certi†cation Another way to ‡y farther is to swap a ‡imsy, single•propeller plane. It had a is Yuneec. In January Tian Yu, the †rm’s the batteries for hydrogen and use that in a petrol engine producing 12 horsepower founder, became one of the †rst passen• fuel cell to produce electricity. Hydrogen is (8.9kW)‹not much more than each gers to ‡y in his †rm’s new two•seater E430 lighter than air, but compressing it, storing of the four 6kW electric motors on from the company’s airstrip, next to its fac• it in tanks and adding all the necessary Mr Piccard’s Solar Impulse. Wil• tory and research centre near Shanghai. A equipment starts to tip the scales towards bur Wright travelled just 260 sales oˆce has been opened near London heavy again. Nevertheless, the German metres on the longest ‡ight with plans to sell the aircraft for around Aerospace Centre has converted an Antar• that day; whereas Mr Pic• $89,000, including batteries. Mr Yu was in• es 20E, the DLR•H2, to ‡y with a fuel cell. card is o around the spired by radio•controlled electric planes. Boeing has also ‡own a Dimona motor world, under electric He says the E430’s operating costs work glider with an electric motor powered by a power, using no out at just $5 an hour‹about one tenth of fuel cell. And United Technologies, which fuel at all. 7 those for a typical two•seater combustion• makes Sikorsky helicopters, has ‡own a engine light aircraft. With a 13.8•metre large model electric•helicopter powered wingspan and a 42kW electric motor, the by a hydrogen fuel cell. E430 has a ‡ying time of up to three hours. The main reason for these pro• jects is not to develop primary pow• Topping up the batteries er sources for jet•turbine Some of the tricks being used by carmak• powered aircraft, but to ers to make electric vehicles go farther on a build small, highly eˆ• single charge are being copied by aviators. cient fuel cells that Propellers can, for example, be used to could be used to make Œwindmill in a descending glide, thus greener airliners. The working the motor as a generator and top• fuel cells could be used ping up the batteries. This is somewhat akin to capturing the kinetic energy of an electric car via regenerative braking‹a fea• ture found in the Toyota Prius. Similarly, hybrid aircraft could use a small combus• tion engine as a Œrange extend• er, running at a constant speed and driving a generator to power the electric motor or top up the batteries. (The Chevy Volt, GM’s forthcoming elec• tric car, uses this trick.) And thin•†lm solar panels can be applied to the wings to gen• erate electricity‹enough electricity, hopes Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist turned adventurer, to ‡y a solar•powered aircraft around the world. Mr Piccard’s Solar Impulse has a wing• span of just over 63 metres, similar to that of a giant Airbus A340 airliner, but its car• The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Missile technology 17

Peril on the sea

fence chiefs. This is because it is even more launched from submarines, aircraft and fearsome than anything NATO countries vehicles. The Yakhont, a slightly slower Naval warfare: As anti•ship missile and their allies now use. The Russian• Russian missile that also carries a heavy and torpedo technologies improve, a made missile is called the Club and it can warhead, has been sold to countries in• new seaborne arms race could be on carry bigger warheads farther than any cluding Indonesia and Vietnam. The Brah• the horizon anti•ship missile the West can launch. Mos, a joint Indian and Russian upgrade of As is the way of NATO nomenclature, the Yakhont, comes even closer to match• HE West has some formidable missiles the Club has been designated another ing the Sizzler’s e ectiveness. Tdesigned to sink warships. Three of the name, the Sizzler. In some con†gurations These non•Western supersonic mis• most deadly are America’s Harpoon, the Sizzler can deliver about 450kg of ex• siles are changing defence thinking. To be• France’s Exocet and the Swedish RBS•15. plosives as far as 300km. It also carries out gin with, uncertainty about ship Œsurviv• These all ‡y close to the speed of sound for defensive manoeuvres‹even curving ability is increasing as missiles proliferate, up to about 200km (124 miles) using preci• around islands‹and some lighter versions says Steve Zaloga, a missile expert at Teal sion•guidance systems to skim over land perform a unique, nasty trick: the warhead Group, an aerospace consultancy in Fair• or water. This makes them diˆcult to de• separates a few dozen kilometres away fax, Virginia. China and India already have tect. And even if they are spotted, the mis• and then accelerates from almost the Sizzlers and countries that have indicated siles can ‡y in unpredictable patterns, speed of sound to about three times as fast. interest in, or bought, the Sizzler or ver• which makes it harder to shoot them sions of it include Algeria, Syria, the Un• down. They then punch a warhead, weigh• Sizzling targets ited Arab Emirates and Vietnam. Some ing as much as 200kg (440lbs), into a mov• Tim Keating, an American vice•admiral, think Iran probably has Sizzlers too. ing ship with devastating consequences. told the House Armed Services Commit• As a rule of thumb, to hit a well•de• Despite all this, missile defences can be tee early last year that America’s ability to fended modern warship a volley of more e ective. Shooting at missiles with rapid• defeat the Sizzler was uncertain, not least than ten subsonic missiles might be need• †ring guns, or anti•missile missiles, can because the military lacked an adequate ed, according to an expert at Thales, a bring them down. The incoming missile’s dummy stand•in for testing defensive sys• French defence contractor. How much electronics can also be scrambled with tems against such a fast missile. Now one is deadlier might supersonic ones be? Sink• blasts of electromagnetic radiation, such in the works. Dan McNamara, a manager ing a warship, especially a big one, is un• as microwaves. And decoys can be †red to with the US Navy group developing what likely with a single missile, whether super• trick the missile’s homing sensors and lure is called the Multi•Stage Supersonic Target, sonic or not. More probably, attackers it away from the vessel under attack. But says it will help defeat the Œgroundbreak• would score a Œmission kill that limits a missile attacks on ships are rare, so it is dif• ing Sizzler. The new missile is expected to ship’s ability to †ght. In 2006 a subsonic †cult to know just how safe a ship really be ready in 2014. missile †red by Lebanon’s Hizbullah mili• is‹especially if an attacker launches a doz• The Sizzler is the leading example of a tia seriously damaged an Israeli corvette en or so missiles at once. growing class of supersonic cruise missiles more than 15km o shore. Four sailors were One particular anti•ship missile has be• designed by non•Western countries. Ver• killed. come especially worrying for Western de• sions of it, and its competitors, can be Hizbullah’s success highlights the so• 1 18 Missile technology The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

ŒMissiles are now the poor man’s way of obtaining sea power.

2 called Œasymmetric element of anti•ship to mimic ships. But torpedoes, like mis• As ship vulnerability increases navies technologies: striking a warship can be far siles, are getting smarter. Their homing and are buying more submarines, especially in less expensive and complex than operat• guidance systems are improving. Many Asia, says Ramli Nik, Malaysia’s defence ing and defending one. According to Ra• torpedoes, once †red, can be controlled via attaché to the United Nations until 2004. fael, an Israeli defence contractor, a ship’s a long optical †bre that remains attached to Malaysia will receive its second attack sub• protection gear often costs as much as its the submarine to increase accuracy and marine by the end of the year, he says. Oth• attack weaponry. Missiles are now the prevent jamming. And some torpedoes er countries plan to buy or build more. Œpoor man’s way of obtaining sea power, will now circle back if they miss a target on Australia expects to double its ‡eet of six; says Nathan Hughes, an analyst at STRAT• the †rst pass. At Rafael, the Israeli defence Indonesia aims to expand its ‡eet from FOR, a consultancy in Austin, Texas. contractor (and a maker of anti•torpedo two to 12 and Singapore expects to double Iran is one country gaining naval power countermeasures), a spokesman reckons its ‡eet of four. Vietnam has none but without much in the way of sophisticated that torpedo e ectiveness has roughly plans to have six by 2025. By then, China ships. It has large numbers of anti•ship doubled in the past decade, also in part be• may have 70 attack submarines. Mr Nik missiles which can be launched from cause of work carried out in Russia. thinks submarines provide the best naval small, fast boats or batteries hidden ashore Torpedoes rarely travel faster than defence platform. With modern remote• in buildings or trucks. Defence oˆcials are 100kph because water friction and turbu• sensing kit, they can stealthily Œget all the troubled by the prospect of missiles that lence could cause them to veer o course details of warships, he adds. can be launched from civilian positions. A or su er damage. But now speeds can be Yet warship•building is far from declin• product designed by Concern Morinform• doubled or even tripled by Œcavitating tor• ing. Naval budgets, broadly speaking, are system•AGAT, the Russian company be• pedoes. The trick involves positioning a growing because of a big shift in strategy hind the Sizzler, may heighten such fears. ‡at disk, smaller than a DVD, about 10cm caused in part by improved missile capa• The †rm now o ers a four•missile launch• bilities. Premvir Das, a former commander ing package hidden inside a standard com• of India’s Eastern Naval Command, says mercial shipping container. It could be the availability of fast, powerful and accu• transported on a ship, train or big lorry. rate cruise missiles is encouraging forces to Called the Club•K Container Missile Sys• restructure so that they are better able to tem, it provides dangerous potential to conduct, or support, land warfare from the rogue forces, says a Western arms•market sea. India, he says, will extend the range of consultant who has visited the manufac• its BrahMos missile Œquite substantially turer’s facilities in Russia. beyond its current 300km range. Defensive technologies, of course, will Even more exotic new weapons could also improve. Sofradir, a French remote• be just over the horizon. About †ve years sensing defence contractor, plans to start ago Pentagon oˆcials learned that Chi• making a Œmultichannel missile•detec• nese engineers working on a government tion system later this year. (Early versions missile project appeared to have solved a are already being tested by potential cus• diˆcult technical challenge involving tomers.) It integrates radar, infra•red and manoeuvring with radar data. According visible•light sensors into a single unit. Soft• to Eric McVadon, a retired American rear• ware can then better assess the quality of admiral, some of his fellow defence oˆ• data from one channel by comparing it cials began Œrunning around with their with data from the other two. Such sensing in front of the torpedo’s nose tip. At high hair on †re. China was modifying a medi• technology should make it easier to Œlock speed the disc vaporises water, creating a um•range space•faring ballistic missile, the onto (and therefore shoot down) incom• steamy air bubble, called a cavity, which DF•21, so it could re•enter the atmosphere ing supersonic missiles, especially when envelops the torpedo. This dramatically re• and nosedive, at about two kilometres a they tend to gain altitude to pinpoint a tar• duces water drag. second, into a warship and detonate con• get before dropping down for a †nal sea• Cavitating torpedoes remain rare, not ventional explosives. The new missile skimming approach, says Philippe Bensus• least because they are problematic. High could be ready for testing by 2012. san, Sofradir’s chief executive. speeds can make it hard to decipher the so• China’s missile might be vulnerable, nar signals used for guidance. Propulsion some experts say, to America’s newest From the deep is provided by a rocket engine, rather than Aegis intercept missiles, which are But there are also threats from below to a propeller and rudder, which makes steer• launched from ships. But a di erent type deal with. The sinking in March of a South ing diˆcult: some cavitating torpedoes can of countermeasure could be even more ef• Korean frigate provides a further example travel only in a straight line. High pressures fective. America and France are among a of the asymmetric nature of anti•ship deep underwater pose further diˆculties, few countries developing powerful lasers weapons: the evidence suggests that it was and may have contributed to the sinking of to shoot down missiles. As a former Amer• sunk by a torpedo †red from a North Kore• Russia’s Kursk submarine in 2000, killing ican battle•group commander notes, a nuc• an Œmidget submarine small enough to all on board. (It sank after an explosion lear•powered aircraft•carrier generates hide in shallow water, where it is hard to during the testing of a cavitating torpedo enough electricity to power a small city, let detect using sonar. North Korea is thought called Shkval, or Squall.) A German cavi• alone a powerful laser. ŒLiterally, that’s am• to have supplied such submarines to Iran. tating torpedo called the Barracuda is munition, he says: Œdirected energy Torpedoes can still be tricked, in many thought to be the fastest, but Russia’s which can be delivered by laser. And no cases, with decoys that emit sound waves Shkval is sold more widely. missile can travel as fast as light. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010 Brain scan 19 Mr Segway’s diˆcult path

icons of scienti†c and technological his• tory. There’s a Galilean thermometer on Dean Kamen is best known as the his desk and Einstein memorabilia in inventor of the Segway scooter. His every corner. Fading cartoons of his Seg• career illustrates the diˆculty of way adorn the bare brick walls. Mr Kamen turning innovative ideas into reality is a man who lives science, breathes tech• nology and can’t quite understand why N EIGHT•YEAR•OLD today sees the everyone else doesn’t feel the same way. ŒA internet with about as much fasci• ŒIf you look at the way science and nation as you see the toilet, says Dean technology are presented today, it’s worse Kamen, an inventor and entrepreneur. ŒTo than they just don’t get their fair share of kids, they’re the same. Nothing magical, time, he says. ŒIt’s like somebody bril• nothing exciting, just there when they liantly set out to undermine any prospect need it. That’s how quickly technology for the average kid‹especially girls and changes‹and it isn’t just moving fast, it’s minorities‹to feel excited about science. moving at an accelerating rate. When children see a scientist on televi• Mr Kamen knows all about speed. sion, it’s either a squeaky, geeky mis†t kid Over 40 frantic years of inventing, he has or a middle•aged white male with frizzy amassed more than 440 patents world• hair and a German accent. wide, saved thousands of lives and With the exception of his native New created at least one cultural icon‹the York vowels, Mr Kamen’s stereotype balancing Segway scooter. Now he is sounds like a self•portrait, such is the turning his attention to nurturing the next extent to which he conforms to the cliché generation of innovators. ŒI’m helping to of the mad scientist. From a hexagonal, create an army of kids that is going to high•tech base on his own private island build industries you and I won’t under• (the self•proclaimed Empire of North stand, he says. ŒIn 10 or 20 years, one of Dumpling), he hatches grandiose plans to these kids is going to cure cancer or make save humanity. Traˆc•busting electric an engine that doesn’t pollute. And as they vehicles! Devices that promise free power receive their Nobel prize, someone is from waste! Machines to remove salt from going to ask them what made them do it. seawater! Then there are the gadgets. He is Their answer, Mr Kamen hopes, will the inventor of the iBot, a stair•climbing name•check FIRST (For Inspiration and wheelchair, and has built gizmos for the Recognition of Science and Technology), a American army including robot arms and glitzy robotics competition that he started †n•like prosthetics that allow soldiers to in 1989 and which now attracts over swim at twice their usual speed. 200,000 entrants annually from schools in 56 countries. Working in teams su• Lighting the way pervised by a professional scientist or Such a larger•than•life existence seems engineer, children construct and control appropriate for a self•taught inventor robots in a series of competitive chal• whose father drew cartoons for Weird lenges, egged on by cheerleaders, scream• Science magazine in the 1950s. Once a ing parents and the prospect of schol• squeaky, geeky mis†t kid himself, his arships worth $12.2m in 2010 alone. inventing career began at the age of 16, If that all sounds suspiciously similar when he devised a dynamic lighting to American high•school sports, it is no system that could respond to sound. He accident. ŒI want kids to realise that engi• then wangled his way into the Hayden neering and problem solving are every bit Planetarium in New York and convinced as fun and rewarding as bounce, bounce, the director to buy several of the machines bounce, throw, says Mr Kamen. ŒI want for $2,000 each. FIRST to compete with the Superbowl, the When his elder brother, a medical World Series and the Olympics. The next student, complained of the diˆculties in generation of real wealth is going to be administering insulin to diabetics, Mr produced in †elds like proteomics, geno• Kamen dropped out of college and created mics and nanotechnology. For that you the world’s †rst wearable drug•infusion need world•class technology people, and pump. ŒI built these pumps and I thought if kids don’t get on the train very early, it’s within a year all diabetics would wear left the station. them, he says. In fact, it took more than 15 Despite his focus on the future, Mr years to go from the †rst prototype to Kamen’s corner oˆce at DEKA, his design widespread medical use. In 1971Mr Ka• and research company based in Manches• men set up a company to manufacture the ter, New Hampshire, is crammed with pumps, and in 1982 he sold it to Baxter 1 20 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly June 12th 2010

ŒTechnology is easy to develop. Developing a new attitude, moving the culture, is the diˆcult part.

2 International, a medical•equipment †rm. but I do know they won’t be using cars. cult part. You give people a solution to a He then founded DEKA, a contract•re• The †nancial, emotional, political and problem and the great irony to me is that search †rm, and went on to design a environmental costs will be prohibitive. even though they’re unhappy, they have home•dialysis machine that scaled down Despite the sluggish acceptance of his high inertia. People don’t like change. The existing devices from the size of a washing medical innovations and the sniggering at reason it takes technology 15 or 20 years to machine to something no bigger than a his Segways, Mr Kamen is pressing on come in is because 15 years is the time it shoebox. As with the portable infusion with other new ideas. If it takes a few takes a kid who saw it when he was young pump, this freed patients from having to years for society to catch up with his to become a functioning adult. make regular hospital visits for treatment, futuristic visions, so be it. His latest in• and took more than a decade to reach the vention is an electrical generator based on If at †rst you don’t succeedð market. (This year Baxter and America’s a19th•century idea‹an unusually eˆcient Which brings him back to FIRST, the Food & Drug Administration conducted a kind of engine, called a Stirling engine‹ invention of which Mr Kamen is most recall of some HomeChoice machines which never caught on. ŒWith the Stirling, proud. ŒIt really is an invention because it following reports of serious injuries and we’ve built the world’s neatest little high was a di erent way to attack a funda• at least one death linked to its use.) reliability package that will turn any form mental social problem, he says. ŒFor any Next came the iBot Transporter, a self• of waste into power, he says. He has one product I worked on, if I didn’t do it, balancing, six•wheeled robotic wheel• experimented with Stirling engines in someone else would have. Maybe they chair capable of going up and down stairs, electric cars and motorbikes, but his real would have done it a little later, or a little navigating diˆcult terrain and Œstanding target is the developing world. In trials in di erently, but they would have done it. to raise its user to eye level with other Bangladesh, a village used one of the But when I look out in the stands at tens of people. Co•developed by DEKA and In• engines to generate electricity for nearly thousands of kids each year during FIRST, dependence Technology, a subsidiary of six months using only cow dung for fuel. I see all the scientists that are going to Johnson & Johnson, a health•care giant, The generator has a sidekick: a water• work on the really exciting stu that’s the wheelchairs cost $26,000 each. They puri†cation machine, called Slingshot. going to happen over the next 15 years. have transformed hundreds of lives, and One of these rugged devices can turn They will be making materials that have inspire †erce loyalty among their users, 1,000 litres a day of contaminated ground• no resistance and can carry millions of but are no longer manufactured. water, polluted river water or seawater amps, creating materials that can make, The invention for which Mr Kamen is into drinking water. ŒYou can wipe out store and transform energy, understand• best known is the Segway Transporter, a 50% of all human diseases just by giving ing how to build at a molecular level to gloriously over•engineered stand•up everybody clean water, says Mr Kamen. synthesise proteins and †x health pro• scooter that had the misfortune to emerge ŒMy fantasy is to give everybody electric• blems, literally by engineering life. just after the dotcom crash in 2001, just as ity without destroying the environment, Throughout his career Mr Kamen has the disillusioned technology industry was and to use some of that electricity to give been an instigator, proposing new ideas looking for the next big thing. Before its everybody water in a sustainable way. that have not always been well received. unveiling, Mr Kamen’s mysterious new But moving the machines into mass Over 1m children have taken part in invention was the subject of feverish production has proved problematic. FIRST’s contests over the years, and Mr speculation. Steve Jobs of Apple said it ŒWhen you’re trying to get electricity to a Kamen hopes that they will instigate big was Œas big a deal as the PC and John few billion people who’ve never had changes of their own. But as the Emperor Doerr, a venture capitalist, mused that it electricity, or who are sick and dying of North Dumpling has found repeatedly, would be Œbigger than the internet. It because they’ve never had clean water, it’s there is a big di erence between coming was, in fact, a rather clever two•wheeled, not a technology problem, says Mr Ka• up with an idea and making it happen. 7 self•balancing scooter, using technology men. ŒIt’s an infrastructure, mindset, similar to the iBot. But after all the hype it logistics and sustainability problem that O er to readers could not possibly live up to expectations. has so many dimensions to it. The health• Reprints of this special report are available at a Nine years on the Segway has yet to care †rms that license Mr Kamen’s other price of £3.50 plus postage and packing. sell as many units as the †rm predicted for inventions are not well placed to market A minimum order of †ve copies is required. its †rst nine months. Segways glide his water and power machines where through theme parks, around warehouses they are needed most. ŒThey’re interested Corporate o er and along Silicon Valley pavements, but in health care and interested in my pro• Customisation options on corporate orders of are seldom seen elsewhere. Segway Inc, jects, he explains. ŒBut in many cases 500 or more are available. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. the company established to commercial• they have no capacity to deliver and sus• ise the technology, was sold to a British tain these technologies. There are 206 Send all orders to: †rm earlier this year. That does not mean countries out there, but most medical• The Rights and Syndication department the idea was fundamentally wrong, Mr device companies do business only in the The Economist Kamen insists. ŒCities were made to be world’s richest 40 or 50. 26 Red Lion Square highly dense environments for pedestri• Once again, Mr Kamen has had more London WC1R 4HQ ans, while the car is a piece of hardware trouble than he anticipated in trying to Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 that was optimised to go really far, really take an idea from a successful prototype to Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 fast, he says. Over half the world’s pop• a successful product. ŒTechnology is easy e•mail: [email protected] ulation now lives in cities, he notes. ŒI to develop, he says. ŒDeveloping a new don’t know if people will be using Seg• attitude, moving the culture from one ways to get around cities in 20 years’ time, mental model to another, that’s the diˆ•