Rewiring the Bottom-up ways The sceptical nervous system to deliver energy cyber-guru TechnologyQuarterly September 4th 2010

Hot rocks and high hopes The promise and pitfalls of geothermal power

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2 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

Contents

On the cover Geothermal power stations harness underground heat to generate electricity in volcanically active places such as Iceland. A new approach uses drilling to allow geothermal power to be tapped almost anywhere. But it has several obstacles to overcome: page 00 Total recall Monitor 00 Better photot images, remote medical monitoring, a new kind of jet engine, acoustic bres, monitoring drivers’ behaviour, hacks to cut printing costs, improved speech recognition, Software: A novel approach to generating images of suspects uses a range of using magnetism to measure food quality, cracking quantum tricks to achieve a dramatic improvement in accuracy cryptography and crowdfunding HE human brain is hard-wired to in Scotland, have spent more than a de- creative projects Trecognise faces. Babies learn to identify cade rening their new approach, but it their parents’ faces within hours of being now appears to be paying dividends. Mining social networks born, and even in old age people can Instead of asking witnesses to select 00 Untangling the social web remember what their childhood friends facial features their system, called EvoFIT, What your network of friends can looked like. But remembering faces is not initially presents them with a grid of 18 reveal about you the same as being able to describe them. randomly generated faces that match the This is particularly apparent when wit- race, gender and general shape of the nesses are asked by the police to create a suspect. From these the witness is asked to Inside story composite picture of a suspect. Even when select the two that most resemble the 00 Energy from the earth’s core the result is thought to be a good likeness suspect, however vaguely. The software The promise and peril of by the witness, that does not mean that then takes these two selections and geothermal power other people will also be able to recognise breeds them, treating the facial features the face and thus identify the suspect. of their selections like genes, mixing them Bionic limbs Indeed, even when working from a together and making random changes, to fresh memory, the composite pictures produce 18 new ospring which are dis- 00 Rewiring the nervous system people produce are, on average, recognis- played in a new grid. As this process is A new approach makes articial able to others only 20% of the time. And repeated, with the witness again choosing limbs easier to control this falls to just a few per cent if the wit- the closest two matches, the faces generat- ness is working from a memory more than ed quickly converge on face that bears a a few days old. The problem is that face resemblance to that of the suspect, says Dr Energy in the developing world recognition is a holistic process: people are Frowd. In fact it usually takes only a few 00 Power to the people good at recognising faces as a whole, but cycles, he says. How bottom-up approaches can struggle when it comes to identifying or But just how recognisable are these address the energy gap describing individual facial features, such faces to others? To nd out, Dr Frowd as a person’s eyes, nose or mouth. recruited subjects to act as witnesses who But now police forces in Britain and were shown a photographs of an unfamil- Brain scan other countries are using a new tech- iar face, who happened to be a football 00 The virtual curmudgeon nology that solves this problem by chang- player. Two days later the witnesses used A prole of Jaron Lanier, a ing the task from one of recall into one of both EvoFIT and a traditional composite cyber-contrarian recognition. Charlie Frowd at the Universi- system commonly used by the police, ty of Central Lancashire, in Preston, and called PRO-t, to recreate this face from Peter Hancock at the University of Stirling, memory. The resulting pictures were then 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Monitor 3

2 ites were recognised by 11% of the subjects, made and seven people being charged. against 5% for the PRO•†t composite. It is quite possible that the age•toggling Drs Frowd and Hancock realised that if and caricature enhancements could be the results were to be improved further used to improve the success rate of tradi• their evolutionary approach was not tional non•evolutionary composite sys• enough on its own. What was needed was tems, such as the PRO•†t and E•FIT sys• a dash of psychology. Research suggests tems used by police forces in Britain, and there are fundamental di erences in the the FACES and Identi•Kit 2000 systems way people perceive familiar and unfamil• used in America, says Dr Frowd. ŒBut the iar faces, says Dr Frowd. With familiar real problem is that about 70% of witness• faces it is the internal features of the face‹ es have such a poor recall of the o ender’s regions that include the eyes, nose, eye• face that a traditional composite cannot be brows and mouth‹that matter most. With constructed in the †rst place, he says. ŒSo unfamiliar faces, by contrast, the external you need a system like EvoFIT that doesn’t features‹the hair, ears, face shape and need good recall to produce an image. neck‹play a more important role. There are now 11police forces using To account for this EvoFIT was adapted EvoFIT in Britain, and one in Romania. In monitors are becom• to blur out any distracting external fea• America, Dr Frowd is working with police ing even more sophis• tures when witnesses choose from the in Boston to improve the software’s ability ticated and are also grid, and restore them once their selec• to deal with Hispanic faces. One of the capable of being used tions have been made. And, to re†ne the British forces, the Derbyshire Constabu• in some of the most †nal image and account for people’s gen• lary, has now started using EvoFIT exclu• extreme conditions. eral inability to gauge age accurately, the sively. ŒIt’s doubled our workload, says The device used resulting image can be tuned to make the Beverly Hunt, the force’s facial identi†ca• on the Mumbai ‡ight was a Tempus tele• face appear older or younger, plumper or tion oˆcer, because it is now possible to medicine monitor made by RDT, a British thinner, more or less attractive, or even produce a useful image even when a company based near Basingstoke. It sup• more or less trustworthy. (This is done by witness has only a vague memory of a plies the devices for use on ships and at altering the size and shape of facial fea• suspect’s face. 7 remote locations like oil wells, as well as tures in accordance with research in• on aircraft. The Tempus is similar to a dicating the traits that are generally regard• high•end portable monitor used by some ed as attractive, trustworthy and so forth.) ambulance crews, except that it is small, To boost the performance of the pro• extremely rugged and capable of simulta• gram further, the researchers also decided An online medic neously transmitting the data for vital to address the way in which the composite signs, including ECG, blood•sugar and images are presented. Typical mugshots blood•oxygen levels, along with voice and tend to look similar to each other. Rather video pictures. Moreover, it can do this in than seeing the unique features of the multiple ways, with built•in Wi•Fi, mobile, face, people tend to focus on similarities Emergency medicine: Field satellite and Bluetooth communication with other mugshots they might have medicine, for soldiers and civilians links. It is also designed to be simple to FIT seen. So Evo was designed to show an alike, gets smarter as medical operate using a touch•screen and pictorial animation of the †nal image, which monitoring technology improves instructions, which means that the need would slowly accentuate the facial fea• for training is minimal. tures, essentially creating a caricature, ALF way through a ‡ight from Mum• Now RDT has come up with an even before morphing back to the original. Hbai to London, a male passenger tougher version, which has just gone into When these enhancements were put to complained of a swollen right hand and trials with America’s special forces. It is the test the improvement in performance an inability to bend his †ngers. The ‡ight waterproof, soundproof (so as not to give was staggering. In a second experiment, attendants were uncertain about what to a unit’s position away) and will operate EvoFIT images led to correct identi†ca• do and hooked the passenger up to a small over military radio systems. Because it tions 24.5% of the time with the blurring device which took and transmitted vital will be used by trained combat medics, and feature toggling added. And when the signs, including his pulse, blood pressure new features are being added. These animated caricature was also added, the and a picture of his hand, to a ground• include a small ultrasonic probe that can success rate jumped to 42%. based medical team. be used to scan for internal injuries, such So much for the theory. EvoFIT is now As the passenger’s condition worsen• as ‡uid in the abdomen or internal bleed• being used in practice. The †rst formal ed, the device was also used to transmit an ing, and a video laryngoscope, which can evaluation was carried out by police in electrocardiographic (ECG) trace. The be used to view and open a patient’s Lancashire between 2007 and 2008. Dur• resulting information was used to rule out airway by inserting a tube‹a tricky and ing this time 30 EvoFITs were used, main• heart problems, and the passenger was potentially dangerous procedure. A minia• ly for serious crimes such as indecent stabilised and monitored with the assis• ture video camera on the laryngoscope’s assault. Although six arrests were made tance of a doctor on the ‡ight. The deci• tip relays a picture to the screen on the during this period‹an apparent success sion was made to continue the journey device to help its correct insertion. The rate of 20%‹these cases also involved the rather than divert to the nearest airport. monitor can also be preprogrammed with use of a traditional PRO•†t system. And Medical emergencies like this often medical details of individual members of just because someone is arrested does not, occur on aircraft, and there are not always a unit, or automatically obtain them from of course, mean that they were the per• doctors on board. But in this particular Œsmart dog tags, which are being consid• petrator. But in a later 12•month trial with case the doctor says she would have asked ered by some armed forces. the Derbyshire Constabulary in 2008, for the ‡ight to be diverted, had it not been Just as the crew of an aircraft or ship EvoFIT images were constructed in 57 for the ability of the portable vital•signs can use such monitors to connect to re• cases, resulting in 43 names being put monitor being carried on the aircraft to mote medical centres in order to help forward by the public, 19 arrests being rule out a heart attack. 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4 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

2 and determine whether to divert for help toma scanner to look for a brain haemor- especially a jet engine, a large installed or not, the idea is that a commander in the rhage. And in both civilian and military base of expertise together with lots of eld will be better informed about the use, the vital signs recorded by the mon- regulation mean it can be hard for a new- need to evacuate a casualtywhich might itor could provide doctors attending a comer to make headway. To ease its entry mean calling o an operation. And if the casualty who arrives at a hospital with a into the market, R-Jet reckons that OCN trials with the special forces go well, says history of the patient’s condition and any engines could be used rst as generators to Graham Murphy, RDT’s chief executive, treatment administeredsomething produce electricity, or to power un- versions of the new device could be pro- which is not always readily available. This manned drone aircraft. Having estab- vided for civilian paramedic use. could be sent remotely, or carried with the lished a track record for themselves in this Future capabilities, Mr Murphy hopes, patient and transferred via a memory way, the engines could then migrate to might include a digital stethoscope to stick. Medical emergency-room dramas their intended use on airliners. analyse breathing sounds and a haema- may never be the same again. 7 The big aircraft-engine-makers are exploring new ideas for jet engines. The most obvious change has been to their shape. Whereas jet engines were long and slim in the 1960s, today they have a vast Powering up opening at the front containing a giant fan. This fan is used to blow up to 90% of the air around the outside of the compressor and combustion chamber. This air is slower-moving than that going through the jet, but its greater mass also means it Jet engines: A nifty new engine design promises to improve combustion provides plenty of thrustand more eciently too, which is why modern eciency, thus cutting fuel consumption and reducing emissions high-bypass jets burn only half as much N A world worried about global warm- vortex, to drive the turbine. fuel as their 1960s counterparts. They are Iing, improving the cleanliness and This, says Dr Lior, eliminates the need also some 80% quieter because the mass eciency of jet engines is a priority for for the two sets of static blades. That of slower-moving air shrouds the noisy airlines and aircraft manufacturers. It is means an OCN engine can be built more hot gases coming from the rear of the jet. not just altruism: greener engines also use cheaply with fewer components. It would One way to increase the eciency of a less fuel, and so cut costs. Incremental also need to be only half the size of a high-bypass jet engine is to turn the fan improvements over the years have made a conventional jet of similar power, says Dr into an open rotor, a bit like returning to dierence. Modern jets burn only half as Lior. The engine would use at least 25% propellers, but using two rings of stubby much fuel per unit of thrust as their 1960s less fuel and, he claims, its emissions of counter-rotating blades. Rolls-Royce and counterparts. But some people think it is carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxide would General Electric are looking at this ap- time for a radical redesign. One of those be cut by three-quarters because of its proach. Pratt & Whitney is exploring put- people is David Lior, the boss of a small unique ignition properties. ting a gearbox between the fan and the Israeli rm called R-Jet Engineering. So why are airlines not beating their turbine, because fans run more eciently Jet engines rely on Isaac Newton’s third way to R-Jet’s door? The company, found- at low speeds and turbines operate better law of motion: for every action there is an ed by a group of Israeli military ocials at high speeds. equal and opposite reaction. When a jet is and jet-turbine experts from the former But however high-bypass engines are running, a compressor at the front draws Soviet Union, has built a technology built in the future, at their core they will in air and compresses it (see illustration). demonstrator but needs a bigger partner still have a basic jet engine. So if R-Jet’s This air is guided and diused by static to take the concept further. As with any technology can prove itself, it might pro- blades to allow for easier ignition when it radical change to an existing technology, vide another leap forward. 7 is mixed with fuel and ignited in a com- bustion chamber. The reaction comes in the form of rapidly expanding hot gases, which blast out of the rear of the jet and thus drive the aircraft forward. As they do so, they pass through another set of static blades which direct and accelerate the hot gases to turn a turbine. The turbine is connected by a shaft to the compressor at the front, thus turning it and keeping the whole process running. The approach taken by R-Jet involves having the air and hot gases in the com- bustor rotate with the compressor and turbine. To achieve this, the company uses what it calls an orbiting combustion noz- zle (OCN), which turns with the compres- sor to inject the air into the combustion chamber as a vortex. The vortex is main- tained by blades that rotate on the inner casing of the combustor. This swirling action helps mix the air and fuel for a more complete and much quicker com- bustion. The hot gases then exit, also in a The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Monitor 5

is applied, drawing them out into thin †bres would require a huge amount of energy and would merely result in the †bre stretching and contracting along its Gently does it length, says Dr Fink. To make a †bre vibrate in a transverse fashion, like the strings on a musical in• strument, a more complex architecture is Motoring: Spies on the dashboard required. Dr Fink’s †bre consists of a hol• can teach people to drive more low rod of an insulating polycarbonate economically‹and tick them o if material with a 30•micrometre ring of a piezoelectric polymer running along its they fail to do so length. This is sandwiched between inner OME people always take things to and outer rings of conducting material Sextremes. For those trying to save fuel that act like electrodes, and the whole there is hypermiling, in which the really thing is surrounded by yet another layer dedicated try to use less than 4.5 li• of polycarbonate as cladding. tres/100km (ie, travel more than 80 miles What is remarkable about these †bres on a gallon) in a car that under normal use is that they are only 1.1millimetres in might do only half as well. Apart from diameter. They are drawn from a much driving very slowly and trying not to use larger Œpreform block of material, in the brakes (which dissipates energy), much the same way that conventional hypermilers employ other tricks, such as optical †bres are created. This allows the wiring the fuel injectors up to lights various layers to be assembled at a more mounted on the dashboard so they can A suit that can manageable scale and then heated and see whether or not they are squirting fuel stretched out, like seaside rock. It is tricky into the cylinders. Although this is all too sing and hear to do this without changing the molecular much trouble for most motorists, the structure of the active material, says Dr hypermilers do have a point: driving Materials: Optical †bres made of Fink. ŒA key issue for piezoelectric materi• technique plays a big part in how much piezoelectric materials can turn als is order, he says. So when the †bre is fuel a car consumes. Now various devices sound into subtle electrical signals, drawn the researchers apply a powerful are being used to help teach more moder• and vice versa electric †eld to ensure that the molecules ate ways of driving economically. in the plastic all line up in the same direc• Not surprisingly, companies that oper• UITAR HERO, a hugely popular tion as the †bre cools. ate ‡eets of cars and trucks are among the ŒGvideo game, has done wonders to Adding electrodes posed a further †rst users of fuel•saving Œeco•assist sys• transform the ‡amboyant strumming of challenge. Simply ‡anking the piezoelec• tems. The most popular of these are glo• closet air guitarists into at least some tric layer with thin concentric layers of bal•positioning system (GPS) units that approximation of music. But soon even metal would not work because metals use live traˆc information and other data, the feigned exertions of fantasy rock stars tend to have a low viscosity. ŒWhen you such as weather and past trends, to plot may become unnecessary because re• draw a material of low viscosity it tends to not the fastest but the most economical searchers in America have developed an break up, says Dr Fink. Instead the re• route to a destination at a particular time. acoustic †bre, like a guitar string, capable searchers use two layers of graphite•rich According to iSuppli, a Californian re• of electrically plucking itself. conductive plastic, each ‡anked by a search †rm, fewer than 1% of new cars Electrical signals make the †bre vibrate single metal strip in the inner and outer have such Œeco•routing systems †tted, but to produce a sound (although rather quiet• cladding. They recently described their it expects that by 2020 a third will. ly, so you must listen to it closely). But the work in the journal Nature Materials. Interest is also growing in other devices process can also be reversed, which is By creating complex material struc• that go beyond a simple fuel•economy potentially more useful. When acoustic tures within the †bres, new things become meter and provide more information waves cause the †bre to vibrate, it pro• possible. To demonstrate this Dr Fink and about drivers’ behaviour. One such is duces a corresponding electrical signal his colleagues have also shown how the used by Masternaut Three X, a British that can be detected. This means the †bres †bres can be used for communications. company that specialises in vehicle track• can also work much like a microphone. In This involves covering the †bres with a ing. It taps into the engine•management short, the †bres can both sing and hear. re‡ective coating, and then controlling system which, because of the increasing The work, by Yoel Fink of the Mas• their vibration by applying electrical amount of electronics used in cars, con• sachusetts Institute of Technology and his signals. When laser light is bounced o tains data that can be analysed to monitor colleagues, is at an early stage. But Dr Fink the †bre, the re‡ected light is modulated in such things as excessive revving and harsh imagines that fabrics woven from these accordance with the electrical signals. This braking. This information can be shown †bres would be capable of continuously could be used like an optoacoustic version as a series of warnings on the dashboard monitoring the sounds of the body for of the radio•frequency bar codes that are and is monitored by ‡eet managers. Firms health screening. Obstructions in blood used by cars passing through the pay using such systems say they can yield fuel ‡ow carry very speci†c acoustic signa• booths of automated toll roads or to tag savings of around 10% a year. tures that could be picked up by, say, a some goods in shops. As well as discovering those with the stocking laced with these †bres. Other proposed uses for the self•pluck• heaviest feet on the accelerator pedal who The †bres are based on a type of piezo• ing acoustic †bres include nets that mon• could do with retraining, this can also help electric polymer. This is a material which itor the ‡ow of water in the ocean and reduce accidents. ŒThere is a correlation can translate electrical †elds into mechan• large•area sonar imaging systems. And between driving eˆciently and safely, ical stress, or vice versa. Although piezo• once the †bres can be made small enough says Dan Steere, chief executive of Green• electric materials are well known for their to be woven into clothing, they could also Road, a company based in California. For tendency to vibrate when an electric †eld function as a wearable microphone. 7 instance, driving more smoothly by antici• 1 6 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

2 pating manoeuvres and then braking and printer per year. The university predicts changed. But frustrated users †ght back in accelerating lightly not only uses less fuel that this year it will reduce its $100,000 online forums. Perhaps the most popular but also tends to make drivers more alert print•supplies bill by around 10% by mak• trick is to cover the tiny window in toner to avoiding potential accidents. ing this simple change. cartridges with a piece of tape, fooling the GreenRoad’s driver•monitoring device ŒNo one had put the facts together, optical sensor into thinking that the car• does not need to tap into the car’s innards. namely, that ink or toner is very expen• tridge is always full. This correspondent It uses GPS to measure a vehicle’s speed sive, that people still print a lot, and that recently squeezed an additional two and a set of accelerometers to measure the there is a lot of variance between fonts in months of life from a supposedly empty forces acting on the car as it accelerates, how much ink they use, says Diane toner cartridge before the †rst streaks brakes and turns. The data are analysed to Blohowiak, the university’s director of appeared on printed pages. determine how the vehicle is being driven computing. So far no students or sta A further way to cut costs and reduce and the results shown to the driver as members have complained. And the FBI, environmental impact is to use less paper. green, amber and red LEDs. For ‡eet cars, local governments and even America’s These days it’s usually a matter of a few the data can also be relayed to a control space agency, NASA, have all come calling, clicks to print out a document on half as centre, so that Big Brother can tick o hoping to make similar savings too. many sheets, simply by rotating and o ending drivers. Thrifty though a font like Century squeezing two pages onto each one. But Mr Steere claims that despite the Or• Gothic may be, a Dutch company, Ecofont, this can be hard on the eye. So a better wellian overtones most drivers will soon has found a way to make a font that is option is duplex printing: printing at full become comfortable with the device and even thriftier: by punching holes in the size, on both sides of each sheet. Accord• value the fuel savings it o ers. He has letters. The †rm did this by creating a new ing to a recent European Union Œgreen clearly never met Jeremy Clarkson. 7 version of a popular font called Vera Sans purchasing guide, duplex printing can cut which is shot through with tiny holes (see costs by 38% over the life of a printer. below). The †rm says this can reduce the Citigroup once estimated that it could save amount of ink or toner needed by 25%, $700,000 a year and eliminate 76 tonnes with no e ect on legibility. (Ms Blohowiak of solid waste if every employee saved Ruses to cut and her colleagues disagreed, deciding not only one sheet of paper per week by using to use the new font because it was some• duplex printing or copying. Duplex print• times diˆcult to read on screen.) ing is a common feature on modern print• printing costs Ecofont’s new software goes one better, ers and copiers. But when was the last letting people use Œnormal fonts on time you used it? The real challenge, as the Oˆce technology: All kinds of screen and inserting the holes only at print EU guide notes dryly, is persuading people technological tricks are being used time‹and then only for small type sizes, to Œactually use the duplex function. to reduce the cost and environmental where they are less apparent. Ecofont Using clever fonts, making toner car• recently picked up a European Environ• tridges last longer and saving paper are all impact of oˆce printers mental Design Award for its work. bottom•up ways to cut printing costs. HE dream of the paperless oˆce has Another money•saving trick involves a There is also an increasingly popular Tbeen around for years, but it has re• more low•tech approach. Given the in• top•down option, known in the trade as mained just that, despite the rise of e•mail dustry’s model of selling printers at Œmanaged print services (MPS). This and the web. True, paper consumption in knock•down prices and then charging involves outsourcing the operation and American oˆces peaked in 2001, but since high prices for re†ll cartridges‹one in• management of oˆce printers and copiers then it has declined only slightly from its vestigation famously found that inkjet ink to an external supplier such as HP, Xerox high of around 150 pounds (68kg) of paper costs more than seven times as much, or Ricoh. That supplier is paid a monthly per worker per year. In Europe, mean• millilitre for millilitre, as 1985 Dom Perig• fee, and then has an incentive to cut print• while, each worker prints an average of 31 non champagne‹there is understandable ing costs by exploiting economies of scale pages a day, seven of which were not even scepticism when printers claim to be in procurement, replacing printers with wanted, according to recent research by running low even while turning out beau• more eˆcient models and so forth. Some Lexmark, a printer manufacturer. tiful, streak•free pages. Surely there must MPS suppliers even monitor individual The cost of all that paper, toner and ink be more ink in the tank? employees’ use of printers or copiers in quickly adds up. Which is why, earlier this There often is. Sensors in ink and toner order to identify particularly wasteful or year, the University of Wisconsin•Green cartridges report them as being empty ineˆcient practices. Bay adopted a novel strategy to save mon• even when they are not, a fact that has led The industry’s rule of thumb is that ey on print supplies: it changed its fonts. to lawsuits (manufacturers say they need MPS can cut costs by around 30%. As Programs like Microsoft Outlook default to to protect the non•replaceable print head companies look for ways to save money, it Arial, but a thinner•lined typeface such as from trying to print without ink). is not surprising that the global MPS mar• Century Gothic requires less toner or ink Many laser printers use an optical ket grew by 27% to $25.8 billion in 2009, to form its characters. A study in 2009 sensor to measure toner levels. Instead of according to Photizo Group, a market• showed that switching to Century Gothic simply warning users, printers refuse to research †rm. could save businesses as much as $80 per produce another page until the cartridge is Of course, the best thing, from both a cost•saving and an environmental point of view, would be not to print at all. In parallel with e orts to cut costs within their oˆces, many †rms have also in• troduced automatic e•mail signature lines that ask external recipients to Œconsider the environment before printing this e•mail. Does this work? Nobody knows. But until the paperless oˆce †nally comes along, it is at least a cheap way to look How to print in green on a black•and•white printer environmentally conscious. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Monitor 7

the odds of it actually being Œball will increase if the utterances preceding it sound like Œthe and Œbouncy. Although this Œcontinuous speech Fast•track recognition technique has indeed im• proved accuracy, it is by no means in• testing fallible. Moreover, when it gets things wrong, it often does so spectacularly. The problem is that, as a direct consequence of Magnetic levitation: The same this technique, the misidenti†cation of technology used to make trains go even a single word can take the program fast can help identify unwanted o on the wrong path as it tries to predict what the rest of the phrase is likely to be. substances in food and water Though such errors are inevitable, O MOST people magnetic levitation there may be a way to let speech•recogni• T(maglev) connotes high•speed pas• tion programs take the pain out of making senger trains. It is what enables the Shang• corrections. Per Ola Kristensson and Keith hai Transrapid to glide over the tracks at Vertanen, at the University of Cam• speeds of as much as 430kph (267mph). bridge’s Computer Laboratory, have de• But the same technology has recently veloped a method of allowing speech• found a much more pedestrian use in recognition programs to share their testing food and water. thoughts, as it were, with the user in order One way to identify a substance with• to speed up the correction process. Their out resorting to †ddly chemical methods solution, called Parakeet, is a touch•screen• is to determine its density. This will not based interface for phones and other provide a precise composition but it can mobile devices, which not only displays give a decent approximation. The purity the words, phrases or sentences that of minerals is often assessed in this way, as scored highest in the program’s statistical are things like the amount of fat in milk or model, but also any close contenders. This salt in water. (The less fat there is in milk, allows the user to select alternatives easily, the more dense it is; the less salt there is in with a quick tap of the †nger. More subtly, water, the less dense it is.) if none of the predicted sentences is en• The problem is that existing devices for Correct me if I’m tirely correct, yet collectively they contain measuring density tend to be either pre• the words that were spoken, the user can cise or portable. Those devices that are wrongð simply slide his †nger across the appropri• both, such as oscillating tubes, can set you ate words to link them up. back several thousand dollars. But George In a sense, all Parakeet is doing is allow• Whitesides and his colleagues from Har• Software: A new approach to speech ing the user to see which alternative vard University have come up with an recognition gives users the chance to words or sentences the program would ingenious way to square this circle using †x misunderstandings without have predicted. The di erence is that the principles of maglev. existing programs require the user to Most materials, including milk and having to repeat themselves correct each word individually from a water, are diamagnetic, which means they HERE is often something sweet, inti• drop•down list of alternatives, or else to are repelled by external magnetic †elds‹ Tmate even, about couples who †nish retype or reutter the words. What is frus• though this phenomenon is far too subtle each other’s sentences. But it can also be a trating about this, says Dr Kristensson, is to be observed in normal circumstances. source of irritation, especially when they that more often than not the correct strings This means that when a drop of liquid is get it wrong. A similar irritation (minus the of words were recognised, but rejected by mixed with a suitable solution of para• sweetness) is often felt by users of speech• the speech•recognition program on statis• magnetic ions, which become magnetic in recognition software, which still manages tical grounds. Parakeet makes them all the presence of a permanent magnet, it to garble and twist even the most clearly available to the user. will be pushed to where the †eld is weak• spoken words. Might the solution lie in a The prototype uses an open•source est, and stay there. more intimate relationship between the speech•recognition program called Pocket The researchers twigged that this phe• user and the software? Sphinx, developed at Carnegie Mellon nomenon could be used to measure densi• Modern speech•recognition programs University, in Pittsburgh, but Dr Kristens• ty and, as they report in the Journal of do not merely try to identify individual son reckons it would be easy to apply the Agricultural and Food Chemistry, they set words as they are spoken; rather, they same approach to commercially available about this task by erecting a stack of two attempt to match whole chunks of speech programs like Nuance’s Dragon. So far Dr o •the•shelf neodymium magnets sepa• with statistical models of phrases and Kristensson and Dr Vertanen have carried rated by a vertical vial of paramagnetic sentences. The rationale is that by know• out only limited trials on a handful of ‡uid. The magnets’ like poles were facing ing statistical rules of thumb for the way in people. Even so, these have achieved one another, creating a †eld which was which words are usually put together‹an operating rates of around 22 words per weakest precisely in the centre of the vial. abstract probabilistic approximation of minute‹considerably higher than the 16 When a drop of an unknown sub• grammar, if you will‹it is possible to an average user can achieve using predic• stance is injected into the vial, however, it narrow the search when attempting to tive texting. With the likes of Google, will not settle quite in the middle. The identify individual words. For example, a Nuance and Vlingo now o ering mobile magnetic forces will push it towards the noun•phrase will typically consist of a speech•recognition services for phones, centre, but gravity will pull it downwards noun preceded by a modi†er, such as an and the development of speech•driven until an equilibrium point is attained. The article and possibly also an adjective. So if systems for use in vehicles, Parakeet may drop’s height above the bottom magnet part of a speech pattern sounds like Œball, be ‡ying into a growing market. 7 can then be measured using a standard 1 8 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

2 millimetre ruler, and that measurement further. It is a small price to pay for a quick the individual polarised photons that can be plugged into a formula to arrive at a and easy way to check whether, for in• make up the key. And when these real• precise †gure for density. (In an earlier stance, water is too briny for irrigation. He world components meet the clever aca• paper the researchers conveniently in• thinks the device could even prove handy demic theorems that are supposed to cluded an Excel spreadsheet that performs in some carefully chosen biomedical guarantee security, holes emerge. this calculation automatically.) applications, especially in the developing In the †rst piece of research, a team Dr Whitesides puts the total cost of the world where inexpensive solutions are in from the Norwegian University of Science components for his device, including an demand. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foun• and Technology and the National Univer• aluminium casing, at less than $50. Mass dation, which helped †nance the project, sity of Singapore, led by Vadim Makarov production would reduce the cost even must certainly hope so. 7 and Ilja Gerhardt, hacked into a system that connects several buildings on the National University of Singapore’s cam• pus. Their eavesdropping apparatus (which is small enough to †t in a suitcase) was designed to take advantage of a weak• ness in a particular sort of photon detector in Bob’s receiving equipment. If hit with a bright enough ‡ash of light, such detectors are blinded. And if, on top of the bright pulse, a smaller pulse of just the right type is sent, the detector can be forced to record a one or a zero. In essence, Eve now has control of Bob’s detector. After intercepting the key, she can make it record just the right pat• tern of bits without any of the telltale errors her eavesdropping was supposed to introduce. Using this technique, Dr Mak• arov and his team were able to steal the entire key without leaving any trace of their activities. The second hack was carried out by a team from the University of Toronto, led by Hoi•Kwong Lo. They stole information from a research version of a system made by ID Quantique, a Swiss †rm that is trying to commercialise quantum cryptog• raphy, by †ddling with synchronisation signals that pass between Alice and Bob. To start the key exchange, Bob sends Schrödinger’s cat and mouse Alice two strong laser pulses separated by a precise interval. She uses these pulses to determine how to polarise the photons she sends back. If Eve intercepts Bob’s pulses and changes the separation be• Computing: Quantum cryptography is unbreakable in theory. But like any tween them, she can trick Alice into send• ing photons that have slightly di erent security system, in practice it is only as safe as its weakest link polarisations from those that were intend• T SOUNDS foolproof. One of the funda• Even if Eve, the eavesdropper, intercepts ed. When Eve intercepts these tweaked Imental tenets of quantum mechanics is the message, she cannot make sense of it photons, she can gather information on that measuring a physical system always without the key. The problem, then, is how them while keeping the error rate she disturbs it. If the system in question is a to pass the key from Alice to Bob without introduces at just below a tolerable level. message written as a series of digital bits Eve getting hold of it as well. Her slight tweaks have compensated for encoded in the polarisation of light, this Quantum key distribution does this by the disturbances she creates. means that intercepting and reading the encoding the information in the polar• Neither of these techniques actually message can no longer be done surrepti• isation states of individual photons, the breaks the fundamental principles on tiously. The receiver should be able to particles of light, which are sent from Alice which quantum cryptography is based. detect an eavesdropper and take appropri• to Bob over an optical †bre. If Eve taps into They simply exploit loopholes introduced ate countermeasures. the line and intercepts the key, she disturbs when it is implemented to practice. As To a hacker, though, the word Œfool• the photons when she measures their quantum hackers continue to put systems proof is a challenge. And to prove the polarisation. By comparing a subset of the through their paces, such loopholes will point, two groups of academic spies have photons that Alice sends with what Bob be closed‹as these now have been‹and now shown that whatever the theory measures, the pair can check for the pres• the systems become more secure. People says, practical attempts to hide messages ence of errors introduced by Eve. If errors like Gregoire Ribordy, the chief executive this way can still be vulnerable. are detected, Bob can throw away the key of ID Quantique, are therefore encourag• In order to encrypt a message, the and ask for another. ing the hackers in their activities. Such sender, known conventionally as Alice, In practice, quantum•key•distribution hacking is, nevertheless, a useful reminder scrambles it using a secret key before systems rely on sophisticated optical of an old adage: if something looks too sending it to the receiver, known as Bob. equipment to prepare, transmit and detect good to be true, it probably is. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Monitor 9

Jon Nguyen, one of the producers in• volved, says supporters who donate $50 receive a tote bag or a print of a self•por• Putting your money trait by Mr Lynch. They can then follow the project’s progress online. ŒWe’re going to write about it, blog about it, talk to where your mouse is people on Facebook, says Mr Nguyen. Crowdfunding will be used to raise only Crowdfunding: Artists, musicians and writers are using the internet to 15•20% of the funding, however; the rest is aggregate lots of small donations to fund their work expected to come from European grants. Ted Rall, a syndicated editorial car• IKIPEDIA, a giant online encyclope• book’s privacy policies. IndieGogo sup• toonist and opinion columnist, raised Wdia compiled by volunteers, is the ports †lmmakers, writers and game de• $26,000 from over 200 contributors via product of the aggregation of lots of peo• signers. Some sites specialise: Sellaband Kickstarter for a four•week trip to Afghani• ple’s spare time. An example of Œcrowd• helps bands raise money to fund profes• stan. When he †rst visited Afghanistan in sourcing, it demonstrates that on the sional recording of albums, and Spot.us 2001, he says, there were plenty of media internet, as in the real world, many hands raises money for journalistic projects. outlets that were willing to fund his trip; make light work. Can the same approach Yancey Strickler, Kickstarter’s chief indeed, they were having trouble †nding be applied to money as well as time? That community oˆcer, says the †rm accepts people prepared to go. But this time is the idea behind Œcrowdfunding, in about half the projects submitted to it. around Mr Rall was unable to secure any which lots of small contributions are ŒWe turn down projects that are charity, funding in advance. The crowdfunding aggregated online to support artistic or that are just straight business expenses, or e ort, however, brought him to the atten• creative ventures. ‘my dog has cancer’, he says. Of those tion of a publisher, who has contracted As crowdfunding has matured from a that are accepted, about half meet their him to write a book about his trip. Donors series of one•o e orts into something funding goals: around 1,600 projects had who give $100 will receive a signed copy. reproducible, the money has followed. been funded by July 2010. (Another Crowdfunding may turn out to be a Millions of dollars, in increments as small crowdfunding †rm, RocketHub, screens fad, says Cory Doctorow, a bestselling as $5, have poured into e orts that connect out only projects it deems illegal or in bad novelist and blogger who is experiment• artists, musicians, writers and others with taste.) Kickstarter says it has raised over ing with various forms of micropatronage, people willing to fund their projects. $15m for its users since its launch in 2009. including selling a bespoke short story for Venture capitalists have also shown an Sellaband says it has raised over $3m and $10,000 to one of his fans. ŒThere will be interest by investing in start•ups that has contributed to the funding of 50 al• some people for whom the fact that they facilitate crowdfunding. bums since 2006. Crowdfunding †rms raise money for themselves will be a There have of course been Œtip jars on typically take a 5% commission and charge marketing story, he says. But crowdfund• web pages for years, and even big sites like a 3•4% payment•processing fee. ing’s early success at raising sums large Wikipedia ask for donations. But this enough to be useful, though not large approach works for a vanishingly small With a little cash from my friends enough to replace other sources of fund• number of sites, and then only in conjunc• Crowdfunding has bene†ted from the rise ing for creative works, †ts in with a broad• tion with other sources of revenue. of social networking, which allows even er trend of using technology to bring Crowdfunding is di erent, say its ad• non•celebrities to accumulate large num• artists and their audiences closer together. vocates. ŒIt’s not a tip jar, and that’s what bers of fans or followers online, to whom As Mr Chen notes, artists can now ask makes it sustainable, says Perry Chen, the they can reach out when a project needs their audiences directly for support, and boss of Kickstarter, the largest of several funding. Successful projects, says Mr will often get it. ŒPeople are thrilled to be start•ups that act as matchmakers be• Chen, usually require an Œanchor audi• involved in the creative process and see tween donors and projects. ence of friends or fans who engage in something come to life, he says. 7 Instead, crowdfunding works by rais• Œmicropatronage, enjoying the associa• ing money for a well•de†ned project tion with a successful project and a perso• within a speci†ed time limit and with a nal link with an artist or writer. goal of raising a particular minimum sum The makers of a series of docu• (typically around $2,500). If the goal is not mentaries about David Lynch, a met, no funds are collected. Donors usual• †lmmaker, are using crowd• ly get some kind of reward or recognition funding to raise the seed (a mention in a †lm’s credits, for example), money to start work but they do not have any rights in the on the project’s resulting work. The term crowdfunding third †lm. has also been applied to raising money for companies or charity, says Kevin Lawton, the author of ŒCrowdFunding: The Mi• cro•VC Revolution!. But there are regu• latory limits on micro•investing, so the term is most widely used to refer to fund•raising for creative work. Kickstarter lets donors fund art shows, movies, short †lms, dance, graphic novels and the• atre productions. It helped Dias• pora, an open•source social• networking project, raise $200,000 during the recent controversy over Face• 10 Mining social networks The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

analysed automatically to help bosses manage their workers. Employees who are Untangling the often asked for advice may be good candi• dates for promotion, for example. Ellen Joyner of SAS, an analytics †rm social web based in Cary, North Carolina, notes that more and more †nancial †rms are using the software to uncover fraud. The latest Software: From retailing to counterterrorism, the ability to analyse social version of SAS’s software identi†es risky connections is proving increasingly useful borrowers by examining their social net• works and Internal Revenue Service re• ELECOMS operators naturally prize sis. The raw data used may extend far be• cords, she says. For example, an applicant Tmobile•phone subscribers who spend yond phone records to encompass infor• may be a bad risk, or even a fraudster, if he a lot, but some thriftier customers, it turns mation available from private and plans to launch a type of business which out, are actually more valuable. Known as governmental entities, and internet has no links to his social network, educa• Œin‡uencers, these subscribers frequently sources such as Facebook. IBM, the suppli• tion, previous business dealings or travel persuade their friends, family and col• er of the system used by Bharti Airtel, says history, which can be pieced together with leagues to follow them when they switch its annual sales of such software, now credit•card records. Ms Joyner says the soft• to a rival operator. The trick, then, is to growing at double•digit rates, will exceed ware can also determine if an applicant identify such trendsetting subscribers and $15 billion by 2015. In the past †ve years has associated with known criminals‹ keep them on board with special discounts IBM has spent more than $11billion buying perhaps his †ancée has shared an address and promotions. People at the top of the makers of network•analysis software. with a parolee. Some insurers reduce pre• oˆce or social pecking order often receive Gartner, a market•research †rm, ranks the miums for banks that protect themselves quick callbacks, do not worry about call• technology at number two in its list of stra• with such software. ing other people late at night and tend to tegic business operations meriting signi†• Last year an American government get more calls at times when social events cant investment this year. body called the Recovery Accountability are most often organised, such as Friday af• Adoption is being driven by the avail• and Transparency Board (RATB) began us• ternoons. In‡uential customers also reveal ability of more sources of information, ing network•analysis software to look for their clout by making long calls, while the and by the fact that network•analysis soft• fraud within the $780 billion †nancial• calls they receive are generally short. ware is becoming easier to use. A decade stimulus programme. In addition to the in• Companies can spot these in‡uencers, ago IBM employed experts with PhDs in ternet, RATB combs Treasury and law•en• and work out all sorts of other things mathematics to study social networks, ac• forcement databases to uncover Œnon•ob• about their customers, by crunching vast cording to Mark Ramsey, the †rm’s head of vious relationships, says Earl Devaney, its quantities of calling data with sophisticat• business analytics for eastern Europe, the chairman. The software works very well, ed Œnetwork analysis software. Instead of Middle East and Africa. Today, college he says. It has triggered about 250 ongoing looking at the call records of a single cus• graduates can operate analysis software criminal investigations and 400 audits. tomer at a time, it looks at customers with• handling enormous quantities of data. Joe Biden, America’s vice•president, in the context of their social network. The Bharti Airtel employs only about 100 an• said in June that such software would be ability to retain customers is particularly alysts to keep tabs on its 135m subscribers. used to prevent fraud within the govern• important in hyper•competitive markets, ment’s Medicaid and Medicare health•care such as India. Bharti Airtel, India’s biggest Take me to your leaders schemes. The Army Criminal Investiga• mobile operator, which handles over 3 bil• Of course, companies have long mined tion Command already sni s out procure• lion calls a day, has greatly reduced cus• their data to improve sales and productivi• ment fraud by scanning text in e•mails. The tomer defections by deploying the soft• ty. But broadening data mining to include software, developed by SRA, an American ware, says Amrita Gangotra, the †rm’s analysis of social networks makes new †rm, can correlate numbers and phrases director for information technology. things possible. Modelling social relation• written in nine languages with †nancial The market for such software is boom• ships is akin to creating an Œindex of pow• databases. If a person discusses a particu• ing. By one estimate there are more than er, says Stephen Borgatti, a network•anal• lar Department of Defence payment with 100 programs for network analysis, also ysis expert at the University of Kentucky in an individual not oˆcially linked to the known as link analysis or predictive analy• Lexington. In some companies, e•mails are deal, SRA’s software may notice it. 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Mining social networks 11

2 The police department of Richmond, 2003 was due in large part to the mapping mines job creation. Diplomatic services Virginia, has pioneered the use of net• of the social networks of his former chauf• can use this information to help ideas work•analysis software to predict crimes. feurs, according to Bob Griˆn, the chief ex• spread. Brian Uzzi of Northwestern Uni• Police oˆcers know that crime increases at ecutive of i2, a British †rm which devel• versity in Evanston, Illinois, who advises certain times, such as on paydays and oped the software used in the manhunt. intelligence agencies on democracy•pro• when there is a full moon. But the software Senior members of the Iraqi regime were motion analytics, says diplomatic services lets them analyse the social networks mostly clueless about the whereabouts of are mapping the Œtipping point when around suspects, such as dealings with the former president, says Mr Griˆn, but ideas go mainstream in spite of govern• employers, collection agencies and the De• modelling the social networks of his ment repression. partment of Motor Vehicles. The goal, ac• chau eurs who had links to rural property SPADAC, a †rm based in McLean, Vir• cording to Stephen Holli†eld, the depart• eventually led to the discovery of his hide• ginia, performs such analyses on Egypt ment’s technology chief, is to Œpull out, on a farm near his hometown of Tikrit. and other countries in Africa, the Middle together a complete picture of suspects East and South•East Asia. Clients include and their social circle. From social to societal networks the United States, Mexico and various dip• Party plans turn out to be a particularly Where is network analysis headed? The lomatic services. Riots, bloody elections useful part of this picture. Richmond’s po• next step beyond mapping in‡uence be• and crackdowns, among other things, can lice have started monitoring Facebook, tween individuals is to map the in‡uences be forecast with improving accuracy by MySpace and Twitter messages to deter• between larger segments of society. A fore• crunching data on food production, unem• mine where the rowdiest festivities will casting model developed by Venkatra• ployment, drug busts, home evictions and be. On big party nights, the department mana Subrahmanian of the University of slum growth detected in satellite images. now saves about $15,000 on overtime pay, Maryland does just that. Called SOMA Ter• Mark Dumas, the head of SPADAC, notes because oˆcers are deployed to areas that ror Organization Portal, it analyses a wide that societies with longstanding and the software deems ripe for criminal activi• range of information about politics, busi• strong social and business ties abroad ty. Crime has Œdramatically declined as a ness and society in Lebanon to predict, weather change well. In relatively closed result, says Mr Holli†eld. Colin Shearer, with surprising accuracy, rocket attacks by countries, like Egypt, rapid shifts in social vice•president of predictive analytics at the country’s Hizbullah militia on Israel. networks can trigger upheaval, he says. SPSS, a division of IBM that makes the soft• Attacks tend to increase, for example, as Last year SPADAC’s revenue reached ware in question, says it can largely replace more money from Islamic charities ‡ows $19m; this year it will exceed $27m. police oˆcers’ reliance on Œgut feel. into Lebanon. Attacks decrease during Country analyses have great potential Network analysis also has a useful role election years, particularly as more Hizbul• in peacekeeping and counterinsurgency to play in counterterrorism. Terror groups lah members run for oˆce and campaign operations, according to Kathleen Carley are often decentralised, so mapping their energetically. By the middle of 2010 SOMA of Carnegie Mellon University in Pitts• social networks is akin to deciphering Œa was sucking up data from more than 200 burgh. She is developing a societal model big spaghetti picture, says Roy Lindelauf sources, many of them newspaper web• of Sudan with a team of about 40 research• of the Royal Dutch Defence Academy, who sites. The number of sources will have ers. Foreign aid workers and diplomats fre• develops software for intelligence agen• more than doubled by the end of the year. quently stumble in Sudan because they cies in the Netherlands. It turns out that the Once these societal networks of in‡u• fail to work out which tribal and political key terrorists in a group are often not the ence can be accurately mapped, they can leaders they should work with, and how. leaders, but rather seemingly low•level be used to promote the spread of particu• Ms Carley’s model, known as ORA, an• people, such as drivers and guides, who lar ideas‹those that support stability and alyses a decade of data on such things as keep addresses and phone numbers mem• democracy, for example. Last year Ameri• weather, land and water disputes, cabinet orised. Such people tend to stand out in ca’s army, which jointly funds SOMA with reshu‰es, reactions to corruption, court network models because of their high lev• the air force, began disbursing about $80m cases, economic activity and changes in el of connectedness. To †nd them, analysts in †ve•year research grants for network tribal geographic maps. Within the infor• map Œstructural signatures such as short analysis to promote democracy and na• mation that emerges are lists of the locals phone calls placed to the same number tional security. An authoritarian govern• most likely to co•operate with Westerners, just before and after an attack, which may ment, for instance, may have diˆculties with details of the role each would best indicate that the beginning and end of an slowing the spread of a new idea in a cer• play. This depth of insight, a demonstra• operation has been reported. tain medium‹say, internet chatter about a tion of the power of network analysis to• The capture of Saddam Hussein in book that explains how corruption under• day, will only grow. 7 12 Inside story The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

Engineered geothermal systems (EGS) are based on a related principle, but they Hot rocks and high hopes work even in parts of the world that are not volcanically active, by drilling thou• sands of metres underground to mimic the design of natural steam or hot•water reservoirs. Wells are bored and pathways are created inside hot rocks, into which cold water is injected. The water heats up Geothermal power: Deriving energy from subterranean heat is no longer as it circulates and is then brought back to limited to volcanic regions. By drilling deep wells into the ground, it can be the surface, where the heat is extracted to generate electricity. Because the Earth gets made to work almost anywhere. Just watch out for the earthquakes hotter the deeper you drill, EGS could VER the course of the next ten years a majority of today’s geothermal power expand the reach of geothermal power Ocompany called Geodynamics, plants are located in rift zones or volcani• enormously and provide access to a virtu• based in Queensland, Australia, is plan• cally active parts of the world. In Iceland, ally inexhaustible energy resource. ning to drill as many as 90 wells, each around one•quarter of the country’s ŒThe beauty of the concept is that if it 4,500•5,000 metres deep, in the Cooper electricity is produced by geothermal works, it can work anywhere in the Basin, a desert region in South Australia power stations; at the Svartsengi power world, says Subir Sanyal, president of with large energy reserves. But the com• station, the naturally occurring hot water GeothermEx, a consultancy based in pany is not drilling for oil or gas. It is look• also ‡ows into a lagoon, which is a pop• California. According to ŒThe Future of ing for an energy source that is far cleaner ular (and photogenic) bathing spot. Geothermal Energy, a report issued by and more abundant than any fossil fuel: Geothermal power stations can also be the Massachusetts Institute of Technology heat emanating from hot rocks deep be• found along the ŒRing of Fire around the (MIT) in 2007, the thermal energy avail• neath the Earth’s surface, a promising Paci†c, in Indonesia, the Philippines and able in America in rocks 3•10km (1.9•6.2 emerging form of geothermal energy. on America’s west coast. Conventional miles) beneath the Earth’s surface is nearly Conventional geothermal power geothermal power stations worldwide 140,000 times greater than its annual exploits naturally occurring pockets of have a total capacity of 10.7 gigawatts energy consumption. Conservative esti• steam or hot water, close to the Earth’s (GW) and will generate 67.2 gigawatt mates suggest just 2% of that energy could surface, to generate electricity. (Heat from hours (GWh) of energy this year‹enough be tapped by EGS in practice, but even that the water is used to boil a ‡uid and drive a to supply power to more than 52.5m peo• would be far more than is needed to sup• steam turbine connected to a generator.) ple in 24 countries, according to America’s ply all of America’s electricity. Tapping it Because such conditions are rare, the Geothermal Energy Association. will, however, require both technical and 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Inside story 13

ŒThe beauty of the concept is that if it works, it can work anywhere in the world.

2 economic hurdles to be overcome. The †rst conventional geothermal In fact, EGS projects can be operated At the moment only a few EGS plants power station, powered by hot springs under a range of geological conditions, exist worldwide, including a pilot plant in near Larderello, Italy, began generating from HDR to hot fractured wet rocks, all of Soultz, France, and a small commercial electricity in the early 1900s. It was several which need di erent levels of enhance• plant in Landau, Germany. But Geody• decades before scientists thought of de• ment (ie, di erent amounts of drilling, namics and other companies around the signing systems that could work any• fracturing and water injection). ŒThere’s a world are hoping to change that. Over the where. In the early 1970s the concept of continuum, says Karl Gawell, executive next decade Geodynamics plans to build Œhot dry rock (HDR) geothermal power director of America’s Geothermal Energy ten 50 megawatt (MW) power stations in emerged at Los Alamos National Labora• Association. It extends all the way to Cooper Basin, and that may just be the tory, New Mexico, and researchers from conventional geothermal systems, some beginning. According to Doone Wyborn, the lab conducted the †rst tests at nearby of which are bene†ting from EGS research. the company’s chief scientist, the area’s Fenton Hill. This led to similar projects in The power stations at The Geysers in resources could support hundreds of Britain, Japan, France and elsewhere. Northern California, the world’s largest power stations with a total generating developed geothermal †eld, reinject water capacity of up to 12.5GW‹more than all Drilling into the past into their reservoirs to restore steam re• the geothermal power stations now oper• HDR was based on the idea that by drilling serves and boost output‹a technique ating worldwide. There are also plans for into hot, dry rocks and fracturing them it borrowed from EGS, says Mr Gawell. new EGS projects in America, Britain, would be possible to mimic a natural Costs for conventional geothermal France and Germany. Those in the †eld water•based geothermal system. Cold projects vary widely depending on loca• have high hopes for future expansion: the water is injected into one well and ‡ows tion, temperature and drilling depth, International Geothermal Association through the reservoir’s cracks and path• among other things. Geothermal plants predicts that there will be 160GW of geo• ways, absorbing heat. The hot water is have no fuel costs, but upfront costs are thermal capacity installed worldwide by then brought back to the surface through a high, and verifying the potential of a site, 2050, about half of which will be EGS. production well, where it heats up a sec• as with an oil well, can take a long time, Like other forms of renewable energy, ondary working ‡uid with a lower boiling making †nancing diˆcult in the current geothermal power produces little or no point. The vapour from that ‡uid then economic climate. The most economically carbon dioxide. But unlike other forms of spins a turbine to generate electricity, viable projects, as you might expect, are renewable energy, such as solar or wind while the water is reinjected into the well. those that exploit high temperatures at power, it has the further advantage that it These early experiments led to an shallow depths. A typical American geo• is not intermittent, but can provide steady, important lesson: that creating a produc• thermal power station produces electric• predictable baseload electricity, all day tive, permeable reservoir is best done by ity at a cost of around $0.10/kWh. That and all night. This makes it particularly working with the site’s existing geology, makes geothermal power competitive appealing to utilities. and cracking open or widening existing with many other technologies, especially These bene†ts, in combination with fractures, rather than trying to create with added †nancial incentives such as growing electricity use worldwide, con• entirely new ones. Barry Goldstein, direc• America’s production tax•credit for re• cerns about limited supplies of fossil fuels, tor of petroleum and geothermal at PIRSA, newable•energy projects, currently about and e orts to reduce carbon•dioxide says it is important to choose an area with $0.02/kWh. (Producing electricity from emissions and prevent climate change, the potential to support a suˆcient rate of coal or gas also costs around $0.10/kWh.) have prompted governments and in• water ‡ow to make the project economic. The same cannot be said for EGS, at 1 vestors to pour money into this emerging technology. Google, for example, has invested more than $10m in two EGS companies in California, Potter Drilling and AltaRock Energy. Meanwhile Ameri• ca’s Department of Energy has an• nounced up to $338m in stimulus funds for 123 geothermal projects, with nearly $133m earmarked for EGS research. Australia’s e orts are probably the most ambitious. Primary Industries and Resources SA (PIRSA), an Australian gov• ernment agency, projects that between 2002 and 2014, investments in Australian geothermal projects (including more than $250m in government grants) could reach $2.7 billion‹with roughly 72% of that †gure going toward EGS projects. More than 50 companies exploring geothermal projects in Australia have taken out over 400 licences for areas covering nearly 500,000 square kilometres‹a combined area roughly the size of Spain. 14 Inside story The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

ŒMost earthquakes created by EGS are too small to be felt, but a few have caused damage to property.

2 least for the foreseeable future. As you go geothermal wells comes from the oil•and• goal is to have those events be so tiny that deeper, temperatures go up‹but so do gas industry, but Bob Potter, a member of people can’t feel them. Most earthquakes costs. The equipment on the surface costs the original HDR team at Los Alamos, is created by EGS are indeed too small to be about the same for EGS as it does for con• trying something di erent. His †rm, Potter felt, but a few have caused damage to ventional geothermal power, but the Drilling, is pursuing a process called spall• property. One project in Basel, Switzer• drilling costs can be twice as much or ation, which uses superheated steam. land, was shut down because of a 3.4• more for EGS. Dr Wyborn estimates that When it comes into contact with rock, magnitude earthquake in December 2006 electricity from EGS could initially cost an crystalline grains in the rock expand and that scared residents and cracked build• additional $0.09/kWh over conventional create tiny fractures, causing small parti• ings. Earthquakes of a similar magnitude geothermal, or about $0.19/kWh. That cles, called spalls, to break o . In e ect, it is have also been reported from projects in would make EGS economic only in places a drill that melts rock, says Mr Potter’s son, Australia, Germany and France. with strong †nancial incentives, such as Jared, who is the chief executive of Potter But man•made earthquakes are not Germany, where operators of renewable• Drilling. Spallation can get through rock unique to EGS; they also occur as a result energy projects receive generous subsidies more quickly than conventional drilling, of oil•and•gas drilling, and damming and in the form of feed•in tari s‹currently and the use of steam means there are no mining operations. The question is wheth• $0.31/kWh for power from EGS. costly drill bits that need replacing. er they can be controlled. Ernie Majer, a Technological improvements, such as seismologist and deputy director of the cheaper and better methods for drilling, Little earthquakes Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence creating reservoirs and improving water• Perhaps the biggest hurdle that will pre• Berkeley National Laboratory, who is ‡ow rates, could cut the cost of EGS. Well vent EGS from spreading is its propensity working on re†ning EGS seismicity guide• productivity is especially important. ŒYou to cause noticeable earthquakes that lines for America’s Department of Energy, want to get as much extracted energy as frighten people. Earthquakes are in fact a believes they can. ŒWith proper study and possible for that set of wells you’ve requirement for the technology to work. implementation, you can guarantee that drilled, to maximise the return on your In order to prop open or enlarge existing there won’t be big ones, says Dr Majer, investment, explains Je erson Tester, cracks and fractures, water is injected into who sees small quakes as a nuisance associate director of the Cornell Centre for boreholes at high pressure, causing small rather than a danger. Still, many in the a Sustainable Future and lead author of tremors. ŒThere’s no doubt that what you industry agree that EGS should be devel• the MIT report. So far most EGS projects do when you fracture rock causes seismic• oped in remote areas †rst, rather than in have achieved ‡ow rates of only around ity, says Susan Petty, president and chief densely populated cities such as Basel. 25 litres per second, far short of the 50•100 technology oˆcer of AltaRock. ŒBut the And the risks associated with EGS must litres per second that is required to operate be balanced against the drawbacks of geothermal projects pro†tably. Both Alta• other energy technologies, such as fossil Rock and Geodynamics are working on fuels, which produce carbon•dioxide creating more fractures per well, which emissions and occasional oil spills, and they hope will increase both the ‡ow rate nuclear power, which produces radioac• and heat absorption from the rocks. tive waste. Wind power, meanwhile, is But unexpected problems can pop up. criticised for causing noise pollution, In April 2009 Geodynamics was ready to killing birds and despoiling landscapes. commission a pilot plant when the steel The real question, in the end, is what casing of a well cracked, causing uncon• people are ready to put up with in return trolled ‡ow of water out of the well. An for a secure energy supply. ŒIt’s a trade• independent investigation determined o , says Dr Majer. ŒYou have bene†ts and that the problem could be avoided in the hazards. There’s no perfect technology. future by choosing a di erent type of well Whether EGS can overcome the obsta• casing. Geodynamics has announced that cles it currently faces, and go on to play an it will drill two new wells. Its 1MW pilot important role in the world’s renewable• plant is now scheduled to come online in energy portfolio, should become clear in early 2012, followed by a 25MW commer• the next decade. ŒThe well failure has set cial demonstration plant three years later. us back, acknowledges Dr Wyborn of AltaRock also encountered drilling Geodynamics. But he is certainly not problems in 2009, when it made three giving up. According to the MIT report, the attempts to redrill a well for a demonstra• †rst 100MW of installed EGS capacity tion project at The Geysers. It eventually should be the most diˆcult and costly to abandoned that e ort after the drilling achieve, but after that it should get easier assembly repeatedly got stuck due to the and cheaper. Scarcer and more expensive hole collapsing. Along with its partner, oil would certainly help. ŒThere are thou• Davenport Newberry, it now plans to sands of wells being drilled for oil across demonstrate its technology at another site the world every year, says Dr Wyborn. ŒI near Bend, Oregon, a project for which it imagine that in a couple of decades all of was awarded $21.5m in stimulus funds by those drilling rigs that are now redundant, America’s Department of Energy. because we’ve run out of oil, will be drill• Much of the drilling equipment for Showing the way in Landau ing geothermal wells instead. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Rewiring nerves 15

comes‹a shoulder ‡ex could become a grasp motion, for example, while a twitch How to rewire the of pectoral muscle in the chest may extend the arti†cial arm. But there is a way to overcome both nervous system these diˆculties with motorised limbs, us• ing a technique called Œtargeted reinnerva• tion. Pioneered by Todd Kuiken, director of the Neural Engineering Centre for Arti†• cial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Biomedicine: Doctors are rerouting nerves to give patients more natural Chicago, along with his colleagues Aimee Schultz, Blair Lock and Dr Marasco (who control of prosthetic arms and bring paralysed limbs back to life was formerly at NECAL), this involves re• T IS known as Œphantom limb syn• signals are translated into movements by routing the nerves that would have origi• Idrome or Œphantom pain. But this the prosthetic. nally controlled and sensed the missing strange phenomenon feels all too real to This approach can provide incredible limb and connecting them instead to other the people it a ects, and can be agonis• control over an arti†cial arm, but patients parts of the body. By rewiring a missing ingly painful. Amputees and people who often prefer to use simpler, mechanical arm’s motor nerves to muscles in the re• have become paralysed may still Œfeel a prosthetics. For one thing, such devices al• maining stump, shoulder or chest, for ex• missing limb or a part of their body, even low the patient to sense the movement of ample, and rewiring the arm’s sensory though it is no longer connected to their the arm through a system of cables which nerves to the skin in these regions, a chan• nervous system. Yet such sensations o er are used to control the device, usually by nel is opened to the part of the brain that con†rmation that even when a limb has attaching them to the opposite shoulder. once controlled the missing limb. been severed or cut o from the nervous So even when their eyes are closed they It is a strange and slightly ghoulish idea, system, the nerves that once serviced it re• can get a sense of whether an arti†cial arm because it means that if a patient tries to main alive and well. Doctors are now †nd• is extended, or if there is resistance to a ‡ex his missing †nger, for example, a mus• ing ways to put these nerves to good use, grasping motion, making the limb feel cle in another part of his body (which is by rewiring them to control prosthetic less detached and unnatural now connected to the nerves that limbs or reanimate paralysed limbs. than an EMG device. Anoth• used to control the †nger) con• Moreover, rewiring the nervous system er problem with EMG tracts instead. ŒWhen the am• should allow amputees to gain a sense of prosthetics is that patients putee wants to open or close Œembodiment of a prosthetic. That is, by literally have to retrain their hand, these muscles controlling and sensing the prosthetic us• their brains to make twitch, says Dr Marasco. ing the same neural pathways and parts of new associations be• EMG sensors detect the brain that once governed the real limb, tween muscle move• these signals and trans• the prosthetic can be made to feel and act ments and their out• late them into control like a genuine extension of the user’s body. signals that cause the And by stimulating the nerves in the legs mechanical hand to open or arms of paralysed patients‹nerves that and close. The patient can have been cut o from the central ner• then open and close his vous system‹it is possible to create prosthetic hand simply by co•ordinated movement of great trying to move the †ngers that subtlety. For example, the hands are no longer there. 1 of paralysed patients have been stimulated to enable them to grasp and turn door knobs. And with careful control and co•ordination of the muscle groups in their legs, patients can even rise from their wheelchairs and take steps. Prosthetic limbs are becoming increas• ingly sophisticated, but it can be very diˆ• cult to control them in a natural way, says Paul Marasco, a biomedical engineer at the Louis Stokes Cleveland Department of Vet• eran A airs Medical Center, in Ohio. For example, patients control some motorised devices by ‡exing muscles in their remain• ing stump, shoulder or chest. These muscle movements are detected by electromyog• raphy (EMG) sensors on the skin, and the Natural control of an arti†cial arm 16 Rewiring nerves The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 ŒTargeted reinnervation involves rerouting nerves that originally controlled the missing limb.

2 The sensory side of things works in a there is much more processing power de• them. The problem is that within the femo• similar fashion, but instead of reconnect• voted to these nerves, he says. Just how ral nerve all the fascicles are themselves ing nerves to di erent muscles, they are in• much tactile acuity can be achieved re• bundled together, making it diˆcult to stead rewired to the skin’s underlying sen• mains to be seen. ŒThis is unchartered ter• stimulate them individually. But Dr Tyler sory systems. ŒThey hook themselves up ritory, says Dr Marasco. has developed a cu electrode that allows to the receptors in the skin, says Dr Ma• When it comes to rewiring the limbs of discrimination by gently ‡attening the rasco. So when the reinnervated skin (on paralysed patients in order to reanimate femoral nerve without damaging it. Most the chest or shoulder, perhaps) is touched, them, however, a very di erent approach electrodes are designed around the as• it registers to the patient as a sensation in is required. Researchers must instead target sumption that nerves are round, he says. the missing limb. ŒThey have very distinct the deeper nerves that control movement. But ‡attening them out makes the individ• sensations that they can feel: vibrations, The idea of electrically stimulating the ual fascicles accessible, like the parallel temperature and pressure, he says. This muscles of paralysed people is not new. wires in old computer cables, says Dr Tyler. means sensors in a prosthetic limb could, Many di erent techniques have emerged And by controlling the intensity and in theory, stimulate the reinnervated skin over the years, most of which involve ap• duration of the electrical pulses applied, it to cause realistic sensations. plying small jolts of electricity externally is possible to specify just how much of the The †rst example of sensory reinnerva• to muscles, via electrodes on the skin, to tissue is contracted. Besides getting pa• tion actually happened by accident back in make them contract. Besides o ering a tients to stand and take steps, albeit tremu• 2003, when the surgery was †rst per• means of exercising the muscles, and so lous ones, Dr Tyler and his team have used formed, says Ms Schultz. Several patients preventing atrophy, the hope is that this an early version of this technique in a pa• underwent surgery to reroute their motor Œfunctional electrical stimulation might tient’s arms to enable grasping move• nerves to di erent muscles, but in the pro• also help restore mobility to patients. ments. They hope to carry out the †rst per• cess the sensory nerves reinnervated manent implantation of their new themselves too, attaching themselves to Reanimate this electrodes in November. the skin receptors. This was discovered But external stimulation is less than ideal, But to create full mobility, what is not when one of the patients was having alco• says Dustin Tyler, a biomedical engineer at clear is how a patient might control such a hol dabbed on his chest, and remarked Case Western Reserve University in Cleve• system. Some sort of joystick interface that he could feel it in his missing limb. land, Ohio. The muscles in the legs are so could be used to allow paraplegic people, ŒEveryone was stunned, says Ms Schultz. large that the whole muscle does not con• who still have control of their upper body, This opened the door to the possibility tract, he says. So he and his colleagues have to activate certain patterns of co•ordinated of providing feedback to patients. But en• been looking at ways to activate these movement, such as standing, walking and abling patients to sense things will mean muscles by tapping into the femoral nerve, sitting. But in the long term the ultimate developing sensors to go on prosthetic in the groin. ŒBy moving back to the nerve goal would be to place electrodes in the limbs, and corresponding devices to stim• you get the whole muscle, he says. The motor cortex of the brain. ulate the reinnervated skin. To this end Dr femoral nerve is divided into several doz• That is some way o . But targeted rein• Marasco and his colleagues have been en separate bundles of nerves, called fasci• nervation is now available as a treatment. working with Ed Colgate, a haptics expert cles, each of which contains hundreds if More than 40 people around the world at Northwestern University in Evanston, Il• not thousands of individual nerves. Di er• have undergone the procedure so far. Even linois, and Kinea Design, a biomechatron• ent fascicles lead to di erent muscles, so though patients can currently use it only to ics †rm that is also based in Evanston, to stimulating groups of fascicles at di erent control their arti†cial limbs, sensory feed• develop tactile devices that would attach times and by di erent degrees should en• back is coming. And these are merely the to the amputee’s skin. able co•ordinated leg movements. †rst examples of what can be done by re• Multisensory devices have already Stimulating fascicles can be done by wiring the nervous system, and linking been developed and tested on reinnervat• wrapping so•called cu electrodes around nerves to electronic and robotic devices. 7 ed amputees, relaying sensations of con• tact, pressure, vibration, shear force and temperature. These prototypes use me• chanical stimulation to create these sensa• tions, and electrical Peltier devices to gen• erate di erent temperatures. Patients feel the sensations in their missing limbs, and one patient was even able to discriminate by touch between sandpaper, Te‡on and the bumpy texture of a computer ribbon cable using arti†cial touch sensors. Although there are far fewer sensory re• ceptors in the skin of the chest, shoulder and upper arm than there are in the hand, the tactile acuity of these regions’ skin ap• pears to increase when reinnervated, says Dr Marasco. It’s not entirely clear why, but it probably comes down to how the brain perceives these signals. ŒIt appears that Getting touchy•feely with haptic sensors The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Energy in the developing world 17

Power to the people so that the cost per kilowatt is half what it was a decade ago. Solar cells can be used to power low•energy LEDs, which are both energy•eˆcient and cheap: the cost of a set of LEDs to light a home has fallen by half in the past decade, and is now below $25. ŒThis could eliminate kerosene lighting in the next ten years, the way cellphones took o in about 13 years, says Richenda Van Leeuwen of the Energy Access Initia• tive at the UN Foundation in Washington, DC. That would have a number of bene†ts: families in the developing world may spend as much as 30% of their income on kerosene, and kerosene lighting causes in• door air pollution and †res. But such systems are still beyond the reach of the very poorest. ŒThere are hun• dreds of millions who can a ord clean en• ergy, but there is still a barrier for the bil• lions who cannot, says Sam Goldman, the chief executive of D.light. His †rm has developed a range of solar•powered sys• tems that can provide up to 12 hours of light after charging in sunlight for one day. D.light’s most basic solar lantern costs $10. But the price would have to fall below $5 to make it universally a ordable, according to a study by the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank. So Technology and development: A growing number of initiatives are promoting there is scope for further improvement. bottom•up ways to deliver energy to the world’s poor It is not just new technology that is needed, but new models. Much of the fer• ROUND 1.5 billion people, or more than system of distributed, sustainable power ment in bottom•up energy entrepreneur• Aa †fth of the world’s population, have sources. The developing world has an op• ialism is focusing on South Asia, where no access to electricity, and a billion more portunity to leapfrog the centralised mod• 570m people in India, Pakistan and Bangla• have only an unreliable and intermittent el, just as it leapfrogged †xed•line telecoms desh, mostly in rural areas, have no access supply. Of the people without electricity, and went straight to mobile phones. to electricity, according to the International 85% live in rural areas or on the fringes of But just as the spread of mobile phones Energy Agency. One idea is to use locally cities. Extending energy grids into these ar• was helped along by new business mod• available biomass as a feedstock to gener• eas is expensive: the United Nations esti• els, such as pre•paid airtime cards and vil• ate power for a village•level Œmicro•grid. mates that an average of $35 billion•40 bil• lage Œtelephone ladies, new approaches Husk Power Systems, an Indian †rm, uses lion a year needs to be invested until 2030 are now needed. ŒWe need to reinvent second•world•war•era diesel generators so everyone on the planet can cook, heat how energy is delivered, says Simon Des• †tted with biomass gasi†ers that can use and light their premises, and have energy jardins, who manages a programme at the rice husks, which are otherwise left to rot, for productive uses such as schooling. On Shell Foundation that invests in for•pro†t as a feedstock. Wires are strung on cheap, current trends, however, the number of ways to deliver energy to the poor. ŒCom• easy•to•repair bamboo poles to provide Œenergy poor people will barely budge, panies need to come up with innovative power to around 600 families for each gen• and 16% of the world’s population will still business models and technology. Fortu• erator. Co•founded three years ago by a lo• have no electricity by 2030, according to nately, lots of people are doing just that. cal electrical engineer, Gyanesh Pandey, the International Energy Agency. Husk has established †ve mini•grids in Bi• But why wait for top•down solutions? Let there be light har, India’s poorest state, where rice is a sta• Providing energy in a bottom•up way in• Start with lighting, which prompted the es• ple crop. It hopes to extend its coverage to stead has a lot to recommend it. There is no tablishment of the †rst electrical utilities in 50 mini•grids during 2010. Consumers pay need to wait for politicians or utilities to the rich world. At the ŒLighting Africa con• door•to•door collectors upfront for power, act. The technology in question, from solar ference in Nairobi in May, a World Bank and Husk collects a 30% government subsi• panels to low•energy light•emitting diodes project to encourage private•sector sol• dy for construction costs. Its pilot plants (LEDs), is rapidly falling in price. Local, bot• utions for the poor, 50 lighting †rms dis• were pro†table within six months, so its tom•up systems may be more sustainable played their wares, up from just a handful model is sustainable. and produce fewer carbon emissions than last year. This illustrates both the growing Emergence BioEnergy takes this ap• centralised schemes. In the rich world, in interest in bottom•up solutions and falling proach a step farther. Its aim is to provide fact, the trend is towards a more ‡exible prices. Prices of solar cells have also fallen, many entrepreneurial opportunities 1 18 Energy in the developing world The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

giant micro†nance and devel• says Patrick Maloney of the Lemelson opment NGO. Foundation, which invests in clean•energy Another project, in India, technologies for the poor. A telephone aims to convert women from lady could buy a mobile phone for a rela• gathering wood, which de• tively small sum, and would immediately nudes forests, to using canisters have a source of income with which to re• of lique†ed petroleum gas pay the loan. Although a household that (LPG). India’s four state•owned buys a solar lamp saves money on kero• regional power companies, in• sene, the investment takes several months cluding Bharat Petroleum Cor• to pay for itself, and there is no actual in• poration, will build a national come from the lamp. For bigger energy pro• network of thousands of LPG• jects, such as micro•generators, the loan re• powered community kitchens. quired is much larger, and therefore riskier, Local entrepreneurs will then than the loan for a mobile phone. provide the LPG and charge vil• Moreover, micro†nance institutions lagers to use the kitchens in 15• may lack the funds to identify reliable en• minute increments. ergy suppliers, educate loan oˆcers about Harish Hande, managing di• clean•energy technologies and build a sup• rector of Selco Solar, a social port network for energy schemes. One enterprise in India that pro• way to solve this problem, being pursued motes the adoption of new en• by MicroEnergy Credits, a social enter• ergy technologies, says the im• prise, is to plug micro†nance institutions portant thing is not so much to into carbon markets. Projects can then be deliver energy to the poor, but funded by selling carbon credits when a to provide new ways to gener• micro†nance customer switches from ker• ate income. His †rm has de• osene to solar lighting, for example. vised a solar•powered sewing Distribution is also a problem, particu• machine, for example. Last larly in Africa and South Asia, where the year Mr Hande started an incu• majority of the world’s energy•poor live. Generating electricity from rice husks bation lab in rural Karnataka, Infrastructure and supply chains are poor in southern India, to bring to• or non•existent, particularly in rural areas. 2 around energy production, says Iqbal gether local customers and engineering in• Recruiting and training a sales force, and Quadir, the †rm’s founder, who is also di• terns from MIT, Stanford and Imperial Col• educating consumers of the bene†ts of rector of the Legatum Centre for Develop• lege, London. The lab is currently piloting a switching away from wood or kerosene, ment & Entrepreneurship at the Massachu• hybrid banana dryer that runs on biomass must be paid for somehow. Social enter• setts Institute of Technology (MIT). A cattle during wet spells and sunlight on dry days prises are innovating in this area, too. Solar farmer in a small village in Bangladesh to make packets of dried banana‹so that Aid, a non•pro†t group, specialises in set• might, for example, operate a one•kilowatt farmers no longer have to rely on selling ting up microfranchises to identify and generator in his hut, powered by methane their crop immediately. train entrepreneurs. The organisation from cow manure stored in his basement. works with local authorities to identify po• He can then sell surplus electricity to his Making it pay tential entrepreneurs, who must gather sig• neighbours and use the waste heat from Even when new technology and models natures from their local community‹pro• the generator to run a refrigerator to chill are available, the logistics of rolling them viding both the endorsement of their milk. This preserves milk that otherwise out can be daunting. The two big chal• neighbours and a future customer base. might be spoilt, o ers new sources of in• lenges are providing the upfront invest• They then undergo †ve days of training come to the farmer (selling power and oth• ment for energy schemes, and building with an exam at the end. Solar Aid is also er services, such as charging mobile and maintaining the necessary distribu• testing a kiosk•based system to help entre• phones or running an internet kiosk) and tion systems to enable them to reach suˆ• preneurs distribute LED lighting in the Kib• provides power to others in his village. cient scale. At the moment, most schemes era district of the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The farmer funds all this with a micro†• are funded by angel investors, foundations Some hurdles to bottom•up energy pro• nance loan. It is no coincidence that this is a and social venture•capital funds. There is a jects are more easily addressed. In particu• similar model to the Œtelephone lady vigorous debate about whether the private lar, high import duties on clean•energy scheme, pioneered in Bangladesh a few sector on its own can make these models products in many developing countries, years ago, in which women use micro• work as technology improves, or whether notably in Africa, hamper their adoption loans to buy mobile phones and then sell non•pro†t groups are needed to †ll the by the poor. Ethiopia, for example, im• access, by the call, to other villagers; Mr gaps in funding and distribution. poses a 100% duty on imports of solar pro• Quadir helped establish Grameenphone, Micro†nance institutions may seem ducts, while Malawi charges a 47.5% tax on now the largest mobile operator in Bangla• the natural †nancial partners to help the LED lighting systems. Such taxes are some• desh, and hopes to repeat its success in en• poor pay for energy systems, since they are times defended on the basis that only the ergy. After a pilot project in two villages, the only organisations with millions of rich can a ord fancy technology. But the Emergence BioEnergy plans a broader roll• poor customers. But teething problems are same was said about mobile phones a de• out in 2011 in conjunction with BRAC, a formidable and success stories are few, cade ago‹and look at them now. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010 Brain scan 19 The virtual curmudgeon

contraptions, including a haunted Œhouse that he describes as Œtoo strange and Jaron Lanier, a pioneer of terrifying for even a single kid to visit. virtual•reality technology, has more But he had few friends of his own age recently become an outspoken critic in any case. The young Mr Lanier was far of online social media more comfortable in the company of adults and had a talent for befriending ROM ŒWikinomics to ŒCognitive clever people who acted as mentors. FSurplus to ŒCrowdsourcing, there is Clyde Tombaugh, the head of optics at the no shortage of books lauding the ŒWeb missile range and the discoverer of the 2.0 era and celebrating the online col• dwarf planet Pluto, took him under his laboration, interaction and sharing that it wing and helped him build telescopes makes possible. Today anyone can pub• from cast•o technology. Mr Lanier also lish a blog or put a video on YouTube, and had access to the well•equipped computer thousands of online volunteers can collec• centre at White Sands. tively produce an operating system like Mesilla was a rough town back then, Linux or an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. and not an easy place for a sensitive, in• Isn’t that great? telligent young man to †t in. ŒI was very No, says Jaron Lanier, a technologist, intensely lonely and very disconnected, musician and polymath who is best says Mr Lanier. ŒIt left me with a profound known for his pioneering work in the †eld awkwardness that I haven’t fully over• of virtual reality. His book, ŒYou Are Not A come. His sense of alienation gave him Gadget: A Manifesto, published earlier an abiding fascination with what it means this year, is a provocative attack on many to be connected to other people. ŒWhat of the internet’s sacred cows. Mr Lanier does it mean to not be alone? asks Mr lays into the Web 2.0 culture, arguing that Lanier. ŒI’ve approached that question what passes for creativity today is really through music, technology, writing and just endlessly rehashed content and that other means. the Œfake friendship of social networks After dropping out of both high school Œis just bait laid by the lords of the clouds and art college, Mr Lanier tried his hand at to lure hypothetical advertisers. For Mr goat•herding and midwifery. His anti• Lanier there is no wisdom of crowds, only establishment tendencies prevented him a cruel mob. ŒAnonymous blog com• from doing the obvious thing and taking a ments, vapid video pranks and light• job at the White Sands missile range. weight mash•ups may seem trivial and Instead, he hopped into a bullet•riddled harmless, he writes, Œbut as a whole, this Dodge Dart and drove to California in widespread practice of fragmentary, im• pursuit of a girl, characteristically hanging personal communication has demeaned out with the Nobel prize•winning phys• personal interaction. icists, Richard Feynman and Murray Gell• If this criticism of Google, Facebook, Mann, along the way. Twitter and Wikipedia had come from an outsider‹a dyed•in•the•wool techno• It all started with Atari phobe‹then nobody would have paid California in the early 1980s proved to be much attention. But Mr Lanier’s denuncia• more accepting of bohemian inventors tion of internet groupthink as Œdigital than Mesilla, New Mexico, and Mr Lanier Maoism carries more weight because of felt at home. Via a circuitous route, he his career at technology’s cutting edge. went from busking on the streets of Santa Mr Lanier was born in New York City Cruz to working for Atari, a video•games in 1960, but his bohemian parents upped †rm, as a researcher. At his new home in sticks and moved to Mesilla, New Mexico, Sausalito, he also busied himself devel• when he was young. His mother died in a oping a video game called Moondust, car accident when he was nine and he which he demonstrated to his new em• was raised by his father in diˆcult †• ployers. Tom Zimmerman, a co•worker, nancial circumstances. Their house was recalls the game being a Œvisual orgy repossessed and for a long time the La• where the player has to move a cloud niers lived in tents. Eventually they built a around. Move the cloud fast enough, and Œstrange house that the young Mr Lanier you are rewarded with a surge of light and helped design. It took seven years to com• sound. ŒEveryone else was writing plete and gave him a taste for creating shoot•’em•up games, so I knew this guy fantastical environments. He also collect• was di erent, says Mr Zimmerman. ed bits of discarded technology from the In 1984 Atari’s fortunes changed for the nearby White Sands missile base and built worse and Mr Lanier and Mr Zimmerman 1 20 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly September 4th 2010

ŒWe have to revive the beautiful intellectual joy of computing, as opposed to the business potential.

2 found themselves without a job. For Mr dures that can be performed. of being the next Larry Page or Mark Zuck• Lanier, unemployment simply meant One problem in assessing the success erberg they are all thinking within the more time to work on pet projects. Having of VR is that the term itself, coined by Mr con†nes of narrow engineering and com• made some money from selling Moon• Lanier, has come to mean many things. mercial strategies, Mr Lanier argues. dust, he continued to work on a Œpost• ŒThe original term meant a shared experi• ŒWe’re losing track of the vastness of the symbolic visual programming language ence of a virtual world in which a comput• potential for computer science, he says. (VPL) for manipulating objects in three• er simulation intervened in the sensory• ŒWe really have to revive the beautiful dimensional space. What was missing motor loop, says Mr Lanier. ŒThese days, intellectual joy of it, as opposed to the was an interface device to move the ob• it means just about anything. business potential. jects about. As it happened, Mr Zimmer• So it is perhaps surprising that Mr man had developed a Œdata glove some Carry on connecting Lanier has collaborated with some of the years before, with the intention of using it Oddly, in 1996, when Allan Weis had a very †rms he criticises. He has done busi• to mould virtual pottery. But program• Œcrazy idea to create distributed virtual ness with Google, which has acquired a ming was not Mr Zimmerman’s forte. reality, he hadn’t heard of Jaron Lanier. At couple of the †rms where he has worked ŒJaron was looking for a more interesting the time, Mr Weis worked for Advanced since the collapse of VPL. He has been an interface technology for his programming Network & Services, a non•pro†t organisa• adviser to Linden Lab, the makers of ŒSec• language, says Mr Zimmerman. ŒYou tion that built and maintained a large ond Life, an online virtual world. More could characterise it as software looking section of the internet under contract to recently he has worked as a Œpartner for hardware. I was on the other side. I had the American National Science Founda• architect with Microsoft on Kinect, a this rich interface device, but no applica• tion. The NSF provided Mr Weis with a camera that attaches to its Xbox 360 tion for it. grant of several million dollars to develop games console. Kinect enables full•body In 1985 Mr Zimmerman, along with his crazy idea, known as tele•immersion. motion capture, voice recognition and face Chuck Blanchard, Young Harvill and Steve His †rst move was to hold a conference at recognition, allowing gamers to use their Bryson, joined Mr Lanier’s recently the University of Illinois and invite every• bodies, voices and faces instead of con• formed company, VPL Research, that body he knew who was involved in virtu• ventional game controllers. When asked would pioneer virtual reality. ŒJaron was al reality and computer graphics to join to justify biting the hand that feeds him, picking up these fantastical ideas of virtu• him in his new venture‹the National Mr Lanier observes that Microsoft is Œthe al creatures you’d inhabit through your Tele•immersion Initiative. only institution in the world for doing this body, and people would be interacting in Each person Mr Weis recruited said Mr type of work on a large scale. this virtual world, and I was doing the Lanier should be running the project. Mr Even more surprising, perhaps, is that interface hardware, building these gloves Weis eventually tracked him down and Jimmy Wales, the co•founder of Wikipe• for him, says Mr Zimmerman. ŒWe were o ered him the job of lead scientist. ŒHe dia, describes Mr Lanier as Œa lovely guy. basically creating this industry, although was able to get a lot of people with very ŒWe may have some disagreements about we didn’t know it at the time. VPL created large egos working together on a joint Web 2.0, says Mr Wales, Œbut I consider the †rst software avatars, the †rst multi• project and accomplished an enormous his criticism to be generally thoughtful person virtual reality, the †rst commercial amount in just a few years, says Mr Weis. and always honest. Running Wikipedia VR equipment and its †rst application, to ŒHe doesn’t let his ego get in the way of means that Mr Wales is all too aware of surgical simulation. VPL thrived for a working with people. And I’ve never met the pitfalls, as well as the advantages, of while, selling 1.3m basic data gloves to anyone who didn’t really respect him. mass online collaboration. ŒWe may not Mattel, a toymaker, and a smaller number Mr Lanier’s ability to connect with be as far apart as people might imagine, of high•end gloves to NASA and IBM. But people, in order to connect people, is he says of Mr Lanier. 7 the †rm †led for bankruptcy in 1990, and possibly his greatest asset. When describ• all its patents were sold to Sun Microsys• ing him, his friends use terms like Œhug• O er to readers tems, then a rising computer•maker. gable, Œjovial and Œhumanist. It is easy Reprints of this special report are available from Looking back, 20 years later, it is hard to to see why the collectivism of Web 2.0 irks The Rights and Syndication Department. say whether Mr Lanier’s VR dream has Mr Lanier. He regards it as impersonal, A minimum order of †ve copies is required. been realised or not. In a sense, it has passive, anonymous and less than the become commonplace in the form of sum of its parts, and calls it a Œhive mind. Corporate o er video games, which routinely feature He has described VR, by contrast, as Œthe Customisation options on corporate orders of avatars and have controllers that sense †rst medium to come along that doesn’t 100 or more are available. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. movement and provide vibrational feed• narrow the human spirit. VR For more information on how to order special back. But in the precise form that Mr ŒYou Are Not A Gadget is a pessimistic reports, reprints or any queries you may have Lanier originally conceived it, with head• book, but Mr Lanier argues that it is opti• please contact: mounted displays, data•gloves and im• mistic about humans. ŒIt says that hu• mersive environments, is used only in mans are special, they’re not computers, The Rights and Syndication department obscure corners of industrial design. The he explains. He does not just rail against The Economist †eld that has bene†ted most from the Web 2.0. He also decries the lack of ambi• 26 Red Lion Square London WC1R 4HQ technology is probably medicine, where tion in computer science, and worries that Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 VR is used for surgical training and plan• there is less experimentation than there Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 ning. VR can also be used during surgery was in the past. To criticise computing for e•mail: [email protected] to enhance the surgeon’s vision, increas• a lack of innovation sounds odd. But www.economist.com.rights ing the number of non•invasive proce• when computer•science students dream