Cars that can Scrubbing CO2 How pacemakers park themselves from the air keep the beat TechnologyQuarterly March 7th 2009

Cutting the final cord The promise of wireless charging Contents

On the cover Wireless networking for laptops is commonplace, and mobile phones let people do all sorts of amazing things while on the move. But one stubborn cable remains: the power lead for recharging portable devices’ batteries. New technologies now aim to cut this †nal cord: page 12 Shifting gears Monitor 2 Greener jet engines, revamping lead•acid batteries, biofuel from co ee, solar power from balloons, growing arti†cial bone marrow, a mousetrap for bacteria, optical memory chips, Aviation: ŒGreen jet engines, able to power aircraft while producing fewer using lasers in farming, smart emissions, are under development. Which design will prevail? threads, rotating buildings, reading online reviews, and HAT jet engines have evolved over the them, and this in turn means they are alternate•reality games Tpast few decades will be apparent to quieter and use less fuel. any seasoned air traveller. Early jet en• But the aviation industry has set itself a Rational consumer gines had narrow inlets and were very tough target: a 50% reduction in fuel con• noisy, but as the diameter of the fans at the 11 Self•parking cars sumption by 2020, to cut CO2 emissions in Find a space, then click front increased, the engines became quiet• half. Building more aerodynamic aircraft er. Compared with a rowdy 1960s jet, a and operating them more eˆciently (by modern turbofan is some 80% quieter and Wireless charging reducing air•traˆc•control delays, for burns as little as half as much fuel‹thus instance) could produce about two•thirds 12 Adaptor die producing fewer greenhouse gases. But of those savings. But the rest will have to Cutting the †nal cord with regulation of aviation emissions come from better engines. Research in likely in the coming years in order to com• areas such as new materials and improved Carbon capture bat climate change, jet engines must be• blade design will provide incremental 14 Scrubbing the skies come cleaner and more frugal still. improvements to high•bypass turbofans. A remedy for climate change? When a jet engine is running, a fan at But it is unclear whether these will be the front draws in air, which is then com• enough to achieve the required fuel sav• Case history pressed and burned with fuel to produce ings. A completely new type of engine 16 The rhythm of life hot, rapidly expanding gases which roar may be needed. A brief history of pacemakers out of the back. On the way out, these The solution devised by Pratt & Whit• gases drive a turbine which is connected ney (P&W), a division of United Technol• Video analysis to the fan via a shaft, thus drawing in more ogies, is a Œgeared turbofan engine called air and keeping the process going. But not PW G 19 Computers that can see the PurePower 1000 . Unlike a con• The latest in machine vision all the air passing through an engine ventional turbofan, it uses a gearbox needs to go through the turbine. Over the rather than a shaft between the fan and years the fans have grown larger and the Crowd modelling the turbine. Turbines run most eˆciently fraction of the air that passes through the at high speeds, and fans at low speeds, so 21 Mob rules turbine has fallen. The latest Œhigh bypass turbofan engines have to compromise Simulating crowd behaviour turbofans, such as the Rolls•Royce Trent, between the two, because the engine’s push around nine times more air around design requires them to turn at the same Brain scan the core of the engine than through it. speed. A gearbox, however, allows the 23 The internet’s librarian Such high•bypass engines rely on a bigger turbine to operate at a high speed while A pro†le of Brewster Kahle, but slower•moving volume of air to pro• driving the fan at a lower speed. In Febru• archivist and idealist vide thrust. Their turbines can be smaller, ary P&W said that in tests, this design had since not all the air is passing through proved capable of Œdouble digit improve• 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Monitor 3

2 ments in fuel eˆciency and emissions, dioxide and a negative electrode of metal• and a 50% reduction in noise. lic lead. These are immersed in an electro• Some airlines, however, are wary of lyte of dilute sulphuric acid. Car batteries gearboxes. They worry that replacing a Recharged tend to have thin electrode plates, which simple shaft with a complex gearbox will allows a lot of energy to be discharged increase maintenance costs and make it quickly, but only for a short period of time. more likely that something will go wrong. That is †ne for turning a starter motor, but P&W disagrees. Bolted under the wing of it is not so good for powering an electric an Airbus A340 as part of its test pro• Energy: There is life in a 150•year•old motor intended to move a car any dis• gramme, the PW1000G endured more battery technology yet, it seems, as tance. Moreover, lead•acid batteries can be than 75 hours of operation, including venerable lead•acid batteries are ruined if they are discharged completely, many extreme manoeuvres, and proved as many motorists have discovered to its durability, says Bob Saia, who is in given a modern overhaul their cost when trying to start their cars on charge of engine development at P&W. EAD•ACID batteries seem to have been icy mornings. Lead•acid batteries with Moreover, he adds, the gearbox is made Laround for ever. They were invented in thicker electrodes can tolerate such Œdeep from the same kind of steel that is already 1859 by Gaston Planté, a French physicist, discharges better than those with thin used in the small gearboxes that take and have done sterling work over the ones, but only at the expense of making a power from turbofans for aircraft systems. decades starting car engines and pow• heavy battery even heavier. P&W will now use the data gathered ering slow•moving vehicles such as fork• In Axion’s new battery the negative from its test ‡ights to †nalise the engine’s lift trucks and milk ‡oats. Compared with electrode is replaced with one made from design. The PW1000G is due to enter the newer energy technologies that are activated carbon, a material used in su• service in 2013 powering two new short• now sweeping the world, however, they percapacitors. Normal capacitors‹those haul aircraft being built by Mitsubishi and look old•fashioned and a bit frumpy. that power the ‡ashguns in cameras for Bombardier. It could also be scaled up for These days the catwalk is crowded with instance‹can be charged and discharged use on bigger aircraft. Some in the in• nickel•metal hydride and lithium•ion rapidly, but cannot store much energy. dustry think geared turbofans could even• batteries, showing o their ability to pack Supercapacitors are meatier versions that tually reduce fuel consumption by 20•25%. lots of energy into a small space and deliv• are able to hold a reasonable amount of There is another way to build a greener er a steady current over a long period. The energy, and can take it in and release it jet engine: by bypassing the turbine to an fact that these modern batteries are also quickly. Some, indeed, are already used in even greater extent, with an open rotor. lighter (lead is, after all, one of the densest tandem with the lithium•ion batteries in This is a bit like going back to propellers. A elements in the periodic table) has made electric cars to boost acceleration and number of designs use two rings of stub• them the obvious choices for powering recapture energy during so•called Œregen• by, counter•rotating blades made from truly serious electric vehicles, as opposed erative braking. Axion’s plan, therefore, is composite materials. Unlike the blades on to the ones that potter about in ware• to have the best of both worlds by build• old•fashioned propeller engines, these houses and on suburban streets. ing a hybrid battery that is based on lead• blades spin around at the back of the But it is a mistake to dismiss something acid/carbon (PbC) chemistry. engine. Rolls•Royce and General Electric just because it is old. Another way of The carbon, which is protected within (GE) are studying this approach, though looking at things is that lead•acid batteries a sandwich of other materials, is more they are also keeping their options open are tried and trusted; they may just need a e ective than metallic lead at exchanging by working on improvements to conven• bit of pepping up. Axion Power, a †rm protons with the acid during charging and tional turbofans, too. GE carried out test based near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has discharging. In tests, Axion says, its PbCs ‡ights with an open•rotor engine in the found that the ideal tonic is carbon. withstood more than 1,600 charges and 1980s, and reckoned it would use 30% less A conventional lead•acid battery is deep discharges before failure, which is fuel than similar•sized engines of the time. made up of a series of cells, each of which three times better than standard lead•acid But the engine was noisy, and there were contains a positive electrode made of lead batteries that are speci†cally designed for 1 concerns about what would happen if one of the blades broke o and tore into the aircraft’s fuselage. All this is diˆcult for aircraft•makers, who are used to being able to hang com• peting engines o the same wing. Airlines can then choose which airframe to buy, and which engines, and there is competi• tion in both †elds. But the geared turbofan and the open rotor are so di erent from each other that they will need di erent airframes. For safety reasons, open•rotor engines might have to be mounted at the back, for example. At the moment Boeing is concentrating on its new 787, a medium• sized, wide•bodied aircraft, and its rival Airbus is delivering the †rst examples of its new A380 super•jumbo. But before long the two companies will turn their attention to designing replacements for the smaller 737 and A320, the most numer• ous aircraft in the sky. At that point, they will have to decide which, if either, of these new engines they want to adopt. 7 The Tesla of its day ran on lead•acid batteries 4 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

2 such deep cycles. electricity grids that might otherwise grounds can still be used for compost. True, the new batteries are still heavy su er Œbrownouts as a consequence of The researchers’ work began two years compared with lithium•ion ones. ŒBut not demand temporarily exceeding supply. ago when Dr Misra, a heavy co ee drinker, everyone needs or can a ord an electric They might also provide an answer to the left a cup un†nished and noticed the next car that accelerates like a Tesla, says Ed problem of matching the supply of solar day that the co ee was covered by a †lm Buiel, Axion’s chief technical oˆcer, and wind energy to the demand for elec• of oil. Since he was investigating biofuels, referring to the fastest electric car yet to be tricity, by storing electricity during the day, he enlisted his colleagues to look at cof• put into production, which uses a huge or during particularly windy periods, so fee’s potential. The nearby Starbucks was number of lithium•ion cells. And for those that it is available at night, or during calm happy to oblige by supplying grounds. who do not require Tesla•like perfor• periods when the wind drops. The researchers found that co ee biodie• mance, this makes sense. PbC batteries are Other companies are also looking at sel is comparable to the best biodiesels on durable and cheap to make because, ways to give the lead•acid battery a new the market. But unlike biodiesels based on according to Dr Buiel, they can be pro• lease of life. Furukawa Battery, a Japanese soya or other plants, it does not divert duced on existing lead•acid production †rm, has developed the UltraBattery. This, crops or land from food production into lines. A Tesla costs $109,000. Axion, by too, combines the bene†ts of a lead•acid fuel production. contrast, has converted a pickup truck to battery with those of a supercapacitor, but A further advantage is that unmodi†ed run on a pack of its batteries for around in a di erent way: it splits the negative oils from plants, like the peanut oil used by $8,000. (It has a range of 70km, or about 45 electrode in two, with one part made of Diesel in the 19th century, have high vis• miles.) The company is also working with lead and the other of carbon. In Septem• cosity and require engine alterations. a number of other small engineering †rms ber 2008 East Penn Manufacturing, a big Diesel derived from co ee is less thick and to convert other sorts of vehicles. American battery•maker, struck an agree• can usually be burned in an engine with Nor is transport the only application. ment with Furukawa to put the UltraBat• little or no tinkering. In another project, called Power Cube, tery into production. The diesel•extraction method for co ee Axion is putting banks of its batteries into Meanwhile, America’s marines are grounds is similar to that used for other a shipping container, which can then be testing a special version of Axion’s battery vegetable oils. It employs a process called used as a mobile energy•storage system in some of their assault vehicles. If they transesteri†cation, in which the grounds that can supply up to 1MW of power for 30 can satisfy such demanding users, lead• react with an alcohol in the presence of a minutes, or 100KW for ten hours. Power acid batteries with a dash of carbon could catalyst. The co ee grounds are dried Cubes could help deliver power to local be ready to lead a new charge. 7 overnight and common chemical sol• vents, such as hexane, ether and dichloro• methane, are added to dissolve the oils. The grounds are then †ltered out and the solvents separated (to be reused with the Fuelled by co ee next batch of co ee grounds). The remain• ing oil is treated with an alkali to remove free fatty acids (which form a soap). Then the crude biodiesel is heated to about Biofuels: A novel form of biodiesel is derived from an unusual feedstock that 100°C to remove any water, and treated with methanol and a catalyst, so that is more commonly used to fuel mental activities: co ee transesteri†cation takes place. When UNNING a diesel engine on a plant• cooled to room temperature and left to Rbased fuel is hardly a new idea. One of stand, the biodiesel ‡oats up, leaving a the early demonstrations carried out by layer of glycerine at the bottom. These Rudolph Diesel, the German engineer layers are separated and the biodiesel is who invented the engines at the end of cleaned to remove any residues. the 19th century, operated on pure peanut Although some people make their own oil. Diesel fuel made from crude oil even• diesel at home from leftovers and recycled tually won the day because it was easier to cooking oil, co ee•based biodiesel seems use and cheaper to produce. But new better suited to larger•scale processes. Dr forms of biodiesel are now starting to Misra says that a litre of biodiesel requires change the picture again. One of them is 5•7kg of co ee grounds, depending on the derived from the remains of a drink en• oil content of the co ee in question. In joyed the world over: co ee. their laboratory his team has set up a Biodiesels are becoming increasingly one•gallon•a•day production facility, popular. In America, Minnesota has de• which uses between 19kg and 26kg of creed that all diesel sold in the state must co ee grounds. The biofuel should cost contain 2% biodiesel (much of it from the about $1per gallon to make in a medium• crops grown by the state’s soya farmers). would otherwise be thrown away or used sized installation, the researchers estimate. Biodiesel can also be found blended into as compost. Narasimharao Kondamudi, Commercial production could be the fuel used by public and commercial Susanta Mohapatra and Manoranjan carried out by a company that collected vehicles and by trains in a number of Misra of the University of Nevada at Reno co ee grounds from big co ee•chains and countries. Aircraft•engine makers are have found that co ee grounds can yield cafeterias. There is plenty available: ac• testing biofuel blends. As with other 10•15% of biodiesel by weight relatively cording to a report by the United States biofuels, the idea is that making fuel from easily. And when burned in an engine the Department of Agriculture, more than 7m plants, which absorb carbon dioxide as fuel does not have an o ensive smell‹just tonnes of co ee are consumed every year, they grow, will produce fewer emissions a whi of co ee. (Some biodiesels made which the researchers estimate could than burning fossil fuels. from used cooking•oil produce exhaust produce some 340m gallons of biodiesel. In the case of co ee, the biodiesel is that smells like a fast•food joint.) And after Time, perhaps, to pour another cup before made from the leftover grounds, which the diesel has been extracted, the co ee re†lling the car. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Monitor 5

help repair damaged organs. But many anticancer and antiviral drugs are toxic to marrow. That leaves patients taking them Party time! susceptible to disease and premature ageing. Experiments intended to investi• gate this toxicity using mice have proved unsatisfactory. Nicholas Kotov of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and Energy: It may sound silly, but his colleagues have therefore been trying metallised balloons could provide an to grow human marrow arti†cially. unusually cheap and e ective way to When they started their research, Dr Kotov and his team knew that the stem generate solar electricity cells from which marrow is derived grow OLAR cells are expensive, so it makes naturally in specialised pores within Ssense to use them eˆciently. One way bone. These pores are lined by a mixture to do so is to concentrate sunlight onto of connective•tissue cells, bone cells and them. That means a smaller area of cell fat cells, which collaborate to nurture the can be used to convert a given amount of stem cells. The researchers also knew that light into electricity. This, though, imposes the cells in this lining send chemical sig• another cost‹that of the mirrors needed nals to one another and to the stem cells to do the concentrating. Traditionally they touch. This suggests that a stem cell’s these are large pieces of polished metal, fate may depend on its surroundings in steered by electric motors to keep the three dimensions, rather than the two sun’s rays focused on the cell. But now cents a kilowatt•hour, the state’s target dimensions of the bottom of a Petri dish‹ Cool Earth Solar of Livermore, California, price for renewable energy, while still the type of vessel in which cell cultures has come up with what it hopes will be a turning a tidy pro†t. are traditionally grown. If correct, this better, cheaper alternative: balloons. That belief will soon be put to the test. would explain why attempts to grow Anyone who has children will be Cool Earth plans to open a 1•megawatt marrow in Petri dishes have failed. familiar with aluminised party balloons. facility this summer. If it works, more will To test their idea, Dr Kotov and his Such balloons are made from metal•coat• follow and‹in the deserts of California colleagues tried to replicate the interior of ed plastic. Cool Earth’s insight was that if and elsewhere‹it will be party time for a bone using a material, called a hydro• you coat only one half of a balloon, leav• solar•energy enthusiasts. 7 mel, that is similar in composition to a soft ing the other transparent, the inner surface contact lens. To make the erzatz bone, of the coated half will act as a concave liquid hydromel is densely seeded with mirror. Put a solar cell at the focus of that tiny polystyrene spheres with diameters mirror and you have an inexpensive of 50•300 microns (millionths of a metre). solar•energy collector. Bone in a bottle When the hydromel has solidi†ed, the Cool Earth’s balloons are rather larger spheres are dissolved using a solvent than traditional party balloons, having a called tetrahydrofurane, leaving a porous diameter of about 2½ metres (eight feet), matrix. The diameters of the pores in this but otherwise they look quite similar. The matrix match those of natural bone. solar cell aside, they are ridiculously Tissue engineering: Attempts to For added verisimilitude, the team cheap: the kilogram of plastic from which grow arti†cial bone marrow in the coated the internal surfaces of the pores each balloon is made costs about $2. The laboratory have failed‹but now a with a material similar to mother of pearl. cell, the cost of which is a more closely Marrow cells do not like to attach them• guarded secret, is 15•20cm across and is new approach is showing promise selves to squishy materials like hydro• water•cooled. That is necessary because ROWING human cells in a laboratory mels, but the team’s new material has the balloon concentrates sunlight up to Gis easy. Making those cells arrange enough sti ness to pass for bone, and 400 times, and without this cooling the themselves into something that resembles fooled the cells into setting up home. cell would quickly burn out. human ‡esh is, alas, rather more diˆcult. Once the matrix was complete, the Like a conventional mirror, a solar So•called tissue engineers have mastered researchers seeded the pores with mar• balloon of this sort must be turned to face the arts of making arti†cial skin and blad• row harvested from donors. They recently the sun as it moves through the sky, and ders, and they recently managed to cook reported in the journal Biomaterials that Cool Earth is testing various ways of doing up a windpipe for a patient whose exist• the transplanted cells behaved as if they this. The focus of the light on the solar cell ing one was blocked. But more complicat• were in real bone•marrow tissue, growing can also be †ne•tuned by changing the air ed organs elude them. Nor has anyone and dividing as they would normally. To pressure within the balloon, and thus the managed to grow bone marrow. test their arti†cial marrow further, they curvature of the mirror. At †rst sight, that is surprising. The soft added in‡uenza viruses, and found that it The result, according to Rob Lamkin, and squishy marrow inside bones does released antibodies to †ght the viruses, Cool Earth’s boss, is a device that costs $1 not look like a highly structured tissue, but just as natural marrow would. per watt of generating capacity to install. apparently it is. This does not matter for The anticancer and antiviral drugs that That is about the same as a large coal•†red transplants: if marrow cells are moved damage natural marrow have not been power station. Of course, balloons do not from one bone to another they quickly studied in the arti†cial version yet, but last as long as conventional power sta• make themselves at home. But it matters that should happen soon. Dr Kotov’s new tions (each is estimated to have a working for research. Bone marrow plays an im• tool should also let researchers study life of about a year). But the fuel (sunlight) portant role in the immune system and in marrow’s response to pathogens such as is free. When all the sums are done, Mr bodily rejuvenation. Stem cells that orig• in‡uenza in more detail than is now pos• Lamkin reckons his company will be able inate within the marrow generate various sible. It is an unusual application of tissue to sell electricity to California’s grid for 11 sorts of infection•†ghting blood cells and engineering, but a valuable one. 7 6 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

nearby oxygen molecules into Œsinglet oxygen, a particularly reactive form of the element that is highly toxic to any A mousetrap bacteria inside the capsule. Bouncing ideas To test this idea, the researchers ran a for bacteria series of experiments in which they ex• around posed their newly built microcapsules to Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a lethal bacteri• Antisepsis: Miniature traps that um commonly found in hospitals, and Computing: A chip that can store catch bacteria might provide a way to also to Cobetia marina, a bacterium that light, if only for a microsecond, could tackle the problem of patients frequently adheres to ships and marine be an important step towards equipment, causing fouling. They found becoming infected while in hospital that in both cases the microcapsules at• lightning•fast optical computers NTISEPTICS have saved countless tracted and captured nearby bacteria. IGHT is the fastest thing in the universe. Alives, but they are most e ective when After one hour of exposure to light, they LThat makes it ideal for conveying infor• the bacteria they are attacking are individ• reported in a recent issue of Applied Mate• mation over long distances. Indeed, much ual cells in suspension. Once bacteria rials & Interfaces, the capsules killed more of the information ‡owing across the have attached themselves to solid surfaces than 95% of the bacteria used in the study. internet travels in the form of light pulsing and formed †lms, they are far harder to What is killing the bacteria is clear: it is through optical †bres. When that light eradicate with standard disinfectants. the singlet oxygen. What is luring them reaches the end of the †bre, however, Bacterial contamination of medical de• into the microcapsules, though, is not well things slow down. The data have to be vices is a particular problem, as those understood. Dr Whitten and Dr Schanze converted into electrical signals for pro• devices are then used on people whose have, however, observed that the capsules cessing and then converted back into light immune systems may be in less than extrude thin, ‡imsy †brils of the two if they need to be sent on their way again. tip•top condition. Surgical instruments polymers. These †brils seem to attract That increases costs and complexity. If a can be heat•sterilised or treated with bacteria and then guide them into the way to eliminate the need for this con• ultraviolet light, but that is not appropriate killing chamber. The researchers speculate version could be found it would both for everything. The result is that infections that the positive electric charge on one of simplify things and speed them up. It arising from bacteria attached to surfaces the polymers may be the bait, since many would also help lay the foundations for in clinics and hospitals are reckoned to bacteria are negatively charged and would new forms of computing, such as those cause up to 1.4m deaths per year. thus be attracted electrostatically to the that employ quantum bits, or qubits. In an attempt to develop a better meth• polymer in question. Alternatively, be• The main reason that all•optical net• od of disinfection, a team led by David cause both bacteria and polymers are works and light•driven computers have Whitten of the University of New Mexico repelled by water they may be pushed not yet been built is that the speed of light and Kirk Schanze of the University of together by this joint repulsion. is non•negotiable. An electron can be Florida set out to design the equivalent of However it works, the upshot is what speeded up, slowed down or even a mousetrap for bacteria. The device they Dr Whitten describes as a micro•sized stopped. A photon cannot‹at least, no• have come up with is a hollow capsule Œroach motel (ŒBacteria check in, but they where near so easily. To create a memory, †ve microns (millionths of a metre) across. don’t check out). He suggests that a thin however, things have to stay put. Hence It is made of alternating layers of two coating of the capsules could be applied to the need to transfer data from photons to electrically conducting polymers, one surfaces. If the idea can be scaled up, it electrons to build such memories. positively charged and one negatively may prove a useful weapon in the †ghts A study published recently in Nature charged, that have an unusual property: against hospital•caused infection and by Nicolas Gisin of the University of when they are exposed to light they turn marine•fouling alike. 7 Geneva and his colleagues may, though, o er a way out. Dr Gisin and his team have built a computer chip that can hold on to photons for a microsecond. This may not sound long, but a photon would usu• ally travel 300 metres in that time. More importantly, it is long enough to allow some useful computing to be done. What Dr Gisin has created is, in es• sence, an optical echo•chamber. It does not actually slow light down, but it keeps it bouncing around in a con†ned space, which is just as good. The Œhollow part of the chamber is in fact stu ed with atoms of a metal called neodymium (about 10m of them). These are embedded in a crystal made of two other unusual metals, yttri• um and vanadium, compounded together with oxygen to create a substance called yttrium vanadate. When light from a standard semiconductor laser is injected into the chamber it bounces o the walls (ie, the boundary between the neodymi• um and the yttrium vanadate). Crucially, this bouncing does not damage a phe• Can anyone smell cheese? nomenon called quantum entanglement‹ 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Monitor 7

2 the spooky way in which two photons past two years and experienced the driest some distance apart share states, such as spring in recorded history. Water bills have their planes of polarisation, in a way that risen, but even that has not curbed de• if one changes, the other does too. mand suˆciently. Many parts of the state A good yarn Entanglement means that groups of have therefore limited the use of water, to photons can be made to do large numbers the detriment of crops and lawns. of calculations in parallel. So•called quan• Jan Kleissl and his colleagues at the tum computers based on this phenome• University of California, San Diego, think non would massively outperform today’s they may be able to help. Dr Kleissl’s idea Nanotechnology: Cotton †bres machines. Entanglement also o ers the is to use lasers to detect the amount of coated with carbon nanotubes could promise of unbreakable cryptography, moisture in the air above the crops, and to be used to make clothing that glows, since an eavesdropper intercepting a use this information to decide when they message carried by entangled photons need to be watered. His system (pictured), or detects bleeding would have to break the entanglement to known grandiosely as a Œlarge•aperture ANY science•†ction stories portray a read it, thus giving himself away. scintillometer, consists of a laser on one Mtime when warring generals mon• Better still, Dr Gisin has managed not side of a †eld, a telescope on the other, and itor their forces on computer displays that only to perform this trick in a solid, but to a lot of computer power to work out how are linked to special suits worn by their do so at the heady temperature of three much the laser beam twinkles as it passes soldiers. Information about any injuries degrees above absolute zero (3K). Previous across the †eld. are sent to the command station immedi• optical traps, as these devices are known, Stars twinkle because air currents ately, so the generals can tell that, say, have used gases, and have had to be driven by the evaporation of water cause Sergeant Johnson has a fractured ankle or cooled to within a few thousandths of a their light to shimmer as it passes through that Corporal Caley has lost 1.2 litres of degree of absolute zero. By comparison the Earth’s atmosphere. (To avoid this blood. Such a day may not be too far o . with that, getting to 3K is a doddle. 7 twinkling, large observatories are sited on Researchers have been able to produce remote, dry mountaintops in places like cotton †bres capable of detecting blood Chile.) On a smaller scale, the light from and of signalling its presence electrically. Dr Kleissl’s laser also shimmers. The more Intelligent textiles have a lot of appeal. water evaporating from a †eld, the more For both soldiers and doctors, clothing Twinkle, twinkle, the laser’s light appears to twinkle. This, that adapts to changing conditions could when properly interpreted, can tell the provide adjustable levels of protection little laser †eld’s owner how damp the soil is and from such things as microbes, chemicals thus whether he needs to switch the sprin• and radiation. Commercial manufacturers kler on, and for how long. see huge potential in clothes that glow, do Precision agriculture: Using lasers to As with many other technologies, this not wrinkle or overcome body odour. determine the level of moisture in a idea had its origins in military research. Materials can already be made to do some †eld could help farmers decide when Twinkling limits the accuracy with which of these things, but they are too bulky, weapons can be aimed. The same ap• rigid or complicated for practical use. So to irrigate‹and when not to proach has been adapted for use in air• the aim is to manufacture a light material OW much, and how often, should ports, to measure conditions over run• that can be easily woven but is also highly Hfarmers water their crops? The in• ways. Dr Kleissl’s innovations are to durable and, in order to transmit infor• vention of the automatic sprinkler gave modify the procedure so that it can use mation, can conduct electricity farmers the power to act upon the an• o •the•shelf lasers, and to improve the A team of researchers led by Nicholas swers to those questions. It did not, software. The resulting system is expected Kotov, a chemical engineer at the Universi• though, provide the answers themselves. to cost $25,000•50,000 when it is commer• ty of Michigan, has come up with a way in Most farmers still make the call based on cialised. That price obviously puts large• which this might be done by coating cot• instinct, or err on the side of caution and aperture scintillometers out of the reach ton threads with carbon nanotubes. These switch the sprinklers on at †xed intervals. of the average farmer in, say, India. But for tubes are cylindrical carbon molecules Unfortunately, both these approaches a big farm or golf course in a drought• with a unique honeycomb•like arrange• risk wasting water, and in many parts of prone area such as California, or in one of ment of atoms. They are regarded as the world it is a scarce resource. California, the man•made oases in the Gulf, it might among the most versatile nanomaterials for example, has su ered a drought for the be just the ticket. 7 available because of their mechanical strength and electrical properties. Nanotube composites are often made into solid structures or sheets, although ‡exible versions, such as electrically conductive †lms and electronic inks, can be prepared from dilute nanotube sol• utions. Some electronic devices, such as †eld•emission displays in some ‡at pan• els, are made from nanotube yarns. But the weaving of these yarns, which may be only one•thousandth of a millimetre thick, is complicated and expensive. Creat• ing garments with electrical properties has not been considered practical. However, Dr Kotov and his colleagues have reported in Nano Letters a simple process for coating standard cotton Scintillating stu threads with carbon nanotubes. Being 1 8 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

2 much thicker than nanotube yarns, such enough that they could be used to wire up of the building, 3sixty’s ingenious plumb• threads can be woven more easily. The a light•emitting diode. ing system employs horizontal ring• researchers dispersed carbon nanotubes In a further test the researchers added shaped pipes made of steel. Or, rather, it in a dilute solution of a mixture of Na†on, molecules of a material that reacts with employs two ring•shaped half•pipes that a commercial synthetic polymer, and human serum albumin, an essential rotate with respect to one another (the ethanol. They then repeatedly dipped component of human blood, to the dip• lower one remaining †xed while the cotton threads, 1.5mm in diameter, into the ping solution. Then they immersed more upper one revolves along with the build• solution, letting them dry between each cotton threads. This time they ran an ing). The joints between the half•pipes dip. This allowed the nanotubes to cover electrical current through the thread while have rubber seals to stop the contents individual cotton strands and to adhere exposing it to di erent concentrations of leaking, and each half•pipe has a vertical strongly to the surface of the cellulose albumin. They found that the threads’ pipe connected to it, to introduce or dis• †bres in the strands. The process also electrical conductivity varied according to pose of the ‡uid concerned. Electricity, encouraged the nanotubes to arrange the level of albumin. The researchers meanwhile, is delivered via a conductive themselves along the axis of the cotton propose that such material could be used brush that sweeps around a metal ring in †bres, which increased electrical connec• to detect bleeding if suitably woven into the stationary base. tivity. After several dips, Dr Kotov found military clothing‹just as the science• Electricity, of course, is needed to turn a that the cotton threads were conductive †ction writers predicted. 7 revolving building. But if the building is well pivoted to reduce friction, that re• quires surprisingly little power. The motor that moves Mr Butler’s house consumes about 370 watts; the Johnstones’‹which is solar•powered‹a bit over a kilowatt. A couple of bespoke houses does not amount to a trend. But larger commercial developments are under construction, too. In April, for example, the world’s †rst owners of revolving ‡ats will begin mov• ing into the Suite Vollard in Curitiba, Brazil, built by Moro Construções Civis. Each of the 11apartments occupies an entire circular ‡oor, costs about $550,000 and revolves at the occupant’s command, in either direction, once an hour. (Moro has sidestepped the plumbing problem: the kitchens and bathrooms are located in the building’s stationary central core.) Rogério K uri, Moro’s head of sales, says the †rm has signed contracts with devel• opers in America, Canada, Japan, Portugal Revolutionary buildings and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE, in particular, seems keen on this sort of novelty. Dubai Property Ring, a local developer, plans to build a 30•storey block of ‡ats called 55° Time Dubai. In• Engineering: Clever construction techniques could usher in a new stead of revolving platforms or individual ‡oors, the entire structure will turn once a architectural era in which entire buildings are capable of rotating week, a pace that Tav Singh, the project’s N BIOLOGY almost nothing revolves connections to be used. Some years ago manager, calls Œdigni†ed. The owl pro• Ifreely. An owl’s head, for example, can Bill Butler, an amateur architect, used this blem, meanwhile, will be solved using a twist so far round that it faces backward, trick in a house in Snow Creek, California. system similar to 3sixty’s. but when the bird wants to look forward Water and gas are delivered, and sewage The most ambitious proposal yet again, it must turn its head back the way it removed, via vertical steel pipes in the comes from David Fisher, an architect came. There is a reason for this. Animals non•rotating base. Rubber hoses connect based in Italy. He wants to build a sky• are wired up internally by blood vessels, the uprights to their mates in the mobile scraper called Dynamic Tower in Dubai. It nerves, intestines and so. Evolution has part of the building. The house’s ability to would have 80 independently rotating, not yet come up with a way of keeping rotate is thus limited only by the length of non•circular ‡oors. This would give the these links intact while allowing di erent the hoses at full stretch. In the case of Mr tower a continuously changing shape. parts of the body to revolve independent• Butler’s dwelling, that allows it to sweep Solar panels and horizontal wind turbines ly of one another. And this is not just a out an arc of 120°. between the ‡oors would generate the biological problem. Even human engi• Two other Californians, Al and Janet power needed to turn it. neers have diˆculty with it, which is one Johnstone, however, have gone the whole Mr Fisher has provided few details. But reason why revolving buildings‹with hog. Their house, designed by 3sixty Antony Wood, head of the Council on Tall their need for water, sewerage, gas and Technology of Henderson, Nevada (of Buildings and Urban Habitat, an industry electrical connections‹are so rare. But that which Mr Johnstone is a director) and association based in Chicago, says techno• could now be changing. built in the aptly named neighbourhood logical limitations no longer rule out such The simplest approach to such a build• of Mountain Helix, revolves completely, towers. If the Dynamic Tower is not built, ing is what might be called the owl sol• once an hour. Mr Wood says, the explanation will not be ution‹in other words, incomplete rota• Rather than using rubber hoses to an unavoidable lack of know•how, but an tion. This allows †xed but ‡exible connect the stationary and moving parts old•fashioned lack of money. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Monitor 9

son sites try to strike a balance between recent reviews and helpful ones. Allowing visitors to rate reviews allows the most Fair comment informative to rise to the top. And dis• playing recent reviews indicates that people are still interested in the product. ŒMost people only look at the most recent‹they don’t go back and look at the The internet: Books and other †rst review, says Mr McAteer. Clay Shirky, products sold by online retailers can a consultant on social media, points out attract thousands of reviews. Why that reverse•chronological sorting, which is how blog posts, comments and reviews are they worth reading‹or writing? are generally displayed on the web, Œgives F A book on Amazon.com, the leading people a latent expectation that recency Ionline retailer, already has hundreds of matters. People like to read recent re• reviews, is it worth bothering to add an• views, but why does anyone post new other? Evidently some people think it is. ones? Mr Shirky suggests that in many Peter Ho‡ich, a †nancial journalist based cases, writing a review is more like writing in Singapore, recently wrote the 3,250th fan mail (or hate mail) for a product, and review of ŒHarry Potter and the Deathly the people who post them do not really Hallows, for example. ŒI wonder if any• expect it to be read. one will bene†t from my review, especial• But Daphne Durham, books editor at ly since there are so many, he muses. Amazon, says some reviewers really do Oddly enough, somebody might. That is want to shape others’ opinions. ŒSomeone because the raw number of reviews or out there is reading Harry Potter for the comments, and the proportion of positive †rst time, she says. This prompts other and negative ones, send useful signals to readers who feel strongly about it Œto other people, even if they do not trawl Oˆce Depot, a retailer. As a result there debunk the hype, or to validate it. On through all of them. Accordingly, websites were more than ten reviews per product, Amazon, indeed, the most proli†c review• make it as easy as possible for people to compared with one or two for compet• ers are promoted almost as celebrities in add their comments. itors’ o erings. The result was a Œdrastical• their own right. This prompts reviewers to Amazon was a pioneer in this regard: it ly higher conversion rate, which extend• focus on quantity, not quality, however, so has allowed customers to post reviews of ed even to other Kingston products that Amazon recently changed its ranking books and other products for many years. lacked the additional reviews. system. Now the Œhelpfulness of reviews Initially, publishers and authors were Yet even when a product has attracted is taken into account, causing Harriet worried that allowing negative reviews hundreds or even thousands of reviews, Klausner, the most proli†c reviewer with would hurt sales. Online retailers have they keep coming in. Five reviews of the over 18,000 reviews to her credit, to drop generally been reluctant to allow users to †rst book in the popular ŒTwilight series, below 500th place in the rankings. Read• leave comments, says John McAteer, which was published in October 2005, ers rated her reviews as helpful 71% of the Google’s retail industry director, who runs were posted on Amazon.com on a typical time, compared with 95% for the new shopping.google.com, the internet giant’s day recently. Most retailers and compari• number•one reviewer, ŒMark, who has 1 comparison•shopping site. But a handful of bad reviews, it seems, are worth having. ŒNo one trusts all positive reviews, he says. So a small proportion of negative comments‹Œjust enough to acknowledge Bright sparks that the product couldn’t be perfect‹can actually make an item more attractive to prospective buyers. The sheer volume of reviews makes far Innovation Awards: We invite nology and other emerging †elds); more di erence, according to Google’s nominations for our annual prizes consumer products and services; busi• analysis of clicks and sales referrals. ŒSin• recognising innovators ness processes; and social and eco• gle digits didn’t seem to move the needle nomic innovation, a category that recog• at all, says Mr McAteer. ŒIt wasn’t enough HE ECONOMIST’S eighth annual nises individuals who have pioneered to get people comfortable with making TInnovation Summit will take place novel technologies and business mod• that purchase decision. But after about 20 in London on October 30th. Speakers els that improve everyday lives. reviews of a product are posted, ŒWe start from industry and academia will exam• Nominees should be people, not to see more reviews‹it starts to acceler• ine the latest trends in the management companies, who are responsible for an ate, says Sam Decker, the chief marketing of innovation, from laboratory to mar• innovation that has been a proven oˆcer of Bazaarvoice, a †rm that powers ketplace. At an awards ceremony on success in the past decade. Please e•mail review systems for online retailers. October 29th, we will honour successful [email protected], giving the His company’s research shows that innovators in a range of †elds. nominee’s name, aˆliation and contact visitors are more reluctant to buy until a Accordingly, readers are invited to information, and a 200•word summary product attracts a reasonable number of nominate outstanding innovators in explaining why he or she deserves the reviews and picks up momentum. In a test seven categories: bioscience; energy award in a particular category. Nomina• with Kingston, a maker of computer mem• and the environment; computing and tions can also be submitted online at ory, Bazaarvoice collected reviews of telecoms; Œno boundaries (which economist.com/innovationawards. The Kingston products from the †rm’s website includes materials science, nanotech• deadline is April 9th. and syndicated them to the website of 10 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

2 written fewer than 500 reviews. website. Fans must piece together the media technologies to get people thinking, What is true for reviews does not ap• narrative‹that’s the Œalternate reali• says Jonathan Waite of ARGNet pear to apply to comments left on news ty‹on their own. ARGs are characterised (argn.com), a website that covers the †eld. stories or blogs, however. ŒYou can prob• by their reliance on technology and team• In the past three or four years, he says, the ably have a decent discussion until you get work, and are often shrouded in mystery number of ARGs going on at any one time to about 350 comments, says Markos until they end, weeks or even months has gone from a handful to around 30. Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, a later. Only then is the full story (and the In September 2008 the British Red popular left•leaning political site. But after product being promoted) revealed. Cross launched ŒTraces of Hope, the †rst that, he says, Œmost outside people will Having started o as marketing tools ARG to be commissioned by a big charity. stay away from the thread, and further for †lms and video games‹as with ŒThe With over 7,000 active players‹ARGs growth will come from people already Beast, or ŒI Love Bees, an ARG created to almost always have a tight inner ring of inside that thread carrying forth a dis• promote ŒHalo 2, a video•game, in 2004‹ dedicated fans who do the footwork, and cussion, debate, or argument. Such dis• ARGs are now entering the mainstream. a much wider circle of Œlurkers who cussion threads are more of a conversa• Consider ŒThe Lost Ring, commissioned simply watch the action unfold‹this tion, and the page they inhabit usually has by McDonald’s for the 2008 Olympics. interactive narrative about a Ugandan a limited lifespan during which people Designed by Jane McGonigal, an ARG teenager searching for his mother during a continue to post‹unlike the Amazon pioneer who used to work at 42 Entertain• civil war was created to shape Œthe pub• pages for the ŒHarry Potter books, which ment, the game brought together players lic’s perception of vulnerable people continue to attract reviews even today, across six continents to uncover a story of whose lives are a ected by armed con• years after the books’ publication. 7 amnesiac athletes and to recreate a sup• ‡ict, says Dorothea Arndt of the Red posedly lost (but actually †ctional) an• Cross. She says the campaign around the cient Olympic sport. ŒMost people’s expe• game reached over 30m people, allowing rience of the Olympics is vicarious, says the Red Cross to contact new potential Ms McGonigal. ŒI wanted to give people a supporters. Will other charities follow? It Serious fun more social and active way to experience is possible, Ms Arndt admits, that the them. This ARG, linked to a global sport• campaign’s success was partly because of ing event, sponsored by a multinational its novelty, so it may not be repeatable. company and run in seven languages, And how, exactly, does an elaborate shows how far ARGs have come. cross•media game help to sell more ham• Technology and society: ŒAlternate As well as getting bigger, ARGs are burgers, or encourage more donations? becoming more ambitious. With the McDonald’s, the Red Cross and other reality games mixing puzzles and ARG plot lines, online and o , are Institute For The Future, a non•pro†t re• sponsors of s are doing what Ms search organisation based in California, McGonigal calls Œgift marketing. Instead becoming more popular Ms McGonigal is using the ARG approach of merely getting people to talk about a HAT do you get when you combine to evaluate future scenarios with the help product, with a clever advertisement or a Wtechnology, advertising and un• of thousands of players. In 2007’s ŒWorld viral video, ARGs give sponsors the conventional storytelling? Scores of ŒBat• Without Oil, for example, players worked chance to Œmake something amazing, give man fans roaming the streets of San together to determine what humanity it away, and then take credit for it, she Diego wearing Joker costumes and car• would do in a severe oil crisis. (Many of its says. As awareness of ARGs spreads, more rying smart•phones. One of hundreds of conclusions were validated when the oil companies are embracing the idea of alternate•reality games (ARGs) orchestrat• price spiked in 2008.) Ms McGonigal’s advertising that is fun, not intrusive. ŒThe ed for marketing purposes, this elaborate latest project, ŒSuperstruct, uses blogs, Lost Ring, says Mr Waite, had Œsuch a cool quest, staged at a comic•book convention videos and wikis to encourage people to story that it may well have changed in 2007, began with $1bills that led players imagine the world in 2019. players’ attitudes towards McDonald’s. to a Joker•themed website. The site, in Her aim, she says, is to use such games What next? Mr Waite says he has been turn, gave them a time and a set of satel• as large•scale brainstorming tools, Œto excited by an ARG called ŒThe New Fron• lite•positioning co•ordinates. At the time build our ability to respond quickly, and in tiersman, tied to the release of the and place speci†ed, players found a plane large•scale collaborative ways, to what ŒWatchmen †lm on March 6th. Ms writing a phone number in the sky. Call• might happen in the future. Ms McGoni• McGonigal’s lips are sealed when it comes ing the number sent them on a scavenger gal does not consider these projects to be to her forthcoming games. But with new hunt with online components. ARGs, strictly speaking, but they †t into ARGs starting up every week, now is a And this massive cross•media event the growing trend of using playful cross• good time to start playing. 7 represented only one part of a game called ŒThe Dark Knight, put together by 42 Entertainment, an advertising company, to promote the †lm of the same name. It may sound like a convoluted way to get the word out about a †lm, but games like these are becoming more widespread, attracting new players and bigger clients. It was back in 2001that the †rst com• mercial ARG, ŒThe Beast, a promotional campaign for Steven Spielberg’s †lm ŒA.I.: Arti†cial Intelligence, began blurring the line between reality and †ction. Instead of formally announcing the start of a game, ARGs merely leave clues for potential players to follow: a subtle image on a poster, perhaps, or a cryptic message on a The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Rational consumer 11

Just click to park

Motoring: As the amount of on•board electronics increases, cars are gradually getting closer to being able to park themselves automatically HE ability of a Ferrari 612 Scaglietti to component•maker which supplies the sys• only if the car is moving below a particular Taccelerate to 60mph in just over four tem to carmakers in the Volkswagen group speed (in the Skoda’s case, 18mph). seconds is remarkable‹but it is no use at including VW, Audi and Skoda. Valeo re• Electronic steering is replacing hydrau• all when you are trying to reverse into a cently announced that the system will be lic power•steering in many cars. Electronic tight parking•space outside a busy shop o ered on two of Ford’s new Lincoln mod• steering was developed in part to provide a while popping out to get some milk. What els in America. Bosch, a German company, lighter, more compact form of power• is invaluable, however, is that when the car supplies the automatic•parking system steering for small cars and for hybrid vehi• is put into reverse, the screen in the centre found in some Mercedes•Benz cars. Like cles, which require steering assistance of the dashboard switches from satellite• Park4U, it requires the driver to use the ac• when running on batteries alone. Control• navigation mode and instead displays the celerator and brake, but Bosch reckons it ling steering using electric motors also view from a camera at the back of the car. enables anyone to park a car in a tight spot helps to reduce fuel consumption and This is overlaid with coloured bars show• as swiftly as an expert driver could. hence carbon•dioxide emissions. (Electric ing where, on its current trajectory, the car Parking assistance is likely to become motors require power only when the steer• will end up. As you back into the space, cheaper and more widespread because ing wheel is turned, whereas a hydraulic bleeping noises from proximity detectors more vehicles are being equipped with the pump drains power from the engine all the indicate how close other vehicles are to the essential components on which it de• time.) Ford reckons 90% of its cars will Ferrari’s very expensive bodywork. pends: ultrasonic sensors and electronic have electronic steering within three If you dislike parking and that still steering. Once these are in place, it does years. It is easy for parking software to con• sounds like too much hard work, then you not cost much to add a few extra parts, and trol because it involves switching electric could instead buy a slightly less glamorous a layer of control software, to enable a car motors on and o , rather than operating vehicle, a Skoda Superb, which is available to park itself. Skoda’s Park Assist, for in• mechanical pumps. with an option called Park Assist. This al• stance, costs an extra £620 ($870) on the Parking systems will inevitably become lows you to pull up alongside an empty base version of the Superb in Britain, but more elaborate in the coming years. BMW space‹a screen in the car will con†rm that £345 on the top models which have ultra• is developing one that will automatically it is big enough‹select reverse, and fold sonic sensors †tted as standard. drive a car into and out of a parking space your arms. The steering wheel then spins in a garage; the driver merely has to press as the car parks itself. You still have to con• Sensor perspective buttons on a key fob while standing near• trol the accelerator and brake, but if you ex• Ultrasonic sensors measure distance and, by. This is meant to help people park in ceed 4mph, or touch the steering wheel at in the most basic parking•assistance sys• tight spots where the car can get in, but any point, the automatic•parking system is tems, simply bleep with increasing anxi• there is little room to open the doors to al• instantly switched o . ety as an obstacle gets closer. Once found low the occupants out. The appeal of this sort of technology, only at the front and back of a vehicle, they The company’s test vehicle, a BMW 7 which made its †rst appearance in the are now being †tted to the sides and cor• Series, uses a camera mounted behind the Toyota Prius (pictured) in 2003, is clear. ners, too. Some models use small, radar• windscreen, similar to those used in cars Parking, especially parallel to the kerb, is based sensors as well. These sensors are with lane•departure warning systems. A something many people †nd diˆcult. It useful for more than just parking. special re‡ector, placed on the wall of the can also result in a lot of damage: parking Mercedes•Benz’s Distronic Plus system, garage in front of the car, is used to align the accidents account for more than 20% of for instance, contains radar•based sensors steering. The car’s ultrasonic sensors check car•insurance claims, even though many as part of its cruise control system, to keep for obstacles, and software starts and stops of the dents and scrapes su ered in car the car at a preset distance from the vehicle the engine, controls the brakes and hazard• parks are never reported in order to protect in front, braking automatically if the gap warning ‡ashers, and folds the wing mir• no•claims bonuses. So it is hardly surpris• narrows quickly. Sensors on the corners of rors in and out. It is only a matter of time ing that carmakers expect lots of demand cars, meanwhile, can detect approaching before the accelerator is also controlled for vehicles that can help park themselves, vehicles in blind spots, as when reversing automatically. Indeed, Bosch is already ex• and are starting to o er a variety of park• out of a diagonal parking space. Side• perimenting with an automatic•parking ing•assistance systems on new cars. mounted sensors detect and measure par• system that requires no intervention from The Skoda’s Park Assist is based on the allel•parking spaces for parking•assistance the driver at all‹other than pressing the Park4U technology from Valeo, a French systems. These can usually be activated Œpark button, of course. 7 12 Wireless charging The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

F THE father of electromagnetism, bile phones.) The new consortium’s mem• IMichael Faraday, could be tran• bers include big consumer•electronics sported into the 21st century, he would †rms, such as Philips and Sanyo, as well as no doubt be awestruck by the iPhone. Texas Instruments (TI), a chipmaker. After †ve hours of tapping its touch Menno Tre ers, chairman of the con• screen to browse the internet, make sortium and director of standardisation at calls, play games and determine his lo• Philips, says universal standards are the cation via satellite•positioning, he single most important requirement for the might also †nd himself a little puzzled. adoption of wireless charging. Philips is Why, with all the advances in technol• one of the few companies to have com• ogy and communications, would mercialised wirelessly charged devices‹ such a sophisticated device still need to notably, electric toothbrushes and some• be plugged in to be recharged? If phone thing it calls an Œintimate dual massager. calls and web pages can be beamed But Mr Tre ers acknowledges that a more through the air to portable devices, then collaborative approach is needed to ensure why not electrical power, too? It is a ques• that di erent devices, such as mobile tion many consumers and device manu• phones, laptops and digital cameras, can facturers have been asking themselves for share the same charging equipment. some time‹and one that both new and es• tablished technology companies are now Charging ahead hoping to answer. Fierce competition between manufactur• To seasoned observers of the electron• ers of mobile devices is also accelerating ics industry, the promise of wireless re• the introduction of wireless charging. The charging sounds depressingly familiar. In star of this year’s Consumer Electronics 2004 Splashpower, a British technology Show, an annual jamboree held in Las Ve• †rm, was citing Œvery strong interest from gas, was the Pre, a snazzy smart•phone consumer•electronics †rms for its wireless from Palm (pictured left). As well as the charging pad. Based on the principle of standard arsenal of technical features‹ electromagnetic induction that Faraday touch screen, Wi•Fi, GPS, Bluetooth and had discovered in the 19th century, the built•in camera‹the Pre also has an op• company’s ŒSplashpad contained a coil tional charging pad, called the Touchstone, that generated a magnetic †eld when a cur• which uses electromagnetic induction to rent ‡owed through it. When a mobile de• charge the device wirelessly. When the de• vice containing a corresponding coil was vice is placed on the pad, the two recognise brought near the pad, the process was re• each other through built•in sensors. Mag• versed as the magnetic †eld generated a nets embedded in the pad align the hand• current in the second coil, charging the de• set and hold it in place during charging. vice’s battery without the use of wires. Un• Palm was not the only exhibitor in Las fortunately, although Faraday’s principles Vegas promoting wireless charging. Fulton of electromagnetic induction have stood Innovation, another member of the Wire• the test of time, Splashpower has not‹it less Power Consortium and the eventual was declared bankrupt last year without owner of Splashpower’s assets, used the having launched a single product. show to unveil a number of products in• Thanks to its simplicity and scalability, cluding an in•car console equipped with electromagnetic induction is still the tech• inductive coils that can wirelessly charge nology of choice among many of the re• mobile devices while on the road. (BMW maining companies in the wireless•charg• says it will o er its 7 Series cars in South Ko• ing arena. But, as Splashpower found, rea with a wireless•recharging dock for one turning the theory into pro†table practice of Samsung’s handsets.) A modi†ed tool• is not straightforward. One of the main dif• box from Bosch demonstrated the poten• †culties for companies has been persuad• tial for wirelessly charging power tools. ing manufacturers to incorporate charging Adaptor die Other domestic applications in the modules into their devices. But lately there works include embedding charging pads have been some promising developments. into kitchen counters to enable the wire• The †rst is the formation in December less use of blenders and other appliances. 2008 of the Wireless Power Consortium, a Bret Lewis of Fulton Innovation says his body dedicated to establishing a common †rm’s technology could also be used for in• standard for inductive wireless charging, dustrial applications, or to charge electric and thus promoting its adoption. (It is Consumer electronics: A new push is cars. For the time being, however, the focus modelled on a similar body that did the under way to let mobile devices o is on mobile phones, laptops and other same for Bluetooth, a short•range wireless the leash by doing away with their consumer devices, and he sees 2009 as technology that is now found in most mo• dependence on power cables Œthe year for wireless. That is probably 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Wireless charging 13

It now seems to be a matter of when, rather than if, wireless charging enters the mainstream.

2 too ambitious, but a third recent develop• torola’s RAZR phones and video•game a range of up to three metres, the radio ment suggests that the commercialisation controllers for the Nintendo Wii and the waves can provide useful power for trick• of inductive charging may not be far o . Sony PlayStation 3. No matter how the de• le•charging rechargeable batteries; and up In November 2008 TI announced that it vice is plonked down, two of the bumps to about 7.5 metres, they can be used to had joined forces with Fulton Innovations establish direct electrical contact with the power wireless sensor networks. The †rm Œto accelerate development of eˆcient pad. The †rm has also developed special talks of providing Œmilliwatts over metres wireless power solutions. TI, which pro• Œskins for Blackberry smart•phones, so and Œwatts over centimetres. vides components to many of the world’s that they too can be charged without the Yet another approach is that taken by leading mobile•phone makers said it was need for an adaptor. Although it may not PowerBeam, a start•up based in Silicon exploring the production of integrated cir• have the Œwow factor of inductive cou• Valley. It uses lasers to beam power from cuits that supported the technology devel• pling, this approach does away with the one place to another, but it too faces regula• oped by Fulton Innovations, with the aim necessity for a Œhandshake between the tory diˆculties. The †rm says the low of reducing the cost and size of the compo• device and the pad, and with the need to power•density of its lasers and a series of nents needed for wireless charging and align the device and the pad in a particular safeguards ensures that human exposure making it easier for device•makers to incor• way before charging can begin. remains within regulatory limits. porate them into their products quickly. At the other end of the spectrum is the With so many companies working to• ŒFrom a semiconductor and power• idea of long•range transmission of wire• wards wireless power, how long will it be management point of view, wireless less power, which could in principle do before the cord is †nally cut? According to charging is a natural extension of what we away with the need for a charging pad alto• Charles Golvin of Forrester, a consultancy, have been doing, says Masoud Beheshti, gether. This technique uses the energy in one of the key considerations is getting director of battery•charge management at radio waves, broadcast from a transmitter manufacturers to abandon a lucrative line TI. He predicts that, like Bluetooth, wire• and harnessed by an antenna, to generate of business. He says that many mobile• less charging will initially be o ered on electricity. Using the passive•power princi• phone manufacturers use the proprietary high•end devices, before gradually becom• ple found in crystal radios, the method has connectors on their chargers to retain cus• ing more widely available. proved successful over short distances in tomers, as people are more likely to buy As wireless•charging equipment based places where it is diˆcult to replace batter• products for which they already have on electromagnetic induction heads to• ies or carry out maintenance. The problem charging adaptors at home, in the oˆce, or wards the market, a number of alternative is that the intensity of the radio waves in the car. This may make them reluctant to technologies are also being developed to needed to charge mobile phones and lap• switch to a common wireless•charging transmit power over both short and long top computers over long distances might standard. But Mr Colvin thinks strong de• distances. WildCharge, a start•up based in be hazardous to human health, and regula• mand will ensure that wireless technology Colorado, has already started selling a tors would be unlikely to approve. prevails in the long run. number of wireless•charging devices that Nevertheless a †rm called Powercast, take a cheaper but simpler approach in based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has de• Peaks and troughs which mobile devices make electrical con• veloped wireless•charging products that Stephan Ohr of Gartner, a market•research tact with a special charging pad via four can do useful things while still operating at †rm, says the prospects for wireless power small conductive metal studs (pictured). safe power levels. Over distances of less are realistic, but the path to widespread WildCharge and the licencees of its than 1.5 metres, its technology can be used adoption will not be as easy as many in the technology have developed replace• to run low•power lighting industry expect. New technologies tend to ment back covers for a number of systems; at go through a period of Œin‡ated expecta• popular devices, including Mo• tions in which they are hyped, but fail to gain traction. Only after passing through the Œtrough of disillusion• ment, during which expectations return to a more sensible level, are they widely adopted. For wireless charging, Mr Ohr expects this to take three to †ve years. But it now seems to be a matter of when, rather than if, wireless charging enters the mainstream. And if those in the †eld do †nd themselves languish• ing in the trough of disillusionment, they could take some encouragement from Far• aday himself. He observed that Œnothing is too wonderful to be true if it be consistent with the laws of nature. Not Look, no wires even a wirelessly rechargeable iPhone. 7 14 Carbon capture The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

from the atmosphere. Nor is it of any prac• tical value unless the cost of removing each tonne of CO2 is lower than the alter• natives. And whether or not it can be made to work eˆciently and cheaply, air capture will be politically controversial because the mere possibility of its deployment could be used as an excuse to put o other action to reduce emissions.

Sucking air How does air capture actually work? Sev• eral designs are being developed, but they involve variations on the same theme. In each case air is brought into contact with a Œsorbent material, which binds chemical• ly with the carbon dioxide. The eˆciency of this process depends on the surface area of the sorbent, and an easy way to increase the surface area is to spray a liquid sorbent into the air as a †ne mist. At PARC, re• searchers propose building towers several metres high through which the air would Scrubbing the skies be wafted, coming into contact with a sor• bent mist. Having absorbed CO2 from the air, the liquid would drain into a chamber where the gas would be extracted from the sorbent by a series of chemical reactions, California. Proponents of air capture pro• or by applying an electric current, depend• pose scaling up such machinery so that it ing on the system’s design. The sorbent can Environment: Removing carbon can process the atmosphere directly, ex• then be recycled, and the CO2 compressed dioxide directly from the atmosphere tracting the CO2 so that it can be sold for in• into liquid form for removal. A group at the could help combat climate change. dustrial use or stored underground. University of Calgary, led by David Keith, Will it really work? In some respects this is a more ambi• has already demonstrated an air•capture tious version of the Œcarbon capture and prototype based on a spray tower. REVENTING catastrophic climate sequestration (CCS) technology that is be• Klaus Lackner, professor of geophysics Pchange, most people agree, will mean ing developed to strip carbon dioxide from at Columbia University and a pioneer in reducing the level of man•made carbon di• the exhaust gases produced by coal• and the †eld, has devised another approach oxide (CO2) in the atmosphere. That, in gas•†red power stations. The exhaust from that uses a solid sorbent, consisting of thin turn, will require the widespread use of a coal•†red power station is around 10% sheets of material coated with proprietary Œlow carbon technologies such as solar carbon dioxide, however, whereas the lev• chemicals. Carbon dioxide is trapped as and wind power, more energy•eˆcient el in the atmosphere is a mere 0.04%. But the air wafts over these sheets, and is then buildings, and so on. Some countries have scientists working on air capture suggest absorbed by liquid chemicals that are pledged to reduce their greenhouse•gas that this di erence is not as signi†cant as it washed over the sheets. The CO2 is extract• emissions by 80% by 2050, and campaign• may seem, and that the kinds of industrial ed from the liquid by applying heat. A cup• ers are calling for cuts of 90% or even 100%. methods needed to strip CO2 from the air board•sized prototype (pictured on next New Zealand, Costa Rica and Norway are have already been proven in industrial page) has already shown that the concept racing to become the world’s †rst Œcarbon processes such as papermaking. will work, and Dr Lackner is a member of a neutral country. But some researchers Air capture has the further advantage company, Global Research Technologies think there might be a simpler way to re• that it can be done anywhere‹not just in (GRT), that hopes to commercialise the duce the level of CO2 in the atmosphere: to places where carbon dioxide is being emit• technology. A machine the size of a stan• build Œair capture machines that, as their ted, such as power stations. An air•capture dard shipping container, he estimates, name suggests, grab it from the air. plant could, for example, be set up at a site could capture one tonne of CO2 a day. This is not as mad as it sounds. After all, where CO2 can be easily stored, such as an But given that air•capture machines are such machines already exist: they are used empty oil†eld. And air capture would electrically powered, and generating elec• to Œscrub carbon dioxide from the air on open the way to capturing emissions pro• tricity usually produces carbon•dioxide board submarines and spacecraft. ŒIt has duced by millions of cars and aircraft. emissions, do the sums add up? Dr Keith’s been around for decades, but the only peo• If air capture is to get anywhere, how• prototype captured a tonne of CO2 using ple who cared were at NASA, because too ever, it must overcome three sets of objec• 100 kilowatt•hours of electricity. To gener• much CO2 in a space shuttle means you tions: technical, †nancial and political. The ate this much power, a coal•†red power die, says Matthew Eisaman, a researcher process is no good if it produces more car• station would add around 35kg of carbon at the Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC) in bon•dioxide emissions than it removes dioxide to the atmosphere, or 3.5% of the 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Carbon capture 15

At the moment, air capture is merely experimental. A breakthrough could pose some tricky questions.

2 amount removed by the air•capture mach• allow the use of existing fossil•fuel vehi• Air capture appears to be technically ine. Using a cleaner source of power‹and cles and fuel•distribution systems, but feasible. But the economics are still un• anything is cleaner than coal‹would with much reduced environmental im• clear, and the politics murkiest of all. Will make the machine come out even further pact. Dr Keith calls this approach Œcarbon• developing countries build enormous air• ahead. Similarly, GRT estimates that when neutral hydrocarbons. capture plants, powered by coal, to o set its technology is scaled up, the emissions Unfortunately, making synthetic hy• the emissions associated with industrial• associated with operating each machine drocarbons is very energy intensive, and it isation? Will the technology discourage ef• will be less than 5% of the CO2 captured would make sense only if they were pow• forts to improve energy eˆciency, or might over its lifetime. So there seems little doubt ered by renewable energy sources. ŒFun• it be a valuable tool in the †ght against cli• that air capture would indeed be carbon• damentally the biggest cost of making fuel mate change? At the moment, air capture is negative overall. from CO2 is the cost of getting the energy merely experimental. But a sudden break• But that is no good if the process is pro• for it, says Dr Eisaman. He estimates that through could pose some tricky questions. hibitively expensive. One big cost, at least synthetic fuel would cost $4•5 per gallon Indeed, there is a telling historical pre• for some designs, is the sorbent material, once all is said and done. So the oil price cedent. In 1909 Fritz Haber, a German which cannot be recycled inde†nitely. Dr would have to be much higher than it is to• chemist, discovered a new way to combine Lackner believes, however, that air•cap• day for this to make sense. And using re• nitrogen from the air with hydrogen to pro• ture technology could have near•term, newable energy to make fuel might seem duce ammonia. Previously, this was small•scale commercial uses that will en• like an odd thing to do, given that it could known to be technically possible, but the able it to pay its way as it is perfected and power electric cars directly. process was hopelessly ineˆcient. Haber’s scaled up. He thinks GRT could start o by One way in which air capture and re• new process, subsequently scaled up by selling small air•capture devices to pro• newable energy might †t together well, Carl Bosch, meant that ammonia could be duce CO2 in places that need the stu , but however, would be to divert excess power produced in industrial quantities, for use currently have to pay high prices to have it from wind farms to air•capture systems. in both agricultural fertiliser and explo• trucked in. By mass, carbon dioxide is in Wind farms sometimes produce more sives‹with momentous historical conse• fact the 19th most important commodity power than utilities can use, particularly if quences. Haber was awarded the Nobel chemical in America, according to the De• it gets windy at night, when electricity de• prize in chemistry for producing Œbread partment of Energy. It can be piped into mand is low. Some utilities turn o their from the air. Ammonia synthesised using greenhouses to improve plant yields and is wind turbines to avoid overloading their the Haber•Bosch process underpinned the used in food processing, water treatment grids. Dr Lackner suggests diverting it in• Œgreen revolution in the second half of and †re extinguishers, among other things. stead to air•capture systems. In theory, air• the 20th century and its associated popula• Forcing CO2 into oil †elds can also increase capture systems could then operate at a tion boom; today it sustains one•third of the amount of oil recovered. Air capture pro†t, by generating carbon o sets that the world’s population. A century later, could, says Dr Lackner, be a viable way to could be sold on carbon•trading markets. might scientists tinkering with another ap• supply carbon dioxide for industrial uses Dr Lackner even suggests selling such o • parently ineˆcient process be on the verge even at a cost of $200 per tonne, the cur• sets at petrol stations, along with fuel. of another unexpected breakthrough? 7 rent cost of the technology. That is far higher than the cost per tonne of carbon dioxide on emissions• trading markets, where the price of per• mits that entitle their holders to emit a tonne of carbon dioxide recently fell be• low $10. Only if the cost of air capture falls below the cost of an emissions permit will it be economically attractive; otherwise emitters will †nd it cheaper to buy the right to pollute. But environmentalists expect emissions•trading markets eventually to price the gas at about $50 a tonne, and Dr Lackner hopes to get the cost of his process down to $30 per tonne in the long run.

Fuel from the air? Building huge air•capture plants to reab• sorb the carbon dioxide produced by burn• ing fossil fuels would be a perverse out• come. For one thing, the fossil fuels will run out eventually. But air capture could provide an ingenious alternative. If the CO2 extracted from the atmosphere were combined with hydrogen (extracted from water using electrolysis), it could make synthetic hydrocarbon fuels. This would Starting small, thinking big 16 Case history The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

lasted just three hours. The next morning Mr Larsson received a second, identical device that lasted two days. Undeterred, he went on to receive 26 further devices. Mr Larsson became a prominent cam• paigner for the technology until his death at the age of 85‹from causes unrelated to his heart condition.

Electrical pulses An arti†cial pacemaker works by restoring the function of a faulty sinoatrial node, the heart’s natural pacemaker. Normally the sinoatrial node generates regular electrical pulses that spread across the chambers of the heart, causing the cells to contract in synchrony. When the sinoatrial node starts to malfunction it can cause dangerously slow or erratic rhythms to develop. By inserting electrodes into one or more of the chambers of the heart, via a large vein, it is possible to mimic its func• tion by applying small electrical shocks at regular intervals. Power leads link the electrodes to a small hermetically sealed metal box, called the generator, that con• tains the battery and electronics. Today’s generators are not much bigger The rhythm of life than a matchbox. Mr Larsson’s †rst de• vices were the size of a tin of shoe polish. Indeed, that is precisely what Dr Elmqvist used to create moulds for his epoxy•resin generators. But most of the pacemakers that followed were considerably larger. Medical technology: Devices that maintain and restore a normal heartbeat The reason was, quite simply, power. date back to the 1950s. Now they are becoming far more widely used Dr Elmqvist was able to make his devices relatively small because N 1889 John Alexander MacWilliam, a with these devices. More than half a they were designed to be re• 1 Ibrilliant young Scottish physiologist, million pacemakers and de†brillators are made a shocking discovery. Using little now implanted each year, each of which more than a metronome and a needle will see out its battery life supervising and electrode inserted into the hearts of cats, regulating tens of millions of heartbeats. he found that he could speed up and The †rst patient to receive a fully im• restore normal heart rhythms by applying plantable arti†cial pacemaker was a periodic electrical shocks. His †ndings led 43•year•old Swede called Arne Larsson. to the arti†cial pacemaker and, in the He had his wife, Else•Marie, to thank 1980s, the implantable de†brillator, for it. Not willing to accept her hus• spawning the multibillion dollar Œheart• band’s seemingly inevitable death rhythm management industry. from a heart condition, she decided In the half•century after the †rst pace• that he might bene†t from the kind maker was implanted, the principles of cardiac pacing that she had behind the technology changed very little heard was being tested on animals. from MacWilliam’s †rst demonstration. Using her formidable powers of But the industry is now undergoing a persuasion she convinced Ake Sen• technological revolution. A new gener• ning, a surgeon at the Karolinska ation of smaller, smarter devices promises University Hospital in Stockholm, and to administer fewer unnecessary shocks Rune Elmqvist, a medically trained and to reduce the size of the characteristic engineer, to build a device especially for bulge in patients’ chests. As the tech• her husband. nology improves and the list of treatable The †rst prototype was constructed in conditions grows, larger numbers of Dr Elmqvist’s kitchen and was implanted ever•younger patients are being †tted in Mr Larsson on October 8th 1958. It Setting the pace in 1958 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Case history 17

Before the †rst implantable device, pacemakers were so big they were pushed around on trolleys.

2 charged regularly from outside the body, ular or dangerously fast heartbeats, when using an induction loop. As other pace• necessary. These devices, known also as makers were developed, this approach implantable cardioverter de†brillators was quickly deemed imprudent. Because (ICDs), work by zapping the heart with a patients tended to be elderly, cardiologists large jolt of electricity. The †rst ICD was were concerned that they would †nd the implanted in 1980 at Johns Hopkins Hospi• recharging process diˆcult, or might forget tal by Levi Watkins, after more than 20 to do it, says David Steinhaus, medical years work by a pioneering team at Sinai director of Medtronic‹one of the three Hospital, in Baltimore. companies, along with Boston Scienti†c ICDs are considerably more advanced and St Jude, that dominate the †eld. and complex than pacemakers and use Switching to non•rechargeable designs small computers to sense electrical activi• meant that generators needed enough ty, monitor the heart and determine when power to run for years at a time. This and how to apply a therapeutic shock. The meant using big mercury•zinc batteries, latest models are equipped with remote• making the generators up to †ve times telemetry features that allow doctors to bigger than modern devices. Unfortunate• monitor their operation. After a series of ly the batteries also gave o hydrogen gas trials they have been found to be more as a chemical by•product, which di used e ective at preventing some forms of into the body. This was less than ideal. But sudden cardiac death than drug treat• Arjun Sharma, chief patient•safety oˆcer ments are. As a result, they have become at Boston Scienti†c, points out that at the popular in recent years, and implantation time it was the best technology available. has become a routine outpatient proce• Despite these drawbacks, the †rst implan• dure that can take less than 30 minutes. table pacemakers were an improvement over what had come before. Before Mr Cardiac connections Larsson received his implantable device, The life•saving bene†ts of this technology patients had received pacing from huge are irrefutable. But some cardiologists external devices. ŒThese were the size of think there is still plenty of room for im• car batteries, says Dr Sharma. ŒThey were provement. One of the problems is with so big they were having to roll them the power leads, which can fail for a vari• around on carts. ety of reasons. Manufacturing problems In the mid•1960s the search for better have resulted in large•scale recalls in some power supplies prompted a company cases, and the leads can develop faults called Nuclear Materials and Equipment while within the body due to the mechan• Corporation in Apollo, Pennsylvania, to ical stresses caused by movement or take the radical step of developing an impact. According to Andrew Grace, a atomic pacemaker. Powered by a tiny cardiologist at the Papworth Hospital in piece of radioactive plutonium•238, the Cambridge, Britain, patients with ICDs device was designed to last ten years‹†ve have a 20% chance of lead failure within times longer than mercury•zinc batteries. ten years. To protect the patient, the battery was Modern devices are often able to detect sealed in three layers of casing designed to the early signs of lead failure, so the pa• withstand a ri‡e shot. The †rst radioactive tient is not in danger. The trouble is that pacemaker was put into a patient in replacing leads is itself risky. The ends of France in 1970. leads are barbed to encourage them to stay The lifespan of these devices was a lot in place within the heart, so removing longer than that of their predecessors. them can be tricky. If they fail to come out Sometimes they even outlasted their with a simple tug, which happens in patients, says Dr Steinhaus. (ŒI took one about one in every 50 cases, then the only out that had been in for 19 years, says Dr option is open heart surgery. Lead replace• Sharma.) But there were problems beyond ments have a morbidity rate of 2•5%, says the risk of radiation poisoning to the Warren Smith at the Auckland City Hospi• patient. Removed devices were, by de†ni• tal and Green Lane Hospital in New Zea• tion, nuclear waste and had to be disposed land. (Replacing the generator, by contrast, of accordingly. Eventually the new lithi• is relatively straightforward, involving a um•iodine battery o ered a radiation•free small incision in the chest, and carries eight•to•ten year lifespan, and no exhaust only a 1% risk of complications.) gases to worry about. This has led to several e orts to look for Improved batteries also led to a new ways to pace and de†brillate the beefed•up version of a pacemaker that heart. The one closest to market is a device could restart the heart, and correct irreg• developed by Cameron Health, a com• 1 18 Case history The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

After decades of incremental innovations, the stage is set for rapid improvements in the coming years.

2 pany based in San Clemente, California, Rick Riley, to form EBR Systems. left ventricle. This extra lead runs from the called the Œsubcutaneous ICD or S•ICD. It Together they have devised a wireless more easily accessible right ventricle of works like a normal ICD but has a crucial cardiac•stimulation (WiCS) device that the heart, out of the heart and into the di erence: instead of placing the elec• uses focused ultrasound to stimulate a external vasculature of left ventricle, trodes inside the heart and threading the tiny receiver device, the size of a grain of shocking it from outside the heart. This power leads along veins, the electrodes rice, placed within the heart. A small means an electrical pulse can pace both and leads sit outside the heart, just under generator•like box sits in the chest as ventricles, resynchronising them. But it the patient’s skin. This should make the usual. It uses an array of ultrasonic trans• also means that there is another lead that device easier and safer to implant. ŒHis• ducers to focus energy, in the form of could potentially go wrong. torically, lead•related problems have high•frequency sound waves, at the re• EBR implants a second receiver device presented some of the most signi†cant ceiver device embedded in the heart. Dr in the left ventricle, meaning that the same challenges to clinicians, says Jay Warren, Echt will not give precise details, but says it ultrasonic controller can pace both ventri• the boss of Cameron Health. Œconverts the energy back into electrical cles without the need for any leads. This In one case from 2001, a 79•year•old energy to pace the heart. method also has the advantage that the patient of Michael Sweeney, a cardiologist Initially the idea was to use this ap• placement of the receiver allows the at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in proach to de†brillate. ŒBut that has proved pacing of the heart to be very precisely Boston, got more than he bargained for too challenging for our †rst product, she controlled, says Dr Echt. Trials in animals when his implanted de†brillator explod• says, mainly because the energy require• have proved promising so far, and EBR ed during a routine test. According to Dr ments are so great. So for the time being, Systems is hoping to begin human im• Sweeney a loud popping sound and a the aim is to use WiCS as an alternative to plantations some time in 2010. bright blue ‡ash emanated from the man’s traditional pacing. In particular, EBR Sys• Meanwhile Heinrich Wieneke, an chest as he was testing the device. Fortu• tems believes its approach will o er assistant professor of cardiology at the nately the patient was unharmed. When bene†ts over lead•based devices in the West German Heart Centre in Essen, is the device was removed and examined, it relatively new form of heart•rhythm working on another leadless approach. In transpired that the insulation on the ex• management called cardiac resynchroni• January he published the †rst details of cess lead, coiled up next to generator, had sation therapy (CRT). his new approach, developed with phys• worn away, causing a short•circuit. Such This is a new feature, available on icists at the Heinrich•Heine University of cases are very rare, but lead failures of some de†brillator•like devices that are Dusseldorf. It is similar to Dr Echt’s lead• other kinds are not. now on the market, which is aimed at less pacemaker, but it uses electromagnet• The S•ICD’s design makes lead failures people with a form of heart condition that ic induction, rather than ultrasound, to somewhat less likely, because the outside causes their two ventricles to beat slightly stimulate a small implanted receiver, of the heart is a less hostile environment out of phase with each other. ŒIt’s a $3 which in turn stimulates the heart. than the inside. More importantly, it also billion market, says Dr Echt. Such devices As with Dr Echt’s design, power con• makes replacing a lead much easier, since have an extra lead that uses a circuitous straints mean that this approach can be it does not involve pulling the old lead out route to reach the otherwise hard•to•reach used only for pacing. But one of its ad• of the heart. Putting the electrodes and vantages is that, unlike other devices, it leads outside the heart has the further does not require a bulky generator box to bene†t that it allows the device to deter• house the transmitter. That is because the mine what is going on more accurately, transmitter uses a large ‡at coil, placed because there is less electrical noise. Re• over the heart, to generate the magnetic search suggests that as many as one•third †eld that powers the receiver. This design, of all ICD shocks‹which have been lik• combined with ‡exible, thin•†lm batter• ened to being unexpectedly kicked in the ies, could lead to a ‡at device that is far less chest‹are unnecessary, and are triggered obtrusive than a lumpy generator. when the device wrongly concludes that it Cardiologists and engineers are, in has detected a dangerous heart rhythm. short, coming up with all kinds of new Trials of the S•ICD began in Europe earlier ideas to improve the performance of this year, and Cameron Health hopes to cardiac devices and make them smaller win regulatory approval by the summer. and safer. Admittedly, the new ideas seem to be coming from start•ups, rather than No wires, just sound the established suppliers of such devices, The subcutaneous device is one way to which are taking a more cautious ap• reduce lead•related problems. Another, proach. But after decades of small, in• developed by EBR Systems in Sunnyvale, cremental innovations, the stage is set for California, is to do away with the leads some rapid and dramatic improvements altogether. Inspired by the fact that a heart in the next few years. Oddly enough Mac• can be restarted simply by thumping the William’s pioneering research went un• chest, Debra Echt started to explore the use recognised until decades after his death; of shock waves as a form of heart•rhythm his paper on the subject only resurfaced in management. She teamed up with an 1972. Like the beating of a heart, the †eld acoustic physicist, Axel Brisken, and a has been marked by periods of rest, fol• former engineering director of Medtronic, Small is beautiful lowed by spurts of activity. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Video analysis 19

advertisements: action †gures for little boys, for example, or razors for beardless Machines that can see men. If the person begins to turn away, TA• BANAR launches a di erent ad, perhaps with dramatic music. If he comes back lat• er, TABANAR can show yet another adver• tisement. ŒYou tend to go: ‘Wow, thanks, how did you know I needed that?’, says Computing: Advances in computer•vision software are begetting a host of Rob Fitzpatrick of NICTA. new ways for machines to view the world Computer vision can prevent sales, too. In Japan it recently became illegal to sell to• NSURING that employees wear warm bacco from vending machines without Esmiles when helping customers is good verifying that customers are at least 20 business‹but no easy task, even for atten• years old. Fujitaka, a maker of vending ma• tive managers. Omron Corporation, a Jap• chines in Kyoto, promptly devised a sol• anese developer of robotics software, is ution: it built dispensers with arti†cial vi• concocting a solution. Its software can ana• sion. Fujitaka’s new machines refuse to sell lyse digital images, including video, to re• cigarettes if their software detects plump• cognise and classify facial expressions. ness in the skin (a tell•tale sign of adoles• Soon the company will start selling a cence) around a potential customer’s eyes. Œsmile measurement system that will Tests show that the system is slightly better alert managers‹in real time, if desired‹ at estimating people’s ages than nightclub when a cashier fails to muster an adequate bouncers are. Ray Chiang of Fujitaka says grin. The software is con†gurable, so em• sales surged after the government certi†ed ployers will be able to decide just how the technique last year. happy their employees should appear. The elderly are also coming under scru• Using computers to measure smiles tiny. Computer scientists at the Toronto Re• will strike many as absurd. Yet machines habilitation Institute in Canada have been are learning to see in increasingly reliable testing a computer•vision system for mon• and useful ways, opening up a wide range itoring people living in nursing homes or of new applications. Indeed, computer vi• alone. A cheap camera, stuck to the ceiling, sion, also known as object recognition, has wirelessly relays images to a small com• developed so rapidly over the past few puter that monitors how people move. years that rather than struggling to make When someone neglects to brush their sense of what they see, computers can teeth, ‡ush the toilet or wash their hands, a now outperform humans in some cases. speaker can prompt them to do so. And if a Curiously enough, one such category is in• person falls over or stops moving, and fails terpreting human facial expressions. to declare that all is well when prompted Venu Govindaraju, a computer scien• by the computer, the system calls a relative tist at the University of Bu alo in New or dials an emergency number. York, is designing software that helps de• termine the authenticity of expressions. Watching while you work He found that expressions that take as Similar software can identify slackers in much time to form as to fade away are fast•food kitchens. This year HyperActive more likely to be genuine than those with Technologies of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, unequal Œonset and Œo set durations. is launching ŒHyperActive Bob, a system Detecting phoniness this way is far from that processes data collected by an array of fail•safe, but it is a good guide. So good, in cameras and alerts restaurant managers fact, that Unilever, an Anglo•Dutch con• (either on site, or back at headquarters) sumer•goods giant, is using expression• when employees indulge in lengthy toilet analysis software to pinpoint how testers breaks, or are slow to toss burgers onto the react to foods. Procter & Gamble, an Ameri• grill. The monitoring will be o ered as a can competitor, is using similar technology weather (touting cold drinks when it is hot) subscription, costing less than $200 a to decipher the expressions of focus and the time of day (promoting wine in the month for each restaurant. groups viewing its advertisements. evening). NICTA, a media laboratory fund• Nello Zeuch, an independent consul• Using computer vision to analyse how ed by the Australian government, has gone tant based in Yardley, Pennsylvania, says people react to advertising, combined with a stage further. It has developed a digital computer•vision systems are also being the ability to identify what sort of people sign called TABANAR, which sports an in• used to monitor products on assembly they are, also provides new opportunities. tegrated camera. When a passer•by ap• lines, as well as the workers assembling Digital billboards‹the large TV screens proaches, software determines his sex, ap• them. In car factories, for example, work• that display advertisements in public proximate age and hair growth. Shoppers ers can be noti†ed by vision systems if places‹already take into account the can then be enticed with highly targeted components are missing or improperly 1 20 Video analysis The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

Computers no longer struggle to make sense of what they see, but can instead outperform humans.

2 seated. In some cases, workers are warned One of the most promising uses of car’s windscreen. A law †rm installed it in if they reach for the wrong tool or part. In computer•vision software is in combating 20 cars to look out for wanted vehicles and electronics factories vision technology has crime. In January a company called Evolu• alert the police. Within two months it had become a vital part of the testing process. A tion Robotics, based in Pasadena, Califor• led to the arrest of 15 drivers. They were machine can examine a circuit board for nia, began selling shopkeepers a system Œquite surprised, says Muhittin Gökmen, faults almost instantly. A human would called LaneHawk InCart. When a custom• the company’s founder. ŒThey didn’t take far longer to do the same thing, and er arrives at a supermarket checkout, an know they could be captured like this. would be less accurate. overhead camera identi†es the items on Car•mounted vision systems can be Computer vision has even advanced to the conveyor belt and anything left behind used to prevent accidents as well as crime. the point that it can perform internet in the shopping trolley. It then rings up the The system sold by Mobileye Vision Tech• searches with an image, rather than key correct cost of the items. The system pre• nologies in Jerusalem, for example, noti• words, as a search term. Later this year Ac• vents Œsweethearting‹the practice by †es drivers of vehicles hidden in blind centure, a consulting †rm, will launch a which cashiers collude in a theft, either by spots and advises them against changing free service, called Accenture Mobile Ob• failing to scan an item or by entering the lanes if speeding or erratically moving ve• ject•Recognition Platform (AMORP), that wrong price. It also overcomes bar•code hicles are nearby. The company has sold will enable people to use images sent from switching, in which would•be thieves re• more than 100,000 systems to carmakers mobile phones to look things up on the move the original bar•code and replace it including BMW, General Motors and web. After sending an image of, say, a Chi• with that of a cheaper item. Volvo. This year Mobileye will launch a nese delicacy, a curious foodie might re• new system that applies the brakes if a col• ceive information gleaned from Asian• Eyes of the law lision is imminent. FoodGrocer.com, for example. Fredrik Nabbing drivers who switch car number• The Technion•Israel Institute of Tech• Linaker, head of the AMORP project at Ac• plates is another area where computer vi• nology in Haifa, meanwhile, is developing centure’s research centre in So†a Antipolis, sion promises to help. Autonomy, a British roadside vision systems for dangerous France, likens the project to Œphysical• †rm, sells software that can recognise the junctions. If approaching cars appear to be world hyperlinking. make, model and colour of moving vehi• heading towards a collision, drivers are Microsoft is developing a competing cles. By analysing data from roadside cam• warned by ‡ashing street signs. Such safe• service, known as Lincoln, which can al• eras, the system can notify police the mo• ty systems need not be limited to roads. ready recognise more than a million ob• ment a car drives past with a number•plate DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung, a govern• jects in videos or photographs. Larry Zit• registered to another vehicle. ment agency responsible for air•traˆc con• nick, a Microsoft researcher in Redmond, Similar technology is being used by re• trol in Germany, is about to launch vision Washington, notes that searching with im• possession companies and other †rms ea• software for airports. Using images collect• ages is often more precise than using ger to get their hands on rogue vehicles. ed by surveillance cameras, its Advanced words. Transmitting a picture of the Ei el Last September Dijital Video ve Imge Tek• Surface Movement Guidance and Control Tower taken from a magazine, for example, nolojileri, a †rm based in Istanbul, System will warn traˆc controllers of po• will fetch web pages that include informa• launched a computer•vision system that tential collisions between taxiing aircraft tion about travelling to Paris. Sending vid• uses a small camera mounted behind a and vehicles ferrying luggage and food. eo footage of the monu• Jake Aggarwal, an expert ment itself, by contrast, in the security implications will return web pages that of traˆc patterns at the Uni• contain useful informa• versity of Texas at Austin, is tion about the tower’s using funds from America’s opening hours, or good defence department to ana• places to eat nearby. lyse footage of suspicious Sending pictures to the driving †lmed from above. internet could help robots Understanding vehicle as well as people. Jim Lit• movements, Mr Aggarwal tle of the University of says, is especially helpful to British Columbia in Cana• intelligence and security ex• da wants to make robots perts in Afghanistan and less clumsy. He has con• Iraq. Suspect vehicles in• nected robots wirelessly clude those that drive in cir• to the internet, enabling cles and those that go to gov• them to search for pictures ernment buildings and online so that they can military facilities, especially quickly learn to recognise if they stop near them. nearby objects. Curious Advances in computer George, one of Dr Little’s vision, in short, have appli• robotic creations, can cations in †elds from adver• identify a book, for exam• tising and manufacturing to ple, by †nding a picture of road safety and counter•ter• it on Amazon, a leading rorism. It is a technology online retailer. worth watching closely. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Crowd modelling 21

the same technology might be just what he had been looking for to model how people Model behaviour behave during a blaze‹something that is increasingly being incorporated into the design of large buildings. Using computa• tional models of crowds, it is possible to set up various scenarios and evaluate how the occupants move through the building. The trouble is that the software that is Software: Simulating the behaviour of crowds of people, or swarms of used to do this generally treats people like animals, has both frivolous and important uses particles in a ‡uid, says Mr Wittasek. ŒIt as• sumes people behave like water ‡owing HE warmongering orcs depicted in the battle scenes, which broke new ground in through a pipe, he says. ŒThey move at TŒLord of the Rings trilogy are evil, un• special e ects by showing huge numbers constant ‡ow rates, heading for the nearest pleasant creatures that leave death and de• of characters with an unprecedented de• exits. But that’s not realistic. Human be• struction in their wake. But if you †nd gree of detail and realism. For this the tril• haviour is in fact far more complex and of• yourself in a burning building a few years ogy’s director, Peter Jackson, largely has ten quite irrational. When ‡eeing a †re from now, they might just save your life. Stephen Regelous to thank. Mr Regelous is people will often try to retrace their steps That is because the technology used to the founder of Massive Software, based in and leave the building by the way they make hordes of these menacing, comput• Auckland, New Zealand. His †rm’s soft• came in, rather than heading for the near• er•generated monsters move convincingly ware made it possible to generate as many est exit‹even if it is much closer. on screen turns out to be just what is need• as half a million virtual actors in a single ed to predict how crowds of humans move shot, each behaving in an independent Send for the orcs around inside buildings. Engineers and ar• and plausible manner. Similarly, on hearing a †re alarm many chitects hope that they will be able to im• That is because every character was, in people do absolutely nothing. It is only prove building safety by modelling how e ect, given a brain, says Diane Holland, when they see direct evidence of a †re, people behave in the event of a †re. Massive’s chief executive. Each one was such as smoke or ‡ames, that they act, says The simulation of the behaviour of modelled as a software Œagent with its Mr Wittasek. How people respond to a †re crowds of people and swarms of animals own desires, needs and goals, and the abil• also depends on their age, size and physi• (not just mythological ones) is also being ity to perceive the environment and re• cal condition. Modelling people as a applied to many other unusual situations, spond to the immediate surroundings in a smooth•‡owing ‡uid fails to capture such from designing better closed•circuit televi• believable way. Any given orc, for exam• basic features, says Mr Wittasek. ŒWe have sion (CCTV) security systems to managing ple, could work out which other †ghters on all this great physics for †guring out how the traˆc of ships in harbours. The same the battle†eld were in its line of sight, and heat moves in a building, but what we lack technology has also been used to improve hence whether it should ‡ee or attack. This is how people behave, he says. ŒIf we un• the understanding of archaeological ruins produced far more realistic results than or• derstand that better, then we can inform and to model entire ecosystems in order to chestrating the motions of the digital ex• our designs better. design wildlife•management strategies. tras in a scripted, choreographed way. So Mr Wittasek has been applying Mas• When the †rst †lm in the ŒLord of the Nate Wittasek, the leader of the Los An• sive’s crowd•modelling technology to Rings trilogy was released in 2001, much geles Fire Engineering Group at Arup, an building safety. The underlying software is was made of its heavy reliance on comput• engineering †rm, was one of many people essentially the same, says Ms Holland. er•generated imagery (CGI). But what was impressed by the realism of the battle Agents in both situations take account of perhaps most impressive were the epic scenes. A former †re†ghter, he realised that what other agents around them are doing, 1 22 Crowd modelling The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

An army of orcs from the ŒLord of the Rings trilogy (far left); the same approach can also be used to model how people move through buildings (left)

2 iours with great realism. Working with Qinxin Yu, a graduate student, Dr Terzo• poulos has modelled how people behave in public when someone collapses. People crowd around to help, and some agents will even remember if they recently saw a police oˆcer nearby, and run to get help, he says. Such realism is useful in the develop• ment of automated CCTV systems. Using real cameras for such research would raise privacy concerns, so he is making agent simulations available instead to research• ers who are training cameras to detect un• usual behaviour. Another intriguing appli• cation is to help archaeologists study ancient ruins. Using a model of the Great Temple of Petra in Jordan, Dr Terzopoulos has evaluated how it would have been used by the people who built it. He has for example. But for Arup’s purposes, sev• newly redesigned Los Angeles County concluded that the temple’s capacity had eral tweaks were added. In particular, Museum of Art, and plans to do the same previously been greatly overestimated. agents were given the ability to †nd their with the forthcoming Guggenheim muse• Agents need not even represent hu• way around an environment. In a †ve•sec• um in Abu Dhabi. So far this has just in• mans. Massive has been working with ond shot during a battle scene, an agent volved testing the software, says Mr Witta• BMT Asia Paci†c, a marine consultancy, to does not have time to learn anything. But a sek; the results have not been fed back to model the behaviour of the thousands of 45•minute evacuation scenario, says Ms in‡uence the buildings’ design. But it has ships operating in Hong Kong harbour. Holland, is Œan altogether di erent ani• demonstrated that the software does in• This involves simulating the behaviour of mal. The agents need to be able to remem• deed work, and allows a range of di erent the ships themselves, each of which may ber their surroundings, and to plan routes types of character to be modelled, from be under the control of several people, accordingly, as they navigate the environ• †rst•time visitors to the building (who are says Richard Colwill of BMT. And rather ment looking for a safe escape. This means easily disoriented) to informed employees than assuming that everyone will adhere reprogramming the goal•seeking software who can act as stewards and shepherd to the maritime traˆc code, which deter• that drives the agent. ŒThe brain design of people to the exits. There is also a degree of mines who has right of way, it can incorpo• the movie agents focuses on how they will random variation between characters of a rate acts of bravado and incompetence. react to particular stimuli and situations, particular type. ŒTheir actions aren’t cho• ŒWe get about 150 collisions each year in such as de‡ecting an incoming battle axe, reographed, so each time you run it you get Hong Kong, says Mr Colwill. His †rm and †nding an enemy, says Ms Holland. di erent results, says Mr Wittasek. This plans to use the software to determine The result is Massive Insight, a software makes it possible to carry out timed evacu• which traˆc•management strategies will package that makes it possible to create ations and spot possible design problems be least disruptive during the construction agents and program their behaviour pref• that can hinder evacuation, he says. ŒIt’s of an immersed road tunnel that will need erences using simple graphical tools. The helping us to predict human behaviour, as to be lowered into the harbour. agents do not look terribly exciting: they re• opposed to predicting ‡ow, he says. The technology can also be used to semble simple stick †gures that move model animal behaviour. Massive is work• through a three•dimensional environ• The wisdom of crowds ing with researchers at the University of ment. But what really matters is how they Taking a similar approach is Demetri Ter• Southern California (USC) School of Cine• behave, as far as Mr Wittasek is concerned. zopoulos, a computer scientist at the Uni• matic Arts and the Wrigley Institute for En• Although the †gures do not appear to have versity of California in Los Angeles. He is vironmental Studies, both in Los Angeles, legs, they move as if they do, becoming using agents to simulate the behaviour of to model animal behaviour on the conser• hindered in a stampede, for example, if commuters passing through Pennsylvania vation island of Santa Catalina, 20 miles others have fallen to the ground. The Station in New York. His agents have mem• o the coast. One aim of the research is to agents also have human•like vision and ory, but they also have a sense of time and develop e ective culling strategies for the hearing, so they will only head towards an the ability to plan ahead. An agent enter• island’s bison population. These were in• exit that they can see or remember. And ing the station will typically seek out the troduced 85 years ago to make a silent they capture some of the subtleties of indi• ticket oˆce, stand in line to buy a ticket, movie and have since overrun the island vidual and group behaviour, says Mr Wit• and then perhaps kill some time watching and damaged local vegetation, say Eric tasek. People who have hitherto ignored a a street performer if he has a few minutes Hanson, a professor at USC. The software †re alarm are more likely to respond if they before his train arrives, says Dr Terzopou• will also be used to model other mammals see other people around them heading for los. If he is running late, by contrast, he and birds on the island. the exits, for example. may try to push his way to the front of the As agent software becomes better able The software is still not quite ready for ticket line before sprinting for the platform. to capture complex real•world behaviour, commercial use, but Mr Wittasek has been Dr Terzopoulos’s research has shown other uses for it are sure to emerge. Indeed, testing it using computer models of the that agents can simulate complex behav• this could soon become a crowded †eld. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009 Brain scan 23 The internet’s librarian

Building on the search technology developed at Thinking Machines, Mr Brewster Kahle wants to create a Kahle left to found his own company, free, online collection of human WAIS Inc, in 1989. It took its name from the knowledge. It sounds impossibly Wide Area Information Server protocol, idealistic‹but he is making progress an early form of internet search engine which had been developed by Thinking OR a man who has set himself a seem• Machines with Apple, Dow Jones and Fingly impossible mission, Brewster KPMG, and made software for online Kahle seems remarkably laid back. Relax• publishing. Its customers included the ing in the black leather recliner that serves Wall Street Journal, which was setting up as his oˆce chair, his stockinged feet wrig• the †rst subscription•based online news gling with evident enthusiasm, the foun• site, and CMP, a magazine company that der of the Internet Archive explains what pioneered internet advertising. Mr Kahle has driven him for more than a decade. was a decade ahead of his competitors in ŒWe are trying to build Alexandria 2.0, grasping the importance of payment says Mr Kahle with a wide•eyed, boyish systems, online privacy and user ratings. grin. Sure, and plenty of people are trying AOL bought the †rm in 1995 for an undis• to abolish hunger, too. closed sum, thought to be around $15m. It would be easy to dismiss Mr Kahle as Mr Kahle‹who by 1996 had almost a an idealistic fruitcake, but for one thing: he dozen patents to his name‹quickly turned has an impressive record when it comes to to his next project. He founded the non• setting lofty goals and then lining up the pro†t Internet Archive and, with a former people and technology needed to get the colleague, co•founded a †rm called Alexa job done. ŒBrewster is a visionary who that tracks and analyses the paths people looks at things di erently, says Carole follow as they move around the web, in Moore, chief librarian at the University of order to direct people with similar in• Toronto. ŒHe is able to imagine doing terests to relevant information. Amazon things that everyone else thinks are im• bought Alexa for an estimated $250m in possible. But then he does them. 1999. Mr Kahle continued to work on Mr Kahle is an unostentatious million• Alexa until 2002, but then dedicated aire who does not Œwear his money on himself fully to the Internet Archive. clothes, as one acquaintance graciously The most famous part of the archive is puts it. But behind his dishevelled demea• the Wayback Machine (its name inspired nour is a skilled technologist, an ardent by the WABAC machine in the 50•year• activist and a successful serial entrepre• old television cartoon featuring Rocky and neur. Having founded and sold tech• Bullwinkle). This online attic of digital nology companies to AOL and Amazon, memorabilia stores copies of internet sites he has now devoted himself to building a so that people can see, for example, what non•pro†t digital archive of free materi• economist.com looked like in January als‹books, †lms, concerts and so on‹to 1997. Paul Courant, the dean of libraries at rival the legendary Alexandrian library of the University of Michigan, equates what antiquity. This has brought him into con• the archive does for the internet with ‡ict with Google, the giant internet com• what the British Museum did for the Brit• pany which is pursuing a similar goal, but ish empire. ŒThe internet has become the in a rather di erent (and more commer• medium of choice for a great deal of cul• cially oriented) way. tural production, he says. The Wayback Machine Œgives us access to what people Biblio•tech were producing at di erent points in After graduating in 1982 from the Mas• time, he says. Evidently this is of more sachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), than just academic interest: the site gets where he had studied with Marvin Min• 500 page requests per second. sky, an arti†cial•intelligence guru, Mr In addition to this archive of web pages Kahle joined a group of MIT alumni who there is also an audio library with more were founding a company, Thinking than 300,000 MP3 †les, a moving•images Machines, that made parallel supercom• archive with more than 150,000 †lms and puters. There Mr Kahle worked alongside videos, and a live•music archive with such luminaries as Richard Feynman (a recordings of more than 60,000 concerts. Nobel prize•winning American physicist), All the collections are available free to Dr Minsky and Daniel Hillis, a maverick anyone with internet access, each gath• computer scientist best known as the ering its own set of fans. A remarkably inventor of the 10,000•year clock. popular archive within the audio library is1 24 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly March 7th 2009

It is easy to dismiss Mr Kahle as an idealist, but he has an impressive record of getting things done.

2 devoted to the Grateful Dead. much larger book•scanning project being participation in Google’s project. Other But all these things are steps towards undertaken by Google. Like Mr Kahle, librarians, however, regard the Google Mr Kahle’s wider goal: to build the world’s Google’s founders have a lofty goal: Œto settlement as a good compromise, even if largest digital library. He has recruited 135 organise the world’s information and it is not perfect and does not address the libraries worldwide to openlibrary.org, the make it universally accessible and useful. criticisms that Mr Kahle and other internet aim of which is to create a catalogue of Since much of the world’s information is types have with copyright law. ŒBrewster every book ever published, with links to in books, this means large•scale scanning. wants everything to be free, says Mr its full text where available. To that end, But whereas Mr Kahle has focused on old Courant of the University of Michigan. the Internet Archive is also digitising books that are no longer protected by ŒSo do I. But there are important trade•o s books on a large scale on behalf of its copyright, and making the full text avail• between what we collect and preserve library partners. It scans more than 1,000 able, Google’s Book Search project has and what we can make available. books every day, for which the libraries scanned some 7m more recent works, Although the two projects take very pay about $30 each. (The digital copy can most of them still covered by copyright, di erent approaches‹one idealistic, the then be made available by both parties.) and allows access only to small chunks. other pragmatic‹it may be that they will Some 200 people work for the Internet Google argued that since it was not end up complementing each other. Librar• Archive, which has an annual budget of making entire works available, it was not ies can and do work with both projects. $10m•14m. Initially funded by Mr Kahle, infringing copyright and did not need And if things with Google go sour, librar• the archive now gets much of its income permission from publishers to display ies can always go elsewhere. ŒIf Google’s from grants made by foundations and these small chunks (with advertising prices are too high, we can and will ar• from libraries that pay it to digitise their alongside them). The publishing industry range with other players to re•scan the books. It also runs a variety of one•o disagreed and sued Google, and a settle• works. We still have the original source projects, such as a collaboration with ment was reached in October 2008. It is material, says Mr Courant. Consumers, America’s space agency, NASA, to make still subject to a judge’s approval, but likewise, are free to access public•domain available photos and †lms relating to the could be †nalised by June. Under the books in either collection. history of the space programme, and a terms of the settlement, Google will put It may be that a lack of library funds, Œprint on demand system to turn digital copyrighted works online only with the rather than Google, poses the biggest †les into physical books in minutes. permission of publishers, who can also short•term threat to Mr Kahle’s dream. With his happy•go•lucky management decide whether to make a preview avail• Google covers the cost of scanning librar• style, Mr Kahle comes across as easy• able or not. Google will also be allowed to ies’ books. But to get into Mr Kahle’s ar• going. But the 48•year•old has been sell access to entire books online, sharing chive, libraries must either do their own known to stand his ground‹even against the proceeds with publishers. It has, in scanning or pay the archive to do it. And, the tough guys. ŒCome back when you other words, struck a deal that will allow like everyone else, libraries are feeling the have a warrant, reads the ‡oor mat un• it to go on scanning books and make †nancial squeeze at the moment. derneath his oˆce recliner. It was a gift money providing access to them online. But Mr Kahle is taking a very long•term from the Electronic Frontier Foundation Mr Kahle’s approach to broadening the view. Universal online access to all knowl• (an activist group on whose board Mr number of books available for his archive edge may not be Œa goal that is going to be Kahle sits) after Mr Kahle refused to hand was rather di erent. He unsuccessfully †nished in our lifetime, says Mr Kahle. over information about one of the In• sued the American government, in a case ŒBut if you pick a goal far enough out, ternet Archive’s users to the Federal Bu• known as Kahle v Gonzales, in an e ort to people can align to it. I am not interested reau of Investigation in 2007. roll back what he regards as excessive in building an empire. Our idea is to build This activist for online privacy is also a copyright terms. Reducing the period of the future. 7 staunch supporter of openness. He insist• copyright protection would have dramati• ed that the Internet Archive’s specially cally expanded the universe of copyright• developed scanning machine, called free works, and hence the number that O er to readers Reprints of this special report are available at a Scribe, should be an open•source device, could be scanned and made available price of £3.50 plus postage and packing. meaning that details of how it works are online. This would have bene†ted every• A minimum order of †ve copies is required. made available to anyone who wants one‹not just Mr Kahle and his project. them. The same is true of the ŒPetaBox, Corporate o er another archive•developed machine that Literary criticism Customisation options on corporate orders of holds 1m gigabytes of data. ŒEverything Google’s legal settlement has caused 500 or more are available. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. Brewster does is open. He personi†es controversy because it means that Google openness, says John Seely Brown, who is now the only big company to be build• Send all orders to: sits on Amazon’s board of directors and ing a signi†cant digital collection of copy• The Rights and Syndication department was previously the chief scientist at Xerox, righted books. Some librarians worry that The Economist and the director of its Palo Alto Research this gives the internet †rm enormous 26 Red Lion Square Centre. Being open Œis the right way to power. ŒThis is a more powerful monopo• London WC1R 4HQ have a thriving industry, says Mr Kahle. ŒI ly than we’ve ever seen for access to 20th• Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 have been much more successful when century material, says Ms Moore of the Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 letting people know what I want to do. I University of Toronto. ŒWe do not have a e•mail: [email protected] get much more help that way. good track record in negotiating good Underlying Mr Kahle’s enthusiasm for prices with monopolies. Similar con• openness is an implicit criticism of the cerns led Harvard University to reduce its