The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Monitor 1

Contents

On the cover Across the developed world, people worry that robots will take their jobs. A new breed of Œcollaborative robots is intended not to replace humans but to work alongside The race is not to the swift them, making them more productive. They could also help out in homes, schools and oˆces, page 18

Monitor 1 Next•generation games consoles, an oral sensor in a Video games: The newest games consoles look surprisingly underpowered tooth, preventing fuel•tank and are very similar to PCs. That’s because the business is changing explosions, decision aids for N MAY 21st, on a stage ‡ooded with Indeed, their technological guts are strik• football referees, improving Ogreen light, Microsoft unveiled its ingly similar. That is because of the way hospital hygiene and the third video•games console, the confusing• the gaming industry is changing. merits of quiet products ly named Xbox One. This followed Sony’s The chips that power both the Xbox announcement of the PlayStation 4 in One and the PlayStation 4 are modi†ed, Di erence engine February. Together with Nintendo’s Wii U, beefed•up versions of a chip produced by 6 The rebirth of the diesel engine launched last November, these machines Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which New diesels are giving electric make up the eighth generation of games has long been Intel’s only competitor cars a run for their money consoles. They have been a long time when it comes to the processors that coming. Their predecessors were power desktop PCs. For Microsoft, this 3D printing launched in 2005 and 2006, aeons ago by marks something of a return to its roots. 7 Scaling up the standards of the computer industry, The original Xbox, released in 2001, was How 3D printing is being and were beginning to show their age. based on a standard Intel Pentium chip. integrated into manufacturing Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 But all of Sony’s previous consoles have will go on sale in time for Christmas, and featured custom chips built for gaming. High•tech fabrics Microsoft and Sony are already competing vigorously to convince potential buyers of Power underwhelming 10 Material bene†ts the merits of their respective machines. Going with a general•purpose PC chip will The textile technologies making But veterans of such battles will notice a limit the new machines’ performance. But the world a safer place curious absence. At previous console there are good reasons to make that trade• launches, executives have boasted about o . One is simply that the cost of design• Biofuels their boxes’ whizzy technological innards. ing chips has risen dramatically as they 12 What happened to biofuels? Sony in particular was a dab hand at this have become more complicated, says Making fuel from organic matter sort of thing, coming up with names like Jordan Selburn of IHS iSuppli, a market• is proving harder than expected ŒEmotion Engine and ŒReality Synthe• research †rm that specialises in computer siser for the chips that powered its previ• hardware. At the same time, the bene†ts Working with robots ous consoles. But this time neither Micro• of customisation have shrunk. These days, 14 Our friends electric soft nor Sony seems very keen to talk up most of the innovation in graphics pro• Collaborative robots don’t steal the technical prowess of their new boxes. cessing is con†ned to two big companies, jobs‹they make them easier To be sure, compared with the current AMD and Nvidia. It makes sense to leave generation of machines, graphics will take the job to these specialists. Brain scan a leap. But the truth is that the new con• The business reasons for switching to 17 Microsoft’s other mogul soles will be merely catching up with the more standardised components are com• A pro†le of Paul Allen, the other current state of the art, rather than de†n• pelling, too. The traditional business co•founder of Microsoft ing it. Both consoles have about as much model for a games console is to sell the raw computing power as a reasonably fast machines themselves at a loss (at least in desktop PC and are, for all intents and the years after their launch, before techno• purposes, ordinary PCs in fancy boxes. logical advances bring manufacturing 1 2 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

2 costs down) and to make up for it by tak• Computers in Zurich on September 11th, ing a cut from the sale of each game. These show that people talk and chew in di er• days, however, consoles face sti competi• ent ways because their mouths and teeth tion from games played on mobile devices If tooth be told are di erent. However, if the system is or running inside web browsers. In this trained, it can recognise what that mouth newly competitive environment, Micro• is doing 94% of the time. soft and Sony may prefer a less risky The next step is to make the device strategy. Using standard parts cuts costs. easier to wear. One way, at least for those It also makes life easier for the †rms Wearable computing: An oral sensor who do not have a full set of natural that create games. Mastering the intrica• mounted in a tooth can work out gnashers, would be to incorporate it into cies of a custom•made chip can take pro• whether you are eating, drinking, an arti†cial tooth that might be part of a grammers many years, a problem that was set of dentures. At the moment, the sensor particularly acute with the unusual chip talking or coughing is attached to the outside world by a thin that powered the PlayStation 3. The new S COMPUTERS continually shrink, the wire. This carries electricity in and data consoles’ PC•like architecture will make Aera of wearable devices is nigh. Nike’s out, but it is inconvenient to have to walk developing games much more straight• FuelBand slips over your wrist to track the around all day with a wire sticking out of forward. It will also make it easier to create amount of exercise you do. Google Glass your mouth. If it were part of a set of games that run on both new consoles and is a head•mounted display similar to a pair dentures, though, the sensor might be on PCs too, and to release them simulta• of spectacles that can be sported by the †tted with a small battery that could be neously. Game prices have not risen for always•online. Apple is thought to be charged up overnight, when most wearers many years, even in nominal terms, but working on a wristwatch•sized sidekick of false teeth remove them, and thus not the cost of creating them has ballooned. for its smartphones. And from Taiwan need the wire for power. Data might also Simultaneous release on multiple plat• comes another example: a tooth that be extracted from the tooth at this time. forms maximises the potential market. monitors what your mouth is up to. Alternatively, information could be re• Besides, ever•snazzier graphics are only This might seem an odd thing to want layed directly from the mouth by incorpo• one area in which gaming †rms can in• to do, but Chu Hao•hua and his colleagues rating a wireless link into the sensor‹ novate, and one in which returns are at National Taiwan University believe using Bluetooth, of course. 7 diminishing. The †rst games with elab• there are uses for a device capable of Œoral orate, three•dimensional game worlds, activity recognition‹in other words, such as ŒQuake and ŒTomb Raider, were monitoring such things as chewing, drink• revolutionary when they appeared in the ing, speaking and coughing. In particular, mid•1990s. These days, extra graphical it could have medical applications: record• Bang but no power is used for more subtle features ing the amount of coughing caused by such as more accurate lighting or more respiratory problems, for instance, or boom realistic•looking hair. With each new tracking how much munching someone generation of consoles, the improvement does when he is supposed to be on a diet. in graphics is less dramatic. This means To test the idea, Dr Chu and his col• Fire suppression: Engineers are console•makers must †nd other ways to leagues built a set of tiny accelerometers, †nding ways to reduce the risk that convince gamers to upgrade. which measure movement. Eight volun• fuel tanks will explode under enemy Given that the two new consoles are so teers had one of the devices †xed to a †re or in an accident similar internally, the obvious means of tooth with dental cement. They were then di erentiation is in novel control mecha• asked to do things like coughing continu• AMAGE to aircraft fuel tanks doomed nisms. Nintendo led the way in 2006 with ously or drinking a bottle of water while Droughly half of the 5,000 or so Ameri• the launch of its Wii console, which did the team took measurements. can warplanes and helicopters destroyed not try to compete with the Xbox 360 or The results, to be presented at the during the Vietnam war. Some crashed or PlayStation 3 in graphical power, but International Symposium on Wearable blew up after only a few bullet hits instead used innovative motion•sensitive drained or ignited their fuel, says Robert controllers to appeal to people who Ball, the author of a textbook on the com• would not normally consider playing bat survivability of aircraft. But such video games. Microsoft responded with Œcheap kills are becoming increasingly the Kinect, a camera•based system that rare, says Dr Ball, a former engineering allows players to control the on•screen professor at the Naval Postgraduate School action through their body movements, in Monterey, California. Thanks to clever and Sony launched the Move, a wand•like engineering, fuel tanks in aircraft, vehicles controller. The Xbox One incorporates an and even storage facilities can now with• improved version of the Kinect, and Sony stand direct hits from enemy †re or tre• will o er an optional camera attachment mendous impacts without exploding. for the PlayStation 4. Armies like to keep their fuel trucks far All three console•makers have also from the enemy. But that can be diˆcult, been keen to emphasise non•gaming uses as Western forces in Afghanistan and Iraq of their consoles such as streaming live have learned. Even lightly armed insur• television, browsing the web, making gents can torch a tanker truck. Bullets shot video calls and accessing social networks. into liquid fuel rarely ignite it. But a tank Indeed, at the launch of the Xbox One, riddled with bullets spews fuel, and when Microsoft barely mentioned games at all fuel and its vapours mix with oxygen, a for the †rst half•hour. It was a clear sign spark can create a †restorm. Between 2003 that the days when consoles slugged it out and 2007 attacks on fuel convoys in Iraq solely on the basis of graphical•processing killed or seriously wounded more than power are well and truly over. 7 1,400 people, according to the US Army. 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Monitor 3

2 Strong steel armour would be prohibi• explosions. Coils of nearly paper•thin storage tanks in hot countries lose each tively heavy on tanker trucks. So in 2005 aluminium mesh can absorb lots of heat year to evaporation through cooling vents. High Impact Technology (HIT), a small very fast. Place enough of them inside a Ampute expects its sales of aluminium †rm based in Oregon, proposed using fuel tank, and the heat created by a projec• mesh to exceed $9m this year. lightweight plastic instead. It developed a tile or crumpling tank will generate fewer Yet another approach is that taken by polyurethane material that is sprayed as a sparks, or none at all. If sparks do ignite Firetrace, based in Arizona. It has designed foam a few centimetres thick onto a fuel vapours, ‡ames may not spread because a plastic fuel•tank shell that is packed with tank and dries into a rigid plastic shell. the mesh restricts air‡ow. Jiangsu Ampute †re•suppressant powder, which is re• When pierced with a bullet, fuel spurting Explosion Prevention Technology, based leased if the shell shatters. More than out of the hole reacts with a secret catalyst near Shanghai, reckons that aluminium 55,000 shells have been installed in police in the polyurethane, causing it to absorb mesh will become widely used in car and military vehicles, at a cost of around fuel and expand, plugging the leak within petrol tanks. It costs only $20 or so, says $4,500 each. Advances in †re safety, then, seconds. The system, called BattleJacket, Yelian Ju, Ampute’s deputy manager. are spreading quickly. Fuel•tank explo• now protects more than 3,400 fuel•haul• Furthermore, by absorbing heat, alumi• sions will doubtless continue in Hol• ing trucks in con‡ict zones. nium mesh keeps fuel cool. This cuts in lywood movies, but they are becoming In 2008 more than 600 bullets were half the 5% or so of fuel that above•ground less frequent in real life. 7 removed from the reservoir of one of them in Balad, Iraq. The truck was still moving fuel for the US Army but the bullets and shrapnel had begun to clog the reservoir’s drainage valve. HIT charges up to $22,000 to spray each tanker (or twice that if the job is done in a war zone). The material has also been applied to the far•smaller tanks of more than 8,000 of America’s †ghting vehicles. There are now BattleJacket plants in America, Canada, Germany and Kuwait, with others being set up in Singapore, Taiwan and Turkey. Bullet and shrapnel holes can also be sealed by rubber bladders placed inside fuel tanks. In a similar fashion to HIT’s polyurethane shell, leaking fuel reacts with chemical additives in an inner layer of the rubber, causing it to absorb the liquid and expand. Such bladders have been used in warplane fuel tanks for decades. The latest bladders, however, can even seal the bigger holes made by bullets that pass right through the fuel tank. Meggitt, a British company, manufac• tures self•sealing rubber bladders that can The referee’s a robot seal holes up to 7cm across in about two minutes. They are not cheap: bladders for aircraft cost more than $20,000 each, and aircraft generally have multiple fuel tanks. America’s V•22 Osprey transporter, for Technology and sport: The deployment of goal•line technology to assist example, has a Meggitt bladder in each of football referees may open the way to further decision aids in future its dozen or more tanks. The company’s bladders are used on more than 10,000 of T’S July 13th 2014. England’s Wayne this summer. This may be just the †rst step America’s military aircraft and more than IRooney darts behind a German defend• towards the wider use of technology to 1,700 ground vehicles. er to score the only goal of the football assist error•prone match oˆcials. An extra bene†t of the bladders is that (soccer) World Cup †nal, just seconds Not everyone approves. FIFA, foot• they can withstand pretty much any before the †nal whistle. But the jubilation ball’s international governing body, which impact that a ‡ight crew might survive. of the team’s supporters at Maracanã has half of the votes at IFAB meetings, When a fuel tank’s rigid shell splits open stadium in Rio is cut short as the linesman argues that goal•line decisions are a spe• on impact, the bladder inside stretches to hoists his ‡ag. The goal is disallowed cial case and opposes any other techno• absorb the impact without bursting. This under the o side rule, despite video evi• logical aids. But Franciso Rocca, chief is good, because splattered fuel is likely to dence to the contrary. The German team executive of La Liga, Spain’s top football be ignited by a spark: more than 40% of goes on to win the penalty shoot•out. league, revealed earlier this year that he American soldiers who survived a heli• Although the notion of England reach• and his colleagues have already started copter•crash impact used to be burned ing the World Cup †nal makes this scenar• looking at o side technologies. alive in an ensuing fuel †re. Today it is less io somewhat fanciful, erroneous o side There have long been calls for referees than 1%, according to Dennis Shanahan, a calls are rather more regular occurrences. to have access to instant video replays, as doctor and retired colonel who studied A clear refereeing error at the last World they do in other sports including basket• the matter for the US Army Aeromedical Cup persuaded the International Football ball, American football, baseball and Research Laboratory. Association Board (IFAB), which deter• rugby. Many share the view of Sepp Blat• Even humble aluminium alloys, clever• mines the laws of the game, to sanction ter, the president of FIFA, who is opposed ly used, can prevent fuel•tank †res and the introduction of goal•line technology on the grounds that it would break the 1 4 Monitor The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

2 ‡ow of matches. But this criticism cannot These use an accelerometer and a magnet• his †ndings, though, many of his col• be levelled at new devices and systems, at ic proximity sensor to identify the impact leagues were o ended at the suggestion varying stages of development, which of an opponent’s boot, so that dives can that they did not have clean hands. After could mitigate refereeing errors. be distinguished from legitimate tackles. all, doctors were gentlemen and as GoalControl, the German provider of They were designed as a decision aid Charles Meigs, another obstetrician, put it, the goal•line technology used during rather than a fully automatic system, says Œa gentleman’s hands are clean. Dis• June’s FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil, Daniel Bartram of Smallfry, the British couraged, Semmelweis slipped into de• has already begun work on new decision †rm that designed the pads. But an auto• pression and was eventually committed to aids for referees. Its existing system uses matic system could be built. a lunatic asylum. He died 14 days later, seven high•speed cameras focused on Though there is much disagreement after being brutally beaten by the guards. each goal, and software that transforms over the merits of such technologies, few Hygiene in hospitals has come a long two•dimensional images into three•di• dispute the fallibility of human referees. way since Semmelweis’s time. But there is mensional representations of the ball and Research shows, for example, that home still room for improvement. Every year its trajectory. With more cameras and teams are awarded more penalties, receive nearly 100,000 people die in America extra software capable of identifying fewer punishments for o ences and get alone from preventable infections ac• individual players, a souped•up version more extra time when losing. As automat• quired in hospitals. An invention devised could make a variety of refereeing judg• ed systems that can make more accurate by Paul Alper of Deb Group, a British ments. The company claims that by track• calls than humans are re†ned and demon• skincare company, could help change this. ing players’ hands and arms, it could even strated, football’s custodians may †nd that As in Semmelweis’s day, unclean call handballs. ŒWe are concentrating on pressure for their adoption becomes too hands are a big cause of infection. Wards goal•line technology, but the system is great to resist. 7 abound with devices that dispense anti• able to detect o side and penalties, says septic handwash, but they are not always Dirk Broichhausen, GoalControl’s boss. used as frequently as they should be‹the Hawk•Eye, a British company owned compliance rate is below 40% in most by Sony which has developed decision hospitals. The DebMed Group Monitoring aids for tennis and cricket, is behind the First, wash your System (GMS) is intended to encourage goal•line technology now being used in sta to wash their hands. the English Premier League. A video•based hands The invention itself is simple. It con• system that works in a similar way to sists merely of adding a chip to the dis• GoalControl, it could also be adapted to penser to monitor usage. It is the psycholo• do other things, though Paul Hawkins, its Biomedicine: Smart antiseptic gy behind it that is clever, because instead inventor, is unwilling to discuss whether dispensers promise to save lives by of being intrusive and allocating blame, as the †rm is working on o side decisions. subtly encouraging medical sta to happens when dispensers in (say) toilets Researchers at Keio University in Japan wash their hands more often are monitored by cameras to make sure have devised a 16•camera system that can people who have been to the lavatory do spot o side o ences. It can also identify IVING birth was a dangerous endeav• indeed wash and sterilise their hands, it situations in which players in o side Gour in the 1800s; many women died relies on peer pressure. Individuals are not positions do not actually touch the ball. In soon after doing so. Ignaz Semmelweis, an singled out; wards are. What could be a recent test during a live match, there obstetrician working at the time at Vienna oppressive thus becomes a competition were two incidents in which the system General Hospital observed that by wash• between groups, rather than a †nger• got o side calls right‹and the referee got ing his hands with bleach before he wagging exercise within them. them wrong. touched his patients he could reduce their The chip in each dispenser sends infor• These image•processing systems are mortality rate by 90%. This was before mation to a remote server, where it is not the only games in town. Engineers at Louis Pasteur established the germ theory recorded, analysed and then made avail• the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated of disease, and Semmelweis could not able either on the web or by e•mail to Circuits, in Erlangen, Germany, have explain the correlation. After he published hospital sta in an entirely automated 1 developed RedFIR, a radio•based sport tracking system. A small, impact•resistant radio transmitter within the ball allows its position to be determined 2,000 times per second to receivers around the pitch, while similar devices built into shin pads do the same for the players. Because the use of such devices in professional games would require rule changes, RedFIR is currently being devel• oped to provide performance data during training. Its software allows managers to monitor things like sprint frequency and pass completion. But it could do much more, including helping referees with o side calls, corners and throw•ins, says René Dünkler of the RedFIR team. Even more infuriating to supporters than incorrect o side decisions are players who dive to gain unwarranted penalties. The prototype anti•dive shin pads used during a demonstration match in London in 2011could put a stop to such antics. Surgically scrubbing up nicely The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Monitor 5

2 process. The GMS records the number of a rating for a group of people, nobody is waste and ineˆciency. Quieter products times dispensers are used in di erent singled out. And if compliance is low, the may cost more, but they generally con• parts of a hospital and compares this with o enders can correct their behaviour sume less energy, which makes them an estimated reasonable usage, custo• collectively, behind closed doors, without cheaper to run. Boeing claims that its mised to the circumstances of each hospi• the need for confrontation. fuel•eˆcient 787 airliner, for example, is tal. This target is based on World Health If the system works as intended, it will also the quietest aircraft in its class. Less Organisation’s ŒFive Moments for Hand save many lives. It should also save mon• noisy aircraft are welcomed by people Hygiene, a guide to the best hand•wash• ey, for treating hospital•induced infections living near airports and ‡ight paths, but ing practices for di erent types of contact is costly. According to Mr Alper, dozens of they also make ‡ying less stressful for with patients. The ratio of actual to target hospitals have already signed up for trials. passengers travelling in them. score gives the compliance rate for a par• The ghost of Ignaz Semmelweis is no That is why NASA, America’s space ticular unit or ward. Because this provides doubt smiling. 7 agency, pays close attention to the noise levels experienced by astronauts. It care• fully measures and models the sound output of the equipment it sends into space, on the basis that a quieter working The sound of silence environment increases concentration and reduces fatigue. It applies the same atten• tion to detail on Earth, with stringent noise standards in its ground facilities, and introduced a Œbuy quiet procurement Technology and society: Designers are paying more attention to devising scheme in 2009. A report on the pro• products that make less noise, which can save energy and boost sales gramme from 2012 points out that reduc• ing noise in the workplace makes †nan• FFORTS to regulate the nuisance of cial sense because as well as boosting Edistracting noise date back at least as productivity, it avoids compensation far as the 6th century BC, when the Greek claims and medical costs. NASA says this colony of Sybaris decreed that, along with is best done by buying low•noise pro• roosters, tinsmiths and potters had to live ducts, even though they typically cost outside the city because of the noise they 5•10% more, because retro†tting noise• made. Some 25 centuries later Charles reduction systems after purchase can cost Babbage, an English mathematician who 10•15 times as much. is remembered as one of the forefathers of Things can sometimes be too quiet, computing, waged a series of campaigns however. Electric cars can be diˆcult to against organ grinders and other forms of hear at low speeds, which makes them street music. Both would surely approve dangerous to pedestrians and blind peo• of the way in which designers have lately ple. In Chinese cities the danger comes not started paying more attention to devising from electric or hybrid cars, but from products that make less noise. popular (and almost silent) electric bicy• Steve Jobs of Apple was a pioneer in cles, says Jan Chipchase of Frog Design, an this regard. He insisted that the original innovation consultancy. Earlier this year Macintosh computer, launched in 1984, America’s Department of Transportation should not have an internal cooling fan, proposed new minimum sound require• but rely instead on convection cooling to ments for electric and hybrid cars, which keep it quiet. (This made it silent but prone may require sound generators to be added to overheating, and fans were added to to some vehicles. (The proposed rules later models.) Yet with computers, as with prohibit users from using personalised, anything else, quietness tends not to be a downloadable Œvroomtones, alas.) Al• quality that buyers regard as terribly ready the Renault Zoe, an electric car, has a important. Surveys show that only about sound generator for use at low speeds, 25% of people consider how noisy a pro• and the Lexus IS 300h hybrid has an Œac• duct will be when buying it, according to tive sound control system designed to Mike Goldsmith, a former head of acous• give its four•cylinder engine the sound of tics at Britain’s National Physical Labora• a V6, even when cruising on electric pow• tory. But many of them come to regret this, er. A well•engineered Œnoise signature and half of such disgruntled shoppers say improves the driving experience, says they would pay as much as 50% extra for a Tomas Keppens, a noise and vibration product that makes half as much noise. Health Organisation in 2011, which found specialist at the Japanese carmaker. Last year Quiet Mark, a British not•for• that in western Europe, excessive noise The addition of sound generators to pro†t company, was launched to encour• was second only to air pollution as a cause cars is a good example of how sound can age manufacturers to make quieter pro• of environmental ill•health. Quiet Mark provide vital cues in some products (the ducts. It was founded by Poppy Elliott, the campaigns for quieter products and arti†cial camera•shutter sound made by granddaughter of John Connell, who awards a stamp of approval to products or digital cameras) or may be carefully de• founded the Noise Abatement Society in schemes that minimise noise, including signed to convey quality (the sound made 1959. Ms Elliott believes that a quiet envi• kettles, blenders, hairdryers and washing when closing the door of an expensive ronment is necessary to enable people to machines‹and even hotels and silent car). The aim, then, should not be Œno ful†l their intellectual and creative poten• musical instruments. sound but Œthe right sort of sound. By tial. She points to a report on the health Quietness makes economic sense and large, though, that will usually mean e ects of noise published by the World because excessive noise is usually a sign of making less rather than more noise. 7 6 Di erence engine The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 The rebirth of the diesel engine

Automotive technology: Electric and hybrid cars are being given a run for their money by an unlikely competitor: a range of advanced diesel engines that set new standards in performance and fuel economy

ESLA MOTORS has had great success All told, the improvement in engine eˆ• Twith its Model S luxury electric car, ciency more than compensates for any which has outsold its petrol•powered loss of power caused by reducing the die• equivalents since being launched in Amer• sel’s compression ratio. As it is, diesels start ica last year. Even so, the prospects for bat• o by being 30•35% more eˆcient than pet• tery•powered vehicles generally may nev• rol engines. The new low•compression er shine quite as bright again. Having had diesels are likely to be even more so. their day in the sun, they may soon be There are bene†ts on the emissions side eclipsed by, wait for it, the diesel engine. as well. In a typical diesel engine, ignition American readers will †nd this idea is caused not by a set of spark•plugs †ring particularly hard to swallow. Surely not sequentially, but by the heat of the air be• that dirty, noisy, smelly, lumbering lump of ing squeezed in the cylinders. The timing a motor that was hard to start in winter? of this auto•ignition is controlled by the in• Certainly not. A whole new generation of jectors, which squirt precise amounts of sprightly diesels‹developed over the past fuel under extremely high pressure into few years‹bear no resemblance to the clat• each cylinder exactly as needed. For maxi• tering Oldsmobile 4.3•litre diesel of the late mum eˆciency, this is done just as the pis• 1970s, which single•handedly destroyed tons arrive at the top of their stroke and the diesel’s reputation in America for decades. cylinder pressure is at its highest. Later this year Americans will get their †rst chance to experi• Unfortunately, the fuel and air at top dead•centre are rarely ence what a really advanced diesel is like‹and why Europeans mixed as thoroughly as necessary for complete combustion. This opt for diesels over hybrids, plug•in electrics and even petrol•pow• incomplete combustion produces soot particles and smog•form• ered cars. The leader of the new pack is the Mazda 6, with the ing nitrogen oxides‹the curse of traditional diesel engines. Mod• choice of either a 2.5•litre four•cylinder petrol engine or a 2.2•litre ern clean diesels trade some of their power for improved combus• turbo•charged diesel. The diesel has more than 30% better fuel tion. They do so by delaying the injection of the fuel until the economy and provides oodles more pulling power. Good as the piston begins to move back down the cylinder. The delay and the petrol version is, motorists who choose it over the diesel will miss falling pressure give the fuel a chance to blend with the air better. out on a lot. And Mazda is not the only carmaker with an ad• Even so, clean diesels still need an expensive catalytic•reduc• vanced diesel in the works. Among others, Mitsubishi Motors has tion system that injects a solution of urea into the exhaust to mop been selling cars with a new generation of 1.8•litre and 2.2•litre die• up the nitrogen oxides. They also need particulate traps to capture sel engines in Europe since 2010. Hedging its bets on hybrids, the soot. Going to a lower compression ratio avoids much of this. Toyota has also been testing several radically new diesel designs. The fuel be burned without diˆculty at the cylinder’s top dead• What marks this latest generation of diesel engines from even centre, and the urea•injection system is no longer required. their Œcommon•rail predecessors of the late 1990s, let alone their belching ancestors from the 1970s, is the use of a surprisingly low Not just a fair•weather friend compression ratio of around 14:1rather than the more usual 16:1or Meanwhile, the diesel’s old bugbear of poor starting in cold higher. The reduction in cylinder pressure may sound marginal, weather has been licked by the adoption of piezoelectric fuel in• but it gives rise to a virtuous cycle of bene†cial e ects that were jectors with multiple nozzles, which can spray fuel in whatever previously unavailable. pattern best suits the operating conditions. And because the For a start, the lower cylinder pressure reduces thermal and valves on modern engines have variable lift and timing, the ex• mechanical stresses in the engine. As a result, the heavy cast•iron haust valves can be left slightly open as the engine is coughing block traditionally needed to stop a diesel ripping itself apart can and spluttering during a particularly cold start. Hot exhaust gas be replaced with a lighter aluminium casting. That trims 25kg sucked back into the cylinders then helps the engine warm up. (55lb) o the weight of the block of the new Mazda diesel. Lower With its old 1.4•litre diesel engine, the Volkswagen Polo cur• cylinder pressures mean that pistons, rings, valves, crankshaft and rently holds the record for being the most frugal non•electric car in other engine parts can also be made 25% lighter. And because they Europe, with a fuel economy on the combined cycle of just 3.8 li• are weighed down less by the engine, the vehicle’s brakes, suspen• tres/100km (equivalent to 61.9 miles per American gallon). The sion and bodywork do not need to be quite so rugged either. All Toyota Prius hybrid? A lowly 20th in the league table of the most these weight savings translate into greater eˆciency. According to economical fuel•sippers, with 4.2 litres/100km, along with higher Ricardo, an engineering consultancy, every 10% reduction in a emissions of carbon dioxide. The 19 cars having better fuel econ• family car’s weight boosts its fuel economy by more than 4%. omy than the Prius hybrid are all clean diesels. Another bene†t of lower cylinder pressure is that the lighter Your columnist fully expects the new generation of clean, low• moving parts in the engine generate less internal friction‹improv• compression diesels to improve fuel•economy by a further 20% or ing eˆciency still further. And having less inertia, they allow the more. That will put diesels on much the same footing‹given the engine to spin faster and more freely, which also boosts eˆciency. way that equivalent miles•per•gallon are calculated for electric Mazda’s new ŒSkyactiv•D engine can reach 5,200 revolutions per vehicles‹as many battery•powered vehicles, but without any minute, a †gure previously unheard of among road•going diesels. worries about range or recharging. Roll on the day. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 3D printing 7

out any commercial value in the manufac• ture of real †nished goods, and he has vowed to start spelling his name back• wards if proved wrong. Mr Gou (or should that be Uog?) is right about one thing: additive manufacturing is not about to replace mass manufacturing. Even though the technology is improving, the †nish and durability of some printed items can still fall short of what producers require. And nor can 3D printers crank out zillions of identical parts at low cost, as mass•production lines can. Nevertheless, 3D printers have their virtues, which is why they are starting to be used by some of the world’s biggest manufacturers, such as Airbus, Boeing, GE, Ford and Siemens. The market for 3D printers and services is small, but growing fast. Last year it was worth $2.2 billion worldwide, up 29% from 2011, according to Wohlers Associates, a consultancy. As producers become more familiar with the technology, they are moving from prototypes to †nal products. Last year Wohlers reckons more than 25% of the 3D•printing market involved making production•ready items. Some of those parts are taking shape in RedEye’s printers. In many cases they are low•volume items, such as components used to build specialist pharmaceutical or paper•making equipment. Other compo• nents, such as 3D•printed tools and jigs, will actually enhance mass•production: BMW’s assembly•line workers design and print custom tools to make it easier to hold 3D printing scales up and position parts. 3D•printed plastic moulds and dies are also being printed to help set up and trial new production lines. Some of these printed parts are even used as temporary stand•ins for broken steel tools, which can take weeks to replace. Hard•to•†nd spare parts are also being Digital manufacturing: There is a lot of hype around 3D printing. But it is fast 3D printed, in one case helping a large becoming integrated with mainstream manufacturing American airline to get some of its aircraft back into the air. The carrier was frequent• EEK through the inspection windows the process is also called additive manufac• ly having to ground its ageing McDonnell Pof the nearly 100 three•dimensional turing. There are many ways in which this Douglas MD•80 jets because of leaking toi• (3D) printers quietly making things at Red• can be done (see box on next page), and lets. Production of these aircraft ceased Eye, a company based in Eden Prairie, Min• with only a tweak of software each item long ago, and the airline was struggling to nesota, and you can catch a glimpse of can be di erent, without the need for cost• †nd spare parts. Its new plumbing is now how factories will work in the future. It is ly retooling of machines. This has made 3D being 3D printed in an aerospace•grade not simply that the machines, some as big printing a popular way to make one•o plastic (which does not ignite or produce as delivery vans, run day and night attend• items, especially prototype parts, mock• noxious fumes if burned). ed by just a handful of technicians. Instead ups, gadgets and craft items. As 3D printers get better and printed it is what they are making that shows how And that is about all that 3D printers are materials improve, the quality and †nish this revolutionary production process is good for, reckon the doubters. Chief of prototypes is becoming harder to distin• entering the manufacturing mainstream. among them is Terry Gou, the boss of Fox• guish from things made in traditional fac• 3D printers make things by building conn, the world’s largest contract manufac• tories, says Tim Thellin, RedEye’s manager. them up, a layer at a time, from a particular turer of electronic goods, which makes Despite the hype around desktop 3D print• material, rather than removing it by cut• many of Apple’s products in China. He ers aimed at hobbyists and consumers, it is ting, drilling or machining‹which is why thinks 3D printing is just Œa gimmick with• the big, industrial•grade printers that are 1 8 3D printing The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

In another example, 3D Systems has worked with Align Technology of San Jose, California. Instead of using metal braces for straightening teeth, Align pro• duces sets of transparent plastic Œaligners. A scan of the patient’s mouth is used to de• vise a treatment plan, which in turn gener• How 3D printers work ates a digital †le which is used to 3D•print a set of 20 or so moulds. Each mould is sight• ly di erent, and from them a series of clear T FIRST, 3D printing was known as glue gun (pictured). A heated nozzle plastic braces is cast. When worn over sev• Astereolithography, a process invent• extrudes a †lament of thermoplastic, eral months, each brace steadily moves the ed in 1986 by Chuck Hull of 3D Systems. which sets as it cools. Multiple heads patient’s teeth into the desired position. Variations of this process are still used. It can extrude di erent colours. FDM is the Last year Align 3D printed 17m of them. begins, like all 3D printing, with soft• mechanism used in many of the small ware that takes a series of digital slices 3D printers used by hobbyists, some of Flying high through a computer model of an object. which now cost less than $1,000. More The aerospace industry, with relatively The shape of each slice is used selective• capable 3D printers cost tens of thou• low volumes, is also embracing 3D print• ly to harden a layer of light•sensitive sands of dollars, and big industrial ing. Production parts tend to be non•criti• liquid, usually with ultraviolet light, to systems, like the laser•sintering ma• cal items, but that will change. Today, a typ• form the required shape. After each chines capable of printing aerospace ical F•18 †ghter jet is likely to contain some layer has been made, the build tray parts in titanium, cost as much as $1m. 90 3D•printed parts, even though the F•18 lowers by a fraction, another layer of has been in service for two decades‹since liquid is added and the process is repeat• before 3D printing took o . This is because ed until the object is complete. replacement bits, like parts of the cockpit Many other approaches have since and cooling ducts, are now 3D printed. The been developed. Laser•sintering in• F•35, a new strike aircraft entering service volves zapping layers of powdered in America, has around 900 parts that plastic or metal with a laser to harden have been identi†ed as suitable for addi• the powder in some places, but not tive manufacturing, says 3D Systems. others. Other machines use an electron The world’s biggest manufacturer, GE, beam in a similar way. An alternative has no doubt about how important addi• process melts a metallic powder as it is tive manufacturing will be in many of its deposited. This can be used to repair divisions, from energy to health care. And worn parts, such as turbine blades. it intends to keep much of that technology Some machines operate a bit like 2D in•house to maintain a competitive edge. inkjet printers, jetting light•sensitive In November 2012 GE bought Morris Tech• liquid materials to form layers and then nologies, a †rm based in Cincinnati which hardening them. Some machines can has been one of the leaders in providing print a dozen di erent materials in a additive manufacturing services to indus• single pass of the print head. try. Among other things, Morris has made One of the most popular techniques lightweight parts for unmanned aerial ve• is fused deposition modelling (FDM), hicles. What attracts GE to the technology which is akin to a computer•controlled Layer by layer is its potential to make complex, light• weight components, which are not easily manufactured by traditional means, out of 2 working the hardest as demand grows for the market leaders in 3D printers. exotic materials. By 2020 GE is expected to printing large items, which are tricky to 3D Systems, based in South Carolina, be printing tens of thousands of parts for make with conventional methods such as also has plenty of examples of ways in its jet engines alone. plastic injection•moulding, says Mr Thel• which 3D printers are being used to pro• None of this is lost on the Chinese. Oˆ• lin. One example is body panels for spe• duce †nished products. An early adopter cials in Beijing see additive manufacturing cialist cars. These can have complex of the technology has been the health•care as a way to upgrade their own manufactur• shapes, consolidating individual compo• industry‹a †eld in which mass customisa• ing base as the country’s labour costs in• nents that previously had to be assembled. tion is useful, because every patient is dif• crease and some o shored production The inspection windows of some of ferent. Millions of hearing•aid shells have moves back to America and Europe. Al• RedEye’s 3D printers are covered, because been 3D•printed from scans of patients’ ear though it is not yet as advanced as America these machines are making defence•relat• canals, says Cathy Lewis, 3D Systems’ mar• in 3D printing, China has big ambitions. ed items, or their work is commercially keting chief. Initially the shells were cast Plenty of 3D printing in China dovetails sensitive. One that is on view is a machine from 3D•printed moulds, but with the de• with traditional factories. Beijing Long• printing parts for the 3D printers produced velopment of printable biocompatible yuan Automated Fabrication System, for by RedEye’s parent company, Stratasys. It plastics that do not irritate the skin, they instance, uses a form of 3D printing called and another †rm, called 3D Systems, are are now printed directly. laser•sintering to produce moulds out of 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 3D printing 9 Œ3D printing is not competing with conventional manufacturing, but is hybridising with it.

2 specially treated foundry sand. The atomising liquid electronic materials into a Moreover, some big manufacturers, like moulds are then sent to a traditional dense aerosol, which is then focused by a GE, are developing bespoke 3D•printing foundry to cast metal parts in the old•fash• sheath of gas into a beam and deposited in systems which are not dependent on a sin• ioned way. The use of 3D printing means layers. It can produce electrical circuits and gle supplier of equipment or material. all the parts needed for a prototype car en• components, including wires, resistors, ca• One spur to the development of the 3D• gine can be produced in a couple of weeks pacitors and semiconductors, with fea• printing industry has been falling prices instead of several months. tures as small as 10 microns across (a mi• and increased competition, after some of Some of the world’s biggest 3D printers cron is one millionth of a metre). Optomec the early patents on fused•deposition can be found in China. Its astronauts sit in has been working on printing LED lighting modelling expired in 2009, notes a recent 3D•printed seats which are shaped speci†• onto wallpaper and control circuits onto report by the McKinsey Global Institute. cally to their bodies. Engineers working on the wings of a small drone (which itself This is what has brought the price of some a Chinese rival to the short•haul jets made was 3D printed by Stratasys). printers down to below $1,000. by Boeing and Airbus are using giant 3D• The company is also working with a The industry is also consolidating as it printing machines, one of them 12 metres number of mobile•phone manufacturers scales up. Last year Stratasys merged with long, to print parts (including wing spares to print circuits directly into handsets. The Objet of Israel, and in June the company and fuselage frames) in titanium. latest smartphones have multiple aerials bought MakerBot, based in Brooklyn. In for cellular radios, Wi•Fi, Bluetooth, GPS July 3D Systems bought an 81% stake in Powering up and so forth. They are usually made with a Phenix Systems, a French provider of laser• The value of 3D printing as a production chemical•plating process which is environ• sintering in metal, which is something of a tool will increase further with systems that mentally unfriendly. Optomec can print European speciality (the leader in laser• are capable of printing electrical circuits di• them directly into the case using a conduc• sintering is EOS of Germany). Another rectly onto or into components. Disney tive silver ink. A trial system was recently phase of innovation and increased compe• and Xerox are experimenting with such installed on a production line in China. tition may begin in 2014 when some of the processes, as is GKN Aerospace, a British Eventually it will be possible to print patents on laser•sintering expire. Because †rm. In a joint project with the University most electrical components directly into a laser•sintering is capable of printing things of Warwick, GKN has developed a printing product, predicts Michael Renn, the direc• in plastic, metal and ceramics to high levels material called Œcarbomorph. This has tor of Optomec’s development laboratory. of detail, it is often used to make †nished piezoresistive properties, which means its But although the system can print transis• products rather than mere prototypes. electrical resistance changes when it is tors, and could thus produce logic circuits, squeezed. It can be used to print function• it cannot print the billions of tiny transis• At your service ing switches, buttons and sensors. tors found in microprocessors and other Meanwhile, 3D printing is becoming more Optomec, based in Albuquerque, has chips. Those chips would still need to be readily available to people with no equip• come up with a way to print electronics manufactured in the usual way and incor• ment of their own through service provid• which it calls Aerosol Jet. This works by porated into a 3D•printed product‹though ers that print objects on demand from dig• Dr Renn is quick to point out that he can itised plans, such as Shapeways, based in use his Aerosol Jet to wire them up. New York, Sculpteo, based in France, and Additive manufacturing has other limi• Materialise, based in Belgium. It prints tations. It can be slow‹taking several medical implants for surgeons, models of hours to print, say, a body panel for a car. buildings for architects, lampshades for in• But speed is relative. What may be too terior designers, custom•made knobs for slow for a large production run might be cabinet•makers and lightweight parts for †ne for a one•o item which would take industrial robots. weeks to make in a machine•shop. If Mr Gou of Foxconn ever has a spot of Material costs are also high. Acryloni• bother with his own production lines, trile butadiene styrene, better known as these †rms might be able to help. Clément ABS, is the most common 3D•printing ma• Moreau, Sculpteo’s boss, tells of a large terial. A mass manufacturer using plastic Chinese manufacturer which was setting injection moulding might buy ABS in bulk up a new production line, but found it was for about $2 a kilo, but as a bespoke pow• missing some small plastic parts which der or †lament for 3D printing it can cost as should have been ordered from an injec• much as $80 a kilo, says Anthony Vicari of tion•moulding company. Faced with Lux Research, a Boston company that weeks of delay it looked at 3D printing the tracks emerging technologies. bits instead. Sculpteo had the †rst batch of In part the price di erence is due to 5,000 parts on their way to China within higher standards of purity and composi• days. It is yet another example of how 3D tion required for 3D printing. But mostly it printing is not competing with conven• is because 3D•printer manufacturers re• tional manufacturing techniques, but is in• quire users to buy materials from them stead complementing and hybridising and mark up the price, as with the inks for with them to make new things possible. 2D inkjet printers. Mr Vicari thinks this When 3D printing can come to the rescue strategy is not sustainable long term as of mass manufacturing, its place in the fac• Here’s one I made earlier third•party suppliers enter the business. tory of the future is assured. 7 10 High•tech fabrics The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

rials to make stronger tapes, sails and slash•resistant butcher’s gloves. Lind• Material bene†ts strand Technologies, a British maker of air• ships, recently switched from polyester to a Vectran•based fabric, even though it costs about ten times as much. It has the advan• tage of being both lighter and tougher, and can de‡ect small•arms †re at about 200 metres, says Per Lindstrand, the †rm’s High•tech fabrics: Advances in seemingly mundane textile technologies managing director. promise to make the world a safer place‹using a variety of tricks The same material was also used in the airbags that cushion the landing of rovers N APRIL 29th a Boeing 747 cargo jet materials and techniques are making pos• sent to Mars by NASA, America’s space Ocrashed just after take•o at Bagram sible high•tech fabrics with a range of use• agency. This provided Œreally good PR, not airbase in Afghanistan, killing all seven ful new properties. Humans have been so great volume, jokes Forrest Sloan of crew members. During the ascent, it weaving fabrics since the dawn of civilisa• Kuraray’s American arm. More recently, seems, some heavy cargo broke free from tion, but researchers around the world are Vectran has been protecting British ar• its constraints and slid backwards, lifting now cooking up myriad new textiles capa• moured vehicles from Russian•made rock• the nose of the aircraft and making it stall. ble of containing explosions, protecting as• et•propelled grenades, which use an explo• Such accidents have happened before. In tronauts, thwarting bacteria and even sion to propel a spike of copper through as 1997 a cargo plane leaving Miami crashed keeping buildings standing during earth• much as 25cm of steel. A Vectran netting after pallets of denim shifted; all four of quakes. These new fabrics are also †nding system, mounted on a light metal frame the crew and a motorist on the ground more commonplace uses, such as helping and wrapped around vehicles about 30cm were killed. Accordingly, there is much in• to keep people cool in the heat or ensuring from their surface, deforms the warhead terest in brawnier nets that can ensure air that clothes stay clean and smell fresh. tip in a way that prevents the spike from cargo stays put. Japan’s Nippon Cargo Air• Underlying these novel materials are forming, says Steve Lawton of AmSafe lines, TAP Portugal, and, as of this summer, some unusual manufacturing techniques. Bridport, which designed the system. Air France•KLM are using netting fabric Kuraray, a Japanese †rm, has for example that is much stronger than the polyester developed a clever way to harness an attri• Weave your spell netting in wide use today. bute of some polymers known as liquid Fabrics can be given new properties by The fabric in question is woven from †• crystallinity. As the name suggests, the clever arrangement of their yarns. Stacking bres of ultra•high•molecular•weight poly• molecules in liquid•crystal polymers (LCP) several layers of unidirectional yarns at ethylene (UHMWPE), a type of plastic have arranged themselves to form crystals, cross angles, for example, makes a power• made up of unusually long and heavy hy• which makes them stronger than poly• ful Œmulti•axial fabric. Using glass• and drocarbon chains. Such †bres have a mers with randomly ordered molecules. plastic•†bre yarns woven in this way, an strength•to•weight ratio around 15 times Kuraray pumps melted LCP goo, heated to Italian company, Selcom, has made Œseis• greater than steel, says Joe Ashton of Am• 300°C, through a showerhead•like device mic wallpaper. Called SENTEX 8300, it Safe Bridport, a British manufacturer of with holes 23 microns (millionths of a me• has been wrapped around a building near cargo nets. The †rm’s nets are made of Dy• tre) in diameter. The resulting †bres are Venice to prevent it from collapsing during neema, a UHMWPE †bre made by Royal amazingly strong: twist together 100,000 earthquakes. As well as providing support, DSM, a Dutch manufacturer, and sell for of them to produce a cord a bit thicker than the fabric contains embedded sensors that around $400 each. That is about four times a pencil, and it can suspend about eight can be used to monitor a building’s move• as much as a typical polyester net. But as tonnes, or the weight of four SUVs. ments during and after seismic shocks. well as being much stronger, nets made Vectran, as this material is branded, is Another arrangement trick involves the with Dyneema last longer and, at about also notable for its low Œcreep, or reluc• combination of †bres to create Œauxetic 9kg, weigh half as much, saving fuel and tance to stretch. It helps keep robots’ ges• yarn that, when stretched, becomes reducing carbon•dioxide emissions. tures precise when used in their cabling, thicker rather than thinner. To understand This is just one example of how new for instance, and is woven into other mate• how this works, imagine a rubber bungee 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 High•tech fabrics 11

2 cord with a piece of †shing line wrapped more directly from †re. Chapman Innova• leader. The EU is providing ¤8.3m ($11m) in around its length in an open spiral. If you tions, a †rm based in Salt Lake City, makes funding for the project in the hope of re• pull the †shing line tight, it straightens, and †re•resistant garments by baking †bres ducing the 10m days patients spend in the bungee cord is distorted into a spiral made of acrylic, a form of arti†cial silk, at European hospitals annually due to infec• around it‹a spiral wider than the undis• half a degree below its combustion tem• tions caught within their walls. torted cord. Similarly, fabrics made of aux• perature. This blackens the acrylic and Enhanced textiles can also be put to etic yarn get thicker when stretched. cooks o its nitrogen, an element that more everyday uses. Anti•microbial tex• This unusual property gives an auxetic would otherwise enable it to burn. Fabric tiles reduce body odour and its attendant textile made by Advanced Fabric Technol• made from the †bres, called CarbonX, is textile discolouration. Mosquito•repellent ogies (AFT), a †rm based in Houston, the used to make garments for factory work• clothing is made by treating fabric with strength to contain powerful explosions. ers, †re†ghters, racing drivers, soldiers and permethrin, a synthetic insecticide, or py• The textile, branded Xtegra, is made with police SWAT teams. rethroid, a compound similar to a natural synthetic †bres including DuPont’s Kevlar chrysanthemum insecticide. Water•repel• and Hytrel, a rubbery plastic. Fragments of An uncommon thread lent or Œhydrophobic textiles designed to shrapnel from an explosion bounce o the A carefully designed fabric can even pre• prevent hyperthermia among Swiss and fabric as it stretches and thickens to absorb vent a †re in the †rst place. If static electric• German soldiers are being used to make their kinetic energy and then snaps back. ity collects in clothing, it can generate a sportswear that is more comfortable in hot In a test carried out by the British Minis• spark that ignites fumes. To avoid sparking, weather, says René Rossi of the Swiss Fed• try of Defence, †ve 1mm layers of Xtegra the Barnet Trading Company in Shanghai eral Laboratories for Materials Science and stopped shrapnel from a rocket•propelled designed a yarn made of carbon sheathed Technology, which devised the material. grenade detonated †ve metres away. Ad• in polyester. The trick, says Ma Wei, the At the other end of the spectrum mate• justing the size and weaving patterns of †rm’s boss, was to give the carbon core a rials are being developed to protect astro• the auxetic †bre can produce materials op• trilobal shape. Static electricity slips o the nauts from dangerous radiation. High radi• timised for particular uses, says David core’s three ridges, dissipating before ation levels beyond low•earth orbit mean O’Keefe of AFT. His †rm’s customers are enough accumulates to create a spark. The that existing shielding materials used in using Xtegra to provide protection from yarn, named Nega•Stat, is widely used in spacecraft and spacesuits are inadequate mine explosions, shrapnel in tank crew petrochemical facilities, industrial clean for manned missions lasting more than compartments, the rupture of oil•drilling rooms and medical operating theatres. 100 days, says Sheila Thibeault of NASA’s manifolds and lashing from hurricanes. Earlier this year patients at Pirogov Hos• Langley Research Centre. Her team is de• A European consortium of nine part• pital in So†a, Bulgaria, began receiving py• veloping new fabrics based on tiny crystal• ners including Meridiana, an Italian air• jamas and bedding made from a novel line †bres made of boron and nitrogen, line, is developing an auxetic textile capa• form of cotton. Its †bres had been impreg• which are heated under pressure to form ble of containing a blast in an airliner’s nated with nanoparticles of zinc oxide, boron•nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). Resem• luggage hold. The Fly•Bag project, funded giving the material antibacterial proper• bling white candy‡oss, these can be spun by the European Union, has created multi• ties. Aneta Hubenova, head of hospital’s into a Œpretty spectacular yarn that stops layered, auxetic•fabric bags that hold more toxicology clinic, says preliminary results many harmful particles, she says. than 30 pieces of luggage. In tests at Blas• indicate that the patients su ered fewer in• But it is still not quite good enough. The tech, a facility near Buxton in England, a fections than those in control groups. next step is to integrate hydrogen into the prototype successfully contained †ve det• Embedding the zinc oxide in the cotton tubular structure of BNNTs. Modelling has onations of RDX, a plastic explosive. Jim was not easy. Researchers at the Bar•Ilan shown that such hydrogenated BNNTs Warren, Blastech’s boss, says a Fly•Bag University Institute for Nanotechnology would provide e ective shielding against would have contained the baggage•hold and Advanced Materials in Ramat Gan, Is• the radiation encountered in interplane• blast that tore through a Boeing 747’s fuse• rael, used ultrasound to create momentary tary space. Dr Thibeault says her team has lage in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland, kill• voids about ten microns in diameter in a made good progress incorporating hydro• ing 270 people. The bag also smothers watery solution containing zinc. As they gen in recent months. When she suggests post•blast †res thanks to its zip•up seal and collapse, the voids heat up and shoot tiny that mankind’s future in space depends on a coating that restricts air‡ow. particles of zinc oxide into nearby cotton †• the development of new fabrics, she is not Novel materials can also protect people bres, says Aharon Gedanken, the project just spinning a good yarn. 7 12 Biofuels The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

What happened to biofuels?

Energy technology: Making large amounts of fuel from organic matter has proved to be more diˆcult and costly than expected

CIENTISTS have long known how to Sconvert various kinds of organic materi• al into liquid fuel. Trees, shrubs, grasses, seeds, fungi, seaweed, algae and animal fats have all been turned into biofuels to power cars, ships and even planes. As well as being available to countries without tar sands, shale †elds or gushers, biofuels can help reduce greenhouse•gas emissions by and grasses grown on otherwise unpro• or a biochemical process (using enzymes, providing an alternative to releasing fossil• ductive land. Other †rms planned to make natural or synthetic bacteria, or algae). The fuel carbon into the atmosphere. Frustrat• Œdrop in biofuels that could replace con• third and largest challenge is to †nd ways ingly, however, making biofuels in large ventional fossil fuels directly, rather than to do all this cheaply and on a large scale. quantities has always been more expen• having to be blended in. In 2008 Shell, an energy giant, was sive and less convenient than simply drill• Governments also jumped on the bio• working on ten advanced biofuels pro• ing a little deeper for oil. fuels bandwagon. George Bush saw bio• jects. It has now shut most of them down, Ethanol, for instance, is an alcoholic fuels as a route to energy independence, and none of those that remain is ready for biofuel easily distilled from sugary or signing into law rules that set minimum commercialisation. ŒAll the technologies starchy plants. It has been used to power prices and required re†ners and importers we looked at worked, says Matthew Tip• cars since Ford’s Model T and, blended into to sell increasing amounts of biofuel each per, Shell’s vice•president for alternative conventional petrol, constitutes about 10% year. By 2013, America was supposed to be energy. ŒWe could get each to produce fuels of the fuel burned by America’s vehicles burning nearly 3,800m litres a year of Œcel• at a lab scale and a demonstration scale. today. Biodiesel made from vegetable fats lulosic biofuels made from woody plants. But bringing biofuels to market proved to is similarly mixed (at a lower proportion of be slower and more costly than expected. 5%) into conventional diesel in Europe. But Toil and trouble The optimism of †ve years ago may these Œ†rst generation biofuels have But instead of roaring into life, the biofuels have waned, but e orts to develop second• drawbacks. They are made from plants industry stalled. Start•ups went bust, sur• generation biofuels continue. Half a dozen rich in sugar, starch or oil that might other• viving companies scaled back their plans companies are now putting the †nal wise be eaten by people or livestock. Etha• and, as prices of †rst•generation biofuels touches to industrial•scale plants and sev• nol production already consumes 40% of rose, consumer interest waned. The spread eral are already producing small quantities America’s maize (corn) harvest and a sin• of fracking, meanwhile, unlocked new oil of second•generation biofuels. Some even gle new ethanol plant in Hull is about to and gas reserves and provided an alterna• claim to be making money doing so. become Britain’s largest buyer of wheat, tive path to energy independence. By 2012 Consider Shell. Raizen, its joint venture using 1.1m tonnes a year. Ethanol and bio• America’s Environmental Protection with Cosan of Brazil, produces more than diesel also have limitations as vehicle fu• Agency (EPA) had slashed the 2013 target 2,000m litres of †rst•generation ethanol els, performing poorly in cold weather and for cellulosic biofuels to just 53m litres. annually from sugarcane juice. Usually the capable of damaging unmodi†ed engines. What went wrong? †brous stalks left over are burned for pow• In an e ort to overcome these limita• Making a second•generation biofuel er or turned into paper, but next year Rai• tions, dozens of start•up companies means overcoming three challenges. The zen will start turning them into second• emerged over the past decade with the aim †rst is to break down woody cellulose and generation bioethanol, using a cocktail of of developing second•generation biofuels. lignin polymers into simple plant sugars. designer enzymes from Iogen, a Canadian They hoped to avoid the Œfood versus fuel The second is to convert those sugars into biotechnology †rm. Raizen hopes to pro• debate by making fuel from biomass feed• drop•in fuels to suit existing vehicles, via a duce 40m litres of cellulosic ethanol a year, stocks with no nutritional value, such as thermochemical process (using catalysts, cutting costs and boosting yield by co•lo• agricultural waste or fast•growing trees extreme temperatures and high pressures) cating its cellulosic operation with a tradi• 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Biofuels 13 ŒEven if processes can be economically scaled up, that might in turn highlight a further problem.

2 tional ethanol plant. Under this model, and is trying to get its renewable jet fuel is still losing money. In August disgruntled second•generation biofuels complement certi†ed for commercial use. investors launched a class•action lawsuit. and enhance †rst•generation processes, Solazyme, another †rm based in Cali• Some observers doubt whether even rather than replacing them outright. fornia, is also focusing on renewable diesel the most sophisticated biofuels can com• Three plants in America are expected to and jet fuels, in its case derived from algae. pete with fossil fuels in the near future. start producing cellulosic ethanol from Microscopic algae in open•air ponds can Daniel Klein•Marcuschamer, a researcher waste corn cobs, leaves and husks in 2014: use natural sunlight and atmospheric or at the Australian Institute for Bioengineer• POET•DSM Advanced Biofuels (75m litres) industrial•waste carbon dioxide to pro• ing and Nanotechnology, conducted a and Dupont (110m litres), both in Iowa, and duce oils. But harvesting the fuel, which is comprehensive analysis of renewable avi• Abengoa (95m litres) in Kansas. But the †rst present in only very small proportions, is ation fuels. He concluded that producing company to produce ethanol using en• expensive and diˆcult. Solazyme instead †rst•generation bio•jet fuel from sugarcane zymes on an industrial scale is Beta Renew• grows algae in sealed fermenting vessels would require oil prices of at least $168 a ables, a spin•o from Chemtex, an Italian with sugar as an energy source. The US barrel to be competitive, and that some chemical giant. An 80m•litre cellulosic eth• Navy has used tens of thousands of litres second•generation algae technologies anol plant in Crescentino, near Turin, has of its algal fuels in exercises, and Propel, an would require crude oil to soar above been running at half capacity over the American chain of †lling stations, recently $1,000 a barrel (the current price is around summer, using straw from nearby farms. It became the †rst to o er algal diesel. But al• $110) to break even. Mr Klein•Marcus• will run on corn waste in the autumn, rice though its technology clearly works, Sola• chamer has made his model open•source straw in the winter and then perennial eu• zyme remains cagey about the economics. in an e ort to help the industry †nd ways calyptus in the spring. Beta Renewables A 110m•litre algae plant in Brazil, due to be to make biofuels more competitive. has already licensed its technology for use up and running by the end of the year, may Even if second•generation processes in Brazil and Malaysia, and expects to sell clarify Solazyme’s commercial potential. can be economically scaled up, however, several more licences by the end of the If drop•in biofuels are going to have an that might in turn highlight a further pro• year. All Beta’s plants can already blem. To make a signi†cant dent in make biofuels at a pro†t, albeit only the 2,500m litres of conventional oil in areas with very cheap feedstocks, that American re†neries churn says the †rm’s boss, Guido Ghisol†. through each day, biofuel factories Just as this cellulosic ethanol would have to be able to get hold of comes on to the market, however, a staggering quantity of feedstock. demand for fuel is waning in many Mr Ghisol† of Beta Renewables developed countries due to im• points out that a factory with an an• provements in fuel eˆciency and nual output of 140m litres needs lingering economic weakness. As a 350,000 tonnes of biomass a year to result, demand for ethanol for operate. ŒThere are only certain ar• blending is falling, too. In America, eas, in Brazil and some parts of the petrol containing up to 15% ethanol, US and Asia, where you can locate while permitted by the EPA and pro• this much biomass within a close ra• moted by ethanol producers, is still a dius, says Mr Ghisol†. ŒI am scepti• rare sight on station forecourts. cal of scaling to ten times that size, Other biofuels companies are because getting 3.5m tonnes of bio• continuing to pursue drop•in fuels. mass to a single collection point is One attraction is that compared going to be a very big undertaking. with ethanol, the demand for which Billions of tonnes of agricultural depends to a large extent on government impact worldwide, they will have to be waste are produced worldwide each year, mandates that it be blended into conven• economic away from the tropical climes of but such material is thinly spread, making tional fuels, drop•in fuels are less suscepti• South America, where sugar can be grown it expensive to collect and transport. More• ble to changing political whims. Another is cheaply. The only commercial facility cur• over, farms use such waste to condition the that drop•in fuels are commonly made rently making drop•in fuels directly from soil, feed animals or burn for power. Di• with sugar as a feedstock, either conven• woody biomass is operated by a start•up verting existing sources of wood to make tionally sourced or cellulosic, and sugar is called KiOR. Its 50m•litre plant in Colum• biofuels will annoy builders and paper• widely available and easily transported. bus, Mississippi, turns pine•tree chips into makers, and planting fuel crops on unde• drop•in petrol and diesel for customers in• veloped land is hardly without controver• Stepping on the gas cluding FedEx, a logistics †rm, and Chev• sy: one man’s wasteland is another’s pris• Amyris, based in California, genetically ron, an oil giant. KiOR uses a thermochem• tine ecosystem. Dozens of environmental engineers yeasts and other microbes to fer• ical process called ‡uid•catalytic cracking groups have protested against the EPA’s re• ment sugar into a long•chain hydrocarbon that borrows many technologies from con• cent decision to permit plantations of fast• molecule called farnesene. This can then ventional oil re†neries and, unlike fussier growing giant reed for biofuels, calling it a be processed into a range of chemicals and biochemical systems, should scale up easi• noxious and highly invasive weed. Just as fuels. After a few rocky years when it over• ly. KiOR is planning a 150m•litre facility in the food•versus•fuel argument has proved promised and under•delivered, Amyris is nearby Natchez. However, the Columbus controversial for today’s biofuels, ‡ora• now producing limited quantities of re• plant is not yet running at anywhere near versus•fuel could be an equally tough newable diesel for public buses in Brazil full capacity, andKiOR has a lot of debt and struggle for tomorrow’s. 7 14 Working with robots The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

when it comes to dealing with humans, ro• bots have so few skills that even a seeming• Our friends electric ly simple task such as handing over an ob• ject commonly ends in a tug•of•war, says Elizabeth Croft, a roboticist at the Universi• ty of British Columbia. With funding from GM, America’s big• gest carmaker, Dr Croft’s Collaborative Ad• vanced Robotics and Intelligent Systems Robotics: A new breed of robots is being designed to collaborate with Laboratory is designing robots that can ex• humans, working alongside them to make them more productive ecute Œunscripted handovers to humans. This requires the robot to determine S GIANT welding robots go about their bots. The emergence of Œco•operative or whether a person wants and is authorised Abusiness in a modern car factory, the Œcollaborative robots, as these new ma• to have a particular item‹be it a power scene looks like a cyberpunk vision of chines are called, could also lead to robots drill, a document or a cup of tea. The robot Dante’s ŒInferno. Amid showers of that are better able to help out in the oˆce, must then present the item in the most ad• sparks, articulated mechanical arms near• at school or in the home. vantageous orientation for the human, ad• ly the size of telephone poles move sec• Last December, in a company †rst, Ger• justing its grip as the object’s weight shifts. tions of partially built vehicles so Œscarily man carmaker BMW introduced a slow• Finally, the robot must let go only when its fast that anyone who accidentally ends moving collaborative robot in its factory in sensors detect that the object is being pur• up in the wrong place is as good as dead, Spartanburg, South Carolina, which co•op• posefully and safely taken away. says Rodney Brooks, the boss of Rethink erates with a human worker to insulate Robotics, a robot•maker based in Boston. and water•seal vehicle doors. The robot Safety †rst For this reason, industrial robots operate in spreads out and glues down material that Dangerous industrial machinery is typi• cages or behind security fences. But by seg• is held in place by the human worker’s cally shut down the instant a worker regating robots from humans, such safety more agile †ngers. When this is done with• Œbreaks an infra•red light curtain or opens measures greatly limit the tasks that robots out the help of a robot, workers must be ro• a door to enter a robot’s cage. But safety can perform. In car factories, for example, tated o this uncomfortable task after just systems of this sort have drawbacks. most of the †nal assembly is done, expen• an hour or two to prevent elbow strain. To• Breaches typically stop an entire produc• sively, by hand. day four collaborative robots work in the tion line, alarming employees and causing Neither workers nor robots can reach facility, and more are coming, in Spartan• delays that may cascade throughout the their productive potential without inter• burg and elsewhere. plant. Pilz has developed a multi•camera acting more closely, says Volker Grünen• BMW expects Œa big, massive roll•out computer system that monitors the area wald, head of systems integration at Pilz, a of the technology in 2014 in Germany, de• surrounding robots and adjusts their be• German engineering †rm. Eager to design spite the country’s tighter restrictions on haviour accordingly. machines that can be used for a wider human•robot interaction, says Stefan Called SafetyEYE, the system allows a range of tasks, technologists are now †gur• Bartscher, BMW’s head of innovation. The robot to, say, rivet an aircraft wing without ing out how to bring robots Œout of the company plans to design additional tasks sectioning o the entire area from people. cage so that they can work safely and for collaborative robots as they are pro• Aware of its surroundings, the robot can more productively with people. The aim is gressively introduced in †ve carmaking roll along the length of the wing, slowing to combine the dexterity, ‡exibility and plants. These robots will require di erent its movements if a worker approaches or, problem•solving skills of humans with the technologies from those found in tradi• if he gets too close, stopping altogether strength, endurance and precision of ro• tional, non•collaborative robots. Indeed, without disrupting activity elsewhere. 1 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Working with robots 15

2 Since it was launched in 2007, Safe• tyEYE has allowed robots to be de• ployed in parts of factories where set• ting up light curtains or safety cages would be expensive or impractical. There are additional ways to avert acci• dents. Some robots have red emergency• stop buttons. Researchers have even made pressure•sensing Œarti†cial skin by sand• wiching a rubbery silicone made with car• bon black, a conductive material, between electrodes. Compressing it with a slap gen• erates an electrical signal that instructs the robot to freeze. For an additional override function, robots could be †tted with micro• phones and stopped with a shout, says Per Vegard Nerseth, robotics boss at ABB, a Baxter gets to work Swiss industrial giant based in Zurich which has ramped up development of col• be posted online for downloading by oth• BGHM, an insurer of woodworkers and laborative robots in the past few years. er users, who can tweak them as needed. metalworkers. But the signs are encourag• Robots capable of teaming up with At the same time, better arti†cial intelli• ing, he says. A hand clamped in a robot’s people are typically used to perform tasks gence is even rendering some program• gripper, for instance, can probably safely that are being automated for the †rst time, ming unnecessary. Rethink Robotics says bear a pressure of 160 newtons per square so productivity gains are especially high‹ its two•armed collaborative robot, called centimetre. Fortunately, says Dr Umbreit, provided the devices are quick and easy to Baxter (pictured), uses common sense to many useful tasks can be carried out using program. A one•armed robot (pictured on †gure out some movements on its own. less force, so safety standards will not previous page) made by Denmark’s Uni• Factory workers use Baxter’s touchscreen make robots so feeble that they are no lon• versal Robots (UR) to Œwork right along• Œface to point out the objects it will han• ger useful. Johan Wahren of the Swedish side employees can be set up within an dle. Baxter then studies them from all an• Standards Institute notes that establishing hour. Programming usually takes less than gles to determine if, say, a glass is best standards will speed up R&D. ten minutes. The user manually moves the grasped by the outside or by inserting and arm and the tool it is holding from the start• opening its †ngers. If a conveyor belt bring• Friend or foe? ing point of a task to the end point, tapping ing items to be processed slows down, so No matter how ‡exible, easy to program a touchscreen Œrecord button at points does Baxter. More than 100 have been sold and safe they are, collaborative workers along the way. Once the task is named and since the robot went on sale in late 2012. may not be welcomed by human workers saved, the robot can be put to work. For decades robots have been getting to begin with. The experience of Alumo• Machine workshops often program col• faster, stronger and more precise. The new tion, an Italian distributor of UR’s robots, is laborative robots to perform tasks for only breed of collaborative robots, by contrast, illustrative. Workers fear being replaced by a brief period. UR’s models can be fas• will move more slowly, lift less and be less robots, says co•owner Fabio Facchinetti, so tened to a workbench to, say, screw togeth• precise. And yet this is the breed that will his salespeople carry demonstration units er eyeglass frames to meet a rush order, usher in the real robotics revolution, says in unmarked cases and initially only meet and then moved to cap and box jars to cov• Dr Brooks of Rethink Robotics, because a potential client’s senior management be• er for a worker who is o sick. Traditional such qualities will allow robots to team up hind closed doors. robots, by contrast, are typically con†g• with people. He points out that it was the But rather than †ring workers, Alumo• ured by highly paid, specialist engineers advent not of mainframes but of less pow• tion’s clients often end up adding shifts be• who work on a mock production line, so erful but more user•friendly PCs that car• cause production costs drop. RSS Manufac• that the real production line need not be ried computing into the mainstream. turing in Costa Mesa, California, says its shut down for the weeks or months re• Collaborative robots are developing so new UR robot is helping the †rm compete quired for programming. UR sold more quickly that international•standards bo• against Asian makers of brass plumbing than 700 robots last year and expects to dies are having trouble keeping up. The †xtures. Geo Escalette, the †rm’s boss, sell 1,500 this year, some to clients with just world’s largest compiler of voluntary in• plans to buy more robots because without a few employees. Many users say that they dustrial standards, the International Orga• them some milling machines run at about recover the investment in a ¤20,000 nisation for Standardisation (ISO) in Gene• 60% capacity for lack of a nearby worker ($27,000) UR robot within six months. va, has yet to work out safety standards for able to load objects fast enough. It is worth Programming collaborative robots will collaborative robots, such as how much remembering that people also used to become even easier as software improves. force a robot can safely apply to di erent worry that computers would steal jobs, Already, some experimental robots can be parts of a human worker’s body. notes Chris Melhuish of the Bristol Robot• con†gured using spoken commands such The ISO needs about two more years ics Laboratory, a joint venture between the as Œcreate new skill and Œsave pose. Dr before it can publish pain•threshold stan• University of Bristol and the University of Nerseth of ABB reckons that it will eventu• dards, says Matthias Umbreit, an expert the West of England. Instead, computers ally be possible to program robots using working on the project who also works as helped people become more productive. speech. And the control †les for robots can an automation specialist at Germany’s Workers generally warm to collabora•1 16 Working with robots The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 ŒTo keep humans at ease, collaborative robots should have an appropriate size and appearance.

2 tive robots quickly. Employees are keen to more trusting of robots that use metaphors cine isn’t taken, say, the robot may alert rel• o‰oad the Œmindless, repetitive stu , as rather than abstract language, says Bilge atives or the hospital. It is vital that a robot one roboticist puts it. And because work• Mutlu, the head of the robotics laboratory of this sort is not perceived as hostile, but ers themselves do the programming, they at the University of Wisconsin•Madison. as having its owner’s best interests at heart. tend to regard the robots as subordinate as• He has found that robots are more persua• One way to do this is to give robots a de• sistants. This is good for morale, says Esben sive when they refer to the opinions of hu• †ning human trait‹the ability to make Ostergaard, UR’s technology chief. In late mans and limit pauses to about a third of a mistakes. Maha Salem, a researcher under 2012 Mercedes•Benz began equipping second to avoid appearing confused. Ro• Dr Dautenhahn, programmed a human• workers who assemble gearboxes at a bots’ gazes must also be carefully pro• oid Asimo robot, made by Honda, to make Stuttgart plant with lightweight Œthird grammed lest a stare make someone un• occasional harmless mistakes such as hand robots initially designed for use in comfortable. Timing eye contact for pointing to one drawer while talking about space by the German Aerospace Centre. Œintimacy regulation is tricky, Dr Mutlu another. When it comes to household ro• The German carmaker’s parent company, says, in part because gazes are also used in bots, test subjects prefer those that err over Daimler, is expanding the initiative, which dialogue to seize and yield the ‡oor. infallible ones, Dr Salem says. it describes as Œrobot farming because When a person enters a room, robots Another approach uses sensors to as• workers shepherd the robots Œjust like a inside should pause for a moment and ac• sess the state of nearby humans, so that ro• farmer tending sheep. knowledge the newcomer, a sign of defe• bots can respond appropriately. With rence that puts people at ease, says the Uni• funding from the European Union, re• Don’t frighten the humans versity of British Columbia’s Dr Croft. searchers are using bracelets equipped To keep human workers at ease, collabora• Robots also appear friendlier when their with electrodes to enable classroom robots tive robots should also have an appropri• gaze follows a person’s moving hands, to determine whether students are bored, ate size and appearance. Takayuki Kanda says Maya Cakmak of Willow Garage, the confused or anxious. The robots can adapt of the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Com• California•based maker of the PR2, a their teaching style accordingly, says Io• munication Laboratories in Kyoto says that $400,000 robot skilled enough to make an landa Leite of the Instituto Superior Téc• collaborative, humanoid robots should omelette‹albeit slowly. nico, a Portuguese university participating generally be no larger than a six•year•old, a It will probably be a decade or two at in the programme, which is called EMOTE. size most adults reckon they could over• least before the descendants of PR2, Care• One of its objectives is to foster Œsocial power if necessary. Large eyes make robots O•bot, and other Œhome assistance or bonding between people and robots. seem friendlier and, crucially, more aware Œcompanion robots will be nimble and Such bonding could have some surpris• of their surroundings. But overly human• intelligent enough to zip autonomously ing uses. In experiments carried out at Yale oid features can lead to problematically through houses performing chores. They University involving a biped humanoid unrealistic expectations, says Ulrich Reiser will need far better sensors, movement• called NAO, made by a French †rm called of Fraunhofer IPA, a manufacturing re• control actuators and batteries, and much Aldebaran Robotics, children proved to be search institute in Stuttgart that makes a smarter software. They must also be capa• just as willing to share secrets with it as ¤250,000 home•assistant robot called ble of displaying empathy or they will be they were with an adult. The researcher Care•O•bot. He notes that people tend to rejected, says Kerstin Dautenhahn, head of who performed the experiments, Cindy distrust robots with protruding sensors, a Œsocial robotics team at the University Bethel, who is now at Mississippi State ŒTerminator•like exposed cables, or a jer• of Hertfordshire in Britain. University in Starkville, has also found ry•rigged, student•project look. Her team’s Care•O•bot robots crunch that children who have witnessed a crime To interact smoothly with people, ro• data from 60•odd household sensors that are less likely to be misled in a forensic in• bots will also need Œsocial intelligence. It monitor door and cupboard hinges, taps, terview with a robot than with a human turns out, for example, that people are electrical appliances and so forth. If medi• expert‹even one trained to obtain testi• mony. Mark Ballard of the Starkville police department, who has been working with Dr Bethel, reckons that the robots needed to conduct Œchild friendly forensic inter• views will be available by 2020. What’s next? Market research is not much good at predicting developments in the †eld of collaborative robots, says Bru• no Bonnell of Robolution Capital, a robot• ics investment fund in France. For one thing, he says, people say they want com• plete control over robots, but once they start using them they actually prefer them to be as autonomous as possible. Working alongside robots changes the way people think about them, in other words. Wheth• er on the factory ‡oor, at home or in the classroom, the evolving relationship be• tween human robots will be de†ned by a Care•O•bot tries not to look scary process of collaboration. 7 The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Brain scan 17 Microsoft’s other mogul

computer to devise simulations of the microprocessors that powered the very Paul Allen made his fortune as the †rst personal computers. This allowed co•founder, with Bill Gates, of him and Mr Gates to develop software Microsoft. He has since put his extremely quickly‹on at least one occa• wealth to use in a variety of †elds sion, before the machine it was intended to run on even existed. HE brain is quite unlike a computer. ŒThrough a lot of hard work and being ŒTInstead of memory and a few calcu• early, it all fell into place, remembers Mr lating elements, evolution designed every Allen. ŒWe worked crazy hours and ate a little bit of it to be hideously complex, lot of pizza. They also inspired stories says Paul Allen, co•founder of Microsoft that have since echoed through comput• and main benefactor of the Allen Institute ing, such as hacking into a local com• for Brain Science. ŒAnd then when you pany’s †les to secure free access to its start studying every little bit of it, you †nd mainframes or selling an operating system there’s even additional complexity. Un• to IBM that they had only licensed the day derstanding how the brain works is a before. ŒWorking with Bill was one of †endishly challenging problem. those partnerships where one plus one It is a problem that Mr Allen is doing equals much more than either of us could his best to solve. For the past decade, his have accomplished individually, he says. institute, based in Seattle, has been map• ping the grey matter of mice, primates and A walk in the PARC humans on an industrial scale. Thin slices As early as 1977, Mr Allen envisaged a of tissue are analysed to pinpoint the future in which home computers linked three•dimensional locations in the brain by high•speed †bre•optic cables would where individual genes‹20,000 in mice allow people to order groceries or sell alone‹have a biological e ect. Laboratory their cars. A visit to Xerox’s Palo Alto robots and automated cameras feed this Research Centre (PARC) in 1980 showed cellular•level data into vast databases that him how such a system might operate. in turn populate online multimedia brain There, Mr Allen saw for the †rst time the Œatlases, freely accessible to all. graphical user interface and mouse that ŒThere’s a wave of enthusiasm and Microsoft’s Windows software would recognition for open data which started later rely on, as well as prototypes of with the Human Genome Project, says Ethernet networking and laser printers. Mr Allen. ŒThese databases can really But Mr Allen’s time running Microsoft kick•start development in many areas. was nearly over. Fighting Hodgkin’s lym• That’s what I wanted to do. There are phoma cancer, and frustrated by his co• signs he might be succeeding. Since the founder’s confrontational management institute’s mouse•brain atlas was complet• style, Mr Allen withdrew from day•to•day ed in 2006, it has helped identify genes operations in 1982 and retired from Micro• that may play roles in obesity, multiple soft the following year. But his 36% stake in sclerosis, Alzheimer’s and other diseases. the growing company made him fabu• The human•brain atlas launched in 2010. lously wealthy when the company went Mr Allen’s enthusiasm for openness is public in 1986 (Wired magazine dubbed perhaps surprising. Microsoft, the soft• him the Œaccidental zillionaire). ware giant he co•founded in 1975 with his Mr Allen immediately ploughed some schoolmate Bill Gates, enjoyed years of of his new•found wealth (currently esti• dominance with its proprietary Windows mated at $15 billion) into local projects. He operating systems. Its current boss, Steve owns several sports teams in the Paci†c Ballmer, once likened open•source soft• Northwest and has showered Seattle with ware, whose code is made available to all tourist landmarks, including an elaborate online, to cancer. Mr Allen sees no contra• cinema, a music and science•†ction muse• diction, however. ŒFor me, there’s a di er• um housed in a striking Frank Gehry ence between science and technology, he building, a collection of rare military says. ŒIf you’re trying to lift all scienti†c aircraft and a Living Computer Museum boats around the world, you need to have that restores vintage computers. open systems. If you’re developing tech• Yet despite his taste for nostalgia, Mr nologies for commercial projects, that’s a Allen’s primary focus remained the cre• whole di erent perspective. ation of a fully digitised society. In the late In the 1970s Mr Allen helped write the 1980s and early 1990s, he invested in more software that would make Microsoft a than 100 internet, media and communica• household name. He used a mainframe tions †rms as part of a strategy he called 1 18 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

ŒSometimes you have these partnerships that accomplish more than you or anyone expects.

2 Œwired world. A few paid o handsome• ered by a rocket or capable of supersonic And Mr Allen now seems to be em• ly, such as his timely investment in Ameri• ‡ight. Nevertheless, Mr Allen promised to barking on yet another grand mission. In ca Online, then an early internet•service fund the development of the world’s †rst August he invited scientists and experts in provider. Others were less successful. private spaceship. ŒWhat Burt will draw the †eld of cell biology to Seattle to brain• SkyPix, the world’s †rst digital•satellite on a napkin is pretty inspiring, says Mr storm ideas around †ghting cancer. The broadcaster, went bankrupt without Allen. ŒI don’t think anyone else would Allen Institute for Brain Science was born selling a single dish. Metricom, a broad• have had the ability to pull that o . out of a similar workshop. But there are band mobile data provider, followed suit Just four years later, Mr Rutan’s Space• still some problems that daunt even a after it struggled to attract customers. ShipOne made its successful maiden billionaire. ŒIt’s important to get serious ŒI’ve been too early a number of voyage. The entire project cost Mr Allen about climate change, says Mr Allen. ŒI times, admits Mr Allen. ŒBut I’d rather be just $28m: less than one•tenth of the cost would di erentiate between something early than too late. A lot of things have to of a single Space Shuttle mission. Two that can be done for tens or hundreds of line up to have a successful start•up. You years later he recouped his investment by millions of dollars, like scienti†c research, learn some very expensive lessons as life licensing SpaceShipOne’s technology to and things that require trillions. Solving goes on. Lessons do not come much Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, a space• global warming is a many trillion•dollar pricier than Mr Allen’s unfortunate forays tourism †rm. Then in 2011Mr Allen problem, if it gets addressed at all. into †bre•optic cable TV, which eventually formed a company called Stratolaunch to That’s not to say he isn’t trying. ŒBill cost him a staggering $8 billion. scale up the air•launch system to send Gates and I still talk fairly frequently and Perhaps Mr Allen’s most ambitious rockets into orbit. The carrier aircraft is we both see the importance of nuclear e ort to realise his vision of a connected currently being manufactured using parts energy, says Mr Allen. ŒDi erent forms of world was the founding of Interval Re• from two second•hand Boeing 747s. When nuclear energy have to be part of the search in 1992. Intended to reproduce the †nished, probably in 2015, it will be the answer. Mr Gates has invested in a pio• innovative dynamism of Xerox PARC, largest plane ever ‡own. ŒStratolaunch neering reactor fuelled by nuclear waste, Interval was home to leading researchers will be unique in that it won’t need a while Mr Allen has a stake in a †rm work• from Stanford, the Massachusetts Institute launch pad. You can take o from a big ing on nuclear fusion. of Technology, Bell Labs and PARC itself, airstrip, ‡y out over the ocean and rapidly ŒI’m trying to be a catalyst in all these as well as artists, journalists and a para• do multiple launches, says Mr Allen. di erent areas, looking over the horizon to psychologist. The lab cooked up some see where things are going and pushing fascinating ideas, but none of the seven The Vulcan empire them through to fruition, he says. Like a start•ups it spun o made any money, and Not all Mr Allen’s current business in• catalyst, Mr Allen’s work in software, Mr Allen closed Interval Research in 2000. terests are quite so out of this world, how• space travel and basic science has certain• ŒInnovation in anything is a peculiar ever. The portfolio of Vulcan, his invest• ly accelerated the pace of change. But he thing, says Mr Allen. ŒYou can set the ment †rm, includes energy companies, confesses to having been altered in the table, bring on great people and challenge †nancial services, computer•chip technol• process, most notably by his enduring them with great problems that need to be ogies, †lm producers and web start•ups. relationship with Bill Gates. ŒSometimes solved, but it’s unpredictable what’s going He has a long•term research e ort called you have these partnerships that accom• to come out. Interval Research did man• Project Halo that aims to encapsulate plish more than you or anyone expects, age to †le around 300 patents, a few of arti†cial intelligence within digital text• says Mr Allen. ŒAlthough we’ve had our which were later used to sue 11technology books, to help teach students in devel• moments of disagreement, it’s been an companies including Apple, Google and oping countries and assist researchers. Mr amazingly productive relationship for Facebook‹but not Microsoft. This led Allen says he is still rooting for Microsoft, both of us. 7 Steve Wozniak, the co•founder of Apple, to in which he still owns a large stake, remark in 2011that ŒPaul Allen should be though he worries that the †rm has grown O er to readers out there investing in companies that are big and sluggish. ŒThere are a number of Reprints of Technology Quarterly are available making products, actually making a new areas where Microsoft is playing catch up, from the Rights and Syndication Department. future for the world, not getting in bed trying to claw back market share from A minimum order of †ve copies is required. with lawyers to make money. Apple, Google or others, he says. ŒThey Interval’s demise did not dampen Mr have to jump on changes in technology or Corporate o er Allen’s enthusiasm for risky ventures. In they’re in danger of being left behind. Customisation options on corporate orders of 2000 he was approached by Burt Rutan, Although science is more forgiving 100 or more are available. Please contact us to discuss your requirements. an aerospace engineer who was pro†led than commerce, Mr Allen continues to For more information on how to order special in this column last year, with a design for a spend freely to keep his Institute for Brain reports, reprints or any queries you may have winged, carbon•†bre spacecraft. It would Science at the cutting edge. Last year he please contact: be launched from a jet•powered mother raised his †nancial commitment to half a ship, ‡y to the edge of space using a rocket billion dollars, dwar†ng a $100m brain• The Rights and Syndication Department never before used for manned ‡ight, imaging initiative announced by Barack The Economist transform into a Œshuttlecock con†g• Obama in April. ŒThe Brain Institute start• 20 Cabot Square London E14 4QW uration for re•entry and then turn back ed out doing data•gathering research. Now Tel +44 (0)20 7576 8148 into a glider to land on a normal runway. we’ve shifted gears to the really hard work Fax +44 (0)20 7576 8492 Although Mr Rutan had made and ‡own of †guring how to work with this data and e•mail: [email protected] dozens of advanced propeller and jet †nd out what it means, he says. This will, www.economist.com/rights aircraft, he had never built anything pow• he says, take Œmany decades.