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The panel put forth an amazing and encouraging look to the future, just when we need it the most it seems, with emerging innovations and man-machine advances for the betterment of humanity. As an optimist, I’ve been feeling a bit beaten down by all the “economic crisis” news of late, and it was great to listen to some of the best minds within the IEEE: technologists unswervingly dedicated to their work and to achieving milestones that will better our collective future.

It was particularly a thrill for me to meet and hear Miguel Nicolelis, director of the Center for Neuroengineering at Duke University Medical Center, since I had previously researched and written about his brain-machine interface work with apes (see “Brain-Machine Interface Poses Electronics Challenge”). While his earlier research had shown the ability of chimps to control robotics via brainwaves alone, his latest work allows communication back to the brain from machines, allowing the computer to signal the apes via direct machine-to-brain communication.

Nicolelis explained that these communications to the brain could use the signal patterns related to the desired appendage movement. But he also noted that his research had further demonstrated that the brain could quickly learn new patterns that might be completely unrelated to the previous patterns associated with a given action. This line of thinking has led to added discoveries about the nature of the brain. Nicolelis promised a significant and revolutionary paper soon, currently under review by a leading scientific publication. Talk about a cliffhanger!

Innovation on the Horizon

Meanwhile, WiTricity is working on wireless power transmission using magnetic resonance. During the panel, company CTO Katie Hall outlined a vision for constructing buildings with integrated power transmission to allow for “outlet-free” charging at a distance of a few meters. She projected future applications would include implantable medical devices, cordless industrial equipment, wireless consumer devices, and higher-power wireless vehicle charging.

Panelist Rangachar Kasturi, a specialist in pattern recognition with the University of South Florida, outlined bold new applications for biometric and object identification. In addition to surveillance applications like smart security cameras (including nautical surveillance to identify boats via floating cameras on buoys), Kasturi’s department is working on applying pattern recognition for machine understanding and output of American Sign Language; face recognition for cell phones (the ultimate for people who can’t remember names, assuming they have a photo file in the phone); object recognition systems for aircraft (like powerline detection for collision avoidance); and red tide detection and tracking to improve beach quality and improve tourism.

K.J. Ray Liu of the University of Maryland is working with biomarkers to help foretell the development of cancer, testing the interrelations between an individual’s genes and certain proteins in the blood that can be representative of early stage cancer. By identifying a “perfect healthy state” for a given genetic type and mapping it against changes in proteins, Liu hopes within five years to have a biomarker identification test that will offer an early, reliable “second opinion” as to whether an individual is in danger for developing cancer.

Dharmendra Modha, manager of cognitive computing at IBM’s Almaden Research Center, is working on SyNAPSE, a DARPA-funded project with a goal of simulating the brain’s capabilities for sensation, perception, interaction, and cognition. Modha said that the timing for the project is fortuitous thanks to advances in neuroscience, supercomputing, and nanotechnology. In neuroscience, diffusion density imaging is gathering a lot of new data about how the brain functions.

Looking at the brain from a supercomputing perspective, MIPS are scaling up to a level where they can match the speed of the brain’s synaptic networks. Modha predicts that human brain function will be simulated by 2018, and that by that time, nanotechnology will shrink computing power to such small sizes that “you can begin to think about rivaling the power and speed of the brain,” he said.

Krishna Palem of the George Brown School of Engineering at Rice University has developed a probabilistic chip technology that trades off precision in digital communications schemes in favor of power savings, allowing energy savings and longer life for portable devices. Palem said his devices take advantage of the brain’s ability to reconstruct images and information even with missing data and visually tolerable errors. “Why not use the power given to us for free [the mind] to make designs cheaper and more energy efficient?” he asked.

Palem has used these advances to create an electronic “I-Slate” for rural Indian schools to replace the traditional slate and chalk used in the classroom. The I-Slate is aimed at educational markets with no electricity and few teachers, using photovoltaic cells for power and preloaded with an educational curriculum aimed to increase literacy and interactive learning.

Roy Want, senior principal engineer at Intel, is working on dynamic composable computing (DCC) to allow mobile devices to wirelessly share not only local peripherals but also nearby processing power and applications, wirelessly accessing capabilities of proximate displays, servers, or network bandwidth. Want foresees “a desktop running inside a mobile device” by including additional memory buffers and then rendering information appropriately for the available devices.

New scenarios could include creating “compositions” where one application might interact with multiple displays or computers, appropriately buffering and channeling the content for output/input. As an example, a Starbucks might offer access not only to an HD display for showing photos or videos, but also to a processor or net-based application that would take low-resolution camera photos and upconvert them for better quality. Want said that DCC will be a “key part of mobile computing in the future,” overcoming the limits of the smaller devices.

The IEEE panel gave an impressive, inspiring outlook for the future, not only for new technologies that will positively impact society, but also in demonstrating the tremendous opportunities for engineers in the next 125 years. Congratulations to the IEEE on 125 years, and I’m looking forward to further celebratory commemoration as the year rolls out. For video of the event, see the IEEE's presentation online.