Yesterday I reported the news of using CAD system to design human organs and tissues.

Today I run into another design approach, this time to create smart materials that leverages on bio and computing.

Rendering of super lattices created by leveraging on bio

Researchers at Aalto University, one of our partner at ICT LABS, have devised a way to use virus and proteins to guide the creation of super-latteces, structures that can have specific properties and that can be designed to have those properties.

Because of that one can design a super-lattice that respond to the presence a a given substance, thus creating a sensor, or a structure that can manipulate light in a specific way thus becoming useful in optical devices and so on.

Viruses have a way of crystallising that is not practical in our artefacts. It is thanks to the specific crystallisation structure that they are able to work like robots, identify a target cell and “dock” exactly on that part of the cell where they can inject their genome for duplication.

Cells have similar working scheme, in the sense than in the chaos of substances floating within a cell membrane (like having a bag full of hundreds of thousands of different things) proteins can be built by using RNA as a blueprint and to pick up the right molecules in the right sequence from the billions of floating molecules.

What researchers wanted was to use this capability of virus, and cells, to create the lattice they wanted. It is a bit like using bio machine to create artefacts.

They have published their result on the Nature Journal, showing that indeed it is possible to exploit virus to this goal, programming them to do what they want them to do.

So far it is just a demonstration that in principle one could build a cruise ship, although what they built is just a rowing boat… But in the course of this decade we can expect to see these approaches to become part of the industrial process of manufacturing. And that is going to change the world. ICT is one of the enabler, bio is fast becoming a reference for implementation and manufacturing is creating smart materials by building them up one molecule at the time (Nanotechnology). All together these three forces will reshape the world in the next decade.

Over the last two centuries engineers have learnt to build impressive structures and possibly the seed of this development can be found in the architectural solutions invented for the Eiffel Tower that towered over the 1889 World Fair.

DARPA MCMA research program

Those solutions apply to macrostructures. Now, scientists are looking for architectural solutions at the micro level. This is what the DARPA program ” Materials with Controlled Microstructural Architectures” is aiming at.

This is not the only endeavour to create physical characteristics by designing the chemical structure of a material. Actually, the whole of nanotechnology is aiming exactly at that: by assembling one molecule at a time and positioning it in a certain structure it is possible to create the desired physical properties. This is what happens in Nature where the assembly of calcium carbon molecules in specific patterns create a shell that is very tough, differently from the softness of a chalk that although being chemically equivalent has no structure in the molecule disposition.

In the future we will see a tremendous development of smart materials, part of it tied to the way the “substance” is being created and part as a consequence of the embedding of electronics to make that object aware and responsive.

Quoting from the text associated to the YouTube clip linked below,

DARPA’s Materials with Controlled Microstructural Architecture (MCMA) program seeks the capability to develop materials with properties tailored to meet specific mission requirements. For instance, DARPA has developed lightweight materials that can absorb energy without failing, or breaking. As shown in this video—previously released in conjunction with a journal article on ultralight metallic microlattices (see http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6058/962.full)—the nickel microtruss structure can achieve a 40% strain level without collapsing; in fact, it fully recovers its form. DARPA is exploring how much strength and energy absorption can be combined in the same material without damaging it.

Researchers at Harvard have managed to create a gel that is particularly resistant to deformation. You can stretch it up to 21 times its normal size before it breaks. That is much more than our tendons and cartilage. You can see what it means in the picture published by Harvard researchers where the a tiny layer of gel is being stretched to reach 21 times its original length.

It is made of water, basically, and results from the mixing of two existing gels that singularly taken do not have any particular resistance to stretching. This hydrogel because of the water content, would fit well within our body and that is why scientists believe it might be used to replace failing tendons and cartilage (like the cartilage disks we have between our vertebras).

It can also be used in the articulation of robots, as I mentioned in yesterday post.

This is another example of the progress in smart materials and I really feel that they will play a most significant role in most products by the end of this decade.

From time to time I run onto some news of bio-engineering where scientists manage to manipulate a cell genome to shift the cell behavior towards some goals, like eating pollutant out of the ocean.

A marine sponge has been taught to produce silicon fibers...

Now I saw a news of researchers of the University of California in Santa Barbara that applied molecular biology and principles of evolution to create a protein that in turns can become a  tools to create new structures of silicon.

The protein has been called “silicatein X1″ and can make both silica-protein fibers and folded sheet of silica-protein.

The basic idea is to condition (or steer) the evolution of some living form, in this case a sponge that has evolved in a way to create a mesh of silica threads forming its infrastructure, to create silicon infrastructure with specific properties. Clearly, the possibility to transform a sponge into a factory to produce an iPad is beyond the realm of imagination, not to say of feasibility, but one can imagine these sponges to produce some useful silicon substrate by extracting the right molecules from the ocean water. n the future chip manufacturing may well start not from raw silica but from the harvesting of sponges that have created purified silica just right for certain applications. We already have sponges that create a sort of fiberglass that has good properties for light communications. The work of these researchers is to give evolution a little wedge, tweaking with the genome, to produce exactly what they want.
And they would like to do that not changing a living form but through artificial cells that can be engineered to do just that. This is, actually, the promises of this research.

Craig Venter has recently declared that he feels we are just few years away from the possibility of creating life from scratch. This may rise, it is rising, many questions and concern. However, creating an artificial machine to produce what we want is something we are already used to. The difference is that this new machine will be done using “Nature’s tricks”, and this will be a first for the Homo Habilis!

Take a look at what Samsung has presented at CES, their “smart window”:

Although it is not clear in the video from CES, the smart window is supposed to look like a normal window, to replace a real window you have in your home. When it is “switched off” it is a plain window. Actually, you can use its capability to provide electronic blinders to stop the life from entering your room.

But then you can use it as a screen. And this is what it is shown in the video.

What I can imagine, however, is a third use…a window that provides me with information on what I am seeing through the window. I have been in many hotels offering a dramatic view of a city landscape. It would have been nice to have a window that would let me play on that landscape touching a monument in the distance and seeing it becoming bigger, as if it was closer, associating information on that, about who did it, what happened at that spot, how can I get there and so on.

And of course, being able to “paste” those information on my travel book to add my personal comments.

We do not know the price for these smart windows but it is an easy bet that their price will be high… and it will come down rapidly. My bet is that in the next decade such a smart window (its grandchildren of course…) will become part of the option list offered by any constructor as you select a window, in the same way that today you are given the choice of different insulation window panes.

Now, that will be a quite different interface!

The invention of endoscope in the last century was a giant step forward in diagnostic tools. It became possible to look inside a body and check what was going on. As time went by, the endoscope have become more flexible, tinier, and have been equipped with appendages to pick up or deliver “stuff”.

A drawing rendering the insertion of the endoscope tip into a cell

Now, I run into this news, where endoscopy has been moved to a whole new level of “tininess”.

Researchers at Berkeley have managed to create an endoscope using an optical fiber (smaller than the one we normally use in telecommunications where the core, measuring 8micron, is embedded into a cladding and a protecting casing) and a nanowire made of tin. The tip of the endoscope is s minuscule that they have been able to put it through the cell membrane without any damage to the cell.

The light carried through the optical fibre illuminates the inside of the cell making it possible to observe its organelles,something that is difficult from the outside of the cell because of light diffraction induced by the cell membrane.

They also have experimented with the endoscope to deliver specific molecules to the exact place they were intended to. Nothing like this was ever done before.

Clearly one cannot imagine to use this approach to deliver drugs to cells, since you would have to repeat the procedure thousands of times, given the fact that thousands of cells are usually involved. However, this endoscope opens up the possibility to study the cell working at the level of its organelles. This knowledge should prove very important in devising appropriate cure.

The fading boundaries between bits and atoms will be further pushed by a generalized use of claytronics (see a previous post on this technology).

This technology provides a way to build a variety of products using tiny beads that can auto assemble under specific commands sent wirelessly.

By 2061 it will impact the way products are being produced. Of course claytronics is just one way of doing it, more will be found in the coming 50 years.

Particularly we can expect to learn a lot by the growing understanding derived from embryology, where cells multiply and differentiate according to reaction to a local condition. It is not written anywhere in the DNA that the fertilized egg shall multiply several times to form a blastula exactly in the same space that is first occupied by the egg cell, nor that gastrulation should occur after a little while the blastula has formed, nor the subsequent neurulation…

All of this is the result of reaction to local condition. We are, today, far away in the capability of designing systems that can develop themselves based on local condition, but progresses are being made. It is a whole new science that once developed is likely to change several manufacturing paradigms.

Read this forecast taken by a post on the future:

Claytronics are revolutionising consumer products

Claytronics – also known as programmable matter – are now embedded in countless everyday items. This technology involves the manipulation of tiny devices known as catoms (claytronic atoms). Joined electrostatically, these work in concert to produce dramatic changes at the macroscale.

Objects featuring these catoms can be radically altered in form and function. Furniture can morph into new types, for instance. A bed could suddenly become a sofa, or a large table. Chairs can be instantly moulded to precisely suit the individual. Walls, carpets, ceilings, doors and other surfaces can modify their colour or texture on demand.

Electronic devices feature this exotic material. They can be highly adaptable to their environments, for instance – altering their structure to cope with dust and heat in a desert, then later shifting to resist humidity and moisture in a jungle, or even becoming completely waterproof. They can be personalised too: devices worn on the head or ears can mould themselves to fit the individual.

Many vehicles now make use of claytronics. Car surfaces can change colour at the touch of a button. Or they can self-heal: fixing bumps, scratches and other damage. Tyres can be instantly adapted for different terrain types or weather conditions. Transparent windows can be instantly blacked-out for privacy.

Claytronics are especially popular in children’s toys, with figures taking on astonishingly lifelike forms.

Various other everyday objects are now becoming highly configurable and morphable. Further into the future, claytronics will enable the creation of entire simulated humans.

I have been asked last week to provide in a few sentences my vision to support Rome 2020 candidature for the Olympic games.

This is what I wrote:

By 2020 we expect that broadband infrastructures, wireline and wireless, along with the more powerful handheld devices and widespread presence of sensors will transform our relation with the ambient and with events making it possible to deploy services that are now available as prototypes in Telecom Italia research labs.
More specifically we expect to provide a seamless bridge between the physical reality and the web, thus providing people on Olympic sites to augment their experience of the location and of the games with artifacts delivered through the communication infrastructure by a variety of players and at the same time providing people following from afar through communication infrastructures an immersive reality that would create the seamless impression of being there.
As an example, people on site will be able to get information on each athlete through their glasses by just looking at the athlete and get the same kind of advanced information that today can only be provided through television and specialized servers like comparing the actual performance with one of a previous athlete whose ghost image overlaps in his/her viewing field. Similarly, a spectator in her home may run the Rome Marathon along with the athletes with a full immersion in the actual roads being run.
We are trialling these advanced services in the Trentino Region, through the EIT Italy Lab (European Institute for Innovation and Technology) that is part of the European Initiative to bring innovation to increase the welfare of citizens.

What I was in doubt is using the word: “glasses”. Of course only a few will normally wear glasses and why should we force the (many) others to wear glasses to capture the bits and atoms Rome?

This is where the Technology Review news that I blogged just few days ago on bionic contact lenses would come in handy, but it looks so “science fiction” that I decided not to include it.

Take a look at this clip and you appreciate why I am reluctant to claim something like this is going to be mainstream by 2020:

Indeed, it may take more than this decade to have a contact lens that seamlessly provide the kind of morphing between atoms and bits that is foreseen. Still, we are going to have better handheld screens that would double up as windows on artificial reality and these are going to be common place by 2020, in time to provide a mind blowing experience of the Olympic games!

Smart homes will have as much technology outside as inside

Modern buildings are already being designed and built using sophisticated technologies, from advanced materials to powerful infrastructures, plenty of sensors and communications links within the building and connecting the building to the external world.

The future will bring even more technologies and ICT will play a major role in fields as diverse as safety, security, energy savviness, entertainment, dwellers caring (elderly, disabled, sick and also, of course, people in perfect shape) and so on. Clearly the building, apartment and villas, will support many forms of communications bringing the external world within the building walls and letting the dwellers to be “tele transported” to meet people, information and services that are located anywhere in the world.

Telecommunications, as part of the ICT, is a key component and Telecom Operators, as well as many other players will contribute to the creation and operation of smart buildings.

SMART BUILDINGS

By 2020 we can expect to:

❏    Have new buildings completely “wired” (in sense of ubiquitous pervasive communications, both wired and wireless) and controlled as a single living entity.

❏    Have old buildings in the process of “retrofitting” to become “smart buildings”. This is likely to take place under the pressure to decrease energy consumption and to use locally produced energy.

❏    Have products that start to make use of the smart ambient provided by the smart buildings and integrating their functionality in the ones provided by the building (e.g. make use of sound and displays provided by the walls, use power through induction, hook up on the local area network, relay on authentication provided by the building, accept guidelines and directive from the ambient…).

Smart buildings will be network (and often very complex networks) in themselves requiring specific networking expertise, operation and management, and interaction with a variety of users, humans as well as objects (and sensors). They will be communications providers to a variety of terminals, some being a stable part of the building, many being “in transit”.

They will support mirroring functions, authentication, visibility segmentation, data storage, conditional access and so on. To all effect they will be a communications network formed by many communications networks.

Their complexity may vary, going from a private villa to a skyscraper, but they will have in common many issues, like the management of different constituencies having different interfaces and functionalities.

• COMSOC needs to support these networks of networks and their associated constituencies, from civil engineers, to installers, to consumer electronics
• COMSOC needs to enter the area of data mining, analyses, management at the different levels entailed by an aggregation provided by a smart building. There may be a specific Technical Committee dedicated to this area.
• The communications fabric and the data management provide the common ground for all constituencies involved. COMSOC can promote the establishment of a common knowledge in this area and prepare courses on this common fabric.

The various aspects of a smart ambient ...

We have been used to create better and better ambients from the very beginning of humanity, first adapting caves, then building structures up to modern skyscrapers and  dwellings. As technological dexterity has increased we have learnt to shape ambient to better fit our needs and lately we have started to pay more attention to their efficiency, like better insulation for lower energy consumption. ICT is going to play a major role in the future of ambient and this in turn creates demands and opportunities for telecommunications players.

SMART AMBIENT

The advent of smart objects, defined as objects aware of their environment and able to adapt to it, leads to the creation of a smart ambient that can exist because of a ubiquitous connectivity fabric. Most of this connectivity fabric is created by the objects populating the ambient.

A smart ambient is an ambient that is aware of its constituent parts, understand their specific functionalities and can manipulate them to create a harmonious ensemble fitting the person(s) that is at that particular moment in it.

❏    There will be as many smart ambient as there are ambient. Smart buildings, smart hospitals, smart school, smart malls, smart factories and so on. Additionally there will be smart aggregation of smart ambient, like smart cities, smart multimodal traffic hubs, smart Countries and so on.

❏    Smart ambient will not just be a clustering of smart components. Their smartness is an add on onto those smart component (and less smart ones). That requires a modeling of the components and the ability of understanding and manipulating it.

Communications within a smart ambient and among smart ambient resulting from aggregation is crucial and has a variety of requirements. These are met by the use of many technologies, from the ones related to smart materials to the manipulation of data, to self management and autonomics.

It is the mixture of all of these that creates those emerging properties that characterize a smart ambient.

• Need to address behavior of complex systems
• Need to address emerging behavior theory, semantics interpretation of data for context creation, mixing data and communications
• Need to take an ecosystem view, including the areas of regulation, perception, economics, conflict of interest.