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Almost 8 years ago there was a list of the most important technological advances of the ten years before that. VR/AR was not on that list. Currently poised to be a $2 billion a year industry, the VR/AR markets are showing no signs of slowing down. Many industry experts even predict that 3D imaging, such as 3D television screens, will be out of the marketplace in favor of virtual reality viewing. Instead of watching re-runs of, for example, Star Trek: The Next Generation, you will be IN Star Trek: The Next Generation. From the bridge, to the transport station and even out to an as-of-yet unexplored planet, you will be there with the crew. You may have seen these shows before, but you have never been in these shows before. That's the draw. This may not happen for another ten years, but we saw the days of technology turning films shot in black and white, into color. We saw 3D technology as far back as the days when they handed out “3D glasses” at the movie theater. Google Glass has come and gone. These technologies were thought of before they turned the thought into reality, so now the greatest minds in the business are thinking of ways to implement VR where lesser technologies were once on top. The complexity of VR being coupled with the systems that can support it [...]

Developing a love of science and an inquisitive nature in children is very important, and doing so is so much easier than you might think. A few interesting science experiments that you can do at home or in the classroom, coupled with some funny science jokes and puns, and they are hooked. They will be begging to know when you can work with science again. There are so many really fun, inexpensive science experiments that you can perform with kids of all ages to get them asking questions and thinking scientifically. Here are a few examples, followed by some science jokes and puns. Yes, some of them are really, really awful, but most kids think they are hilarious! Slime! Slime only takes a couple of minutes to make and it can provide HOURS of entertainment. There are so many different ways that you can jazz up your slime, too, with gel food coloring and glitter. This is really like a science experiment with art! You will need: Plain school glue (clear or white) Contact lens solution that contains boric acid or borax Bicarbonate soda Gel food colouring Glitter (optional) Pour one cup of glue into a clean bowl. Add one teaspoon of sodium bicarbonate into the glue and mix together. Add one tablespoon of contact lens solution into the mixture. Stir the mixture until it starts becoming [...]

Getting a good night’s sleep is so much more important to your health than just how you feel the next day. You may not realize it, but there are a lot of things going on inside your body while you are sleeping. The current recommendations for a good night’s sleep for adults is 7 to 9 hours, while for children the recommendation ranges from 9 to 12 hours of sleep per night depending on their age. So, why is sleep so important for your health? All of your body systems need an adequate amount of sleep in order to function properly. Sleep is an important part of healing. While you are sleeping, your body is busy repairing blood vessels and reducing inflammation from irritation or injury. Getting enough sleep has also been linked to weight loss because stress hormones, like cortisol, decrease while you are sleeping. Sleep also raises your creativity levels and sharpens your brain, especially when you are trying to learn something new during your waking hours. This is why it is imperative that children get enough sleep, but it is very important as adults, too. As adults, getting enough sleep may seem impossible. There are kids to care for, jobs to go to, bills to pay, and a home to keep up, but all of those things get easier if you simply get enough [...]

Drones are becoming a common thing for everybody. We use them for so many purposes and occasions. Tourists can get an overview of the places they are visiting. Videographers can capture the moments of a wedding or birthday celebration from a bird’s eye view. Engineers can check the outline of the site where they will construct a building. There is an experimental use for drones to carry police officers so that law enforcers won’t be stuck in traffic when they need to apprehend someone. Lastly, and shall I say destructively, drones can become a weapon of mass destruction. We don’t need to be afraid of drones flying above our homes as long as there are laws to protect us from bad people using drones to violate our freedom. The problem right now is that drones are becoming a norm and that one day someone might use it in a bad way. The military has been using drones for surveillance. They also use it for quick responses when they see a threat from the surveillance they gathered. The drones have saved lives (or have taken lives, depending on what side we are on). The usefulness of these drones, both flying and roving, is limitless in the military. In the field of science, drones have gone ahead of us to reach places where we can’t yet reach. The deep sea voyages were [...]

The evolution of E-Skin technology has been something to behold. It was not too long ago that the only seen practical use for E-Skin was with VR technology. Now people are talking about incorporating E-Skin into the robotics field. There is a big difference between moving a hologram in a VR simulation and having a robot pick up a bag of flour through the sensors in the E-Skin. The sensor(s) in E-Skin is/are what makes it work. This technology differs from the skin itself, but they have both advanced to where they work in tandem well. These days, a sensor can “tell” the skin how hot an object is, then lets the skin know how much or little pressure is needed to pick up the object and how quickly the “hand” wrapped in the skin should move. This is obviously suited for robotics or for prosthetic hands. It gives “life” to a limb that, for all intents and purposes, has none. This is where the technology is implemented in ways we may not have thought of yet. Think of everything a hand or arm does via the neural transmitters in your brain. Now think of a layer of skin wrapped around a prosthetic hand that has a sensor in it that allows a person to do the same things that a regular hand can do. Picture this, if you [...]