Technology changes our social life

All human beings like you and me have a way to communicate with each other. Beside just speaking from man to man on an old fashion way. There are a bunch of other ways to do this. Now we use several new technologies to communicate but they also influence us in the way we communicate and live with each other. Technology is changing rapidly and our social life does the same. Now we can chat with each other by Smartphone, Text Messages, E-mail, Facebook/Messenger, Twitter, Skype and much more. Today we're not only communicating from man to man or from man to a select group but we can share things with the whole world. Not only spoken or written text can be shared but also our photo's and video's are just a fingertip away from sharing with the world. Technology changes our sociallife constantly.

Upside of technology in our social life

The progress of our technology makes it possible to communicate with a person on the other side of the world even in real live mode and with real time video. The technology develops very fast. 30 years ago you couldn't imagine that it was possible to have a conversation with someone on the other side of the world in real time video. Now we even take our laptops and our smartphones with us on vacation so we could be in touch with our friends and family that stayed at home. In the late 90's it was hip to use Messenger (short MSN) and write to each other in real time even when you are from another country or state. Now we see that MSN is replaced with Facebook/Messenger that has also the ability to chat and even share more with your friends than before. All these things where not possible without the invention of the computer and the internet ways back in the 50's. As we speak now, we send million mails a day without drawing attention to this evolving technology. And the techonologically evolution makes it all go faster and faster and better and better.

In case of emergency's like car accidents, a fast call from a mobile phone can make the difference between life or death for the person who suffers from the car accident.

Spreading news does go faster and can reach more people. 60 years ago, news from 1000 miles away would take more than a week to be known by you, certainly if it was by a physical mail. What happend far away took sometimes more than a half year to reach you. Mostly the news didn't reach further than the local town, so it didn't reach you at all if you lived miles away from the event. Now it happens all instantly, live and reachable for the whole world. All because of the Internet revolution.

Downside of technology in our social life

All this technology around us has also some downsides. Because our smartphone and the internet is always at our fingertips we are all overwhelmed with messages from friends and family. We check our mails and Facebook every 10 minutes because we would not miss a thing. But think by yourself, do you really miss anything important if you should shut off your smartphone? Do you? The answer is no! We don't! If we should shut of our smartphones once and a while you should see that only the important things will reach you without all the unnecessary messages you think you need to know about. Today we don't even know what's important anymore.

Humans can speak trough computers and phones but this technology still misses some things. The aspect of actually seeing each other face to face and feel the connection between persons. Even intonation falls away by communication trough text messages. Being with eachother makes us feel better phisically and mentally because being together was the way of communicating for more than thousands years. Now we changed the social aspects in less than 5 decades but I think that we, as a human being, can not adapt this fast. Or do we think we could adapt so fast? We still need physical contact, shake hands, show gestures, intonation, show handlings, smell, feel and much more when we communicate.

Be accessible anytime, anywhere is something nice but can also be very stressful. Our minds don't get any breaks anymore. We are all mentally overwhelmed. The smartphone and the internet is so addictive that their are organizations who organize weekend and even full weeks to distress from our technology. The challenge: survive a week without technology around you.


The future

With what we know today we can only guess what the future will bring us. What's certain is that technology changes exceptionally fast and that we need to keep up with it. The only message I can give you is to not lose real physical contact as technology evolve.

Create kinetic energy by walking on PaveGen tiles

From now on we can generate our own energy by walking on piezoelectric floor tiles such as PaveGen made by Laurence Kamball-Cook.

Produce green energy without doing anything extra. Sounds nice and with this energy-tiling it's possible. For now this is a pilot project where a little energy is generated every time someone is stepping on a tile. Imagine that you could equip the busiest streets of New York and the London subs with kinetic tiles to provide the a part of the city with electricity.

The principle?
Kinetic energy is collected and converted into electricity. The vibrations ensure a transformation in the tile, which captures the kinetic energy. By incorporating these into the pavement, the pavement generates energy every time someone steps on it.

These tiles are thus designed to generate energy from the sidewalk. Its operation is based on the principle of piezoelectricity, whereby kinetic energy is collected from a moving body and than converted to electricity. The tiles absorb the pressure exerted on the pavement and turn that pressure into electricity. Each step will generate between 4 and 7 watts of electricity. To let a lamp burn the whole night, you need about 10 PaveGen tiles.


Green energy
These products are innovative, sustainable and above all a green solution. They creating electricity them self and are made from recycled materials such as tires. The tiles should last about five years, but that short lifetime is more than compensated by the high efficiency. This return is, of course, depending on where the tile is placed. The busier, the higher the return. These tiles can be placed in crowded places such as a supermarket, in the hallway of schools, stations and other public places for a high return.

Applications
The Israeli company Innowattech made a piezoelectric road, which generates electricity from the vibrations and the pressure of passing cars.

In a subway station in Tokyo, the power generated from the carpet is used for printing the tickets.

Future
Applications for home seems not far away anymore.

Website: www.pavegen.com

How to achieve efficiency?

We live in a society where everything evolves faster and faster and it needs to be easier to.

It's human nature that we want to get faster and better tools then we already have, we have always want to be better, faster and more efficient. On the work floor we speak of operation efficiency. There are even people who only work on ways to improve their business efficiency. They use mind-maps, charts and other methods to analyze what can be improved. Seeing or doing things different can also lead to efficiency. The opposite is also possible, less efficiency than before has to be detected as soon as possible and the cause of that has to be corrected as soon as possible to counteract deterioration.

Efficiency is often associated with easy. And this is true, but that is only correct for the final solution and the implementation of the tasks themselves.

Before you can achieve efficiency, you mostly need to solve a problem. And in order to solve that problem you need clever and creative persons who need that little dare combined with a problem solving brain.

We clarify efficiency here on the basis of an example.
The problem: Solving complex calculations in a simple way.
The solution: The program Excel, the tool of choice to solve difficult calculations. Enter some numbers in the cells, write a formula in another cell and you have your solution in no time.

Most people don't realize it but before you even could dream of this solution there was a very long and complicated process preceded before this solution has been reached. A computer program as "excel" needed to be invented. Without such a program, we were forced to use slower systems such as a calculator or our own brains, with many formulas had to be written out.

But such a program would never come there when nobody would have invented the computer. And the computer would not have been there if the transistors, and many chips aren't invented at first if we didn't made the radio first. So we can go on this way, until we arrive at the invention of the wheel. Everything depends on one another. One can not exist without the other. But the other must first be invented, so we can invent another. And therefore we need creative humans with a clever mind to make inventions.

Evolution
In the evolution of the wheel to where we are now, there is a constant that I just want to enter: Time, and speed. The first inventions took thousands of years to evolve, but according to the more inventions existing the faster new things could be invented. This means that we live in a constant acceleration, where everything evolves faster and faster. On this day, a single person can not keep up as we could do in prehistoric times. But everything of course began in the prehistoric times, when some creative types invented the first wheel, the first spear, the first huts, the first animal husbandry and many more. By increase efficiency you can not only do more but you and everything around you can improve so things get better or work faster than before.

Conclusion
The preparatory work of an efficient system is often very complicated. We need thous clever inventors with their creative, problem-solving spirits who need just that little bit courage to go further. Do you know the ones who invented something by putting their teeth into a project and never let that go for the rest of his life? Those are the people who change the world, and improve efficiency and making everything easier, so we can achieve more on an easier and more efficient way.

We need to be grateful for the creative minds here on earth.

3D printer at your home.

3D printing at home becomes reality. Not only professionals has the possibilities to use a 3D printer. Today, everyone can get have his own 3D printer.

History of 3D printing
You've probably already heard of 3D printing. Professional companies are printing numerous objects with large printers. In China a company printed a building of five stores high, fully printed with a 3D printer. 3D printers actually already exist from the 80's, it were very big and slow machines and there were too many obstacles to produce a perfect object.

Now a days the 3D printers are much better equipped because of the latest technologies, they are getting faster and faster (read: now it takes only 30 hours to produce a small object such as a wrench of 15 cm long).

3D printer at your home
Beside professional 3D printers, there are now 3D printers made for in your home. For the price of an iPhone (600 euro) you can get them at your house. They come with a toolkit from over 100 steps but with very detailed explanations. The Velleman K8400 Vertex is such a model that can be placed in your living room.

You can print almost any object directly from the computer. So you can design stuff by yourself. There are already plenty of items available on the Internet that can be download for free. After downloading, you can personalize them with the CAD program on the PC or laptop. It's now possible to write your own name on a cup for instance.

Disadvantages of 3D printing
The machine has a high-tech looking, and only serves to create objects that are no larger than the machine itself, for it is 36 cm (14,17 inch) long, 38 cm (14,96 inch) high and 39,5 cm (15,55 inch) deep.

The material from which the objects are made is PLA (Polylactic Acid). This material is not heat resistant. So it is still waiting for better materials. The material is available in the form of rolled wires that are attached to the unit by bobbins.

Even today we still not know if the machine releases harmful substances during the making process of the object. More tests and time will decide.

Creating an object also takes many time. You need patience by an average of almost a half a day to make an object. Making an object that you need immediate isn't an option.

In our view there's still a lot of work on the design. It has to be a pearl within the interior instead of a complex high-tech machine with lots of wires. Optimize the design and people will like to have such a high-tech machine in their homes.

Single-handed people probably don't won't such device, because there's a big roadmap to make this unit and you should already have some understanding and knowledge of CAD programs.

So it is still waiting for a plug and play device that can be purchased in the better electro stores for unpacking it at home and start using it instantly.

Many people are probably scared to have such a device in their house now because of all these disadvantages.

Future of 3D printing
If 3D printers get their work done faster, getting a slicker design and can be bought as a plug and play machine in the store, than it will be the best invention of these decades. We believe this is the invention that will boom in the coming years. Everyone will want to have such a 3D printer at his home. Just like a GSM, the Smart Phone, Tablet, microwave, washing machine and the Internet, the 3D printer will be an essential part of our lives. We are certainly very excited and expect a lot of the following 3D printer models.

Rollable laptop, PC of the future

Forget the tablet, laptop or PC. In the future, we all work with the roll-up laptop.
This unit consists entirely of a screen that is divided into stripes and can be rolled up.
This makes it easy to take it with you on your shoulder.

If you unroll the device you can use them as a large tablet or laptop where the device can be bend like you please. Underneath appears the touchschreen keyboard. The device which can be seen here is named the rolltop, a verry suitable name.

Calendars of the Future - review

Calendars of the Future

Heb je ooit een datum nodig gehad voor iets die gepland is voor volgend jaar of 2 jaar later?
Niet gemakkelijk om de juiste datum te achterhalen, is het niet?

Hiervoor bestaat er een zeer handige website: 'Calendars of the Future'. Een zeer handige online kalender waar je datums kunt terugvinden voor volgend jaar of nog verder in de toekomst.

In de linker kolom van elke maand vindt je telkens de week nummers terug die je vertellen in welke week van het jaar zich de datums bevinden.

Website: calendarsofthefuture.blogspot.com

Calendars of the Future - review

Calendars of the Future

Did you ever needed to know what date it is of something that is planed next year or 2 years later?
That's not easy to know isn't it?

Well there is a very useful website called 'Calendars of the Future', where you can find the dates of the years in the future.

In the left column next to the days of every month, there you can find the week numbers of the year.

Website: calendarsofthefuture.blogspot.com