35 inventions that will change everything

In 1976, when the news was born, Air France and British Airways inaugurated the Concorde, the first supersonic plane which linked London or Paris to New York in just three and a half hours.At the same time, in California, Steve Jobs and two other computer scientists created Apple, to market a personal computer.

The Concorde, promised to a brilliant future, was put in the Rancart in 2003.Too expensive, too polluting.No longer adapted to its time, one could say.The little apple that looked like nothing, on the other hand, was able to take advantage of the explosion of information and communications technologies to go far beyond Macintosh and invade the world with other innovative products, like his iPods or iPads.

At the dawn of its 35th anniversary, the news offers you 35 inventions.The little apple of tomorrow can be hidden there ...

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>

****

Are noted from 1 to 10:

- the probability that the invention is quickly offered on a large scale;- The degree of utility for humanity.

The Listening Fiston cellular!

Would you like to know what a trafficking son with his cell phone?Who was your spouse to be low, at 2 a.m. last night?The American company Taser, known for its electric pistols, invented an application which allows to transfer by satellite on your own phone all the messages or photos which enter another device and leave it, in addition to locating it at any time.Mobile Protector will help parents protect their children, believes Taser.

Probability: 10/10utility: 0/10

« TWITTER»» PAR LA PENSÉE ?

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin managed to write a message on Twitter only by thought, focusing on letters appearing on a screen.Objective: to design "neural prostheses", which will allow disabled people to communicate by computer or to control their wheelchair by means of thought.(Photo: University of Wisconsin))

Probability: 6/10utility: 5/10

Ride ... then fly away

The dream that humans have caressed for almost 100 years may come true with the transition, from the American company Terrafugia, the first flying car authorized by civil aviation, in 2010 in 2010.Its factory release is scheduled for early 2012.Prix announced: 200,000 dollars.About 80 cars have already been reserved.(Photo: Terrafugia))

Probability: 5/10utility: 2/10

Feel the fear of the hero

The sound and the image plunge cinema into the heart of the action.The engineers of the Dutch company Philips go even further: they want to use the meaning of the touch of moviegoers by making them physically feel the emotions of the characters, thanks to an "emotional jacket" confused with sensors.Is the heroine anxious?The jacket contracts slightly to oppress you.Does she have a knotted stomach?You too, when the jacket tightens you there.Difficult for the moment to know if it will be intended for the cinemas market or ... homemade cinemas.(Photo capital/Frank Van Beek))

Probability: 5/10utility: 2/10

The vaccine that will make you crush

Will a vaccine help smokers to crush?Three pharmaceutical companies have started clinical trials of an antinicotine vaccine.That of the American company Nabi Pharmaceuticals is the most advanced.Nicvax would stimulate the production of antibodies that would bind in nicotine blood and prevent it from going to the brain, thus reducing the smoker's dependence.The results, for the moment, are comparable to those of nicotine substitutes.The final result of clinical trials is planned for the beginning of 2012.(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 5/10utility: 8/10

There is hygroelectricity in the air!

Since Benjamin Franklin, the human being dreams of capturing the energy of lightning.An error, according to the Brazilian professor Fernando Galembeck: it is not lightning, but the humidity of the air that must be used to produce electricity.At the last great congress of the American Chemical Society, this chemist presented the result of his experiences, which prove that the water particles present in the air are slightly electricity in contact with dust, when we hadalways thought that they remained neutral.According to him, it would certainly be possible to recover this electricity by placing capacitors on the roofs of houses, especially in wet regions, like the tropics.Many laboratory tests are still necessary to verify whether "hygroelectricity", as Galembeck called it, can provide enough energy for it to be worth recovering it.But the idea is in the air ...

Probability: 2/10utility: 9/10

Energy and fresh water

Imitate the natural process of photosynthesis to make a fuel from the sun, water and carbon dioxide.This is the mandate that the United States Department of Energy entrusted in July to a group of 150 researchers, who received $ 122 million and a brand new laboratory in California.Scientists from the Artificial Photosynthesis Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis will try to manufacture the equivalents of the three components that allow plants to push: a material capable of capturing and converting solar energy into "engine" of an electrochemical reaction;catalysts to facilitate the oxydidéduction reaction of water and carbon dioxide, which give birth to the fuel;and a membrane to prevent air oxygen from interfering with this reaction.Other big names, such as the Japanese company Mitsubishi, have invested millions of dollars in research on artificial photosynthesis in recent years.(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 4/10 UTILITY: 9/10

All credit on the same card

Tired of lugging many credit cards?That invented by the company Dynamics, by Pittsburgh, can be connected to several accounts, the various numbers of which appear by means of a simple pressure on the card.With a microprocessor powered by a four -year lifespan battery, this new genus card, as well as the usual cards, can also be used to accumulate points.Air miles and visa on the same piece of plastic?The first tests have just started in the United States.(Photo: Dynamics Inc.))

Probability: 9/10 UTILITY: 2/10

Smog's eating road

By mixing titanium dioxide with ordinary concrete, Jos Brouwers, researcher of the Eindhoven University of Technology, in the Netherlands, managed to create a concrete block capable of capturing up to 45 % of nitrogen oxides emitted bycars.Even if it costs twice as much to produce that ordinary concrete, this pavement could reduce smog in certain critical places.(Ill.: Idiomorf Graphics))

Probability: 4/10utility: 6/10

A complete catalog of genetic mutations

Diagnosing in a few days in a person any genetic disease, however rare as it may be ... researchers hope to be able to achieve this feat soon, thanks to the sequencing of the exome.This very promising DNA decoding technique only dwells on certain parts of the genes, the exons - these bricks which, once transcribed, will give the proteins.The exome, which brings together all the exons of the 20,000 human genes, represents only 1 % to 2 % of the genome.

Based on the progress made in DNA sequencing techniques and in bio-informatics, Nada Jabado, genomic researcher at the Montreal Children's Hospital, has shown this year that the sequencing of the exomeof a person made it possible to effectively seek mutations indicating a genetic disease, without the need to sequence all their genome.Thanks to this new fast and powerful sequencing technique, researchers think they have one to two years of a "complete catalog" of mutations that cause most hereditory diseases.(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 9/10 UTILITY: 9/10

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>

20,000 watts under the seas

Using the temperature difference between surface water of the oceans and those of the depths to create electricity: the idea suggested for the first time by Jules Verne could well resurface in the coming decades.In 2009, the US Navy granted eight million dollars to Lockheed Martin to perfect the technology conversion technology of the oceans (better known by the English acronym OTEC)).The United States, Japan and France have already been interested in the past, especially after the oil shocks of the 1970s.Engineers think that using a heat exchanger and a turbine it is possible to generate continuous electricity with this system.Tests are underway off Hawaii.It may even be possible to produce fresh water.In 2007, India installed a first floating factory of water thirst for water off Madras, based on this technology.(Photo: Lockheed Martin))

Probability: 5/10utility: 8/10

The artificial ovary gives hope

Women who risk becoming infertile after chemotherapy could one day have recourse to an artificial ovary: their eggs, frozen before processing, would be brought there for years later, before proceeding with in vitro fertilization.Researchers from Brown University, Rhode Island, have just developed the first artificial ovary capable of bringing eggs to maturity outside the body of a woman.Created from cells taken from healthy women, it could quickly be useful for reproduction research.It would allow, for example, to test in the laboratory how the maturation of the eggs can be altered by various toxic substances.(Photo: istock))

Probability: 9/10 UTILITY: 4/10

The drum changes skin

The latest generation music instruments are portable mini-orchestras. Témoin le Wavedrum WD-X (fabriqué par la multinationale japonaise Korg)), qui ressemble à un véritable tambour, peau incluse, et dont on peut jouer avec les mains ou des baguettes.We press a button and it turns into a panoply of percussion instruments, such as the tabla, the Caisse or the Gong.What he has special?The sounds used for sampling are those of real instruments, hence its convincing effect.Offered in all specialized stores since September 2010, $ 600.

Véronique Robert

Probability: 10/10utility: 1/10

New post: How to Cope After a Food Binge http://t.CO/BTGPUFMKSX http: // t.CO/IH6YMICFOS

— The True Care Wed Dec 04 15:45:44 +0000 2013

Drinking water in 20 minutes

Soak for 20 minutes any piece of cotton in an inexpensive solution containing silver nanofils, then connect it to two electric wires to pass a little current and pour over the water unfit to theconsumption.Twelve volts are enough to instantly electrocute bacteria and make water - almost - drinking, without it being necessary to use a pump, which needs much more electricity to operate.Because it lets the dead bacteria spin, and therefore harmless, this filter would also hit each other less quickly.The recipe of Professor Yi Cui, of Stanford University, was specially concocted for developing countries.Even if this filter has yet to be improved, it could save part of the four million children who die every year in the world because they have consumed dirty water.Or the 2.6 billion people who do not have wastewater treatment system.

Probability: 5/10utility: 10/10

Lend me your flora ...

Could we get rid of an intestinal flora in poor condition by replacing it with that of someone else?Doctors already carry out this funny "transplant" on an experimental basis, to try to help people in the bacteria C.difficult and for which no other treatment has worked.A few grams of stools taken from a loved one and diluted are injected directly into the stomach of the sick person, in the hope that the "good" microbes they contain will eliminate the pathogenic bacteria.

For the moment, there is no evidence that this approach works, but the technique interests more and more specialists in the microbiome, the community of microbes who live in symbiosis with the human body.

This summer, American and Spanish researchers demonstrated, working with rats, that it was indeed possible to transfer the whole microbiome from one animal to another without the latter seems to be affected.After three months, the receiving rats of this "transplant" were doing perfectly well, while having in their intestines a microbiome always quite similar to that of the donors.

This approach must still be validated, but it could offer hope to people with various gastrointestinal disorders, such as irritable colon syndrome, which affects 10 % to 14 % of Canadians.

Probability: 5/10utility: 7/10

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>

And here is the solar antenna!

Bientôt dépassés, les grands panneaux solaires ? Des chercheurs du Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)) proposent de remplacer ces panneaux photovoltaïques par des antennes faites de nanotubes de carbone, capables de concentrer beaucoup plus efficacement le rayonnement solaire.Their device, again at the research stage, would make it possible to miniaturize the equipment necessary to capture the energy of the sun.

Probability: 2/10utility: 6/10

Spray me a dress

An aerosol fabric that vaporizes directly on the body to form tailor -made clothes, which can be washed and postponed: this invention of the Spanish stylist Manel Torres, developed with Professor Paul Luckham, of the Imperial College ofLondon, could prove very useful to produce sterile gloves for doctors, garnish car seats or renovate old sofas.(Photo: Gene Kiegel/Fabrican))

Probability: 5/10utility: 3/10

The computer gives itself orchestra tunes

The fans love kyma, a very complex computer kind that can create new sounds as well as reproduce a complete orchestra which we control all the instruments at the quarter turn.For a composer, it's like being God.To play the creator at a lower cost, just an iPad or an iPhone: with new musical applications, we drag a recording studio in his pocket!

"The new instruments greatly stimulate creation, and I use it to test," says Luc Sicard, who has signed the music for many films and television series, whose life life."But the gadgetization of music can have perverse effects: MP3 or iPad could get the ear to a dubious sound quality.Nothing replaces musicians in the flesh.»»

Véronique Robert

Probability: 10/10utility: 2/10

An orbit garbage garbage!

A tiny satellite of less than three kilos will perhaps the household which is essential in the low orbit, around the earth, cluttered by more than 5,500 tonnes of space waste, which threaten the satellites still in working order.Cubesail, invented by researchers from the University of Surrey, England, can cling to the big space debris. Il déploie alors un mince voile de 25 m2 (ci-contre)), qui, en les freinant, les dévie de leur trajectoire et les envoie se désintégrer dans la haute atmo-sphère.Cubesail could be launched alone or be directly installed on future satellites.First test launch in 2011.(Photo: Richard Booth))

Probability: 6/10utility: 10/10

Customs robots

An autonomous patrol of robots with an assault minichars, equipped with various sensors, crisscrosses the territory located near a border, where are likely to pass illegal immigrants.As soon as she identifies a suspicious movement, she signals it to a interceptor robot, which then rushes towards the intruder and holds him in the cheek until a customs officer, this time, comes to clear things up.Here, in essence, how the future border protection protection system should work, called Talos, which Europe has been studying since 2009. Les États-Unis, eux, misent plutôt sur un « mur virtuel»» fait de 400 pylônes bardés de capteurs.But this initiative, launched by the Bush administration in 2006, has lead in the wing because it is deemed far too expensive - eight billion dollars.(Photo: Iriam))

Probability: 8/10utility: 3/10

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>

DU « VIAGRA»» POUR LES FEMMES

A drug that will play for women a role similar to that of the famous Viagra for men could soon see the light of day.After 19 years of research, Dr. Fernand Labrie and his company, Endoceutics, Quebec, received in October 2010 a boost of $ 330 million from the Bayer pharmaceutical giant to complete the vaginorm clinical trials.The medication developed by this endocrinologist, known for his research on prostate cancer, would make it possible to fight against vaginal atrophy and sexual dysfunctions which affect certain women in menopause. Les médicaments faits de déhydroépiandrostérone (DHA)) agiraient localement sur la paroi du vagin.A factory could be built in Quebec in the coming years to produce this medication that the company plans to sell within two to three years.(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 8/10utility: 7/10

No more frost on car windows!

Researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Surface Engineering and Thin Films, in Germany, have designed a heating and transparent coating, which, deposited on the window of a car, can prevent it from frost and even get caught, everythingBy resisting wear or scratches.Marketing planned within three years.(Photo: istock))

Probability: 7/10 UTILITY: 5/10

A computer faster than its shadow

Even if it seems more and more difficult, the computing speed of computers will further increase.Next objective: the exaflop, or 1,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second.A computer with such a computing power could thus make billions of billions of divisions every second, enough to improve the simulations of complex phenomena, such as climate change.In the 1960s, the most powerful computers carried out a few million operations in the second - some megaflops. Le gigaflop (un milliard)) a été franchi en 1985, le téraflop (un billion, soit 1 000 milliards d’opérations ou 1 suivi de 12 zéros)) en 1997 et le pétaflop (un billiard, soit un milliard de millions ou 1 suivi de 15 zéros)) en 2008. En 2009, la stratégie américaine de l’innovation a placé l’exaflop sur la liste des « grands défis»» à relever au 21e siècle.

Probability: 8/10 UTILITY: 8/10

Pitou is making light!

It is the dogs themselves recently who have been illuminating a canine park in Cambridge, in Massachusetts, thanks to a biodigester who transforms their excrement into methane, which feeds a gas reverbera.A simple and effective tool to directly convert waste into energy source.(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 7/10 UTILITY: 4/10

Black tide devouring enzymes

Danish researchers managed, in 2010, to produce in the laboratory an enzyme capable of degrading a toxin present in certain fruits and vegetables.Americans have made two artificial enzymes of unprecedented complexity, which could prove useful to destroy oil during a black tide or create bioplastics.The manufacture of artificial enzymes is progressing.The enzymes provided by the human body or other living beings may be capable of prowess that no synthetic product still manages to imitate, they are sometimes unstable and long to produce.

Probability: 6/10utility: 7/10

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>

To consume before ... the small red line

It is to put an end to the enormous waste of food that the dates of consumption boundaries too cautious that the Norwegian company Timetemp has developed a prototype intelligent indicator, which takes into account not only time that haselapsed, but also temperature variations suffered by the food.A steak or yogurt rarely becomes bad the day it reaches the expiration date indicated on its packaging.It all depends on the temperatures to which it was exposed: if the cold chain has been well respected, it could be good for several days.Placed on the packaging, the Timetemp stick, made of a special ink, lengthens as time passes and at each temperature increase.As long as he does not reach red, we eat!

Probability: 5/10utility: 9/10

A bus that spans cars

No room to install a tram in the streets of Montreal or Quebec?Chinese engineers have found the solution: a raised bus circulating above cars.Each 3D Express coach wagon can transport 300 passengers at a speed of 40 km/h.Less expensive than metro, it would reduce congestion by 20 % to 30 %.And it only takes a year to build 40 km of network, according to the Chinese promoter, the company Shenzhen Huashi Future Parking Equipment.Work for the development of a first line of 185 km, in Beijing, should start in a few weeks.(Photo: a.Wong/AP/PC))

Probability: 8/10 UTILITY: 8/10

The laser moving

The laser invented by the Australian professor Andrei Rode is able to move objects over distances that can go up to a meter.It is not about to move a piano, but it could be used to handle dangerous microbes, nanoparticles or atmospheric contaminants.(Photo: aNU))

Probability: 2/10utility: 6/10

Farewell double homes and progressive glasses?

Israeli engineer Zeev Zalevsky, researcher at Bar-Ilan University, invented a glass of glasses that allows you to see both close and by far, whether one is myopic, presbyte, astigmatic or all that at the same time.The concept: 25 concentric circles engraved with a few microns from each other, which allow to focus, whatever the distance.If the trials are conclusive, its invention could one day dethrone double home glasses and progressive glasses.

Probability: 4/10utility: 7/10

The cell phone goes to HD

The deforming voice, the sizzles ... The sound transmitted by cell phones is far from having reached perfection.But an algorithm of coding of the voice developed at the University of Sherbrooke promises to clearly improve the quality of the sound by widening the spectrum of audible frequencies: progress would be as spectacular as it was for the image the passage of theblack and white television in color.

In the 1990s, researchers from the Word and Audio Research Group, led by Professor Roch Lefebvre, had developed speech digitization technology, called ACELP, which, in 1995, became the normInternational for wireless audio communications and Internet.Building on this success, scientists have designed a new tool, the compression algorithm for large -strip multi -tape adaptive speech, which in turn became a standard in 2001.The first phones with this technology were sold in Europe in the summer of 2010.(Photo: istock))

Probability: 10/10utility: 7/10

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>

Magnets to roll the hybrids

In October 2010, China refused to supply Japan with rare land following a territorial dispute. Ces éléments chimiques (lanthane, néodyme, dysprosium, samarium…)), dont la Chine est pour ainsi dire le seul producteur mondial, sont essentiels à la fabrication de nombreux objets, comme les moteurs des véhicules hybrides et électriques.No problem, replied researchers from the University of Hokkaïdo, who claim to have developed a first permanent magnet engine for hybrid cars using ferrites, which also have the advantage of costing 20 times cheaper thanRare metals. Esbroufe ou réelle avancée ? À suivre…(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 4/10 UTILITY: 8/10

One medication in your pharmacy

Take care of all cancers with the same medicine!And also viral infections and other diseases.This is the slightly crazy dream that interferent RNAs had aroused during their discovery, in the 1990s.These small pieces of ribonucleic acid, present in all living cells, would be able to interfere with the messenger RNA to inhibit its protein translation. Autrement dit, ils peuvent « éteindre»» un gène à la demande, propriété fort utile quand ledit gène permet à une cellule cancéreuse ou à un virus de se multiplier.But the researchers quickly realized that things were not so simple.Interferent RNAs, however, continue to arouse a lot of hope.Last May, Professor Bhushan Nagar's team from McGill University broke the secrets of a small protein that commands interferent RNA capable of blocking cancer cells in humans.At the same time, Boston researchers managed to disrupt the reproduction of the Ebola virus in monkeys thanks to interferent RNAs.These molecules could thus give birth to a first treatment against this formidable virus, which kills 80 % of the people who catch it.

Probability: 4/10 UTILITY: 9/10

3D TV without glasses

Toshiba took its short competitors by revealing at the beginning of October the first television broadcasting 3D images that can be watched without special glasses. Deux modèles, de 30 et 50 cm (12 et 20 po)), seront vendus au Japon à compter du mois de décembre.The image combines nine different perspectives of the two -dimensional frame, which the brain superimposes to see 3D images.Other screens manufacturers, such as Sharp or Samsung, bet on different technologies to also offer 3D -free 3D in the coming months.(Photo: Toshiba))

Probability: 10/10utility: 5/10

He steals without pilot and non -stop for 5 years!

A plane capable of flying without pilot, without having to land for at least five years, taking advantage of the solar energy stored during the day and reused at night. Cette commande un peu folle, la Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)), l’organisme scientifique de l’armée américaine, l’a confiée au constructeur Boeing en septembre dernier. Le Solar Eagle (l’aigle solaire)) serait utilisé pour la surveillance et volerait à une altitude de croisière d’environ 18 km (60 000 pi)), alimenté par des panneaux solaires et des batteries qu’il reste à concevoir.Intermediary between a satellite, much more expensive to place in orbit, and a recognition plane, Solar Eagle could be used by the American army to improve its continuous communication and surveillance systems.The first demonstration flight is scheduled for 2014.Last June, another solar plane, Solar Impulse, achieved a first 24 -hour flight without landing.It was designed by the team of Swiss adventurer Bertrand Piccard, doctor who made the first round the world in non -stop balloon.(Photo: Boeing Image))

Probability: 8/10utility: 5/10

At the RanCart, the mouse

The computer mouse may live its last years, if we believe Pranav Mistry.With less than 20 dollars of equipment, this student at MIT Media Lab, in Massachusetts, managed to pilot a computer by moving his hand exactly as with a mouse ... but without it!The movements of the hand are followed by a camera and an infrared laser, which make the mouse superfluous. Sur le même principe, verra-t-on bientôt disparaître claviers et télécommandes ?(Ill.: Isabelle Arsenault))

Probability: 6/10utility: 5/10

Voir certaines de ces inventions en vidéo >>