The main tech session of the 2012 TED conference is The Lab, about the “amazingness of invention”. None of your “secret keepers” and “beatboxers” here – they’re later in the day.
Instead, we have a roboticist, a materials engineer, a technologist, a techno-illusionist, the director of DARPA…and a muppet. A live blog from the event in Long Beach is after the jump.
8.30am We start with a clip from the new Muppet movie…a cue for Scooter to then appear on stage replete with his own TED badge. “This is awesome, it’s like the Academy Awards for nerds,” he says.”I’m here because none of the other muppets wanted to drive all the way to Long Beach.”
He introduces the subject of digital manipulation – “Can tactile icons survive in an integer -driven environment?” – I think he’s kidding. No, this is about mainframes v muppets, he assures us, formulas v felt, digital v the real thing. There is more to a good movie than computer-generated characters, he says.
“We invented motion capture – hand moves, puppet moves - we don’t need velcro and ping pong balls – Ok, Kermit needs ping-pong balls [for his eyes], but he’s a frog.” Scooter departs after doing a great job as the warm-up comedian.
8.38am Regina Dugan is the first human presenter. “You should be nice to nerds, scientists and engineers change the world,” begins the director of DARPA – the US government’s famous defence research establishment, where the internet was invented. She begins by giving the history of flight and the search to break the sound barrier…. a sonic boom goes round the theatre as we see that record being broken. Then it’s onto space and all the failures on the launchpad of rockets before they got it right. She’s talking about attempts to get to Mach 20 , New York to Long Beach in 11 mins and 20 seconds, but everything seems to melt along the way.
8.45am Now we’re looking at a humming bird on screen, the only bird that can fly backwards and we’re then shown a diagram of a hummingbird drone aircraft that is powered by one AA battery and which can now fly for 11 minutes after several years of improvements. And it’s now onstage and being flown – amazing – by Matt, the first ever humming bird pilot and his remote control.
8.50am Now onto metals being made that can sit atop a dandelion puff and are lighter than styrofoam but incredibly strong. Lightning bolts could be the next GPS, she says.. sorry, didn’t quite follow that one.
8.58am “And remember, be nice to nerds,” she ends, to a standing ovation.
9.00am - In a question and answer segment, she tells us more about Mach 20 and the glider DARPA built, which crashed into the Pacific twice. The aim is to reach anywhere in the world in 60 minutes. This reminds me of the spy plane experiments at Area 51 after the war.
9.04am Jack Choi is now on stage – his company Anatomage has developed a virtual dissection table without the need for a real human cadaver. He has the table in front of him and I see no body, but he’s using his finger to interact with and slice up a virtual body we see on screen – a projection of what he’s seeing on the tabletop screen. He’s really taking this poor guy apart, I’m feeling a little squeamish – down to the heart now. We can also see X-rays of the body in full size, really impressive technology. Jack says it will be used for surgical training and is cheaper than using real corpses. Eventually doctors will use the technology to guide robot surgeons operating on real people – really?
9.15am Marco Tempest, a magician or “techno-illusionist” is up next. He has a magic table too – it has an animated pop-up storybook, which somehow projects a miniature movie as well about the life of the inventor Nikola Tesla. Now he is projecting Tesla’s face onto his own to quote from him. We’re seeing representations of the generation of electricity – Niagara Falls is on the table generating hydro-electric power. the counter on the clock on the front of the table is now at 1943, the year of his death, and the table folds over to show a globe on it, representing the one that contains his ashes.
9.23am Professor Donald Sadoway will now talk about battery technology. The electricity powering the lights in this theatre was generated only a few moments ago, because that’s how we keep the grid balanced, he says. A giant battery could address the problem of intermittency, it would be an enabling device to draw energy from the sun when the sun does not shine. He is telling us about the liquid-metal battery he invented at MIT.
9.28am He began working on this idea six years ago by looking at the process of the production of aluminium. He made the battery all liquid – molten metal – high density at the top, low density at the bottom and molten salt in between. To produce current, magnesium loses a couple of electrons…he’s writing this in coloured chalk on the board, the diagrams are too hard to blog I’m afraid…but anyway, it works. They’ve done shotglass and hockey-puck sized prototypes, then a large saucer and a larger pizza version, the bistro table is next and then a 40-foot shipping container sized battery that’s capable of emitting two megawatt/hours. Another standing ovation. Bill Gates is an investor, we learn in the Q&A, there’s an incredible array of possible uses for storage, he says, which will mean fewer power stations needed.
9.40am Colin Robertson, a futurist, is up next to talk about crowdsourcing solar – he’s a late substitute for someone whose equipment was held up in customs. Colin tries to show a video, but gets a spinning-ball delay icon, similarly coloured umbrellas appear in the audience, coloured beachballs rain down, people in multi-coloured wigs appear onstage – not sure what is happening here! Nice bit of improv though. Beachballs are all over the stage now.
9.47am Vijay Kumar from the University of Pennsylvania is on now to talk about autonomous agile aerial robots. We are shown slides of unmanned air vehicles. He has a tiny one in his hand with four rotor blades like a mini helicopter. It can change direction by the rotors spinning at different speeds – an onboard processor figures out the commands to the motors. We are seeing videos of the robot doing a 360-degree flip. Such robots can go inside buildings as first responders to look for intruders, check on leaks. Multiple robots can carry payloads between them. We’re seeing one jump through hoops thrown into the air – great navigational abilities. We’re now seeing 20 flying in formation in amazing patterns. Look at this stuff!:
Now they’re carrying building components and dropping them into place to build complete structures autonomously. Now one is using a Kinect sensor to fly into a building and create a map as it flies through it. We end with a music video created in the past three days – nine of the mini robots are playing six different instruments by bouncing up and down on a cymbal, keyboard keys and flicking a wire across a guitar fretboard – it’s the theme from James Bond. Another standing ovation.
10.06am Vijay Kumar says he see the robots being used for search and rescue initially, in the Q&A.
10.10am Finally, something about Steve Jobs and the creativity he unleashed with his products. He recorded an ad when he came back to Apple in the late 90s – “Here’s to the crazy ones” - they show it as a tribute to him. You can watch it here:
