10 Upcoming Technology That May Change The World

We have seen great leaps in digital technology in past the past five years. Smartphones, cloud computing, multi-touch tablets, these are all innovations that revolutionized the way we live and work. However, believe it or not, we are just getting started. Technology will get even better. In the future, we could live like how people in science fiction movies did.

Today’s post is about 10 upcoming, real-life products that is set to revolutionize the world as we know it. Get ready to control the desktop and slice Ninja fruits with your eyes. Get ready to print your own creative physical product. Get ready to dive into the virtual world, and interact with them. Come unfold the future with us.

1. Google Glass

Augmented Reality has already gotten into our life in the forms of simulated experiment and education app, but Google is taking it several steps higher with Google Glass. Theoretically, with Google Glass, you are able to view social media feeds, text, Google Maps, as well as navigate with GPS and take photos. You will also get the latest updates while you are on the ground.

It’s truly what we called vision, and it’s absolutely possible given the fact that the Google’s co-founder, Sergey Brin has demo’ed the glass with skydivers and creatives. Currently the device is only available to some developers with the price tag of $1500, but expect other tech companies trying it out and building an affordable consumer version.

2. Form 1

Just as the term suggests, 3D printing is the technology that could forge your digital design into a solid real-life product. It’s nothing new for the advanced mechanical industry, but a personal 3D printer is definitely a revolutionary idea.

Everybody can create their own physical product based on their custom design, and no approval needed from any giant manufacturer! Even the James Bond’s Aston Martin which was crashed in the movie was a 3D printed product!

Form 1 is one such personal 3D printer which can be yours at just $2799. It may sound like a high price but to have the luxury of getting producing your own prototypes, that’s a reaonable price.

Imagine a future where every individual professional has the capability to mass produce their own creative physical products without limitation. This is the future where personal productivity and creativity are maximized.

3. Oculus Rift

Virtual Reality gaming is here in the form of Oculus Rift. This history-defining 3D headset lets you mentally feel that you are actually inside a video game. In the Rift’s virtual world, you could turn your head around with ultra-low latency to view the world in high resolution display.

There are premium products in the market that can do the same, but Rift wants you to enjoy the experience at only $300, and the package even comes as a development kit. This is the beginning of the revolution for next-generation gaming.

The timing is perfect as the world is currently bombarded with the virtual reality topic that could also be attributed to Sword Art Online, the anime series featuring the characters playing games in an entirely virtual world. While we’re getting there, it could take a few more years to reach that level of realism. Oculus Rift is our first step.

4. Leap Motion

Multi-touch desktop is a (miserably) failed product due to the fact that hands could get very tired with prolonged use, but Leap Motion wants to challenge this dark area again with a more advanced idea. It lets you control the desktop with fingers, but without touching the screen.

It’s not your typical motion sensor, as Leap Motion allows you to scroll the web page, zoom in the map and photos, sign documentss and even play a first person shooter game with only hand and finger movements. The smooth reaction is the most crucial key point here. More importantly, you can own this future with just $70, a price of a premium PS3 game title!

If this device could completely work with Oculus Rift to simulate a real-time gaming experience, gaming is going to get a major make-over.

5. Eye Tribe

Eye tracking has been actively discussed by technology enthusiasts throughout these years, but it’s really challenging to implement. But Eye Tribe actually did this. They successfully created the technology to allow you to control your tablet, play flight simulator, and even slice fruits in Fruit Ninja only with your eye movements.

It’s basically taking the common eye-tracking technology and combining it with a front-facing camera plus some serious computer-vision algorithm, and voila, fruit slicing done with the eyes! A live demo was done in LeWeb this year and we may actually be able to see it in in action in mobile devices in 2013.

Currently the company is still seeking partnership to bring this sci-fi tech into the consumer market but you and I know that this product is simply too awesome to fail.

6. Smart Things

The current problem that most devices have is that they function as a standalone being, and it require effort for tech competitors to actually partner with each other and build products that can truly connect with each other. SmartThings is here to make your every device, digital or non-digital, connect together and benefit you.

With SmartThings you can get your smoke alarms, humidity, pressure and vibration sensors to detect changes in your house and alert you through your smartphone! Imagine the possibilities with this.

You could track who’s been inside your house, turn on the lights while you’re entering a room, shut windows and doors when you leave the house, all with the help of something that only costs $500! Feel like a tech lord in your castle with this marvel.

7. Firefox OS

iOS and Android are great, but they each have their own rules and policies that certainly inhibit the creative efforts of developers. Mozilla has since decided to build a new mobile operating system from scratch, one that will focus on true openness, freedom and user choice. It’s Firefox OS.

Firefox OS is built on Gonk, Gecko and Gaia software layers – for the rest of us, it means it is built on open source, and it carries web technologies such as HTML5 and CSS3.

Developers can create and debut web apps without the blockade of requirements set by app stores, and users could even customize the OS based on their needs. Currently the OS has made its debut on Android-compatible phones, and the impression so far, is great.

You can use the OS to do essential tasks you do on iOS or Android: calling friends, browsing web, taking photos, playing games, they are all possible on Firefox OS, set to rock the smartphone market.

8. Project Fiona

Meet the first generation of the gaming tablet. Razer’s Project Fiona is a serious gaming tablet built for hardcore gaming. Once it’s out, it will be the frontier for the future tablets, as tech companies might want to build their own tablets, dedicated towards gaming, but for now Fiona is the only possible one that will debut in 2013.

This beast features next generation Intel® Core i7 processor geared to render all your favorite PC games, all at the palm of your hands. Crowned as the best gaming accessories manufacturer, Razer clearly knows how to build user experience straight into the tablet, and that means 3-axis gyro, magnetometer, accelerometer and full-screen user interface supporting multi-touch. My body and soul are ready.

9. Parallella

Parallella is going to change the way that computers are made, and Adapteva offers you chance to join in on this revolution. Simply put, it’s a supercomputer for everyone. Basically, an energy-efficient computer built for processing complex software simultaneously and effectively. Real-time object tracking, holographic heads-up display, speech recognition will become even stronger and smarter with Parallella.

The project has been successfully funded so far, with an estimated delivery date of February 2013. For a mini supercomputer, the price seems really promising since it’s magically $99! It’s not recommended for the non-programmer and non-Linux user, but the kit is loaded with development software to create your personal projects.

10. Google Driverless Car

I could still remember the day I watch the iRobot as a teen, and being skeptical about my brother’s statement that one day, the driverless car will become reality. And it’s now a reality, made possible by… a search engine company, Google.

While the data source is still a secret recipe, the Google driverless car is powered by artificial intelligence that utilizes the input from the video cameras inside the car, a sensor on the vehicle’s top, and some radar and position sensors attached to different positions of the car. Sounds like a lot of effort to mimic the human intelligence in a car, but so far the system has successfully driven 1609 kilometres without human commands!

“You can count on one hand the number of years it will take before ordinary people can experience this.” Google co-founder, Sergey Brin said. However, innovation is an achievement, consumerization is the headache, as Google currently face the challenge to forge the system into an affordable gem that every worker with an average salary could benefit from.

Ashes 2013: British media reaction as England retains the urn after Old Trafford with Australia

PHOTO: Composite image of the back pages of the British media after England retained the Ashes, August 6 2013

England retained the Ashes in underwhelming fashion at Old Trafford, but the British press has found reason for the hosts to savour the achievement.
We looks at what cricket writers form some of the country's national dailies have been saying.

England superiority over Australia rare so savour three series wins in a row

PHOTO: Daily Telegraph Tuesday August 6 2013(Neil Henderson via Twitter)With alarm bells ringing, and Ian Bell wringing his thumb, and Joe Root ageing nine years in 90 minutes, England limped over the finishing line.Never mind. England have won or retained the Ashes for three series in a row, and only once before - or arguably twice - have they achieved such glory since the nineteenth century.

The definite precedent was the three Ashes series that England won in the mid-1950s. Then, as now, England triumphed twice at home and once in Australia.

This history tells us that England have seldom, if ever, utterly demolished Australia - not as Australia overwhelmed England after the two world wars and again in the two decades from 1989, with the glorious exception of 2005.

So leaking over the line when the umpires called off the game on Monday afternoon may not have been the greatest climax, but England supporters cannot be choosers. Any Ashes victory has to be celebrated because Australia, simply, have been the best country at cricket through the ages - the only country to have won more than half of their Test matches.

England retain the Ashes, Australia frustrated after putting hosts on the rack

PHOTO: Guardian Sport August 6 2013(Neil Henderson via Twitter)

After 14 of the scheduled 25 days that constitute this series, England have achieved their primary objective of retaining the Ashes but if England felt at all that this warranted exuberant celebration in Manchester, then they might have needed a rethink: a quiet reflective beer maybe rather than champagne and nightclub Jäger Bombs.

Before the rain returned shortly after lunch to put paid to the match, Australia had England on the rack, struggling for survival and from an England viewpoint it was not pretty.

England and their supporters will take it, no doubt, just as they were happy to celebrate the rain that put paid to any Australia hopes on that last day at The Oval eight years ago. No other sport does rain quite like cricket. But if the Ashes are lost for Australia, the series most certainly is not yet done.

Australia have avoided the whitewash about which there was far too much premature talk but Michael Clarke might well rue his decision to play scant regard to the weather forecast

More to the point, they will regret that they were unable to finish off the England innings by taking the last three wickets on the fourth morning at a time when, because of the gloom-laden forecast, they needed to make them follow on.

Maybe, under the old-school guidance of Darren Lehmann, they will be able to shrug shoulders at their Manchester misfortune, share a fraternal beer or two, and then redouble efforts. It may just be, however, that the chance has gone, the moment missed.

Don’t let one messy Test cloud the big issue

It was, everybody agreed, an unsatisfactory way to retain the Ashes. Off-on, on-off, the match decided as much by Manchester’s old friends, stratocumulus, cumulus and altostratus as the more familiar Cook, Clarke or Bell.

PHOTO: Daily Mail August 6 2013 (Matt Fortune)

It was 4.39pm when the end was announced, the abandonment of play meaning that the Ashes would remain in England, for another five months at least. There was a spirited cheer from the few hardy, sodden souls remaining, and a temporary postponement of the beery game of call and response between the two sets of fans nearest the dressing rooms, but it was a sorry scene, truth be told.

No playing apparatus, no players, not even an umpire was visible as one of the greatest sporting rivalries drew to its premature close.

Graham Woodward, stadium announcer for the ECB, made the call, and the electronic scoreboard confirmed the news. It was over. In the most inadequate way imaginable, but over nevertheless.

Don’t let the weather fool you. The Ashes have been retained in the minimum time possible, equalling the briefest contested series of the post-war era. The urn was available on July 10 and is back in English hands on August 5. In real playing time, that amounts to 14 days — five at Trent Bridge, four at Lord’s, five here. Australia have won it quicker since 1945, but not England. However miserable this last day, that achievement is a genuine one.

Yes, Australia were devilishly unlucky here, and England came up short in three of the four innings played. Yet this is a series, not a single match. England have spent most of the summer on top and we will never know if Australia would have closed this game out

This was no way to retain the Ashes, but the truth is Australia did not do enough to reclaim them either. Manchester rained, but not on their parade.

The weather made an unlikely victory for Australia impossible

There was not an open-topped bus in sight, partly because it would have been ruinous for the seats given the rain that was teeming over Manchester, partly because it would have been vastly inappropriate.

PHOTO: Independent August 6 2013 (Neil Henderson via Twitter)

The celebrations were necessarily muted because the holders escaped with a draw after being thoroughly outplayed by Australia during most of four and a bit days. Had four and a bit been allowed to become five, the tourists may well still be in with a chance of getting their hands on the terracotta urn itself.

The earliest date on which Australia can now recapture the greatest prize is sometime in December, were they to go 3-0 ahead at Perth in the return series later in the year.

But that is to leap much too far into the future.

It should be clear that England have retained the Ashes not because of their performance in the third Test but because they outplayed Australia in large segments of the first two games and won them both. The record shows that not since 1928-29 when Wally Hammond and Percy Chapman were young gods have England secured the Ashes as early as the third Test in a series.

That is an achievement worth mentioning. As Alastair Cook, England’s captain, observed had he been asked if he would take this position 15 playing days ago he would have taken it.

The Ashes 2013: Usman Khawaja's dismissal 'one of the worst decisions', says Australia PM Kevin Rudd

Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd added his voice to the latest Ashes umpiring controversy by blasting the dismissal of Usman Khawaja as "one of the worst" decisions he has ever seen.

Khawaja was given out by on-field umpire Tony Hill having made just one with Australia at 92 for two on the first day of the third Test at Old Trafford.

The decision, after the batsman was adjudged to have edged Graeme Swann to wicketkeeper Matt Prior, was endorsed by third official Kumar Dharmasena despite evidence which appeared to suggest it should have instead been reversed.

"I've just sat down to watch the Test," tweeted Rudd.

"That was one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions I have ever seen."

Former Austalia leg-spinner Shane Warne was stunned by the decision, the latest in a series of controversies involving technology in the Ashes series.

"There was daylight between bat and ball - there was no Hotspot and no noise," Warne told Sky Sports.

I've just sat down to watch the test. That was one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions I have ever seen. KRudd

— Kevin Rudd (@KRuddMP) August 1, 2013

"The only noise was when the bat hit his pad. That's a shocker -- that's an absolute shocking decision.

"You can see the bat hitting the pad, the ball goes past, no noise. There was clear evidence there as well. That is a ridiculous decision."

Former England captain Michael Vaughan also took to Twitter to voice his irritation.

"And people say you should Walk .... No chance when you get decisions like that.... #Ashes," he wrote.

PHOTO: Worst decision: Kevin Rudd has added his voice to those complaining about Usman Khawaja's dismissal.

The Ashes 2013: DRS flashpoints and controversial umpire decisions

The Decision Review System and the vexed question of when umpires should be helped by technology have been behind several talking points this Ashes, with Australia batsman Usman Khawaja's dismissal in the third Test at Old Trafford the latest.

First Test, Trent Bridge:

Ashton Agar (AUS):

Your say: Khawaja's dismissal

Did you see the Khawaja decision? Was it the howler to end all howlers? Or did the umpires make the right call?

The 19-year-old debutant appeared, to many judges, to have been stumped on six but third umpire Marais Erasmus ruled in the batsman's favour and the teenager went on to make 98 - the highest score by a Test match No 11.

Jonathan Trott (ENG):

Erasmus was again centre stage when the South African overturned experienced Pakistani on-field umpire Aleem Dar's original not out decision and instructed him to give the England batsman out lbw. As the host broadcaster was using Hotspot to illustrate a replay of the previous wicket, the thermal imaging system was not available to Erasmus.

Stuart Broad (ENG):

Australia and numerous observers were left stunned when Broad stood his ground after his thick edge went off wicketkeeper Brad Haddin's gloves to Australia captain Michael Clarke at slip only for Dar to rule not out. As Australia had used up all their reviews, Broad remained and his conduct reopened the debates about 'walking' and whether officials should have control of the DRS without teams needing to call for a review.

YOUTUBE: Stuart Broad refuses to walk during the first test at Trent Bridge

Second Test, Lord's:

Chris Rogers (AUS):

Rogers somehow missed his attempted pull at an accidental full toss from Graeme Swann, a ball the off-spinner later said was the worst he'd bowled, and was struck at box height. Erasmus upheld England's lbw appeal and Rogers opted against a referral. But replays showed the ball missing leg-stump.

Ian Bell (ENG):

Having made back-to-back centuries, it seemed Bell was out for three when Steven Smith claimed a low catch at gully. The on-field umpires passed the decision onto third umpire Tony Hill and, as is often the case in such circumstances, he ruled in the batsman's favour even though many former players were convinced replays showed the catch had been taken cleanly.

YOUTUBE: Ian Bell's controversial run out in the second test at Lord's

Third Test, Old Trafford:

Usman Khawaja (AUS):

After being given out for a single by on-field umpire Hill, caught behind off Swann, he immediately reviewed the New Zealander's decision. DRS appeared to indicate there was no noise at the moment the bat ought to have hit the ball and nor did Hotspot reveal an edge.

Yet Sri Lanka's Kumar Dharmasena upheld Hill's decision, prompting Australia great Shane Warne to label the decision "absolutely shocking", with Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd calling it one of the worst he'd seen.

Steven Smith (AUS):

Having survived two England reviews, the all-rounder was plumb lbw on 24 to Stuart Broad only for Hill to somehow rule not out.

Now it was England's turn to be frustrated by having already used both their reviews for the innings.

YOUTUBE: Usman Khawaja given out controversially on day one of the third Test at Old Trafford