Ever since I saw Rosie on the Jetsons as a kid, I have dreamed about having a robot.  I have played with lots of the various bots that have come out and bought a few like the Roomba.  I am still waiting for one that knocks my socks off and then picks them, washes them and puts them away for me. So I am excited to see that Toshiba is doing its part to ensure that we all have little helper robots to serve us in the future. The company has come up with the prototype “Wheelie” robot, which is an indoor, autonomous, 2-wheeled robot. It looks a little like something a marriage between a Segway transporter and mini bar would produce, but as long as it’s cute, right? The aim of the robot is to help out with the daily chores, such as serving food. Currently you’ll still need to place the plates and glasses on top of the robot’s head, and it will sort out the rest.  Not quite Rosie but its progress.  Check the video after the jump.

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Bill Gates is obviously a big brain.  Even though Microsoft did not create DOS, which became the OS standard for the PC industry and set the table for Gates to be the richest man in the world, he saw its potential early and moved on it to own the market.  The same may now be true in the energy sector.  Gates and former Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold control Intellectual Ventures a Seattle based company that is amassing patents and scientists to solve big problems including the world’s future energy needs.  One of the breakthroughs Gates and Intellectual Ventures claim is the ability to take America’s nuclear waste stockpile, largely U²³⁸, and create a 3,000 years (yes three thousand) energy supply through a process known as Travelling Wave Reactors (“TWRs”).  If true, that is 100 Trillion dollars in energy value!

TWRs claims to deliver a zero-emission energy that would reduce current nuclear waste volumes. While the concept of TWR’s came into existence in the 1950’s. realization of the science, and commercialization, is now here via supercomputer computational tools.  The general concept of TWRs is that they use a small amount of fissive material to kick off a wave in nonfissile fuel, such as depleted uranium, in which neutrons produced by fission reactions in one small part of the core convert adjacent fuel pellets from fertile isotopes (such as U²³⁸) into fissile isotopes (such as Pu²³⁹). So, a TWR breeds its own nuclear fuel on demand with exhausted fuel left in the core. So unlike conventional nuclear plants that take in new fuel and expel high-level waste every 18 months or so, a TWR can in principle be fueled once, sealed up, and run without refueling for 60 years or more.  It is believed that the Intellectual Ventures plan is to build small micro-reactors a mile in the earth’s surface, far below the water table and offering limited egress to the atmosphere, to address the inevitable environmental and social policy concerns over nuclear energy.  Gates’ company TerraPower is commercializing he technology and you will find a video of their CEO here.

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Did you like Mission Impossible and the heads up displays?  How about the Terminator’s eyeballs?  Well if you want a heads-up display to read off stats like altitude, speed and latitude and longitude the world got a whole lot cooler with the Zeal Trascend Goggles.  The Transcend is one of those high-end, early-adopter toys but is affordable to many folks at the intro price of $350.  Plus it is cool and incredibly useful.  Key technology includes; an accelerometer, air pressure sensor, thermometer and SKYTRAQ 65 GPS chip.  Rather than projecting the metrics on the lens, which might be difficult to read if you fog your goggles like me, it is displayed in the lower right part of the frame. The data is stored locally and can be extracted via mini-USB, and will give key stats such as maximum speed, vertical change, ability to map to Google maps etc. The goggles incorporate most the features of sport watches such as the Garmin 405.  Watch for this technology to be added to cycling and maybe average glasses soon and then the next generation including holographic optical switching technology.

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