新年新科技

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Beam yourself across the world

The growth in video communication has been exponential. Skype now boasts 300 million users, and a 2012 Ipsos/Reuters poll revealed one in five people worldwide now frequently “telecommuted” to work. But Star Trek fans will be happy to hear that incoming technology will add a further dimension to international conference calls. Known as holographic telepresence, it involves transmitting a three-dimensional moving image of you at each destination – allowing you to converse as if you were in the room. One system from Musion, based in Britain, uses Pepper’s Ghost, an effect popular with illusionists, to beam moving images onto sloped glass. Musion has already digitally resurrected rapper Tupac Shakur at a music festival. But full 3D holographic communication is not far behind – in the shape of the Polish company Leia. Named after the Star Wars princess, its Leia Display XL uses laser projectors to beam images onto a cloud of water vapour. The result is a walk-in holographic room, in which 3D objects can be viewed and manipulated from every angle. An IBM survey of 3,000 researchers recently named holographic video calls as one technology they expected to see in place in the next year or so.

Formula E racing

If you think the atmosphere at a Formula 1 grand prix is electric, you’re going to love the new motor sport starting next year. Formula E will see drivers racing around city-centre circuits - including London - in battery-powered electric cars. The new championship, which is backed by the FIA, motor racing’s governing body, promises cars as sexy as those driven by Lewis Hamilton, Sebastian Vettel et al, but with lithium-ion batteries and electric motors instead of fuel tanks and pistons. And, while their top speed is expected to be 155mph, slower than Formula 1, the event will compensate with exciting street circuits and brightly-lit night events. The pit stops will be different too: with the batteries running out of juice after 20 minutes, drivers won’t just change their tires, they’ll jump into new cars. The season is scheduled to start on September 13 in Beijing, with further races in the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Berlin and Los Angeles amongst others, before the final event in the centre of London on June 27 2015.

Faster online deliveries

In this age of instant gratification, waiting days for internet purchases to arrive suddenly seems very 2013. So, from next year, behemoths like Amazon and eBay will be stepping up their efforts to deliver goods on the same day they’re bought, even if that day’s a Sunday. Eventually, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos envisions unmanned drones bringing products to our doors within half-an-hour. In the meantime, he’s increasing his number of warehouses and overhauling his partnerships with couriers to get us what we want as quickly as possible. It’s another nail in the coffin of traditional bricks-and-mortar stores.

Virgin Galactic launches. Yes, really

Despite delays in testing – the first flights were promised by 2011 – Sir Richard Branson’s dream of making money in space is nearing reality. A test flight was completed in April, and it was announced in November that television network NBC has agreed to televise the first ever public flight from New Mexico “sometime in 2014”.

The Swiss Army knife of credit cards

According to a recent survey, one in five consumers in America no longer carry any cash on them. From next year, they won’t need their ever-growing collection of plastic payment cards either. San Francisco company Coin has invented a device the same size as a credit card that holds the information of up to eight debit, credit, loyalty or gift cards. Customers press a button to choose which one they want to use and then simply swipe their Coin in the usual way. And if you lose your Coin? The card is synched to your smartphone and when the two are separated your phone receives a notification. In other words: you can’t leave home (or a shop, or a restaurant) without it.

Shanghai’s underground hotel

In an abandoned quarry at the base of China’s Tianmenshan Mountain, 30 miles outside Shanghai, an extraordinary hotel is taking shape. At a cost of £345 million, the InterContinental Hotels Group is building a five-star resort that will boast two floors above the top of the 330ft rock face and another 17 storeys below ground level, two of which will be underwater. If construction goes to plan, the first guests at “the world’s lowest hotel” will check-in by the end of 2014.

Trip to Mars

As it stands, if you felt the urge to make the 54-million-mile trip to Mars, it would take you nine months. That’s around 39 weeks dealing with cosmic radiation, asteroids and wastage to your bones and muscles.

But VASIMR could change all that. Set to be tested aboard the International Space Station in late 2014 to early 2015, the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket is an experimental engine that, if it works, could get us there in three months.

To simplify enormously: existing chemical rockets only produce short bursts of speed as they burn a vast amount of fuel in one go, but at a relatively low velocity. By contrast, VASIMR takes a tiny bit of propellant (plasma), heats it to very high temperatures (two million degrees centrigrade) using radio waves, then uses magnetic fields to push it out at extremely high velocities. The result is a steady, continuous acceleration to higher speeds, using far less fuel.

In theory. One current problem is the power required to heat the plasma. For short flights near Earth, solar panels suffice. But a mission to Mars would require a far bigger continuous power supply – and that means a wider initiative to build a nuclear reactor small and safe enough for the trip.

But manufacturers Ad Astra – lead by former NASA astronaut Dr Franklin Chang Díaz – say VASIMR is a game-changer. Better still, for the sci-fi fans among us, VASIMR even burns with the same bluish tint and luminescence of fictional spaceships engines. Which is what scientists like to call “the clincher”.

More transparent shopping

For some people, it’s about whether the factory workers are being treated ethically. For others, it’s about the impact upon the environment. For a great deal more of us, it’s about checking whether you’re about to feed your child a Turkey Twizzler made out of freshly-slaughtered Romanian horse. Either way: in the age of globalisation, knowing where your product has been made or grown, and its route to market, has taken on a new importance.

Embracing this shift in consumer priorities is Provenance () - a new type of search engine attempting to chronicle just that. From chocolate bars to jackets to shoes to chef’s knives, Provenance tells you where a product is made, who the manufacturer is and what the product is made from.

But while Provenance includes vivid personal stories from farmers, workers, craftspeople and so on, there’s no attempt to catch out corporations with their hands in the sweatshop, Roger Cook style. Instead, the site works in collaboration with everyone from small-batch producers to large multinationals in the hope that, by simply taking the mystery out of supply chains and worldwide commerce, the site will help shoppers make better choices. As well as gently forcing companies to improve their environmental and social impact.

Fecal bacteriotherapy

Not every emerging scientific advance is complex, or sophisticated. Or, for that matter, something you'd discuss at the dinner table. Fecal microbiota transplantation (FMT) – the process of transferring fecal bacteria from a healthy individual into a sick recipient - has been around since 1957. But it’s only in the last decade that FMT has been seen as simple, safe, low cost, low risk, accessible, and, apparently, a permanent treatment alternative to increasingly high-strength antibiotics.

To explain: when a patient is given broad-spectrum antibiotics, the effect is to carpet-bomb all the healthy bacteria that live in our guts, leaving the patient open to infection by other bacteria - such as the potentially fatal Clostridium difficile. Since 2000, hypervirulent strains of C. difficile have developed, and now kill over 2,000 people a year in the UK alone. But FMT is the shock troops: a quick, easy way of restoring healthy bacteria into your guts to fight the infection. And fight they do: an incredible 89% of patients are instantly, and permanently, cured.

And new research suggests FMT might also offer cures for not just IBS, colitis, constipation and colonic ulcers – but also a growing number of neurological and auto-immune conditions such as Parkinson's. In October it was announced FMT was now available in pill form, making it slightly more appealing.據英國《每日電訊報》12月29日報道，從全球最大的地下酒店，到“星球大戰”版的全息立體通訊技術，即將到來的2014年值得期待，因爲這一年將有一批令人歎爲觀止的科技創新技術走進人們的生活。

***全息立體通訊

近年來，隨着科技的進步，視頻通訊產業取得重大發展。如今，視頻電話Skype的用戶已超過3億，約1/5的上班族經常參加視訊會議。在2014年，受益於全息立體通訊技術的運用，舉行視頻會議時，人與人的交流將變得更加生動和順暢。

目前，總部位於英國的Musion公司正在開發一個新系統，該系統可以在兩個甚至多個會議地點之間傳輸與會者的運動影像，從而製造“面對面”交談的效果。

而3D全息立體通訊也即將成爲現實。加拿大一家科技公司研發了一個3D全息投影裝置，這個裝置以科幻電影《星球大戰》中萊婭公主（Leia）的名字命名，實現真人全比例多角度顯示3D視頻圖像，遠程對話方甚至能看見說話者的後背。

***電動方程式賽車

Formula E電動方程式賽車預計將於2014年9月正式拉開序幕，持續至2015年6月。首屆大賽將舉辦10站比賽，舉辦地遍佈全球，包括北京、里約熱內盧、柏林、洛杉磯、倫敦等。

比賽中，所有賽車均爲純電動車，使用鋰離子電池和電動機，最高速度可達250公里/每小時。爲了彌補速度不如F1賽車的缺憾，主辦方特意把比賽地點設在城市中心，同時加入“夜賽”環節，以期給觀衆帶來不同的觀感。

此外，由於賽車的電量僅能持續20分鐘，所以賽車手比賽時將不需要更換車胎，而是直接換車。

***網購商品“立等”可取

在這個要求“及時滿足”的時代，網購商品耗時數日才能抵達，令消費者心生抱怨。不過，上述狀況即將改變。

自2014年起，全球電商巨頭亞馬遜（Amazon）和易趣（eBay）將下大力氣提升送貨速度，力圖實現“當天下單、當天到貨”。其中，亞馬遜公司正在測試無人機送貨，據稱可以在不到半小時內就將貨物送到客戶手中。同時，該公司還在增加貨倉數量，並加強與快遞公司的合作，以求把貨物儘快送到客戶手中。

***開啓“太空之旅”

不出意外的話，英國維京銀河公司將於2014年開始向民衆提供太空暢遊的觀光項目。在太空之旅中，經過精密檢測的太空船將帶旅客衝出大氣層，在距地表100千米的軌道上運行，期間旅客能俯瞰地球。

目前，維京銀河公司已啓動第一批太空之旅的預定工作，並從首批報名者中收益了數千萬美元。維京銀河公司稱，首次太空之旅定於“2014年某個時候”從美國新墨西哥州啓航，屆時將由電視臺全程直播。

***“瑞士軍刀”式信用卡

一份最新民調結果顯示，在美國，約有1/5的民衆出門不帶現金。從明年開始，他們出門就連卡包都不用帶了。

位於美國洛杉磯的“硬幣”（Coin）公司發明了一款形似瑞士軍刀的信用卡裝置，該裝置可內置8張信用卡、貸記卡、禮品卡或者會員卡的信息。使用時，消費者只需要掏出這把“瑞士軍刀”，按下按鈕選定待刷卡片，然後刷一下，就能交易成功。並且，這把“軍刀”還能與智能手機連接，當兩者距離過超過某個數值，手機就會收到提醒。

***全球最大地下酒店

上海松江佘山地區天馬山旁，有一個採石留下的深坑。2014年，全球最大的地下酒店將在這裏建造完成，迎來首批客人。

這個廢棄的採石坑深約100米，長約240米，寬約160米，底部有20米左右的積水。根據規劃，酒店將從坑底伸出地面，水面以上計劃有300間客房，水面以下則爲水底餐廳與咖啡館。同時，酒店旁邊還設有落差100米左右的瀑布。

***3個月到火星不再是夢

在現有條件下，宇航員動身前往5400萬英里外的火星，將耗費39周的時間。並且，在此期間，宇航員還要應對宇宙輻射、太陽斑侵襲，以及肌肉和骨骼的損耗。

不過，“可變比衝磁等離子體火箭發動機”（VASIMR）的出現將改變這一切。由美國艾德-阿斯特拉公司（Ad Astra）研發的這款高科技火箭發動機使用電力等離子體發動機推進，速度遠遠快於傳統的核動力和化學動力火箭。

按照計劃，艾德-阿斯特拉公司將在2014年底至2015年初試射VASIMR火箭發動機。如果實驗成功，人類前往火星的時間就能由現在的39周縮短至3個月以內。

***購物消費實現“可追溯”

在全球化時代，瞭解商品的產地以及商品進入市場的路徑，成爲消費者的新需求。

爲了迎合這一轉變，一個全新的搜索引擎出現了。包括巧克力棒、鞋子甚至菜刀在內，用戶只要在搜索欄裏輸入商品名稱，Provenance搜索引擎就會自動搜索出商品的產地、原料、以及製造者名稱。

***“糞便移植”治癒頑疾

所謂“糞便移植”（Fecal microbiota transplantation），是指將健康人糞便中的功能菌羣，移植到患者胃腸道內，重建具有正常功能的腸道菌羣，實現腸道及腸道外疾病的治療。