The concept of “smart dust” emerged in 1992 from a RAND workshop and it defined something that was not quite possible at that time. A system of tiny microelectromechanical systems works as a swarm and measures just about everything. Of course, as with any other technological marvel, one of the first instincts was to weaponise it, so by the mid-1990s there were already a series of DARPA ISAT studies performed, to determine its military value. However, over the years, it proved that it has greater commercial worth.
Discussing the potential of the smart dust sounds as unreal as explaining magic pixie dust. This system of tiny sensors, robots or other devices can measure light, temperature, vibration, magnetism and chemicals. Of course, these tiny systems usually perform just one task, but they do it in a unique way. Their small size gives them a great strategic advantage and sometimes this offers a peculiar perspective on things.
These miniature marvels are still a bit too big to be called dust. Current models measure around 5 millimetres per side, says Kristofer Pister, Professor of Electrical Engineering at University of California Berkeley, who has been working with smart dust since 1997. That is still amazing considering the fact that they have sensors and the ability to communicate wirelessly. Efforts are being made to reduce their size to one millimetre and less, and this is expected to happen within this decade. A collection of tiny microelectromechanical systems that individually measure less than a millimetre will surely look like dust to the naked eye.
When you already have a tiny robot that does a complicated task, one of the biggest challenges will be to provide it with sufficient power. Currently, smart dust relies on miniature batteries as a main power source and this provides a decent amount of operational time. The battery size is a big obstacle in the efforts made to shrink the tiny smart dust particles. Scientists are working on tackling this problem with the use of several different approaches.
Smart dust particles are amazing regardless of whether or not they are connected to a power source. Each particle sends an individual read and they can be used to monitor all sorts of processes. Still, connecting the particles to a power source will take away the key advantage given by their size. Dependence can prevent them from reaching their maximum potential as autonomous sensors and that is what the smart dust concept is all about.
A possible solution lies in making the smart dust particles more energy efficient. As most of the energy is used on their wireless communication, researchers from UC Berkeley, MIT and the University of California have started to work on devising a more efficient wireless protocol that will require less energy. This so-called low-power ad hoc routing protocol will find ways to send a message from one mote to another using the least amount of energy necessary. Communications that drain less battery life can even allow the particles to send out larger data streams.
Smart dust can become more energy efficient if scientists can find a way to make it use of its surroundings. The first ideas explored in this direction involved using low level light and vibrations as a power source. Considering the size of the dust particles, this task will be especially challenging.
Smart dust definitely has a place in the future. Current trends imply that in the near future particles will become smaller and less expensive to produce. With a more affordable price and increased performance, this technology will be attractive to many different businesses. It is not just about the data they can gather; it is how that data can be used.
The possibilities of smart dust are virtually limitless. So far, people have suggested many different ways to put smart dust to good use and better our lives. Even more innovative ideas are expected, as the smart dust slowly becomes part of our everyday life:
Discussing the future will be unrealistic if we do not mention the gloomier side of things. Dust mites are excellent for surveillance. You can use them for monitoring, tracking and even scud hunting. Defendec is just one of the companies that offer surveillance solutions based on the smart dust concept. Motes will surely be used for military and domestic intelligence purposes. It will be very hard to convince some people that big brother is not watching if a surveillance device becomes as small as a grain of sand.
We will soon have a chance to see a new generation of smart dust that offers more for the price of less. This opens the door to a world of unlimited opportunities. It is too early to say how this technology will be used, but the ideas so far are very promising. Regardless of the possible misuses we can currently imagine, smart dust represents a huge technological leap that should be embraced and celebrated.
Intruder alert!
What about our privacy? Want to find out in what way privacy impacts our quality of life? We got you covered! Find out more about privacy and feeling at ease.
string(3) "yes" NULLFrom their modest beginnings in the Eighties, the 3D printers have evolved to a point where they start to exceed the limits of our imagination. Two decades ago, a 3D printer could only give you a plastic model, which was very limited in size, while these days they can print whole houses and make it seem like an effortless process. Still, this is not where the story ends, as it is more than obvious that the 3D technology will bring even more surprises in the future.
3D printed limbs represent another crazy idea that might not be that far away. There are already organisations such as e-NABLE that collaborate with designers and 3D architects to create cheap 3D printed prosthetic limbs. These days, you can even choose colours, textures and styles of prosthetic limbs and you can print them for about £30. The Open Hand Project is another interesting initiative that creates 3D printed robotic prosthetics for under £600. Printing a real limb sounds like the next logical step and scientists are already working on making it a reality.
As in any other 3D printing process, you need a printer and a building material. To build something organic, you need a printer that uses cells and hydrogel as ink. Naturally, the organic cells are your building material, although they do not stick together as well as printing plastic or cement.
This is why you need to add the hydrogel in the mix. Hydrogel provides structure and its purpose is to keep the cells together in place. The printed tissue of cells and hydrogel will also have to undergo a maturing process before it becomes usable. During the maturing process, hydrogel is gradually removed and the cells form stronger bonds.
All of this may sound complicated, and we have not even mentioned the issue with compatibility. Every tissue is made from different cells and as an added complication; the cells need to be compatible with the potential recipient if the tissue is to be transplanted successfully. Just growing enough compatible cells is a hassle, as it is a Petri dish process that takes a lot of time.
With our current technology, printing a whole live limb is far from possible. However, scientists are on the right track. So far, bioprinters such as the PrintAlive have been used to create skin, tracheas and even whole bladders. These artificial tissues have been successfully grown and transplanted into live human beings. You may ask yourself “So, where is the problem then?” The problem is that a limb is far more complex than a single tissue.
Live limbs are created from many different tissues and current printing procedures only allow a single tissue type to be created at a time. Scientists are working on overcoming this obstacle and hopefully, we will see a more advanced printing technique in the near future.
Although printed limbs may not be here yet, you can easily find accessories that can either increase your limbs function or give movement to a paralysed limb. Cyberdyne has made some amazing progress in this field and they have even created a device that can help a person in a wheelchair stand and up walk again. This company has invested a great amount in 3D bioprinting research, so there may come a time when technologies combine and cyborgs become part of our reality. However, this is only something that may happen in the distant future and so far, only the bioprinting potential is being explored.
The potential of bioprinting is enormous. Printing whole organs can make the organ donor list a thing of the past. Today more than 123,000 men, women and children are waiting on the donors list. A new name is added to the list every ten minutes and each day twenty three people die due to the lack of compatible organs. With enough money invested in this technology, people in need of a transplant will only have to wait the amount of time it takes to cultivate the compatible cells as well as the length of the maturing stage.
Companies such as Cyfuse and Organovo suggest that printing organs and limbs can also cause scientific research to rise steeply. Developing drugs and taking them to the human trials phase has proven to be a lengthy and costly procedure. Printed limbs and organs can help researchers reach human trial phase faster and more cheaply, without compromising safety.
It is hoped that 3D bioprinting will reach a stage where whole limbs can be produced and it’s not an unrealistic idea. The technology is here and researchers are already working on it. All that is missing is the adequate funding. Printed organs and printed limbs can give people a second chance in life. Hopefully they will arrive sooner rather than later.
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string(3) "yes" NULLEconomics and business are fundamentally based on conventions between humans.
Take a second to reread the above phrase to understand its impact. In short, it means that economics is not an exact science like biology, chemistry or physics. This also means that we have the power to change an existing system if we choose to do so.
At the core of business and economics is our accounting system which registers the value created and the cost made to create this value. Today the large majority of businesses operate in a double-entry bookkeeping system.
Double bookkeeping registers two parts: the financial cost of a production factor, whether that is labour, an item or service or the cost of money itself. On the other side of the balance sheet you can find the value created from sales and financial returns.
At the core this type of accounting is limited. It does not take into account costs of the impact the production has on people and our environment, the so called ‘externalities’.
Most people understand the concept of negative externalities, for instance when we talk about pollution. Polluting companies don’t incur a financial cost for the air or water pollution they create, even though our environment has been negatively impacted during the production process.
Positive examples of externalities also exist. Take an organisation employing people with a disability. It might either be less efficient or generate less profit than an organisation which doesn’t employ disabled people.
However, the first organisation creates excess monetary value by activating people who may not necessarily find a job elsewhere and would cost society extra in unemployment benefits.
Today, by discounting externalities, our economies are modelled to focus on financial gain and not on value maximisation.
Laws obviously try to compensate by incorporating restrictions to unregulated enterprises. Too many times though, laws are too little or too late, both because of lobbying efforts and because one cannot foresee all scenario’s that require prevention.
What if we were to remodel our economies to take these externalities into account?
Triple Accounting, also known as Triple bottom line (or TBL or 3BL), is the accounting concept that does exactly that. The accounting framework takes into account a social, ecological and financial dimension.
An important – but not insurmountable – obstacle is the measurement of a Triple Accounting based system. Do you measure everything in money? If you do, how much value do you assign to an acre of land or clean air?
The solution lies in making conventions. The GAAP, generally agreed accounting principles, which we use today also is a set of conventions, which also differ from country to country.
So, by modifying accounting laws, triple accounting can be implemented. In a second phase, taxation and subsidies on the triple accounting results could incentivise organisations to focus on value maximisation instead of profit maximisation.
Since accounting is based on conventions, policy makers can determine to what extent they want to impose legislation as binding conventions.
Some examples that could inspire:
An employee that medically burns out – incur a cost of 5% of your yearly profits.
For people who need to work more than 40 hours overtime in a month, deduct 10% of the operational profits (EBITDA) off the month in which the overtime was required.
If you’re using natural materials as production inputs when alternative production methods exist, deduce 50% off your operational profits if the original production investments are written off.
The main thing to take away is not so much the actual numbers but the fact that we can modify what we register to be of value.
It may come as a surprise that Triple accounting is already used in different contexts, both in public and private sectors.
If you’re curious for some examples:
The United Nations has incorporated versions and parameters from the Triple Bottom Line principles to be able to perform full cost accounting.
In some countries, legislation supporting TBL has been put to the table and reporting pilots have been conducted. Take a look at the pilot annual report of this Australian government body.
Big corporations like Nestlé or Novo Nordisk are already using principles from Triple Bottom Line to determine if projects are worth pursuing, even though no legal framework compels them to do so.
Let that be the main argument against different criticisms focusing on the imperfect nature of the triple bottom line approach. Although it is not perfect, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have any value at all nor should it be discarded.
In case you want to test run triple bottom line principles but don’t know where to start, you can download an overview of principles and a comprehensive implementation manual, made available by the Global Reporting Initiative.
Like the article already mentioned: economics is not an exact science like biology, chemistry or physics. This means that we have the power to change an existing system if we choose to do so.
That means we also have the power to change the monetary system! How? Check out our Sustainable Money System!
string(3) "yes" NULLOne single question will determine your entire life…
Do you know which one?
Above all else, do you know the answer?
Answers from a handful of people have determined the course of our history and still, it is a question we rarely ask ourselves…
“What do I want in life?”
You may end up with success, fame, money, wisdom, maybe “happiness”. Generally though, it stops there. You probably don’t give it that much conscious thought. You unconsciously chase for the answer over your entire life, for the pursuit of happiness and then you die.
Recently, science joined the debate and the results have been astounding. Never before have we known so much about what we consciously and subconsciously look for in life.
The aim of this article is to show you which scientific building blocks exist and what we used to come to the Happonomy human needs model. We hope that it will inspire you to make those choices in life that are in line with your own well-being and will increase your own quality of life.
We are not the first to think of what we need in a scientific way. The grandfather of human needs, Abraham Maslow, is probably best known for his Maslow 5 dimension pyramid. It is considered to be the very first important human needs model.
Built in the 1940’s, there is a lot of merit to this model as it identifies key categories in what we need. Later on, the 5 level model was revised to add cognitive needs, aesthetic needs and self-transcendence. More recent research papers like the psychology of world views from scientists such as Mark Koltko-Rivera added to the body of knowledge.
Using the perspective of consciousness, both of an individual and group is an alternative approach to answer the question of what we need. The theory of spiral dynamics, developed by Beck and Cowan, provides an intriguing angle as they focus on levels of consciousness. They suggest that the key driver of our needs is the level of awareness we have in the world, basically a primarily spiritual perspective of life.
More recent research (2010), led by Douglas Kendrick, offers a third alternative view of looking at the question what we are looking for. The studies suggest that our needs for survival and gene-transfer command our entire existence. Pro-creating, parenting and finding a mate are at the core of our existence.
Did you notice that the three model-types all have their own distinct angle on what humans are? Maslow mainly focused on the mental and psychological dimension of people – albeit “Maslow 1” covers our bodily survival needs – Beck and Cowan targeted the spiritual part while Kendrick zoomed in on our biology.
To us, human beings are not primarily biological, psychological or spiritual. They are all three. This is why focusing on one dimension constitutes a fundamental limitation which we want to transcend.
A model that has the ambition to explain what we need, should therefore encompass all three parts: body, mind and soul, whatever that latter exactly is.
There are two additional limitations to Maslow’s pyramid, which we want to transcend. First of all, the Maslow pyramid suggests a linear build up between these dimensions, as if in case we’d feel insecure, we wouldn’t yet open up the ‘levels’ that are on top of the second level of Maslow’s pyramid.
To us, all needs are simultaneously present, depending on who you are, where you are from and what specific situation you are in, one or some needs will just be more at the forefront.
That is why the Happonomy working model is a circular model.
Finally, as with the Spiral Dynamics model, we believe that a truly usable model should not only be applicable to the individual but also to a group entity, whether that is a city, country, continent or even humanity as a whole.
If you are curious what the model is and what it encompasses, take a look at the presentation video below. 5 main spheres, divided in 21 different dimensions. Yes, people are complex beings…
If you want to digest the video a bit more thoroughly, below you can find the 5 spheres and 21 dimensions again. Take a minute to reflect how your life is impacted by them.
We all need air to breathe – without it we choke within three minutes and water to drink – after three days we die of thirst. We need food: we can sustain ourselves for about three weeks without eating.
Sleep is the fourth essential building block for our survival. Long sleep deprivation doesn’t kill us directly; it is the resulting organ failure that does. Randy Gardner holds the world record: he stayed awake for eleven days…
So, these four building blocks are the essentials we all need to cover to have our biological machinery, our bodies, working properly.
We all strive to achieve a minimum level of comfort, security and ease both for our bodies and minds. This need manifests in many ways… six to be more exact.
At the basis, we all want to be safe: it is practically impossible to feel at ease if you have to worry about being killed, raped or attacked. We also want a minimum level of basic comfort; e.g. proper shelter from the elements, a toilet, a place to sleep comfortably and clothes to keep warm are essential for our well-being.
Health, both for body and mind, although overrated when related to our well-being, is a corner stone for a high-quality life as health positively impacts a multitude of other dimensions which we consider important.
A fourth dimension that drives our feeling of being at ease, is privacy. The large majority, if not all of us, have insecurities and want to make sure that these aren’t shared with others. Do you have anything at all you prefer people do not know? If yes, you want privacy.
There is a lot to be told about the fifth dimension of feeling at ease: financial security.
Today, money and especially the lack or perceived lack thereof, impacts many of our decisions and actions. These actions often have negative consequences towards others. Feeling financially secure enables us to divert our focus to other dimensions like personal growth and helping others.
Finally, Freedom to be who you want to be, say and do what you want to do are primordial to our psychological well-being. However, freedom in itself is not absolute as we also need connection with and understanding from other people which brings us to the third main sphere of our needs.
We are innately social beings. Did you know infants require human touch to survive or that research suggests loneliness can cause heart failure?
As we live, our need to connect with others become more complex as we seek love, companionship and understanding from other beings.
Connection starts at birth as we all have a family, even if it is only our mother. Biological ties strongly determine the concept of family but are not always needed: many people who were adopted or orphaned consider others whom they don’t have blood ties with to be their family.
Already early in life, we develop connections with people we encounter; some of those might develop to become friends. Many among us even find friendship with animals.
A third form of connection can be found in the form of a partner. A partner (or in some cases multiple) ideally offers us sexual and psychological intimacy, complementing us as we walk through life.
Finally, we strive for a connection to our community. A community is a pretty abstract concept. Often it is geographically linked, for instance your street, city or country. Increasingly, it transcends the geographical limitations as we connect with people with the same interests and convictions across the globe.
A fourth sphere that deeply matters to us is what we become as individuals. We all develop ourselves, intentionally or because situations force us to. In our model, there are three distinct dimensions to individual growth.
We all learn throughout our lives as we all want to understand the world we live in. We acquire knowledge either via education, a Google search query, by personal experience or by age-old traditions.
Secondly, people are curious beings. We like to explore new environments and new sensations, whether that be savouring new cuisine, experiencing exhilarating outdoor activities or visiting foreign planets.
Finally, we also strive to be the best persons we can be, we want to grow our talents – which all of us have – and apply these in our daily lives. We all want to excel, even though we sometimes feel overwhelmed, lack the energy to do so or our need for financial security prevents us to do so.
The last sphere which we want to nurture is the one which helps us to let go of our individual selves. These dimensions give us the feeling that we belong to something bigger than just ourselves.
The first one is artistic. We all want to experience art and creativity, either actively or passively. You may intuitively think of musicians and other kinds of artists, but most of us fulfil these needs by decorating our house, listening to music and watching films.
We also help others. Helping others makes us feel good about ourselves. Whether you consider this to be selfish or not depends on the perspective you hold. A biological perspective shows that helping others activates our reward centres in our brains while a more spiritual perspective supports the view that human beings are not just biological and rational beings but have a ‘moral’ compass inherently built in.
We also care about our planet and strive to preserve our environment. There are many reasons why we do so. Our environment forms the stage where we can fulfil many of our other needs. By sustaining our environment, we ensure that we can survive, live healthily and we can ensure that our loved ones can have a high-quality life themselves.
Finally, we all strive to find wisdom and inner peace by emotionally accepting the world as it is, not using its imperfection as an excuse to do nothing and live in it ‘wisely’ (for a lack of better description).
That wisdom can be found in the foundations of many religions and spiritual traditions, in the experience of awe of mystics, in meditation and silence and the beauty that crosses our paths…
You can agree or disagree with the model and optimising it holds a lot of merit in itself. Countless scientific studies – mainly in the fields of positive psychology and neurobiology – suggest that the model holds, but maybe tomorrow a new study might emerge with different findings. What may be true today may not hold tomorrow…
As human beings evolve, so do the things which we are looking for in life. Imagine our bodies were removed from the equation – as some renowned futurists suggest – or what if we could be immortal, as some scientists like Aubrey de Grey claim to be able to achieve. For sure, what we would want in life would probably change as well.
To us, the model as such is only of secondary importance. The Happonomy model is a tool to bring structure and work from. As we hopefully illustrated, it is nice to know and learn but it is even nicer to act upon your knowledge.
If you liked what you read, and are curious to know what we can do with this model or are eager to further increase your own quality of life, join us (yes it is free). Your heart, hands and head is what we need to drive a happonomy forward.
That was a lot of information, but now it’s time for action! Get started with the model and download it here. Use it to explore your own values, use it to set up a business or for so many other things!
Do you want some extra information first? Follow this link and find out more about the model.
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