The craziest technologies of the 21st century

Have you ever thought how hard is to clean the exterior glassy windows of skyscrapers? It is one of the toughest jobs of the world requiring tremendous human and machinery skill, but not anymore. Here comes the Pictor, a robotic appliance which has tremendous capability to clean and grasp. It has been designed for faster and safer cleaning and it is slowly replacing the high skilled labor who risk their lives to just make the exterior of your building look clean. It not only cleans but also paints. It starts with a cleaning laser followed by an airless nozzle to paint the wall. The grasping technique is based on the use of nanotechnology and it is powered by a fuel cell. Higher end models comes with camera and color scanner to ease up the process of painting.

Falcon HTV-2 is a supersonic aircraft which can travel a speed of mach 20. Though still in its infancy, having it in weaponry can give a mighty edge to any country. It requires a rocket to make it reach up to the altitude where it can fly, as lower altitude being air dense can increase the air friction associated with high speed flying.

Surround Haptics technology allows the user to experience the touch sensation with onscreen video display. Currently, work is going on to develop a gaming chair which can give you the sensation of crashes and turns while driving fast cars. The sensation is so advanced that it can be programmed to give you the touch sensation of a finger to your skin. It is based on the principle that virtual sensation between physical sensations can make the brain chose the virtual one just like the stereoscopic effect. There is a complex algorithm associated with it which helps the programmer to program jolt to velvety touch.

It is a tele-monitoring device that will allow the device wearer to monitor their health during tougher tasks such as mountaineering and trekking. The inbuilt system not only monitors but it also helps the user to track the changes happening inside and if required can alert the emergency services too. It is a complex device with Bluetooth connected electrocardiograph fitted in two gloves that can be used in mountaineering. It has GPS and is connected to a website which monitors the health via sensors fitted with it. The gloves are fitted with 5 LEDs with color ranging from green to orange to red, which allows the wearer to track his/hear health.

Developed by researchers at MIT it is a nano-sensor based invisible implant ink that can be implanted with a tattoo and can monitor sugar and salt conditions in the blood. When the nanoparticles in the ink get in touch with target molecule it glows with fluorescence. This can be sensed by a modified iPhone which measures the glucose and salt levels such as sodium and displays its concentration.

It is great solution to provide high output to touchscreen. With a dimension of 0.5 x 1 x 0.45 mm it can deliver a high power of 35mW with a current of 70 mA. It can be used in multi-touch displays installed in all the devices such as laptops and home PCs. The LED works beyond visible range so it cannot be detected with naked eyes. It is the tiniest of its kind on the market.

It is a car that doesn't start when if the driver is drunk. It is still in early development stage where an alcohol detection kit is coupled with car’s ignition system and will not allow the drunk to drive. It might take about ten years for any commercial use of the technology.

It is a non invasive device that can rapidly manage the body temperature of critically ill patients. It works with the principle of therapeutic hypothermia. The patients are brought with ice packs and then cooled further with the Arctic Sun. It is slowly being incorporated across the world as life saving machine.

Discussion will be incomplete, if 3G is not made a part of this list. It has now made the whole world glued to their cell phone for every need. The technology is based on wide area cellular phone network that provides high speed internet and video-calling services on the phone. It operates at the range of 15-20MHz.