In 1956, during the General Motors Motorama exhibit, a short film aired suggesting that the world would have driverless cars by 1976. Inexplicably, everyone also sings. Those of us who are still waiting to get our hands on these hands off cars might scoff at the video, which teaches us all about the dangers of making unfounded predictions about the future.
But, hey, let\u2019s do it anyway! Here are the best technologies that maybe\/possibly\/hopefully will be arriving in 2017.
Robot chefs
If we ignore the part about robots dooming us all by forcing us into unemployment, the idea of a robot kitchen assistant is a dream come true. A year and a half ago, Moley Robotics said their robot hands would launch in 2017, claiming they would be able to cook 2000 meals at the push of a button. Whilst the undoubtedly expensive equipment won\u2019t be one for all of us next year, the robot hands pave the way for a future where you might never have to stir your boyfriend\u2019s beans again.
Google\u2019s modular phone
Project Ara is Google\u2019s attempt to stop us all buying a new iPhone every six months. The modular phone will allow users to slot in and out different parts of the device (such as cameras and speakers), meaning when phone technology improves you can simply swap in a new module rather than buy a whole new phone. The Ara phone has been delayed before, but Google hope it will be on the market in 2017.
Virtual touch
Electrovibration technology is seen as the way forward in allowing us to really \u201ctouch\u201d the stuff on our touch screens. The tech will hopefully allow us to feel different textures, which could potentially help amputees and the blind, whilst also improving everything from gaming to online shopping.
Instant charging
The technology to improve batteries has been around for a while, with StoreDot unveiling their prototype fast-charging battery way back in 2014. Whilst battery life has been threatened by ever-slimming phones, there\u2019s no reason that instantly-chargeable batteries shouldn\u2019t be on the market soon. Get the hint, yeah, Apple?
The male \u201cpill\u201d
Research into male contraception is still ongoing 55 years after the pill was introduced in the UK (for the reason why, see: patriarchy). Nonetheless, there have been significant breakthroughs in the last few years, with RISUG and Vasalgel \u2013 both contraceptive injections \u2013 currently undergoing clinical trials.
The Moon Express
Whilst commercial trips to the moon may be another few years off, the first private company has permission to land on the moon in 2017. The Moon Express will launch its lunar landing next year, with permission from the US Government.
Fully waterproof iPhones
Though the iPhone 7 is partially waterproof (and for that we sacrificed our beloved headphone jack), fully waterproof iPhones are not yet widely available. With both the technology and the consumer demand available, 2017 will hopefully become the year that you can start keeping your phone in your back pocket again. (Bonus: Samsung also might release a phone you can fold .)
The e-shower
Speaking of water, the Hamwell\u2019s e-shower could potentially help alleviate the world\u2019s water crisis. The shower will recycle the water you\u2019re using in real time, meaning you use a much smaller amount, and is commercially available next year. The water is caught in a tray, filtered with UV light, and then poured back over your head. Trust us, your great grandchildren will thank you.
Fake news detectors
With \u201cfake news\u201d being the hottest two words of the moment, it seems unlikely that the furore around the stuff won\u2019t lead to practical solutions. Facebook are already said to be developing solutions, whilst various organisations are attempting to roll out real-time fact-checking. Could we live in a future where it\u2019s impossible for politicians to lie? Well, no, but at least we’ll get better at telling when they’re doing it.
Last year, a spectacular event was recorded \u2013 something that scientists were calling «the brightest supernova ever». Although the suspected supernova (the explosion of a star as it dies) actually occurred 2.8 billion years ago, the event in the southern constellation of Indus was documented in June 2015 by the All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN) network, a group of four automated 14cm telescopes that search for exploding stars.
The occurrence \u2013 named ASASSN-15lh \u2013 was over 500 billion times brighter than our Sun, and outshone the entire Milky Way 20 times over. Krzysztof Stanek, co-principal investigator of the ASASSN network, told the New Scientist \u201cthis is really on steroids, and then some\u201d, adding that if such a supernova had occurred in our galaxy, there would be no night.
At first the event flummoxed astronomers, but after over a year of research, Queen\u2019s University in Belfast (QUB) has just announced an alternative reason for the bright light \u2013 that it marked the death throes of a star being ripped apart by a supermassive black hole.
As star deaths go, this is less exciting than the Starkiller Base\u2019s super-weapon from The Force Awakens needing to drain a star\u2019s energy to function, but much more unusual than most supernovae. However, the argument is far from resolved; there is evidence to support or disclaim both explanations.
There were several characteristics of the event that suggest that it was not a superluminous supernova \u2013 which would have been ten-100 times more luminous than an «average» supernova \u2013 but initially astronomers did not know how else to classify such a bright star death. Other astronomical occurrences had exhibited similarly atypical parts of their spectra, some of which had also been labelled superluminous supernovae. They have also been attributed to other alarming and unusual space features, for instance magnetars (extraordinarily dense neutron stars, with magnetic fields about 1,000 trillion times more powerful than Earth\u2019s magnetic field).
Some of ASASSN-15lh\u2019s characteristics seemed to confirm the original superluminous supernova narrative, such as magnesium lines in its spectrum, which researchers from the ASASSN network had predicted would be there, based on observations of previous superluminous supernovae. Then, after 100 days, there was another anomaly \u2013 ASASSN-15lh\u2019s light, which had been weakening, stubbornly re-brightened. Although there is no consensus on an explanation for this phenomenon yet, other so-called superluminous supernovae had sometimes done this, so it did not directly contradict the dominant narrative.
Still, some astrophysicists, including a group from the Experimental Astrophysics group at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel, wrote a paper arguing against the supernova label for ASASSN-15lh. Giorgos Leloudas, lead author of this study, told Space.com that this aspect of the star death was inconsistent with fundamental aspects of a supernova, like the temperature evolution \u2013 as it is \u201can expanding ball of gas\u201d, by nature it must cool down as it swells. Rather, he observed, the object \u201cstarted warming up again, and stayed hot at a constant and very high temperature for a long time, and it continues to do so\u201d.
The location of the event was also of concern, said Leloudas, as the galaxy in which the star death occurred was both immense and «red» \u2013 meaning it is full of old and low-mass, cooling stars that emit red radiation. Without younger, massive stars, it would be impossible to have a superluminous supernova.
Leloudas\u2019 study group proposed an alternative explanation: a tidal disruption event, in which an orbiting star had too closely approached the supermassive black hole at the centre of its galaxy, and been shredded by the tidal forces of the black hole. As last year was the 100th year of Albert Einstein\u2019s gravitational theory, the news that the «brightest supernova ever» was probably actually the echoes of a star being destroyed by excessive gravity seems a fitting tribute. Amusingly, while Einstein\u2019s formulae accounted for the existence of black holes, the man himself never believed that they really occurred.
It’s ironic that a black hole cannot be seen because the strength of its gravitational «sink» is such that any light that enters its event horizon is swiftly pulled to its centre, and yet it could create the conditions for such a terrific burst of high-energy light. If the star had been as massive as our Sun, a Kerr black hole \u2013 one that has mass and angular momentum (so spins rapidly), but no electrical charge \u2013 could have disrupted it just beyond the event horizon. As it spiralled uncontrollably into the hole, the gases that comprised the star heated up, causing the release of one final luminous flare before being sucked into oblivion.
Black holes «eating» stars is such a rare occurrence that there are only about ten on record, but it is thought that the evidence that ASASSN-15lh was a tidal event does not just extend to the event\u2019s sudden bright flash, or its position in a «passive» galaxy, but is also strengthened by \u201cthe presence of highly ionised CNO gas\u201d at different velocities, which is consistent with the idea that there would be material and radiation surrounding the tidal disruption. While there is still the possibility that the flash was caused by something completely different, Professor Smartt from QUB\u2019s Astrophysics Research Centre, who gathered the data that supports the tidal event theory, believes that the new explanation is the result of \u201can excellent example of international collaboration and scientific team work\u201d.
While it is true that scientific collaboration may be at the heart of the new findings, if this story revolves around anything, it is the supermassive black hole. Lurking at the centre of a galaxy 4 billion lightyears from our tiny blue planet, the black hole is 100 million times more massive than our Sun and has the power to destroy stars \u2013 with flair.<\/p>\n

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