The Singularity Is Near

A new form of generating power hit the news today when BBC news announced that U.S. and Canadian scientists have built a prototype device that attaches to your leg like a knee brace and generates power as you walk.

From just one minute of walking this device can generate 13 watts of energy which is equivalent to 30 minutes of talking on a cell phone.

This device can mainly benefit people who wear prosthetics as all the new prosthetic developments require large amounts of energy. The device uses a process similar to the one found in Toyota Prius and other hybrid cars called generative braking.

The field of biomechanical energy harvesting seeks to develop mechanisms and units to recover wasteful energy and convert it into electricity.

Though not a new idea – it has been exploited in things like wind-up radios and self winding watches – this portends just another example of the age that we are living in and are on the brink of experiencing.

As the days go by the time between the idea of each new invention and level of advancement lessens. The human race is on the brink, if not already there, of experiencing more technological advancement in a single twenty year period than we have experienced in the entire 20^th century.

In the book, The Singularity is Near, by Ray Kurzweil, Ray outlines how the very existence of human kind is on the brink of great change, a new age, the quantum age. In a quote taken from his website:

“…humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and the most thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged, as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity.”

“For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines, he presented the daring argument that with the ever-accelerating rate of technological change, computers would rival the full range of human intelligence at its best. Now, in The Singularity Is Near, he examines the next step in this inexorable evolutionary process: the union of human and machine, in which the knowledge and skills embedded in our brains, will be combined with the vastly greater capacity, speed, and knowledge-sharing ability of our own creations.”

With the ever increasing technological advancements humans will not only have the desire to express themselves creatively, but will need to get in touch with their deeper self, their source in order to experience and have a more fulfilling life.

After all, the word religion comes from the Latin word religi which loosely translated means to bind oneself to one’s source. So do you know what or where your Source is and are you bound to it?

© 2008 Laurie J. Brenner All Rights Reserved