The Register about futuristic visions becoming reality
“Tom Cassin, head of the technology, media and telecommunications practice at Deloitte, predicts that although we won’t be watching holographic TV or travelling to work in flying cars by 2010, “technology [in the future] will be far more involved in our everyday lives than ever before”. Cassin has outlined the growing use of technology in several scenarios, such as in the classroom, through entertainment, and while travelling…
While the concept of personal flying machines may still be far off, we may get the chance to walk up walls if transatlantic aerospace and defence company BAE Systems has anything to do with it. The firm is currently working on what the media has dubbed “Spiderman suits”, which will allow soldiers of the future to scale sheer vertical surfaces.
Referred to as “infantry climbing suits” by the company, they are reportedly made from a material that closely mimics the feet of a gecko lizard. Gecko feet are themselves covered with hairs so tiny they merge with the very molecules they touch.
Dr Jeff Sargent, a research physicist at BAE Systems’ Advanced Technology Centre in Bristol told reporters: “We wanted to mimic this ability…We have made a small amount of this material and we have demonstrated that it will stick on glass surfaces to demonstrate that it’s got some potential.
“Having a Spiderman glove is a long way down the road, but in principle, you might have something like that,” he added”
