How many times, watching a video with a demonstration of some technology or device, the authors of which have already made a prototype or a laboratory sample, you thought: "That would really have released such a thing!" or a couple of years, and there will be some kind of gadget or device, whose capabilities are breathtaking and promise a new incredible experience. But nothing happens.

Our world is full of unfulfilled plans. Lack of funding, unsurpassed difficulties in the development, or everything just remained on paper or someone in their dreams - there are many reasons for this. And here we want to talk only about some of the many very interesting and impressive technologies that have not been embodied in the form of the finished product. Or not yet embodied.

Sixth Sense

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Hopefully, this technology can not be attributed to "never implemented." The essence of the idea is as follows. Imagine that you have a wearable gadget that analyzes the object you are considering, analyzes it and gives you some advice or information by projecting the image. This can be anything from information about products in the store and their relevance to your personal preferences, ending with a quick collection of a kind of "dossier" to your interlocutor based on information from social networks. Neither give nor take, personal secret-know-all.

Details can be found in the speech of the development team leader that took place in 2009. Then the prototype of the device was a rather cumbersome combination of several devices: a camera, a projector, a wearable computer. Unfortunately, since then there has been news about the project .

Smart car headlights

For four years, Carnegie Mellon University has been working on technology that allows car headlights to selectively (!) Not shine on raindrops or snowflakes (!) In order to improve driver visibility; not dazzle oncoming cars, maintaining the intensity of illumination of the road; and also from afar highlighting the obstacles on the road, warning the driver about them.

The principle is as follows: the space in front of the car is constantly being filmed on a camera, the image is analyzed by a computer, which is a spatial light modulator. Depending on the situation (oncoming vehicle, precipitation, obstacle), the beam configuration dynamically changes. Now the system with a response rate of 13 ms is able to identify and track the trajectories of raindrops or snowflakes, “seeing off” with peculiar blackout areas. As a result, the driver is not worth a continuous shroud of light reflecting precipitation, visibility increases, and with it the driving safety.





Excellent idea, which is still stalled due to insufficient system performance. It all started with a camera and a projector operating at a frequency of 60 Hz, and the reaction rate was 70 ms. Now the frequency has been brought up to 1000 Hz, and in a number of tasks the reaction rate has decreased to 1 ms. But the authors do not hope to see their invention as a commercial product even in this decade. And for 6 years or more, too much can change.

Dental telephone

In 2002, two students from the UK created a prototype of a radio receiver small enough to be embedded in a human tooth. The device could receive a radio signal and by means of vibration transmit sound through the bones of the skull into the middle ear of the “owner”. Naturally, this sound could be heard only by the owner. Over the past 12 years, with proper funding, we could probably get a primitive walkie-talkie. Or even a cell phone. Alas, the invention has remained a bizarre exhibit.

Lip-read

In the same distant 2002, Japanese NTT DoCoMo announced that it was working to create a phone that could read lips. The first prototype recorded weak electrical signals sent to the muscles of the lips, and interpreted them into commands for the speech synthesis module. So it was enough even to whisper words in case of strong environmental noise so that the system could recognize them. It was also reported that work was underway on software that was capable of visually recognizing lip movements and interpreting them. In those days, 3G networks still had to come into use, it was a promising promising technology. It was supposed to give impetus to the spread of mobile web services, in particular, e-mail. Also expected widespread compact camcorders embedded in the phones with which the developers planned to read lips. The Japanese believed that speech recognition by lip movements would save us from the tiring typing of letters. Of course, I would not have to shout into the tube in the subway and other noisy places. It would also be a great option to communicate in confidence without tedious typing. Technology was going to bring to mind by 2007.

By the way, in 2010, a group of specialists from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology , Germany, also announced work on speech recognition technology based on muscle electrical impulses. Apparently, they, too, did not go.

Informative form

InFORM has become yet another brainchild of MIT Media Lab, which so far (or “so”) has not embodied in a commercial product. Its heart is a special table in which a matrix of vertically moving columns is mounted. Varying the height and speed of their movement, various volume bas-reliefs are formed on the matrix. And not just for a certain given program: the system tracks the objects and their movements in real time, repeating as much as possible with the help of a matrix.

The system is interactive, that is, the user can literally manually adjust the shape of the bas-relief and thus control the system. In addition, a color image is dynamically projected onto the matrix, which further expands the capabilities of the system and the visibility of working with it.



Information about the project appeared about a year ago, so there is hope that the project will not remain just an amusing demonstration.

Virtual cocoon

In the spring of 2009, a prototype of a virtual reality device was presented, capable of stimulating all five basic human senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Developed a device called Virtual Cocoon, a group of scientists from the universities of York and Warwick. The smell they were going to generate using technology that uses some pre-prepared odorous mixture. To transfer the taste and texture of the food, a special module was supposed to be placed in the mouth. Tactile elements were supposed to provide touch to the user.

It all sounds very unusual, although the abundance of scenarios for using the device is breathtaking. Alas, over the past 5.5 years, no further information has been received on the progress in development.

The world creates a huge number of inventions and innovations that remain unclaimed. Among them are extremely undervalued. What kind of high-tech inventions would you consider to be “great / great, but never in demand”?