Future Stuff

Introduction

Future Stuff is for consumers. Everything in this article should be in your supermarket, hardware store, pharmacy, department store or otherwise available by the year 2000.

Many of the technologies behind the products are new and developing, so it's doubtful that any one reader is going to be knowledgeable about all of them. For that reason, we have made Future Stuff light on scientific and technical talk and heavy on clarity.

Think of this as a window-shopping expedition into the future. Enjoy picking out what you'll buy tomorrow.

The Headings Explained

Below the title of each product, there are three headings: Odds, E.T.A. and Price. A few words of explanation are needed for each.

Odds: This is the probability, measured as a percentage, that the product will actually be on sale by the year 2000. When the odds are listed as 100 percent, the product now exists in a form that can be marketed and sold. For example, the levitation vehicle (odds: 100 percent) has a manufacturer who is ready to take the product to market.

In most cases, the odds of a product's reaching the market have been projected by the inventor or the manufacturer. In some cases, though, the authors have made this projection based on available information.

E.T.A.: This is the estimated time of availability--the year--that the product is expected to arrive in stores nationwide.

In many cases, when the E.T.A. is listed as 1990, the product is already being sold in a limited fashion, usually by the manufacturer or through mail-order houses.

In most instances, the E.T.A. has been supplied by the inventor or the manufacturer. However, in some cases, the authors have made the projection.

Price: This is what the inventor or the manufacturer believes the product will sell for in today's dollars when it arrives on the market. Where the price is listed as N/A, that means it is not applicable, as the product will not be sold directly to consumers but will be incorporated into other products.

Levitation Vehicle

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A: 1991 Price: $100,000

This is the stuff of comic books, s-f magazines and the dreams of generations of little boys who loved machines. It's called the Moller 400. In appearance, it's a sleek cross between a Corvette and a rocket ship. In function, it's a car, a helicopter and an airplane.

It seats four, takes off vertically, can do 400 mph. hover low, land softly and park in your garage. And it's almost as easy to operate as a video game.

The inventor of the Moller 400 is Paul Moller, one of those boys from the Forties who held on to their dreams. While earning his doctorate at Montreal's McGill University and through 15 years of teaching at the University of California at Davis, he worked to develop new types of aircraft.

Now head of his own firm, Moller International, he is putting the final touches on his masterpiece, which he modestly calls "an alternative to the family car."

Moller has already tested the technology for the Moller 400 in his earlier model, the 200X, which looks like a flying saucer. It operated successfully on numerous flights--both by remote control and with a pilot aboard.

Now the Moller 400 is about ready for take-off. It's six feet high, nine and a half feet wide and 18 feet long. It has a cruising speed of 225 mph and gets 15 miles to the gallon.

It's powered by 65-pound, 528-c.c. rotary engines, each of which generates 150 horsepower, or more than two hp per pound, four times that of a typical aircraft engine.

The Moller 400 is propelled by eight of these compact engines encased in four separate ducts. With no exposed blades, the craft is much safer to maneuver on the ground than either a helicopter or a small plane.

Moller has built the craft with safety in mind. Three on-board computers check one another's work and can back one another up. They'll also provide the aircraft with a sophisticated collision-avoidance system expected to aid air-traffic controllers by the year 2000.

At speeds above 125 mph, altitude can be maintained even if six of the eight engines should fail. If all the engines should die, the Moller 400 could land with the aid of an emergency parachute and its five-foot stiletto nose would crumple to absorb shock.

While leaving bumper-to-bumper traffic below may seem like the fulfillment of every commuter's fantasy, Moller believes that the craft's first application will be performing search-and-rescue missions in isolated areas.

Still, a lot of childhood dreamers are lining up for the craft. According to Jack Allison, marketing director for Moller International, 47 people have already reserved a Moller 400 by paying a fully refundable $5000 deposit.

Concert Halls at Home

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1990 Price: $699

If you missed Sinatra at Carnegie Hall or the Beatles at the Royal Albert, the technology is now here to re-create such magical experiences.

Yamaha Electronics, applying digital technology, has come up with the DSP-100U, a device that can re-create dozens of acoustic environments, including jazz clubs, discos, outdoor arenas, churches and concert halls.

Controlled by a remote key pad. the DSP-100U requires a stereo system with a minimum of four channels of amplification and four speakers. It works with a CD player, a turntable, a tape deck or even a radio.

The DSP-100U is already available at many audio specialty dealers.

Eye Braces

Odds: 75 percent E.T.A.: 1994 Price: $2000

They're called intracorneal rings and they can eliminate the need for eyeglasses and contact lenses.

Quite simply, a thin corneal ring will flatten the cornea to correct nearsightedness. A tighter ring will increase the degree of curvature of the cornea to correct farsightedness. And any ring at all will round out the shape of the eye to correct astigmatism.

According to Thomas M. Loarie of KeraVision, the company developing it. the device is placed in the cornea much as braces are placed on teeth. The rings can be removed at any time, they will cause no interference with normal eye function and they can stay in indefinitely. That means no lost lenses, no cleansers, no discomfort.

The rings will be surgically implanted by a physician on an outpatient basis. The procedure will cost $2000, which, compared with a lifetime's contact lenses or glasses, may be a bargain.

The rings are being tested successfully on animals and human testing could begin by late 1989.

The More Intelligent Toilet

Odds: 80 percent E.T.A.: 1992 Price: As much as $3600

What's beyond toilets that sterilize themselves? Bottoms that wipe themselves!

Well, not exactly, but several companies in the Orient are marketing a version of a toilet that cleans you up automatically without toilet paper.

Besides the now-ordinary functions of sterilizing and preheating, these paperless toilets have a mechanical arm that appears underneath you after you have completed your business. The arm shoots up a stream of warm water and follows it with a blast of dry air that can gust for 60 seconds at a time. The full treatment is complete with a perfumed misting of your underparts. Some of these automated geniuses even play gentle music!

One advertisement in Japan claims that it takes one half the amount of electricity needed to run the refrigerator to clean the bottoms of a family of four.

Who could ask for anything more?

Portable Voice-Activated Translator

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1991 Price: $2000

For the American in Paris--or anywhere, for that matter--the language barrier is about to come down with this portable translator.

Voice--that's what it's called--is a hand-held computer with software that can recognize more than 35,000 sentences. You simply speak to it in English and it will speak the words in French (or German, Spanish or Italian). You will see what you said in both languages on an LCD screen to make sure that Voice got it right. And when you say "Repeat," Voice will repeat the phrase in the foreign language, so you can be sure you heard it right.

"Voice makes a laptop computer with a keyboard look like a dinosaur," says Steve Rondel, president of Advanced Products and Technologies, the Redmond. Washington, company that makes Voice. "It fits in the palm of your hand and listens to and acts on your command." The translator weighs three pounds and is the size of two stacked VHS cassettes.

Voice is speaker-dependent. That means it has to be trained and that it will respond only to your voice. It will lead you through an interview in which it memorizes the way you talk. Others can use it by training their own cartridges.

Rondel sees Voice's first applications in the business community and the tourist industry. (Imagine Voice in every taxi, helping drivers and foreigners comprendre.) And despite its high cost, Americans abroad will probably be earning Voice, along with guidebooks and cameras, by the early Nineties.

High-Fiber Cupcakes

ODDS: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1992 Price: N/A

Cupcake lovers will read this and say that cupcakes are perfect just the way they are. But we're telling you that cupcakes will stay perfect and be good for you. Yes, your favorite high-calorie, low-nutrition hunk of heavenly junk will actually be just what the doctor ordered. Years ago, we learned that certain forms of cancer may be prevented with fiber. Americans then averaged only 15 grams of fiber in their normal daily diet, while researchers told us we needed 30. About the time this research was reported in the press, Mike Gould and his team of U.S. Department of Agriculture biochemists had come up with a way to soften the nondi-gestible (fiber) portion of cell walls in farm products. Their mission was to find new uses for basic farm products such as oats, wheat and corn, and it occurred to them, "Hmmm. These grains also contain cellulose, and that's fiber!"

Indeed, it's 100 percent fiber. Experiments started immediately to replace some of the flour content in baked goods with their softened cellulose product.

The researchers knew that nobody was going to start eating twice as much fiber because it might help prevent cancer. So Gould et al. tried to put fiber into foods that people already liked. The trick was to do it without being detected.

And they succeeded! The cellulose fiber can replace as much as two thirds of the flour used in baked goods, depending on the product. "We made hundreds of cakes, brownies, doughnuts, pancakes and breads," says Gould. A cake was developed that substituted the cellulose for 40 percent of the flour normally used in the recipe. A professional taste panel couldn't differentiate the cellulose cake from one made with the regular amount of flour. It compared taste, texture, mouth feel and seven other criteria. "There was as much fiber in one slice of that cake as in a half head of lettuce," Gould says. That was seven and a half grams, or one fourth of the minimum daily amount of fiber suggested by cancer researchers.

The cellulose can go into gravy, sauces, ice cream and any other products that require a bulking agent or a thickener, and it has no calories. Not one. It passes right through the body.

Mind you, it has no nutritional value, either. But if you like cupcakes, you won't care.

Surf Flying

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1990 Price: $1275

This is a toy that is definitely not for everyone. But if you're a surfer or a hang glider--or preferably both--this contraption is a dream come true.

It's called the Wind Weapon and it's the brain child of windsurfer Tom Magruder and hang-gliding expert Robert Crowell.

The Wind Weapon is a sailboard rig with a sophisticated aluminum-and Mylar pivoting wing that enables the board and the rider to leap as high as 40 feet above the water's surface.

It is not a sport for novices. First, says Magruder. you should have windsurfing experience. Then expect to experiment for a good week before you get the hang of it.

These modern-day Wright brothers say that once you get good, you can stay in flight for as long as ten seconds.

The Wind Weapon is available at a few windsurfing shops or from Wind Weapon International, P.O. Box 89, Hood River, Oregon 97031.

Gyro Exercise Machine

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1990 Price: $5850

Picture three giant concentric Hula-Hoops standing on end. Now imagine yourself strapped into the innermost hoop. Move a muscle and the three connected rings start to sway. Strain a little harder and you begin to spin. Nod your head and you somersault.

This is an exercise machine for people bored by exercise machines. The design is based on the gyroscope, a device that has been around since the 1850s.

Gyro stands nine feet high and is nine feet wide. The three rings-- one green, one red, one yellow--are made of tubular steel and rotate around one another, each on its own axis. The rider is fastened into the innermost ring with a foot-binding system and a padded waist device that allows for minimal movement. There are handle bars overhead that help stretch and support the body.

Once you're in place, the slightest body movement will get the entire system turning. Through subtle shifts in weight and isometric muscle contractions, the rider can create and control the action, the speed and the duration of the exercise. The rings move in every direction--the outer ones keeping the entire apparatus in balance. It's possible to do forward dives, back flips, lateral rotations, cart wheels and more, all with the weightlessness of an astronaut in space.

"It's an exciting and exhilarating workout," says Julie Larsen, the public-relations director for Gyro North America. "Everybody who gets on this machine grins from ear to ear. They really enjoy every movement."

It's also safe, she reports, and no one gets sick. You can slow it down or stop it and return to an upright position simply by bending your knees. However, Larsen does suggest that a monitor be nearby for beginners.

The benefits? Stress on the joints is minimal. The three-ring ride is great for toning the body and provides a whopping aerobic workout, or a moderate one, whichever is preferred.

It's even beautiful to look at.

Uphill Skiing

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1990 Price: $1300

How many times have you skied down a challenging slope, only to realize that the bigger challenge was getting back up to the top for another run? John Stanford and Phil Huff decided to use their parachuting and skiing experience to design a product that would solve that problem. The result is a lightweight parachute powerful enough to propel skiers up steep slopes yet small enough to be easily packed away for the trip back down.

Coming up with a prototype was fairly simple--since Stanford's company manufactures parachutes--but testing it was downright thrilling. "We realized that skiing uphill was more fun than skiing downhill," says Stanford. So once they received a patent, the sport of "upskiing" was born.

The parachute can be used on snow-covered lakes or steep mountain slopes, in winds as low as seven or eight mph. Friends of Stanford and Huff have up-skied in 50-mph winds but describe the experience as "terrifying" and "dangerous" and strongly advise against it.

Like sailing, upskiing is a wind sport. After putting on your skis and strapping yourself into the harness, lift part of the canopy (with the help of control lines) so it fills with wind, lean back and go.

A control center attached to the harness allows you to increase or decrease your speed and, in the case of an emergency, release yourself from the equipment. The parachute itself is 28 feet in diameter, and the entire system weighs a mere 13 pounds and folds up to the size of a backpack.

The product can be purchased from UpSki, Inc., P.O. Box 1269, Frisco, Colorado 80443. Customers are required to participate in a short demonstration of how the system and its emergency features work.

Frozen Beverage Mug

Odds: 50 percent E.T.A.: 1991 Price: One dollar

A lover of hot summer days, beautiful beaches and frosty brews. Saul Freedman is the creator of the frozen beverage mug--an all-ice container that keeps the drink cold until the mug melts.

Freedman, a Vineland. New Jersey, inventor, intends to mass-produce his mugs and market them as "perfect for the beach." His brain storm--putting liquid into ice rather than ice into liquid--was born out of frustration. He was tired of drinking warm beer and cola at the Jersey shore and of paper cups and cans littering the sand.

The frozen mug melts from the outside in. Except for the wooden stick that serves as its handle, it disappears without a trace--on a hot day at the beach, the mug is good for about 45 minutes.

"It's a trash-free, self-disposing drinking container, and with the environmental problems we have today, the mug will help decrease the litter." Freedman says. Some seaside towns ban the sale of drink containers at the beach, but he thinks the ice mug can swim around this rule.

Although the frozen mug will stay solid for as long as two hours indoors. Freedman sees as his greatest potential market people who want fast refreshment in the hot sun. And he doesn't view the summer melt-down time of 45 minutes as a negative. "With ice cream, if you don't eat it in five minutes, it will be all over your lap. Besides, how long do you hold a paper cup that's filled with soda?"

The ice mug is produced through a patented process that first takes the impurities out of water (making it freeze quickly and melt slowly) and then chills the molds.

Assuming that he finds investors who share his belief that ice is nice, Freedman will manufacture his mugs in New Jersey, near his potential customers. Franchising is a possibility, too.

Mood Suit

Odds: 100 percent E.T.A.: 1991 Price: Less than $100

Bathing suits may be more revealing than ever in the Nineties if Donald Spector's invention becomes the rage. His swimming togs will do more than reveal parts of the body: they will reveal the temperature of some of the parts the suits are concealing.

Spector, a New York inventor who gave the world hydraulically operated exercise equipment, has developed thermally sensitive fabric that changes color in concert with the wearer's temperature. So if something embarrasses you. your suit may blush even if you don't.

As Spector explains it. the suits will turn dark blue or even black around an area that is heating up or where the blood is collecting. As the suit goes from hot to cold, it will pass through versions of black, blue, yellow and green before cooling off at moderate brown.

Expect to see only parts--that is, upper parts--of the suits made from the special cloth.

Thus far, Spector is working on marketing the Mood Suit to women only. A tank-style one-piece is already developed, but different styles are on the drawing board.