Inkjet printing technology is finding a lot more uses than its inventors originally conceived of. The latest move in the field is to use ink based on carbon nanotubes, which enables off-the-shelf hardware to print out images and patterns with electrically conductive properties. While still currently in its infancy, these developments could open the door to cheaper and more efficient production methods for flexible devices (display screens, for example) or electronics embedded in fabrics.

The armed forces are always keen to leverage technologies that can save them the risk of putting human operatives into the field, and the US Air Force is no exception. Hence their stated interest in developing ‘cyber craft’ – discreet electronic entities that could rove the networks of the world seeking out data, keeping field operatives up to date with split second intelligence on the enemy. Of course, there will be risks associated with releasing such agents into cyberspace, the most obvious one being what will happen to them once their job is done. ‘Fire and forget’ technologies have rarely lived up to their name in the past.

Mention wikis, and most folk think instantly of Wikipedia, the controversial but undeniably popular and successful online user-built encyclopedia. However, the wiki model has a great deal of potential for other smaller group-collaboration projects, enabling the group to edit an online document without needing web authoring skills (and without having to bother their sysadmin too often). It seems that the business world is starting to wake up to wikis as a way of emptying their email inboxes of tedious back-and-forth, and once the commercial sector gets a whiff of a time-saving technology you can expect big take-up and development to follow.

Yet another decades-old science fiction trope has made it off the page and into the real world – architects are starting to design ‘responsive structures’, buildings that will sense their environment and adjust to it. Imagine buildings that can brace themselves for an earthquake or high winds, that can adjust their shape and surfaces in response to different temperatures and levels of sunlight, or adjust their interiors to accomodate fluctuating numbers of occupants at any given time. Innovations of this type could contribute greatly to the conservation of energy resources by eliminating the need for air conditioning.

I don’t know that there’s much new insight here, but this editorial equating plane travel with prison security measures struck a chord for me in the wake of my hellish return from Worldcon two days ago.