Even though we use them all the time, we rarely appreciate how subtle a piece of evolutionary engineering our hands really are, and replicating their function mechanically is a task that has defied roboticists for many years. However, Shadow Robotics claim to have done exactly that, creating a robot mitt with ‘comparable force output’ to the human version, and incorporating the full 24 degrees of freedom as well. The pictures show it holding eggs and plastic bottles – if they’re not just good PR shots, Shadow must have cracked the ‘force-feedback’ problem, and the videos seem to confirm it.

The worldwide network of Apple fanboys are having major twitching fits today, thanks to code strings dug out of a new iPod firmware update by a coder with an obsession (and a lot of spare time, one assumes). The names of some variables in the code seem to point towards mobile phone capabilities in future incarnations of those iconic white theft-invitations – though it’s well known that Apple aren’t afraid to dangle the carrot. So, is there an iTunes phone in the pipeline? Only time will tell. Yawn.

They said they could do it, and Japanese research outfit Riken have lived up to their boasts by running the MDGrape-3 supercomputer at the speed of one petaflop – that’s one quadrillion instructions per second, kicking IBM’s Blue Gene to the kerb. And not just with performance – the ‘Grape cost almost a tenth of the price of Big Blue’s behemoth to build, and uses far less processor units.

Well, it seems my column from last week stirred up a bit of debate, which is what I hoped it would do. I just thought I’d keep you all posted as to further developments – I’m going to aim for a new piece every two weeks at first, as I build up a roster of interested (and interesting) writers to share their views with us.

The good news is that I already have a big-name futurist of the blogosphere lined up to do a monthly piece for us, the first of which will appear here next Sunday. There are other contributors in the pipeline also, with various backgrounds and areas of expertise. Should any readers be interested in contributing, leave me a comment on this post, preferably with a link to something you’ve written before, and I’ll give it a look over.

Should you feel the need for something to pick holes in in the meantime, you could always take a look at my ‘Does science fiction have a social function?’ piece over at Velcro City Tourist Board. Thanks for reading – more updates and columns coming soon.

We’ve been hearing a lot of talk abbout the potential of quantum computing recently, coupled with reports of early successes in what was an almost entirely theoretical disciple a decade ago. But what will the world be like when the qubit becomes ubiquitous? Physicist and futurist Stuart Wolf paints a picture of a world where all knowledge will be at your beck and call, scrolling across your field of vision at your command…as long as you don’t forget your hat.