What if there was a car that ran on compressed air and electricity that gave off virtually no pollutants? That definitely sounds like the kind of car that we’re talking about. Thankfully, someone has already viewed that what if as a possibility and has created the MiniCat (mini Compressed Air Technology car). This new small golf cart type car runs on compressed air and oil (1 liter of vegetable oil, actually) and can travel for eight hours for the incredible cheap price of…. two bucks!

How does this car get its power? Like I mentioned above: compressed air tanks! 90 cubic meters of air tanks, actually. Sounds dangerous to have that much of compressed air under the trunk? Not exactly. According to the creators of the Air Car, they have tested and retested the air tanks to ensure safety. What about oil changes? The car uses 1 liter of vegetable oil and needs an oil change every 31,000 miles.

But this car isn’t all it seems- the French creator doesn’t have a steady income yet, and with only three prototypes made, we here at the Nearby Future are having a hard time believing this too good to be true story. And- according to a grudging MDI- the prototypes have not yet lived up to their goals. In one of the first published tests, the car ran little over 4.5 miles- not even close to the promised amount of mileage for one tank. If the prototypes aren’t at their full potential, what makes the company think that it can get one up and running as soon as they think they can? The company is almost over confident, and they are selling licenses to other people around the world to make and sell the Air Car locally when their first prototype travels a measly 4.5 miles.

What do you think about this car? Do you agree with us that it’s far from completed and a little too good to be true? Or do  you think that MDI is right on the money?

The car debate is continuing- with many, many companies out there finding creative ways to make cars run efficiently without the use of things like gasoline. Who knows? Maybe the car of the future will run on recyclables! Until then, The Nearby Future will be covering every aspect of this speedy revolution.

The MiniCAT by MDI

-Rika

Hummers are seen as huge, gas guzzling vehicles that are out to put as much emissions into the air as possible. On December 1, 2007, they won the ‘green car’ contest. What is wrong with that picture? Actually, nothing. GM’s sketch for the “Hummer O2″ portrays a car that runs on hydrogen tanks and fuel cells. It’s 100% recyclable and lasts for five years. This is still an idea in the making- but it may be the push that the car industry needs to go green.

The “Hummer O2″ Sketch.

-Rika

In the next ten years, classrooms will be changed completely- there’s no doubt about that. One of the things that will change how we learn is the Tablet PC. The Tablet PC, created by Pen Computing and popularized by Microsoft, may be the piece of technology that replaces textbooks and white boards. Write notes and then with a swift press of a button turn those notes into typed up ones- very handy for taking notes quickly and neatly. Instead of bulky textbooks, students could just use one Tablet PC instead. It gives them the capability to scroll through pages from their textbooks like an ebook reader. Recently, universities have been using this as a replacement for a whiteboards, too. Having a nifty little device that not only reads textbooks, has all capabilities of a laptop, AND allows students and teachers to interactively manipulate the same image only makes a better learning environment.

In the classroom, this is definitely an invention that has the power to revolutionize education.

-Rika

I think that this is a great idea, and whoever came up with it certainly made a ripple in the pond of our world. Go to www.freerice.com and by getting vocabulary words correct, you donate free rice to the hungry.

Like I said, a brilliant idea for a great cause!

-Rika

Here’s a screenshot from the site:

Electronic books are a great thing- don’t listen to Rika. Ebook readers are so much more convenient then regular books. Paper can be destroyed easily- I mean, hey! Light a match around a book and there goes your book! (Not that the Sony Reader is fire proof or anything) But over time paper gets torn, mangled, yellowed, you name it! And it’s depleting our tree supply. Electronic books? BAM! No paper. Download a book like you download a song and there you go! Words appear on the screen.

See? Electronic books= more convenient world

-Calister

The worst is here. The books that we know and love that are made out of good ol’ paper may already have some competition from books on screens. Have you heard about Sony’s new device called the “Sony Reader”? If you haven’t, there is good reason. Like the iphone, it is, too, an attempt to innovate the world as we know it.

Unlike the iphone, this ebook reader has no solid chain of products like the ipods. People simply don’t trust Sony’s new attempt at shoving paper books off of the shelves. Do you have opinions? Good! You should. Post them in the comment box.

~Rika

Since not many of you are familiar, I am the Piratical Lord of the Guitars- The Nearby Future’s newest member! As you can tell by the name I love Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, and of course the world’s most fabulous invention- the guitar! I also love to read but most people tell me that I’m not as obsessed as Jala. My favorite books are; The Inheritance, Maximum Ride, Speak, On the Run, and The Little Princess. I love so much more but that’s all I can think of right now. As you can tell I also love music! I play the guitar but I’m not that good, but someday Eddie VanHalen is going to be my equal. I also play the flute but the guitar is preferred. So remember, keep the music alive, because one day it might be gone.

Are you a music fanatic? Does your life revolve around music? What will happen in the future, will there even be music? A world without music is close to imaginable, but what if in the future the government or record producers cut music out of the world? Most people believe that the techno music (which I personally dislike) is the music of the future. However what will the future people of the world listen to? Now that I’ve got you thinking what about instruments, will guitars and such exist or will instruments be a thing of the past and be replaced by computer recordings? Today there are so many varieties and styles of music but in the future will there be such a thing as country, rap, rock, or jazz? What are your thoughts on the future of music? Leave a comment!

-Piratical Lord of the Guitars

The next advancement in technology car-wise shouldn’t be flying cars. Let’s face it: a lot of energy would be needed to get a car up in the air. And using gas is just not a good idea. What we need is some sort of way to power cars that isn’t harmful to the environment. I say we create a hybrid solar/electric car! The car itself would be covered in solar panels, absorbing energy during the day. At night you would use the electric power until you come to a place to recharge your car.
The upside of these cars would be that the environment would not be harmed, and yet we can keep our cars. Cars would also be somewhat safer because there would be no gas tanks to worry about if the car caught on fire, and the fact that there would be a decrease in air pollution, people might be healthier.
The downside, however, is that solar panels are very expensive, and they would be quite heavy. And we still haven’t found a way to successfully store solar energy for long periods of time. So technology would have to considerably advance until we could be able to create these cars. Another downside is that these cars would also become quite pricey until we find a way to make them cheaper.
So there you have it, what I think should be the next big innovation! It still is an idea in design, but I think it’s a good one nevertheless. I’d like to hear anyone’s comments about my opinion, and I would gladly accept anyone to elaborate on it! But, until then it remains an idea in question, one I think shouldn’t be overlooked. Thanks for reading this!

~Rika

Don’t forget to submit your ideas on Solar Powered cars by leaving a comment!

You’ve seen the movies. You’ve read the books. The future contains many technological wonders that us mere mortals can hardly comprehend. Robots (that may or may not revolt and turn against us) aid humans in everyday life. Hover packs, Honeymoons on the moon! So many miraculous marvels that have us climbing over ourselves to get to the time machine. One of many futuristic machines is the flying car.

It’s a bird…it’s a plane… it’s… … … a flying car (sorry Superman). But don’t grab the keys yet; think about this first.

The economy is slowly being ruined by cars and their exhaust. And not to mention large gas-guzzlers that are draining up the natural resources that cannot be renewed. Imagine what it would take to run a flying car. Imagine the energy needed just to make it hover. That would be a lot, and we haven’t even started flying yet.

So, perhaps the futuristic car that we all fantasize about is changing. What’s one of the popular new cars at the moment? A new car that more and more people are trading their monstrosity of a truck in for?

The hybrid car.

So perhaps this is the car of the future. A car that runs off electricity, or solar energy. Something to stop the ozone layer from sizzling up and burning us all to a crisp. Something good for the environment.

Though not quite as cool an image as the hovering car, the Hybrid shows much more promise for the future.

Who knows, maybe soon, the cars that are ruining the environment will become ghosts of the past, a reminder to people about what the past would be like.

So perhaps, instead of a future where the sun is blocked out by smog, and the only reason people are still living past the age of forty is because of their handy clone-organ donors, the sun will shine brighter than ever before, and global warming was a scare of the past that will be learned from.

Who knows, the future could even be nice and bright. Better wear your shades!!

~Ashley Lampost

Hey all you people out there! This is Calister F. Wells here. I know posting entries is basically Rika’s thing but I’ve decided that Rika needs to get a life and let me be the head writer! *bows* It’s a good idea, I know. No need to applaud

Anyways, no need to babble about unnecessary updates. Who cares about our new page anyways? Except Rika. Now onto the main scheme- er, point of this blog entry.

A couple times before I have mentioned the fact that we (meaning the human race) is moving backwards. Each new invention has some punishment to the planet, hurting it in some way.

Do you still not understand completely and fully what I’m talking about? Well let me put it in a math equation: (Rika would not approve- she hates math- but who cares! I like math. I am not insanely obsessed with shunning everything that has no relation to math.)

Before humans came:
plants + animals + sun = a growing, thriving planet
Animals - some plants= still, a growing thriving checks-and-balances type planet

After we showed up:
inventions + emissions + normal human ignorance = Dying planet
theories + scientists + rapidly melting ice caps = the realization that our planet is dying
natural disasters + food shortage + (war x overpopulation) + death = everything that could lead to our planet’s demise.

See? Everything that we’ve done may have been pushing our planet backwards! How can we live with ourselves? By ignoring it. That is why we don’t see the latest discoveries of our doom in the newspapers all the time- mainly because no one likes to believe that, “hey! If we don’t go out of our way to stop this, we might die.”

You’re probably sitting somewhere safe, not in any immediate danger, pondering this.

Since when did we discover that this pattern was irreversible?

Since when did humans ever want to truly save the Earth?

How much longer until we can’t walk backwards anymore?

People ask me sometimes why I write, why I work on this site religiously. There’s a simple answer; because I want to change the world.
I know I can’t do it on my own- this world is a large, often corrupted place. But raising awareness about global warming, getting people to come together and discuss ideas, THAT is what I’m here for. Someday this site will be a go-to for all those scientists who need concrete, rock solid information on how the world works. (Opinions included ) We are the type of people who live in this world- shouldn’t we know all about it?
Now I can’t completely change the world without my readers, of course! Just by writing a whole site doesn’t change anything except my own understanding. When you read it, you can make your next deciscion with confidence and ease; knowing you’re choice to, let’s say, buy a hybrid car that doesn’t run on corn, was the correct one.
If you are reading this, you’re already one step ahead. You’ve got an edge, an advantage, and you may not even realize it now.

I honestly want to change the world. And I need your help!

-Rika

    Since the dawn of farming, Corn has rocked this world. Healthy, juicy, and all around awesome, this important crop may be forced into playing a bigger part than it’s contract stated. Corn is being asked to upgrade to fuel, instead of feeding livestock and people alike inexpensively. Unfortunately for Corn, it can’t talk. So, not only can it not hire a lawyer, but it can’t tell the world that it was meant for only one purpose- feeding the nation affordably. Now, I don’t talk to Corn. Seriously, I don’t. You don’t have to be a Corn-Whisperer to know exactly where Corn’s place in the world should be. But the world’s leaders claim this is a free country to every species that has a brain as big as the dominant species the “human” and who speaks in the language “English”. So, you see exactly where Corn is put on the food chain. But, really, is it right to drive prices of cattle feed and canned Corn up just because our gas guzzling cars need If sweet, innocent Corn is to be placed under the “diesel fuel” catagory of the food pyramid, meat prices are going to rise. Animals will starve. People will be deprived of the healthy, cheap food.

Corn is important to us and the animals in our care. If we destroy it, then it could radically unbalance our economy. Whether or not you realize it, Corn is important- and unless we want to complicate things, save the corn!

~Rika

CA-MRSA: it’s the super bug invading our schools and sending us on a cleaning frenzy. Inside most worried parent’s head is If I clean as much as possible with this antibacterial cleaners the danger will disappear. Well, I have news for you. Antibacterial cleaners may be making the problem worse. According to some recent studies, Triclosan (among other Antibacterial cleaners) may actually be helping bacteria grow stronger! Some soap and detergent companies argue that these reports are not thorough and people should not believe them quite yet until further research is released. The labs that have been testing antibacterial cleaners say that yes, the results are not significant enough that everyone should just chuck all antibacterial soap- but it’s significant enough that the problem needs to be looked in to.

What are the expert’s suggestion? Still be hygienic- but use alcohol based sanitizers and to keep a look out in the news for more information on follow up lab reports.

-Calister F. Wells

A Quick Note from the Author:

And some advice for everyone currently attending school- remember to cover your cuts and wash your hands to keep CA MRSA from affecting you. It is a seriously dangerous germ and no laughing matter! Wash your hands and just be all around hygenic

We have a whole page about the iphone because it was a pretty good device- motion sensors, tilt sensors, and especially the awaited for touch screen. So you think that Microsoft would step back and let Apple have all the glory? Of course not! What they put on the table was…. a table! Not just a table, but a touchscreen oriented computer table! This new product is expected to hit shelves sometime in 2008, but don’t get excited. Microsoft’s price for this huge computer table better known as the Microsoft Surface is about $5,000 to $10,000 per unit. Not exactly what you call cheap, but Microsoft says that in about three years they’ll be able to lower the price.

With it’s touchscreen ‘concierge’, incredible multi-touch screen, wi-fi and all the cool stuff that comes along with this product including media viewers and such, this computer/table is pretty cool. Will Microsoft make history with this invention? Only time will tell.

The Microsoft Surface; picture from Wikipedia

Now, since the surface computer isn’t out yet, this section is pretty small. Check back later when I’ll add more!

~Rika

P.S. If you have something to add to this leave a comment.

On June 29, 2007 the iphone launched. Like a rocket going into the universe of phones, the iphone, expensive, sleek, and waited for, Apple’s prized product swept across America. 270,000 iphones were sold in the first 30 hours that it hit the shelves!*
Apple isn’t perfect. And neither is the iphone. They made a few mistakes, some of which is the lack of a memory card slot, the ability to send instant messages, voice recording, voice dialing and some other features most other devices have, but a couple other mistakes are the use of AT & T network, and those of us with different networks may not want to sign a 2year contract with them. Also, the iphone’s hands-only touchscreen may pose a problem to people in colder climates who can’t use the touch screen with gloves on. Another negative fact is that Apple used AT & T’s EDGE network instead of AT & T’s 3G/HSDPA network is criticized because EDGE is slower than 3G. Also, the camera takes still photos only, but that doesn’t matter as much.
Despite these setbacks, the iphone has a bunch of great features, too. The music layout differs a little from the ipod, but is pretty much the same- you can still watch videos and TV shows, too! A nice addition to the iphone is a proximity sensor that shuts off the display and touchscreen when the iphone is brought near your face so that you don’t accidentally click something while calling someone. This feature also helps to save the battery. Now, as I said before, the touchscreen only reacts to your finger’s touch. So if it’s in your pocket it won’t accidentally call someone. Another cool aspect of the iphone is that when you are listening to music and you receive a call, the music turns off. When the call is finished, the music starts right up again.
‘How much would you pay for a phone?’ Is the question I think Apple decided to push. But, with built in Wi-Fi with a Safari web browser and email capabilities, it seems more like a computer than a phone. Before the iphone, most people would probably say $600 was too much. But if I asked you “how much are you willing to pay for a PDA-type phone with email, internet, still-pictures-only camera, touchscreen, and that looks awesome but doesn’t have voice dialing, 3G support, a memory card slot, voice recording or instant messaging?” What would you say? Would you say $600 or more? If I told you it was from Apple would that change your answer? Of course it would. If I told you it was Apple’s creation most likely you would up the price you’re willing to pay at least a little because you trust them. But, most of us would still say less than $600. So, the iphone really isn’t worth spending you’re hard-earned dough on yet- keep saving it until the prices go down.
The iphone is a great piece of technology. It has its flaws, but all in all, it’s a pretty cool device. Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to post a comment at the bottom of this page.
Did I get a fact wrong? Or do you think that something could be explained better? Send us your revisions by posting a comment! *Sales information from Wikipedia
I learned of the iphones features and such at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iphone

*looks around happily* This site template is perfect! Now all we have to do is transfer over our old articles and then this URL will feel like home!

Sorry, it’s just after all the time we spent glued onto the end of freewebs (freewebs.com/thenearbyfuture) it’s nice that we have our own little space! Well, it’s not going to be little for long. We’ve jumped back and we’ve got twice as many good ideas as before!

Is this your first time visiting The Nearby Future? Are you a little lost? Go to the “About” page for a little info on us and our goals. I’m Rika, one of the site’s avid writers. We have a whole staff full of people that are devoted and out to blow our readers away!

We’re a helpful site here for the sole purpose of giving you information in a fun, opinion-filled way. We’re also here so that you can help change the world by way of presenting ideas for the world to perfect.

I’ll post daily- or, as often as I can, about news and other things, but mostly I’ll just be editing articles and moving them here.

Bring on the moving trucks! We’re here to stay.

-Rika