Monitor

1 Next­generation gamesconsoles, an oral sensor in atooth, preventing fuel­tankexplosions, decision aids forfootball referees, improvinghospital hygiene and themerits of quiet products

Di�erence engine

6 The rebirth of the diesel engineNew diesels are giving electriccars a run for their money

3D printing

7 Scaling upHow 3D printing is beingintegrated into manufacturing

High­tech fabrics

10 Material bene�tsThe textile technologies makingthe world a safer place

Biofuels

12 What happened to biofuels?Making fuel from organic matteris proving harder than expected

Working with robots

14 Our friends electricCollaborative robots don’t stealjobs�they make them easier

Brain scan

17 Microsoft’s other mogulA pro�le of Paul Allen, the otherco­founder of Microsoft

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Monitor 1

ON MAY 21st, on a stage �ooded withgreen light, Microsoft unveiled its

third video­games console, the confusing­ly named Xbox One. This followed Sony’sannouncement of the PlayStation 4 inFebruary. Together with Nintendo’s Wii U,launched last November, these machinesmake up the eighth generation of gamesconsoles. They have been a long timecoming. Their predecessors werelaunched in 2005 and 2006, aeons ago bythe standards of the computer industry,and were beginning to show their age.

Both the Xbox One and PlayStation 4will go on sale in time for Christmas, andMicrosoft and Sony are already competingvigorously to convince potential buyers ofthe merits of their respective machines.But veterans of such battles will notice acurious absence. At previous consolelaunches, executives have boasted abouttheir boxes’ whizzy technological innards.Sony in particular was a dab hand at thissort of thing, coming up with names like�Emotion Engine� and �Reality Synthe­siser� for the chips that powered its previ­ous consoles. But this time neither Micro­soft nor Sony seems very keen to talk upthe technical prowess of their new boxes.

To be sure, compared with the currentgeneration of machines, graphics will takea leap. But the truth is that the new con­soles will be merely catching up with thecurrent state of the art, rather than de�n­ing it. Both consoles have about as muchraw computing power as a reasonably fastdesktop PC and are, for all intents andpurposes, ordinary PCs in fancy boxes.

Indeed, their technological guts are strik­ingly similar. That is because of the waythe gaming industry is changing.

The chips that power both the XboxOne and the PlayStation 4 are modi�ed,beefed­up versions of a chip produced byAdvanced Micro Devices (AMD), whichhas long been Intel’s only competitorwhen it comes to the processors thatpower desktop PCs. For Microsoft, thismarks something of a return to its roots.The original Xbox, released in 2001, wasbased on a standard Intel Pentium chip.But all of Sony’s previous consoles havefeatured custom chips built for gaming.

Power underwhelmingGoing with a general­purpose PC chip willlimit the new machines’ performance. Butthere are good reasons to make that trade­o�. One is simply that the cost of design­ing chips has risen dramatically as theyhave become more complicated, saysJordan Selburn of IHS iSuppli, a market­research �rm that specialises in computerhardware. At the same time, the bene�tsof customisation have shrunk. These days,most of the innovation in graphics pro­cessing is con�ned to two big companies,AMD and Nvidia. It makes sense to leavethe job to these specialists.

The business reasons for switching tomore standardised components are com­pelling, too. The traditional businessmodel for a games console is to sell themachines themselves at a loss (at least inthe years after their launch, before techno­logical advances bring manufacturing

The race is not to the swift

Video games: The newest games consoles look surprisingly underpoweredand are very similar to PCs. That’s because the business is changing

On the coverAcross the developed world,people worry that robots willtake their jobs. A new breed of�collaborative� robots isintended not to replacehumans but to work alongsidethem, making them moreproductive. They could alsohelp out in homes, schoolsand o�ces, page 18

Contents

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costs down) and to make up for it by tak­ing a cut from the sale of each game. Thesedays, however, consoles face sti� competi­tion from games played on mobile devicesor running inside web browsers. In thisnewly competitive environment, Micro­soft and Sony may prefer a less riskystrategy. Using standard parts cuts costs.

It also makes life easier for the �rmsthat create games. Mastering the intrica­cies of a custom­made chip can take pro­grammers many years, a problem that wasparticularly acute with the unusual chipthat powered the PlayStation 3. The newconsoles’ PC­like architecture will makedeveloping games much more straight­forward. It will also make it easier to creategames that run on both new consoles andon PCs too, and to release them simulta­neously. Game prices have not risen formany years, even in nominal terms, butthe cost of creating them has ballooned.Simultaneous release on multiple plat­forms maximises the potential market.

Besides, ever­snazzier graphics are onlyone area in which gaming �rms can in­novate, and one in which returns arediminishing. The �rst games with elab­orate, three­dimensional game worlds,such as �Quake� and �Tomb Raider�, wererevolutionary when they appeared in themid­1990s. These days, extra graphicalpower is used for more subtle featuressuch as more accurate lighting or morerealistic­looking hair. With each newgeneration of consoles, the improvementin graphics is less dramatic. This meansconsole­makers must �nd other ways toconvince gamers to upgrade.

Given that the two new consoles are sosimilar internally, the obvious means ofdi�erentiation is in novel control mecha­nisms. Nintendo led the way in 2006 withthe launch of its Wii console, which didnot try to compete with the Xbox 360 orPlayStation 3 in graphical power, butinstead used innovative motion­sensitivecontrollers to appeal to people whowould not normally consider playingvideo games. Microsoft responded withthe Kinect, a camera­based system thatallows players to control the on­screenaction through their body movements,and Sony launched the Move, a wand­likecontroller. The Xbox One incorporates animproved version of the Kinect, and Sonywill o�er an optional camera attachmentfor the PlayStation 4.

All three console­makers have alsobeen keen to emphasise non­gaming usesof their consoles such as streaming livetelevision, browsing the web, makingvideo calls and accessing social networks.Indeed, at the launch of the Xbox One,Microsoft barely mentioned games at allfor the �rst half­hour. It was a clear signthat the days when consoles slugged it outsolely on the basis of graphical­processingpower are well and truly over. 7

AS COMPUTERS continually shrink, theera of wearable devices is nigh. Nike’s

FuelBand slips over your wrist to track theamount of exercise you do. Google Glassis a head­mounted display similar to a pairof spectacles that can be sported by thealways­online. Apple is thought to beworking on a wristwatch­sized sidekickfor its smartphones. And from Taiwancomes another example: a tooth thatmonitors what your mouth is up to.

This might seem an odd thing to wantto do, but Chu Hao­hua and his colleaguesat National Taiwan University believethere are uses for a device capable of �oralactivity recognition��in other words,monitoring such things as chewing, drink­ing, speaking and coughing. In particular,it could have medical applications: record­ing the amount of coughing caused byrespiratory problems, for instance, ortracking how much munching someonedoes when he is supposed to be on a diet.

To test the idea, Dr Chu and his col­leagues built a set of tiny accelerometers,which measure movement. Eight volun­teers had one of the devices �xed to atooth with dental cement. They were thenasked to do things like coughing continu­ously or drinking a bottle of water whilethe team took measurements.

The results, to be presented at theInternational Symposium on Wearable

Computers in Zurich on September 11th,show that people talk and chew in di�er­ent ways because their mouths and teethare di�erent. However, if the system istrained, it can recognise what that mouthis doing 94% of the time.

The next step is to make the deviceeasier to wear. One way, at least for thosewho do not have a full set of naturalgnashers, would be to incorporate it intoan arti�cial tooth that might be part of aset of dentures. At the moment, the sensoris attached to the outside world by a thinwire. This carries electricity in and dataout, but it is inconvenient to have to walkaround all day with a wire sticking out ofyour mouth. If it were part of a set ofdentures, though, the sensor might be�tted with a small battery that could becharged up overnight, when most wearersof false teeth remove them, and thus notneed the wire for power. Data might alsobe extracted from the tooth at this time.Alternatively, information could be re­layed directly from the mouth by incorpo­rating a wireless link into the sensor�using Bluetooth, of course. 7

If tooth be told

Wearable computing: An oral sensormounted in a tooth can work outwhether you are eating, drinking,talking or coughing

DAMAGE to aircraft fuel tanks doomedroughly half of the 5,000 or so Ameri­

can warplanes and helicopters destroyedduring the Vietnam war. Some crashed orblew up after only a few bullet hitsdrained or ignited their fuel, says RobertBall, the author of a textbook on the com­bat survivability of aircraft. But such�cheap kills� are becoming increasinglyrare, says Dr Ball, a former engineeringprofessor at the Naval Postgraduate Schoolin Monterey, California. Thanks to cleverengineering, fuel tanks in aircraft, vehiclesand even storage facilities can now with­stand direct hits from enemy �re or tre­mendous impacts without exploding.

Armies like to keep their fuel trucks farfrom the enemy. But that can be di�cult,as Western forces in Afghanistan and Iraqhave learned. Even lightly armed insur­gents can torch a tanker truck. Bullets shotinto liquid fuel rarely ignite it. But a tankriddled with bullets spews fuel, and whenfuel and its vapours mix with oxygen, aspark can create a �restorm. Between 2003and 2007 attacks on fuel convoys in Iraqkilled or seriously wounded more than1,400 people, according to the US Army.

Bang but noboom

Fire suppression: Engineers are�nding ways to reduce the risk thatfuel tanks will explode under enemy�re or in an accident

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Monitor 3

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Strong steel armour would be prohibi­tively heavy on tanker trucks. So in 2005High Impact Technology (HIT), a small�rm based in Oregon, proposed usinglightweight plastic instead. It developed apolyurethane material that is sprayed as afoam a few centimetres thick onto a fueltank and dries into a rigid plastic shell.When pierced with a bullet, fuel spurtingout of the hole reacts with a secret catalystin the polyurethane, causing it to absorbfuel and expand, plugging the leak withinseconds. The system, called BattleJacket,now protects more than 3,400 fuel­haul­ing trucks in con�ict zones.

In 2008 more than 600 bullets wereremoved from the reservoir of one ofthem in Balad, Iraq. The truck was stillmoving fuel for the US Army but thebullets and shrapnel had begun to clog thereservoir’s drainage valve. HIT charges upto $22,000 to spray each tanker (or twicethat if the job is done in a war zone). Thematerial has also been applied to thefar­smaller tanks of more than 8,000 ofAmerica’s �ghting vehicles. There are nowBattleJacket plants in America, Canada,Germany and Kuwait, with others beingset up in Singapore, Taiwan and Turkey.

Bullet and shrapnel holes can also besealed by rubber bladders placed insidefuel tanks. In a similar fashion to HIT’spolyurethane shell, leaking fuel reactswith chemical additives in an inner layerof the rubber, causing it to absorb theliquid and expand. Such bladders havebeen used in warplane fuel tanks fordecades. The latest bladders, however, caneven seal the bigger holes made by bulletsthat pass right through the fuel tank.

Meggitt, a British company, manufac­tures self­sealing rubber bladders that canseal holes up to 7cm across in about twominutes. They are not cheap: bladders foraircraft cost more than $20,000 each, andaircraft generally have multiple fuel tanks.America’s V­22 Osprey transporter, forexample, has a Meggitt bladder in each ofits dozen or more tanks. The company’sbladders are used on more than 10,000 ofAmerica’s military aircraft and more than1,700 ground vehicles.

An extra bene�t of the bladders is thatthey can withstand pretty much anyimpact that a �ight crew might survive.When a fuel tank’s rigid shell splits openon impact, the bladder inside stretches toabsorb the impact without bursting. Thisis good, because splattered fuel is likely tobe ignited by a spark: more than 40% ofAmerican soldiers who survived a heli­copter­crash impact used to be burnedalive in an ensuing fuel �re. Today it is lessthan 1%, according to Dennis Shanahan, adoctor and retired colonel who studiedthe matter for the US Army AeromedicalResearch Laboratory.

Even humble aluminium alloys, clever­ly used, can prevent fuel­tank �res and

explosions. Coils of nearly paper­thinaluminium mesh can absorb lots of heatvery fast. Place enough of them inside afuel tank, and the heat created by a projec­tile or crumpling tank will generate fewersparks, or none at all. If sparks do ignitevapours, �ames may not spread becausethe mesh restricts air�ow. Jiangsu AmputeExplosion Prevention Technology, basednear Shanghai, reckons that aluminiummesh will become widely used in carpetrol tanks. It costs only $20 or so, saysYelian Ju, Ampute’s deputy manager.

Furthermore, by absorbing heat, alumi­nium mesh keeps fuel cool. This cuts inhalf the 5% or so of fuel that above­ground

storage tanks in hot countries lose eachyear to evaporation through cooling vents.Ampute expects its sales of aluminiummesh to exceed $9m this year.

Yet another approach is that taken byFiretrace, based in Arizona. It has designeda plastic fuel­tank shell that is packed with�re­suppressant powder, which is re­leased if the shell shatters. More than55,000 shells have been installed in policeand military vehicles, at a cost of around$4,500 each. Advances in �re safety, then,are spreading quickly. Fuel­tank explo­sions will doubtless continue in Hol­lywood movies, but they are becomingless frequent in real life. 7

IT’S July 13th 2014. England’s WayneRooney darts behind a German defend­

er to score the only goal of the football(soccer) World Cup �nal, just secondsbefore the �nal whistle. But the jubilationof the team’s supporters at Maracanãstadium in Rio is cut short as the linesmanhoists his �ag. The goal is disallowedunder the o�side rule, despite video evi­dence to the contrary. The German teamgoes on to win the penalty shoot­out.

Although the notion of England reach­ing the World Cup �nal makes this scenar­io somewhat fanciful, erroneous o�sidecalls are rather more regular occurrences.A clear refereeing error at the last WorldCup persuaded the International FootballAssociation Board (IFAB), which deter­mines the laws of the game, to sanctionthe introduction of goal­line technology

this summer. This may be just the �rst steptowards the wider use of technology toassist error­prone match o�cials.

Not everyone approves. FIFA, foot­ball’s international governing body, whichhas half of the votes at IFAB meetings,argues that goal­line decisions are a spe­cial case and opposes any other techno­logical aids. But Franciso Rocca, chiefexecutive of La Liga, Spain’s top footballleague, revealed earlier this year that heand his colleagues have already startedlooking at o�side technologies.

There have long been calls for refereesto have access to instant video replays, asthey do in other sports including basket­ball, American football, baseball andrugby. Many share the view of Sepp Blat­ter, the president of FIFA, who is opposedon the grounds that it would break the

The referee’s a robot

Technology and sport: The deployment of goal­line technology to assistfootball referees may open the way to further decision aids in future

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�ow of matches. But this criticism cannotbe levelled at new devices and systems, atvarying stages of development, whichcould mitigate refereeing errors.

GoalControl, the German provider ofthe goal­line technology used duringJune’s FIFA Confederations Cup in Brazil,has already begun work on new decisionaids for referees. Its existing system usesseven high­speed cameras focused oneach goal, and software that transformstwo­dimensional images into three­di­mensional representations of the ball andits trajectory. With more cameras andextra software capable of identifyingindividual players, a souped­up versioncould make a variety of refereeing judg­ments. The company claims that by track­ing players’ hands and arms, it could evencall handballs. �We are concentrating ongoal­line technology, but the system isable to detect o�side and penalties,� saysDirk Broichhausen, GoalControl’s boss.

Hawk­Eye, a British company ownedby Sony which has developed decisionaids for tennis and cricket, is behind thegoal­line technology now being used inthe English Premier League. A video­basedsystem that works in a similar way toGoalControl, it could also be adapted todo other things, though Paul Hawkins, itsinventor, is unwilling to discuss whetherthe �rm is working on o�side decisions.

Researchers at Keio University in Japanhave devised a 16­camera system that canspot o�side o�ences. It can also identifysituations in which players in o�sidepositions do not actually touch the ball. Ina recent test during a live match, therewere two incidents in which the systemgot o�side calls right�and the referee gotthem wrong.

These image­processing systems arenot the only games in town. Engineers atthe Fraunhofer Institute for IntegratedCircuits, in Erlangen, Germany, havedeveloped RedFIR, a radio­based sporttracking system. A small, impact­resistantradio transmitter within the ball allows itsposition to be determined 2,000 times persecond to receivers around the pitch,while similar devices built into shin padsdo the same for the players.

Because the use of such devices inprofessional games would require rulechanges, RedFIR is currently being devel­oped to provide performance data duringtraining. Its software allows managers tomonitor things like sprint frequency andpass completion. But it could do muchmore, including helping referees witho�side calls, corners and throw­ins, saysRené Dünkler of the RedFIR team.

Even more infuriating to supportersthan incorrect o�side decisions are playerswho dive to gain unwarranted penalties.The prototype anti­dive shin pads usedduring a demonstration match in Londonin 2011could put a stop to such antics.

These use an accelerometer and a magnet­ic proximity sensor to identify the impactof an opponent’s boot, so that dives canbe distinguished from legitimate tackles.They were designed as a decision aidrather than a fully automatic system, saysDaniel Bartram of Smallfry, the British�rm that designed the pads. But an auto­matic system could be built.

Though there is much disagreementover the merits of such technologies, fewdispute the fallibility of human referees.Research shows, for example, that hometeams are awarded more penalties, receivefewer punishments for o�ences and getmore extra time when losing. As automat­ed systems that can make more accuratecalls than humans are re�ned and demon­strated, football’s custodians may �nd thatpressure for their adoption becomes toogreat to resist. 7

GIVING birth was a dangerous endeav­our in the 1800s; many women died

soon after doing so. Ignaz Semmelweis, anobstetrician working at the time at ViennaGeneral Hospital observed that by wash­ing his hands with bleach before hetouched his patients he could reduce theirmortality rate by 90%. This was beforeLouis Pasteur established the germ theoryof disease, and Semmelweis could notexplain the correlation. After he published

his �ndings, though, many of his col­leagues were o�ended at the suggestionthat they did not have clean hands. Afterall, doctors were gentlemen and asCharles Meigs, another obstetrician, put it,�a gentleman’s hands are clean�. Dis­couraged, Semmelweis slipped into de­pression and was eventually committed toa lunatic asylum. He died 14 days later,after being brutally beaten by the guards.

Hygiene in hospitals has come a longway since Semmelweis’s time. But there isstill room for improvement. Every yearnearly 100,000 people die in Americaalone from preventable infections ac­quired in hospitals. An invention devisedby Paul Alper of Deb Group, a Britishskincare company, could help change this.

As in Semmelweis’s day, uncleanhands are a big cause of infection. Wardsabound with devices that dispense anti­septic handwash, but they are not alwaysused as frequently as they should be�thecompliance rate is below 40% in mosthospitals. The DebMed Group MonitoringSystem (GMS) is intended to encouragesta� to wash their hands.

The invention itself is simple. It con­sists merely of adding a chip to the dis­penser to monitor usage. It is the psycholo­gy behind it that is clever, because insteadof being intrusive and allocating blame, ashappens when dispensers in (say) toiletsare monitored by cameras to make surepeople who have been to the lavatory doindeed wash and sterilise their hands, itrelies on peer pressure. Individuals are notsingled out; wards are. What could beoppressive thus becomes a competitionbetween groups, rather than a �nger­wagging exercise within them.

The chip in each dispenser sends infor­mation to a remote server, where it isrecorded, analysed and then made avail­able either on the web or by e­mail tohospital sta� in an entirely automated

First, wash yourhands

Biomedicine: Smart antisepticdispensers promise to save lives bysubtly encouraging medical sta� towash their hands more often

Surgically scrubbing up nicely

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Monitor 5

2 process. The GMS records the number oftimes dispensers are used in di�erentparts of a hospital and compares this withan estimated reasonable usage, custo­mised to the circumstances of each hospi­tal. This target is based on World HealthOrganisation’s �Five Moments for HandHygiene�, a guide to the best hand­wash­ing practices for di�erent types of contactwith patients. The ratio of actual to targetscore gives the compliance rate for a par­ticular unit or ward. Because this provides

a rating for a group of people, nobody issingled out. And if compliance is low, theo�enders can correct their behaviourcollectively, behind closed doors, withoutthe need for confrontation.

If the system works as intended, it willsave many lives. It should also save mon­ey, for treating hospital­induced infectionsis costly. According to Mr Alper, dozens ofhospitals have already signed up for trials.The ghost of Ignaz Semmelweis is nodoubt smiling. 7

EFFORTS to regulate the nuisance ofdistracting noise date back at least as

far as the 6th century BC, when the Greekcolony of Sybaris decreed that, along withroosters, tinsmiths and potters had to liveoutside the city because of the noise theymade. Some 25 centuries later CharlesBabbage, an English mathematician whois remembered as one of the forefathers ofcomputing, waged a series of campaignsagainst organ grinders and other forms ofstreet music. Both would surely approveof the way in which designers have latelystarted paying more attention to devisingproducts that make less noise.

Steve Jobs of Apple was a pioneer inthis regard. He insisted that the originalMacintosh computer, launched in 1984,should not have an internal cooling fan,but rely instead on convection cooling tokeep it quiet. (This made it silent but proneto overheating, and fans were added tolater models.) Yet with computers, as withanything else, quietness tends not to be aquality that buyers regard as terriblyimportant. Surveys show that only about25% of people consider how noisy a pro­duct will be when buying it, according toMike Goldsmith, a former head of acous­tics at Britain’s National Physical Labora­tory. But many of them come to regret this,and half of such disgruntled shoppers saythey would pay as much as 50% extra for aproduct that makes half as much noise.

Last year Quiet Mark, a British not­for­pro�t company, was launched to encour­age manufacturers to make quieter pro­ducts. It was founded by Poppy Elliott, thegranddaughter of John Connell, whofounded the Noise Abatement Society in1959. Ms Elliott believes that a quiet envi­ronment is necessary to enable people toful�l their intellectual and creative poten­tial. She points to a report on the healthe�ects of noise published by the World

Health Organisation in 2011, which foundthat in western Europe, excessive noisewas second only to air pollution as a causeof environmental ill­health. Quiet Markcampaigns for quieter products andawards a stamp of approval to products orschemes that minimise noise, includingkettles, blenders, hairdryers and washingmachines�and even hotels and silentmusical instruments.

Quietness makes economic sensebecause excessive noise is usually a sign of

waste and ine�ciency. Quieter productsmay cost more, but they generally con­sume less energy, which makes themcheaper to run. Boeing claims that itsfuel­e�cient 787 airliner, for example, isalso the quietest aircraft in its class. Lessnoisy aircraft are welcomed by peopleliving near airports and �ight paths, butthey also make �ying less stressful forpassengers travelling in them.

That is why NASA, America’s spaceagency, pays close attention to the noiselevels experienced by astronauts. It care­fully measures and models the soundoutput of the equipment it sends intospace, on the basis that a quieter workingenvironment increases concentration andreduces fatigue. It applies the same atten­tion to detail on Earth, with stringent noisestandards in its ground facilities, andintroduced a �buy quiet� procurementscheme in 2009. A report on the pro­gramme from 2012 points out that reduc­ing noise in the workplace makes �nan­cial sense because as well as boostingproductivity, it avoids compensationclaims and medical costs. NASA says thisis best done by buying low­noise pro­ducts, even though they typically cost5­10% more, because retro�tting noise­reduction systems after purchase can cost10­15 times as much.

Things can sometimes be too quiet,however. Electric cars can be di�cult tohear at low speeds, which makes themdangerous to pedestrians and blind peo­ple. In Chinese cities the danger comes notfrom electric or hybrid cars, but frompopular (and almost silent) electric bicy­cles, says Jan Chipchase of Frog Design, aninnovation consultancy. Earlier this yearAmerica’s Department of Transportationproposed new minimum sound require­ments for electric and hybrid cars, whichmay require sound generators to be addedto some vehicles. (The proposed rulesprohibit users from using personalised,downloadable �vroomtones�, alas.) Al­ready the Renault Zoe, an electric car, has asound generator for use at low speeds,and the Lexus IS 300h hybrid has an �ac­tive sound control� system designed togive its four­cylinder engine the sound ofa V6, even when cruising on electric pow­er. A well­engineered �noise signature�improves the driving experience, saysTomas Keppens, a noise and vibrationspecialist at the Japanese carmaker.

The addition of sound generators tocars is a good example of how sound canprovide vital cues in some products (thearti�cial camera­shutter sound made bydigital cameras) or may be carefully de­signed to convey quality (the sound madewhen closing the door of an expensivecar). The aim, then, should not be �nosound� but �the right sort of sound�. Byand large, though, that will usually meanmaking less rather than more noise. 7

The sound of silence

Technology and society: Designers are paying more attention to devisingproducts that make less noise, which can save energy and boost sales

TESLA MOTORS has had great successwith its Model S luxury electric car,

which has outsold its petrol­poweredequivalents since being launched in Amer­ica last year. Even so, the prospects for bat­tery­powered vehicles generally may nev­er shine quite as bright again. Having hadtheir day in the sun, they may soon beeclipsed by, wait for it, the diesel engine.

American readers will �nd this ideaparticularly hard to swallow. Surely notthat dirty, noisy, smelly, lumbering lump ofa motor that was hard to start in winter?Certainly not. A whole new generation ofsprightly diesels�developed over the pastfew years�bear no resemblance to the clat­tering Oldsmobile 4.3­litre diesel of the late1970s, which single­handedly destroyeddiesel’s reputation in America for decades.

Later this year Americans will get their �rst chance to experi­ence what a really advanced diesel is like�and why Europeansopt for diesels over hybrids, plug­in electrics and even petrol­pow­ered cars. The leader of the new pack is the Mazda 6, with thechoice of either a 2.5­litre four­cylinder petrol engine or a 2.2­litreturbo­charged diesel. The diesel has more than 30% better fueleconomy and provides oodles more pulling power. Good as thepetrol version is, motorists who choose it over the diesel will missout on a lot. And Mazda is not the only carmaker with an ad­vanced diesel in the works. Among others, Mitsubishi Motors hasbeen selling cars with a new generation of 1.8­litre and 2.2­litre die­sel engines in Europe since 2010. Hedging its bets on hybrids,Toyota has also been testing several radically new diesel designs.

What marks this latest generation of diesel engines from eventheir �common­rail� predecessors of the late 1990s, let alone theirbelching ancestors from the 1970s, is the use of a surprisingly lowcompression ratio of around 14:1 rather than the more usual 16:1orhigher. The reduction in cylinder pressure may sound marginal,but it gives rise to a virtuous cycle of bene�cial e�ects that werepreviously unavailable.

For a start, the lower cylinder pressure reduces thermal andmechanical stresses in the engine. As a result, the heavy cast­ironblock traditionally needed to stop a diesel ripping itself apart canbe replaced with a lighter aluminium casting. That trims 25kg(55lb) o� the weight of the block of the new Mazda diesel. Lowercylinder pressures mean that pistons, rings, valves, crankshaft andother engine parts can also be made 25% lighter. And because theyare weighed down less by the engine, the vehicle’s brakes, suspen­sion and bodywork do not need to be quite so rugged either. Allthese weight savings translate into greater e�ciency. According toRicardo, an engineering consultancy, every 10% reduction in afamily car’s weight boosts its fuel economy by more than 4%.

Another bene�t of lower cylinder pressure is that the lightermoving parts in the engine generate less internal friction�improv­ing e�ciency still further. And having less inertia, they allow theengine to spin faster and more freely, which also boosts e�ciency.Mazda’s new �Skyactiv­D� engine can reach 5,200 revolutions perminute, a �gure previously unheard of among road­going diesels.

All told, the improvement in engine e�­ciency more than compensates for anyloss of power caused by reducing the die­sel’s compression ratio. As it is, diesels starto� by being 30­35% more e�cient than pet­rol engines. The new low­compressiondiesels are likely to be even more so.

There are bene�ts on the emissions sideas well. In a typical diesel engine, ignitionis caused not by a set of spark­plugs �ringsequentially, but by the heat of the air be­ing squeezed in the cylinders. The timingof this auto­ignition is controlled by the in­jectors, which squirt precise amounts offuel under extremely high pressure intoeach cylinder exactly as needed. For maxi­mum e�ciency, this is done just as the pis­tons arrive at the top of their stroke and thecylinder pressure is at its highest.

Unfortunately, the fuel and air at top dead­centre are rarelymixed as thoroughly as necessary for complete combustion. Thisincomplete combustion produces soot particles and smog­form­ing nitrogen oxides�the curse of traditional diesel engines. Mod­ern clean diesels trade some of their power for improved combus­tion. They do so by delaying the injection of the fuel until thepiston begins to move back down the cylinder. The delay and thefalling pressure give the fuel a chance to blend with the air better.

Even so, clean diesels still need an expensive catalytic­reduc­tion system that injects a solution of urea into the exhaust to mopup the nitrogen oxides. They also need particulate traps to capturethe soot. Going to a lower compression ratio avoids much of this.The fuel be burned without di�culty at the cylinder’s top dead­centre, and the urea­injection system is no longer required.

Not just a fair­weather friendMeanwhile, the diesel’s old bugbear of poor starting in coldweather has been licked by the adoption of piezoelectric fuel in­jectors with multiple nozzles, which can spray fuel in whateverpattern best suits the operating conditions. And because thevalves on modern engines have variable lift and timing, the ex­haust valves can be left slightly open as the engine is coughingand spluttering during a particularly cold start. Hot exhaust gassucked back into the cylinders then helps the engine warm up.

With its old 1.4­litre diesel engine, the Volkswagen Polo cur­rently holds the record for being the most frugal non­electric car inEurope, with a fuel economy on the combined cycle of just 3.8 li­tres/100km (equivalent to 61.9 miles per American gallon). TheToyota Prius hybrid? A lowly 20th in the league table of the mosteconomical fuel­sippers, with 4.2 litres/100km, along with higheremissions of carbon dioxide. The 19 cars having better fuel econ­omy than the Prius hybrid are all clean diesels.

Your columnist fully expects the new generation of clean, low­compression diesels to improve fuel­economy by a further 20% ormore. That will put diesels on much the same footing�given theway that equivalent miles­per­gallon are calculated for electricvehicles�as many battery­powered vehicles, but without anyworries about range or recharging. Roll on the day. 7

The rebirth of the diesel engine

Automotive technology: Electric and hybrid cars are being given a run for their money by an unlikely competitor: arange of advanced diesel engines that set new standards in performance and fuel economy

6 Di�erence engine The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

PEEK through the inspection windowsof the nearly 100 three­dimensional

(3D) printers quietly making things at Red­Eye, a company based in Eden Prairie, Min­nesota, and you can catch a glimpse ofhow factories will work in the future. It isnot simply that the machines, some as bigas delivery vans, run day and night attend­ed by just a handful of technicians. Insteadit is what they are making that shows howthis revolutionary production process isentering the manufacturing mainstream.

3D printers make things by buildingthem up, a layer at a time, from a particularmaterial, rather than removing it by cut­ting, drilling or machining�which is why

the process is also called additive manufac­turing. There are many ways in which thiscan be done (see box on next page), andwith only a tweak of software each itemcan be di�erent, without the need for cost­ly retooling of machines. This has made 3D

printing a popular way to make one­o�items, especially prototype parts, mock­ups, gadgets and craft items.

And that is about all that 3D printers aregood for, reckon the doubters. Chiefamong them is Terry Gou, the boss of Fox­conn, the world’s largest contract manufac­turer of electronic goods, which makesmany of Apple’s products in China. Hethinks 3D printing is just �a gimmick� with­

out any commercial value in the manufac­ture of real �nished goods, and he hasvowed to start spelling his name back­wards if proved wrong.

Mr Gou (or should that be Uog?) is rightabout one thing: additive manufacturing isnot about to replace mass manufacturing.Even though the technology is improving,the �nish and durability of some printeditems can still fall short of what producersrequire. And nor can 3D printers crank outzillions of identical parts at low cost, asmass­production lines can. Nevertheless,3D printers have their virtues, which iswhy they are starting to be used by someof the world’s biggest manufacturers, suchas Airbus, Boeing, GE, Ford and Siemens.

The market for 3D printers and servicesis small, but growing fast. Last year it wasworth $2.2 billion worldwide, up 29% from2011, according to Wohlers Associates, aconsultancy. As producers become morefamiliar with the technology, they aremoving from prototypes to �nal products.Last year Wohlers reckons more than 25%of the 3D­printing market involved makingproduction­ready items.

Some of those parts are taking shape inRedEye’s printers. In many cases they arelow­volume items, such as componentsused to build specialist pharmaceutical orpaper­making equipment. Other compo­nents, such as 3D­printed tools and jigs,will actually enhance mass­production:BMW’s assembly­line workers design andprint custom tools to make it easier to holdand position parts. 3D­printed plasticmoulds and dies are also being printed tohelp set up and trial new production lines.Some of these printed parts are even usedas temporary stand­ins for broken steeltools, which can take weeks to replace.

Hard­to­�nd spare parts are also being3D printed, in one case helping a largeAmerican airline to get some of its aircraftback into the air. The carrier was frequent­ly having to ground its ageing McDonnellDouglas MD­80 jets because of leaking toi­lets. Production of these aircraft ceasedlong ago, and the airline was struggling to�nd spare parts. Its new plumbing is nowbeing 3D printed in an aerospace­gradeplastic (which does not ignite or producenoxious fumes if burned).

As 3D printers get better and printedmaterials improve, the quality and �nishof prototypes is becoming harder to distin­guish from things made in traditional fac­tories, says Tim Thellin, RedEye’s manager.Despite the hype around desktop 3D print­ers aimed at hobbyists and consumers, it isthe big, industrial­grade printers that are

3D printing scales up

Digital manufacturing: There is a lot of hype around 3D printing. But it is fastbecoming integrated with mainstream manufacturing

1

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 3D printing 7

8 3D printing The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

2

1

working the hardest as demand grows forprinting large items, which are tricky tomake with conventional methods such asplastic injection­moulding, says Mr Thel­lin. One example is body panels for spe­cialist cars. These can have complexshapes, consolidating individual compo­nents that previously had to be assembled.

The inspection windows of some ofRedEye’s 3D printers are covered, becausethese machines are making defence­relat­ed items, or their work is commerciallysensitive. One that is on view is a machineprinting parts for the 3D printers producedby RedEye’s parent company, Stratasys. Itand another �rm, called 3D Systems, are

the market leaders in 3D printers.3D Systems, based in South Carolina,

also has plenty of examples of ways inwhich 3D printers are being used to pro­duce �nished products. An early adopterof the technology has been the health­careindustry�a �eld in which mass customisa­tion is useful, because every patient is dif­ferent. Millions of hearing­aid shells havebeen 3D­printed from scans of patients’ earcanals, says Cathy Lewis, 3D Systems’ mar­keting chief. Initially the shells were castfrom 3D­printed moulds, but with the de­velopment of printable biocompatibleplastics that do not irritate the skin, theyare now printed directly.

In another example, 3D Systems hasworked with Align Technology of SanJose, California. Instead of using metalbraces for straightening teeth, Align pro­duces sets of transparent plastic �aligners�.A scan of the patient’s mouth is used to de­vise a treatment plan, which in turn gener­ates a digital �le which is used to 3D­print aset of 20 or so moulds. Each mould is sight­ly di�erent, and from them a series of clearplastic braces is cast. When worn over sev­eral months, each brace steadily moves thepatient’s teeth into the desired position.Last year Align 3D printed 17m of them.

Flying highThe aerospace industry, with relativelylow volumes, is also embracing 3D print­ing. Production parts tend to be non­criti­cal items, but that will change. Today, a typ­ical F­18 �ghter jet is likely to contain some90 3D­printed parts, even though the F­18has been in service for two decades�sincebefore 3D printing took o�. This is becausereplacement bits, like parts of the cockpitand cooling ducts, are now 3D printed. TheF­35, a new strike aircraft entering servicein America, has around 900 parts thathave been identi�ed as suitable for addi­tive manufacturing, says 3D Systems.

The world’s biggest manufacturer, GE,has no doubt about how important addi­tive manufacturing will be in many of itsdivisions, from energy to health care. Andit intends to keep much of that technologyin­house to maintain a competitive edge.In November 2012 GE bought Morris Tech­nologies, a �rm based in Cincinnati whichhas been one of the leaders in providingadditive manufacturing services to indus­try. Among other things, Morris has madelightweight parts for unmanned aerial ve­hicles. What attracts GE to the technologyis its potential to make complex, light­weight components, which are not easilymanufactured by traditional means, out ofexotic materials. By 2020 GE is expected tobe printing tens of thousands of parts forits jet engines alone.

None of this is lost on the Chinese. O�­cials in Beijing see additive manufacturingas a way to upgrade their own manufactur­ing base as the country’s labour costs in­crease and some o�shored productionmoves back to America and Europe. Al­though it is not yet as advanced as Americain 3D printing, China has big ambitions.

Plenty of 3D printing in China dovetailswith traditional factories. Beijing Long­yuan Automated Fabrication System, forinstance, uses a form of 3D printing calledlaser­sintering to produce moulds out of

AT FIRST, 3D printing was known asstereolithography, a process invent­

ed in 1986 by Chuck Hull of 3D Systems.Variations of this process are still used. Itbegins, like all 3D printing, with soft­ware that takes a series of digital slicesthrough a computer model of an object.The shape of each slice is used selective­ly to harden a layer of light­sensitiveliquid, usually with ultraviolet light, toform the required shape. After eachlayer has been made, the build traylowers by a fraction, another layer ofliquid is added and the process is repeat­ed until the object is complete.

Many other approaches have sincebeen developed. Laser­sintering in­volves zapping layers of powderedplastic or metal with a laser to hardenthe powder in some places, but notothers. Other machines use an electronbeam in a similar way. An alternativeprocess melts a metallic powder as it isdeposited. This can be used to repairworn parts, such as turbine blades.Some machines operate a bit like 2D

inkjet printers, jetting light­sensitiveliquid materials to form layers and thenhardening them. Some machines canprint a dozen di�erent materials in asingle pass of the print head.

One of the most popular techniquesis fused deposition modelling (FDM),which is akin to a computer­controlled

glue gun (pictured). A heated nozzleextrudes a �lament of thermoplastic,which sets as it cools. Multiple headscan extrude di�erent colours. FDM is themechanism used in many of the small3D printers used by hobbyists, some ofwhich now cost less than $1,000. Morecapable 3D printers cost tens of thou­sands of dollars, and big industrialsystems, like the laser­sintering ma­chines capable of printing aerospaceparts in titanium, cost as much as $1m.

How 3D printers work

Layer by layer

specially treated foundry sand. Themoulds are then sent to a traditionalfoundry to cast metal parts in the old­fash­ioned way. The use of 3D printing meansall the parts needed for a prototype car en­gine can be produced in a couple of weeksinstead of several months.

Some of the world’s biggest 3D printerscan be found in China. Its astronauts sit in3D­printed seats which are shaped speci�­cally to their bodies. Engineers working ona Chinese rival to the short­haul jets madeby Boeing and Airbus are using giant 3D­printing machines, one of them 12 metreslong, to print parts (including wing sparesand fuselage frames) in titanium.

Powering upThe value of 3D printing as a productiontool will increase further with systems thatare capable of printing electrical circuits di­rectly onto or into components. Disneyand Xerox are experimenting with suchprocesses, as is GKN Aerospace, a British�rm. In a joint project with the Universityof Warwick, GKN has developed a printingmaterial called �carbomorph�. This haspiezoresistive properties, which means itselectrical resistance changes when it issqueezed. It can be used to print function­ing switches, buttons and sensors.

Optomec, based in Albuquerque, hascome up with a way to print electronicswhich it calls Aerosol Jet. This works by

atomising liquid electronic materials into adense aerosol, which is then focused by asheath of gas into a beam and deposited inlayers. It can produce electrical circuits andcomponents, including wires, resistors, ca­pacitors and semiconductors, with fea­tures as small as 10 microns across (a mi­cron is one millionth of a metre). Optomechas been working on printing LED lightingonto wallpaper and control circuits ontothe wings of a small drone (which itselfwas 3D printed by Stratasys).

The company is also working with anumber of mobile­phone manufacturersto print circuits directly into handsets. Thelatest smartphones have multiple aerialsfor cellular radios, Wi­Fi, Bluetooth, GPS

and so forth. They are usually made with achemical­plating process which is environ­mentally unfriendly. Optomec can printthem directly into the case using a conduc­tive silver ink. A trial system was recentlyinstalled on a production line in China.

Eventually it will be possible to printmost electrical components directly into aproduct, predicts Michael Renn, the direc­tor of Optomec’s development laboratory.But although the system can print transis­tors, and could thus produce logic circuits,it cannot print the billions of tiny transis­tors found in microprocessors and otherchips. Those chips would still need to bemanufactured in the usual way and incor­porated into a 3D­printed product�thoughDr Renn is quick to point out that he canuse his Aerosol Jet to wire them up.

Additive manufacturing has other limi­tations. It can be slow�taking severalhours to print, say, a body panel for a car.But speed is relative. What may be tooslow for a large production run might be�ne for a one­o� item which would takeweeks to make in a machine­shop.

Material costs are also high. Acryloni­trile butadiene styrene, better known asABS, is the most common 3D­printing ma­terial. A mass manufacturer using plasticinjection moulding might buy ABS in bulkfor about $2 a kilo, but as a bespoke pow­der or �lament for 3D printing it can cost asmuch as $80 a kilo, says Anthony Vicari ofLux Research, a Boston company thattracks emerging technologies.

In part the price di�erence is due tohigher standards of purity and composi­tion required for 3D printing. But mostly itis because 3D­printer manufacturers re­quire users to buy materials from themand mark up the price, as with the inks for2D inkjet printers. Mr Vicari thinks thisstrategy is not sustainable long term asthird­party suppliers enter the business.

Moreover, some big manufacturers, likeGE, are developing bespoke 3D­printingsystems which are not dependent on a sin­gle supplier of equipment or material.

One spur to the development of the 3D­printing industry has been falling pricesand increased competition, after some ofthe early patents on fused­depositionmodelling expired in 2009, notes a recentreport by the McKinsey Global Institute.This is what has brought the price of someprinters down to below $1,000.

The industry is also consolidating as itscales up. Last year Stratasys merged withObjet of Israel, and in June the companybought MakerBot, based in Brooklyn. InJuly 3D Systems bought an 81% stake inPhenix Systems, a French provider of laser­sintering in metal, which is something of aEuropean speciality (the leader in laser­sintering is EOS of Germany). Anotherphase of innovation and increased compe­tition may begin in 2014 when some of thepatents on laser­sintering expire. Becauselaser­sintering is capable of printing thingsin plastic, metal and ceramics to high levelsof detail, it is often used to make �nishedproducts rather than mere prototypes.

At your serviceMeanwhile, 3D printing is becoming morereadily available to people with no equip­ment of their own through service provid­ers that print objects on demand from dig­itised plans, such as Shapeways, based inNew York, Sculpteo, based in France, andMaterialise, based in Belgium. It printsmedical implants for surgeons, models ofbuildings for architects, lampshades for in­terior designers, custom­made knobs forcabinet­makers and lightweight parts forindustrial robots.

If Mr Gou of Foxconn ever has a spot ofbother with his own production lines,these �rms might be able to help. ClémentMoreau, Sculpteo’s boss, tells of a largeChinese manufacturer which was settingup a new production line, but found it wasmissing some small plastic parts whichshould have been ordered from an injec­tion­moulding company. Faced withweeks of delay it looked at 3D printing thebits instead. Sculpteo had the �rst batch of5,000 parts on their way to China withindays. It is yet another example of how 3D

printing is not competing with conven­tional manufacturing techniques, but is in­stead complementing and hybridisingwith them to make new things possible.When 3D printing can come to the rescueof mass manufacturing, its place in the fac­tory of the future is assured. 7Here’s one I made earlier

�3D printing is not competing with conventionalmanufacturing, but is hybridising with it.�

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 3D printing 9

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10 High­tech fabrics The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

ON APRIL 29th a Boeing 747 cargo jetcrashed just after take­o� at Bagram

airbase in Afghanistan, killing all sevencrew members. During the ascent, itseems, some heavy cargo broke free fromits constraints and slid backwards, liftingthe nose of the aircraft and making it stall.Such accidents have happened before. In1997 a cargo plane leaving Miami crashedafter pallets of denim shifted; all four ofthe crew and a motorist on the groundwere killed. Accordingly, there is much in­terest in brawnier nets that can ensure aircargo stays put. Japan’s Nippon Cargo Air­lines, TAP Portugal, and, as of this summer,Air France­KLM are using netting fabricthat is much stronger than the polyesternetting in wide use today.

The fabric in question is woven from �­bres of ultra­high­molecular­weight poly­ethylene (UHMWPE), a type of plasticmade up of unusually long and heavy hy­drocarbon chains. Such �bres have astrength­to­weight ratio around 15 timesgreater than steel, says Joe Ashton of Am­Safe Bridport, a British manufacturer ofcargo nets. The �rm’s nets are made of Dy­neema, a UHMWPE �bre made by RoyalDSM, a Dutch manufacturer, and sell foraround $400 each. That is about four timesas much as a typical polyester net. But aswell as being much stronger, nets madewith Dyneema last longer and, at about9kg, weigh half as much, saving fuel andreducing carbon­dioxide emissions.

This is just one example of how new

materials and techniques are making pos­sible high­tech fabrics with a range of use­ful new properties. Humans have beenweaving fabrics since the dawn of civilisa­tion, but researchers around the world arenow cooking up myriad new textiles capa­ble of containing explosions, protecting as­tronauts, thwarting bacteria and evenkeeping buildings standing during earth­quakes. These new fabrics are also �ndingmore commonplace uses, such as helpingto keep people cool in the heat or ensuringthat clothes stay clean and smell fresh.

Underlying these novel materials aresome unusual manufacturing techniques.Kuraray, a Japanese �rm, has for exampledeveloped a clever way to harness an attri­bute of some polymers known as liquidcrystallinity. As the name suggests, themolecules in liquid­crystal polymers (LCP)have arranged themselves to form crystals,which makes them stronger than poly­mers with randomly ordered molecules.Kuraray pumps melted LCP goo, heated to300°C, through a showerhead­like devicewith holes 23 microns (millionths of a me­tre) in diameter. The resulting �bres areamazingly strong: twist together 100,000of them to produce a cord a bit thicker thana pencil, and it can suspend about eighttonnes, or the weight of four SUVs.

Vectran, as this material is branded, isalso notable for its low �creep�, or reluc­tance to stretch. It helps keep robots’ ges­tures precise when used in their cabling,for instance, and is woven into other mate­

rials to make stronger tapes, sails andslash­resistant butcher’s gloves. Lind­strand Technologies, a British maker of air­ships, recently switched from polyester toa Vectran­based fabric, even though it costsabout ten times as much. It has the advan­tage of being both lighter and tougher, andcan de�ect small­arms �re at about 200metres, says Per Lindstrand, the �rm’smanaging director.

The same material was also used in theairbags that cushion the landing of roverssent to Mars by NASA, America’s spaceagency. This provided �really good PR, notso great volume�, jokes Forrest Sloan ofKuraray’s American arm. More recently,Vectran has been protecting British ar­moured vehicles from Russian­made rock­et­propelled grenades, which use an explo­sion to propel a spike of copper through asmuch as 25cm of steel. A Vectran nettingsystem, mounted on a light metal frameand wrapped around vehicles about 30cmfrom their surface, deforms the warheadtip in a way that prevents the spike fromforming, says Steve Lawton of AmSafeBridport, which designed the system.

Weave your spellFabrics can be given new properties byclever arrangement of their yarns. Stackingseveral layers of unidirectional yarns atcross angles, for example, makes a power­ful �multi­axial� fabric. Using glass­ andplastic­�bre yarns woven in this way, anItalian company, Selcom, has made �seis­mic wallpaper�. Called SENTEX 8300, ithas been wrapped around a building nearVenice to prevent it from collapsing duringearthquakes. As well as providing support,the fabric contains embedded sensors thatcan be used to monitor a building’s move­ments during and after seismic shocks.

Another arrangement trick involves thecombination of �bres to create �auxetic�yarn that, when stretched, becomesthicker rather than thinner. To understandhow this works, imagine a rubber bungee

Material bene�ts

High­tech fabrics: Advances in seemingly mundane textile technologiespromise to make the world a safer place�using a variety of tricks

1

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 High­tech fabrics 11

2 cord with a piece of �shing line wrappedaround its length in an open spiral. If youpull the �shing line tight, it straightens, andthe bungee cord is distorted into a spiralaround it�a spiral wider than the undis­torted cord. Similarly, fabrics made of aux­etic yarn get thicker when stretched.

This unusual property gives an auxetictextile made by Advanced Fabric Technol­ogies (AFT), a �rm based in Houston, thestrength to contain powerful explosions.The textile, branded Xtegra, is made withsynthetic �bres including DuPont’s Kevlarand Hytrel, a rubbery plastic. Fragments ofshrapnel from an explosion bounce o� thefabric as it stretches and thickens to absorbtheir kinetic energy and then snaps back.

In a test carried out by the British Minis­try of Defence, �ve 1mm layers of Xtegrastopped shrapnel from a rocket­propelledgrenade detonated �ve metres away. Ad­justing the size and weaving patterns ofthe auxetic �bre can produce materials op­timised for particular uses, says DavidO’Keefe of AFT. His �rm’s customers areusing Xtegra to provide protection frommine explosions, shrapnel in tank crewcompartments, the rupture of oil­drillingmanifolds and lashing from hurricanes.

A European consortium of nine part­ners including Meridiana, an Italian air­line, is developing an auxetic textile capa­ble of containing a blast in an airliner’sluggage hold. The Fly­Bag project, fundedby the European Union, has created multi­layered, auxetic­fabric bags that hold morethan 30 pieces of luggage. In tests at Blas­tech, a facility near Buxton in England, aprototype successfully contained �ve det­onations of RDX, a plastic explosive. JimWarren, Blastech’s boss, says a Fly­Bagwould have contained the baggage­holdblast that tore through a Boeing 747’s fuse­lage in 1988 over Lockerbie in Scotland, kill­ing 270 people. The bag also smotherspost­blast �res thanks to its zip­up seal anda coating that restricts air�ow.

Novel materials can also protect people

more directly from �re. Chapman Innova­tions, a �rm based in Salt Lake City, makes�re­resistant garments by baking �bresmade of acrylic, a form of arti�cial silk, athalf a degree below its combustion tem­perature. This blackens the acrylic andcooks o� its nitrogen, an element thatwould otherwise enable it to burn. Fabricmade from the �bres, called CarbonX, isused to make garments for factory work­ers, �re�ghters, racing drivers, soldiers andpolice SWAT teams.

An uncommon threadA carefully designed fabric can even pre­vent a �re in the �rst place. If static electric­ity collects in clothing, it can generate aspark that ignites fumes. To avoid sparking,the Barnet Trading Company in Shanghaidesigned a yarn made of carbon sheathedin polyester. The trick, says Ma Wei, the�rm’s boss, was to give the carbon core atrilobal shape. Static electricity slips o� thecore’s three ridges, dissipating beforeenough accumulates to create a spark. Theyarn, named Nega­Stat, is widely used inpetrochemical facilities, industrial cleanrooms and medical operating theatres.

Earlier this year patients at Pirogov Hos­pital in So�a, Bulgaria, began receiving py­jamas and bedding made from a novelform of cotton. Its �bres had been impreg­nated with nanoparticles of zinc oxide,giving the material antibacterial proper­ties. Aneta Hubenova, head of hospital’stoxicology clinic, says preliminary resultsindicate that the patients su�ered fewer in­fections than those in control groups.

Embedding the zinc oxide in the cottonwas not easy. Researchers at the Bar­IlanUniversity Institute for Nanotechnologyand Advanced Materials in Ramat Gan, Is­rael, used ultrasound to create momentaryvoids about ten microns in diameter in awatery solution containing zinc. As theycollapse, the voids heat up and shoot tinyparticles of zinc oxide into nearby cotton �­bres, says Aharon Gedanken, the project

leader. The EU is providing ¤8.3m ($11m) infunding for the project in the hope of re­ducing the 10m days patients spend inEuropean hospitals annually due to infec­tions caught within their walls.

Enhanced textiles can also be put tomore everyday uses. Anti­microbial tex­tiles reduce body odour and its attendanttextile discolouration. Mosquito­repellentclothing is made by treating fabric withpermethrin, a synthetic insecticide, or py­rethroid, a compound similar to a naturalchrysanthemum insecticide. Water­repel­lent or �hydrophobic� textiles designed toprevent hyperthermia among Swiss andGerman soldiers are being used to makesportswear that is more comfortable in hotweather, says René Rossi of the Swiss Fed­eral Laboratories for Materials Science andTechnology, which devised the material.

At the other end of the spectrum mate­rials are being developed to protect astro­nauts from dangerous radiation. High radi­ation levels beyond low­earth orbit meanthat existing shielding materials used inspacecraft and spacesuits are inadequatefor manned missions lasting more than100 days, says Sheila Thibeault of NASA’sLangley Research Centre. Her team is de­veloping new fabrics based on tiny crystal­line �bres made of boron and nitrogen,which are heated under pressure to formboron­nitride nanotubes (BNNTs). Resem­bling white candy�oss, these can be spuninto a �pretty spectacular� yarn that stopsmany harmful particles, she says.

But it is still not quite good enough. Thenext step is to integrate hydrogen into thetubular structure of BNNTs. Modelling hasshown that such hydrogenated BNNTswould provide e�ective shielding againstthe radiation encountered in interplane­tary space. Dr Thibeault says her team hasmade good progress incorporating hydro­gen in recent months. When she suggeststhat mankind’s future in space depends onthe development of new fabrics, she is notjust spinning a good yarn. 7

12 Biofuels The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

SCIENTISTS have long known how toconvert various kinds of organic materi­

al into liquid fuel. Trees, shrubs, grasses,seeds, fungi, seaweed, algae and animalfats have all been turned into biofuels topower cars, ships and even planes. As wellas being available to countries without tarsands, shale �elds or gushers, biofuels canhelp reduce greenhouse­gas emissions byproviding an alternative to releasing fossil­fuel carbon into the atmosphere. Frustrat­ingly, however, making biofuels in largequantities has always been more expen­sive and less convenient than simply drill­ing a little deeper for oil.

Ethanol, for instance, is an alcoholicbiofuel easily distilled from sugary orstarchy plants. It has been used to powercars since Ford’s Model T and, blended intoconventional petrol, constitutes about 10%of the fuel burned by America’s vehiclestoday. Biodiesel made from vegetable fatsis similarly mixed (at a lower proportion of5%) into conventional diesel in Europe. Butthese ��rst generation� biofuels havedrawbacks. They are made from plantsrich in sugar, starch or oil that might other­wise be eaten by people or livestock. Etha­nol production already consumes 40% ofAmerica’s maize (corn) harvest and a sin­gle new ethanol plant in Hull is about tobecome Britain’s largest buyer of wheat,using 1.1m tonnes a year. Ethanol and bio­diesel also have limitations as vehicle fu­els, performing poorly in cold weather andcapable of damaging unmodi�ed engines.

In an e�ort to overcome these limita­tions, dozens of start­up companiesemerged over the past decade with the aimof developing second­generation biofuels.They hoped to avoid the �food versus fuel�debate by making fuel from biomass feed­stocks with no nutritional value, such asagricultural waste or fast­growing trees

and grasses grown on otherwise unpro­ductive land. Other �rms planned to make�drop in� biofuels that could replace con­ventional fossil fuels directly, rather thanhaving to be blended in.

Governments also jumped on the bio­fuels bandwagon. George Bush saw bio­fuels as a route to energy independence,signing into law rules that set minimumprices and required re�ners and importersto sell increasing amounts of biofuel eachyear. By 2013, America was supposed to beburning nearly 3,800m litres a year of �cel­lulosic� biofuels made from woody plants.

Toil and troubleBut instead of roaring into life, the biofuelsindustry stalled. Start­ups went bust, sur­viving companies scaled back their plansand, as prices of �rst­generation biofuelsrose, consumer interest waned. The spreadof fracking, meanwhile, unlocked new oiland gas reserves and provided an alterna­tive path to energy independence. By 2012America’s Environmental ProtectionAgency (EPA) had slashed the 2013 targetfor cellulosic biofuels to just 53m litres.What went wrong?

Making a second­generation biofuelmeans overcoming three challenges. The�rst is to break down woody cellulose andlignin polymers into simple plant sugars.The second is to convert those sugars intodrop­in fuels to suit existing vehicles, via athermochemical process (using catalysts,extreme temperatures and high pressures)

or a biochemical process (using enzymes,natural or synthetic bacteria, or algae). Thethird and largest challenge is to �nd waysto do all this cheaply and on a large scale.

In 2008 Shell, an energy giant, wasworking on ten advanced biofuels pro­jects. It has now shut most of them down,and none of those that remain is ready forcommercialisation. �All the technologieswe looked at worked,� says Matthew Tip­per, Shell’s vice­president for alternativeenergy. �We could get each to produce fuelsat a lab scale and a demonstration scale.�But bringing biofuels to market proved tobe slower and more costly than expected.

The optimism of �ve years ago mayhave waned, but e�orts to develop second­generation biofuels continue. Half a dozencompanies are now putting the �naltouches to industrial­scale plants and sev­eral are already producing small quantitiesof second­generation biofuels. Some evenclaim to be making money doing so.

Consider Shell. Raizen, its joint venturewith Cosan of Brazil, produces more than2,000m litres of �rst­generation ethanolannually from sugarcane juice. Usually the�brous stalks left over are burned for pow­er or turned into paper, but next year Rai­zen will start turning them into second­generation bioethanol, using a cocktail ofdesigner enzymes from Iogen, a Canadianbiotechnology �rm. Raizen hopes to pro­duce 40m litres of cellulosic ethanol a year,cutting costs and boosting yield by co­lo­cating its cellulosic operation with a tradi­

Whathappened tobiofuels?

Energy technology: Making largeamounts of fuel from organic matterhas proved to be more di�cult andcostly than expected

1

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Biofuels 13

2 tional ethanol plant. Under this model,second­generation biofuels complementand enhance �rst­generation processes,rather than replacing them outright.

Three plants in America are expected tostart producing cellulosic ethanol fromwaste corn cobs, leaves and husks in 2014:POET­DSM Advanced Biofuels (75m litres)and Dupont (110m litres), both in Iowa, andAbengoa (95m litres) in Kansas. But the �rstcompany to produce ethanol using en­zymes on an industrial scale is Beta Renew­ables, a spin­o� from Chemtex, an Italianchemical giant. An 80m­litre cellulosic eth­anol plant in Crescentino, near Turin, hasbeen running at half capacity over thesummer, using straw from nearby farms. Itwill run on corn waste in the autumn, ricestraw in the winter and then perennial eu­calyptus in the spring. Beta Renewableshas already licensed its technology for usein Brazil and Malaysia, and expects to sellseveral more licences by the end of theyear. All Beta’s plants can alreadymake biofuels at a pro�t, albeit onlyin areas with very cheap feedstocks,says the �rm’s boss, Guido Ghisol�.

Just as this cellulosic ethanolcomes on to the market, however,demand for fuel is waning in manydeveloped countries due to im­provements in fuel e�ciency andlingering economic weakness. As aresult, demand for ethanol forblending is falling, too. In America,petrol containing up to 15% ethanol,while permitted by the EPA and pro­moted by ethanol producers, is still arare sight on station forecourts.

Other biofuels companies arecontinuing to pursue drop­in fuels.One attraction is that comparedwith ethanol, the demand for whichdepends to a large extent on governmentmandates that it be blended into conven­tional fuels, drop­in fuels are less suscepti­ble to changing political whims. Another isthat drop­in fuels are commonly madewith sugar as a feedstock, either conven­tionally sourced or cellulosic, and sugar iswidely available and easily transported.

Stepping on the gasAmyris, based in California, geneticallyengineers yeasts and other microbes to fer­ment sugar into a long­chain hydrocarbonmolecule called farnesene. This can thenbe processed into a range of chemicals andfuels. After a few rocky years when it over­promised and under­delivered, Amyris isnow producing limited quantities of re­newable diesel for public buses in Brazil

and is trying to get its renewable jet fuelcerti�ed for commercial use.

Solazyme, another �rm based in Cali­fornia, is also focusing on renewable dieseland jet fuels, in its case derived from algae.Microscopic algae in open­air ponds canuse natural sunlight and atmospheric orindustrial­waste carbon dioxide to pro­duce oils. But harvesting the fuel, which ispresent in only very small proportions, isexpensive and di�cult. Solazyme insteadgrows algae in sealed fermenting vesselswith sugar as an energy source. The US

Navy has used tens of thousands of litresof its algal fuels in exercises, and Propel, anAmerican chain of �lling stations, recentlybecame the �rst to o�er algal diesel. But al­though its technology clearly works, Sola­zyme remains cagey about the economics.A 110m­litre algae plant in Brazil, due to beup and running by the end of the year, mayclarify Solazyme’s commercial potential.

If drop­in biofuels are going to have an

impact worldwide, they will have to beeconomic away from the tropical climes ofSouth America, where sugar can be growncheaply. The only commercial facility cur­rently making drop­in fuels directly fromwoody biomass is operated by a start­upcalled KiOR. Its 50m­litre plant in Colum­bus, Mississippi, turns pine­tree chips intodrop­in petrol and diesel for customers in­cluding FedEx, a logistics �rm, and Chev­ron, an oil giant. KiOR uses a thermochem­ical process called �uid­catalytic crackingthat borrows many technologies from con­ventional oil re�neries and, unlike fussierbiochemical systems, should scale up easi­ly. KiOR is planning a 150m­litre facility innearby Natchez. However, the Columbusplant is not yet running at anywhere nearfull capacity, andKiOR has a lot of debt and

is still losing money. In August disgruntledinvestors launched a class­action lawsuit.

Some observers doubt whether eventhe most sophisticated biofuels can com­pete with fossil fuels in the near future.Daniel Klein­Marcuschamer, a researcherat the Australian Institute for Bioengineer­ing and Nanotechnology, conducted acomprehensive analysis of renewable avi­ation fuels. He concluded that producing�rst­generation bio­jet fuel from sugarcanewould require oil prices of at least $168 abarrel to be competitive, and that somesecond­generation algae technologieswould require crude oil to soar above$1,000 a barrel (the current price is around$110) to break even. Mr Klein­Marcus­chamer has made his model open­sourcein an e�ort to help the industry �nd waysto make biofuels more competitive.

Even if second­generation processescan be economically scaled up, however,that might in turn highlight a further pro­

blem. To make a signi�cant dent inthe 2,500m litres of conventional oilthat American re�neries churnthrough each day, biofuel factorieswould have to be able to get hold ofa staggering quantity of feedstock.Mr Ghisol� of Beta Renewablespoints out that a factory with an an­nual output of 140m litres needs350,000 tonnes of biomass a year tooperate. �There are only certain ar­eas, in Brazil and some parts of theUS and Asia, where you can locatethis much biomass within a close ra­dius,� says Mr Ghisol�. �I am scepti­cal of scaling to ten times that size,because getting 3.5m tonnes of bio­mass to a single collection point isgoing to be a very big undertaking.�

Billions of tonnes of agriculturalwaste are produced worldwide each year,but such material is thinly spread, makingit expensive to collect and transport. More­over, farms use such waste to condition thesoil, feed animals or burn for power. Di­verting existing sources of wood to makebiofuels will annoy builders and paper­makers, and planting fuel crops on unde­veloped land is hardly without controver­sy: one man’s wasteland is another’s pris­tine ecosystem. Dozens of environmentalgroups have protested against the EPA’s re­cent decision to permit plantations of fast­growing giant reed for biofuels, calling it anoxious and highly invasive weed. Just asthe food­versus­fuel argument has provedcontroversial for today’s biofuels, �ora­versus­fuel could be an equally toughstruggle for tomorrow’s. 7

�Even if processes can be economically scaled up,that might in turn highlight a further problem.�

14 Working with robots The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

AS GIANT welding robots go about theirbusiness in a modern car factory, the

scene looks like a cyberpunk vision ofDante’s �Inferno�. Amid showers ofsparks, articulated mechanical arms near­ly the size of telephone poles move sec­tions of partially built vehicles so �scarilyfast� that anyone who accidentally endsup in the wrong place is as good as dead,says Rodney Brooks, the boss of RethinkRobotics, a robot­maker based in Boston.For this reason, industrial robots operate incages or behind security fences. But by seg­regating robots from humans, such safetymeasures greatly limit the tasks that robotscan perform. In car factories, for example,most of the �nal assembly is done, expen­sively, by hand.

Neither workers nor robots can reachtheir productive potential without inter­acting more closely, says Volker Grünen­wald, head of systems integration at Pilz, aGerman engineering �rm. Eager to designmachines that can be used for a widerrange of tasks, technologists are now �gur­ing out how to bring robots �out of thecage� so that they can work safely andmore productively with people. The aim isto combine the dexterity, �exibility andproblem­solving skills of humans with thestrength, endurance and precision of ro­

bots. The emergence of �co­operative� or�collaborative� robots, as these new ma­chines are called, could also lead to robotsthat are better able to help out in the o�ce,at school or in the home.

Last December, in a company �rst, Ger­man carmaker BMW introduced a slow­moving collaborative robot in its factory inSpartanburg, South Carolina, which co­op­erates with a human worker to insulateand water­seal vehicle doors. The robotspreads out and glues down material thatis held in place by the human worker’smore agile �ngers. When this is done with­out the help of a robot, workers must be ro­tated o� this uncomfortable task after justan hour or two to prevent elbow strain. To­day four collaborative robots work in thefacility, and more are coming, in Spartan­burg and elsewhere.

BMW expects �a big, massive roll­out�of the technology in 2014 in Germany, de­spite the country’s tighter restrictions onhuman­robot interaction, says StefanBartscher, BMW’s head of innovation. Thecompany plans to design additional tasksfor collaborative robots as they are pro­gressively introduced in �ve carmakingplants. These robots will require di�erenttechnologies from those found in tradi­tional, non­collaborative robots. Indeed,

when it comes to dealing with humans, ro­bots have so few skills that even a seeming­ly simple task such as handing over an ob­ject commonly ends in a tug­of­war, saysElizabeth Croft, a roboticist at the Universi­ty of British Columbia.

With funding from GM, America’s big­gest carmaker, Dr Croft’s Collaborative Ad­vanced Robotics and Intelligent SystemsLaboratory is designing robots that can ex­ecute �unscripted� handovers to humans.This requires the robot to determinewhether a person wants and is authorisedto have a particular item�be it a powerdrill, a document or a cup of tea. The robotmust then present the item in the most ad­vantageous orientation for the human, ad­justing its grip as the object’s weight shifts.Finally, the robot must let go only when itssensors detect that the object is being pur­posefully and safely taken away.

Safety �rstDangerous industrial machinery is typi­cally shut down the instant a worker�breaks� an infra­red light curtain or opensa door to enter a robot’s cage. But safetysystems of this sort have drawbacks.Breaches typically stop an entire produc­tion line, alarming employees and causingdelays that may cascade throughout theplant. Pilz has developed a multi­cameracomputer system that monitors the areasurrounding robots and adjusts their be­haviour accordingly.

Called SafetyEYE, the system allows arobot to, say, rivet an aircraft wing withoutsectioning o� the entire area from people.Aware of its surroundings, the robot canroll along the length of the wing, slowingits movements if a worker approaches or,if he gets too close, stopping altogetherwithout disrupting activity elsewhere.

Our friends electric

Robotics: A new breed of robots is being designed to collaborate withhumans, working alongside them to make them more productive

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The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Working with robots 15

2

1

be posted online for downloading by oth­er users, who can tweak them as needed.

At the same time, better arti�cial intelli­gence is even rendering some program­ming unnecessary. Rethink Robotics saysits two­armed collaborative robot, calledBaxter (pictured), uses common sense to�gure out some movements on its own.Factory workers use Baxter’s touchscreen�face� to point out the objects it will han­dle. Baxter then studies them from all an­gles to determine if, say, a glass is bestgrasped by the outside or by inserting andopening its �ngers. If a conveyor belt bring­ing items to be processed slows down, sodoes Baxter. More than 100 have been soldsince the robot went on sale in late 2012.

For decades robots have been gettingfaster, stronger and more precise. The newbreed of collaborative robots, by contrast,will move more slowly, lift less and be lessprecise. And yet this is the breed that willusher in the real robotics revolution, saysDr Brooks of Rethink Robotics, becausesuch qualities will allow robots to team upwith people. He points out that it was theadvent not of mainframes but of less pow­erful but more user­friendly PCs that car­ried computing into the mainstream.

Collaborative robots are developing soquickly that international­standards bo­dies are having trouble keeping up. Theworld’s largest compiler of voluntary in­dustrial standards, the International Orga­nisation for Standardisation (ISO) in Gene­va, has yet to work out safety standards forcollaborative robots, such as how muchforce a robot can safely apply to di�erentparts of a human worker’s body.

The ISO needs about two more yearsbefore it can publish pain­threshold stan­dards, says Matthias Umbreit, an expertworking on the project who also works asan automation specialist at Germany’s

BGHM, an insurer of woodworkers andmetalworkers. But the signs are encourag­ing, he says. A hand clamped in a robot’sgripper, for instance, can probably safelybear a pressure of 160 newtons per squarecentimetre. Fortunately, says Dr Umbreit,many useful tasks can be carried out usingless force, so safety standards will notmake robots so feeble that they are no lon­ger useful. Johan Wahren of the SwedishStandards Institute notes that establishingstandards will speed up R&D.

Friend or foe?No matter how �exible, easy to programand safe they are, collaborative workersmay not be welcomed by human workersto begin with. The experience of Alumo­tion, an Italian distributor of UR’s robots, isillustrative. Workers fear being replaced byrobots, says co­owner Fabio Facchinetti, sohis salespeople carry demonstration unitsin unmarked cases and initially only meeta potential client’s senior management be­hind closed doors.

But rather than �ring workers, Alumo­tion’s clients often end up adding shifts be­cause production costs drop. RSS Manufac­turing in Costa Mesa, California, says itsnew UR robot is helping the �rm competeagainst Asian makers of brass plumbing�xtures. Geo� Escalette, the �rm’s boss,plans to buy more robots because withoutthem some milling machines run at about60% capacity for lack of a nearby workerable to load objects fast enough. It is worthremembering that people also used toworry that computers would steal jobs,notes Chris Melhuish of the Bristol Robot­ics Laboratory, a joint venture between theUniversity of Bristol and the University ofthe West of England. Instead, computershelped people become more productive.

Workers generally warm to collabora­

Since it was launched in 2007, Safe­tyEYE has allowed robots to be de­ployed in parts of factories where set­ting up light curtains or safety cageswould be expensive or impractical.

There are additional ways to avert acci­dents. Some robots have red emergency­stop buttons. Researchers have even madepressure­sensing �arti�cial skin� by sand­wiching a rubbery silicone made with car­bon black, a conductive material, betweenelectrodes. Compressing it with a slap gen­erates an electrical signal that instructs therobot to freeze. For an additional overridefunction, robots could be �tted with micro­phones and stopped with a shout, says PerVegard Nerseth, robotics boss at ABB, aSwiss industrial giant based in Zurichwhich has ramped up development of col­laborative robots in the past few years.

Robots capable of teaming up withpeople are typically used to perform tasksthat are being automated for the �rst time,so productivity gains are especially high�provided the devices are quick and easy toprogram. A one­armed robot (pictured onprevious page) made by Denmark’s Uni­versal Robots (UR) to �work right along­side employees� can be set up within anhour. Programming usually takes less thanten minutes. The user manually moves thearm and the tool it is holding from the start­ing point of a task to the end point, tappinga touchscreen �record� button at pointsalong the way. Once the task is named andsaved, the robot can be put to work.

Machine workshops often program col­laborative robots to perform tasks for onlya brief period. UR’s models can be fas­tened to a workbench to, say, screw togeth­er eyeglass frames to meet a rush order,and then moved to cap and box jars to cov­er for a worker who is o� sick. Traditionalrobots, by contrast, are typically con�g­ured by highly paid, specialist engineerswho work on a mock production line, sothat the real production line need not beshut down for the weeks or months re­quired for programming. UR sold morethan 700 robots last year and expects tosell 1,500 this year, some to clients with justa few employees. Many users say that theyrecover the investment in a ¤20,000($27,000) UR robot within six months.

Programming collaborative robots willbecome even easier as software improves.Already, some experimental robots can becon�gured using spoken commands suchas �create new skill� and �save pose�. DrNerseth of ABB reckons that it will eventu­ally be possible to program robots usingspeech. And the control �les for robots can

Baxter gets to work

16 Working with robots The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

2 tive robots quickly. Employees are keen too�oad the �mindless, repetitive stu��, asone roboticist puts it. And because work­ers themselves do the programming, theytend to regard the robots as subordinate as­sistants. This is good for morale, says EsbenOstergaard, UR’s technology chief. In late2012 Mercedes­Benz began equippingworkers who assemble gearboxes at aStuttgart plant with lightweight �thirdhand� robots initially designed for use inspace by the German Aerospace Centre.The German carmaker’s parent company,Daimler, is expanding the initiative, whichit describes as �robot farming� becauseworkers shepherd the robots �just like afarmer tending sheep�.

Don’t frighten the humansTo keep human workers at ease, collabora­tive robots should also have an appropri­ate size and appearance. Takayuki Kandaof the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Com­munication Laboratories in Kyoto says thatcollaborative, humanoid robots shouldgenerally be no larger than a six­year­old, asize most adults reckon they could over­power if necessary. Large eyes make robotsseem friendlier and, crucially, more awareof their surroundings. But overly human­oid features can lead to problematicallyunrealistic expectations, says Ulrich Reiserof Fraunhofer IPA, a manufacturing re­search institute in Stuttgart that makes a¤250,000 home­assistant robot calledCare­O­bot. He notes that people tend todistrust robots with protruding sensors,�Terminator�­like exposed cables, or a jer­ry­rigged, student­project look.

To interact smoothly with people, ro­bots will also need �social intelligence�. Itturns out, for example, that people are

cine isn’t taken, say, the robot may alert rel­atives or the hospital. It is vital that a robotof this sort is not perceived as hostile, butas having its owner’s best interests at heart.

One way to do this is to give robots a de­�ning human trait�the ability to makemistakes. Maha Salem, a researcher underDr Dautenhahn, programmed a human­oid Asimo robot, made by Honda, to makeoccasional harmless mistakes such aspointing to one drawer while talking aboutanother. When it comes to household ro­bots, test subjects prefer those that err overinfallible ones, Dr Salem says.

Another approach uses sensors to as­sess the state of nearby humans, so that ro­bots can respond appropriately. Withfunding from the European Union, re­searchers are using bracelets equippedwith electrodes to enable classroom robotsto determine whether students are bored,confused or anxious. The robots can adapttheir teaching style accordingly, says Io­landa Leite of the Instituto Superior Téc­nico, a Portuguese university participatingin the programme, which is called EMOTE.One of its objectives is to foster �socialbonding� between people and robots.

Such bonding could have some surpris­ing uses. In experiments carried out at YaleUniversity involving a biped humanoidcalled NAO, made by a French �rm calledAldebaran Robotics, children proved to bejust as willing to share secrets with it asthey were with an adult. The researcherwho performed the experiments, CindyBethel, who is now at Mississippi StateUniversity in Starkville, has also foundthat children who have witnessed a crimeare less likely to be misled in a forensic in­terview with a robot than with a humanexpert�even one trained to obtain testi­mony. Mark Ballard of the Starkville policedepartment, who has been working withDr Bethel, reckons that the robots neededto conduct �child friendly� forensic inter­views will be available by 2020.

What’s next? Market research is notmuch good at predicting developments inthe �eld of collaborative robots, says Bru­no Bonnell of Robolution Capital, a robot­ics investment fund in France. For onething, he says, people say they want com­plete control over robots, but once theystart using them they actually prefer themto be as autonomous as possible. Workingalongside robots changes the way peoplethink about them, in other words. Wheth­er on the factory �oor, at home or in theclassroom, the evolving relationship be­tween human robots will be de�ned by aprocess of collaboration. 7

more trusting of robots that use metaphorsrather than abstract language, says BilgeMutlu, the head of the robotics laboratoryat the University of Wisconsin­Madison.He has found that robots are more persua­sive when they refer to the opinions of hu­mans and limit pauses to about a third of asecond to avoid appearing confused. Ro­bots’ gazes must also be carefully pro­grammed lest a stare make someone un­comfortable. Timing eye contact for�intimacy regulation� is tricky, Dr Mutlusays, in part because gazes are also used indialogue to seize and yield the �oor.

When a person enters a room, robotsinside should pause for a moment and ac­knowledge the newcomer, a sign of defe­rence that puts people at ease, says the Uni­versity of British Columbia’s Dr Croft.Robots also appear friendlier when theirgaze follows a person’s moving hands,says Maya Cakmak of Willow Garage, theCalifornia­based maker of the PR2, a$400,000 robot skilled enough to make anomelette�albeit slowly.

It will probably be a decade or two atleast before the descendants of PR2, Care­O­bot, and other �home assistance� or�companion� robots will be nimble andintelligent enough to zip autonomouslythrough houses performing chores. Theywill need far better sensors, movement­control actuators and batteries, and muchsmarter software. They must also be capa­ble of displaying empathy or they will berejected, says Kerstin Dautenhahn, head ofa �social robotics� team at the Universityof Hertfordshire in Britain.

Her team’s Care­O­bot robots crunchdata from 60­odd household sensors thatmonitor door and cupboard hinges, taps,electrical appliances and so forth. If medi­

�To keep humans at ease, collaborative robotsshould have an appropriate size and appearance.�

Care­O­bot tries not to look scary

The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013 Brain scan 17

�THE brain is quite unlike a computer.Instead of memory and a few calcu­

lating elements, evolution designed everylittle bit of it to be hideously complex,�says Paul Allen, co­founder of Microsoftand main benefactor of the Allen Institutefor Brain Science. �And then when youstart studying every little bit of it, you �ndthere’s even additional complexity. Un­derstanding how the brain works is a�endishly challenging problem.�

It is a problem that Mr Allen is doinghis best to solve. For the past decade, hisinstitute, based in Seattle, has been map­ping the grey matter of mice, primates andhumans on an industrial scale. Thin slicesof tissue are analysed to pinpoint thethree­dimensional locations in the brainwhere individual genes�20,000 in micealone�have a biological e�ect. Laboratoryrobots and automated cameras feed thiscellular­level data into vast databases thatin turn populate online multimedia brain�atlases�, freely accessible to all.

�There’s a wave of enthusiasm andrecognition for open data which startedwith the Human Genome Project,� saysMr Allen. �These databases can reallykick­start development in many areas.That’s what I wanted to do.� There aresigns he might be succeeding. Since theinstitute’s mouse­brain atlas was complet­ed in 2006, it has helped identify genesthat may play roles in obesity, multiplesclerosis, Alzheimer’s and other diseases.The human­brain atlas launched in 2010.

Mr Allen’s enthusiasm for openness isperhaps surprising. Microsoft, the soft­ware giant he co­founded in 1975 with hisschoolmate Bill Gates, enjoyed years ofdominance with its proprietary Windowsoperating systems. Its current boss, SteveBallmer, once likened open­source soft­ware, whose code is made available to allonline, to cancer. Mr Allen sees no contra­diction, however. �For me, there’s a di�er­ence between science and technology,� hesays. �If you’re trying to lift all scienti�cboats around the world, you need to haveopen systems. If you’re developing tech­nologies for commercial projects, that’s awhole di�erent perspective.�

In the 1970s Mr Allen helped write thesoftware that would make Microsoft ahousehold name. He used a mainframe

computer to devise simulations of themicroprocessors that powered the very�rst personal computers. This allowedhim and Mr Gates to develop softwareextremely quickly�on at least one occa­sion, before the machine it was intendedto run on even existed.

�Through a lot of hard work and beingearly, it all fell into place,� remembers MrAllen. �We worked crazy hours and ate alot of pizza.� They also inspired storiesthat have since echoed through comput­ing, such as hacking into a local com­pany’s �les to secure free access to itsmainframes or selling an operating systemto IBM that they had only licensed the daybefore. �Working with Bill was one ofthose partnerships where one plus oneequals much more than either of us couldhave accomplished individually,� he says.

A walk in the PARCAs early as 1977, Mr Allen envisaged afuture in which home computers linkedby high­speed �bre­optic cables wouldallow people to order groceries or selltheir cars. A visit to Xerox’s Palo AltoResearch Centre (PARC) in 1980 showedhim how such a system might operate.There, Mr Allen saw for the �rst time thegraphical user interface and mouse thatMicrosoft’s Windows software wouldlater rely on, as well as prototypes ofEthernet networking and laser printers.

But Mr Allen’s time running Microsoftwas nearly over. Fighting Hodgkin’s lym­phoma cancer, and frustrated by his co­founder’s confrontational managementstyle, Mr Allen withdrew from day­to­dayoperations in 1982 and retired from Micro­soft the following year. But his 36% stake inthe growing company made him fabu­lously wealthy when the company wentpublic in 1986 (Wired magazine dubbedhim the �accidental zillionaire�).

Mr Allen immediately ploughed someof his new­found wealth (currently esti­mated at $15 billion) into local projects. Heowns several sports teams in the Paci�cNorthwest and has showered Seattle withtourist landmarks, including an elaboratecinema, a music and science­�ction muse­um housed in a striking Frank Gehrybuilding, a collection of rare militaryaircraft and a Living Computer Museumthat restores vintage computers.

Yet despite his taste for nostalgia, MrAllen’s primary focus remained the cre­ation of a fully digitised society. In the late1980s and early 1990s, he invested in morethan 100 internet, media and communica­tions �rms as part of a strategy he called

Microsoft’s other mogul

Paul Allen made his fortune as theco­founder, with Bill Gates, ofMicrosoft. He has since put hiswealth to use in a variety of �elds

1

18 Brain scan The Economist Technology Quarterly September 7th 2013

�wired world�. A few paid o� handsome­ly, such as his timely investment in Ameri­ca Online, then an early internet­serviceprovider. Others were less successful.SkyPix, the world’s �rst digital­satellitebroadcaster, went bankrupt withoutselling a single dish. Metricom, a broad­band mobile data provider, followed suitafter it struggled to attract customers.

�I’ve been too early a number oftimes,� admits Mr Allen. �But I’d rather beearly than too late. A lot of things have toline up to have a successful start­up. Youlearn some very expensive lessons as lifegoes on.� Lessons do not come muchpricier than Mr Allen’s unfortunate foraysinto �bre­optic cable TV, which eventuallycost him a staggering $8 billion.

Perhaps Mr Allen’s most ambitiouse�ort to realise his vision of a connectedworld was the founding of Interval Re­search in 1992. Intended to reproduce theinnovative dynamism of Xerox PARC,Interval was home to leading researchersfrom Stanford, the Massachusetts Instituteof Technology, Bell Labs and PARC itself,as well as artists, journalists and a para­psychologist. The lab cooked up somefascinating ideas, but none of the sevenstart­ups it spun o� made any money, andMr Allen closed Interval Research in 2000.

�Innovation in anything is a peculiarthing,� says Mr Allen. �You can set thetable, bring on great people and challengethem with great problems that need to besolved, but it’s unpredictable what’s goingto come out.� Interval Research did man­age to �le around 300 patents, a few ofwhich were later used to sue 11 technologycompanies including Apple, Google andFacebook�but not Microsoft. This ledSteve Wozniak, the co­founder of Apple, toremark in 2011 that �Paul Allen should beout there investing in companies that aremaking products, actually making a newfuture for the world, not getting in bedwith lawyers to make money.�

Interval’s demise did not dampen MrAllen’s enthusiasm for risky ventures. In2000 he was approached by Burt Rutan,an aerospace engineer who was pro�ledin this column last year, with a design for awinged, carbon­�bre spacecraft. It wouldbe launched from a jet­powered mothership, �y to the edge of space using a rocketnever before used for manned �ight,transform into a �shuttlecock� con�g­uration for re­entry and then turn backinto a glider to land on a normal runway.Although Mr Rutan had made and �owndozens of advanced propeller and jetaircraft, he had never built anything pow­

ered by a rocket or capable of supersonic�ight. Nevertheless, Mr Allen promised tofund the development of the world’s �rstprivate spaceship. �What Burt will drawon a napkin is pretty inspiring,� says MrAllen. �I don’t think anyone else wouldhave had the ability to pull that o�.�

Just four years later, Mr Rutan’s Space­ShipOne made its successful maidenvoyage. The entire project cost Mr Allenjust $28m: less than one­tenth of the costof a single Space Shuttle mission. Twoyears later he recouped his investment bylicensing SpaceShipOne’s technology toRichard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, a space­tourism �rm. Then in 2011Mr Allenformed a company called Stratolaunch toscale up the air­launch system to sendrockets into orbit. The carrier aircraft iscurrently being manufactured using partsfrom two second­hand Boeing 747s. When�nished, probably in 2015, it will be thelargest plane ever �own. �Stratolaunchwill be unique in that it won’t need alaunch pad. You can take o� from a bigairstrip, �y out over the ocean and rapidlydo multiple launches,� says Mr Allen.

The Vulcan empireNot all Mr Allen’s current business in­terests are quite so out of this world, how­ever. The portfolio of Vulcan, his invest­ment �rm, includes energy companies,�nancial services, computer­chip technol­ogies, �lm producers and web start­ups.He has a long­term research e�ort calledProject Halo that aims to encapsulatearti�cial intelligence within digital text­books, to help teach students in devel­oping countries and assist researchers. MrAllen says he is still rooting for Microsoft,in which he still owns a large stake,though he worries that the �rm has grownbig and sluggish. �There are a number ofareas where Microsoft is playing catch up,trying to claw back market share fromApple, Google or others,� he says. �Theyhave to jump on changes in technology orthey’re in danger of being left behind.�

Although science is more forgivingthan commerce, Mr Allen continues tospend freely to keep his Institute for BrainScience at the cutting edge. Last year heraised his �nancial commitment to half abillion dollars, dwar�ng a $100m brain­imaging initiative announced by BarackObama in April. �The Brain Institute start­ed out doing data­gathering research. Nowwe’ve shifted gears to the really hard workof �guring how to work with this data and�nd out what it means,� he says. This will,he says, take �many decades�.

And Mr Allen now seems to be em­barking on yet another grand mission. InAugust he invited scientists and experts inthe �eld of cell biology to Seattle to brain­storm ideas around �ghting cancer. TheAllen Institute for Brain Science was bornout of a similar workshop. But there arestill some problems that daunt even abillionaire. �It’s important to get seriousabout climate change,� says Mr Allen. �Iwould di�erentiate between somethingthat can be done for tens or hundreds ofmillions of dollars, like scienti�c research,and things that require trillions. Solvingglobal warming is a many trillion­dollarproblem, if it gets addressed at all.�

That’s not to say he isn’t trying. �BillGates and I still talk fairly frequently andwe both see the importance of nuclearenergy,� says Mr Allen. �Di�erent forms ofnuclear energy have to be part of theanswer.� Mr Gates has invested in a pio­neering reactor fuelled by nuclear waste,while Mr Allen has a stake in a �rm work­ing on nuclear fusion.

�I’m trying to be a catalyst in all thesedi�erent areas, looking over the horizon tosee where things are going and pushingthem through to fruition,� he says. Like acatalyst, Mr Allen’s work in software,space travel and basic science has certain­ly accelerated the pace of change. But heconfesses to having been altered in theprocess, most notably by his enduringrelationship with Bill Gates. �Sometimesyou have these partnerships that accom­plish more than you or anyone expects,�says Mr Allen. �Although we’ve had ourmoments of disagreement, it’s been anamazingly productive relationship forboth of us.� 7

�Sometimes you have these partnerships thataccomplish more than you or anyone expects.�

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