The technology that will revolutionize 2017

Virtual reality gives way to mixed reality that will go beyond leisure

  In 2016, it has been 5 years since the death of Steve Jobs, founder of Apple, considered one of the technological gurus of recent years. Precisely during these last twelve months, another guru has been born: Elon Musk.

2016 has been the definitive acceleration of the Tesla and its automatic driving. This exercise has also been the beginning of the race of autonomous cars. This start has been in tests and, in many cases, unsuccessful as the Uber experiment in San Francisco .

The software of the autonomous vehicles is still in full development and it is expected that in 2017 they will take off and be able to anticipate accidents on the road. However, beyond technology, the automobile industry is still encountering another new obstacle and it is bureaucracy.

  This exercise will be marked by the emergence of virtual reality and augmented reality. The arrival of Pokemon Go before the summer supposed a revolution in the leisure with the technological devices. But as the song says "the best is yet to come".

We already know some details in the form of a video, a few seconds of the famous mixed reality. If autonomous driving has a name, the mixed reality comes from Magic Leap.

This startup was born in 2015 and with just under 24 months has raised more than 1,400 million dollars, among which Google and Qualcomm are part of its investors. Microsoft expected its product with its Hololens, but Rony Abobitz, founder of the company, affirms that "it is totally different" from the work of the Redmond company.

Unlike other gadgets that mount screens to create the optical illusion, in Magic Leap are light beams that make the virtual is founded with millimeter precision on the real environment.

At first, according to the videos made public by the American, the technology patented by Abobitz would be destined to leisure, although we will only have to wait a few months to know "the great announcement prepared by Magic Leap for 2017".

The great technicians have opted for virtual assistants, the last one to do so has been Facebook with their 'butler' Jarvis. In the field of research, the departments of the big universities have chosen to create assistants and robots inspired by the animal world to help in catastrophes.

"This type of rescue robot can be ready to deploy over the years," says researcher Sangbae Kim, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. He and his team are working on that aspect, taking principles of biomechanics, human decision making, and mechanical design to build an assistance robot.

The first steps have already been taken and the prototypes of several universities have begun the tests. One of them is Salto , a robot inspired by a gálago, which is capable of entering into the most recondite places.

Printers have gone from printing photographs and texts to giving birth to motorcycles, prosthetics and even food. It is the rise of 3D printers, but during this 2016 the first tests of 3D bioprinting have arrived.

The Institute of Regenerative Medicine Wake Forest, North Carolina (United States), has developed a bioprinting system to create bones, cartilages to life size. For several decades the medical research institutes have tried to create cellular tissues without success and it seems that the end of the road is near.