What technology are we still waiting for ?

[hornetrider]

jonah35 said:

I mean, a key to open your home?! Yet a £2k mondeo has a fob. I know homes have it but most don't.

Just googled it as never really thought of it before...

http://www.yale.co.uk/en/yale/couk/yale-digital/Ke...

[kambites]

ging84 said:

kambites said:

I suppose it depends on what you consider "significant" but I'd be surprised if removing the wing mirrors from the average family hatch didn't amount to at least a 1% improvement on the NDEC cycle and probably a 2% improvement at a constant motorway-speed cruise?

Not a chance
some fairly big mirrors on a small car might represent 2% of the frontal area, but that does not mean they add 2% more drag
they are close to the body, so they are in air which is already turbulent, they are not going to add much more to the problem
they are also generally very streamline so create much less drag than some of the main offenders, such as the wheels, the grille, the base of the windscreen and the under body

I wish I could remember enough of my undergraduate aerodynamics to be able to give a conclusive answer. Even at uni, I probably didn't know enough to do so with any accuracy, mind.

I think we'll see door mirrors start to vanish in the next ten years and they'll be completely gone from new cars in 20.

[ZOLLAR]

hornetrider said:

jonah35 said:

I mean, a key to open your home?! Yet a £2k mondeo has a fob. I know homes have it but most don't.

Just googled it as never really thought of it before...

http://www.yale.co.uk/en/yale/couk/yale-digital/Ke...

Amazing I've not thought of that either!

[kambites]

I almost always enter my home through my (remote opening) garage door anyway.

[MitchT]

A means of generating energy from the cold!

I'd like to see scientists engineer an organic material which shivers when cold. The shivering motion could then be used to generate energy which could be used to heat our homes. The colder it gets the more the material shivers and the more heating we get to offset the cold.

I'm sure someone far cleverer than me will be along in a minute to explain why it isn't possible!

[xRIEx]

MitchT said:

A means of generating energy from the cold!

I'd like to see scientists engineer an organic material which shivers when cold. The shivering motion could then be used to generate energy which could be used to heat our homes. The colder it gets the more the material shivers and the more heating we get to offset the cold.

I'm sure someone far cleverer than me will be along in a minute to explain why it isn't possible!

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, just moved around or changed form. For a material to shiver you would need a source of energy that would generate motion. We already have thermostats and central heating that does this job.

[pimpchez]

AMD87 said:

Hover boards if they don't have them by next year I have a strongly worded letter ready for the doc

Already been done , aslong as you dont stray to far from the wall socket.

Have a google

[phil4]

swisstoni said:

When an 'automatic' means a car that drives itself. I'd leave it in manual most of the time but there are times when it would be very handy.

This. Very much this.

My daily slog to work would welcome this very much, as so little is gained doing it manually, but much lost.

Current car has adaptive cruise, and that doesn't half get me almost there, almost like teasing, as I can now see how good the full deal would be.

[hornetrider]

kambites said:

I almost always enter my home through my (remote opening) garage door anyway.

One presumes you must suffer the tedium of inserting a physical key into the internal door?

[kambites]

hornetrider said:

kambites said:

I almost always enter my home through my (remote opening) garage door anyway.

One presumes you must suffer the tedium of inserting a physical key into the internal door?

Why would I lock the internal door?

It gets locked once or twice a year when we go away on holiday; otherwise it stays open.

[hornetrider]

For security. That's what I do anyway.

[kambites]

hornetrider said:

For security. That's what I do anyway.

Fair enough, I don't.

If someone wanted to break in and nick stuff, there is much more of value that could be easily stolen from the garage than the house anyway. As long as the garage door is accepted by the insurance company as "securing the house" (which it is), I couldn't care less, really.

[hornetrider]

[Schermerhorn]

Time Travel - if such a thing can ever be invented

[Sixpackpert]

We have auto lights, which I think should be standard on all cars after witnessing countless idiots not driving with lights on over the past few weeks.

How about auto fog lights. They go on when they should and go off when they should. PH's retina's would be saved!

[kambites]

I think one could argue that automatic lights cause more problems than they solve because they get people into the habit of not thinking about it but they don't come on in all circumstances where lights are required.

[Sixpackpert]

kambites said:

I think one could argue that automatic lights cause more problems than they solve because they get people into the habit of not thinking about it but they don't come on in all circumstances where lights are required.

I agree but surely the tech is there to make it almost foolproof, ie detecting fog etc.

[kambites]

Sixpackpert said:

I agree but surely the tech is there to make it almost foolproof, ie detecting fog etc.

You'd think so certainly, but if there is people aren't using it.

[T0MMY]

phil4 said:

This. Very much this.

My daily slog to work would welcome this very much, as so little is gained doing it manually, but much lost.

Current car has adaptive cruise, and that doesn't half get me almost there, almost like teasing, as I can now see how good the full deal would be.

While it would be nice for me to sleep in the back of my car while it whisked me along on my 90 minute commute, I'd be extremely worried that the natural end point of self driving cars will be that humans are no longer allowed to drive at all.

[DUMBO100]

Rear facing camera's are a bit rubbish at this time of year. They get dirty and it's dark. Swmbo's RR Sport has them and I have just reversed it into our wheelie bin.