If we read the latest technological news, most of it would seem to revolve around artificial intelligence. And it is largely true that many advances have been possible thanks to this technology. But there is another world beyond AI. And one worth knowing. These are the 10 most interesting technological advances of the year. At least until now.
1) A team made up of scientists from Harvard University and Google have managed to map a cubic millimeter of the human brain at nanometric resolution. It seems very little, it is true, but if we take into account that a million nanometers fit into a millimeter, we begin to measure the feat. According to the study, this small portion of the brain, equivalent to the head of a pin, contains approximately 57,000 cells and 150 million synapses. All this set processes 1.4 petabytes of data. Enough to store about 250,000 HD movies.
2) A team of scientists has discovered a new phase of matter, called “light-matter hybrid”which can change the understanding of how light interacts with matter. The advance will allow the development of better photovoltaic cells.
3) The artificial intelligence unravels the secrets of proteins and wins the Nobel in the process. This was undoubtedly one of the news of the year. Understanding how proteins work means (among other things) knowing how diseases, from malaria to Parkinson’s, proliferate, and then identifying ways to stop them. When Google introduced AlphaFold 3, a new AI model to accurately predict protein structure, it achieved exactly this. An advance that can condition our future.
4) It was obvious that, among technology news, there had to be a place for him. Ignoring the purchase of Twitter, the problems with Tesla, the progress with SpaceX and the satellites above our heads, Elon Musk has taken a very interesting step when it comes to neuroscience. One of its companies, Neuralink, has managed to implement the first microchip in a human brain and has given him back an important dose of independence.
5) And to continue with the independence that technology can provide, we must mention the progress made by experts from the University of Cambridge. They have created a robotic sensor capable of reading braille with 87.5% accuracy and twice the speed of a human being.
6) It may not be the breakthrough of the year, it may not even be such an impressive innovation, but its impact has to do with who produced it. It is about the arrival of the Vision Pro, the virtual reality glasses developed by Apple. A tool that, for now, has created more media impact than real one.
7) At the opposite extreme (little media impact and a lot of real impact) we could mention the development of scientists from the University of Pennsylvania who have presented a battery based on calcium, capable of being fully charged and discharged 700 times at room temperature. It is described as a much cheaper potential alternative to lithium, as calcium is 2,500 times more abundant than lithium.
8) When Google changed the name of its artificial intelligence chatbot to Gemini, nothing changed in our lives, it was the next step that changed our daily lives: make it available to us on mobile phones and allow us to carry an AI in our pocket.
9) Without a doubt this was one of the most anticipated and best received news of the year, because it implies that we see the potential of this technology. For good and for evil. In 2024 The European Union approved the Artificial Intelligence Lawthe world’s first comprehensive legal and regulatory framework for artificial intelligence.
10) Green can be the color of robots too. Scientists at Binghamton University have developed artificial plants that have biological solar cells (like leaves), capable of carrying out the process of photosynthesis and generating electricity.