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Writing for Popular Mechanics, Claire Martin has a list of jobs that she thinks can only face increased demand in future decades, including undersea welder, digital detective, and battery engineer. Here’s the rationale for the latter:
Today, Gardner leads a team that designs, builds and tests batteries for hybrid electric cars at A123 Systems, a fast-growing firm based in Watertown, Mass. A123’s clients include Chrysler, GM and automotive upstarts Think and Better Place, and the company’s staff has jumped from 150 to 2000 in the past three years. Ann Marie Sastry, who directs the University of Michigan’s master’s program in energy systems engineering, says, “The DNA of the automobile is changing, which means the composition of the workforce has to change.” Sastry also runs her own battery company, called Sakti3. “We’re hiring,” she says. “It’s a great time to be a battery guy.”
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“Designed for the Hudson Yard area of Manhattan, Eric Vergne’s Dystopian Farm aims to provide New York with a sustainable food source while creating a dynamic social space that integrates producers with consumers. Based upon the ‘material logic of plant mechanics’, the biomorphic skyscraper is modeled after the plant cells of ferns and provides space for farms, residential areas, and markets. These organic structures will harness systems such as airoponic watering, nutrient technology and controlled lighting and CO2 levels to meet the food demands of future populations.”
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Could flexible organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, be the future of lighting? Don’t worry; I don’t understand that sentence either. Keep reading for a jargon-free explanation.
On General Electric’s research campus in Niskayuna, NY, there is a machine that prints lights. This machine is so good at its job the lights it creates could make traditional lamps and lighting fixtures obsolete. In what sounds to be a relatively simple process, the semitrailer-size machine coats an 8” wide plastic film with chemicals and seals it with a layer of metal foil. When an electric current is applied to the plastic sheet, be prepared to throw on a pair of shades as it emits an ethereal blue glow.
Light from the sheet is produced using compounds known as organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). OLEDs are currently used in television and cell-phone displays and have been embraced by large
manufacturers such as Siemens and Philips.
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The retro-fitted futuristic world of the film Blade Runner starring Harrison Ford may not be as far away as one might think. Director Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic dealt with such classic questions of “what does it mean to be human” while depicting the city of Los Angeles in the year 2019 as a smoggy dystopian future, a cultural melting pot brimming with skyscrapers, flying cars and inescapable corporate advertisements. Almost 30 years later the film is hailed as an overlooked masterpiece and has inspired multitudes of designers, engineers and artists.
Now you can also add “Real Estate Developer” to that list. Sonny Astani, a Los Angeles real estate mogul, is hoping to make one part of the film’s dystopian future a reality with 14-story animated billboards.
The plan is currently undergoing environmental review and pending approval by city officials. Officials are wary of anything billboard-related at the moment as downtown L.A already has its fair share of distracting lights and signs that have drawn complaints from area neighborhoods.
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