Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking, Kay they are, and welcome to Forward Thinking,
Speaker 1: the podcast that looks at the future and says, bend it,
Speaker 1: bend it just a little bit. I'm Jonathan Strickland and
Speaker 1: I'm Joe McCormick. And you know, we normally record this
Speaker 1: show on Tuesday's, but today we had to be a
Speaker 1: little flexible and recorded on our Friday Nothing. Nothing, Joe, Okay,
Speaker 1: you get nothing. So we're talking today about flexible electronic
Speaker 1: that's right. So yeah, that that bomb you are going
Speaker 1: off was my joke. So part of the reason why
Speaker 1: electronics aren't flexible in the first place just goes to
Speaker 1: the history of electronics, right, Like, if you look at
Speaker 1: old electronics, I'm talking like the early days, they were
Speaker 1: made out of massive components. They were physically wired together.
Speaker 1: There weren't integrated circuits. So you have all these giant
Speaker 1: pieces together, you couldn't have them on something flexible because
Speaker 1: it wouldn't make any sense. And even when we moved
Speaker 1: to the era of integrated circuits where we have things
Speaker 1: that can all be fit upon a single chip, we're
Speaker 1: still talking about rigid chips and part of that is
Speaker 1: because the connectors we need, the little connections between the
Speaker 1: various elements like transistors, they had to be you know,
Speaker 1: safe and solid. You couldn't really bend them because most
Speaker 1: of the time they were made off of a fairly
Speaker 1: brittle material and if they bent at all, they would
Speaker 1: break and then suddenly whatever your electronic device was isn't
Speaker 1: going to work anymore. So even if you were able
Speaker 1: to to make the circuit on some sort of bendable substrate, uh,
Speaker 1: the connections themselves wouldn't remain intact. And that was the problem.
Speaker 1: So it took a lot of work to try and
Speaker 1: develop technologies that would allow you to make a circuit
Speaker 1: that could be bent and flexible so that you could
Speaker 1: do different things with it. But why would we want
Speaker 1: to make electronics flexible? I mean, don't you just need
Speaker 1: to cram them inside a huge beige box and let
Speaker 1: them do their thing? Well, it takes me back to
Speaker 1: my Apple to E days. Uh, you could do that,
Speaker 1: but no, the reason why you want to go with
Speaker 1: flexibilities That just opens up a huge number of form
Speaker 1: factors and applications that you would not have with your
Speaker 1: basic electronics that have all those rigid uh substrates. For example,
Speaker 1: let's say you're in marketing and you're going to some
Speaker 1: big event and you want to have some representatives walking
Speaker 1: around getting attention for your product, and so they're all
Speaker 1: wearing these snazzy jackets that have full displays on the
Speaker 1: back showing video in real time, and they can fold
Speaker 1: with the jacket, so it's not this flat, you know,
Speaker 1: rigid surface on their backs, like duct taping an iPad
Speaker 1: to the tier back exactly. And that could be just
Speaker 1: a very you know, simple. In fact, it's probably the
Speaker 1: implementation I would expect to say first. But you could
Speaker 1: also have things like a really cool wearable device or
Speaker 1: even perhaps applications that go beyond just something that looks cool,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, I always wanted to have like
Speaker 1: a smart bracer, not a smart watch. I'm talking about
Speaker 1: something that fits on my forearm and it gives me readouts,
Speaker 1: you know, like a like a like a video game character. Oh,
Speaker 1: you're talking about a curved screen, and that's one of
Speaker 1: those very popular, flashy kind of things. It's been shown
Speaker 1: off at CS and stuff like that. Lightly but right,
Speaker 1: if you're going to have a curved screen, you kind
Speaker 1: of need a vaguely flexible electronic Yeah. Well, even if
Speaker 1: the surface that it's on the curve surface, even if
Speaker 1: that's a set uh shape and it's not going to
Speaker 1: flex out of that shape, you still have to have
Speaker 1: the flexible elements to get it in that shape in
Speaker 1: the first place. Right, So there's some applications that go
Speaker 1: beyond that. For example, electronic Skin. You guys have heard
Speaker 1: about this, Yeah, that's my garage, Okay, well it's it's
Speaker 1: also the name of Umbrella of Technologies, So it's interesting
Speaker 1: that shares that that that facet with your band. But
Speaker 1: electronic Skin is specifically talking about these flexible patches that
Speaker 1: have electronic circuitry in a it into them, usually for
Speaker 1: some form of medical purpose. Okay, So we've talked about
Speaker 1: something sort of like this before on the podcast, right
Speaker 1: about the idea that that you could in the future
Speaker 1: perhaps have some kind of little smart tattoo that would
Speaker 1: help keep track of your vital signs while you're in
Speaker 1: the hospital. Exactly. That's the very thing we're talking about here.
Speaker 1: It's it's something that's as thin as a temporary tattoo,
Speaker 1: and you just slap it on your skin and it
Speaker 1: can monitor anything from brain waves to your heart rate,
Speaker 1: blood flow, body temperature. If you put one on your
Speaker 1: vocal chords, it could even track the words you say.
Speaker 1: I saw one potential implementation that wasn't medical saying. Put
Speaker 1: this on your vocal cords and then you play a
Speaker 1: video game, and then your vocal commands can easily be
Speaker 1: translated without you even having to have a microphone picking
Speaker 1: things up, because it will be able to interpret what
Speaker 1: you say just based on the vibrations from your vocal cords,
Speaker 1: which is kind of cool. So how does something like
Speaker 1: this work. Well, you have all of those integrated elements,
Speaker 1: the sensors, the antenna, the power source, the various other
Speaker 1: pieces all integrated into a circuit. And it's printed on
Speaker 1: a very thin uh polymer substrates, So the substrate self
Speaker 1: is flexible and can it bend into any shape and
Speaker 1: even continue to bend once it, you know, once you
Speaker 1: put it on your skin, so it's not stuck in
Speaker 1: one position. It can even stretch to the point where
Speaker 1: you can stretch it several times larger than what it
Speaker 1: originally was and still remain functional. And it's all based
Speaker 1: upon these advanced technologies to get this integrated circuitry to
Speaker 1: to maintain functionality even as it's being manipulated in these
Speaker 1: different ways. I thought one of the cool things about
Speaker 1: is that you don't even have to put adhesive on
Speaker 1: these patches. They'll stick to your skin by themselves. With
Speaker 1: our old friend the Van der Vall's force. You remember
Speaker 1: when we talked about geck gos Right, Yes, I think
Speaker 1: I made that joke in the other podcast. Okay, good.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that some things can contin I'm not ashamed,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of it. At any rate, these these patches
Speaker 1: have some really interesting utility. They haven't been widely rolled
Speaker 1: out at all because it's still pretty expensive and you
Speaker 1: have to figure out, all right, well, how are we
Speaker 1: powering these things. Some of them are using little teeny
Speaker 1: tiny solar panel technology, which is kind of crazy to me.
Speaker 1: Others are using inductor coils, which means you have to
Speaker 1: have a fluctuating magnetic field for it to maintain power.
Speaker 1: There's a new one that actually incorporates computer memory into
Speaker 1: the patch, which gives it brand new applications. Like a
Speaker 1: doctor can be able to see a pattern and symptoms
Speaker 1: if one exists by looking at the information stored in
Speaker 1: the memory or be able to tell how a patient
Speaker 1: is responding to certain types of medical treatments, and that
Speaker 1: to me is really exciting. Also, there's a possibility of
Speaker 1: having drug delivery systems built into this, where you have
Speaker 1: a nano sized delivery system that will release medication through
Speaker 1: the skin, so you have orbit through your skin, and
Speaker 1: what will happen is the patch will measure your body's
Speaker 1: reactions and if your body starts to react in such
Speaker 1: a way that indicates there's a problem coming on. Let's
Speaker 1: say that you're about to get a migraine or maybe
Speaker 1: even suffer a heart attack, it could release medication that
Speaker 1: could prevent that from happening, or perhaps you know either
Speaker 1: that or or just treat symptoms. Um there's one potential
Speaker 1: application of using this to treat wounds. So if you
Speaker 1: get wounded and you put a patch on, it can
Speaker 1: detect whether or not you have any kind of infection
Speaker 1: because usually when that happens, the skin around the wound
Speaker 1: starts to heat up, So if it detects that change
Speaker 1: in temperature, then it can then release antibiotics into your
Speaker 1: system and help fight off an infection early on before
Speaker 1: it becomes a serious problem. So yeah, this is this
Speaker 1: is obviously one of those things that you can easily
Speaker 1: see the benefit and it wouldn't be possible if this
Speaker 1: electronic device wasn't already flexible and couldn't just stay flush
Speaker 1: with your skin. And it also is not invasive, right,
Speaker 1: You don't end up having to cut into a asient
Speaker 1: to do it. This way, you don't have to even
Speaker 1: worry about connecting all these wires to a patient where
Speaker 1: they end up being essentially shackled to whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: facility exactly exactly. They can have this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and there there are a lot of challenges that need
Speaker 1: to be overcome. Power systems need to be developed, there
Speaker 1: will be more effective. Power systems in general are one
Speaker 1: of those things that it's really hard to find a
Speaker 1: way of making them flexible. We've seen a lot of
Speaker 1: development and battery technology recently, but in general that's hard
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, right now, I think the best we
Speaker 1: can really do is hook one of these things up
Speaker 1: with a wire to a battery pack that you can
Speaker 1: wear in a pocket or something. That's that's generally what
Speaker 1: we see. Because even if you get a flexible battery,
Speaker 1: there are some out there, but they tend to be
Speaker 1: pretty big too, because you have to you know, you
Speaker 1: end up what you end up lacking in density with
Speaker 1: that battery pack, you make up for in surface area,
Speaker 1: so you end up having a much larger in surface
Speaker 1: area battery than whatever the patches. So there's obviously some
Speaker 1: issues there. There's also the issue of figuring out the
Speaker 1: wireless communication between the patch and whatever else the doctor
Speaker 1: is using to to keep a monitor on a patient.
Speaker 1: But I think these are things that we can overcome eventually.
Speaker 1: I'm fairly confident about that. Oh, especially since it's so
Speaker 1: attractive for people to be researching it. Yeah. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean this is something that can make a huge difference
Speaker 1: in patients lives. The idea of being able to release
Speaker 1: medication precisely when you need it, and maybe even in
Speaker 1: very precise amounts, so that you limit any potential side
Speaker 1: effects that medication might create. We've talked about that before
Speaker 1: in the past, about how you know, modern medicine, a
Speaker 1: lot of it involves taking a very measured amount of medication,
Speaker 1: but it's based upon an average, right, It's based upon
Speaker 1: the average person of this you know that fits your description,
Speaker 1: what their symptoms are, how to manage it. All of
Speaker 1: your medication could be based upon that, and it's not
Speaker 1: necessarily keyed into your specific situation. And if I've got
Speaker 1: some sort of like I'm treating an illness and I've
Speaker 1: been told take a pill every six hours, that's not
Speaker 1: really that precise. If I have a patch on that
Speaker 1: is able to detect minute changes in my body and
Speaker 1: be able to anticipate when I need that medication, then
Speaker 1: I could have a very targeted medical approach to treating
Speaker 1: that illness. So to me, that's really exciting. So what
Speaker 1: materials and processes are going into all of this research?
Speaker 1: A big one is on that flexible substrate. You know,
Speaker 1: the idea instead of using a silicon chip, which is rigid,
Speaker 1: figuring out sort of a polymer approach. You know, polymers
Speaker 1: are those long chain molecules that have flexibility built into them.
Speaker 1: Finding a way of designing one that that the electronics
Speaker 1: can sit on top of and maintain stability. That's obviously
Speaker 1: an important part. The actual material of the connections themselves,
Speaker 1: that's really important because again, if you're using a brittle material,
Speaker 1: then as soon as it bends, it breaks and then
Speaker 1: it no longer works. So another thing is, oh, lad's
Speaker 1: organic light emitting diodes. You guys have heard about this, right, Okay.
Speaker 1: So I remember going to c e S several years
Speaker 1: ago when oh LED displays were just getting out of
Speaker 1: the lab and getting in front of people's eyes beyond.
Speaker 1: You know, if you weren't a researcher, then you hadn't
Speaker 1: seen one. And I remember the first LAD screen I saw.
Speaker 1: It wasn't an eleven inch screen. Now keep in mind,
Speaker 1: this is at c S where I'm looking at eight
Speaker 1: five inch television, so this is a little eleven inch screen,
Speaker 1: and it was it was on a little vice that
Speaker 1: allowed it to bend, so it was showing that that
Speaker 1: this display could bend. And I think it had a
Speaker 1: sort of an e paper display at the time, so
Speaker 1: it was a static image, but it was an image
Speaker 1: that was showing and it was just kind of giving
Speaker 1: you a proof of concept. And when asked like how
Speaker 1: much would this particular thing cost if it were incorporated
Speaker 1: into UH an actual existing product, it was an astronomical
Speaker 1: price tag. Now since then, we've seen the price come
Speaker 1: down as more research and development has been poured into
Speaker 1: OH lads. You can go and get something that's an
Speaker 1: old screen that's not going to be you know, ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars now, but it was one of those deals
Speaker 1: that it took several years for that to happen. Uh.
Speaker 1: These days, you can actually find some pretty interesting displays,
Speaker 1: like Umu Samsung at ce S had an eight five
Speaker 1: inch television that was a a flat screen or a
Speaker 1: curved screen television, and you could change it by pushing
Speaker 1: a button. And by pushing the button, you see it
Speaker 1: curve in front of you. It's only a very subtle curve,
Speaker 1: and it was meant so that if you were off
Speaker 1: to the side, like I sometimes like to cook, uh
Speaker 1: and watch television, but my television is almost flat, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't really see because it's a flat
Speaker 1: screen with that curve, that could create an angle that
Speaker 1: I might be able to see a little more of
Speaker 1: what's going on. So that way, I can watch that
Speaker 1: episode of The Mighty Bush that I've seen four hundred
Speaker 1: times as opposed to like, I know what's happening. I
Speaker 1: don't know why I'm so obsessed with seeing it, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that's another deal. Also, you mentioned a moment ago the
Speaker 1: stuff that the actual circuitry is made out of, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of that research going on right now,
Speaker 1: some of it with carbon nanotubes, of course, because everything
Speaker 1: is carbon nanotubes, right um, Well, I mean and specifically
Speaker 1: because these suckers have such excellent conductivity, so you can
Speaker 1: use little filaments of them to to easily make circuitry.
Speaker 1: Their physical properties also let them bend without breaking, and
Speaker 1: they can be even more energy efficient than the traditional silicon.
Speaker 1: So on the downside, unfortunately, they're they're less stable than
Speaker 1: traditional circuitry materials because we're still figuring out ways of
Speaker 1: doping them to be stable around power fluctuations and an
Speaker 1: electrical noise. This was a huge advance that had to
Speaker 1: happen for us to make transistors and computer components in general. Right. Doping,
Speaker 1: for those who don't know, that's where you specifically introduce
Speaker 1: impurities into a substance so that you can guide how
Speaker 1: it behaves under certain circumstances. How the positive versus negative
Speaker 1: flows of energy are going on, specifically semiconductors in particular. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if you were going to dope like a silicon chip,
Speaker 1: you'd have silicon, but you'd be adding little atoms of
Speaker 1: other elements to it, right um, And It's harder to
Speaker 1: do that with carbon nanotubes because by their very nature
Speaker 1: they are made of one thing, and they're also really tiny,
Speaker 1: very small. Yeah, however, some researchers at Stanford just published
Speaker 1: some promising research this March. We might still be a
Speaker 1: really long way from commercial applications of carbon nanotubes and
Speaker 1: flexible electronics, but it's cool that that's that that's out there, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Something to keep in mind always is whenever we talk
Speaker 1: about these technologies, there there's always a chance that we
Speaker 1: never see it come to fruition. But the research that's
Speaker 1: done can always inform us in other ways and we
Speaker 1: make fine workarounds. So that's it's pretty cool. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: other stuff going on at the nano scale with circuitry.
Speaker 1: Some researchers out of the UK have been out of
Speaker 1: the University of Cambridge, I believe, have been investigating zinc
Speaker 1: oxide based flash memory that can be printed onto flexible electronics.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool too. And now that I've mentioned the
Speaker 1: word printing, I do want to say that printing circuitry
Speaker 1: has been a huge advance towards making flexible electronics possible.
Speaker 1: In the process, you load like an ink jet style
Speaker 1: printer with what's essentially wire ink um, you know, made
Speaker 1: from whatever you want to try to make the circuitry from.
Speaker 1: And you can print circuits on any material on which
Speaker 1: you can get that ink to stick, fabric or paper
Speaker 1: or whatever need. And you see this, I have a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, oh, does that like three D printing?
Speaker 1: Really this is like two D printing, right, because circuits
Speaker 1: are so thin already, Like before we got into the
Speaker 1: flexible part. You look at circuits and the circuitry is
Speaker 1: so thin, you're talking about maybe a few nanometers thick
Speaker 1: of material. Then that's essentially two dimensional, I mean to
Speaker 1: to all practical purposes, it's two dimensional. So that's pretty cool. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then you know we've already got some some flexible electronics.
Speaker 1: I mentioned that Samsung television. If you want to go
Speaker 1: out and purchase an eight five inch television that can
Speaker 1: curve on command. There are all other curved uh electronics,
Speaker 1: like you were mentioning, Lauren, things like that. You've seen
Speaker 1: the curved smartphones that have come out recently, curve television sets,
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Now, in that case, we're talking
Speaker 1: about flexible electronics that were flexible in order for you
Speaker 1: to in order for these companies to build these products,
Speaker 1: but they're not necessarily flexible once they hit the Market's right,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't try sitting there and bending it. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's in a fixed uh, a fixed state at this point.
Speaker 1: So you get a curved phone, you can't like, well, look,
Speaker 1: I can straighten it out, and I need a new phone.
Speaker 1: That would be That would be bad. But you can
Speaker 1: find a few other examples, and I've seen a lot
Speaker 1: of prototype um products that haven't hit the market yet,
Speaker 1: but it does show what this kind of stuff could
Speaker 1: be used in the future, including things like a flexible
Speaker 1: e paper. One of the list ones I saw this
Speaker 1: was at CES two thousands thirteen was an e paper
Speaker 1: display that felt like it was kind of like a
Speaker 1: magazine material almost like and you could bend it and
Speaker 1: just like it was a piece of paper, and only
Speaker 1: that you could lay it down on top of an
Speaker 1: existing display or piece of paper and it could copy
Speaker 1: whatever it was laying on top of and then you
Speaker 1: lifted up and you've got your own copy. It was
Speaker 1: really by tech right there, super neat. Yeah, this was
Speaker 1: all It was all like attached by cables to various computers.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was it was a proof of concept,
Speaker 1: but it was really neat seeing that this flexible paper
Speaker 1: used for that. So imagine being able to use that
Speaker 1: on surfaces that are not perfectly flat. So if you
Speaker 1: needed to make a copy of something like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: a flyer that's on a telephone pole, you could totally
Speaker 1: do it. Of course, you could also take a picture
Speaker 1: with your CLLL phone, but don't mind that. So it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of a cool application. And on top of that,
Speaker 1: we have the medical processes we've already mentioned. Uh, the
Speaker 1: fact that we've gotten into this era of majorization means
Speaker 1: that there are a lot more uh possible medical applications
Speaker 1: we could see in the future. But beyond that, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just imagine some of the other stuff you
Speaker 1: can do with flexible uh displays. I mean anything like
Speaker 1: you could cote a a surface, a rounded surface with
Speaker 1: a flexible display and then lifted up and code a
Speaker 1: different surface with it. Just the party potential alone, people,
Speaker 1: you could have a sailboat that streams video. Could you
Speaker 1: could do that? There are plenty of calls for for
Speaker 1: sensors that can be applied wherever they're necessary. I saw
Speaker 1: some research out of DARPA working with the Palo Alto
Speaker 1: Research Center to to develop these sensors that could be stuck.
Speaker 1: I mean basically like stickers to soldiers helmets and record
Speaker 1: a week's worth of information about nearby blasts and other
Speaker 1: indirect impacts that are sending some soldiers home with brain injury. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's obviously a very important use of the technology. I
Speaker 1: mean that's pretty incredible. Or or hey, what about seeing
Speaker 1: what's going on inside of you, not just what what's
Speaker 1: happening on skin level. Researchers at a startup called mc
Speaker 1: ten are developing this inflatable catheter. But you can cover
Speaker 1: this thing in a stretch electronics and therefore use it
Speaker 1: during heart surgery for example, um to act as a
Speaker 1: as a live streaming pacemaker um or or monitor for
Speaker 1: any other complications in any other surgery. And then you
Speaker 1: know there's the less life altering or or important you
Speaker 1: could argue applications. I don't think it's arguable at all
Speaker 1: they are less important. Some people would argue it, but
Speaker 1: not me. But like the more kind of fun, silly versions,
Speaker 1: you might say, things like wearables. The various types of
Speaker 1: wearables like like I guess you can finally get my
Speaker 1: smart bracer. Or if you wanted some workout gear that
Speaker 1: can really tell you how you're doing on a run.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, like maybe you can give you a much
Speaker 1: more accurate idea of how many calories you're really burning
Speaker 1: as opposed to maybe just a watch that's kind of
Speaker 1: measuring the motion. Uh. Or you know, you might want
Speaker 1: to have a wearable again in the medical field where
Speaker 1: it can alert you. For example, for someone who might
Speaker 1: be diabetic, you might be able to alert them if
Speaker 1: it's detecting minute changes in bodied chemistry so that they
Speaker 1: can take steps before they have any sort of attack.
Speaker 1: That would be great. Um. So yeah, we can see
Speaker 1: a lot of different applications from the fund to the
Speaker 1: very serious for flexible technology we haven't even really covered
Speaker 1: like the industrial uses. I mean obviously there are there
Speaker 1: are whole companies that want to be able to use
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff in order to market products or
Speaker 1: even just make something that stands out in a crowd,
Speaker 1: like when you have a presence at a big event
Speaker 1: like c e S. Anything you can do that differentiates
Speaker 1: you from every other company that's there is a bonus.
Speaker 1: And so some of the stuff we'll see probably will
Speaker 1: never be incorporated into consumer ducts, but they'll still be,
Speaker 1: you know, they'll still be great applications of flexible technology.
Speaker 1: I'll never forget when I went one year and they
Speaker 1: had one of the displays I think it was Kodak.
Speaker 1: Actually it looked like a digital waterfall of all these
Speaker 1: uh you see pictures of their products going down this
Speaker 1: vertical computer screen, and then it curved around into a
Speaker 1: horizontal like river that' said about waist level, and at
Speaker 1: that point you could do things like touch one of
Speaker 1: the pictures and get information about that particular product, or
Speaker 1: if someone was across the river from you, like on
Speaker 1: the other side, and they wanted to see it, you
Speaker 1: could actually swipe and slide it over to them. And
Speaker 1: the whole effect was just very impressive because it was
Speaker 1: very smooth, this progression of from vertical to horizontal surface.
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where this was just for
Speaker 1: display purposes to sell a product, but you could easily
Speaker 1: imagine something like that incorporated in entertainment, whether it was
Speaker 1: for home entertainment or maybe some sort of kind of
Speaker 1: like a video game lace you would go to to
Speaker 1: play things in an environment that have been specifically engineered
Speaker 1: for that game. Uh, it's you know, there's some interesting potential.
Speaker 1: I don't know how much of it is viable in
Speaker 1: the long term, but a lot of it is stuff
Speaker 1: that we just couldn't have done, you know, five ten
Speaker 1: years ago, because we just didn't have the technology or
Speaker 1: it was so expensive to implement that there was no
Speaker 1: point in trying because you would never get a return
Speaker 1: on that initial investment. But I'm really excited to see
Speaker 1: where this goes, mainly again for the medical purposes and
Speaker 1: also to finally get my smart bracer. Uh. I really
Speaker 1: want to have like things like you know, life level
Speaker 1: and have it in little hearts, an energy level and
Speaker 1: be like Manna and it's a little blue bar and
Speaker 1: you know, and then I could press a button and
Speaker 1: it makes pupele laser noises. These are the simple things
Speaker 1: I want. You need a sanity meter like in Eternal Dark. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, we talked. We talked about that game without
Speaker 1: you being in the room. Oh no, no, that's that's okay.
Speaker 1: It's a as long as it would also have some
Speaker 1: kind of digital projection technology that would let other people
Speaker 1: know what your sanity meter is. That because I think
Speaker 1: that that's the most important. Yeah, I think it was
Speaker 1: just I think you should just have a speaker that
Speaker 1: screams out things like yo dog, this guy is crazy,
Speaker 1: and then people would just be like, all right, give
Speaker 1: him a wide wide, little wide berth wearing a talking bracer.
Speaker 1: Most people don't wear those. I think that I think
Speaker 1: that would be step one of identifying the crazy person. Yes,
Speaker 1: so anyway, there are lots of different potential uses for
Speaker 1: flexible technology. If you guys have any ideas of ones
Speaker 1: that we didn't cover but you thought, you know, this
Speaker 1: would be a really interesting application of that sort of tech.
Speaker 1: Let us know, drop us a line on Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: or Google Plus or a handle at all. Three is
Speaker 1: f W thinking and we'll talk to you again really soon.
Speaker 1: For more on this topic in the future of technology,
Speaker 1: visit forward thinking dot Com, brought to you by Toyota.
Speaker 1: Let's go places,