Imagine there's no AI. It's easy if you try

The oxygen of publicity this year has mostly been consumed by our two-lettered friend, AI. There's no reason to think this will change in 2026. However, through the magic of journalism, here's a world where that's not true, a world where other things are happening that will shape the future. We like to call it the real world, …

[Tron]

That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

the frame is the battery and the battery is the frame.

So instead of protecting the battery, you now have to protect the entire frame or face serious issues from minor collisions? That doesn't sound like a plan. And replacing a battery for a fast energy top up, or when it loses charge capacity, becomes impossible.

Next-generation nuclear power.

Nope. Because humanity never learns from its mistakes and always does everything on the cheap.

Accessibility or banned.

Expect lots of stuff to be banned because it cannot match a fixed level of accessibility. This is not a good idea. One size fits all laws do not work.

Cyber Security Mesh meets Zero Trust.

A piece of your kit will fail, and you will get locked out forever. Power will be handed to an ever smaller number of tech providers who can afford to implement it. Your government will have every piece of personal data that exists on you, including biometric.

It is better to move stuff offline that does not need to be on it - infrastructure and intranets. Use distributed systems so people hold their own data and there are no centralised honey pots of data to steal. Use less, simpler tech. Walk away from AI, the cloud and SaaS that make you less resilient. And start treating malware as a terrorist weapon, taking down those that use it.

MFA just complicates access and denies it to people who cannot cope with it. More of your data gets snaffled by the state.

All the ideas laid out in the author's piece will be disasters as they are rolled out. Some have good intentions, but the unintended consequences will be dreadful.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Structural Batteries

are IMHO a bad idea. In the real world, batteries need protection from all sorts of things especially H2O.

Electrons and H2O does not mix well.

Granted that there are some battery chemistries that can survive being shot at with bullets unlike a certain Muskmobile. Bullet damage at least in most of the world is not a prime threat. Impact from foreign objects and water are far more important. Taking away protection from that is IMHO, asking for trouble in most circumstances

As for other things...

I'd like it for ads and technical blurb for simple things like WI_FI extenders and the like tell us what level of WI-FI they support. It is no use having a new, shiny laptop or tablet that supports WI-FI 6 only to find that your network is WI-FI limited security. I find that most private and even public nets (like Libraries and Cafe's) are woefully insecure and use ancient tech.

PEople upgrade their Broadband/Fibre but often do little wrt their WI-FI.

[Roland6]

Re: Structural Batteries

>” PEople upgrade their Broadband/Fibre but often do little wrt their WI-FI.”

Typically, (residential) ISPs send out a new modem/router/AP, which implements the newer WiFi standard, so, if your device is capable of supporting the newer WiFi standard it will connect accordingly. This issue is all the IoT stuff which is stuck on older and low speed WiFi; the technically able will move these onto their own dedicated WiFi network, and so improve the speed of their main WiFi network, however Joe Public will just suffer from poor WiFi…

Which raises the issue of router upgrade; it needs to become as easy as using the WPS button for settings on the old router to be migrated to the new router.

>”I find that most private and even public nets (like Libraries and Cafe's) are woefully insecure and use ancient tech.”

I include hotels and “business hubs” in the list. This is an area where Windows has taken a huge step backwards. With W2K and XP there were (third-party) intelligent connection managers which could of handled this and automatically established a VPN connection over these… MS incorporated just enough locale functionality into Windows to kill these off for many users (Windows was able to determine home and office networks and so change default firewall and printers, but was rubbish at anything more complex). If you search, there were a few connection managers that were maintained and worked with W10 (I will need to look again in the coming year as I migrate my laptop away from W10).

>” I'd like it for ads and technical blurb for simple things like WI_FI extenders and the like tell us what level of WI-FI they support.”

Useful, but even more useful is for the device to have this information readily visible, for example:

https://www.speedwavewifiboost.com/

[EricB123]

Re: Structural Batteries

Not to mention road salt in colder climates.

[nematoad]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

...the frame is the battery and the battery is the frame.

Err, no.

As Tron says above if the battery and the frame are one and the same then when the battery dies, as it will, so does the frame.

That is literally built in obsolescence.

[Snowy]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

Instead of reduce, reuse, recycle this gives replace, replace and replace.

[Ropewash]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

Obsolescence is the end goal. They've learned from cellphones that if you glue the battery in well enough nobody will bother replacing it, this is the natural evolution of that line of thought.

Next stop will be container based housing, where you can enjoy the dubious benefit of being able to quickly swap out your entire home when the faucet leaks.

[thames]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

I could see structural batteries in things like high end phones and tablets to make them a tiny bit smaller or have a slightly larger battery. Phone cases aren't really that strong anyway.

It doesn't make much sense in cars though. The structural parts of a car are designed for strength and the trend there is for stronger steels to reduce weight. You aren't likely to be able to create a battery material which can match high strength steel when it comes to strength and durability. You also have the problem of getting electric power from all over the frame to the motor power pack. A car is big enough that you can always find places to put the battery.

Cars are big objects so it's always going to be worth while having the frame be the best possible frame and the battery be the best possible battery and so have these as separate components.

It's when you get to small objects like phones where small size is important that combining functions makes sense.

[Not Yb]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

When the batteries are the frame, you're almost guaranteed to have to use the manufacturer's batteries for replacement.

There's almost no aftermarket company selling any modern vehicle's frame pieces. Body panels, yes, but not the frame underneath. This looks to be making battery replacement even more difficult than it was on early iPhones."

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

"As Tron says above if the battery and the frame are one and the same then when the battery dies, as it will, so does the frame."

I think I've worked out the solution. When the battery won't hold charge you fit the car onto a new battery.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

"Expect lots of stuff to be banned because it cannot match a fixed level of accessibility. This is not a good idea. One size fits all laws do not work."

This example from 2006...

"A fleet of 28 trains is being withdrawn early because the letters on the information screens are too small.

The lettering on South West Trains' (SWT) Juniper fleet are 32mm tall rather than the required 35mm, which breaks disability regulations"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/berkshire/4954074.stm

[Arthur the cat]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

The lettering on South West Trains' (SWT) Juniper fleet are 32mm tall rather than the required 35mm

Have SWT never heard of magnifying glasses?

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

It was the Disabled Persons' Transport Advisory Committee that wanted the trains withdrawn, despite the inconvenience it would cause both disabled and able bodied passengers due to the shortage of rolling stock it would cause.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

Sigh. I wonder how many on the committee were actually disabled and how many were simply obsessives determined to demonstrate the old maxim "perfect is the enemy of the good".

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

The wikipedia page on the Class 458 gives a little background information:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Class_458

They were crap. The roof leaked. The onboard electronics regularly failed ("affecting the air-conditioning and traction control systems"). They went an average of 4,300miles between "major failures", compared to 21,000 miles for trains of a similar age (and up to 50,000 miles for older designs).

SWT were warned in 1999 that they didn't meet the Disability regulations, and the 2006 report above occurred when they were finally unable to get an exemption. SWT hoped to run them until the end of the year (when the timetable changed) but were told they couldn't. SWT fitted eight trains with the correct screens, and withdrew the rest. They were put back into service after a year or so, by which time a lot of the problems had been fixed.

They had 7 years to fix the screens and didn't. I don't think we should be entirely blaming the disability regs here.

[dmesg]

Re: That's not survival. It is an unnecessary nightmare.

Battery = Frame was an example, and not the most felicitous one. Dual-purpose structural material has been around for millennia and is still relevant -- think adobe and stone building materials providing both walls and heat management.

But electrical storage/generation in structural material is new, and as comments point out, problematic. It's far more likely to find uses where the material is situated in protected and controlled environments (buildings and fixed facilities) or where breakage is not a high-risk concern (cheap, easily replaced, not a safety threat).

[JimmyPage]

Accessibility – not just a good idea, it's the law

Sounds good. But as someone who has seen the past 30 years squander all the possibilities tech has offered to the less able in the name of profit, I ain't holding my breath.

When was the last time you every heard of anyone being PROSECUTED for their shitty websites that break screen readers and assistive apps to fill in webforms ????

Yes, that's right: it's never happened.

I mean the UK is famous for it's treatment of the disabled. But I can't say Europe is much better either.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Accessibility – not just a good idea, it's the law

When was the last time you every heard of anyone being PROSECUTED for their shitty websites that break screen readers and assistive apps to fill in webforms ????

Policy suggestion for any party that wants it: Rather than prosecute such websites and get a pitiful fine, for a reasonably small donation to HMRC the web site owner and designer are thrashed to within an inch of their lives. Repeated prosecutions are allowed for the same web site if it hasn't improved within a month.

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Re: Accessibility – not just a good idea, it's the law

If there is no law you cannot prosecute. You got it the wrong way around. I hope websites will get better due to that, 'cause way too many are endless-scroll-propaganda-we-are-the-greatest but WHERE THE FUCK ARE THE SPECS DAMMIT!

[JimmyPage]

Re: If there is no law you cannot prosecute.

The problem is that in the UK there *is* a law. And has been since 2010.

[Andy 73]

Hmmm...

Structural batteries - as others have pointed out, the value of generic batteries is that you can swap them cheaply. Cars might seem like a tempting use-case, but we're in the situation where in ten years' time you're seeking a replacement battery that was designed for a specific variant of a specific year of a specific model of a car sold only in a specific territory. Good luck with that.

Accessibility - how on earth does adding more complexity to online services become cheaper? This, like GDPR, is a burden that falls unfairly on small businesses, community services and new entrants to the market. It becomes a convenient cudgel to beat competitors over the head with and protects the incumbents. Launching community sites has already become unreasonably complex and expensive, and this is just adding to the burden.

Cyber-security mesh - sounds an awful lot like a buzzword for sparkling consultation. AKA making it up as we go along. Without some concrete interoperability coming along between different security products and services (good luck with that), this is just giving a name for a lot of expensive hand wiring?

Nuclear power - this actually looks like it might happen, simply for the fact that a lot of over-zealous regulation (see accessibility above) and some heavy lobbying kept nuclear technologies under developed and under invested for nearly half a century. Advances in the rest of the industry, and in materials and engineering technology in general suggest we can build "something that works" cheaper, smaller, safer and just get on with providing the stable base load that renewables are carefully ignoring.

[PCScreenOnly]

Re: Hmmm...

Might not be part of the ai fad, but all those data centres that need power and cannot get it from whatever grid are having to go their own way, and quite a few are talking of smr

Clearly the AI boat is worth more than fossil fuels and so smr technology will undoubtedly come along on leaps and bounds over the next couple of years

[Roland6]

Re: Hmmm...

Are you suggesting we should make the datacentre a structural part of the nuclear power station and thus save the need to actually transmit electricity from one building to the next?

>” Clearly the AI boat is worth more than fossil fuels”

That’s because the investors in AI are trying very hard to ensure the costs associated with power generation are incurred by someone else, like the government. As soon as you add the upfront cost of building a new nuclear plant onto the upfront cost of building an AI datacentre, expect those activist investors to get cold feet and quietly shuffle away…

[Not Yb]

Re: Hmmm...

"datacenter ... part of the power station." is exactly what some folks did near some gas production wells in Texas. They put containers full of blockchain miners and generator next to each well, and used the 'excess' gas to solve uselessly difficult problems instead of just burning it off (or collecting it for sale).

Clearly that's just slightly better for society than just flaring it off the way they used to, but not by much, as blockchain mining seems to be a net loss in many ways.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Hmmm...

"This, like GDPR, is a burden that falls unfairly on small businesses, community services and new entrants to the market"

GDPR is only a burden to those intending to misuse customers', clients' or members' personal data.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Hmmm...

Change 'misuse' to 'use' in your comment, and you'd be much more accurate. GDPR requirements apply to everyone who uses personal data in the jurisdiction of the GDPR. Whether you use or misuse the data, you still have to follow all the requirements.

It is definitely a barrier to entry for any new player creating a new product that's required to follow GDPR.

[Arthur the cat]

Re: Hmmm...

It is definitely a barrier to entry for any new player creating a new product that's required to follow GDPR.

It's a relatively low barrier, basically it's "be competent, don't be a shyster".

My wife has far more problems dealing with commercial confidentiality restrictions in her work than GDPR. They can involve insane levels of paranoia and hoop jumping.

[Ken Hagan]

Re: Hmmm...

"Accessibility - how on earth does adding more complexity to online services become cheaper?"

If it is done properly (and yes, I hear all those telling us it won't be) then designing for accessibility means sticking to standard components and it results in web-sites that are easier for everyone to use, particularly people who prefer to lock down their browsers a little bit.

I'm not the obvious target audience here, but I look forward to sites with a bit less bling and a bit more function when viewed through No script.

[Andy 73]

Re: Hmmm...

That doesn't really make anything cheaper though. It means sites have to be redesigned, highly customised sites being deeply challenging, and additional provision has to be made in content.

Adding more work is not "cheaper"... it's more work.

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Hmmm...

Only at the outset, with the goal of having the sites designed as compliant to begin with.

[osxtra]

NP Hard

EAA done right: Everyone goes on about their day. Folks identified as having "special needs" can navigate the outside world without burdening themselves or the society around them.

EAA done wrong: Enter Harrison Bergeron.

Rooting for the former, but history suggests we beware the latter.

[AbeSapian]

Structural battery composites

So instead of having the battery in a pack that can catch fire but give the occupants a chance to escape, you're placing the occupants in a shaped charge explosive device with no chance for escape.

On top of that, now when the battery wears out (and it will) you have to replace the entire car.

How about, instead of distributing the battery, they modularize the battery packs. Then instead of having to sit at a charging station, an automated device could swap the discharged batteries for a fresh, charged pack(s). This would make the process of recharging the battery fit in the same amount of time it takes to fill a tank of gas. This also has the advantage that the swapped out battery packs can be tested for their percent of power loss and packs that frail could be cycled back through the distributor for refurbishment. Cost of the battery swap could be determined by a combination of the relative difference in battery charge and battery wear.

[FuzzyTheBear]

Re: Structural battery composites

I suggested that forever. 40 years ago i was dreaming of electric cars and swapping batteries like we do for drills etc. Go to station , robot takes battery out , sends it to charge station , takes a fresh one , puts it in the car and off you go. So simple .. yet .. every automaker insisted on creating their own standards and never had the brains to see that for a successfull crossover from oil to electrical you NEEDED to be able to change the battery and keep going in no longer than it takes to fill at a station.

[MJB7]

Re: Structural battery composites

" for a successfull crossover from oil to electrical you NEEDED to be able to change the battery and keep going in no longer than it takes to fill at a station."

[citation needed]

We've just switched from a diesel to electric car. At the beginning of December we drove from southern Germany to London. It took about three charges (one of which was overnight). Each of the charges took quite a lot longer than filling a tank - but it didn't make the journey noticeably longer. For day to day usage we just charge at home (not an option if you don't have your own garage I accept).

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Structural battery composites

"able to change the battery and keep going in no longer than it takes to fill at a station."

If you could increase the energy density (J/kg) of flow cell batteries sufficiently, you could replace the electrolyte in that time frame.

Whether recharging the electrolyte in the service station would then be more efficient than pumping or tankering the fluid back to a central facility, is a good question.

[vtcodger]

Re: Structural battery composites

Swapping batteries only works economically if individual battery packs are cheap or if one owns both the depleted battery and its replacement. Otherwise, one runs the risk of swapping a brand new $5000 battery for a battery that is dying. Swapping should work OK for fleet operators though.

[Bebu sa Ware]

Re: Structural battery composites

"So instead of having the battery in a pack that can catch fire but give the occupants a chance to escape, you're placing the occupants in a shaped charge explosive device with no chance for escape."

If we are thinking of Teslae and the enclosed Teslarati, it is difficult to see the downside.

_{That new year's resolution lasted on a few hours. Ah well I'll try an be nicer 2027.}

[M.V. Lipvig]

Re: Structural battery composites

Muskrat Inc supposedly investigated that and decided it wasn't feasible. It involves building a 2 ton battery pack as removable, positive blind battery connections, a means to remove and install 2 tons without damaging either the car or the battery, a place to store and recharge batteries, and more. Then, there's the customers who will not want to buy a replacement when the existing battery has 400 miles of range and the replacement only 200 miles, the risk that the last car was in a fender bender strong enough to damage the battery but not enough to keep it from driving, ect. Who would be responsible for your car burning to the ground because the last guy damaged the battery?

The pull in and recharge method that is used now is the best method. What is needed is more capacity at site, and more charging stations. On the car side, require replaceable modular batteries to be used and the whole replace problem goes away. Yeah I need four EV-7 packs and six EV-4S, and what the hell, give me some of those oversized interconnects.

None of this, of course, addresses the fact that lithium batteries are far worse for the environment than leaded gasoline and high sulfer diesel. Graphene aluminum ion batteries solve all the lithium problems, and weigh a third as much as a lithium battery of the same capacity.

So far as structural batteries, that's Musky's way of ensuring new car sales. He's switching to graphene batteries, and gluing in the lithium ensures that no new car buyers buying this year can just swap batteries without buying a new car.

Honestly though, why would anyone buy a car where the battery has a finite lifespan and cannot be removed? That's like buying an ICE vehicle with an integrated gas tank and if it springs a leak the entire car gets trashed.

[ecofeco]

Yeah, this will end well

“The real problem of humanity is the following: we have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall.” - E. O. Wilson

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

Generation IV reactors...

While they operate at much higher core temperature, in "step 2" those reactors are still used to boil water, and said water is pushed through a turbine.