The Future is Here: Technology Highlights from Shanghai Expo 2010

Shanghai's World Expo 2010 came to a close on October 31, completing a 6-month run and achieving unprecedented results: an astronomical 73 million visitors, the most international representatives ever in a World's Fair with 250 different nations, and an enormous, record-setting budget.

Oh, and there was some pretty cool gadgets on display as well.

Technology Premiers at Shanghai's Expo

Connected Cities - TelePresence - Cisco

Mainstream life meets Minority Report in Cisco's vision of Connected Cities. The IT conglomerate debuted its media masterpiece that will connect every home with friends, family, doctors, teachers, news, weather - everything! - through a system of computers.

Expo insider: Most of Cisco's displays were closed to the public. VIP rooms reserved for government officials were reserved to showcase how Cisco's dream could become a reality.

Musical Robots -Nao Robot and Partner Robot - Aldebaran Robotics and Toyota

Twenty dancing Nao robots from the French robotics company Adlebaran, wowed viewers during their 8-minute routine. These "swarming," coordinated robots will soon revolutionize traditional synchronized machinery. Plus, they can pop-lock.

Toyota's newest version of its Partner Robot was nimble and strangely humanoid as it performed Mo Li Hua, a Chinese folk song, in front of incredulous onlookers. What it lacked in showmanship, the Partner Robot made up in precision - a precision that is the Partner's strongest selling point. These robots are being developed as personal assistants and can add washing dishes and routine medical work to their repertoire.

Expo insider: Toyota first premiered their Partner Robot line in the 2005 Aichi Expo, where they played trumpets and drums.

Driverless Cars - Intercontinental Autonomous Challenge - University of Parma Vislab

What's orange, electric, and completely controlled by computers?

The future of the automobile.

Italian researchers sent four vans without drivers on a 15,000 km journey through Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Russia and China, timing their un-captained arrival to correspond with a parade near the end Shanghai's Expo.

The 4 vans were outfitted with 7 cameras, 4 laser scanners, a CPS system and on-board computers to power the steering wheel and navigate the roads. Solar panels allowed the car to run the entire course with no emissions.

Expo insider: The goal of driverless cars is to cut down on human-error accidents, which make up 93% of all traffic accidents.

Really Green Living - ZED Pavilion - ZED Factory

A zero-energy footprint is possible, and London-based ZED Factory proved it with their pavilion at the Expo's Urban Best Practices. Solar panels supplied energy, wind cowls served as air conditioners, and a biomass machine fueled the kitchen (which ran off biogas from food waste).

And talk about green. Parts of the ZED Pavilion walls are constructed from live foliage.

Really Green Driving - YeZ "Leaf" Electric Car - Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.

With the leaf as its model, Shanghai Automotive Industry's concept car, the YeZ, aims to absorb CO2 and water molecules and convert them into energy. Currently, photovoltaic cells in tiny solar panels on the roof generate electrical power; special wheels are designed to harness the wind for extra momentum on the morning commute.

Underfoot at the Expo

China continued its efforts for bigger, better, and greener at the Expo, ensuring that the 5.28 square kilometers of Expo grounds were as eco-friendly as possible.

Greener Trash

Fountain-like garbage and recycling chutes divided and sucked all 34,200 tons of trash below the Expo Park's surface.

Garbage sailed under the feet of visitors at a rate of 20 meters per second through a system of tunnels and turbines before being collected, separated, compressed, filtered, purified, deodorized and ejected at a trash station.

Expo insider: The entire process was managed electronically by a central computer system.

Greener Buildings

Shanghai's corporate pavilion, the Dream Cube, changes color based on its visitors' activities. The entire 4,949 square meter building is made from used CD cases. Its interior is heated and cooled with water, much of it stored and filtered rainwater.

Switzerland's pavilion has an outer curtain made from degradable soybeans and dye-sensitized solar cells, which are capable of generating electricity. If buried, the outer curtain would degrade in under 2 weeks.

The Expo Centre, one of the few permanent structures from the Shanghai Expo, is a leader in water conservation. Greenbelts and permeable pavement on roads and in parking lots allow rainwater to seep through and filter into the ground for replenishment, as opposed to evaporating.

Imagining the Future

World Fairs are as much about technological debuts and cultural learning as they are about dreaming of a cleaner, brighter, better future. Some things we can look forward to in future global conferences, imagined by the innovative dreamers at Shanghai's Expo:

• A single global currency
• Seasteads (like homesteads) built in the ocean
• A city orbiting Earth
• Homes that build themselves
• Triangular buildings that can be terraced for farming

These ideas may seem fantastical... but it wasn't so long ago that a car needed a driver to get from Italy to China. How much will inventors and innovators create before next year's Expo in Xian, China?

The Future is Here was written and produced by Global Sources. Global Sources is a B2B online resource for a vast array of manufacturers, including furniture manufacturers, pharmaceutical manufacturers, car manufacturers, wind turbine manufacturers, and clothing manufacturers.