Owner of the coolest toys ever, Tony Stark

This past weekend I got to sit down and watch Iron Man. Overall I thought the movie was pretty good if a bit light on the action side. Oddly I found my self attract more to the technology that surrounds Stark's everyday life than I was drawn to the Iron Man suit. Which isn't to say the suit is in anyway shabby, it's the most stylish and slick piece of equipment you could expect in the field of robotics enhanced powered armor. However there are other suits in the sci-fi fiction realm that I happen to like much more aesthetically (the Juggernaut armor from star wars fiction comes to mind: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Juggernaut_510_Combat_Power_Armor). However this post isn't about powered armor, it's about the cool toys that Stark used to build said power armor.

Anyone who has seen the movie and was paying any sort of attention will notice that Stark's house and life had a million and one different items of different intriguing qualities.

Most notable among the stock being the fact that his house talked to him. Sadly this is still a long way off, especially for one that makes coy remarks about trying to use a suit of body armor to make interplanetary flights. However some of the technologies do exist in the smart homes of today (just not quite a cool looking as his stuff was).

The site Smarthome.com offers a number of powerful devices for creating a more tied together home life. Offering more fantastic devices like electronic keypad locks for the front door to directly practical devices like water sensing shut offs for use on hot water heaters, washing machines and other water based devices. Their keypads aren't as stylish as Starks all glass doors with the biometric knob and holographic keypads but they get the job done and aren't trying to secure a door easily bypassed with a sufficiently large rock (or in Tony's case, a repulsion cannon). Smart home also provides equipment to do everything from remotely controlling all the electronics in your home and network enabling your electrical outlets and wall switches (who needs a clapper when you can have a computer programmed light show throughout the day?) to integrated security solutions complete with status web server systems.

Something I've been waiting to see in the main stream building world but haven't are the self dimming windows. These windows eliminate the need to even worry about a set of blinds (for light control at least) by being able to select their opacity dynamically and on demand. The NREL has a nice article on the topic for any who are curious.

A few somewhat passed over items in the movie jumped out at me as well 'pretty damn cool' I think captures it well. One that we haven't reached just yet but we've started scratching the surface of was his holographic display for designing new projects. While nothing on this physical scale or technical level exists yet people have started construction 360 degree viewable holographic devices. ICT Graphics lab has created a standing 3D image that can display both animation and colored items. ICT's 3D image isn't quite as interactive as Starks but it's certainly a leap in the right direction (not to mention just being pretty damn cool). Unfortunately ICT's display doesn't meet the requirements of a consumer public at this point, but a do it yourselfer with enough determination could probably construct something like this; assuming they possess infinite patience and determination.

Any cool techs I forgot from the movie? Let me know and I'll see what I can do to add them.

This evenings red pill / blue pill brought to you by my buddy Henry for pointing out that I totally forgot to do a red/blue for this post.

The Red Pill:

Push comes to shove, all of Tony Starks equipment was green screened, green objects and clever Cg. That doesn't mean some of these technologies aren't on the horizon (in some cases the immediate horizon), and that all adds up to the next few years being pretty exciting in this area. For instance the same technology that puts a dynamic display between the layers of your window could be utilized in the near range for things like car windows. In the far range there's already a Darpa project to implant a similar technology into a contact lens. So keep an eye out over the next few years and you may get to play in Tony Starks play pen.

The Blue Pill:

Starks technology presents as many dangers as it does possibilities, the idea of a man wrapped in enough armor to take on an army is a fairly menacing prospect. The AI presented in the movie could be turned to variety of nefarious acts as well. Most notable among them being the possibility of utilizing such technology to run an army of drones willing to take and implement any order you give them (what is the cost of war when you risk nothing?). So from this standpoint we could be presenting a new level of horror at a scale the world has never seen. The good news being an AI of this grade most almost definitely require a compact quantum computer; and since nobody can even make a really really huge one work we can rule out expecting anything like that any time soon.