Hello and welcome to this week’s Espresso of Innovation; the hottest news and strongest stories from the world of creativity and technology filtered into a quick shot of inspiration. This week it’s the end of the world.
With it being Halloween we thought it would be a good opportunity to give you some handy, new age tips on how to survive a zombie apocalypse, should the event occur. We do know one thing from watching The Walking Dead: there are always rules to survival so here are some of our top 50.
Number 1 – Don’t Engage
We all know the situation, you see someone or something from afar and you can’t tell if you should be running to it to help or from it in terror. That’s where cyborg insects can help. Researchers at North Carolina State University propose using live insects like cockroaches controlled by a tiny electronics pack to map the inside of difficult-to-reach locations. Or you could just use the technology to control your own army of zombies, Umbrella Corporation style.
Number 7 – Look After Your I.T.
Let’s face it, if zombies take over we’ll need all the tech we can get our hands on. Even just communicating is going to be important, not to mention storing important medical files and the like. Luckily after Hurricane Sandy we learnt a few things about how to look after our I.T. infrastructure in an emergency.
Number 12 – Be In-The-Know
You want to be the person who knows where the zombies are at all times, not the one who looks shocked when surrounded. To help I would recommend getting yourself a Mobile Operational System for Emergency Services (or MOSES for short). It is an 8-inch tablet developed in the Philippines that provides a number of weather variables as well as hazard maps, images of evacuation sites, and blocked and open roads.
Number 27 – Get Some Power
If you’re injured, you don’t want to be up against the zombie hordes unless you have the Titan Arm. Exoskeletons that augment our strength have been around for a while but the team behind the Titan Arm have done it at a fraction of the cost. This will allow manual labourers to avoid injury or stroke victims to gain the use of their limbs again. Incorporating 3D printing to reduce the cost further, we can see this being a handy tool for anyone very soon.
Number 35 – Find a Friend
It can be a bit lonely in an apocalypse with all your friends either dead or trying to eat you. Luckily RoboKind is on hand to help with their Zeno R25 artificial intelligence robot. This Kickstarter project robot is able to mimic human emotions and interact with us in an intuitive way. As robots become a greater part of our lives this emotional interaction will become more important. So this little pal will be one you’ll want to keep around for company, and you don’t even have to share your last Twinkie.
Number 50 – Plan Your Escape Route
We have the Nike Fuel band, the Jawbone Up and the Basis band, but none of these fitness hacks would really cut it in a battle against the undead. Step up Garmin and its Tactical GPS watch. Developed for special ops or weekend warriors it allows you to plan routes, view your location in latitude/longitude and MGRS (military grid reference system), record up to 1,000 waypoints, “TracBack” to your starting point as well as syncing with fellow Garmin users and monitoring systems. And it works at sea. The zombies won’t stand a chance against modern wearable tech.
We might not have given you all of our top 50 tips, but if an outbreak does happen we want the upper hand. As the saying goes, “We don’t have to outrun a zombie, we just have to outrun you!” Best of luck for Halloween…
