Remote access ... for lab equipment?
Labshare Australia wants to create a shared network of remote laboratories. Yep, with costs going up - and science and hospitals are two of very few industries where competition drives costs up, because if Lab X has a new machine, Lab Y may need one to be competitive - while there is current laboratory utilization at less than 10% (they say - things are quiet in Australia?), a group of technology initiatives have joined together to lower some maintenance costs while improving access among students and researchers in labs that have less funding.
They estimate the annual costs for labs in Australia at over $400,000,000 and say there is potential to reduce this by up to 50%, though potential is a funny word when it comes to unknown participation and usage.
That's all fine, everyone wants to save money, but the fun part of this in Science 2.0 is the ability to do actual experiments remotely. This is not a virtual lab, where you have software simulation of an experiment, this is an experiment controlled remotely using sensors, actuators and cameras - no one needs to be there, which makes for a lot more flexibility. And no one can accidentally trip and break something important.
It sounds interesting but how will it work? Hard to say. Even they don't know. They have created a framework to make it possible, and it looks like it will have the most value in something like engineering, but it's an interesting idea.
