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Once again MIT's Technology
Review has identified 10 emerging areas of technology that will have
a profound impact on how we conduct our business and live our lives.
Two years ago, Technology
Review, MIT's magazine of innovation, listed 10
emerging areas of technology that will soon have a profound impact
on the economy and how we live and work. In their February, 2003,
issue they have identified 10 more, as well as highlighting leading researchers
and projects in each area.
An insightful prelude to these 10 technologies by
Nicholas Negroponte, founder of MIT's
famed Media Lab, discusses the culture that lies behind the creation
of new technologies.
Once again, let the drum roll, please! The ten
emerging technologies that will change the world are:
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Brain-Wireless Sensor Networks -
Small (AA battery sized) devices called motes combine a processor,
memory, and sensors to monitor their local environment, and have just
enough radio power to transmit snippets of data to nearby motes to
pass along to other motes, thereby creating a self-organizing network.
Applications include traffic, buildings, and ecosystems. |
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Injectable Tissue Engineering -
Joints, such as hips or knees, are injected with mixtures of polymers,
cells, and growth stimulants that solidify and form healthy bone and
cartilage. Injectable systems are less invasive and less costly
than surgical replacements. |
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Nano Solar Cells - Tiny nanorod
semiconducting crystals are added to electrically conductive polymers
to create very thin sheets (200 nanometers thick), which are then
sandwiched between electrodes to carry away electricity generated
when struck by sunlight. |
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Mechatronics - Mechanical
systems are combined with electronic components and software which
can identify and correct flaws in real time to ensure the overall
system functions as intended. Though already found in aircraft
and photocopiers, the falling prices of both microprocessors and sensors
make them ready for prime time in the automotive world. |
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Grid computing -
The Internet links computers. Hypertext links documents.
Grid protocols link everything else - databases, simulation tools,
and underutilized computing power. Computer grids function analogously
to the electric grid. Widely dispersed on-line resources become
available to focus on the problem at hand. |
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Molecular Imaging -
Multiple imaging techniques - magnetic, nuclear, and optical - are
combined with computer analysis to observe molecular interactions
underlying biological processes. Molecular signals may indicate
cancer growth, for example, long before the cancers are detectable
by conventional means. |
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Nanoimprint Lithography -
Like a printing press, a hard mold is stamped into a material momentarily
softened by a laser flash, creating reproducible features smaller
than 10 nanometers across in less than a microsecond. The commercial
challenge is to etch nanopatterns into silicon for microchips. |
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Software Assurance -
Software bugs and computer crashes are a pervasive fact of life.
New tools are being developed which model and test a software design
before the programmers write the code, in much the same way
a bridge design is tested before the bridge is built. Another
analogy is the quality movement in industry during the 1970s and 1980s,
which replaced sampling and testing all products and rejecting those
not meeting specifications with building quality into the product
at every step of design and manufacture. |
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Glycomics - Glycomics
is the effort to understand and harness sugars that are naturally
made by the human body, in order to improve health by bolstering the
immune system or by arresting disease processes. Sounds easy,
but there is, as of yet, no code that determines the structure of
the sugars. |
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Quantum Cryptography -
Commonly used encryption of messages is based on fixed "public keys,"
whose codes have not been broken yet, but they will be someday.
Quantum encryption creates a unique "key" for each message, and any
attempt to intercept the message irrevocably alters the signal, making
the message unreadable to anyone. |
Comparing the above with MIT's
2001 list, there has been a wholesale shift from computing algorithms
to a fascination with the small. Nanotechnology is rearing
its head and claiming center stage, in the same way that biotechnology
did a decade ago. The biggest barrier to nanotech's promise
is developing manufacturing techniques on a microscopic scale never mastered
before.
Not every one of these technologies will affect your
company, nor will all of them live up to their promise, but you might
just want to discuss them with your colleagues to determine which ones
should be on your radar screen.
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