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Top Ten Advances in 2004
An anonymous reader writes "Technology Research News has released it's top
ten picks for advances of 2004. Something for everyone here including notable advances in biotechnology, communications, computing, engineering, energy, security, nanotechnology, applied physics and the Internet."
One is a toy, the other has serious implications for all of society.
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Space Ship One did is 50 years out of date. Nothing new just a shift from public to private sector. Plus its a rip off of a luftwaffe design.
There's a difference between a thing that hasn't been done before (ie, sending an encryption key via quantum entanglement), and something that's been done before but was then done by private enterprise.
That is, Space Flight, while new to the private sector, is not new in general.
libertarianswag.com
The really big advances can't be put into a list spanning a year. Propably the biggest acheivement is the mapping of the Genome, which took years and is still being added to and made more complete. Not to mention the foundation of scientific advances that the project built itself on. I am sure there are a few "Eureka!" moments in science, but really this can't be looked at with an "MTV" short attention span perspective. It makes an end of year list but that is realy all that it is.
"We will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. " Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
There are real ethical issues that don't get discussed in the popular press; these are just in the biotech field:
Placebos in clinical trials
Genetic mapping and privacy
Patents on gene sequences/organisms
Cloning
The genie does not go back in the bottle. Let's get it right the first time.
I consider a possible future cure for cancer through biotechnology pretty revolutionary....alot more than a flying car.
I'd put in for China's plan to expand their energy generation. It would be awesome to see Pebble Bed reactors get some decent coverage mainstream to their stability and safety. If china leads here, I can only hope we play follow the leader. Rolling blackouts, caused by deadly waves of stupid, are just embarrassing. wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_bed_reactor
I'm probably the only person who thinks this is a really good list. They focused on new technologies being developed in Universities and not what we have already done. The Mars rover isn't anything new. We have had the technology to do it for years. All of these advances will not be seen for years to come.
Sure, SpaceShipOne accomplished what was accomplished in the 60's but to do it at the fraction of the cost from private funding and support, if you ask me, that should be considered a technology breakthrough of 2004.
That's probably what people thought before the Industrial Revolution. And where's that olde patent-office quote about us running out of inventions (or something) when you need it :)
If you want to look forward to something, there's nanotechnology and genetics for now. The advances there will most definitely be revolutionary, just not the way people imagined.
I don't think that people appreciate how fast the world is changing. The thing is that we are just so damn good at adapting these days that we tend to notice how quickly things change. I recall just five years ago cellphones were still relativly rare and most people didn't own one. Today, almost everyone I know owns one - and that is just a minor technology in the grand scheme of things.
If you want to talk about big worlder altering changes, then look at e-mail, the internet, and the PC. Those technologies have certainly dipped into the household. More then that, they have revolutionized all industries. As an engineer, I can't even contemplate what engineers did before spreadsheets, PCs, and e-mail. The massive boom in the 90's was a very direct result of the incredible technological advances we made and their dramatic effect upon industry.
I think that if you were to go back in time just 15 year you would notice a big change beween now and then. True, cars don't fly, but they do talk to you, store an almsot unlimited library of music, and if one crashes, inflate half of a dozen airbags. Things are changing, we just don't appreciate how much.