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TR Picks 10 Emerging Technologies of 08

Posted by kdawson on from the what-will-be dept.

arktemplar suggests Technology Review for their annual list of 10 emerging technologies that the editors believe will be particularly important over the next few years. Quoting: "This is work ready to emerge from the lab, in a broad range of areas: energy, computer hardware and software, biological imaging, social interactions. Two of the technologies — cellulolytic enzymes and atomic magnetometers — are efforts by leading scientists to solve critical problems, while five — surprise modeling, connectomics, probabilistic CMOS, reality mining, and offline Web applications — represent whole new ways of looking at problems. And three — graphene transistors, nanoradio, and wireless power — are amazing feats of engineering that have created something entirely new."

2 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How good were their 2001 picks? by glittalogik · · Score: 3, Informative

    On the other hand, they did pick up on nanosolar research in 2004, which is coming into its own now.

  2. OK, let's see what we have here by Animats · · Score: 5, Informative
    1. Modeling Surprise May shake up the derivatives industry, but probably won't be of general interest.
    2. Probabilistic chips This idea goes back to the 1970s, and it comes around every time the semiconductor industry has a yield problem. But so far, the fab people have solved their yield problem before this became necessary, except for memory. Huge architectural headache for limited gain.
    3. NanoRadio Too early to say.
    4. Wireless power Cordless recharging, really. Good idea, but there are at least four competing schemes, and if they don't get their act together and settle on a standard, none of them will go anywhere.
    5. Atomic magnetometers Magnetic sensors that can be built in arrays with wafer fab technology. Very useful.
    6. Offline web applications 1997 called; it wants its Java applets back.
    7. Graphene transistors Maybe. But so far, every alternative to silicon has been worse.
    8. Connectonomics Reverse engineer the nervous system. Eventually, someone will do that. But not too soon.
    9. Reality mining Another Big Brother idea motivated by ad revenue.
    10. Cellulolytic Enzymes This is the big one: cellulose to fuel, cheaply. Several groups are getting close to making it work. If this works, we have a permanent answer to the end of oil.