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TR Picks 10 Emerging Technologies of 08
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."
Nikola Tesla would like to have a word with you about "new" wireless power.
I'm liking where this could take encrypted trunking systems.
Anonymous Coward
Brain-Machine Interface | Flexible Transitors | Data Mining | Digital Rights Management | Biometrics | Natural Language Processing | Microphotonics | Untangling Code | Robot Design | Microfluidics
DRM hasn't really changed my life other than add one more annoyance.
"Data Mining" sounds basically like "Reality Mining" in the new list.
I'm sure there has been great strides in "Robot Design" that help in manufacturing, but what about the others?
I don't think these technologies have changed my life at all seven years after they were predicted, or have they?
*iza
Careful What You Wish For....
The summary reads like someone made a side trip through the jargometer.
Surprise modeling?
Connectomics?
Reality mining?
Nanoradio?
You gotta be freakin' kidding me.
--sugarman--
I can't believe that this beat out CIGS. 10-13% efficient in mass production (2/3rds that of silicon cells), but only $0.50-$1.50/W (cheaper than coal power even in Alaska), with almost no solar degradation or even radiation degradation (a big deal for satellites). And very lightweight at the same time. There are about two dozen companies working on different mass production methods, so them making it to market is pretty much a certainty. Nanosolar is already selling to Germany for $0.90/W, and reportedly makes its cells for $0.30/W. How could this not be a top 10 emerging tech?
A few others, among many:
* Long-lifespan, passively safe lithium-ion batteries hitting the market
* Vastly more energy dense energy storage techs in the lab
* The resurgence of the electric car (for example, the $27k highway-speed Aptera).
* Rocket launch costs for less than half what even the Russians, Chinese, and Indians are selling via SpaceX
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
This is the coolest thing on the list: *Cellulolytic Enzymes*
This "technology" basically involves feeding bacteria or protozoa on plant materials (AKA "Biomass") which are primarily composed of cellulose (which is really just chains of varying lengths of beta-glycosidic bonded glucose sugar molecules).
(NOTE: We call the Alpha-glycosidic bonded glucose sugar molecules STARCH, and we can eat those, but NOT the Beta-bonded variety.)
The 'Cellulolytic' Enzymes are from genetically-engineered Bacterium or Protozoans which are utilized to cleave the glycosidic linkage in the Cellulose and are additionally modified and/or chemically engineered into Butanol, Ethanol, Methanol, and other biofuel 'alcohols'.
Think of the process like a big container full of termite guts that basically partially digest (break the beta-glycosidic bonds of) the cellulose from your yard waste, grass trimmings, leaves, logs, switchgrass, tree bark, recycled paper, etc.. into their base glucose sugars which can then be easily modified into alcohols by the same (or different) single-celled critters.
This process will truly reveal the hyped artificial market (largely tax-subsidy supported) of the Corn Ethanol "market". POOF! it will go away and foodstuffs will be affordable again (and the price of beer will drop from farmers planing more cereals again!). Jimmy Carter did this with the Peanut in the 1970's... Take away the artificial market, Poof! Farmers plant what is in actual demand, not what is only profitable due to tax subsidies. (And yes, there is a $0.50 per gallon tax subsidy for ethanol production.) Cellulolytic Enzyme tech can produce alcohols without the need for those subsidies. (oh, but you can bet they will still be there... that is, unless the ADM, et al "Corn Lobby" does not set a caveat in the law subsidizing only ethanol produced from corn (you call it maize)! ) -Sort of reminds me of Zymergy (AKA Zymurgy)... but then again, that is the (yeast) anaerobic fermentation of sugars/starches, a similar yet very different process.
I do not see Duke Nukem Forever on that list anywhere
Have a squat over at the hobo house.
Dude!
You forgot flying car(Henry Ford said it would happen!), personal pneumatic transportation, cure for baldness, miniskirt, and communication with animals.
Quote: "The ambitious plan faces a significant hurdle, however: no one has yet demonstrated a cost-competitive industrial process for making cellulosic biofuels."
False.
This is an example of a specialist like Arnold having her head buried in her own specialty, and ignoring what is going on in other specialties around her.
The new "thermal reactor" method of making biodiesel is already under way commercially, and can (and does) make biodiesel cost-competitively from nearly anything organic, including cellulosic materials. The difference is that this process bypasses ethanol entirely, and produces oil instead.
The corporation behind the first large thermal biodiesel plant has claimed that they could create more NET USABLE energy (i.e., production minus cost) via oil from waste cornstalks than could ever be produced via ethanol from the kernels. And probably cheaper... they are economically viable now while ethanol is still shaky even with subsidies.
This is not to say that advances made by people like Arnold are not valuable! Of course they are. But they do need to poke their head out of their offices once in a while to find out what else is going on in the world.
Graphene: the 2D hexagonal carbon lattice made in every pencil scratching... boring, right? It seems everyone, myself included, in Condensed Matter (Solid State) Physics is working on this one. It's like high-Tc superconductivity, very promising. Unlike that field, however, it's open to much more reliable experiments and slightly simpler theory. The upload rate on arxiv is over 1 paper/day on this material*.
...) semiconductors are gapped, meaning there is some energy associated with the valence and conduction bands and there is an energy gap between them. Experimentally we can control certain parameters (doping, primarily) to change electron/hole occupation of the bands and thus make things like p/n junctions, transistors and so on. With graphene, there's no gap. On one hand, this means ballistic transport is approximately possible. Graphene has a ridiculously high mobility (ludicrous speed even). However, we need to come up with tricks to make it into traditional electronics. Ribbons are one approach. The edges break rotational symmetry and give rise to edge states, which can be manipulated to create a gap. Some other types of topological defects can do it too. There are probably over 1000 papers on the subject and in some sense the field is less than 5 years old. I'm glad to see the recognition this is getting and hopefully we'll be a part of some new groundbreaking tech.
The key to graphene (from a theoretical standpoint) is that its band structure is gapless and electrons (ok, quasi-electrons) are massless, moving at ~10^6 m/s! Normal (Si-based, GaAs,
*I'm currently working on a pretty interesting theory which may or may not solve the switching issue mentioned in the article; alas, the proof is too small to fit in the margins of this post!