10 Emerging Technologies That Will Change the World

[Grasshopper27]

Linky

Technology Review identifies the developments that will dramatically affect the way we live and work?and profiles the leading innovators behind them.

1. Wireless Sensor Networks
2. Injectable Tissue Engineering
3. Nano Solar Cells
4. Mechatronics
5. Grid Computing
6. Molecular Imaging
7. Nanoimprint Lithography
8. Software Assurance
9. Glycomics
10. Quantum Cryptography

Among them are injectable tissue engineering, which would substitute for joint-replacement surgery; polymer solar cells that could be spread like paint, thereby lessening our reliance on fossil fuels; a sugar that shuts down disease processes; and completely bug-free software (hard to believe, we know).

 

[LongCoolMother]

ill just pretend i know what half of those are.

 

[ATLien247]

Software Assurance... like in MS Licensing?

 

[SoylentGreen]

Losing my job soon it seems, so should I get up to speed on one of these? Or is it your opinion that these are vaporware?

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
ill just pretend i know what half of those are.

How many people 50 years ago would have known what DNA was, or what computers were, etc?

This stuff is a ways off, but when it comes, it will change how we live and work from the ground up. Our children will live in a very different world than we do today, probably even more of a jump than we had from our parent's world.

EDIT: These are not vaporware, they are just way, way out there. Think about what was being worked on after WWII, how that all changed the world, but in the 1950's no one paid any attention. Our children will look back to the early 21st Century and shake their heads much the same way we look back at our parents and do the same.

The technological revolution is still well underway and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.

Grasshopper

 

[Torghn]

And when are they supposed to emerge? I could see some of them being around in the next few years. However some of them seem a very long way away. (Bug free software?)

 

[LongCoolMother]

do you think science will ever come to an end. it seems like scienece gets ever more complicated, smaller, more complex. but science imo is not expanding, its us who are discovering. so there has to be a limit right? do you think we will ever come to the end of science when there is no more to discover and learn? thatd be freaky :Q

 

[LoverBoyJ]

Originally posted by: ATLien247
Software Assurance... like in MS Licensing?

ROTFL!!

 

[Grasshopper27]

Originally posted by: Torghn
And when are they supposed to emerge? I could see some of them being around in the next few years. However some of them seem a very long way away. (Bug free software?)

The next generation or two. 20 to 40 years for most of them. Revolutions do not generally happen overnight, but they can come really darn quick. Ten years ago the World Wide Web was invented. Look where it stands today. How many of you have cell phones, pagers, PDAs, e-mail accounts, DVD players, etc. Almost none of that existed in a very useful or affordable form 10 years ago, today just about everyone can have these things. What will we have 10 years from now? I guarentee it won't just be a fancier cell phone, that's for sure.

Grasshopper

 

[Beau]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
do you think science will ever come to an end. it seems like scienece gets ever more complicated, smaller, more complex. but science imo is not expanding, its us who are discovering. so there has to be a limit right? do you think we will ever come to the end of science when there is no more to discover and learn? thatd be freaky :Q

No.

The human sense of curiousity is as infinite as the universe, as is the amount of knowledge to be found. As long as there is an unknown, there will be a science to explore it.

 

[Darein]

I bet the government is going to hate number 10. Poor NSA people will be working overtime.

 

[Torghn]

Originally posted by: LongCoolMother
do you think science will ever come to an end. it seems like scienece gets ever more complicated, smaller, more complex. but science imo is not expanding, its us who are discovering. so there has to be a limit right? do you think we will ever come to the end of science when there is no more to discover and learn? thatd be freaky :Q

Nope, there is ALWAYS more to learn and discover. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. Though confusing a very true statement.

 

[Bignate603]

Originally posted by: Kiyup
Losing my job soon it seems, so should I get up to speed on one of these? Or is it your opinion that these are vaporware?

Technology review tends to know what it's talking about. However, they're talking about long shots. Some of these will probably hit it big, some maybe not. Even if they do go big it will probably be like 20 years till it does.