Ten Technologies That Will Shape the Future Future Technology
Posted On Real Clear Technology April 22, 2013
The famed physicist Freeman Dyson once remarked that technology is "perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences."
Whatever your views on technology's divine origin, it's unquestionable that Dyson's technological reverence
is well deserved. Today we see the fruits of technology in the computers we slip into our pockets, the cars we drive, the wars we fight, the medicine we consume and the work we do (or no longer do).
Technology invariably shapes and directs our future. To be aware of technology trends is to peek, however obliquely, at the future of human civilization. We've identified ten technologies that we believe will have a profound impact on our future. Some are already shaping society today. Others are poised to.
Given the pace of innovation in today's world, it's a given that unheard of technologies of equal or potentially greater significance than those canvassed here lie just around the corner. But for now, these are ten to watch.
Biometric ID
As more of our life migrates online and onto digital devices we carry with us everywhere, digital security has become an increasingly pressing concern. Unfortunately, the first line of digital defense -- the password -- has proven woefully inadequate. Many of us create passwords that are too obvious (the most popular password is "password") and reuse the same password across multiple accounts, leaving more of our digital life vulnerable.
That's where biometric identification comes in. Rather than a guessable series of numbers and letters, you can secure your files, bank accounts and personal electronics using your own biology as the password. From retina scans to finger-print readers, biometric identification technology is steadily advancing. Rumors suggest the next iPhone could offer a finger print scanner.
But the promise of biometric identification ranges far beyond simply creating nearly air-tight security for our personal lives -- it could be a vital law enforcement tool. From identifying people by their smell, voice or face, law enforcement agencies around the world are pouring billions into tools that can analyze large numbers of people by unique biological identifiers. It could, in theory, cut down on the number of wrongful arrests. In the wrong hands, it could also represent a potent violation of privacy.
Driverless Cars
Any sci-fan worth his or her salt has dreamed of a flying car. While you shouldn't hold your breath for one anytime soon, you can look forward to the advance of the driverless car. Just as pilotless drones have revolutionized warfare -- taking pilots out of danger -- cars that can operate completely independently made significant strides in 2012, led by Google's driverless models.
Three states have approved "licenses" for driverless car testing in 2012 and more car companies (like Volkswagon) are working on the technology. Google has already demonstrated the technology in a remarkable experiment -- placing a blind man behind the wheel while the car took him on errands, including a stop through a drive-through. The company expects to see such vehicles available to the public in five years. Before then, including in 2013, we'll see larger steps toward "autonomous driving" - such as improved sensors in cars for parking and avoiding collisions, plus a greater ability to "auto drive" while on the highway.
The longer term promise of driverless cars -- like 3D printers -- is profound and in some non-obvious ways.
The most obvious is, of course, you'll no longer have to drive -- which means lethal past times such as drunk or distracted driving will literally disappear, saving tens of thousands of lives. Our roads will be safer. You won't have to worry about finding a parking spot, either. Simply get out of the car and let it drive until it finds one and then send it a text when you're ready to leave a venue for the pick up.
But there's something else that will follow with driverless cars: artificial intelligence. As N.Y.U professor Gary Marcus has pointed out, cars will need to make split second, life-or-death decisions ("do I risk the driver's life by swerving away from this school bus full of children?") to function properly. Grappling with these issues will not only advance the driverless car but artificial intelligence more generally, with equally significant impacts on our society.
Carbon Nanotubes
What do invisibility cloaks, synthetic brains and space elevators have in common? They're all made possible (at least, theoretically) by carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes are amazingly small structures (one-billionth of a meter) that are nonetheless immensely strong -- almost one hundred times stronger than steel. They are in use today in many carbon fiber-based products (think golf clubs and wind turbines), but their potential use is far more impressive if researchers can succeed in better manipulating them. They could be used to make ever-smaller computer circuits, concrete which resists cracking, artificial muscles, more efficient solar cells and desalination processes. They are one of the few materials thought capable of being strong enough to create a space elevator -- which could ferry cargo between the Earth and low-Earth orbit at a fraction of the cost of rocket launches.
Lasers
Lasers are by no means a new technology (in fact, they're over 50 years old), but they are increasingly fulfilling the role they were meant to play: blowing stuff up.
Last month, the U.S. Navy demonstrated a laser capable of downing a drone aircraft (not terribly impressive, but still, it exploded...) The U.S. Marine Corps is soliciting the defense industry for a laser defense system that can be mounted to a vehicle to destroy incoming artillery. It's a defensive system that never runs out of ammunition.
Lasers are also seen as a cost-effective means to defend against missile attacks. Aside from Earth-bound foes, sun-powered lasers could also be put to work blasting incoming asteroids. And for the less martially inclined, they can also be used to prepare food or to create (potentially) a massive new energy source.
Robots
Robots have been garnering attention of late not because of any particular technological breakthrough per-se but because it's become increasingly obvious that robots are rapidly seeping into every corner of our life.
From factory to floor to corner pharmacy, there's now pervasive worry that robots will steal our jobs (to say nothing about rising up, Matrix-style, to enslave their human creators).
In Japan, robots are already working as care-givers for the elderly. They've been found to help develop
social skills in children with disabilities. Naturally, there's budding interest in robots for more adult-related activities as well.
3D Printing
Few technologies have arrived with such hype as 3D printing. President Obama hailed it as ushering in a renaissance of U.S. manufacturing. The potential of 3D printing is, if its boosters are to be believed, nothing short of revolutionary. Car and plane parts have already been printed and researchers believe it's quite possible to "print" houses and other huge structures with designs that would be impossible to execute using traditional concrete molds. As prices fall on consumer models, you can print toys, household items, even functional guns, from the comfort of your home.
It's not solely for inanimate objects, either. Blood vessels have been created with the technology and many think it can be used to create organs and limbs for those in need. It could be -- eventually -- like the "replicator" of Star Trek fame: tell the computer what you want and, presto, it appears before your eyes.
Mind Controlled Limbs
Researchers made stunning gains in 2012 when a paralyzed woman made a prosthetic limb move with her only her thoughts. The promise of seamlessly fusing artificial limbs to the human body took a major step forward.
As described by Nature, a paralyzed man and woman each had chips implanted into their brain to measure their neurons as they observed technicians moving a robotic arm. A computer recorded the pattern of their thinking as they imagined moving the robotic arm and after they had trained the computer, they took control of the arm and moved it using their own thoughts.
The implications of such a 'neural interface system' are clear: once devastating injuries could be surmounted through a combination of embedded computer chips and robot prosthesis.
Personalized Medicine
Buried within our genes is vital information about our propensity for illness. Armed with this knowledge, we could head off potential maladies before they strike. We could, if society agrees and technology permits, engineer them out of the gene pool altogether. Such is the promise of personalized medicine.
As biotech CEO Narges Asadi explained, "we are moving from the inefficient and experimental medicine of today towards the data-driven medicine of tomorrow. Soon, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and most importantly, prevention will be tailored to individuals' genetic and phenotypic information."
Consider the progress to date: The Human Genome Project took 13 years and $3 billion to map a single
human genome beginning in 1990. Today, the process costs less than $10,000 and can be accomplished in two days. This information contains vital medical c lues that can be used in cancer diangnostics and newborn screening. Researchers still need to connect the dots between specific genes and disease types, but most remain hopeful that we could one day see a world with fewer tragic illnesses.
Quantum Computers
Even casual computers users know of Moore's Law: the rule that computer power doubles every 18 months. This doubling has certainly delivered its fair share of innovation, but it pales in comparison to the power inherent in quantum computing. Rather than use traditional, binary code (the 1s and 0s we're all familiar with), quantum computers can represent data in multipe quantum bits (or 'qubits'). This allows a quantum computer to churn through millions of computations at once, not just a single computation at a time.
As best-selling science author Briane Greene wrote, "researchers have estimated that a quantum computer no bigger than a laptop has the potential to perform the equivalent of all human thought since the dawn of our species in a tiny fraction of a second." Armed with a quantum computers, researchers may be able to create new nano-materials for medicines or create even more secure communications using quantum cryptography. Complex computer modeling -- such as those used to model the Earth's climate or the spread of virulent diseases -- would become vastly more powerful, helping us better predict and thus better manage our future.
Fusion
Cold fusion has been an elusive goal of energy researchers around the world. Though impossible today, the promise is so tantalizing it continues to draw interest. LENR (for low-energy nuclear reaction) a close cousin of cold fusion also promises to deliver essentially limitless, clean, safe energy. With such power at humanity's disposal, it will deliver a cleaner earth (no coal soot, no fission reactor meltdowns, air conditioning for all).
It would also, conceivably, open the door to grander vistas. NASA estimates that a fusion-based rocket engine could travel to Mars in a mere 30 days, compared to the four years it takes with conventional
technology.
For now, though, LENR energy is out of reach. It takes more energy to begin the reaction than the current reaction produces in kind. Still, researchers are also pursuing conventional (or hot) fusion, which promises to harvest energy from readily available deuterium with barely any radioactive waste.
http://www.realcleartechnology.com/lists/technologies_that_will_shape_the_future/
Posted On Real Clear Technology April 22, 2013
The famed physicist Freeman Dyson once remarked that technology is "perhaps the greatest of God's gifts. It is the mother of civilizations, of arts and of sciences."
Whatever your views on technology's divine origin, it's unquestionable that Dyson's technological reverence
is well deserved. Today we see the fruits of technology in the computers we slip into our pockets, the cars we drive, the wars we fight, the medicine we consume and the work we do (or no longer do).
Technology invariably shapes and directs our future. To be aware of technology trends is to peek, however obliquely, at the future of human civilization. We've identified ten technologies that we believe will have a profound impact on our future. Some are already shaping society today. Others are poised to.
Given the pace of innovation in today's world, it's a given that unheard of technologies of equal or potentially greater significance than those canvassed here lie just around the corner. But for now, these are ten to watch.
Biometric ID
As more of our life migrates online and onto digital devices we carry with us everywhere, digital security has become an increasingly pressing concern. Unfortunately, the first line of digital defense -- the password -- has proven woefully inadequate. Many of us create passwords that are too obvious (the most popular password is "password") and reuse the same password across multiple accounts, leaving more of our digital life vulnerable.
That's where biometric identification comes in. Rather than a guessable series of numbers and letters, you can secure your files, bank accounts and personal electronics using your own biology as the password. From retina scans to finger-print readers, biometric identification technology is steadily advancing. Rumors suggest the next iPhone could offer a finger print scanner.
But the promise of biometric identification ranges far beyond simply creating nearly air-tight security for our personal lives -- it could be a vital law enforcement tool. From identifying people by their smell, voice or face, law enforcement agencies around the world are pouring billions into tools that can analyze large numbers of people by unique biological identifiers. It could, in theory, cut down on the number of wrongful arrests. In the wrong hands, it could also represent a potent violation of privacy.
Driverless Cars
Any sci-fan worth his or her salt has dreamed of a flying car. While you shouldn't hold your breath for one anytime soon, you can look forward to the advance of the driverless car. Just as pilotless drones have revolutionized warfare -- taking pilots out of danger -- cars that can operate completely independently made significant strides in 2012, led by Google's driverless models.
Three states have approved "licenses" for driverless car testing in 2012 and more car companies (like Volkswagon) are working on the technology. Google has already demonstrated the technology in a remarkable experiment -- placing a blind man behind the wheel while the car took him on errands, including a stop through a drive-through. The company expects to see such vehicles available to the public in five years. Before then, including in 2013, we'll see larger steps toward "autonomous driving" - such as improved sensors in cars for parking and avoiding collisions, plus a greater ability to "auto drive" while on the highway.
The longer term promise of driverless cars -- like 3D printers -- is profound and in some non-obvious ways.
The most obvious is, of course, you'll no longer have to drive -- which means lethal past times such as drunk or distracted driving will literally disappear, saving tens of thousands of lives. Our roads will be safer. You won't have to worry about finding a parking spot, either. Simply get out of the car and let it drive until it finds one and then send it a text when you're ready to leave a venue for the pick up.
But there's something else that will follow with driverless cars: artificial intelligence. As N.Y.U professor Gary Marcus has pointed out, cars will need to make split second, life-or-death decisions ("do I risk the driver's life by swerving away from this school bus full of children?") to function properly. Grappling with these issues will not only advance the driverless car but artificial intelligence more generally, with equally significant impacts on our society.
Carbon Nanotubes
What do invisibility cloaks, synthetic brains and space elevators have in common? They're all made possible (at least, theoretically) by carbon nanotubes.
Carbon nanotubes are amazingly small structures (one-billionth of a meter) that are nonetheless immensely strong -- almost one hundred times stronger than steel. They are in use today in many carbon fiber-based products (think golf clubs and wind turbines), but their potential use is far more impressive if researchers can succeed in better manipulating them. They could be used to make ever-smaller computer circuits, concrete which resists cracking, artificial muscles, more efficient solar cells and desalination processes. They are one of the few materials thought capable of being strong enough to create a space elevator -- which could ferry cargo between the Earth and low-Earth orbit at a fraction of the cost of rocket launches.
Lasers
Lasers are by no means a new technology (in fact, they're over 50 years old), but they are increasingly fulfilling the role they were meant to play: blowing stuff up.
Last month, the U.S. Navy demonstrated a laser capable of downing a drone aircraft (not terribly impressive, but still, it exploded...) The U.S. Marine Corps is soliciting the defense industry for a laser defense system that can be mounted to a vehicle to destroy incoming artillery. It's a defensive system that never runs out of ammunition.
Lasers are also seen as a cost-effective means to defend against missile attacks. Aside from Earth-bound foes, sun-powered lasers could also be put to work blasting incoming asteroids. And for the less martially inclined, they can also be used to prepare food or to create (potentially) a massive new energy source.
Robots
Robots have been garnering attention of late not because of any particular technological breakthrough per-se but because it's become increasingly obvious that robots are rapidly seeping into every corner of our life.
From factory to floor to corner pharmacy, there's now pervasive worry that robots will steal our jobs (to say nothing about rising up, Matrix-style, to enslave their human creators).
In Japan, robots are already working as care-givers for the elderly. They've been found to help develop
social skills in children with disabilities. Naturally, there's budding interest in robots for more adult-related activities as well.
3D Printing
Few technologies have arrived with such hype as 3D printing. President Obama hailed it as ushering in a renaissance of U.S. manufacturing. The potential of 3D printing is, if its boosters are to be believed, nothing short of revolutionary. Car and plane parts have already been printed and researchers believe it's quite possible to "print" houses and other huge structures with designs that would be impossible to execute using traditional concrete molds. As prices fall on consumer models, you can print toys, household items, even functional guns, from the comfort of your home.
It's not solely for inanimate objects, either. Blood vessels have been created with the technology and many think it can be used to create organs and limbs for those in need. It could be -- eventually -- like the "replicator" of Star Trek fame: tell the computer what you want and, presto, it appears before your eyes.
Mind Controlled Limbs
Researchers made stunning gains in 2012 when a paralyzed woman made a prosthetic limb move with her only her thoughts. The promise of seamlessly fusing artificial limbs to the human body took a major step forward.
As described by Nature, a paralyzed man and woman each had chips implanted into their brain to measure their neurons as they observed technicians moving a robotic arm. A computer recorded the pattern of their thinking as they imagined moving the robotic arm and after they had trained the computer, they took control of the arm and moved it using their own thoughts.
The implications of such a 'neural interface system' are clear: once devastating injuries could be surmounted through a combination of embedded computer chips and robot prosthesis.
Personalized Medicine
Buried within our genes is vital information about our propensity for illness. Armed with this knowledge, we could head off potential maladies before they strike. We could, if society agrees and technology permits, engineer them out of the gene pool altogether. Such is the promise of personalized medicine.
As biotech CEO Narges Asadi explained, "we are moving from the inefficient and experimental medicine of today towards the data-driven medicine of tomorrow. Soon, diagnosis, prognosis, treatment, and most importantly, prevention will be tailored to individuals' genetic and phenotypic information."
Consider the progress to date: The Human Genome Project took 13 years and $3 billion to map a single
human genome beginning in 1990. Today, the process costs less than $10,000 and can be accomplished in two days. This information contains vital medical c lues that can be used in cancer diangnostics and newborn screening. Researchers still need to connect the dots between specific genes and disease types, but most remain hopeful that we could one day see a world with fewer tragic illnesses.
Quantum Computers
Even casual computers users know of Moore's Law: the rule that computer power doubles every 18 months. This doubling has certainly delivered its fair share of innovation, but it pales in comparison to the power inherent in quantum computing. Rather than use traditional, binary code (the 1s and 0s we're all familiar with), quantum computers can represent data in multipe quantum bits (or 'qubits'). This allows a quantum computer to churn through millions of computations at once, not just a single computation at a time.
As best-selling science author Briane Greene wrote, "researchers have estimated that a quantum computer no bigger than a laptop has the potential to perform the equivalent of all human thought since the dawn of our species in a tiny fraction of a second." Armed with a quantum computers, researchers may be able to create new nano-materials for medicines or create even more secure communications using quantum cryptography. Complex computer modeling -- such as those used to model the Earth's climate or the spread of virulent diseases -- would become vastly more powerful, helping us better predict and thus better manage our future.
Fusion
Cold fusion has been an elusive goal of energy researchers around the world. Though impossible today, the promise is so tantalizing it continues to draw interest. LENR (for low-energy nuclear reaction) a close cousin of cold fusion also promises to deliver essentially limitless, clean, safe energy. With such power at humanity's disposal, it will deliver a cleaner earth (no coal soot, no fission reactor meltdowns, air conditioning for all).
It would also, conceivably, open the door to grander vistas. NASA estimates that a fusion-based rocket engine could travel to Mars in a mere 30 days, compared to the four years it takes with conventional
technology.
For now, though, LENR energy is out of reach. It takes more energy to begin the reaction than the current reaction produces in kind. Still, researchers are also pursuing conventional (or hot) fusion, which promises to harvest energy from readily available deuterium with barely any radioactive waste.
http://www.realcleartechnology.com/lists/technologies_that_will_shape_the_future/
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