From MIT’s Technology Review (an excellent online tech resource) comes this interesting list of technologies to watch for over the coming months… the “emerging technologies” of this year. You’ve no doubt heard of some of these, and others can’t be too surprising, but taken together this list should give at least a little techno-infused optimism for the balance of 2008 (I’m feeling better already):
- Modeling Surprise - Data+human psychology+ machine learning=less surprise
- Probalistic Chips - Slight decrease in precision yields better power usage
- Nanoradio - Nanoscale radios built from carbon nanotubes
- Wireless Power - This one should be self-explanatory, but still very, very cool
- Atomic Magnometers - The miniaturization of magnetic sensory arrays
- Offline Web Applications - Next generation apps bring back the desktop
- Graphene Transistors - Potentially 100x faster than today’s silicon transistors
- Connectomics - Physically mapping the neural circuits of the nervous system
- Reality Mining - Identifying and understanding patterns in life to help you live your life
- Celluloytic Enzymes - Effective cellulosic biofuels require effective enzymes
The practical neatnik in me is perhaps the most enthused about the potentiality of my environment without the tangle of power cords everywhere. The futurist in me is getting pretty excited about the potential of graphene transistors. There is concern in Silicon Valley about the probable termination of Moore’s Law as we approach the performance envelop of silicon based chips. Having something that is so theoretically expansive in contrast, and from PENCIL LEAD, is quite comforting.
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