Ten technologies that will change the world
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. USA –(BUSINESS WIRE)– The editors of Technology Review,MIT’s magazine of innovation, have announced their annual list of
the 10 emerging technologies that will soon have a profound impact
on how we live and work.
These innovations - each represented by a researcher whose
vision and work is driving the field - promise fundamental shifts
in areas from energy to health care, computing to communications.
Each TR10 winner is drawn from the editors’ coverage of key fields,
and is based on a simple question: is the technology likely to
change the world?
The 2010 TR10 includes technologies poised to create change on a
global scale: better biofuels, more efficient solar cells, and
green concrete all aim to tackle climate change in the years ahead.
Other changes will be more local: for example, 3-D screens on
mobile devices, and social television.
Some innovations promise to make our lives healthier: new ways
to implant medical electronics or to develop drugs for diseases,
for instance. The 10 technologies are:
- Solar fuel. Joule Biotechnologies’ Noubar
Afeyan has created genetically engineered microörganisms that can
turn sunlight into ethanol or diesel - a feat that could allow
biofuels to compete with fossil fuels on both cost and scale. - Mobile 3-D. Recent box-office hits like
Avatar and Up have added to the growing
popularity of 3-D movies. Julien Flack of Dynamic Digital Depth is
leading the charge to take 3-D mainstream not only on TVs, but also
smart phones and mobile devices, through a technology that can
convert existing 2-D content to 3-D on the fly. - Dual-action antibodies. Genentech’s Germaine
Fuh has found a promising way to fight conditions like cancer and
AIDs through dual-action antibodies that give patients two drugs
for the price of one, offering the promise of drugs that work
better and cost less. - Real-time search. Amit Singhal is leading
Google’s quest to mine social networks for up-to-the-second search
results that offer the same relevance and quality of traditional
Web searches. - Light-trapping photovoltaics. By depositing
nanoparticles of silver on the surface of a thin-film cell, Kylie
Catchpole of the Australian National University has found a way to
boost the cells’ efficiency - an advance that could help make solar
power more competitive with fossil fuels. - Engineered stem cells. James Thomson of
Cellular Dynamics and the University of Wisconsin has potentially
revolutionized the way we screen drugs and study disease by
providing a way to make - in the test tube - any kind of cell from
patients with different diseases. - Social TV. People are already trying to
combine their social networks with TV, using laptops and smart
phones to comment on live events like the Oscars or the Olympics.
MIT’s Marie-José Montpetit is working on social TV - a way to
seamlessly combine the active experience of social networks with
the more passive experience of traditional TV viewing. - Green concrete. The production of cement is
responsible for about 5 percent of global carbon emissions.
Novacem’s Nikolaos Vlasopoulos has created a cement that is a
carbon “sink” rather than a source. His innovation could greatly
reduce the global carbon emissions that result from cement
production. - Implantable electronics. Tufts University’s
Fiorenzo Omenetto is developing implantable electronic devices that
can be used to deliver drugs, stimulate nerves, monitor biomarkers,
and more. And once they’ve done their job, they almost completely
dissolve away. - Cloud programming. At the University of
California, Berkeley, Joseph Hellerstein is creating better
software for building cloud applications, and this could herald a
new wave of applications for social media analysis, enterprise
computing, or sensor networks monitoring for earthquake warning
signs.
The 2010 TR10 will be featured in the May/J
target=”_blank”>une edition of Technology Review
About Technology Review, Inc. - Technology
Review, Inc., an independent media company owned by
MIT, is the authority on the future of technology, identifying
emerging technologies and analyzing their impact for leaders.
Source: www.technologyreview.com
