Today's lesson focused on emerging and future technologies. We discussed on the creation of various innovations and the implications of newly emerging technologies. Drivers for development of such technologies consisted of:
market driven research and development
technology driven research and development
creation of demand from supply
mass media and advertising
confluence of the 4 smarts :"smart people, smart idea, smart money, smart alliance and partnerships
The lesson also covered on some of the emerging technologies that held a high probability of being applied widely in the future, such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence as well as robotics.
The majority of innovation are market driven and seek to address consumer wants and needs of the present. A reason for this would be the higher chance of the innovation to succeed. Other types of innovation would be to create a demand from supply, such that it addresses a need in the consumers that they previously did not know they had before. An example would be 3-d printing, or the iphone.
A
With the increase in affluence of countries and through globalisation and increased interconnectedness, there is an increase in scientific knowledge available as well as the technological know-how. This provides an environment for new technology to grow and be value-added. This interconnectedness(such as through cloud computing and crowd sourcing) combined with technological knowledge has shown to be useful in solving problems such as mentioned in class today regarding the gamers who collaborated together to solve a problem regarding the structure of the HIV virus.
The innovations today are more of the innovative usage of a number of technologies, such as the use of robotics combined with nanotechnology in the claytronics video shown, or the genetic modification used in biotechnologies in the areas of medicine. The use of nanotechnology has particularly many applications. As mentioned, most of the products today are made by breakdown large materials into the desired shape. Nanotechnology has already been applied such as in the area of claytronics whereby the material is made up of independently operated robot particles. The use of nanotechnology together with claytronics could make it possible for products to be converted to its required use and help to reduce wastage.
Key takeaway points
Key takeaway points
One of the key points this lesson was the importance of the extent to which a technology or a new innovation could influence the economy and other societies rather than what the technology does itself. An innovation could be useless on its own but new or existing technology could be applied together with the innovation in novel ways. For instance, electric cars might not be viable currently due to issues such as lack of charging points and the weight of the battery, but then with the development of wireless charging through the use of magnetic conductivity electric cars could be viable in the years to come. As such we have progressed in such a way that the way forward would be more on how we could use existing technologies and combine them together for practical solutions as well as focusing on increasing availability of such electronics such that the powers of crowd sourcing and cloud computing can be harnessed.
Issues for future discussion
I felt that the implications of technologies such as surveillance technologies and biometric technologies could have been discussed in greater detail. Also, the methods and policies to nurture such emerging technologies, in light of current technologies such as solar energy which have their developmental potential limited due to vested interests of groups involved in competing technologies.
Today's class was interesting especially the part about wireless charging and artificial intelligence, it fascinated me. 8/10 for this class!
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