Saturday, February 28, 2009

Emerging technologies

Examples of emerging technologies are Genetic engineering / Synthetic biology, Electric cars with range extenders and Personal rapid transit, Flash memory with smaller, faster, lower power consuming storage, Nanomaterials, CVD diamond, Scramjet, Wireless communication with ubiquitous network connectivity, Anti-aging drugs, Semantic Web or Answers Machine, more efficient bio fuels, OLEDs, Machine translation bob, Nuclear fusion power, 3D optical data storage or Holographic data storage, Metamaterials, 3D displays, Quantum computing, Nanowire batteries, Virtual retinal displays, WiTricity and WREL (Wireless energy transfer).
Emerging technologies
Emerging technologies and converging technologies are terms used to cover various cutting-edge developments in the emergence and convergence of technology.
Emerging technologies are those which represent new and significant developments within a field; converging techologies represent previously distinct fields which are in some way moving towards stronger inter-connection and similar goals.
Over time, new methods and topics are developed and opened up. Some arise due to theoretical research, others due to commercial research and development or new tools and discoveries.
Technological growth includes incremental developments, and disruptive technologies. An example of the former was the gradual roll-out of DVD as a development intended to follow on from the previous optical technology Compact Disc. By contrast, disruptive technologies are those where a new method replaces the previous technology and make it redundant, for example the replacement of horse drawn carriages by automobiles.
Emerging technologies is a general term used to denote significant technological developments that in effect, broach new territory in some significant way in their field. Examples of currently emerging technologies include nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive science, robotics, and artificial intelligence.
Converging technologies are a related topic, signifying areas where different disciplines are converging and to an extent merging or developing broad links, towards a common direction. Thus as computers become more powerful, and media becomes digitized, computing and media are described as being converging technologies.

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