Emerging Technology 08: Your Tomorrow Today

By Mary Branscombe, published on March 31, 2008
Source: Tom's Guide | Keywords: , | Themes: Digital Entertainment
Contents

1. Introduction

What’s next? The Internet has sped up development so much that we’re impatient for the next Google, the next iPod or the next Facebook. O’Reilly’s Emerging Technology conference (ETech 08 for short) is a good place to look for the “next big thing.” Web 2.0, for example, was born out of conversations that started here. Now, Web 2.0 is so significant it gets its own conference – and social networks like Facebook are covered in the companion conference Graphing Social Patterns.

From nanoscale processing to measuring and simulating crowds, from phone calls inside your browser with Adobe’s Flash-based Pacifica service to Google on your phone with Android, from Google predicting the future to the Department of Defense taking nine months to build a wiki to speed up procurement, ETech looked at what might emerge next.

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Rondil 02/04/2008 02:54
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Rondil
I predict the next BIG thing will be wearable computers. Start with an extremely low power processor like the CN processor. Next use the new mousing technology that uses 3 different sensors and lets you mouse in 3D (search 3d mouse). Add wireless technology so that you can access the Internet and your home computer. Now add some of the very slick new vision technology (search HMD). Finish it up with the knee charger that was in the news recently and you have a computer thats with you always and that you can access anywhere. (search energy-capturing knee brace)
Deleted profile 02/04/2008 02:06
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"the average American uses 12,000 watts a year, which is the equivalent of 120 100-watt light bulbs running 24 hours a day all year long"

I think he means that the constant power demand of an average American is 12kW. Then the total energy consumption of an American becomes ~105MWh/y
Deleted profile 03/04/2008 02:10
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Mooing like a cat?
Deleted profile 03/04/2008 01:19
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Can the author please correct his basic physics errors that mix up energy (measured e.g. in kWh) and power (could be measured in Watts).
HerbCSO 05/04/2008 03:30
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HerbCSO
OK, is it just me or does the entire section on "Predicting the future with crowds" seem entirely too much like Hari Seldon's psychohistory from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series?

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