Emerging Technologies Science

                                                  Emerging Technologies Science                

•                  In the history of technology, emerging technologies are contemporary advances and innovation in various fields of technology. Various converging technologies have emerged in the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence can refer to previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video that now share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies.

Emerging technologies are those technical innovations which represent progressive developments within a field for competitive advantage;converging technologies represent previously distinct fields which are in some way moving towards stronger inter-connection and similar goals. However, the opinion on the degree of impact, status and economic viability of several emerging and converging technologies vary.

         

                                Emerging Technologies Science History

• Over centuries, innovative methods and new technologies are developed and opened up. Some of these technologies are due to theoretical research, others commercial research and development.

• Emerging technologies in general denote significant technology developments that broach new territory in some significant way in their field. Examples of currently emerging technologies include information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive science, robotics, and artificial intelligence.^[2]

•  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.

• 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.

                                            Debate Over Emerging Technologies

Many writers, including computer scientist Bill Joy, have identified clusters of technologies that they consider critical to humanity's future. Joy warns that the technology could be used by elites for good or evil. They could use it as "good shepherds" for the rest of humanity, or decide everyone else is superfluous and push for mass extinction of those made unnecessary by technology.

Advocates of the benefits of technological change typically see emerging and converging technologies as offering hope for the betterment of the human condition.

• However, critics of the risks of technological change, and even some advocates such as transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom, warn that some of these technologies could pose dangers, perhaps even contribute to the extinction of humanity itself; i.e., some of them could involve existential risks

Much ethical debate centers on issues of distributive justice in allocating access to beneficial forms of technology. Some thinkers, such as environmental ethicist Bill McKibben, oppose the continuing development of advanced technology partly out of fear that its benefits will be distributed unequally in ways that could worsen the plight of the poor.

• By contrast, inventor Ray Kurzweil is among techno-utopians who believe that emerging and converging technologies could and will eliminate poverty and abolish suffering.

• Some analysts such as Martin Ford, author of The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, argue that as information technology advances, robots and other forms of automation will ultimately result in significant unemployment as machines and software begin to match and exceed the capability of workers to perform most routine jobs.

As robotics and artificial intelligence develop further, even many skilled jobs may be threatened. Technologies such as machine learning  may ultimately allow computers to do many knowledge-based jobs that require significant education.

This may result in substantial unemployment at all skill levels, stagnant or falling wages for most workers, and increased concentration of income and wealth as the owners of capital capture an ever larger fraction of the economy.

•  This in turn could lead to depressed consumer spending and economic growth as the bulk of the population lacks sufficient discretionary income to purchase the products and services produced by the economy.

                               Emerging Technologies Science Acronyms

• NBIC, an acronym for Nanotechnology, Biotechnology, Information technology and Cognitive science, is currently the most popular term for emerging and converging technologies, and was introduced into public discourse through the publication of Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance, a report sponsored in part by the U.S. National Science Foundation.

• Various other acronyms have been offered for the same concept such as GNR (Genetics, Nanotechnology and Robotics) (Bill Joy, 2000, Why the future doesn't need us).

• Journalist Joel Garreau in Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies — and What It Means to Be Human uses "GRIN", for Genetic, Robotic, Information, and Nano processes, while science journalist Douglas Mulhall in Our Molecular Future: How Nanotechnology, Robotics, Genetics and Artificial Intelligence Will Transform Our World uses "GRAIN", for Genetics, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Nanotechnology.Another acronym coined by the appropriate technology organization ETC Group is "BANG" for "Bits, Atoms, Neurons, Genes".

                                            Emerging Technologies Science Further Reading

General

• Giersch, H. (1982). Emerging technologies: Consequences for economic growth, structural change, and employment : symposium 1981. Tübingen: Mohr.

• Jones-Garmil, K. (1997). The wired museum: Emerging technology and changing paradigms. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums.

Law and Policy

• Branscomb, L. M. (1993). Empowering technology: Implementing a U.S. strategy. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.

• Raysman, R., & Raysman, R. (2002). Emerging technologies and the law: Forms and analysis. Commercial law intellectual property series. New York, N.Y.: Law Journal Press.

Information & Learning

• Hung, D., & Khine, M. S. (2006). Engaged learning with emerging technologies. Dordrecht: Springer.

• Kendall, K. E. (1999). Emerging information technologies: Improving decisions, cooperation, and infrastructure. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications.

Other

• Cavin, R. K., & Liu, W. (1996). Emerging technologies: Designing low power digital systems. [New York]: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.

NEST – New and Emerging Science and Technology – NEWS

EU at the top in research

• Two EU-grantees, Prof. K. Novoselov and Prof. A. Geim, have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics 2010 for their groundbreaking research in two-dimensional graphene. Both professors are member of the University of Manchester (UK).

• Graphene is a super thin (just one atom thick) wafer of carbon atoms that is set to revolutionise electronics and photonics, such as computers, sensors and solar cells. Graphene is unique in that it is extremely rigid with fascinating mechanical and electronic properties. 

• The team of Prof. Novoselov (on the right in the picture; click on the image for a high-resolution version - 5 MB) and Prof. Geim competed successfully for grants from the EU Framework Programmes, including funding from the FP6 NEST scheme ('New and Emerging Science and Technology'). With this NEST grant (more than EUR 1.5 million), they were able to advance their work as partners in the SIBMAR NEST project, coordinated by the University of Zürich.

• The project was bolstered by the participation of both professors, whose know-how and innovative insight into graphene was an essential element in the success of the SIBMAR NEST project.

• Bringing together researchers from the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the UK, the SIBMAR project developed a technique, ready for commercial spin-off, for three-dimensional (3D) holographic imaging of biomolecules with atomic-level resolution using low-energy electrons. To be continued!

                    NASA sends Mona Lisa to the moon with lasers

• NASA scientists, having apparently nothing better to do, have shot an image of the Mona Lisa to the moon by piggybacking it on laser pulses. Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece was successfully received by an instrument aboard the agency's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) some 240,000 miles away.

• "This is the first time anyone has achieved one-way laser communication at planetary distances," MIT's David Smith, head of the spacecraft's Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter (LOLA), said in a release.

"In the near future, this type of simple laser communication might serve as a backup for the radio

• Communication that satellites use. In the more distant future, it may allow communication at higher data rates than present radio links can provide."

      Europe's Space Agency Kicks Off Asteroid Collision Mission

• Doomsday isn't far from many people's imaginations, whether it's the end of the Mayan calendar, the rapture, or a massive asteroid smashing into the Earth. Now, one of these far-flung scenarios may become even less likely.

• The European Space Agency announced this week that it's in the beginning phases of an "Asteroid Impact and Deflection Mission" with its U.S. partner Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. The eventual goal of the mission is to verify whether scientists can collide with an asteroid that's hurtling through space -- so as to avoid any possible