Recently by Chris Carbone

How could someone set up a data center, but never pay a cent for the electricity all those servers are going to use during in the life of the facility (or for the land to build the operation, for that matter)?

Google seems to have an idea.

According to this Geek.com article, Google recently filed a for patent for floating data centers powered by Pelamis machines. As you can see from the video below, Pelamis machines float on the surface of the ocean and turn energy from the waves into electricity. No land is required and there are no utility costs.

This overview of the technology notes other advantages mentioned in the patent, such as the ability to cool the servers with the sea water, scalability (just add more servers and Pelamis machines), and the ability to deploy these floating data centers quickly to areas that need them (to a coastal city to support military operations or to aid in natural disaster recovery).

With the increased focus on greener computing and the rising cost of energy, this seems like an that just might have legs.

We get the Financial Times in our office, and when their glossy monthly How to Spend It comes in I keep meaning to take a few minutes to page through. Not that I'm about to drop $250 on a ETÓN Porsche Design wind-up radio or charter a Edmiston yacht for my next vacation. Still, this magazine is an interesting window into the world of luxury.

Well, last week when it came in I did flip through, and I was struck when I saw the full-page ad for rising fashion star Shanghai Tang (scanned version to the right).

Now...we've been writing about the rise of Chinese global brands for a while--and while I drink the occasional Tsingtao and barely notice anymore when I see a Haier logo--I think this was the first time I'd seen an ad for a Chinese luxury brand in a publication crossing my desk. (If you don't know much about the brand, check this 2006 Fast Company article.)

Though owned the by European luxury goods company Richemont, it's still very much a Chinese brand in positioning and style. The company's website says that it creates "modern Chinese chic with themes deeply rooted in ancient and authentic Chinese culture, from calligraphy to The Silk Road to Chinese contemporary art." It also goes so far as to claim: "Today, Shanghai Tang is the only Chinese luxury brand." With as fast as things change and grow in China, I wonder how long that will be the case.

By engaging consumers through all five senses, not just sight or hearing, multisensory marketing strategies seek to evoke deep personal identification with products. The practice is being driven by advancing science and technology (especially brain science), consumer demand for affordable luxury, and competitive pressure to find new ways to differentiate products and brands.

We wrote about the multisensory marketing trend in our Global Lifestyles (pdf) project a few years back, and the interest continues to build. Here are a couple recent items of note we've come across about the use of smell in selling:

• A recent article in Emirates Business 24|7 (registration required) suggests that global spending on aroma marketing will hit $220 million in 2010, up from just $30 million in 2003.
  
• There's a new book out called Whiff, by C. Russel Brumfield, that looks pretty interesting. He was the keynote speaker at the First International Scent-Marketing Conference in NYC. See a couple minutes from him on AdAge.com.
  
• Travellodge UK is now offering scented rooms. Their press release mentions scents including the sea, baby powder, fresh cut grass, apple pie, and chocolate.
  
• And if those scents don't please you...there is always the AromaUSB...which uses power from a computer's USB port to deliver scents, and according to the website is perfect for "marketing campaigns...[and] keeping your brand or business in customers' minds."
  

Image: Joe M500 (Flickr)

Hat tip to airsensenews.com.

We recently finished some research for Spike TV, and unlike most of our work (which tends to be client-confidential), this is something we can actually share a bit. It was a project in support of Spike’s Guy’s State of the Union 2008—in which they take stock of the state of American guys.

Social Technologies handled the qualitative portion of the project. We mined our trendbase, did expert interviews, and created a set of hypotheses about the current and future state of American men. The polling firm Penn, Schoen & Berland (PSB) tested the hypotheses through an online quantitative survey, and we worked in parallel doing focus groups in Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Minneapolis to hear from guys in their own words.

Using a segmentation provided by PSB we created a set of composite personas to help bring the survey and focus group findings to life. We also used the personas as a way to talk about where these segments might be headed in the future.

Five types of American guys

The segmentation revealed 5 types of American guys aged 18-49:

1. Young Carefrees (23%)—friend-focused digital natives enjoying their post-college years
2. The Above Average Joes (29%)—modern guys, thriving in their role as fathers and husbands
3. The Good Ol’ Boys (13%)—traditional guys with traditional views; rugged, stoic, and pragmatic
4. The Mac Daddies (20%)—the alpha guys…intense, successful, and in love with their gadgets
5. The Worry Warriors (15%)—hard working, well-off…but totally stressed

See the public version of the Spike TV report here, with detailed descriptions of the segments and the personas we used to bring them to life.

1) New Buying Habits
iTunes is to eBay as Ellen is to Maury Povich.

2) Poor Man's TiVo
Forget to set the DVR? Click on YouTube, the world’s largest, virtual broadcast network, for American Idol caterwauling or Jon Stewart’s latest.

3) Infinitives We've Come to Love

To Skype, to RSS, to podcast, to blog, to Flickr, to GPS...

4) The E-Generation Gap
You “talk” to your teenager on each other's MySpace pages. “Private data” is only what you show 800 “friends.”

5) Attack Mode
We don’t just get spammed anymore – say hello to pharming, phishing, and vishing (voice-over-IP phishing).

6) Suddenly, Those Spring Break 2003 Photos Aren’t So Fun
Employers and recruiters use Google and popular social networking site searches as part of due diligence on prospective employees.

7) OMG!
Emoticons and IM shorthand have entered the popular vernacular, even popping up in high school English compositions.

8) Thingamajigs, Doohickeys on the Way
Wikis, widgets, applets, mashups, and dashboards have transformed desktops and GUIs.

9) That Huge $ucking $ound
Venture capital has flooded the market, fueling both clever and dubious entrepreneurs on a level not seen since the first Internet bubble of 2000. Now if some .com could somehow reverse oil’s big run-up…

10) Who Am I Today?
Create an avatar to get a Second Life. Use anonymity to flame opponents or razz friends. Online identities are a lot more fluid than they are in the real world.

Image: Social Technologies

Next time someone repeats that old adage "money can't buy you happiness," tell them you're not so sure. As long as you know where to spend it, it just might do some good.

That's what Harvard marketing professor Michael I. Norton and his colleagues found in their happiness research, concluding that "how people choose to spend their money is at least as important as how much money they make."

The article ("Spending on Happiness") in HBS Working Knowledge reports that "money can buy happiness, when people spend that money prosocially on others (giving gifts to friends, donating to charities) rather than on themselves (buying flat-screen televisions)."

Interesting results, which dovetail with our findings in studying youth happiness for  MTV Research -- we concluded that money is increasingly seen by Millennials as a means rather than an end. See the full report in pdf and our webpage about the study.

We're in the final stages of prepping for our June Futures Consortium event this Thursday, where we'll explore the future of transparency and it's impacts on consumers and organizations. We've got a great event planned and will look at a range of topics including:

• personal medical transparency (one of our team will report out on what kinds of info a $1,000 genetic test actually yielded about him)
• the hype and reality of consumer data collection services
• the future of transparency technologies

We'll also present some consumer personas, developed to express different viewpoints on transparency, and explore the future of transparency via scenario archetypes. We'll have more on this after the event, but all of these workstreams have us tracking transparency closely and have yielded some interesting scanning hits.

One I found particularly interesting was this mention of a transparent newsroom on the the Guardian's greenslade blog. The Spokane, Washington Spokesman-Review webcasts its editorial conferences publicly, invites local bloggers to critique its work, and has a journalism professor review its reporting. The paper's editor reports it has "improved the newspaper's credibility and made it more relevant to readers' lives."

Could this be the future of all news organizations? If this move towards transparency is improving the experience for readers, it's definitely worth considering, given the deep uncertainty about the future of newspapers (as in this post from Jeff Bercovici's Mixed Media blog). 

Image: James Abbott (www.sxc.hu)

We recently sent some of our clients an autographed copy of Daniel Pink's new book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need.

The book is being reported as the first US business title written in the manga style, and as such, we thought it was a nice little artifact that shows how cultural flows work. We've talked before about cultural flows, first as part of our Top 20 Trends series and more recently on the blog with posts like this one on the opening of Guatemalan chicken joints in Shanghai. We've also specifically discussed manga as a cultural flow.

We view cultural flows as important indicators of the emerging future. The case of the Johnny Bunko book shows how manga has grown in popularity, spread to different parts of the world, and now even infiltrated the world of American business books. What's next for the future? Classic literature? No, wait...the BBC reports they've already done that.

In any case, we thought ChangeWaves readers might also enjoy seeing what it looks like when manga mixes with Pink's unique take on "six essential lessons for thriving in the world of work," so check out some sample pages and the books' entertaining ad on YouTube above.

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The National Academies started a project in summer 2007 entitled America's Energy Future: Technology Opportunities, Risks, and Tradeoffs. As part of this 18-month long effort there will be a public meeting to engage industry as well as the policy and research communities in discussions about America's energy future here in Washington, DC on March 13-14th. Click here for event's website.

They are providing a video webcast for those who'd like to peek in on some of the sessions. The agenda includes lots of interesting stuff like...

March 13th 

• The Geopolitical Context of America's Energy Future - James R. Schlesinger, Chairman, The MITRE Corporation and Senior Advisor, Lehman Brothers
  
• World Energy Outlook - Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, International Energy Agency (confirmed), Moderator: Robert W. Fri, Senior Fellow Emeritus, Resources for the Future (confirmed)

March 14th:  

• Google's RechargeIT Program for Commercial Deployment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles - Dan W. Reicher, Director for Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, Google.org (confirmed)
• Winning the Oil End Game - Amory Lovins, CEO, Rocky Mountain Institute, and Principal Investigator, Winning the Oil End Game

Browse to the National Academies website on March 13-14 for a link to the webcast.

Image: Mingo Hagen (Flickr)

The Financial Times has an interesting article about how some companies are holding their board meetings abroad to immerse executives in a new and stimulating environment.

The article explains that it is an opportunity for companies to push executive thinking and get board members to see their organizational challenges "with fresh eyes."

Reuters is one company that has held board meeting overseas in important new markets. The article states that Reuters' execs felt that creating their Asia strategy after being together for a week in China "grounded" their strategic conversations in a way that wouldn't have been possible otherwise. 

This reminds me of the kind of contextual awareness we and our clients picked up this past May on our Futures Expedition in Shanghai. We spent a week exploring Chinese consumer life through home visits, focus groups, shadow shopping, and meeting with experts from companies and NGOs operating there. We also got a lot out of our personal observations in the field, whether this meant hearing firsthand from young Chinese consumers what they like and dislike about their mobile phone (see image) -- or learning about people's views on the environment through our evening focus groups.

If you missed the Shanghai Expedition, but need to understand how consumers in emerging markets are living and how they're going to shape the future, consider coming on one of our upcoming BRIC Expeditions. First stop: Hyderabad, India in February 2008, with subsequent trips to Russia (September 2008), Brazil (March 2009), and back to China in October 2009.

For a sense of the experience and the output, check out some excerpts from the Shanghai post-expedition report.

Image: Social Technologies

Want to know what product transparency will look like in the future? Check out Patagonia’s website, The Footprint Chronicles. On the site you can learn about the journey of five products and discover the transport, CO2, waste, and energy impacts of each item.

Image: Screenshot of www.patagonia.com/usa/footprint/index.jsp  So…say I’m thinking of buying my brother-in-law a Wool 2 Crew shirt this Christmas. Well, thanks to Patagonia I can integrate some pretty amazing info into my decision process, such as the fact that each shirt:

• travels 16,280 miles from the sheep in New Zealand until the finished product hits the distribution center in Reno, NV
• creates about 47 pounds of CO2 emissions due to manufacturing and transportation
• generates 9 oz. of waste as the fiber is created and the shirt is sewn, which is “2 oz. more than weight of the final garment”
• requires 89 megajoules of energy to create the shirt, “equivalent to powering the average American household for 20 hours”

Click to Read More ...

Image: Social TechnologiesAs futurists we track ongoing trends, but we also look for those things that run counter to our expectations or previously noted trends. These countertrends help challenge our assumptions, highlight subtle distinctions in the emerging landscape, and allow us to start building a more nuanced view of possible futures.

A recent post on the user experience blog Putting People First brought an interesting countertrend to light: the declining(!) number of total landline Internet connections in India. What? Declining? Yes...India's ISPs are reporting that the number of Internet connections declined slightly, as people dumped their dial-up access. India's Economic Times reports:

The year 2007 belongs to broadband, but for the first time in recent memory, the number of Internet connections in the country has fallen. The total Internet connections in the country declined to 9.22 million in April-June from 9.27 million in the previous quarter, according to telecom regulator TRAI's performance indicator report for the quarter. India is possibly the only country in the world where internet connections are falling.

This runs against the grain of what one might assume and think--that more and more people in India and other parts of the developing world are buying computers and going online just like people in World 1. The interesting nuance, though, is that the number of people connecting to the Web via mobile phones is booming, helping to boost India's overall online population. The idea that users in the developing world wouldn't follow our World 1 model of accessing the Web via PCs is something we've been suggesting for years. How this is playing out today in India is explained nicely here by the Economic Times:

Even as net connections are falling, the number of people accessing the web on their cellphones increased by a whopping 7 million to cross the 38 million mark. This emphasizes how the cellphone is fast becoming the primary medium for Indians to connect to the net as the number of people using their mobile handsets to access the web is now over four times those using a PC.

So keep looking for trends in your own exploration of the future, but don't forget to tease them apart, look for nuances, and explore potential countertrends as you seek to decipher possible futures.

(via Putting People First , via dev.mobi )

Vertical farms--urban, indoor, multi-story agricultural systems that some envision supplementing or even replacing conventional farms--have been receiving a bit of press recently, such as this CNNMoney.com article.
Farmland of the future? The innovative concept is being promoted by Dr. Dickson Despommier at Columbia University, among others.

We reported on Despommier's idea several years back in our Technology Foresight project, and as I think about it now, they are an interesting twist on another trend we've been tracking for a while--the rising interest in "local food" and in reducing the carbon footprint and "food miles" of one's food. To view our 2005 analysis of Dr. Despommier's idea, see this research brief.

For more from Dr. Despommier, check out his vertical farming site here.

Image: Photos.com

Browsing through a recent issue of New Energy, I was struck by a photo of a plug-in hybrid charging up at an Elektrobay electric vehicle charging station in London, much like the image below. The article, which was about synergies between wind power and electric cars, mentioned that the British company Elektromotive Limited has installed two of these on-street charging stations in London and has plans to put in 200 more, in places like supermarkets and movie theaters so people can recharge electric scooters, cars, and plug-in hybrids.

Are these on-street charging systems the sign of a near-term revolution, pushing us toward electric mobility? Will we see them scattered across the US anytime soon? It’s highly unlikely…but it is a nice early indicator of one potential future for urban transport, and watching how the effort to deploy on-street chargers plays out in London will shed light on future challenges for other cities lookin
g to do the same.

For info on where you can charge up on US roads, see this map from PlugInMap.org.

 Image: frankh (flickr)

As mentioned in part I and part II of this series, Social Technologies's Global Lifestyles project has recently published five forecasts for the future of Chinese global brands. Today we share this excerpt on the third forecast. Keep your eye on ChangeWaves for the other forecasts in coming weeks.

Forecast 3: Many successful Chinese global brands will grow first in World 2 and 3

Many Chinese companies are testing the waters of international brand-building in World 2 and World 3 countries, where they can capitalize on the appeal of low-cost products and hone their brand-building craft.
Coming to a developing country near you: Chinese brands

Chinese companies, even if their product quality is good, have a reputation for poor brand management and marketing support. There is often a lack of understanding of international consumer tastes and trends. [1] This is changing. Already, high-tech companies Huawei and ZTE have operations in Africa, India, Brazil, and other Asian countries. [2] Haier also has a growing business in Worlds 2 and 3, including in Africa. [3] These operations will give Chinese companies a base of useful experience and new insights into global consumer markets and preferences.

In addition to corporate efforts, the Chinese government is increasingly leveraging its political influence in Worlds 2 and 3 by sending aid to developing nations. This should raise the profile of China and Chinese products and companies. [4] Examples of Chinese efforts in Worlds 2 and 3 are found worldwide:

• In Africa, China's trade approached $40 billion in 2005, up from $10.6 billion in 2000. [5] China currently gets more than one-fourth of its oil from Africa, and has trade agreements with 40 African nations. [6]
• In Cambodia, China offered $600 million worth of few-strings-attached development aid in 2006--a figure that surpassed the total amount offered by the International Monetary Fund, which also sought to impose a number of caveats the Cambodians didn't like. [7]
• The Chinese government plans to invest over $100 billion in Latin America between 2005 and 2015. Telecommunications and manufacturing are among the areas China has invested in. [8]

[1] "The Strategy for Chinese Brands, Part 1," Interbrand, October 2006, www.brandchannel.com.

[2] Matt English and Alan Beebe, "Going Global, Prospects and Challenges for Chinese Companies on the World Stage," IBM Consulting Services Podcast, http://www-935.ibm.com/services, viewed October 2006.

[3] "'We Will Be Volunteer 'Spokespersons' for Haier,' African Party Officials Say," Chinaview.cn, June 28, 2005, http://news3.xinhuanet.com/english; "The Great African Telecoms Equipment Giveaway?" Balancing Act Africa, www.balancingact-africa.com/news.

[4] Jane Perlez, "China Competes with West in Aid to Its Neighbors," New York Times, September 18, 2006.

[5] Kent Ewing, "China Mixes Rice and Neo-Colonialism," Asia Times Online, October 6, 2006.

[6] Accenture, "China Spreads Its Wings--Chinese Companies Go Global," Accenture.com, 2005, www.accenture.com.

[7] Jane Perlez, "China Competes with West in Aid to Its Neighbors," New York Times, September 18, 2006.

[8] Accenture, "China Spreads Its Wings--Chinese Companies Go Global," Accenture.com, 2005, www.accenture.com.

I went to hear a talk last week given by Reed Hundt, former chairman of the FCC. It covered points from his book In China's Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship. As noted on his website the book argues that to compete against China in the future the US must "expand and renew the culture of entrepreneurship that has been at the heart of American economic success for centuries. Unless substantial entrepreneurship upsets the status quo in energy, health care and other sectors, as it did in communications and computing in the 90's, average Americans will see their standard of living lowered."

It looks like a provocative book, packed with interesting facts and ideas, but what struck me about Hundt's talk was how quickly he moved from the topic of China to energy.

In the end, Hundt basically argued that the US needs to spark an environment of energy entrepreneurship with hordes of start-ups working toward zero-emission technologies; he seemed to be hoping for an environment akin to what we saw in telecomm over the last decade. Clearly investment in clean tech is picking up, and there's more talk about an "energy boomlet" in Silicon Valley. This article offers a handy overview.

If such a shift happens I'm sure we'll see our share of Pets.com misfires, but this could be interesting...so keep your eyes open for the Amazon and eBays of this possible energy future.

Also, I want to hear more about what experts think this environment of creative destruction would look like in energy. If you've seen anyone describe what is necessary for entrepreneurial boom model in energy, I'd love to see it.

As mentioned in part I of this series, Social Technologies's Global Lifestyles project has recently published five forecasts for the future of Chinese global brands. Today we share this excerpt about the second forecast. Keep your eye ChangeWaves for the other forecasts in the coming weeks.

For the vast majority of homegrown Chinese brands, global recognition is years away. Most Chinese companies with global aspirations are currently at the start of what will likely be a lengthy transition from low-cost producer to value-added, respected global brand.
Some Chinese brands will go global sooner than later.  Our analysts saw Changfeng Motors' Liebao branded products at this year's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Changfeng officials suggest it will start selling its vehicles in the US in 2010.

This transition period may ultimately be shorter than the ones experienced by Japanese or South Korean companies, since Chinese firms can benefit from their lessons learned, and also because of the quickened pace of technology transfer, business change, etc.

The creation of Chinese global brands will take time and will be impacted by a variety of factors, from cultural differences to a general lack of managerial and international experience on the part of Chinese companies.

• Culture--Deep-seated cultural factors may inhibit Chinese brands from having breakout success. According to fashion designer Zhang Da, "Chinese people are educated to be the same. If they are the same as others, they feel safer. That's a problem." [1] This may translate into corporate cultures averse to the risks associated with building a global brand. Others dismiss this theory, however, arguing that historically, Chinese have been highly innovative. [2]

• Technical and managerial skills--Most Chinese companies don't yet have the technical know-how to produce high-quality products for export. Even if they have the technical know-how, Chinese management is years behind that in the West. [3] Estimates are that 75,000 managers are needed in China in the coming 10 to 15 years to enable effective competition with their Western counterparts. [4]
• Lack of global experience--Most Chinese companies lack the necessary logistical/distribution networks in Asia, Europe, and North America. [5] In addition, they often don't fully understand Western pricing or promotional/advertising methods. [6]
• Competition and opportunity at home--Many Chinese companies are consumed by abundant opportunities and stiff competition in their home market and don't have the time or energy to devote to developing presences outside the country. [7]
• Global reputation--The bread and butter of the Chinese economy is the production of low-cost, low-value goods--a reputation that may take years to shake even after the actual technical and managerial skills are in hand and product quality improves. Some South Korean products still struggle with this reputation, despite demonstrable quality improvement since the country's global ambitions began to grow in the 1970s. [8]

At least one expert has considered the possibility that China may not grow beyond the low-cost producer phase. George Gilboy, an MIT researcher who works in Beijing for a multinational corporation, says, "Chinese firms may not develop like Japanese or Korean ones did. China may be building a distinct model of capitalism with distinct firms. China capitalism may simply be best at making things a lot cheaper." [9]

[1] Edward Cody, "In China, Dreams of Bright Ideas," Washington Post, June 17, 2006.

[2] Edward Cody, "In China, Dreams of Bright Ideas," Washington Post, June 17, 2006; "The Struggle of the Champions," The Economist, January 6, 2005.

[3] "The Struggle of the Champions," The Economist, January 6, 2005.

[4] Kevin Maney, "Chinese Firms Look to US for Management Training," USA Today, June 28, 2005.

[5] Paul Gao, Jonathan Woetzel, and Yibing Wu, "Can Chinese Brands Make It Abroad?" McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 Special Edition, www.mckinseyquarterly.com.

[6] Paul Gao, Jonathan Woetzel, and Yibing Wu, "Can Chinese Brands Make It Abroad?" McKinsey Quarterly, 2003 Special Edition, www.mckinseyquarterly.com.

[7] "Globalizing Chinese Brand Names," China Daily CEO Roundtable, August 31, 2004, www.ceoroundtable.chinadaily.com.cn.

[8] Richard Westra, "The Capitalist Stage of Consumerism and South Korean Development," Journal of Contemporary Asia,Television Week, June 13, 2005. March 1, 2006; Bradley Johnson, "'Made in USA' Not a Draw for Consumers,"

[9] "The Struggle of the Champions," The Economist, January 6, 2005.

The demographic challenges facing Europe are well-known, as aging and birthrates below the replacement level change the face of the EU. An article in Spiegel Online caught my eye because it tells a slightly different story, recounting how Germany is seeing a mini-baby boom nine months after it hosted the 2006 World Cup. 
As one doctor stated in the Spiegel Online article, “With many people the excitement they felt during the matches seems to have lasted and been employed in other ways after the final whistle.”

According to the article, registrations for prenatal classes are on the rise. A doctor at one hospital in Kassel, Germany anticipates a 10-15% increase in births.

Now, while this may just be a blip and have little effect on the long-term demographics of Europe, this phenomenon reminded me of some useful lessons to consider when thinking about the future:

The future is not just more of today—Demographics are among the most stable trends, but as this article reminds us things can and do change. Thinking about the future means not only looking at the most probably directions or outcomes, but also examining trigger events, countertrends, and discontinuities that could cause lower-probability change to emerge.

Consider unintended consequences—Thinking about the future means thinking broadly and connecting the dots between unrelated bits of information. It requires creativity, in combination with rigorous analysis. It means we need to think about the second and third-order impacts and implications as we consider different possible futures. The idea that the World Cup may have sparked this mini-baby boom reminds us to think beyond the obvious.

Don’t underestimate the power of people—When we think about the future it’s easy today to focus on new technologies. Technology is tangible, getting cheaper and spreading to every corner of the earth, and there’s no shortage of people who are willing to tell you where they think it is going. What’s harder to track and understand is people and what they need and want, but this task is a critical part of studying the future, and we’re happy to see more of our clients asking us to help them understand how consumer values are changing and even intersecting with technological change. This article about Germany reminded me that people are the real changemakers.

So…who’s next? Well, if there’s anything to this sport-induced baby boom thing China could be in for it…they’re hosting the FIFA Women’s World Cup this summer and then the Beijing Summer Olympics in 2008.

(Image: Social Technologies)