Recently by Denise Chiavetta

New briefs are available to subscribers to Social Technologies' Technology Foresight project:

Future Options in Energy Technologies
Innovation Indicators
Europe's decisions about energy will be shaped by concerns around security of energy supply, the sustainability of the energy supply, and cost competitiveness of new energy technology. This report provides forecasts around the commercialization of new energy-producing technologies, and supporting indicators of innovation probability within the EU.

Five Technologies that Will Change How We Interact with World 0
To reach forecasted levels of World 0 expansion, advances in new methods of accessing and interacting with virtual worlds are needed. Five technologies will change how users interact with virtual worlds and reduce current barriers to adoption: touch interfaces, brain-computer interfaces, location-aware technologies, vital-sign sensing, and mobile devices.

Future of Work: Location-Aware Technology
The Rise of the Smart Workplace
The world of work is changing as "knowledge work"--i.e., value generated by the creation or application of knowledge--increases its role and scope at various points along the enterprise value chain. Next-generation location-aware technologies (LAT) are one area of development that will significantly shape the future of work. This brief will explore the driving forces, obstacles, and implications of LAT-driven innovation for knowledge work along the value chain.

Self-Assembling Metal and Elastic Circuitry
Interdisciplinary Approaches Yield New Breakthroughs
Scientists at Cornell University have created a new process for shaping metal on the molecular level, whilst scientists at the University of Tokyo have created a flexible conductive material. These techniques could lead to advances in fuel cell technology, computing, wearable electronics, and other areas.

On February 15th, the National Academy of Engineering unveiled its Grand Challenges for Engineering. Over a year in the making, the list was crafted by an international committee with members like Ray Kurzweil, William Perry, and Craig Venter. The group came up with the following list of challenges:

• Make solar energy economical
• Provide energy from fusion
• Develop carbon sequestration methods
• Manage the nitrogen cycle
• Provide access to clean water
• Restore and improve urban infrastructure
• Advance health informatics
• Engineer better medicines
• Reverse-engineer the brain
• Prevent nuclear terror
  
• Secure cyberspace
• Enhance virtual reality
• Advance personalized learning
• Engineer the tools of scientific discovery

Click to Read More ...

What will likely be the most important scientific and technological breakthroughs with significant commercial value and impacts on the lives of consumers out to 2025?

To begin to answer that question, S)T's Technology Foresight program conducted a virtual, global focus group of experts in technology, innovation, and business strategy. The group included experts from the Association of Professional Futurists, Tekes, Duke University, Hasbro, Worldwatch, General Motors, Shell, Johnson Controls, and Oxford University, among others.

After consolidating input from the expert panel and analysis by Social Technologies' futurists, what emerged was our list of top 12 areas for tech innovation through 2025:

Click to Read More ...

Our Technology Foresight multiclient program identifies and examines important emerging shifts in science and technology through analysis of S&T literature. Looking back on this past quarter, I noted some themes emerging in our briefs and notes:

• Technology moving from assistive to enhancing. In many sectors, especially healthcare, researchers are developing technologies that go beyond just aiding their users to actually enhancing their abilities.
• Green solutions: elegant and easy. From carbon capture to waste processing, there is increasing interest in creating advanced environmental solutions that are easy to implement.
• Technology values in play. Future technological developments are being driven by the technology values of today, including health, intelligence, connectedness, and sustainability.

Here's a recap of just of few of the of the nuggets of evidence behind these themes:

• The energy sector is feeling a sense of urgency around innovation. 
• Worldwide abatement of greenhouse gases (major contributors to global climate change) could cost as much as 1.4% of world GDP, by one estimate, though this is projected to be significantly less than the economic costs of inaction.
• Interest in carbon capture and sequestering technologies is growing, with new technologies that promise cheaper methods in the works.
• Biofuels could have a significant role in the EU energy sector by 2030, with some forecasts having them accounting for almost 25% of transportation fuel.  
• As global population and urbanization increase, the need for innovation in infrastructure and transportation could lead to:
• the proliferation of high-speed air and rail travel in World 1 and significant global increases in passenger mobility
• decentralized water and wastewater treatment processes that significantly reduce costs and are monitored and controlled using remote sensors
• a need for worldwide infrastructure upgrade investments totaling $40 trillion by 2050
• over the long term, automated underground highway systems combining intelligent highway systems with alternative energy vehicles in densely populated urban environments
• New information gleaned from research in cellular biology continues to drive medical developments with potential future applications such as:
• biotech-based retinal implants that restore sight
• stem-cell therapies that repair or develop cells in human ears to restore hearing
• transgenic animals containing elements of the human genome, allowing scientists to model and study human disease in livestock

My computer with its 17 inch flat-screen is just a few feet away from the kitchen. The kitchen being control central of my home (I need a lot of food to command and control), the proximity make sense.

Finding out what my spouse is doing at work or how many Weight Watcher points I just spent on my lunch is just a click away. This week, I came across a signpost of how transparency is integrating into our lives as consumers. On the peel of Dole's organic bananas is a sticker with a "farm code." If you want to know more about where your banana came from, you can enter the farm code number at Dole's website.

Photos of smiling women packing away bananas in a warehouse became surprisingly personal when I looked down at the banana in my bowl..."did you once lie on that table in Colombia?" In addition to photos, a link to Google Earth will zoom in on the farm from above, and a listing of farm certifications, awards, and recognitions provides all the technical information you might need about how the your banana was grown. But it seems a smiling face was all I needed.