On his “2020 science” blog, Andrew Maynard of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars has published an excellent article “Ten emerging technology trends to watch over the next decade” that’s well worth reading.
To whet appetites, here’s his list of the ten emerging technologies:
- Geoengineering
- Smart grids
- Radical materials
- Synthetic biology
- Personal genomics
- Bio-interfaces
- Data interfaces
- Solar power
- Nootropics
- Cosmeceuticals
For the details, head over to the original article.
I see Andrew’s article as a more thorough listing of what I tried to cover in my own recent article, Predictions for the decade ahead, where I wrote:
We can say, therefore, that the 2010’s will be the decade of nanotechnology and AI.
Neither the words “nanotechnology” or “AI” appear in Andrew’s list. Here’s what he has to say about nanotechnology:
Nanotech has been a dominant emerging technologies over the past ten years. But in many ways, it’s a fake. Advances in the science of understanding and manipulating matter at the nanoscale are indisputable, as are the early technology outcomes of this science. But nanotechnology is really just a convenient shorthand for a whole raft of emerging technologies that span semiconductors to sunscreens, and often share nothing more than an engineered structure that is somewhere between 1 – 100 nanometers in scale. So rather than focus on nanotech, I decided to look at specific technologies which I think will make a significant impact over the next decade. Perhaps not surprisingly though, many of them depend in some way on working with matter at nanometer scales.
I think we are both right 🙂
Regarding AI, Andrew’s comments under the heading “Data interfaces” cover some of what I had in mind:
The amount of information available through the internet has exploded over the past decade. Advances in data storage, transmission and processing have transformed the internet from a geek’s paradise to a supporting pillar of 21st century society. But while the last ten years have been about access to information, I suspect that the next ten will be dominated by how to make sense of it all. Without the means to find what we want in this vast sea of information, we are quite literally drowning in data. And useful as search engines like Google are, they still struggle to separate the meaningful from the meaningless. As a result, my sense is that over the next decade we will see some significant changes in how we interact with the internet. We’re already seeing the beginnings of this in websites like Wolfram Alpha that “computes” answers to queries rather than simply returning search hits, or Microsoft’s Bing, which helps take some of the guesswork out of searches. Then we have ideas like The Sixth Sense project at the MIT Media Lab, which uses an interactive interface to tap into context-relevant web information. As devices like phones, cameras, projectors, TV’s, computers, cars, shopping trolleys, you name it, become increasingly integrated and connected, be prepared to see rapid and radical changes in how we interface with and make sense of the web.
It looks like there’s lots of other useful material on the same blog. I particularly like its subtitle “Providing a clear perspective on developing science and technology responsibly”.
Hat tip to @vangeest for the pointer!
dw2 
Thanks for the link to the “Ten emerging technology trends” blog David. I think you’re right, there’s a lot of overlap between our lists – which is encouraging! I should say that I was tempted to elevate AI to the top ten, but ended up keeping it below the line as I still think that we have a way to go before we get it to a point where it starts to make a major impact. But I could easily be wrong on this one…
Comment by Andrew Maynard — 28 December 2009 @ 12:52 pm
Hi Andrew,
Now that I’ve taken a more careful look at your blog, I’ve found a great deal of interesting and useful material on it. For example, your series of ten alternative perspectives on technology innovation, life, and the 21st century provides lots of intellectual food for thought, and caused me to pick up my blogging pencil for the second time today 🙂
I’m now trying to tear myself back to what I was working on earlier in the day…
Comment by David Wood — 28 December 2009 @ 9:23 pm