NEXTGENS TECHNOLOGIES

The rapid blurring of arbitrary limits between chemistry, biology, physics, and math—together with emerging technologies and engineering—challenge our view of the future. Just as revolutions in space exploration and biology could not have been made without raw computing power, so too will advances in design, manufacturing, energy, and computing come from new fields normally seen as outside the realm of applicability. What surprises might we expect?

It's clear the electronics revolution is still underway. Biofeedback for electronics could, for example, give the military and people with disabilities new ways to control user interfaces. The convergence of the biological and the electronic is helping create toolboxes for understanding the brain and for engineering its functions. As MEMS and organic electronics fabrication improve the scope for integration of tissues and electronic circuitry, the opportunities for in vitro diagnostics are seemingly endless. What can we hope to learn about the electrical behavior of individual cells?

Technology for reeingineering software on the fly will allow our computers to work better. Nanoscale memory components will someday allow us to pack more data into gadgets. Without further breakthroughs in battery technology for electric vehicles, the compatibility of the automobile and sustainable transportation is in jeopardy. Can chemistry overcome the most obvious limitations on battery technology? While nobody can predict how many of these developments will eventually see the commercial light of day, what’s clear is that more technology is coming at us faster than ever before.

It's easy to get excited about technology for technology's sake. Yet technology development is not a linear series of singular events or things—it comes in clusters that cross several boundaries at the same time. Rapid printing of multiple semiconductive layers to create electronics could significantly lower the cost to manufacture them; can we overcome the technological and economic hurdles?

Can energy harvesting be effectively used in devices? Will we be able to draw power from ambient phenomena? We'll soon be remaking "life" on our own terms—not to mention our own spare body parts—with advances in our understanding of cells, enzymes, and proteins. How do we extract the best of technology and human intelligence to make breakthroughs in image search? How will nextgens technologies, peoples, and practices alter organizational and societal landscapes?