I (not-so-recently-ago) attended the National Science Foundation’s Advanced Technological Education Conference (Fall, 2013).  One session was about emerging technology.  As I was cleaning my laptop’s desktop, I came across these notes and decided to post them here:

Emerging Technology in Photonics

• Solar electric – poor efficiency, needs energy storage (not developed for scale), no payback w/o subsidies
• Organic LEDs – produced in a flexible film (like wallpaper), signs display
• Fiber lasers – fiberoptics where the core is an active medium (broad light, gas discharge) over 35% efficient (100x lasers), generates >100KW, can probably knock missiles out of sky, low power requirements, lightweight, no cooling
• Laser-assisted additive manufacturing – highly irregular shapes that can be created (related 3D printing)
• Capsule Endoscopy – 1/2” capsule- swallow it – contains batteries LED, camera

Emerging ICT (information communication technologies) Technologies

• Technology trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment, plateau of productivity
• 2005 “triple play- phone, internet, cable), 2011 apps, 2015 – experience roaming – social circle, apps ecosystem, user data roaming (mobile me), service roaming, user interaction design, industrial design, brand

Emerging Tech in Biosciences

• DNA sequencing – nanopore sequencing
• Complex biomarkers and antibodies
• Stem cell technologies (keep growing in “undecided” state)

Microchips 2020

• Wearables – enabled by microchip technology
• Semiconductor content in cars is $350/car and rising 70+chips and rising
• Silicon wafer 450mm
• Flexible displays
• Smart cells – electronic cell that includes instruments

Deep Space

• Space is not in limbo
• Space launch system – multi-purpose crew vehicle to travel farther – first launch 2013
• Reusable vehicles – scaled composites ShapeShip Two – SpaceX Grasshopper
• Suborbital rocket planes – XCOR Lynx, Virgin Galactic, Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, JetPacks
• Space Station resupply – SpaceX Dragon, Orbatal Sciences Cygnus – commercial cargo ships
• Getting Humans back to space – Bigelow Aerospace (provide modules that collapse and re-inflate (e.g., bio modules, hotels in space), Boeing CST-100 (up to 7 people)
• 3D printing for space – create spare parts instead of having to carry them

Additive Manufacturing

• joining materials to make objects from 3D model data
• medical diagnostics
• dentistry (small piece in office – caps produced)
• paleontology
• GIS survey
• BOOTH 201

New Varieties as New Technologies (Grape Growing)

• “No spray” fungicide resistance  (GMO or hybrid breeding)
• NMR used in other areas – leverage existing technology
• Applied research in climate change – “crop forcing” – prune vines and come back into June and do it again
• Mitigating catastrophic diseases (Pierce’s Diesease)
• Korvan 3016xl – vehicle for collecting data on soil quality (e.g., conductivity, compaction)

Nanotechnology (Nano-Link)

• RustOleium NeverWet (superhydrophobicity) (Ross Nanotechnlogy) YouTube video 8M+ views http://youtu.be/DZrjXSsfxMQ
• Carbon Nanotube Computer “CEDRIC”
• Drug delivery – deliver without doing damage during transport – medicine in pores – then “cork” dissolves away, deodorant – releases when body temp increases

Ubiquity of Tech Innovation/ Entrepreneurship in Big Data

• Health based on
• Netflix series – take data on what you have clicks, people
• Facebook – facial recognition, attributes
• Project using facial recognition to ID art subjects, hospitality (in bars – facial recognition on patrons – let you decide where you want to go), facemate, retail – cameras – realtime demographics in store – lines moving fast enough, who is looking at products, how old are people in your store
• Billboard – if you are female it shows you an ad, not – no ad – customizing ads
• Peer-to-peer currency – Bitcoin
• Crowdsourcing/Collaborative Consumption – waze – where the cops are on the road, lyft – friend gives you a ride, rent out your own car, parking at your house, collaborative laundry
• Get Data? Use Data? Ethics?

McKenzie (Mitt Romney’s Consulting)

• Disruptive technologies – Mobile devices #1, Big Data, Personalized Medicine, Batteries, Natural Gas – 4.4cents/KW hour
• SMRs – small modular reactors (nuclear – tiny reactors – affordable to build make one, done, encapsulate in concrete
• Fusion – medical isotopes – Taylor Wilson (14 yr old who built a reactor)