REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGIES

Revolutionary Technologies in the Next Decade

Revolutionary Technologies in the Next Decade

Introduction

As technology professionals, we tend to think in terms of paradigm changes and dramatic breakthroughs, in other words, what will be the next big thing? The last few decades have certainly brought their share of dramatic changes in technology, the PC, Internet, mobile phone, and Smartphone. So it's natural to wonder, what's next? Punctuated Equilibrium Looking at the history of technological innovation, you begin to see a pattern. A technology is developed that changes how people live. Over a period of time, the technology remains essentially the same, with perhaps a few minimal changes. Then, suddenly, somebody comes up with a radically different technology that quickly makes the previous technology obsolete. Evolutionary biologists call this punctuated equilibrium.

Emerging Technologies in the Next Decade

Dimethyl Ether Fuel

DME (Dimethyl ether) is a fuel with promising prospect in gas turbines, patrol engines and diesel engines. DME has high cetane value of 55, which is higher than diesel's. DME can be burned easily with little modifications to diesel engine. Significantly low emissions are achieved, of NOx, CO, due to the cleanliness of its short carbon chain during combustion. There are very stringent emission regulations implemented in the US, Japan and Europe. This fuel would meet these standards easily. So far, Mobile has used DME fuel in its gasoline process.

BioDME is a second generation synthetic biofuel. DME is being developed on its tracks. This second gen biofuel is produced from biomass of lignocellulosic. According to the plans drawn by EU, DME would be used by 2030. The European Community Seventh Framework Program in coordination with the Volvo Group is preparing BioDME project. In Piteå (Sweden), a BioDME pilot plant, of Chemrec's, is near completion and it is based on gasification of black liquor (Semelsbergera et.al, 2006).

Universal Communicator

Those people who are handicapped are always treated differently. When a company undertakes an innovative venture, the target market excludes these special people. Products are made either for the use of normal people only, or for abnormal people, meaning that there is no innovation which can help all people similarly. A new prospect, known as Universal communicator, is idealized to bring those people who cannot speak or hear normally, on the same grounds as normal people (Walia, 2011). Those people who face problems in seeing, hearing or speaking would be able to use this innovation similarly to normal people. The design of this innovation would be kept very simple so that disable people can use it easily. It would consist of a bracelet and a ring to facilitate conversation or something like glove or whatever design would be best suited. We have already seen innovations which allow people with disjointed legs to walk. A device which can help people to speak would be very beneficial for the society.

Flying Cars

The past century saw a world changed by transportation technologies such as cars and planes. Such technologies have made long journey short. For instance, cars have changed the way we live and ...