Technology Horizons
feedIFTF's Technology Horizons Program combines a deep understanding of technology and societal forces to identify and evaluate discontinuities and innovations in the next three to ten years. We help organizations develop insights and strategic tools to better position themselves for the future. Our approach to technology forecasting is unique—we put people at the center of our forecasts. Understanding humans as consumers, workers, householders, and community members allows IFTF to help companies look beyond technical feasibility to identify the value in new technologies, forecast adoption and diffusion patterns, and discover new market opportunities and threats.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Visit the Technology Horizons Program website
Contact Sean Ness: sness@iftf.org or 650-233-9517
Visualizing IFTF Research via del.icio.us
I was playing with some of the visualization tools people have built for del.icio.us. Take a look at the tag cloud for "iftfth" - our del.icio.us account for Tech Horizons research. Can you tell what we're focused on these days? Even cooler is the...
"Biomicry, algae shells, and nanoelectronics"
"In an elegant bit of biomimicry, chemical engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have transformed the amazingly intricate shells of diatoms, single-celled algae, into possible components for nanoscale electronic devices. In the International Journal of Applied Ceramic Technology, researcher...
Telerobot in a pill
"The problem with previous cameras-in-a-pill, like Given Imaging's PillCam Capulse Endoscopy system, is that once you swallowed it, the doctors couldn't control its movement. Researchers at the Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Pisa, Italy have built a one-half inch long teleoperated pill outfitted with pincer-like clamps. (...
Hibernation-On-Demand
"Along with Steven Levy's profile of tech innovator Danny Hillis, the new issue of Newsweek surveys "Some Big Ideas." Basically, they've compiled short blurbs on around ten innovations. Things like neuroimpliants, desktop fusion, holographic projectors, and bionano labs-on-a-chip have been on our horizon for quite some time, but...
This entry is a bit of a preview for memo #4 in the RFID+10 project (links to Self-driving buses in London?
"London's Royal College of Art has developed a proposal for a self-driving bus system. The Personalised Public Transport (PPT) concept is a collaboration with Michelin, the Centre for Automotive Industry Research, and Capoco Design. Apparently, the group hopes to produce two prototype buses by 2007 with a trial the following year. From The Times:
(Project leader Alan Ponsford...
Haptics-laden sport garment
"This is a haptic sports garment developed by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. Laden with actuators, the vest is programmed to push on specific muscle groups to improve the technique of rowers, skaters, soccer players, and other athletes. From New Scientist:
...
On-the-screen games are still part of the future
Amidst all of the excitement about new forms of gaming that take place off the screen (such as on cell phones or through GPS devices), it can be easy to forget that there are still a lot of developments in the world of on-screen games. One particularly exciting area is online gaming, where tens of thousands of people from all over the world will log onto virtual environments at the same time,...
China takes a crack at gaming addiction
Beginning 10/1 Chinese online gamers will face new regulations that restrict them to 5 hours of play within any 24 hour period. The new rules are an attempt to curb what is seen as a growing problem with Internet addiction by Chinese youth--who are supposed to be spending their time studying for arduous high school and college exams, not playing games.
Gamers I talked to expressed...
Implants part of MoMa's new design exhibition
"Developed by Penn State researchers, this prototype implantable glucose sensor for diabetics will be on display as part of the New York Museum of Modern Art show "Safe: Design Takes on Risk." The exhibit opens October 16. From the exhibition page:
...
A-Rage wearable gaming platform
Smart shelf-life label
"Nestlé is integrating a smart food label from Timestrip into a food product package this spring. The chemistry-based label indicates whether a perishable packaged food is still good to eat. From Food Production Daily:
...
Hackers Put Brazil on the Map
Just in case you missed this article over the weekend. Looks like 80% of world's hackers operate out of Brazil.
Flailing into the future of game input
In the evolution of home videogame consoles, progress on the controller has taken a backseat to graphics, raw processor power, even the industrial design of the case. Nintendo is poised to put the input mechanism front and center with their next-generation console, the Nintendo Revolution. The controller...
Amsterdam Restaurant Puts Flickr on the Walls
I came across this interactive experience, called "Playing Flickr 2.0", during some recent research I've been doing in the run-up to our Fall Exchange at the end of October. We've been excited about both context-aware environments and pervasive displays recently, not to mention gaming, and this project just tied it all up in a neat, beautiful and architecturally and interactively compelling...
Flailing into the future of game input
In the evolution of home videogame consoles, progress on the controller has taken a backseat to graphics, raw processor power, even the industrial design of the case. Nintendo is poised to put the input mechanism front and center with their next-generation console, the Nintendo Revolution. The controller...
update: Slow Broadband Adoption in the U.S.
About a week ago, I wrote that broadband deployment in the U.S. hasn't reached the steep part of the technology diffusion S-curve. According to a recent report from the San Jose Mercury, it never will...
NEW HIGH-SPEED USERS OF INTERNET HAVE RISEN SLIGHTLY
By Jessie Seyfer
Mercury News
So many Americans have already moved from slower to high-speed...
CNET: Intelligence in the Internet Age
"C/NET has published the first in a series of articles titled "Intelligence in the Internet Age." The big question is whether "new innovations and technologies make us smarter or just lazily reliant on computers." Of course, I don't think offloading brain cycles onto machines is necessarily lazy. And there's also the related riddle of how to define intelligence in the first place. Still, it's...
Chipping corpses
"Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) company VeriChip is implanting tags in corpses to help the Mississippi State Department of Health keep track of decomposing bodies in the aftermath of Katrina. From the Red Herring:
The company, which is a subsidiary of publicly traded Applied Digital Solutions, said it is also in talks with...
Google Telecom Play Is About Local Advertising
Rumors today are that Google is getting into the ISP business, through dark fiber infrastructure and Wi-Fi. Methinks its likely a play to get a presence closer to the edge of the Internet in order to geographically target advertising and search. San Jose Mercury concurs.
