Talk:List of emerging technologies/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Solid state energy conversion and refrigiration

I think it could be good to add in energy technologies list solid state energy conversion (such as fuel cells,pyroelectrics,thermoelectrics etc.) wich could potentially marginalize internal combustion engines and solid state refrigiraton such as based on magnetocaloric and electrocaloric effects. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.0.228.58 (talk) 18:32, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Transformation Optics

I think this article needs some transformation optics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.17.91.136 (talk) 23:23, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Human brain marginalized?

It's strange, but under "artificial intelligence," it says the technology of the human brain could be marginalized. Who the hell would want to do that?!! That's why we have brains is so we can use them, not let the robots do all the thinking and turn the world into the one from The Matrix. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.17.91.136 (talk) 23:20, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Its ridiculous to assume that AI technology would marginalize the human mind. Its completely unverifiable and extremely speculative. Scientists don't even fully understand the human brain, so there is no basis for comparison to a digital construct. This claim should be removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antisyzygous (talk • contribs) 00:21, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Not ridiculous for anyone who understands that the brain is simply a low-speed high-node neural network. With all these emerging technologies, it's not just likely but inevitable that neural networks with more powerful reasoning capabilities than a human mind will emerge. The first of these types of human-marginalizing AI constructs will be a result of HP's work with memristors, which can potentially be layered into 3d arrays, effectively increasing the size of the network exponentially. With far better latency and a robustness that implicitly simulates perfect myelinization, it's not a question of if, but when. And the answer is 'quite soon.' Your opinion is amusing in a manner similar to chess grandmasters in the 90's who still thought computers would never be able to defeat a world champion. Nowadays, commercially available software on a home PC performs a couple hundred ELO stronger than a world champion.

Also your statement that scientists don't even fully understand the human brain is a naive oversimplification of reality. The truth is that most if not all of the functions of the human brain are perfectly understood. We don't understand them on a LOW LEVEL because that is as silly as trying to understand the function of a human finger on a cellular level. We do understand it on a low enough level to duplicate it in software given powerful enough hardware. And we do understand it well enough to see that it's all perfectly emulatable and improvable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.73.17.9 (talk) 17:28, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I modified the potential marginalized technology section for Artificial intelligence from "Human brain" to read "Human decision, analysis, ect", considering AI technology is meant to replace a human being in a particular setting. For example, an AI can replace a human competitor in a chess game. As AI technology advances, its reasonable to assume AI's will take over roles typically assigned to a human being, thus marginalizing human beings for that job.98.201.170.218 (talk) 04:12, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Double ups

Quantum Computing, Optical Computing, Optical CPU. Aren't these all the same? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.7.95.71 (talk) 04:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

No, they are not the same thing. Optical computers would function similarly to computers we know of today, quantum computers are entirely different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Antisyzygous (talk • contribs) 00:20, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Adding Nanosolar

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rlb-WA9sEBQ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.166.142.99 (talk) 12:41, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

maybe a adding of nanosolar and other thin film solar cell companies would be great (third wave solar energy) where they print the suncells unto aliminium, sound very interesting and they have allready started shipping panels in dec 2007. they produce watt cheaper than coal in cost ratio 1 to tre and 1 to 10 against silicon based solarpanels. if someone could check them out it would be great! http://www.nanosolar.com/articles.htm you can find some videos at the right 25 years garanty on the panels

some awards they won http://www.nanosolar.com/AwardsReviews.htm

investors (some very nice names among) http://www.nanosolar.com/investors.htm

Nanosolar is a privately held company with financial backing from an elite group of private technology investors

if someone could check them out and determin if they should be added it would be great! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.166.142.99 (talk) 12:19, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Corporate advertising absolutely should not be included on this list! 90.128.37.21 (talk) 13:23, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Size of list

This list should not become too long. It is important that only potensially disruptive technologies are included. Information technology has already been disruptive, so only sub-categories like artificial intelligence should be included.--Hulagutten 09:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

I added Information Technology. You can remove it if you want, but it is referred to as an integral part of "NBIC" in the Emerging technologies article. In order to impose the restriction above, please include that restriction in the content of the article, as part of an encyclopedic description. — Epastore 17:09, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

I created a table structure to impose restrictions on the content. The point is that any items which does not have any significant areas of usage should be excluded. I saw that information technology is a part of NBIC but I do not see what potensial disruptive effect information technology can have in the future. But maybe something more specific like bioinformatics should be added? I am also uncertain whether scramjets could have a disruptive effect as I do not know how energy efficient it is, which will become important to future air travel. The title "Technologies potensially made obsolete" could be changed into something more appropriate as the "human brain" hardly a technology. --Hulagutten 09:12, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

The human brain is the physical implementation of the human mind. The title is very appropriate. Expecially as this is a list of emerging technology. If it were not "technology" you should argue for its removal from the list as it would therefore be off topic. I do not believe this is the case however. 128.205.181.106 (talk) 16:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The reason why I changed the heading from "Things potentially made obsolete" to "Things potentially losing importance" is that obsolete makes it sound too certain. Before the video player made it into almost every home, I am sure that the video player would be listed, with cinemas being the technology becoming obsolete, often though the new technologies fill a slightly different function than the old ones. It might be that even though the prices of flash memory would drop drastically the hard drive would still survive because of some characteristic, which we currently do not value (could be that it is more resistant to high temperatures or whatever).--Hulagutten (talk) 18:02, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that "obsolete" is too strong. I have made a compromise and changed it to "Marginalized Technologies". It may be more appropriate for some elements of the list for this to read "Potentially Marginalized Technologies" but I feel "Marginalized Technologies" better expresses the relationship between these technologies and the their predecessors. Agalmic (talk) 20:19, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

This article should be removed!

This is supposed to be a list of emerging technologies, not a list of crazy science-fiction theories based cyberpunk literature. Why does an emerging technology have to be potentially disruptive and why a list of that aswell... That not what the headline of this article is about. An emerging technology could be something like OLED, a technology which is starting to find it's way into the consumer market.... This article isn't serious! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mortenrobinson (talk • contribs) 02:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Please give examples and refs to the ones you think are crazy. I have an ME degree and I think most are not crazy.

(Appeal to authority) KenFehling (talk) 15:23, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree, although for slightly different reasons. Crazy or otherwise, this article is inherently conjecture and therefore does not belong in Wikipedia.

Bluetd (talk) 02:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I believe some react on having Biomedical gerontology. I, however, believe that the possibility is there, given that a drug has already been found which works for some animals: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resveratrol#Life_extension --Hulagutten (talk) 11:10, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Every technology of this list currently exists. Some are only currently used in industrial settings such as the 3d printer. Others such as "life extension" have been demostrated in a number of animals; if you have read Nature recently; Wood JG, Rogina B, Lavu1 S, Howitz K, Helfand SL, Tatar M, Sinclair D. "Sirtuin activators mimic caloric restriction and delay ageing in metazoans". Nature. 2004 Aug 5; 430(7000):686–689. Epub 2004 Jul 14. PMID 15254550 [2] These effects have not yet been demostrated in humans yet, but development of the technology to that end is the objective of an extensive R&D effort on research into SIRT1 activators. Nothing in this list is "Science Fiction" and it is actually quite conservative as all of these technologies have existing prototypes and have been demonstrated. SIRT1 agonists will be as mainstream as viagra and cellphones are today, assuming the phase III trails go well.

Some of these items in fact may not qualify as emerging technology anymore; Synthetic diamonds, Wireless communication, Flash memory, and Video Games are ubiquitous throughout society and industry. Synthetic diamonds have been used in machine tools for decades and we have had "wireless communication" since the invention of radio in 1895. 3d printers are widely used for prototyping and are widely available. see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAt2xD1L8dw If anything this list is too conservative and short sighted. If anything some items such as "Nanowire battery" should not be listed because they only represent incremental improvement over existing technology and other items such as video games hardly meet notability as an "emerging technology" as they are already ubiquitous. Agalmic (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

If "Video Games" are to be listed as an "emerging technology" then why should "batteries" and "The internet" not be on this list? The notability guidelines for inclusion to the list should be restricted to items that are "emerging technology". Agalmic (talk) 16:31, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Agalmic, I certainly agree that video games should be removed and I have done so now.

With regards to wireless technology, I personally find it alright to leave it there. Similarly, it could actually be relevant to add "reliable global positioning system", because of Galileo. The thing making them both relevant for this list is that they in the future will become reliable, which means that one can use them in critical systems. This will open a lot of possibilities and make other technologies lose importance.

With regards to flash memory, I would argue that it has distinct characteristics to the hard disk, so once it becomes so cheap that it can compete with hard disk as a standard storage system, the hard disk will lose importance. This is similar to the invention of the light bulb. "Edison did not invent the first electric light bulb, but instead invented the first commercially practical incandescent light" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edison. If the year was 1879, I would certainly put the light bulb on this list. I also see that my view will cause a huge discussion for every item on this list, as it makes the criterias very blurry.

With regards to synthetic diamonds, I am not familiar with its potensial once mass produced.--Hulagutten (talk) 17:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Synthetic diamonds ARE mass produced and have been for several decades. The bulk of industrial diamonds are synthetic. Synthetic diamonds find ubiquitous application from drill bits to chemical vapor-deposition coatings for pacemakers to prevent rejection and scar tissue formation. The technology is over a century old. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agalmic (talk • contribs) 05:03, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The person originally adding synthetic diamonds wrote CVD diamonds, which is a new production technique as far as I know. I have changed the item to CVD diamonds. --Hulagutten (talk) 00:37, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Needs some thought...

Right now, there is too much of a mix here between what is basically science fiction (e.g. nanorobotics), technologies in early research and development (e.g. artificial intelligence, scramjet), and working technologies strengthening in the marketplace (e.g. wireless communication, 3D printing, OLED, etc). I'm not too sure what to do about this, but it's certainly a mess right now. My first thought is to break up the list into several sections based on the level of development, e.g.:

(1) The idea is great, but there's no solid theory about how to accomplish it (e.g. nanorobotics).

(2) There is solid theory, but no experimental proof-of-concept (e.g. visible wavelength metamaterials).

(3) There is experimental proof-of-concept, but no production prototype (e.g. scramjet).

(4) It is developed for production, but there is not deep market acceptance (yet) (e.g. OLED).

The thing is though, there's not much on the list at all yet, so breaking it up is a bit kooky. All the same, something must be done for it to be really useful. Any ideas? • TheBendster (talk) 28 January 2008, 11:10 (UTC)

Perhaps we need an extra column titled "Project Time of Introduction" or something similar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.123.84 (talk) 23:03, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

A column should be added indicating the status of the innovation (e.g.: theory, prototype, market entry, diffusion, mature) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.178.175.193 (talk) 22:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

I love the status column, this is a good way to make a stucture that is suitable for splitting up into several articles once there are enough items on the list. It also makes the article more credible. --Hulagutten (talk) 01:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Please split Smart Drugs and anti-aging drugs into two seperate rows. The "smart drugs" should read Nootropics. Agalmic (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

interfacing the brain with a computer for the purpose of expanding accessible memory

Should this be added to the list? Also, if this became possible for a human brain, would it then become an option for the brains of other animals as well? Alanh1954 (talk) 05:38, 29 May 2008 (UTC)alanh1954

Yes; this would be a form of neuroprosthesis or an advanced form of machine augmented cognition. It is covered on the exocortex article. The technology does not currently exist but is rapidly being developed and tested in rats as a potential alzheimer's treatment. see Category:Neuroprosthetics Someone will eventually add these to the list I am sure. Agalmic (talk) 12:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Breadth of technologies

I added robotics, holography and biotechnology, but my concern is that those (and other potential additions) are overly broad. My aim was to highlight new and forthcoming innovations in robotic applications (particularly walking robots), holographic data storage, and biotechnological medicine. There are many things currently on the horizon, so how should we organize things here?90.128.37.21 (talk) 13:21, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

plasma arc waste disposal?

plasma arc waste disposal - how about that? maybe also algae biofuels. biogasoline, or cellulosic ethanol --Emesee (talk) 01:25, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Each of the emerging biofuel technologies are district and in different stages of development. It would be appropriate if each technology had its own place on the list. Although it would perhaps clutter the list it would better emphasis that these technologies are district and independent. You are encouraged to make any contribution to the article you feel appropriate. Agalmic (talk) 12:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

This article should talk about the concept of emerging technology, not a volatile list of technologies

I agree, this page makes no sense. Maybe it must contain only a description of what does it means to talk about emerging technologys.

Artificial Intelligence is not an emerging technology, the term was coined by Jhon McCarthy in the late 50s. Many amazing applications where expcected, like automatic translation, the fifth generation computers, etc. Now many of the techniques learned from research in this subject are applied in many devices very common in our homes, like washing machines with fuzzy logic controls, self-failure-diagnostics in cars, computer games, etc.

I won't be to radical to erase the whole article, instead I will erase some parts line that saying that human brains will be replaced by artificial intelligence. To affirm that synthetic biology will replace evolution is a very radical eugenetic point of view. May be it is a risk, but it is not inherent to synthetic biology. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Elias (talk • contribs) 09:07, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

This article already exists: Emerging technologies. We should consider what is meant by "emerging." Is that to say that the technology exists, but has not been, or is in the process of being, adopted? Is it to say that the technology has been merely theorized? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.128.44.163 (talk) 11:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

These items need to remain of the list. The goal of artificial intelligence and machine learning is to build machines with the same formal capacities as the human mind in various sub-domains. The stated goal of artificial intelligence is the manufacture of intelligence through mechanical means. Artificial intelligence has and will continue to reduce the set of operations that are exclusive to the human mind.

There is nothing "eugenetic" (actually spelled: eugenic) about synthetic biology marginalizing evolution as the method of the design of genetic machines. It is in fact the stated goal of synthetic biology and all progress in synthetic biology has been towards this end.

This list is extremely conservative to an expert in any of these respective fields. I would recommend picking up a copy of Nature or reading "Building Replacement Parts for the Brain"; the papers in the later are from 1998 yet even then it was difficult to argue that algorithms and VLSI implementations were merely "theoretical". 71.186.142.233 (talk) 03:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree; this article is perhaps not radical enough. When you consider that during the 1900s humanity went from horse drawn carriages to flying around the world on jet aircraft within a single generation, this list appears extremely conservative. I believe there may be a need for a List of postulated future technologies; this list is a list of Near future technology. Longer term or speculative technologies that only exist theoretically and which do not currently have extensive peer reviewed proof of concept research (such as robotic nanotechnology) should perhaps be relegated to a List of postulated future technologies. There may be some overlap between these lists but it would make the article more manageable while not exiling the more speculative technologies from mention. Agalmic (talk) 13:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

As a compromise, I have modified the headings of the table to reflect a more conservative stance on the (possible) impact of these technologies. Agalmic (talk) 13:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Modified to correct spelling of "technology" from "thechnology". Antisyzygous (talk) 00:38, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Artificial Intelligence

The significance of (Strong) Artificial Intelligence is magnitudes greater than all of the other technologies combined.
At least the "Potential drawbacks" column should be changed to something else than "Economic dislocation". I suggest "Unpredictable transformation of every ascpect of our lives".
[suggested reading]
Ypocat (talk) 22:46, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.73.17.9 (talk) 17:30, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I think it is fine; human level AI is only an incremental improvement over existing information technologies. Agalmic (talk) 03:33, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Consider the impact of a Technological singularity --jwalling (talk) 03:21, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Negative Thermal Expansion Materials

Negative Thermal Expansion (NTE) materials that shrink as theperature is increased, as opposed to expand, like a bridge does in the summer. Ice is an NTE material, however it turns into water. True NTE materials antain their phase as they heat up, ZrW2O8 is a prime example of an NTE.

As an emerging technology, their applications are far enough away, however, the mechanisms are being better understood every day.

Emerging technology	Status	Marginalized Technologies	Applications	Potential drawbacks
Negative Thermal Expansion Materials	Development of Theory, prototypes	Conventional heat engineering practices and industries	Anywhere stresses due to heating or cooling compromise applications or safety: dentistry, space shuttle tiles, bridges, piping	Caustic by-products and disposal.

Telepresence

How about adding telepresence to the list? Shapeshift1 (talk) 08:30, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

This is not a list for the Fields of emerging technology. This is a list of the actual technologies. However, that could be justified as a category if there are several promising items that can be best listed under it. EDG161 (talk) 01:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Graphene

Would Graphene be significantly unique from carbon nanotubes to be included on the list? I would consider it a competitor, or a successor to carbon nanotubes.--208.5.44.21 (talk) 15:51, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Potential Drawbacks

Could someone please remove this column from the list? The "potential drawbacks" of emerging technology should be addressed in the articles on those technologies themselves. The list feels cluttered with long and unnecessary speculations on possible negative consequences of these technologies. The space available on this list is simply not sufficient to address the "potential drawbacks" in detail worth devoting a column to. Agalmic (talk) 12:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Before the addition of additional columns it would be good to debate the merit of such columns and their purpose with respect to the objectives of this list. Agalmic (talk) 12:44, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

I second the removal of "Potential Drawbacks". I would also like to see "Other Relevant Articles" disappear (it's barely used, can never be "finished", distracts from the main content, and the information is in the relevant articles anyway). • TheBendster (talk) 6 September 2008, 17:26 (UTC)

I removed the column; the article looks much neater now. "Other Relevant Articles" is a bit off topic but has yet to become unmanageable. I am slightly amused that someone change the status of Nootropics from "Theory and Experiment" to "Available now"; I am half expecting them to add a link to Bulk Nutrition. Agalmic (talk) 08:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It may be neater, but it is also much less NPOV. e.g. covering applications without downsides. Zodon (talk) 02:32, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I object to the removal of the "potential drawbacks" and request its return. The reason 160 countries have an Environmental Impact Analysis law is that enthusiasts of "new" (including me) are not aware of the potential harm technology can do. Presenting only the promise without the drawbacks is only one-sided speech. 70.134.84.207 (talk) 13:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC) David Dilworth.

Please add

• Quantum cryptography --79.111.79.110 (talk) 07:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
• Cold fusion --79.111.79.110 (talk) 07:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Quantum cryptography should be on this list; I have added it. However cold fusion is not yet a technology and there are no plans for commercialization; it is therefore not an emerging technology. Agalmic (talk) 20:08, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Quantum crypto - animal testing

Quantum cryptography is in the animal testing phase?! Somehow I think this is incorrect... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.211.165 (talk) 10:32, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Sorry! I made an amusing error when I added QC to the list. I also put something else in the wrong column. It is fixed now. Agalmic (talk) 23:11, 3 November 2008 (UTC)

Fantasy and science fiction

This article contains much that is pure fantasy, rather than having any factual basis. One example is the notion that artificial intelligence is an emerging technology that is making the human brain obsolete - this is either a joke or a concept taken straight from science fiction which bears very little relationship to real AI in the real world. This is not to say that AI cannot displace some things traditionally done using brain power (like calculators partially displaced manual and mental arithmetic), but anyone living on planet Earth would realise that brains have rather a larger and more important role in a world with AI.

Science fiction is becoming science fact at a pace that is accelerating. As computing power continues to grow faster, the likelihood of AI becoming self evolving is real to me and many others. If your timeframe is years, your conclusions are justifiable. However, if your timeframe is decades, they are not. --jwalling (talk) 03:41, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Another fanciful suggestion is that scramjets are making jets obsolete. This is not going to happen. Scramjets may (and this is a very tentative "may") have a part to play in launching satellites, and possibly on long air flights. They are very unlikely to be energy-efficient for several reasons (a factor that is increasingly important), and it is totally implausible that they would ever replace jets for short and medium length passenger flights. Scramjets are a technology that is not yet fully developed that has one apparent advantage (speed), so suggesting they are a major threat to existing technology is similar to suggesting conventional cars are under threat from rocket cars. 82.1.151.34 (talk) 09:32, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem here may be that you are not reading it the way it was intended. The column "Marginalized technologies" isn't trying to assert that these technologies are being or even will be made obsolete, but rather that their total dominance is potentially under threat if and when the given technology matures to the degree that some people think is possible. In order to make this more clear, I will slightly change the column headings. • TheBendster (talk) 7 November 2008, 11:33 (UTC)

Organization

It would help if there was a (short) column that indicated the general area of a technology. e.g. Energy, Transportation, Information technology (AI, storage, displays), Medicine, Materials, etc., other

The point not being to exactly classify every aspect of a given item, but to give general grouping to the items. I rearranged the list to group items by such a scheme (it wasn't at all clear what the order was before). Giving the items a category column would allow sorting on the category, and help keep it organized. Zodon (talk) 03:41, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I made an attempt at such organizing, though instead of adding yet another column, I made sections. The reason for this is to reduce the risk of duplicates, encourage contribution (since one does not have to look through all times before contributing), and make it easier to find interesting technologies. I expect a debate about which categories different technologies belong to and I have not got the perfect solution, I have just made a first attempt. --hulagutten (talk) 19:42, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I think using sections overemphasizes the categorization. (Many of these could be seen as belonging to multiple categories - e.g. electric vehicles uses electronics technology but is applied to transportation.)

Using a column would allow sorting by category as well as by name, etc. (so one can find duplicates multiple ways) One person might put electric car in transport, another in electronics, another in energy. One sortable table might make it easier to catch such a duplication. Zodon (talk) 06:25, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the changes you made, moving things around. I agree with all changes, especially removing the "green". Since I made the first draft for this article, it has grown a lot. Though it seems like the growth has slowly come to a halt, and I believe the reason for this is simply that the table has gotten too big. If we expect to double or triple the amount of technologies in the table, sooner or later it will become too big. The sections can be a distraction in some cases, where it is impossible to appropriately categorize an item, though it can also be stimulating as someone can quickly see that a technology is missing in one of the categories. Generally, I believe that structure limits the mind, but makes it more efficient...--hulagutten (talk) 10:21, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

Solid State Drives are no longer emerging tech.

As they are now available to the mass market, should SSDs be deleted from this list? 195.190.132.207 (talk) 16:19, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Not obvious that it should. There are several technologies listed that are available, but not clear how much of an impact they will have (biofuels, machine translation, OLED, LED lamp). Listed as diffusion (whatever that means - would help to have a glossary). Of course when to declare that a technology has fizzled or has displaced seems a bit difficult. (Fusion power and AI have been right around the corner for decades.)

I am not saying that it shouldn't, but it isn't clear that it should either. Zodon (talk) 08:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I understand, but SSD is no longer emerging tech. It is a mature technology that is readily available in any computer store or from any computer manufacturer you could mention. We don't have to wait for it to fizzle out, or displace HDDs. It's here, now. I vote to delete it.195.190.132.207 (talk) 17:07, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Please explain why then it should be treated differently from biofuels, OLED, LED lamps or machine translation, all of which are readily available. Or do you also say they should be removed? (i.e. this list probably needs clearer basis for distinguishing what should be on it, standard for requiring references, etc.) Zodon (talk) 03:42, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think they should be treated differently. I would say they should also be removed if you think they are readily available. (Although I defer to others' opinions on these, as I'm ignorant as to just how widespread they are, which is why I just posted about SSDs). I agree that there should be a clearer basis for distinguishing what should be on this list, but in my mind, there is no doubt that SSDs are now "current" tech.

To offer some evidence here are some links to websites selling SSDs.

http://www.scan.co.uk/Index.aspx?NT=1-0-18-476-0

http://search.euro.dell.com/results.aspx?s=bsd&c=uk&l=en&cs=ukbsdt1&k=ssd&cat=all&x=0&y=0

There are dozens of models available, and Dell offer them as default inclusions in some of their laptops. 195.190.132.207 (talk) 17:05, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, if no-one dissents, I'll remove the Solid State Drives. I'll allow some time for people to say Yay or Nay, but if everyone is okay with this, I'll delete the entry on 7th January 2009.Jezcentral (talk) 10:33, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

SSD's, while commercially available, can hardly be described as a mature technology. (There is considerable innovation going on, so far they are largely niche items.) Are there references to support ready commercial availability as a criterion for saying a technology is no longer emerging? References to say that SSD is mature, no longer emerging? Is there consensus for that criteria? (And therefore that the items listed above should also be removed, since they are readily available from catalogs, etc.) This still leaves the question of exactly what "ready commercial availability" means, but clearer than nothing.) I am a little hesitant about that as a criterion, as for instance it would have removed the Personal computer from the list about the time of the Apple II or PET, if not earlier. My inclination would be that the transition from emerging technology happened a bit later, as personal computers became more mainstream (e.g. in the era of the AT or maybe 486 clones). But I don't have citations for that. How is emerging technology defined in the literature? (Since there are no sources sighted supporting SSD as an emerging technology, I don't say that it should stay, but I do not feel comfortable in accepting this criterion without citation (WP:OR?), and if SSD goes based on this criterion, the other items should also go.) Zodon (talk) 11:19, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. And if something is no longer emerging, does that automatically mean it must be "mature", or has no scope to grow/develop? It does not make sense to me that SSDs appear on a list that also contains quantum computing and exo-cortices. I do think that emerging tech ceases to become emerging when it is readily accessible. (I must admit, I thought my point that Dell offers SSDs as a default customisation with some of their laptops was the clincher. Alas not, it seems). It seems that only we two care deeply enough to debate the matter, and as we are split, one for deletion/one for conservation, we are at an impasse, which will mean SSDs stay on the list for the present.Jezcentral (talk) 14:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

SSDs have a bad reliability/performance tradeoff compared to conventional HDs (what good is a drive that has a very limited amount of writes to each bit?). Also, most are only about 32 GB and 1 TB drives are merely experimental and likely have even worse interoperability problems than available ones. This obviously means that SSDs are far from perfect and have a long way to go before anyone (at least me) will even consider using.

Or think about it this way: the hard disk was invented somewhen 1955 and became more-or-less readily available around 1965 but were very crude and luxurious back then. It wasn't until about 1975 that the basic technological concepts of the HD were finalized and made a reliable (non-experimental) and useful product. If there was a Wikipedia in 1965, I would wait 10-15 years before I would remove it from this article, and 5 at the very least. Similarly, until SSDs develop to the point where they prove to be superior to HDs, they remain an emerging technology (and a useless one IMO.)--70.65.229.62 (talk) 01:25, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

They have a superior read speed, superior power performance (i.e. they require less power), superior reliability, superior resiliance to the HDD and the "basic technological concepts" have been finalised. They are already useful and available for the mass market. I suppose we'll just have to wait for a quote from someone notable. Jezcentral (talk) 17:35, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Wrong! On average, they take more power, they wear out really fast considering logs, the MFT and other write-intensive areas. If wikipedia was stored on numerous SSDs, what do you think would happen after a couple days of 10 page edits per second? It has a long way to go (though sometimes a couple years can bring a technology really far) and is still experimental. I dispute the wisdom of mass-marketing them before they officially outperform HDDs.--70.65.229.62 (talk) 16:15, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

If you are taking your power figures from the infamous Tom's Harware report, that has since proved to be out-of-date. SLC SSDs have a writeable period comparable to an HDDs MTBF. As to the "wisdom" of mass-marketing them, they are sold because they sell. I do not consider that they have to out-perform HDDs in every area in order to stand on their own. I do not consider my car to be still an emerging tech just because it cannot travel as far as a horse can on a bale of hay! :)

Thank you for your input, though. However, Zodon already decided to leave "as is" for the moment, so debating this point is no longer really worthwhile until I can come up with a new piece of evidence, probably in the form of a quote from a notable person in the media storage industry. Jezcentral (talk) 13:39, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

My source dates to 2007, which discusses the problem of the limited write cycles in SSDs, contrary to HDDs that do not have these problems, with the exception of mechanical failure they retain their data forever (or many decades/centuries). Although 2 years is not much, I realize that its enough for a lot of advancement by now (e.g. wear levelling which was only recently adopted.) But considering write intensive programs and power users whose computers constantly work 24/7 processing/adding new material (like Wikipedia), it becomes useless in a short while, so I'd give it another couple of years where this problem will be much less prominent. And once your notable friend confirms they are being widely adopted for general purpose computing and HDD sales are visibly decreasing, then we can remove it.--70.65.229.62 (talk) 20:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Since there's no references that SSDs are an emerging technology in the first place, it can be removed at any time.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 21:32, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

There is no direct reference which says outright that they are, but there are plenty references for several aspects of SSDs which all suggest and imply that they are emerging. For example, only recently have 256+ GB SSDs become available on the market, while HDDs are at 1.5 GB and soon 2 and 4. SSDs are very pricey, are constantly being upgraded, and their market share is only beginning to rise. This was true for Blu-ray up until last year when they clearly have successfully diffused. They still aren't dominant but are easy to find. I've seen the NFD page for this article and you seem to insist rigidly based on a fixed rule about what should be done around here. You're a human, not a robot, append some common sense every once in a while. Note I'm not saying this to be a smartass, and I agree things should be backed by references, but I'm saying it's unlikely there is a reference out there that will PRECISELY say in one sentence: "SSDs are an emerging technology." In the meantime, give me a better rationale to remove it.--Spectatorbot13 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't get why size is so important. SSDs are already far superior to my first HDD, which was 40Mbs (yup, that's megs), back in the early 90s, in size, speed, duration, price per Mb, etc etc. No-one would argue that the HDD I had back then was an emerging technology. It was clearly a mature tech. The fact that HDDs are still so much cheaper IS holding back the mainstream adoption of SSDs, despite it's mass-market availability, but, and this is the important point, the SSD technology itself is mature. Jezcentral (talk) 13:10, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Well all right, but I still urge that we wait one more year before removing it. If you insist that SSDs don't belong here, you can remove it if you want.--Spectatorbot13 (talk) 22:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Technologies without an article?

I don't think any technology should be listed that doesn't already have it's own article. I've removed the one exception the article currently had. --Ronz (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Related Articles column

How about we just remove this column? It seems to be a bit too tempting for looking for ways to promote certain technologies and the associated companies and products. Better links are already provided in the See also section of each technology article. --Ronz (talk) 18:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Information Technology vs Computer Science

I think some entries in IT are better classified as Computer Science, including AI, Machine Translation, Vision, Quantum Computing, etc. Mashing together hardware and software and calling them IT is just not right. 93.172.153.242 (talk) 14:00, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Why is it not right?--70.65.245.94 (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

"Disruptive Technology"

[deleted]Emerging technologies are new and potentially disruptive technologies, which may marginalize an existing dominant technology.

Only new and potentially disruptive technologies are included in the list. Information technology, for example, has already proven disruptive, whereas artificial intelligence is a subset of information technology with the potential of becoming disruptive in its own right.[/deleted]

I deleted the above; it's description read too negatively. I reworded the intro summery to be more in line with Wikipedia's neutrality policy. EDG161 (talk) 00:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Space Gun

I am not completely in the know, but isn't the space gun a rather obsolete idea?78.156.220.214 (talk) 16:15, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

GNSS

How is GNSS an emerging technology? I see them everywhere. Especially in the car they are great, they tell you what the traffic is like up ahead, they tell you the weather, they scroll/announce news headlines... they are in mobile phones... buses, taxis, etc... I am going to remove that as an emerging technology. I think someone on the Galileo (navigation) article is going to remove the emerging technology tag too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.218.86.48 (talk) 01:01, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

The key word is "reliable". GPS is currently not reliable as the US military can turn it off as they please. This means that it cannot be used for anything that requires the position to be known at all times. I could imagine that one could use GNSS technology to land a plane in the future if one could rely upon it. Landing a plane is a situation where it could be critical if the US military chose to turn off the signal. --hulagutten (talk) 13:12, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Other pages on Wikipedia say that's not true anymore re: GPS & selective availability. Regardless, even if it were true, the key is that GNSS is hardly an emerging technology anymore (see Galileo). Same for Beidou. GLONASS has been around for ages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.238.152.3 (talk) 20:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, that the reliability of future positioning solution will only increase slightly, so this is not an emerging technology. Thanks for correcting.--hulagutten (talk) 21:13, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

Laser Displays

The link for this technology seems to be wrong, or simply too confusing for most users —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.237.8.173 (talk) 20:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed. Paradoctor (talk) 21:25, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Technology reveiw

An interesting article that is relevant to this page. Does anyone think some of these modern and important technologies should be included? http://www.technologyreview.com/specialreports/specialreport.aspx?id=37 69.114.172.102 (talk) 14:18, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors?

The article mentions fusion, but nothing in terms of advanced fission technologies. In particular, the LFTR, which is based on the thorium fuel cycle, resolves many of the problems of current fission reactors and the world has plentiful thorium to use this technology while we develop fusion.

Thorium fuel cycle Molten salt reactor Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment Generation IV reactor

Here is a video about the technology: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWUeBSoEnRk

76.21.243.81 (talk) 21:47, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Propose to use template for table rows

Recently, I spent some time cleaning up layout errors. These were caused by missing or extraneous columns in various rows. I made {{tr5c}} (will be renamed to trow or something), which can be used to make single rows. A bit of testing showed that the tables become much more resistant to breakage, usually isolating the problem to one or two rows. This should simplify table maintenance, at the cost of putting a few HTML comments into the source, so new editors know what to do. An example can be found here. Let me know what you think. Paradoctor (talk) 00:33, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Since nobody objected, I boldly implemented the proposal. Paradoctor (talk) 16:49, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Solar sail

My impression is that solar sail would fit nicely into the Transportation section, could one of the experts please verifiy? Paradoctor (talk) 13:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

I believe you can include it, even though the solar sail does not reference the following statement: "research in the area is continuing". It seems likely that it is still an active field as there has been recent (2008) experiments.--hulagutten (talk) 15:44, 4 February 2010 (UTC)

Delete this.

Is there anything that needs to be said beyond WP:CBALL? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.72.172.87 (talk) 04:27, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Does not apply. See previous deletion proposal. The list doesn't need deletion, it needs citations. Paradoctor (talk) 07:56, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Wireless energy transfer

Has been challenged. Arguments by anon:

• Wireless energy is not emerging. The technology is essentially older than "wired". What IS emerging, is increased reliability in Wireless energy transfer.
• I could cite the really long list in Wireless energy transfer. Am I misunderstanding the meaning of "Emerging" in this case? As in "Emerging from seclusion" instead of "Brand new"?

'essentially older than "wired"': To satisfy my curiosity: What makes you think that? Please note that both fusion and scramjet have a 50+ year history.

"What IS emerging, is increased reliability": "Emerging technologies are those technical innovations which represent progressive developments within a field for competitive advantage" Reliability is such an advantage. Also, power, range, cost, all of which are changing through current research and development. New applications are found, like completely wireless displays (one of the references you referred to). Paradoctor (talk) 11:20, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

There's also proposals to use it for sending power to the grid from space.- Wolfkeeper 15:42, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, I do think people such as Tesla transmitted power through air before wired systems were established. Anyways, I just misunderstood "emerging" to mean "newly created" when the word also applies to old projects revisited and recently improved. 99.236.221.124 (talk) 17:04, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

No problem, the biggest weakness of this list is the lack of a clear criterion for what constitutes an emerging technology. Your edit made me realize that wireless transfer is not only older than I assumed, it's also more widespread than than I recognized. Ironically, I'm using an induction cooker, and my toothbrush is wireless, too. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 17:23, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Maybe the definition of Emerging can be polished in the intro? It's pretty vague and weasels out of the definition by saying "there is a debate" 99.236.221.124 (talk) 18:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The problem is, emerging technology doesn't provide much to go on, not even quotes from the two relevant sources present. If you could improve the sourcing situation, you would be doing a great service to both the article and this list. Paradoctor (talk) 18:46, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

The source doesn't even define it, it just says "emerging technology" and that's it. It seems to imply any sort of technological advancement which may exist in the future. [link] 99.236.221.124 (talk) 20:54, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

You say you found an actual use of "emergent technology" in the text? I didn't read the whole shebang, but a quick scan failed to turn up any mention for me. I'd say the cited PSM issue is useless for the list, and of at most doubtful utility to the article. The way I see it, the article and the list have now a literature search on the concept of "emerging technology" as their top priority. Paradoctor (talk) 07:49, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

• Yeah, it says things like thanks to new emerging technologies in optics' etc without even explaining. Maybe the intro section can be reworked to be more true to the article. Saying something like "In media, Emerging Technology is an umbrella topic for any innovation which may grab the attention of the reader". Typing it in google seems to show that every tech magazine (wired, gizmodo etc) uses it in their own way. One definition I found is the latest technologies keeping consumers even more efficient, knowledgeable, entertained and connected which is kind of vague. A better definition is New technologies that are currently developing or will be developed over the next five to ten years, and which will substantially alter the business and social environment which gives us more specific timeline (5-10yrs) and a defining characteristic (substantially alter the business and social environment). 99.236.221.124 (talk) 16:55, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

  Don't hold back on my account. Anything actually supported by the sources and properly quoted is an improvement over what we have now. This should also help with the cavalcade of "unrefed" tags in the list that had Wolfkeeper in a tizzy. ;) Paradoctor (talk) 18:11, 8 February 2010 (UTC)

Space-tech?

Maybe you could put some space-tech in this article too? VASIMR for example. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.226.243.22 (talk) 15:52, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree, Skylon is another good example...--Novus Orator 08:45, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Quantum Computing

I have read reports (one example is here http://opa.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=6764) of elementary quantum computing processors and circuits being built and functioning. But while the article (at this writing) describes its status as in "theory and experiments", that's not entirely the case. Quantum Computing is also a practical reality (in primitive stages). I propose updating this status, but other and more current citations than the one I provide here would be needed, I think. --Openhatch (talk) 22:30, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

Unprofessional Language

Using the word "green(er)" as a descriptor. However, the term in imprecise and pop-culture. --66.134.255.250 (talk) 21:10, 24 September 2010 (UTC)