Technology Trends

What is Technology
 According to Albert Borgmann, “technology is an
ensemble (collection) of devices and procedures
based on science and directed towards a
practical result”
 Technology can be defined as the following:
 Tools (artifacts) made by humans as an efficient means
to achieve a goal
 Practices (creation, fabrication, use of means and
machines)
 Technology is a system dedicated to the mastery
of nature through the mediation of devices which
extend and amplify the powers of humankind
How Does Technology
Affect Us?
 Mastery of nature
 Technology adoption results in transforming the world
of nature into the world of artifact
 We use technology to create an artificial world (cities,
bridges, cars, houses, television…)
 Mediation of devices
 Technology acts as a mediation between humans and
the object of his work
 We talk to people using a mediation called telephones
 We try to understand what is happening through
information we get from TV, radio, newspapers,
computers
How Does Technology
Affect Us?
 Technology as extension
 We use technology like an extension of our body
 A hammer is an extension of our hands
 A telescope is an extension of our eyes
 It is common today to see people use Blue Tooth
devices sticking out of their ears
 Technology as an amplification
 We use technology to amplify our actions
 We use a microphone so our voice can become louder
 We use a car so we can move faster
 We use a telescope so we can see further
How Does Technology
Affect Us?
 Engel’s Effect
 This principles states that cumulative quantitative
changes results in a qualitative change
 Cars help to transport people; too many cars
(quantity) will eventually cause a traffic jam (quality)
 “With great powers come great responsibilities”
 Technology offers us “superhuman” abilities like
traveling at the speed of sound and using a nuclear
bomb to blow up a city; or use a programming code
to destroy information all over the world (using a
software virus)
How Does Technology
Affect Us?
 Ambivalence (or externalities)
 There is always side-effects (multiple
outcomes) when we use technology
 We drive cars – we contribute to pollution
 We use calculators and we forget how to do
mental arithmetic
 We use CCTV to improve security; we
threaten our privacy
General Trends in Technology
 Digital
 Large portion of information in the future will be
digitized
 Faster, cheaper, easier to store and transport
 Easily replicated, modified, re-used (for purposes other
than originally intended), distributed and/or queried at
almost no incremental cost
 Integrated
 Information, products and services will become more
and better integrated in the future
 Separate things work together – increasingly number of
multi-functional products and services
General Trends in Technology
 Interactive
 Static, one-way information will be replaced
by information that can be personalized,
customized, queried, sorted, searched, edited
and condensed
 Networked
 There will be a standard system for uniting
thousands of networks in the world – linking
data, video and audio networks between
various phone, broadcast TV, cable TV, radio
and satellite networks
General Trends in Technology
 Object-oriented
 Everything on the network will appear as objects to
everything else where these objects interact and pass
on information about themselves to other objects
 This approach will allow for adaptive, intelligent cyber-
media using intelligent agents (software robots) for
navigation, searching and negotiation
 Portable
 Portable refers to physical portability (due to small size)
but also refers to interoperability of digital information
 Data files, formats and protocols will be interoperable
and scalable across disparate (totally different)
networks, systems and devices
General Trends in Technology
 Multimedia to Virtual Reality
 Multimedia (combination of text, audio, video,
animation) will be upgraded into the quality of virtual
reality
 The fidelity (or quality; resolution) of presentation will
be almost as real our real world
 Virtual reality interfaces with avatars (fictitious
characters) and their ability to recognize speeches and
gestures eventually become a common feature of
electronic equipment
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age

Mass Media Personal Media

Dominant TV Web
Medium
Location Living room Everywhere

Experience Watch and Participate and

consume create
Players Few and large Many and small

Business Models Product / Subscription (and

Service more)
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age

 TV (mass media) verses Web

(personal media)
 Slowly but surely the Web is fast
becoming the source of information
(Google, e-newspaper, e-magazines,
TV news on demand, YouTube); maybe
in the future, more people will get
information more from the Web than
from TV or radio
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age
 Location to Get Information
 Key trait of personal media will be increasingly
everywhere
 Use of GPS (Geographic Positioning System) and GIS
(Geographic Information Systems) will give our
electronic devices “position awareness”
 Use “geocaching” (ability to track interesting locations
and locations of interesting people)
 Ability to leave messages to friends based on location
(if they reach a specific location, the message gets
sent)
 Camera with GPS – each picture contains information
about where it was captured
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age
 Business model: from production to subscription
 Unique feature of future business model – selling by
subscription (only pay what we use)
 Example: pay for car usage only when we use (measured
by time or mileage)
 Example: pay for using washing machine only when we
use it (measured by time, wash load)
 There is NO clear distinction between product and
service – product must come with service (if not, the
product is useless) and service cannot be offered without
a product (if not, the service cannot be used); Example:
we cannot use our handphones without a line (from
Maxis, Celcom, Digi); we cannot use a line without a
handphone
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age

 Future markets – very few large

companies and many small companies
 From consumers to creators
 Presently, the message from the mass media
is “shut up and watch – then go buy what you
see in the advertisement”)
 Future – personal media is two-way,
interactive in nature; customers customize
and personalize what they want to receive
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age

 E-community
 There are many e-community web sites today
ranging from MySpace, Flickr, Friendster,
FaceBook, Yahoo! Answers and countless very
active bloggers
General Trends in Technology
From Information Age to Media Age
 Personal media will erode the “shared media
experiences” in societies of the future
 In the past, we watch the same TV news and
programs, read the same newspapers and
magazines; in the future, we can customize what
we watch (on demand) and filter what we do not
want to watch
 Future societies may consist of individuals who
will not share knowledge and information that
serves as a glue that holds civil society together
Trend: Cars
 The following are some of the considerations for
the forecasted features of cars of the future
 Environmental friendly
 Stagnating population growth
 Emergence of megacities (5 million residents or more)
 Aging, more active population
 Increased demand for mobility
 Demand for connectivity, simplicity
 Increased demand for safety
 Individualization
 Increasing technological complexity but with simple
interface (easy to use)
Trend: Cars
 The following are some of the forecasted
features of cars of the future
 Visual aids for better night and rain vision
 Easy-to-use functions for complicated devices
 Side and rear-view cameras
 Easy switching between relaxation and driving positions
 Embedded entertainment and information systems
 Automation of stop-and-go traffic situation
 Concealment of passengers from outside viewers
 Protection of passengers from attacks
 Effective smog protection and air conditioning
 Nearly zero toxic emissions
Trend: Alternative to Fossil
Fuel – Biofuel
 Biofuel (also called agrofuel) can be broadly
defined as solid, liquid, or gas fuel consisting of,
or derived from biomass (material derived from
recently living organism)
 Algae fuel, also called oilgae or third
generation biofuel, is a biofuel from algae
 Algae are low-input/high-yield (30 times more energy
per acre than land) feedstocks to produce biofuels
 algae fuel are biodegradable and so relatively harmless
to the environment if spilled
 With the higher prices of oil, there is much interest in
algaculture (farming algae).
Trend: Alternative to Fossil
Fuel – Biofuel
 Biofuels are proposed as having such
benefits as follows:
 reduction of greenhouse gas emissions
 reduction of fossil fuel use
 increased rural development and a sustainable
fuel supply for the future.
Trend: Alternative to Fossil
Fuel – Biofuel
 Limitations of biofuels
 The feedstocks for biofuel production must be replaced
rapidly and biofuel production processes must be
designed and implemented so as to supply the
maximum amount of fuel at the cheapest cost, while
providing maximum environmental benefits
 Due to government subsidies and rising demand for
biofuels, farmers worldwide have an increased
economic incentive to grow crops for biofuel production
instead of food production
Systems Evolution
 According to Genrich Altshuller,
technology goes through patterns of
technical evolution
 Completeness of parts
 Energy conductivity
 Harmonizing the rhythm of the system’s parts
 Increasing ideality
 Uneven development of the system’s parts
 Transition to a super-system
 Transition from macro- to micro-level
Systems Evolution
 Completeness of parts
 Any working system must have 4 part
• the engine (generates the needed energy)
• the transmission (guides this energy to the working
unit)
• the working unit (working organ – ensures contact
with outside world)
• the control element (organ of steering – makes the
system adaptable)
Systems Evolution
 Energy Conductivity
 As every technical system is a transformer of
energy
 This energy should circulate freely and
efficiently through its 4 main parts (engine,
transmission, working element and control
element)
 The transfer of energy can be by substance,
field, or substance-field.
Systems Evolution
 Energy Conductivity
 Harmonizing the rhythm
• The frequencies of vibration, or the periodicity of parts and
movements of the system should be in synchronization with
each other
 Increasing Ideality
 The development of all systems goes in a direction of
increasing ideality through reliability, simplicity and
effectiveness with less cost, space and wasted energy
 Improving qualitative ratio – which is total desirable
benefits of the system divided by its total cost or other
harmful effects
 The ideal final result would be to enjoy all the benefits at
zero cost
Systems Evolution
 Uneven development of System’s Parts
 A technical system is made up of different parts, which
will evolve differently, leading to the new technical and
physical contradictions
 The limitation of the overall system is often due to the
limitation of one part (sub-system); when this
limitation is solved, then another part becomes the
limitation of the system
 For example, the first jet airplane could not be
manufactured until the invention of steel that could
withstand the heat of the jet
Systems Evolution
 The law of transition to a super-system
 When a system exhausts its evolutionary
potential, it's included in a super-system as
one of its parts; as a result new development
of the system become possible
 For example, a watch included as part of the
accessory of a car or a fan being included as a
ventilator of a bigger machine
Systems Evolution
 From macro to micro level
 Technological artifacts usually starts with
crude, clumsy large units and evolved to
things that make use of small, micro elements
 For example, cooking has evolved from using
firewood to gas stove to microwave oven
 For example, communications systems have
evolved from shouting to smoke signals to
wire based telephones to wireless devices
(microwave and other waves to transport
signals)
Systems Evolution
 Towards decreased human involvement
 Technology is taking us from manual systems
to semi-manual (tools) to semi-automated to
fully automated systems
Systems Evolution
 Evolution of technology follows the S-curve
starting from conception (pre-birth), birth,
infancy (and growth), maturity and retirement
 It is also well known that most products die out
because they become overtaken by new ones
that serve the users’ needs better
 For example, the film reel is replaced by video
tapes which is then replaced by CD which is then
being replaced by DVD
 For example, paper tapes  punched cards 
floppy disks  CD  DVD and thumb drives