The next big thing...

[Adam L. Beberg]

On Mon, 5 Nov 2001, Jim Whitehead wrote:

> Of course, there is no *one* next big thing.
>
> My picks for *very* influential technologies:
>
> (a) electronic books
>     - potential to dramatically lower textbook costs

Eink, yay! This is definately my bet for the neatest thing on the horizon,
hands down.

> (b) semi-autonomous robots
>     - there's still a lot of atoms that need to be watered, weeded, picked,
> processed, warehoused, transported, shelved, etc. If you can replace humans
> for these tasks, we get even further away from economics of scarcity.

Which our social structure is so not ready for! Unemployment is 5.4% and
you'd think civilization was collapsing.

> (c) global wireless IP
>     - it's a big world, and most of it doesn't have connectivity

$5/GB where people earn $5/week isn't much help.

> (d) solar energy & fuel cells
>     - mentioned by others :: there's a lot more of the earth off grid, than
> on-grid

Mmmm, patents, any good advance here is overpriced for 17 years, not to
mention a cell you can get to even a 100sq-cm size is really difficuly.

- Adam L. "Duncan" Beberg
  http://www.iit.edu/~beberg/
  beberg@mithral.com