From MIT’s Technology Review, this is a list of the “10 Emerging Technologies of 2008”:
- Modeling Surprise Combining massive quantities of data, insights into human psychology, and machine learning can help manage surprising events, says Eric Horvitz.
- Probabilistic Chips Krishna Palem thinks a little uncertainty in chips could extend battery life in mobile devices–and maybe the duration of Moore’s Law, too.
- NanoRadio Alex Zettl’s tiny radios, built from nanotubes, could improve everything from cell phones to medical diagnostics.
- Wireless Power Physicist Marin Soljacic is working toward a world of wireless electricity.
- Atomic Magnetometers John Kitching’s tiny magnetic-field sensors will take MRI where it’s never gone before.
- Offline Web Applications Adobe’s Kevin Lynch believes that computing applications will become more powerful when they take advantage of the browser and the desktop.
- Graphene Transistors A new form of carbon being pioneered by Walter de Heer of Georgia Tech could lead to speedy, compact computer processors.
- Connectomics Jeff Lichtman hopes to elucidate brain development and disease with new technologies that illuminate the web of neural circuits.
- Reality Mining Sandy Pentland is using data gathered by cell phones to learn about human behavior.
- Cellulolytic Enzymes Frances Arnold is designing better enzymes for making biofuels from cellulose.