The 25 new technologies that are going to triumph between now and 2020

The article “Top 25 new fields for millennials” published by The Startup Guide, sets forth the 25 technology trends emerging and that will be widely implemented in upcoming years. We present the list below:

1. Clean Energy: Improving living conditions in developing countries through sustainability. With this objective, investments shall be increasingly made in the following energy sectors: solar and wind energy, biofuel, bioenergy, carbon capture and storage, nuclear fusion energy, and battery storage (including plutonium and strontium batteries).

2. Nanotechnology: This technology will increasingly enable more advances to be made in areas ranging from the environment, technology, medicine or surgery, and even at industrial level. Based on the manipulation of microscopic materials, nanotechnology enables the handling of molecular structures and their atoms. This discipline is already resulting in substantial innovations in areas ranging from carbon nanotubes to graphene based water desalination to 3D printing. Many industries are also expected to make major product changes.

3. Cloud Education: Many companies and non-profit organisations are already enabling anyone with a cloud connection to receive a Harvard, Stanford or MIT-quality education. Additionally, in the near future Internet access will reach places not currently online.

4. Water Desalination: The use of graphene has created a highly energy-efficient formula for removing salt from water, which will, in the long run, bring major benefits for human health and nutrition around the world. Experts believe this will ensure access to clean water in many areas currently lacking this resource.

5. Converged Phones and Desktops: The trend will see smartphones soon become your desktop PC. You’ll simply plug your phone into an HDMI monitor for greater visual comfort because, for everything else, smartphones will be powerful enough to run programmes like Excel. In this respect, BYOD (using your own smartphone as a work tool) is booming, and in India, 59% of Internet users go online using their mobiles.

6. Quantum Computing: Unlike binary computers, in which bits must be in either the 1 state or the 0 state, quantum computers use superposition to enable all states between 0 and 1, enabling faster computation of some key computer processes. Research into quantum particles will result in multiplying computer speed.

7. The ‘Internet of Things’ or Cloud-Connected Devices: In the future, cloud-connected chips and sensors will not just be used for your TV, tablet or mobile phone, but instead will be in everyday devices, such as your thermostat, car or fridge.

8. Contact Lens Smartphones: In Spain, we’ll soon be able to surf the Internet and communicate with friends using glasses that are beginning to take off in the United States (Google Glass).

9. Data Storage:  The aim is to be able to store increasingly more data using less space, and great strides are already being made in this sense. For example, recent work at Harvard has enabling the storing of 700 terabytes of data in a single gram of DNA. In 2012, IBM announced it could store a bit of data on just 12 atoms.

10. Electronic devices and synthetic materials within the human body: This trend already exists through pacemakers, cochlear implants (to be able to hear), bionic eyes and synthetic organs, and will accelerate in the years ahead. However, as is already the case, these rapid advances in human health will also bring up both critical ethical issues and human rights issues.

11. Artificial Intelligence: Work is also taking place in the evolution of machines to “people” with the aim of improving our quality of life. Therefore the mechanisms to create intelligent machines, which, for example, will help doctors diagnose patients, will continue to improve.

12. Synthetic Biology: The application of science to biology has already enabled, among other things, the creation of synthetic food or the altering of stem cells to extend life.

13. Climate Engineering: The problem of pollution could be solved with the Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), a promising option for removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

14. “Brain Connectome”:  The existing relationship between the brain and human behaviour is being increasingly studied. In fact, in 2013, the U.S. government invested $100 million in The BRAIN Initiative for research in this field.

15. Technologies for combatting brain aging: Connected to the previous point, in 2011 Dr Gary Lynch researched how to increase electrical energy to think and remember like you were young again.

16. “Clean Transportation Technologies”:  With an increasingly deeper knowledge of environmental pollution, the trend is to move forward towards sustainable transport such as electric cars. If Elon Musk’s idea of the Hyperloop is successful, we could soon see another form of “clean transport” using magnetic levitation that enables speeds of up to 4,000 mph.

17. Personalised Medicine and Gene Sequencing: Following the completion of the Human Genome Project and the full sequencing of human DNA, the field of personal gene sequencing has advanced greatly. In fact, it’s already possible to get your DNA partially sequenced, enabling you to better understand your ancestry and the risk of suffering from certain diseases.

18. Robotics: The ultimate goal of this technology is to be able to have robots that resemble people, not just in appearance but also, particularly, in terms of cognition and behaviour. The major benefit would be the capacity to replace humans in dangerous environments, such as production processes. If an announcement made by Bill Gates is fulfilled, within a year we’ll be able to talk about the first robots for use in daily life. Predictions are that, in the future, we’ll see several.

19. Self-Driving Cars: Companies are already working on building a self-driving car. In Masdar, “the City of the Future”, electronic automated transport cars (called Podcars) are already used underground to enable rapid transport as part of their initiative to build a zero-carbon city.

20. 3D Printing: Five years ago, 3D printers were out of reach except for large companies. Today, access is more widely available, meaning anyone can now print objects.

21. Private Space Exploration: Space travel may no longer be the exclusive realm of science, and could become a new commercial travel option. Companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic are already working on this, and by 2025, it is calculated that anyone with $100,000 will be able to go into space, and by 2050, it will cost just $5,000.

22. Natural User Interfaces (NUI): Natural user interface is technology enabling interaction with a system using just touch, voice, hand gesture and even thought, without control systems. Siri (on iPhones) enabled voice interaction, and LeapMotion is working on hand gesture interaction. Perhaps the most surprising element is being able to control games using thought, through an earphone, and via the player’s facial expressions, which Emotiv is aiming to demonstrate.

23. Wearable Computers & HUD: Portable devices are adapting to different forms (such as watches or wristbands) and functions, such as measuring the pulse of runners.

24. Cybersecurity: In an increasingly cybernetic world, it is important to strongly consider the need to protect this “new space” in order to prevent potential national attacks. Nanosatellites are already starting to be used. In a world of Government-driven cyberattacks (like the U.S. Stuxnet computer worm on Iranian nuclear facilities in 2010), the world of cybersecurity will be a very, very large market in the decades ahead.

25. Government 2.0: This advance in technology will have a big impact on public institutions, which could fully change the way they work, and primarily how they interact with citizens.

Considering these trends and technology’s rapid advances, experts recommend companies display great flexibility, and show a capacity to adapt their activities to these changes to provide a better service to clients quickly adopting new technologies.