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Alexander Linden, Gartner research director |
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Opportunities and Threats in Emerging Technologies
Wednesday, 12 March 2003
Any look at technologies under development will always show that "there are lots of things yet to do," according to Gartner research director Alexander Linden.
Fortunately, there are lots of new things yet to emerge from the laboratories. Linden was one of a team of Gartner analysts who looked at a selection of future technologies in an extended session at Gartner's Symposium/ITxpo 2003 in Florence, Italy.
Nigel Deighton complained that mobile phones have shrunk so much that they are almost unusable. But he looks forward to new technologies to reverse that. Electronic ink, for instance, will mean that data can be presented on a surface without having to constantly supply it with power. The technology has gone from idea to product in just four years - Philips is expected to launch an e-ink display later this year.
New and different displays are just one way that technology can improve interactions between people and computers. Nick Jones said interfaces can also involve hearing, speech, taste, smell, touch, movement and even thought; it is possible for brain activity to trigger a machine reaction.
More widely useful developments will come from haptic technology that interacts with the skin and our sense of touch. A mobile phone that vibrates rather than emits sounds is an early example, but soon there will be wearable sensors that can alert a doctor to a change in a patient's vital signs.
It does not take much to imagine new product and service opportunities and threats in these and similar technologies. At present, industrial systems costing around US$30,000 can produce three-dimensional objects by printing them. If the cost comes down to about US$300, it will be easy to print your own toys. Thus, a business could offer a subscription to new toys on demand, turning a product into a service - an opportunity for some and a threat to others.
Other every-day objects will soon acquire the ability to communicate with each other and the outside world. Deighton says radio identification tags (RFIDs) will soon become so inexpensive that they will be attached to all sorts of objects. Unwrapping the last packet of paper for the copier, for example, could trigger an order message for the supplier.
Keeping alert to technology's opportunities and threats is a task for a strategic planning group and Linden provided some check lists for how it should address its task. But he warned that a major part of its work lies in risk analysis. The risk that is most difficult to be ready for is the possibility of a disruptive technology. Initially, such a technology will have inferior performance to the dominant approach. But after development, the new technology may overtake the old, often quite suddenly.
Linden said: "Enterprises have to place their bets carefully."
Jonathan Green-Armytage
Gartner Staff
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