twc week 11 lesson blog

Twc minutes 10

We watched a really funny video on the technology that ‘Microsoft’ will create in the next 498 years. Although the video had a sarcastic tone to it, the technologies presented are very appealing and futuristic. The technologies seen in the video were similar to those in a video by Microsoft that was shown in class a few weeks ago. I especially liked the technology where everything, including mugs and tables, had interactive touch screens that can function as a virtual folder or even tell the level of liquid in the mug, and had aesthetically pleasing designs coupled with these amazing technologies. But the question is, how long will we have to wait before we have access to these technologies? The future is indeed bright for mankind, and it is up to the scientists to engineer ways to lower the costs of the technologies, the advertising specialists to market the products, and for a big firm to reap the economies of scale. The firm that can do this will be the next Apple, Microsoft, Google and Amazon combined.

There was another interesting video which we watched. It was about the three hottest technologies in the future. One that caught my attention was the Nokia morph, which uses nano technology in the phone. This phone will be able to morph into different shapes, whichever pleases the user, and have vivid touch screens that are paper-thin. Not only are these phones smaller and easier to carry around, they are so intuitive and fun to use that the company that is able to sell this phone will definitely be the world leader in the industry within a year. This phone packs even more functions in a single device than the iPhone, because it acts as a phone, a watch, a computer, and you can even peel off layers of the phone, just like that!

Another technology that the video introduced was the use of salt water as a fuel in the future. A cancer researcher found out that when salt water is bombarded by EM waves, it burns at an extremely high temperature with a bright red flame. This is an exciting prospect for the energy industry and for the world, because in today’s age, not only do we have to meet an exponential rise in demand for energy, we have to do it in a way that does not damage the environment further. Salt water is hence a very environmentally-friendly method, if it works, because 75% of the world’s surface is water, and these water bodies are full of salt water. It is impossible to use up this supply of salt water, and using this supply of salt water will not hurt the environment in any way.

Going to the lesson proper, we talked about the common uses for foresight output. For example, they are used for policy recommendations, analysis of trends and drivers, technology recommendations etc. One interesting trend that I discovered was that Europe tends to dominate these forward-looking projects in all areas of research. This could be because the governments of Europe put more emphasis on forecasting the future and hope that these forecasts will influence policies across the globe. Having so many of the blueprints from Europe, the Europeans may be subtly trying to dominate the way the world thinks and envisions the future, and hopefully shift the future world into a mould that will be advantageous and suit Europe. If Europe does not have malevolent intentions, and that all these forecasting projects are used for the greater good, then it can be a good thing for mankind. If this is another form of neo-colonialism, where ideas are dominated by Europeans and forced upon others, then it is debatable whether these projects should be allowed to continue, or whether other regions of the world, namely Africa and Asia, should step up on these projects and present their views to the world.

Personally, I do not think that these forecasting projects are of much use. As Prof quoted, ‘the best way to predict the future is to invent it’. Entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were responsible for creating products that no one could imagine the need for prior to its introduction. They created the demand for their own products, and made people dependent on them. These giants among men are responsible for changing the way we live, and the way we interact with other people, not dreamers and thinkers who do not take action. Most of the forecasting outputs may be trying to provide a framework and a structure for the uncertain future, but most of the time, they are off the mark. Before the emergence of Facebook and the iPad, no one could correctly predict the impact that these 2 products have on consumers and people.