Technology Review recently suggested ten key emerging tech trends. I’d also add a few of my own below. You can see their original list here, with links to the details (as well as links to the similar list from the past six years – nice archive reading!).


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Each year, Technology Review selects what it believes are the 10 most important emerging technologies. The winners are chosen based on the editors’ coverage of key fields. The question that they ask is simple: is the technology likely to change the world? Some of these changes are on the largest scale possible: better biofuels, more efficient solar cells, and green concrete all aim at tackling global warming in the years ahead. Other changes will be more local and involve how we use technology: for example, 3-D screens on mobile devices, new applications for cloud computing, and social television. And new ways to implant medical electronics and develop drugs for diseases will affect us on the most intimate level of all, with the promise of making our lives healthier.

Their list is:

  • Real-Time Search: Social networking is changing the way we find information.
  • Mobile 3-D: Smart phones will take 3-D mainstream.
  • Engineered Stem Cells: Mimicking human disease in a dish.
  • Solar Fuel: Designing the perfect renewable fuel.
  • Light-Trapping Photovoltaics: Nanoparticles boost solar power’s prospects.
  • Social TV: Relying on relationships to rebuild TV audiences.
  • Green Concrete: Storing carbon dioxide in cement.
  • Implantable Electronics­: Dissolvable devices make better medical implants.
  • Dual-Action Antibodies: Fighting cancer more efficiently.
  • Cloud Programming: A new language will improve online applications.

I’d add to their list with the following:

  • Personalised medicine (to be fair, this might not happen in 2010, but the building blocks are being put in place in everything from genetics to pharmaceuticals).
  • Geolocation-based mobile applications (from search and advertising to directions and shopping).
  • Mobile phones for ageing Baby Boomers – this might not sound like a huge innovation, but it will signal major shifts in focusing on demographics, and linking technology to social values.
  • Space tourism – again, a bit of a cheat, since Richard Branson has already announced that Virgin Galactic’s first commercial space flight will take place in November 2011, but the hype will kick start later this year.
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