Speaking of the “next big thing,” here are five innovations that promise to change the world. From 3-D printing to self-configuring computers, sneak a peek into the future:

New technologies often capture our imagination because of their exceptional potential. Here are 5 innovations that are backing their extraordinary promise with some early successes:

3-D Printing

This technology is transforming product design, making prototype production as easy as printing out a document. Three-D printers build accurate physical models, enabling designers and engineers to get a feel for their work earlier in the process, make changes easily, and bring new products to market much more quickly. Among the many objects these machines can shape are running shoes, cameras, mobile phones and engine manifolds.

These printers generally fashion prototypes by laying down materials, such as wax or plaster, layer upon layer. They can create small models within one hour, and some can produce full-color objects. Some 3-D machines can even build prototypes that could be functionally tested. For example, Toyota is testing 3-D printer-produced prototypes of side-view mirrors in wind tunnels. And as 3-D machine prices fall, these printers could start appearing in copy centers such as Kinko’s, allowing customers to “publish” objects along with documents.

For the Penske Racing NASCAR team, based in North Carolina, 3-D printing has already accelerated the design process, quickly creating 3-D wax models of car parts and body designs. “It used to be a long process to sculpt things by hand,” says Scott Campbell, a senior engineer for the Penske team. “Now we design things on the fly and make lots of incremental changes because we can just print them out and see how they look.”

Biosimulation

This innovation will facilitate the development of safe and effective drugs, enabling researchers to conduct virtual tests of drug prospects. Biosimulation involves the creation of mathematical models of diseases such as diabetes, obesity, asthma and arthritis in a computer. These computer models incorporate all the information that is available about a given disease—even the processes that occur inside individual cells—and can be adjusted as scientists find out more about the workings of a disease.

By letting “ailing” computers take the place of humans as test subjects, this approach offers several advantages. First, it can allow researchers to predict negative reactions. Second, it can let them conduct many more tests of drug prospects than they could with animals or people. In short, biosimulation could help pharmaceutical companies identify the most promising drug candidates sooner. So far, the approach has enabled Dr. Richard Ho’s team at Johnson & Johnson to cut down the time and the number of patients needed for the first phase of clinical trials of a new drug for Type II diabetes. “This will become commonplace,” says Ho, the head of medical informatics at the company’s R&D facility in La Jolla, CA. “It’s a tool we never had before.”

Autonomic Computing

Even with increasingly faster and more powerful chips, computers remain incompetent when it comes to handling problems. But that could soon change with “autonomic computing”—a term coined by IBM—which will feature computers that are intelligent enough to self-configure, handle heavy workloads by prioritizing, and anticipate and tackle problems before they occur. In short, such advanced machines will be self-aware enough to take care of themselves. “Autonomic computing” promises to boost the reliability of computers and software, thereby freeing IT staffs from a myriad of tasks and allowing them to focus on innovative projects.

IBM leads the field and is claiming some early successes. “We’ve already got storage management software that can tell you when a storage device will fail before that failure happens,” says Alan Ganek, vice president of IBM’s autonomic computing initiative. “And we’re selling database software that can recommend a configuration based on the hardware environment you’re running it in. Most database administrators had previously done that by trial and error.” Other things to expect from “autonomic computing” include personal computers that could install software upgrades on their own and systems that could handle a surge in orders by temporarily seizing additional processing power from other servers.

Distributed Generation

On-site power generation has the potential to alter the structure of the country’s power grid, which is currently comprised of a few, large power plants linked together. While the existing system is an affordable way to generate and distribute electricity, it’s wasteful and hard to update because of the huge capital investments involved. In contrast, distributed generation calls for smaller generating facilities—utilizing solar, wind and other renewable energy technologies as well as smaller gas-fired turbines—which will be spread out over the country and situated closer to where the power is being consumed.

Also called “decentralized generation,” distributed generation will increase the reliability of power, as most outages are the result of interrupted distribution (e.g. a downed line). There are already a few on-site power installations, such as the fuel-cell center that will supply backup power to the Mohegan Sun casino and resort in Connecticut. And later this year, Northern Power will build the world’s first “microgrid”—a web of generating facilities that will support an industrial park and a few residences, and even transmit surplus power back to the main power grid—in Vermont. DTE Energy, a subsidiary of Detroit Edison, is also constructing a similar microgrid in downtown Detroit.

Smart Tags

RFID (radio frequency identification) technology promises to track products through every stage in the supply chain. And RFID labels or “smart tags” can carry large amounts of useful information beyond product identity, including where the product has passed, its current location, and how it’s been handled. With this technology, warehouse workers no longer need to create and scan bar code labels during receiving and putaway. Instead, a smart-tag reader could do all the work, instantly reading the smart tags in its vicinity (direct line of sight is not necessary) and taking inventory.

“You’ll see a lot of diverse uses,” says Bill Allen, Texas Instruments’ e-marketing manager for RFID products, “because not only can you store information on the tags, you can also rewrite it.” Prada’s Epicenter store in New York City is one place where consumers can see firsthand how smart tags can make life easier. The store’s dressing rooms can “read” the RFID tags on clothes and help shoppers weigh their options by offering alternative sizes and materials for the items they’ve taken inside to try on.

Source: 5 Technologies That Will Change the World
Scott Kirsner
Fast Company, Issue 74, Sept. 2003
www.fastcompany.com/magazine/74/5tech.html