Emerging technologies  

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Emerging technologies are technologies that are perceived as capable of changing the status quo. These technologies are generally new but include older technologies that are still controversial and relatively undeveloped in potential, such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis and gene therapy which date to 1989 and 1990 respectively.

Emerging technologies are characterized by radical novelty, relatively fast growth, coherence, prominent impact, and uncertainty and ambiguity. In other words, an emerging technology can be defined as "a radically novel and relatively fast growing technology characterised by a certain degree of coherence persisting over time and with the potential to exert a considerable impact on the socio-economic domain(s) which is observed in terms of the composition of actors, institutions and patterns of interactions among those, along with the associated knowledge production processes. Its most prominent impact, however, lies in the future and so in the emergence phase is still somewhat uncertain and ambiguous.".

Emerging technologies include a variety of technologies such as educational technology, information technology, nanotechnology, biotechnology, cognitive science, psychotechnology, robotics, and artificial intelligence.

New technological fields may result from the technological convergence of different systems evolving towards similar goals. Convergence brings previously separate technologies such as voice (and telephony features), data (and productivity applications) and video together so that they share resources and interact with each other, creating new efficiencies.

See also

• List of emerging technologies
• Foresight
• Futures studies
• Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies
• Institute on Biotechnology and the Human Future
• Technological change
  • Accelerating change
    • Moore's law
  • Innovation
  • Technological revolution
• Transhumanism
  • Technological singularity

See also

General

Disruptive innovation, Industrial ecology, List of inventors, List of inventions, Sustainable development, Technology readiness level, Anthropogenics, Diffusion of innovations

Ethics

Casuistry, Computer ethics, Engineering ethics, Nanoethics, Bioethics, Neuroethics