Technology roadmaps are like a GPS for the future: done well, they provide a theoretical and visual geography of the terrain of possible developments and a big-picture view of how a particular technology (or industry) might evolve. Taken together, these five roadmaps offer an interesting perspective on the futures to come.  Because this is the “Friday Five” the following is an abbreivated list of roadmaps. Are there others we should add to the list? Let us know!

Metaverse Roadmap

Because I couldn’t have said it better myself, this comes straight from the website: “The Metaverse Roadmap (MVR) is the first public ten-year forecast and visioning survey of 3D Web technologies, applications, markets, and potential social impacts. Areas of exploration include the convergence of Web applications with networked computer games and virtual worlds, the use of 3D creation and animation tools in virtual environments, digital mapping, artificial life, and the underlying trends in hardware, software, connectivity, business innovation and social adoption that will drive the transformation of the World Wide Web in the coming decade.” The overview is written by three of FringeHog’s favorite metaverse friends: John Smart, Jerry Paffendorf and Jamais Cascio. Even if you think you know something about the future of the 3D web, read this.

DARPA Tech 2007

For those with an appetite for the real fringe, DARPA Tech 2007 is for you.  In case you’re not up on your military acronyms, DARPA stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; it’s the central R&D organization for the U.S. Department of Defense. In a nutshell, what DARPA does is “mine the Far Side” - the high-risk, high-reward areas of research and technology that only the military budget of the world’s largest superpower could support. What this means in practical terms, is that the scientists at DARPA get to go to work every day and play with some really freakin’ cool ideas. Things like Programmable Matter and Inner Armor. Why should you care? Because many military technologies eventually make it to market : think ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet, or MIMICS, the essence of our cell phones and miniature GPS devices. It may not look like a traditional technology roadmap, but collectively the presentations from this annual gathering of DARPA hotshots is the closest (unclassified) look at the long-term future you can find.

EURON Roboethics Roadmap

As a follow-up to last week’s Friday Five on the future of robots, this week we offer up the EURON Roboethics Roadmap.  Developed by the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) the roadmap provides a systematic assessment of the ethical issues involved in robotics R&D. According to the report, the first version is concerned with the ethics of human beings involved in the design, manufacturing and use of robots. It covers a broad array of issues, including anthromorphization of machines, technology addition and the humanization of the human/machine relationship. (Note: the South Korean government is also working on Robot Ethics Charter).

Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems

Amidst the oft-reported hype about nanotechnology - somewhere between wrinkle free khakis and drug-delivering implantable nanobots - lies the future. The Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems aims to identify the gap between the basic nanostructured materials of today, and the potential of “productive nanosystems”, bridging the differences of expert opinion regarding when we can expect to see widespread commercial applications. According to the Roadmap, some near-term applications include sensors, metrology standards and quantum computing. Warning: it’s a dense document, chock full of tech jargon.  The two pages of abbreviations for terms such as Single-Walled Carbon Nanotube (SWNT) helps, but not much.

Microsoft’s Toward 2020 Science

Bill Gates may have left the building, but his fingerprints remain on Microsoft Research’s Toward 2020 Science, a 2005 report which sets out to produce a roadmap of the evolution, challenges and potential of computer science and research in the next fifteen years.  With characteristic Microsoft attitude, the report states that “it is, to our knowledge, the first to articulate a comprehensive vision of science towards 2020, the impact of the convergence of computer science and the other sciences, and to identify specifically what the science community and policy makers can do to ensure the vision we outline becomes a reality.” Uh-huh.  Hyperbole aside, this is a good read, the main thesis being that science-based innovation will eclipse technology-based innovation in a number of emerging fields. A wall-size poster of the map (suitable for framing, we’re told) can be found here.

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