The World Economic Forum and MIT both publish eye-catching annual lists of the top 10 emerging technologies that will shape our immediate future. So how do their choices compare – and which technologies are we likely to see in our daily lives most quickly? Sean Geer looks at the most promising candidates
1. Autonomous vehicles. Self-driving cars will liberate drivers and create vast new industries, as well as copious amounts of extra leisure time.
2. Conversational interfaces. Speech technologies are already at the heart of intelligent personal assistants such as Siri and Alexa, but they will soon become a standard feature of many human/technology interfaces.
3. Blockchain. A distributed digital ledger technology, already the basis for Bitcoin but with potential to change the way that markets and governments work.
4. Immersive VR. No longer the preserve of games and leisure applications, VR is being adopted by companies as a replacement for human advisers.
5. Miniature AIs. Personalised artificial intelligences housed in our mobile devices will increasingly become the tools that we use to automate every aspect of our lives.
6. Solar panel mass production. Solar panels have always been expensive to manufacture at scale, but emerging technologies will make them vastly more accessible to everyone.
7. CRISPR gene editing. New techniques for altering plant genes are powerful tools for boosting disease resistance and drought tolerance.
8. Nanosensors/IoNT. We’re already connecting billions of static devices to our networks, but they will soon transmit data from our bodies and environments in powerful new ways.
9. Wireless power transfer. Small sensors and IoT devices all need power to drive them. Wireless power transfer will provide it without the need for bulky, costly batteries and power supplies. 10. Graphene and other 2D materials. Strong, light single-atom-layer materials such as graphene will revolutionise manufacturing across many industries.
