Ten emerging technologies that will shape the future

Each year, Technology Review, a magazine published by my alma mater, MIT, selects what it believes are the most important emerging technologies that have the potential to change the future. The winners are chosen based on the editors coverage of key fields. The question that the editors asks is simple: is the technology likely to change the world?

This years picks are a mix-- four are in the area of information technology, three in the medical breakthroughs, two in energy, one in environment. Some of these changes are on the largest scale possible: better biofuels, more efficient solar cells and light trapping photovoltaics. Others like green concrete will help solve the global warming in the years ahead. Other changes will be more local and involve how we use technology: D-screens on mobile devices, new applications for cloud computing, social TV and improved real time search. And new ways to implant medical electronics, engineered stem cells and dual action antibodies will affect us on the most intimate level of all, with the promise of making our lives healthier.

The choices this year are the following:

Real time search

Social TV

Cloud programming

Mobile 3 D

Solar fuel

Light trapping photovoltaics

Green concrete

Implantable electronics

Engineered stem cells

Dual action antibodies