Technology in the Coming Century

It is not enough for a society to create knowledge; we need to apply the fruits of human creativity to the improvement of the human condition. OVERVIEW: In the 50 years since the transistor s invention, industrial research has acquired an amazingly versatile set of information tools. Today, they offer us help with endeavors that range from catalogs of biological molecules to the unclogging of streets and highways. Looking to the future, we can expect further progress, as information appliances of all kinds grow in power and link their users to a rich variety of networks and services. Today's R&D processes have served established industries well in the past. As more and more power moves to the desk-top, continued success will depend upon inventing new tools to carry out the creative disruption that is so integral to the R&D leader's job. This is an amazing time to be a technologist. Just think of all the tools and components we have at our disposal-technology so powerful that our leverage is limited only by our imagination and creativity. Since much of this power stems from advances in electronics, and since 1998 marked the transistor's 50th birthday, I shall begin my look into the future with a detailed look at two quite different opportunities that it makes possible. Energy Conservation When is the last time you heard talk of an "Energy Crisis"? That is not to say that we don't have a problem. There still is a long-term need, but we are in a more hopeful situation today. Innovative use of technology can offer us alternatives to massive solutionsalternatives to drilling ever more deeply in the ocean, to the social and political side-effects of nuclear power, to Draconian energy rationing, or even to large-scale solar-energy projects. A massive "solution" usually creates problems of its own. For instance, according to a study by the World Watch Institute, the solar cells that the United States would need to take care of its energy needs would cover an area about the size of New Jersey! Fortunately, technology offers far more appealing ways of dealing with such issues-so appealing, in fact, that the public rarely notices. Consider, for example, that one of today's beverage cans uses just half as much metal as one did a decade ago. This outcome is the sum of thousands of small improvements, nothing to grab headlines. But each one helps to keep oil in the ground instead of moving it into the atmosphere via our smokestacks and tailpipes. Consider, now. a more forward-looking example. In 1948, Popular Science gave its readers its vision of life in the future, asking, "What would a typical home be like in the 1990s?" Picture a living room. There was this housewife in it, wearing an apron and spraying an easy chair with a garden hose. Housework, the magazine predicted, was going to be so much easier for the future "home-maker." All her furniture would be washable. She would just have to hose it down! When I ask myself what there is about today's view of the future that will make us look equally foolish, I come up with so-called "smart highways," a plan for cramming any number of private automobiles into our road network. This is a massive solution, if ever I saw one! Why do I think that today's notions of smart highways will look silly to people 25 years from now? Just suppose, for a moment, that such a plan actually succeeded in its aims. Suppose that someone could figure out how to launch cars into full-speed highway traffic and pull them out again safely. What happens then? Where will one find empty streets to accommodate the extra traffic, let alone the parking spaces? We have already seen what has happened to downtown traffic the world over. Let's face it. Sooner, rather than later, we modems will need a replacement for our one-passenger-per-vehicle transportation system. "What could possibly take the place of our twice-daily struggles with traffic? …