10 The most promising technologies in 2009 – 2010

Without doubt, 2009 was full of events in the tech industry. This includes the emergence of new products, and not without some minor notes, failure. Significant impact on the market has swept the world financial and economic crisis, but the year will be remembered not only the bankruptcy. Last night, be sure to date, and manage to survive the company introduced the world to a few “hot” technologies and devices, which, next year promises to be even more attractive (?).

1. Electronic books

Electronic books this year have made strides in improving consumer characteristics. This includes improved battery life, color screens and a downward trend in prices. Nevertheless, uncertainty remains about the prospects, namely the speed gains of the market and the advent of specific innovative solutions – some companies have already transferred the promised release of products, others have shown promising prototypes. Leadership hold the Amazon and Sony, but competitors do not have to wait – Barnes & Noble, Plastic Logic, BenQ, and even Apple with the “mythical” as long as Tablet PCs are going to compete for consumers. It may be noted the new display technology from Qualcomm and Pixel Qi. According MediaIdeas, in 2008, has sold 1.1 million e-books, and in the following figure should grow to 6 million In-Stat predicts that the increase in supply e-book will boost semiconductor market of $ 1.1 billion by 2013 .

In November, Amazon made a bet on the new model platform Kindle, have an 85% increased duration of battery life and the ability to view PDF. According to the company to begin selling the device on a global scale, November was the best month for volume shipments of the product. Less successful, yet short-lived history Nook from Barnes & Noble, whose release was postponed due to insufficient number of orders and greater-than-expected cost of manufacturing the device with a 3.5 “color touch screen display under the main 6″ monochrome. This decision cost the Barnes & Noble in an additional $ 20-25. According to analysts Gartner, consumers are not satisfied with the black and white screens, and in 2010, is to wait for more e-books with color displays, but also to play videos they are not be able to.

2. Electrical networks

After many years of debate in 2009, finally making progress in developing standards and implementing projects for the renewal and replacement of outdated electricity to “intelligent”. According to analysts, if the Internet – a market capacity of $ 1 trillion to 1.2 billion web users, the energy market – a $ 6 trillion and 4 billion people, while at the same time, capacity and number of innovations introduced not in favor of the latter. “Intelligent Network” a great opportunity for the use of solar, wind power and other renewable sources, as well as to cope with growing because of the electric load. For example, the United States intends to invest $ 8 billion in new projects, but this amount of capital is only 5% of the cost of updating the national grid. Program development of new technologies in this field are beginning to work in China, India and Africa. Celestial Empire plans to complete the creation of so-called “supersets” already by 2020, as regards this as one of the foundations of competitive advantage in the global market. And Europe in particular, intends to implement the project of obtaining energy from the future solar power plants in the Sahara, the preliminary cost of implementation – $ 400 billion

3. Printed Electronics

Printing technology electronic components on flexible materials promise a whole new class of products: the battery with a thickness of a sheet of paper (functioning prototypes nanotubes have already shown), flexible LED-diodes, displays, memory, and a solar panel (or the union, and LED panels in a single “tube” thick with the film). However, the characteristics of the product has not yet falls short of the more traditional technologies. If the memory is concerned in the first place, then with photovoltaic cells is not so bad. For example, the budding company Solarmer Energy recently announced the achievement of efficiency of energy conversion of sunlight into electricity at the level of 7,9%. There are projects cover with plastic solar panels of buildings, such as testing Konarka Technologies. However, compared with 22% efficiency silicon solar cells flexible analogues require a large amount of further work to improve performance.

4. MEMS-gyroscopes Gyroscopes based on MEMS (microelectromechanical systems – microelectromechanical systems) with three degrees of freedom are embedded in smart phones and game controllers are the new generation. Today, these components are used to stabilize the digital images in cameras and phones of premium, but in 2010 they appear in the GPS-navigators, computer mice, capable of working not only on solid surfaces. MEMS-accelerometers in the iPhone, Playstation 3 and Nintendo Wii have opened such possibilities, which will now provide gyroscopes. Read their condition allows precise control, for example, the pointer on the screen, and recognize the various movements of devices, allowing operations such as selecting menu items and navigation using the remote control devices go to a new level compared to the keyboard and mouse.

On the other hand, MEMS-gyroscopes have competition. For example, a system of cameras or infrared sensors can detect human movement without the need for hand-held device is either strengthen or label (Example – development Canesta), GPS can overcome the loss of signal due to triangulation and Wi-Fi antenna inside the premises, and a real alternative to the keyboard for text entry yet.

5. Pikoproektory 2010-th can be a very good year for pikoproektorov, especially the built-in phones. These devices are able to turn smart phones into a platform for comfortable viewing of a downloaded video or slide presentation. This decision has the potential to replace laptops with conventional projectors during business meetings. The emerging market seek to conquer Texas Instruments with DLP; Microvision technology IPM (Integrated Photonics Module – an integrated photonic module) combining lasers and MEMS; Micron Technology, which offers technology-based mikrodisplei FLCOS (ferroelectric liquid-crystal-on-silicon – ferroelectric liquid crystals on silicon), taken from the acquired earlier this year DisplayTech; Syndiant with color LCOS (Liquid Crystal on Silicon – Liquid Crystals on semiconductor); 3M with LCOS, polarization beam divider.

Earlier this year in South Korea appeared phones with projectors from Samsung, and LG Electronics eXpo will be the first device in North America, with optional pikoproektorom. Overall, the market there are about 100 models pikoproektorov, and the volume of shipments has not exceeded one million. The reason for the popularity of low power consumption is high, in addition, consumers are not yet ready to recognize the need to have a similar device in his pocket, so the concept of refinement requires pikoproektorov and their positioning.

6. “Home doctor”

Visits to doctors too expensive, so reducing their number and independent monitoring of the health of an area of increased attention from manufacturers of high-tech medical devices. According to ABI Research, the number of devices sold today with 11.65 million units (most of which are designed to monitor physiological parameters during sports) in 2014 will grow to 420 million worn monitors. Develop and disseminate standards for wireless Bluetooth and Wi-Fi allows easy connection of watching vital signs devices to the Internet and transmit data doctors. On the market of similar devices already included such giants as Intel, General Electric and Honeywell. Projections paint a picture of home sensor networks, automatically recording parameters such as body weight, blood pressure, heart rate during activity and sleep, so that when the first signs of violations to notify them. However, the development of standards in this area is far from complete. To make the system more user-worn, it is necessary, for example, get rid of conductive gel between the skin and sensors.

7. Android

This year’s Android operating system from Google has launched a march on the market of electronic devices from mobile phones in 2010 expected to be the emergence and spread of television set-top boxes, GPS-navigators and multi-players. Formed to promote Android in embedded systems, the Japanese organization open embedded software (Open Embedded Software Foundation) said that the number of participants and already is 50. In November, Chinese ArcherMind Technology has demonstrated, in her words, the first car navigation system based on Android, a Singapore-based Creative Technology is promoting a platform Zii with this operating system among Chinese OEM-manufacturers. To increase the production of consumer devices with Android expressed a desire to HTC, Motorola, Samsung and various Asian companies. At the same time, Panasonic and Sony still silent. There are some reasons to worry about the future of OS on the market of embedded solutions. It supports a limited set of processors and does not work with applications written in C, but interested developers involved in overcoming these obstacles, and throw Android accounts would be an obvious mistake.

8. Bionic man

To date, several million people are medical implants, pacemakers and defibrillators, mostly. The nature of violations, which are designed to cope with these devices, encourages researchers to pay attention not only to the heart muscle, and nervous system as a whole. In development are technologies of brain implants, whose mission is to struggle with Alzheimer’s disease, epilepsy, addiction, depression, obesity and lack of self-control. A separate category of devices are the delivery system of drugs to target organs, thus reducing the side effects of drug absorption through the digestive tract or injection into blood vessels. The most advanced area of focus of scientists – a “smart” pills and nanotabletki. Work and over the artificial replicas of human organs – for example, pancreas or the retina. Among the current problems – the replacement of wired interfaces and control implants to wireless. So, already developed the first system of transmission of brain waves on a radio channel in the FM-band.

9. Touch panels

Since the debut of iPhone almost every electronics manufacturer is trying to play on the popularity of the proposed Apple product functionality, and offers models of phones and other devices with touch screens. Sensor technology originated as far back as 1960, but before the iPhone, most consumers are associated with vending machines or similar equipment. Now move your finger across the screen monitor resistive, infrared, capacitive, and even acoustic technology. In multisensor displays mainly used capacitance, which uses a network of capacitors. Examples phones and many players are in this category: iPhone, iPod Touch, HTC G1 Hero, Motorola Droid, Palm Pre, Pixi, LG KM900 Arena, Microsoft Zune HD, Sony Walkman X, Sony Ericsson Aino. According to ABI Research, global market for touch panels for portable devices has reached this year’s $ 5 billion, one of the escorts work with a touch-screen features are fingerprints. Developed several options for repelling dirt and grease coatings, but until they do not go beyond the laboratory. Relatively low recognition accuracy is also place a finger touches the screen because of the area covered by them, although there is a separate problem – a graphic keyboard, comes as Apple, or tactile, and acoustic effects to identify the point of pressing.

10. 3D Home appliances with support for three-dimensional images, in particular, Blu-Ray players and TVs, soon to appear in stores in large numbers. In any case, such a promise gives manufacturers like Panasonic and Sony. The latter recently announced a partnership with FIFA, in which some World Cup games in 2010 will be recorded in the three-dimensional resolution. Question popularity of devices with the withdrawal of 3D-image is inseparable from the corresponding content. According to a former employee Toshiba Koji Hase (Koji Hase), which was responsible for uniting the industry around a single DVD format in 1990, electronics manufacturers then had to negotiate with Hollywood, that films were released on disks.

Now the situation is opposite: the studio asked the speedy release of Blu-Ray and TV supporting 3D. The reason, according to Hase, the significant difference between the effect of conventional and three-dimensional images. However, immersion in the virtual world is not free: we still need glasses. In addition, there is no standard technology. If a single format for optical discs and players will likely be approved, on the sources of such a display of confidence in the industry there. Content providers who want to maximize their audience with a minimal investment in infrastructure, hoping to offer 3D-program in a non-approved Blu-ray Disc Association format.