Of course, this map of the future -- and the timelines inside the gatefold that follows -- will certainly err in some ways. But being wrong didn't hurt Watson and Gates, who went on to dominate industries built atop trends they overlooked in their early forecasts. The important thing is to have the agility to embrace change as it occurs. The advances of the next 20 years will present opportunities no one can imagine today. But the imagining has to start somewhere -- and the pages that follow are as good a place as any to begin.

Saffo's technology road map includes: Biofuels, Biointeractive Materials, Bionics, Cognitronics, Combinatorial science, Genotyping, Molecular manufacturing, and Quantum nucleonics.

... Words ...

Untangling the Future, by Paul Saffo | Business 2.0

... Although he has partially broken with the Wi-Fi standard, he argues he is doing just what the unlicensed radio spectrum was originally set aside to encourage.

John Markoff reports on new developments in the emerging business for large-scale WiFi-based Internet access. The developers have paired 802.11b with a software-defined radio, which Markoff (perhaps mistakenly) refers to as a "software-designed radio".

2 Tinkerers Say They've Found a Cheap Way to Broadband

"The Weblog world before Sept. 11 was mostly inward-looking -- mostly tech people talking about tech things. After 9/11 we got a whole generation of Weblogs that were outward-looking" and written for a general audience.

Newbie "War bloggers" are pitched in a heated battle against the "veterans" of the old school.

A Rift Among Bloggers

Summary from ICT Today: The University of California in Berkeley has made a breakthrough in its programme to develop a robot fly weighing less than a paper clip which can leave the ground and hover in mid-air. Scientists have constructed a wing mechanism that can flap and rotate at 150 times a second.

Recent discoveries about the way flies use their wings have helped the project considerably. A real fly has a 'delayed stall' which enables the beating wings to have a high angle of attack and high lift at the same time. 'Wing rotation' at the bottom and top of the stroke gives the insect more lift, and 'wake capture' provides even more lift by swishing back through air it set in motion on the previous stroke. The scientists' version of the wing is made from polyester and a stainless steel strut that flaps and rotates. Still to come is a lightweight power source, a gyroscope to tell up from down, and a light sensor. A microprocessor with a small operating system has already been developed. Eventually it would carry sensors chosen for a specific use.

Robotic fly gets its buzz

Throughout the huge trade show, held here from May 22 to 24, a line snaked around an olive-drab two-story building where an 11-minute trailer of the new game was being shown continuously in a 30-seat theater.

NYT's John Markoff issues a quick report on E3 with a focus on Doom III.

From Shadows to Gore, a Hyperrealistic Doom

"The question `How can this technology be used against me?' is now a real R-and-D issue for companies, where in the past it wasn't really even being asked. People here always thought the enemy was Microsoft, not Mohamed Atta."

Thomas Friedman on how Silicon Valley is finally waking up to the real world.

Webbed, Wired and Worried

This conversation among George Gilder, Ray Kurzweil and Jaron Lanier names nanotechnology, TV and hubris as the prime technology suspects. But, are we right to be scared?

George Gilder, Ray Kurzweil and Jaron Lanier discuss the most dangerous technologies of the near future. This is the first part of a three part series.

What Are the Dangerous Technologies?

George Gilder, Ray Kurzweil and Jaron Lanier discuss the most dangerous technologies of the near future. This is the second part of a three part series.

Privacy? What Privacy?

George Gilder, Ray Kurzweil and Jaron Lanier discuss the most dangerous technologies of the near future. This is the third part of a three part series.

What Does the Future Hold?

TechNetCast is making available the audio tracks for the keynote speeches given at the recent O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference. As I log this URL, only four are available, but the rest of them are promised within days. (Hopefully that will include Steven Johnson ...)

The keynotes include:

Rethinking The Modern Operating System, by Richard Rashid, Microsoft.
Fixing Network Security by Hacking the Business Climate, by Bruce Schneier.
Autonomic Computing, by Robert Morris, IBM.
The Shape of Things to Come, by Tim O'Reilly.

O'Reilly Emerging Technologies 2002 [Audio]