What will the next big trend in technology be?
353389
Nanotechnology.  Creating or manufacturing very, very. very tiny parts and machinery
1158372
ofcourse new generation b/cos we information technology.
720766
Probably somewhat different, but not TOO much different than today.\n\nTechnology moves fast, big big things that completely change things (such as a human-computer bio interface) won't probably be around for 50+ years.\n\nOur computers will work faster, be smaller, and do more than they do now, but unfortunately, in 20 years, you probably won't be able to clip your computer to your ear as you're walking out the door.\n\nIf computers changed rapidly like that, the price would also go WAY up, to accommodate the highly changed technology.  So the tech companies will probably phase this technology in slowly.\n\nPretty sad.  But right now, I'd be happy with a 6 hour laptop battery that comes standard.
868206
Approve stem cell research. This will be the next great technology. If we conceed this to off-shore interests, the game is over.
58988
After a complete polishing of the crystal ball, opening a new deck of Tarot cards, and putting a new coat of varnish on the magic wand I discovered the following:\n\nAutomobiles will continue to operate on gasoline and the Internet will continue to operate on Ethernet. The U.S. automobile manufacturer - General Motors - will continue to be the best selling vehicles in the world, and Yahoo! will continue to be the best Searchable Directory on the Internet.
34598
Wireless devices will be everywhere. The phone, camera, and computer will merge with the internet. Vast databases of information will store, calculate, and notate every change everywhere. We will lose more privacy because of satellite imaging and web cameras. I know communications will become "one touch" access. The way we communicate will make the biggest changes. Look at what engineers have accomplished so far. Electronics is communication.
1020201
As regards future usefulness it is hard to beat Computing.\n\nBest of luck !
870254
we already have...\n\nits called nanotechnology...they ahvei nfused carbon nanotubes onto silicon substrates and used DNA and its complex functionality to solve problems..this has been done to a limited scope...but it is very well established that larger scale systems will be availabe in 20 years...to the functionality you describe...the first intelligent machine is expected to appear around 2025-2030.\n\nThis will take time and engineering...(these are projections based on current average rate of economic growth and research)...research is based on curretn glboal computing power, research education and lab power...which is at its most powerful form ever---but that is ONLY---if the economy doesn't, colapse for example...\n\nhowever, another alternative, taht is faster--there is a faster way to do it than yours...\n\nwe an simply get rat brain cells...and organize them on substrates so that they resemble the human brain...we make a brain out of rat cells and then we just teach it like a new born..this can be done...\n\nor we could get brains of people and just turn them into subconcious zombies and take them out of the bodie...by which we then plug them into an itnerface and we can make them do computations...\n\nhowever, that would be amoral...so we cannot do this...you will ahve to wait 25 years from now for nanotechnology and computer chips to be integrated with carbon nanotubes/DNA to see that type of functionality.\n\nI beleive at such times...we would have perfected the machine-human interfaces and will become "part" of these intelligent machines..through neural implants--.... we will be the same identity...say your computer jsut becoems you but with greater intelligence and functionality--\n\nwe can also develope identities that are INDEPENDENT of humans that can think for themselves...but for them to have a "termintator" mentality they would have to differentiate between "human" and machine...and since intelligence is just intelligence...I don't think there will be such mentality...\n\nits as if you one day woke up one day and learned your a robot...you would not want to nuke the entire human race right?\nin fact, you would identify with humans...you wouldn't care if you were a robot...just don't tell anybody.\n\nbut even if you did want to nuke all humans, that would imply you had more resources than humans, able to get their civilization from undertheir feet right?\n\nbutas I said, insuch a society, humans would plug into "machines" which were their slave.s..and gave them mroe intelligence...but the machines themselves were not "concious" themselves...\n\nso the humans...knowing how to be "cyberntically" avid...just as regular concious machines...\n\nthe machines would "loose" their edge..\nin other words...the intelligent machines would not be "smarter" than the 2025 human because that human would have also become smarter with machiens that are tied to their brain...and whih they controla nd know how to operate just as well as an intellgienct computer...\n\nthus, placing computer intelligence and human intelligence on the same level...and thus making US similar...making it less likely for any "confrontation'...\nbesdies...if ar obot was "jealous" of the extra senses of thehuman body....after acheiving such tehcnology...we could easily develope synthetic bodies made of biological /nanotech grown tissue...and thatwould make them more equal...and thus---not view us, nor we them as "different"\n\nto a point...that a "synthetic human" and a "machine enhanced human" would be almost viewed the same...\n\nthe synthetic human...just has a robotic mind....whith a human like body....the enhacned humans (probably most humans by 2045) are just human brain...with enhanced features that make it the same as a robotic mind...\n\nso in essence, they are same...\n\nyou see? its only our primit
193191
There is no doubt that medical technology will continue to advance. But it is likely that the law of diminishing returns will (or maybe has) limit the improvements that such technology will bring to any patient or humankind overall.\n\nWhilst we still have rampant infective diseases such as Malaria and Tuberculosis decimating 3rd world countries and entire generations dying from malnutrition, we need to ask ourselves if gadgets that bring a little bit of extra function to a small number of people are really progress, or perhaps just ignorance?
428280
Wouldn't doubt it. As soon as better technology comes to surface.
1050455
Consider this:  2020 is 14 years from now.  14 years ago it was 1992.(1)  In March 1992, Microsoft released Windows 3.1 along with its first promotional campaign on TV; the software sold over three million copies in its first two months on the market.(2)  Also, only two years prior the first digital cellular phone call was made in the United States in 1990, which meant that at that time a majority of people didn't own one.(3)  In November Bill Clinton defeats GHW Bush, and Ross Perot in the US Presidential election.  It will be two more years until Yahoo! is founded in 1994, by Jerry Yang and David Filo, meaning that the Internet, and email, are still in it's early days, and non-existant to the typical person.(4)\n\nSo, what will life be like 14 years from now?  I'd suggest  reading "The Singularity is Near" by futurist Ray Kurzweil. (5)  In his book he envisions an event--the "singularity"--in which technological change becomes so rapid and so profound that human bodies and brains will merge with machines.  He predicts this will happen only 25 years from then in 2045!  Bodies and brains merging with machines!\n\nI think it's possible that:\n- Smoking will be illegal anywhere in the US.\n- McDonalds is no longer associated with "Fast food"\n- The US could be in a major conflict with North Korea or China\n- Paparazzi-type photography could be illegal (because of it's contribution to the death of someone famous)\n- The cellphone of 2020 will be more powerful than the highest end desktop computers of today\n- Google will have been defeated and absorbed by Yahoo! and Microsoft\n- High Definition television will be streamed to the average household via a network medium such as the internet to lightweight, flexible, mobile displays\n- Vehicles will have the ability to completely override a driver in an emergency situation, as well as be able to "cruise" our highways autonomously\n- Recreational travel to outer atmospheres (technically space) allowing travelers to experience weightlessness,  will be common for the affluent\n- Global Warming is completely disproved by scientists\n\nI DON'T THINK it's possible that:\n- A cure for cancer will be available\n- 3 dimensional travel will be common (such as flying cars)
1017823
Read "The Singular is Near" by Kurzwiel. Non Fiction You will be amazed at the speed of technological advancement. Good reading if your interested in this stuff.
447802
Technological growth has been following an exponential curve.
681155
an existence where everything becomes smaller, and we can accomodate a lot more in the same place that can't hold much now..and of course wireless technology. And a lot of involvement of non-humans in industrial processings..\n  that is, as the other guy has said, more and more towards nanotechnology.
103139
New Apple Computer (using Intel chips) and 3G (or 4G!) mobile phone\n\nBob and Mod styles in hair... magenta and new fabric in dresses for 2006. (Sorry, I overlooked small print in the first place)
294797
hmmmm good qusetion by the way....\n\nWe are see now that every bit of tecnology is growing closer to gether, PDAs, laptops, phones, Home PCs, Home TV all have a lot in common like OS's, web, wireless etc. its looks like to me that the internet will spread as a funtion over new tecnolgy, allowing us to take our digtel lifes everywere. the internet will be the seemless movment of infomation of this new world, no longer confined to the dark rooms and offices, everything will be at our fingertips. as long as well keep the net open and free!
992966
Hardware, it's happening now. The people who invent a new way to store data, better batteries and can combine devices into a single unit. \n\nThe first person to triple the best batteries we have now and make it twice as small will be the next billionaire. Investing in hardware companies is the brightest solution.