Design Nine: Library: Future Trends

Future trends
This is a list of future technologies, social patterns, and economic development strategies we believe will have an important impact on communities, organizations, and on the economy over the next ten to fifty years. It often takes five to ten years to make changes and see the impact fully, so watching trends and identifying those that can or should affect your community, organization, or business can be critical to future success. Someone once said the United States military is always planning to fight the LAST war. Don't get caught planning for the last economic trend.

Trend	Discussion
E-paper	After decades of speculation, failed promises, and lots of prototypes, electronic paper is finally in production in small lots (January, 2004). It is difficult to understand the true impact of this technology, but it will significantly alter the way we access and use information. Today, we have a choice between tiny PDA screens that offer little utility beyond our daily schedule and phone numbers and the full size computer, which includes laptops. At best, laptops are power-hungry, heavy, and awkward to use. E-paper will enable "newspapers" and "books" that can be rolled up and stuck in a pocket; interactive, "live" business cards; and a whole host of other uses that we cannot even predict.
Carbon nanotubes	Carbon nanotubes are finally beginning to be used in the manufacture of new materials. They've been around for almost twenty years, but were very expensive to manufacture. Many times stronger than steel but much lighter, they will play a significant role in the Space Economy. There will be many economic development opportunities, ranging from raw material production, manufacturing of intermediate forms (e.g. sheets, beams, etc), and manufacturing of final products.
Supercomputers (updated 2/12/03)	Supercomputers have always been big and expensive. New advances in microprocessor design, cheap memory, and clustering software now make them affordable for a much wider range of business and research use. On the low end, many more businesses will be able to take advantage of a shared regional supercomputer facility to solve business and engineering problems, which will lead to new product lines and higher business efficiencies. On the high end, bigger business and government research projects will be able to solve more complex problems more quickly, leading to breakthroughs in health sciences, engineering, aerospace, homeland security/defence, and crime prevention. Regional supercomputer facilities will become a key economic development tool, and regions without such a facility will be at a disadvantage. Update: Virginia Tech's Big Mac supercomputer is expected to reap a 5-1 return on investment from healthy demand from government and private industry to get itme on the machine.
Regional supernets	Regional "supernets" will have a profound impact on economic development, especially in rural areas. Low cost fiber networks and wireless first mile interconnections will allow rural regions to offer better broadband access than many rural areas. Affordable, high speed broadband will allow many small businesses and entrepreneurs to make small town quality of life their primary relocation decision. The Alberta Supernet, South Koreas countrywide fiber to the home initiative, and Ireland's countrywide fiber ring provide practical examples of regions already well on the way to achieving this vision.
Mesh networks (wireless)	Arguing over whether fiber or wireless is "the way to go" is an exercise in futility. We'll want and have both, and the discussion is not an either/or decision. A new generation of wireless systems (mesh networks) are creating low cost opportunities for communities to quickly deploy useful broadband services and to pave the way for increased investment later (e.g. fiber). New Open Source software, very low power, off the shelf hardware components, and the low cost of assembling access points makes "smart" wireless systems a must have for smaller communities trying to jumpstart economic development initiatives.