Source: Computerworld Opinion: 10 game-changing technologies
1. Sensor technology
Hewlett-Packard is developing an early prototype called CeNSE (Central Nervous System for the Earth), which uses microscopic sensors to communicate situational awareness about a city ecosystem. For example, a sensor on a bridge could report unusual vibrations back to a central command and first responders. Sensors in a home could report high levels of mercury, lead or pesticides.
2. Smarter Web
Some call it the Semantic Web. IBM Research has developed a Mozilla Firefox extension called CoScripter that is essentially a macro-recorder for the Web.
3. Network virtualization
Server virtualization is one of the most important game-changers of the past decade.
4. Fuzzy searches
As long as you know the right search term, it’s easy to find hundreds or even thousands of links on almost any given topic. Yahoo Correlator allows you to type in vague terms such as “English poet 1950s” and correlate information.
5. Social network integration
Open standards such as Y!OS and OpenSocial are paving the way for data sharing between services.
One combination that promises to be a game-changer — at least in terms of unifying social network and Web services — is the Palm Pre and the WebOS, which will make it easier to log in once for multiple services. I
6. Netbooks in the enterprise
7. Smart grid
The smart grid is coming — and local utility companies are racing to build it. Sensors located in HVAC and metering equipment connect to networks and can show consumers and companies how power is being used in real-time.
8. SSD RAID
Solid-state drives are already an attractive option in the PC market. In enterprise computing, a solid-state drive RAID array — made up of several linked SSD drives. SSD should be less expensive on an IOPS (Input/output operations per second, or IOPS, are a measurement of overall storage speed.) basis than Fibre Channel.
9. Speech-to-text and e-mail integration
you might have a personal cell phone, a desk phone, a home phone and a business smartphone. Google Voice is a phone-number aggregator that automatically dials whichever phone number you want. The free service’s most-impressive feature, though, is voice-mail transcription.
10. Open PC cases
BMW designed a case for the ThermalTake PC as a prototype called Level 10 and came up with an open architecture that makes it easy to swap components.
10 Hot 