Bleeding edge tech blogs?

May 12, 2006 12:49 PM

What bleeding-edge technology websites do you frequent?

I'm looking for blogs or other websites that examine emerging technology, something like a Gizmodo for prototypes or technology that will see release five to ten years from now.

Examples include blogs FutureWire and Defensetech.

posted by viewofdelft to technology (9 comments total)

I get some of it secondhand from Warren Ellis. He runs a futurism community called Die Puny Humans (signup required) that you might find useful.
posted by sixacross at 1:21 PM on May 12, 2006

This has been asked quite a few times, so I'll continue with the answer I've given for awhile:
We Make Money Not Art is fantastic.
If you want the Gizmodo OPML feed list, email me and I'll send it your way. It has about 250 gadget/tech feeds that have been relatively hand-picked.
posted by disillusioned at 1:21 PM on May 12, 2006

Akihabara News.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 1:34 PM on May 12, 2006

Defense is sort of a unique case - they set a way-out goal and then spend as much time and money as it takes to get there. So you can read Defensetech and be fairly certain that those prototypes, or something like them, will end up in the field. Eventually.

But usually, for every 100 potentially disruptive science/tech innovations, only 10 make it to product development and only 1 actually becomes a successful product*. How many revolutionary new laser/quantum/whatever data storage breakthroughs ave you seen on Slashdot? How many terabyte thumb drives are you carrying?

Sorry, bit of a rant ... but in general, I don't think it's possible to predict what novel technologies will be in commercial use in five years.

(*source of numbers: pulled out of thin air / my ass)
posted by lbergstr at 1:57 PM on May 12, 2006

Here's my list:

Future Feeder
SciScoop
Future Salon
Future Pundit
Futurismic
Cool Hunting
Emergic
posted by scalefree at 2:53 PM on May 12, 2006

Sorry, bit of a rant ... but in general, I don't think it's possible to predict what novel technologies will be in commercial use in five years.

I disagree. We won't see any new technologies in 5 years. We have an incredible backlog of recent technologies that just need to be recombined in the right way to make useful products.

Web 2.0 is a great example. From 1992 to 1999 or so, the interenet did useful things for a very narrow slice of the world. Email was broadly useful, but few people needed the web enough to get high speed links to their homes. The Web 2.0 era is full of products built on technology that has existed for a decade or more.

Flying cars are still 50 years out.
posted by b1tr0t at 9:42 PM on May 12, 2006

Eurekalert maybe?
posted by MetaMonkey at 3:11 AM on May 13, 2006

Regarding flying cars... I know this is off-topic, but I've a few thoughts to share if you guys don't mind. In short, flying cars is totally going to take forever.

For one reason, the infrastructure for it isn't going to happen overnight. I mean, look at the Segway. It was supposed to change how we travel as well as how cities are designed.

Another reason is safety. Some people can't drive a normal car, let alone drive/fly a flying car. Sure, we have complex navigational systems that can handling this kinda stuff, but it ain't quite ready yet.

In any case, I don't think flying cars is happening in my lifetime. Perhaps it'll happen for our videogame-generation children. I guess it's just a matter of waiting till the old fogies die out... you know, for everyone's safety :P. We sure as hell don't want 9/11s happening on a daily basis! Although I'm sure the media would love it. "Screw the police chase, another old guy just flew his car into the Farmers Market!"

Anyhoo, I've side-tracked long enough.
posted by freakystyley at 2:43 PM on May 16, 2006

trendwatching.com's briefings are always a good read, although they're more about consumer trends.
posted by jessemellon at 1:47 PM on May 17, 2006