1. Michell Zappa
@mz
About a year ago I found myself questioning my professional outlook. I’m a designer by trade, but
fascinated with technology and our relation to it. But I realized that my day job would never influence
or even explain how technology would unravel in the future. So I decided to start making sense of all
ingenious innovation taking place.

2. envisioning
technology
My work is called Envisioning Technology, and today I’ll be telling you a little bit about my process and
methodology.

3. The first step was ingesting and starting to organize all books, blogs and articles I’ve been reading
over the years.

4. But it helps to speculate if you’re a Sci-Fi geek.

5. A crucial starting point was Wikipedia’s list of emerging technologies, which gives an excellent
overview of research in dozens of areas.

6. But the list is too comprehensive and not very readable.

7. I’m a sucker for maps of all sorts.

8. So, what do you do with information and maps?

9. Wetware Synthetic life
Smart Smart
warfare vehicles
Local power Exoskeletons
production
Personalized
Tabs/pads medicine
Energy Smart
harvesting toys
3D PGS
AR 3D printing
Agents Metamaterials
Smart
grids NFC
Biofuels Biomarkers
Wireless
NUIs energy
Machine Sensors
translation
Space
Biofeedback tourism
Strong AI Ubicomp
The first step was to list the most interesting and relevant emerging technologies.

10. Wetware
Smart
Synthetic life warfare
Personalized Smart Exoskeletons
medicine vehicles
Smart
PGS toys
3D printing
Metamaterials
NFC Trackers
Sensors
Wireless Biomarkers
Space energy
tourism
Local power Ubicomp
Energy production
harvesting AR Agents
Smart 3D
Biofuels grids Tabs/pads
NUIs Machine
translation
Biofeedback
Strong AI
Then, to group them around areas of similarity.

11. Wetware
(biofeedback) Reversal of
aging
Optogenetics
Artificial limbs
Domestic
Swarm robots
robotics Programmable matter
UAVs
Utility Regenerative
fog medicine
Exoskeletons Synthetic
meat Molecular
assembler
Stem-cell
treatments
ROBOTICS Self-driving
vehicles
Vertical Nanowires
agriculture
Personalized
Interplanetary medicine
internet
Carbon
nanotubes
BIOTECH
Tele- Intelligence
Smart medicine Amplification
cities Smart
toys
Bio-
materials
MATERIALS
HAPs Bio-
markers Meta-
materials Machine
translation
Semantic ARTIFICIAL
web Self-healing
materials INTELLIGENCE
Smart Linked
data Appliance
infrastructure robots Memristor
NFC
Cermets
INTERNET Print on
demand Medical
(CONNECTIVITY) PGS diagnostics Space
Social 3D
5G graph printing elevator
Natural language Tethers
High-frequency interpretation
Cloud trading
computing Software
2025 + 2015 – 2025 2011 – 2015
Cyber-
now Private
spaceflight
agents
warfare
Sub-orbital
Sensors Fuel cells spaceflight Space
PAN Ultra- Bio-enhanced tourism
Tabs & capacitors fuels SPACE
Pads Multi Smart
Virtual 4G touch All media Multi-segmented
meters smart grids
currencies on demand
Virtual
property Pervasive Gesture VASIMR
video recognition
Inductive Superconducting
Boards 3D chargers interties
Electronic
paper AR Gamification
of media Lunar
Pico- outpost
projectors ENERGY
Nanostructure
Speech battery cathodes
recognition Procedural
storytelling
SPIMES
UBICOMP MEDIA
(HARDWARE) Haptics
PV at
NUI grid parity
Piezo-
electricity
(SOFTWARE)
Fabric- Thorium
embedded Holography reactors
screens Location-aware
media Photvoltaic Biomechanical
glass harvesting Traveling
wave reactor
Telepresence Nano- Nuclear
generators
Solar
Smart clothing thermal
Kinetic
Machine
vision
Artificial
Immersive 3D photosynthesis
projections
Retinal
screens Solar
Skin-embedded
screens
Then, I added a degree of prediction of when each individual tech is likely to become mainstream.

12. medicine
Carbon
nanotubes
BIOTECH
Tele-
medicine
Smart
toys
Bio-
materials
MATERIALS
Bio-
markers Meta-
materials
Semantic ARTIFICIAL
web Self-healing
materials INTELLIGENCE
Linked
data Appliance
robots Memristor
NFC
Cermets
INTERNET Print on
demand Medical
(CONNECTIVITY) PGS diagnostic
Social 3D
graph printing
Natural language
High-frequency interpretation
Cloud trading
computing Software
15 – 2025 2011 – 2015
Cyber-
now Private
spaceflight
agents
warfare
Sub-orbital
Sensors Fuel cells spaceflight S
PAN Ultra- Bio-enhanced to
Tabs & capacitors fuels
Pads Multi Smart
Virtual 4G touch All media Multi-segmented
meters smart grids
currencies on demand
Virtual
property Pervasive Gesture
video recognition
Inductive Superconducting
Boards 3D chargers interties
Electronic
paper AR Gamification
of media
Pico-
projectors ENERGY
Nanostructure
Speech battery cathodes
recognition Procedural
storytelling
SPIMES
UBICOMP MEDIA
(HARDWARE) Haptics
PV at
NUI grid parity
Piezo-
electricity
(SOFTWARE)
Fabric- Thorium
embedded Holography reactors
screens Location-aware
media Photvoltaic Biomechanical
glass harvesting
Telepresence Nano-
generators
Theclothing
Smart
distance from the center indicates how far into the future the technology might take place.
Solar
thermal
Kinetic
Machine
vision
Artificial
Immersive 3D photosynthesis

13. ow spaceflight Sub-orbital
spaceflight
Space
tourism SPACE
Fuel cells Bio-enhanced
Ultra- fuels
capacitors
Smart Multi-segmented
smart grids
meters VASIMR
All media
on demand
esture Superconducting
ecognition interties
Inductive Lu
chargers out
Gamification
AR of media
ENERGY Nanostructure
battery cathodes
Speech Procedural
recognition storytelling
MEDIA
PV at Piezo-
Haptics grid parity electricity
Thorium
reactors
Biomechanical Traveling
Photvoltaic
Holography Location-aware glass
harvesting wave reactor
media
Nuclear
Nano-
generators
Solar
thermal Kinetic
Artificial
photosynthesis
Solar
The nodes are organized by area of research similarity.

14. Virtual Fue
Tabs &
currencies 4G Pads Multi
Virtual touch
property All media
Pervasive on demand
video Gesture
Boards recognition
Electronic 3D
Inductive
paper chargers
Pico-
projectors AR Gamificatio
of media
SPIMES Speech
recognition
UBICOMP
(HARDWARE) MEDIA
Haptics
Fabric- NUI
embedded (SOFTWARE)
screens
Holography
Location-aware
media
Telepresence
Smart clothing
Machine
vision
Immersive 3D
Retinal projections
screens
Skin-embedded
screens

15. Domestic
Swarm robots
UAVs Regenerative
robotics medicine
Utility
fog Exoskeletons
Stem-cell
treatments
Self-driving
ROBOTICS vehicles
Personalized
medicine
Interplanetary
internet
Tele-
medicine
Smart
toys
Smart
cities
Bio-
markers
HAPs
Semantic
web
Linked Appliance
data robots
Smart
infrastructure NFC
And you can start noticing the critical path necessary to develop the future ones.
INTERNET Social
(CONNECTIVITY) graph

16. Social
Ubiquitous dots
Connecting the networks
GPS smartphones
As an example of critical paths, take the example of Foursquare. The service would have been
impossible if GPS, Smartphones and Social networks weren’t already available.

17. Moore’s law Parallel Sensors
computing
Same thing for 23andMe, which critically depends on Moore’s law, Parallel computing and ubiquitous
sensors.

18. survive 2012
prepare for 2021
So when Jim invited me to speak here at the WTN I asked myself how to bring the visualization up a
notch.

19. ARTIFICIAL INTERNET INTERFACES SENSORS UBICOMP ROBOTICS BIOTECH MATERIALS ENERGY SPACE GEOTECH
INTELLIGENCE QUANTITATIVE FORECASTS
Global online population: ± 2 billion
High-frequency Cloud Multi Depth Tablets Personal Additive
2012 trading computing touch imaging gene sequencing manufacturing 2012 Connected devices: ±10 billion
2013 Inductive 2013
chargers
Cyber- Gesture Near-field
2014 warfare recognition communication 2014
Software
agents Volumetric Self-healing
(3D) screens Appliance materials
robots Tidal turbines Global online population: ± 2.5 billion
2015 2015 Connected devices: ±15 billion
Speech Pervasive Sources:
recognition video Intel – http://intel.ly/pWbH04
4G capture InternetWorldStats – http://bit.ly/AKbO5
Flexible screens Fuel cells
Organ Commercial
printing spaceflight
2016 2016
Natural language
interpretation Boards Graphene
Mesh
networking Augmented Biometric
reality Smart
sensors toys
2017 2017
Bio-enhanced
fuels
Virtual 4K Robotic Synthetic
currencies surgery blood
Smart
power meters
2018
Personal
fabricators
Biomarkers Pico-
Machine Haptics projectors Self-driving Sub-orbital
translation vehicles Smart drugs Multi-segmented
smart grids spaceflight
2019 2019
Global online population: 4-5 billion
Connected devices: 30-50 billion
Machine Meta- Space
5G vision tourism $150 Hard disk: ±200 Tb
materials
Photvoltaic Standard RAM: ±750Gb
Powered glass
Procedural exoskeleton Sources:
storytelling Eyewear-embedded Intel – http://intel.ly/pWbH04
screens Ericsson – http://bit.ly/avvVok
Alan Conroy – http://bit.ly/pofHp5
2020 2020 FutureTimeline – http://bit.ly/qz4ben
Personalized
medicine
Holography
Optical
invisibility cloaks Piezo- Weather
Context-aware electricity
computing engineering
In-vitro
meat
Reputation Unmanned
economy aerial
Computational vehicles
photography
Synthetic Petabyte storage standard
Fabric-embedded biology Carbon
screens nanotubes Source: http://bit.ly/r9BYQc
VR-only Telepresence
lifeforms $ 1.000 computer reaches the
capacity of the human brain
(± 1015 calculations per second)
Stem-cell Vertical Source: http://bit.ly/6MoQJc
treatments farming
World population 8 billion
Interplanetary Reprogrammable Domestic Biomaterials Biomechanical Source: U.N. – http://bit.ly/7nqQkS
internet chips robots harvesting
BRICs GDP overtakes the G7
Source: Goldman Sachs – http://bit.ly/nc9Wqj
Sea-
Nano- steading
generators
Optogenetics
Gene therapy
Artificial
2030 photosynthesis 2030
Skin-embedded Molecular Terabit internet speed standard
screens Swarm assembler Source: http://bit.ly/kPMKMb
robotics
Immersive
virtual reality
Desalination
Hybrid Lunar
assisted limbs Enernet outpost
Remote
presence
Retinal
screens
Exabyte storage standard
Nanowires
Source: http://bit.ly/kPMKMb
Artificial Mars Carbon
retinas mission sequestration
Neuro- Thorium
informatics reactor
Embodied
avatars
Nanomedicine Climate
Exocortex engineering
Programmable Space
matter elevator
Machine-
augmented
cognition
Anti- Traveling
Machine augmented aging
cognition drugs wave reactor
Utility
fog
Space-based Solar Arcologies
solar power sail
World population reaches 9 billion
Source: U.N. – http://bit.ly/7nqQkS
2040 2040
I call this a “roadmap to the singularity”

20. ARTIFICIAL INTERNET INTERFACES SENSORS UBICOMP ROBOTICS BIOTECH MATERIALS ENERGY SPACE GEOTECH
INTELLIGENCE QUANTITATIVE FORECASTS
Global online population: ± 2 billion
High-frequency Cloud Multi Depth Tablets Personal Additive
2012 trading computing touch imaging gene sequencing manufacturing 2012 Connected devices: ±10 billion
2013 Inductive 2013
chargers
Cyber- Gesture Near-field
2014 warfare recognition communication 2014
Software
agents Volumetric Self-healing
(3D) screens Appliance materials
robots Tidal turbines Global online population: ± 2.5 billion
2015 2015 Connected devices: ±15 billion
Speech Pervasive Sources:
recognition video Intel – http://intel.ly/pWbH04
4G capture InternetWorldStats – http://bit.ly/AKbO5
Flexible screens Fuel cells
Organ Commercial
printing spaceflight
2016 2016
Natural language
interpretation Boards Graphene
Mesh
networking Augmented Biometric
reality Smart
sensors toys
2017 2017
Bio-enhanced
fuels
Virtual 4K Robotic Synthetic
currencies surgery blood
Smart
power meters
2018
Personal
fabricators
Biomarkers Pico-
Machine Haptics projectors Self-driving Sub-orbital
translation vehicles Smart drugs Multi-segmented
smart grids spaceflight
2019 2019
Global online population: 4-5 billion
Connected devices: 30-50 billion
Machine Meta- Space
5G vision tourism $150 Hard disk: ±200 Tb
materials
Photvoltaic Standard RAM: ±750Gb
Powered glass
Procedural exoskeleton Sources:
storytelling Eyewear-embedded Intel – http://intel.ly/pWbH04
screens Ericsson – http://bit.ly/avvVok
Alan Conroy – http://bit.ly/pofHp5
2020 2020 FutureTimeline – http://bit.ly/qz4ben
Personalized
medicine
Holography
Optical
invisibility cloaks Piezo- Weather
Context-aware electricity
computing engineering
In-vitro
meat
Reputation Unmanned
economy aerial
Computational vehicles
photography
Synthetic Petabyte storage standard
Fabric-embedded biology Carbon
screens nanotubes Source: http://bit.ly/r9BYQc
VR-only Telepresence
lifeforms $ 1.000 computer reaches the
capacity of the human brain
(± 1015 calculations per second)