Richard Watson, an author, lecturer, and futurist, has developed a table consisting of 100 potentially disruptive technologies, capable of significant social, economic or political change.
The vertical axis in Richard’s insightful “periodic table” estimates disruption potential from high to low. The horizontal axis is ranking them from sooner to later.
While you can find the original here, in the table below you can see all 100 technologies arranged in 4 counter-clockwise timeframe cells (1-4). In each cell, technologies are further grouped in time sub-lists. Technologies in every sub-list (very soon, soon, …) are sorted from less to more disruptive ones – according to Richard’s assumptions.
In our AIRTH addition, technologies that deserve special attention in tourism are bolded, and XYZ letters are added. The letters represent the major tourism innovation coordinate system axes (for more info see this paper [28]):
- X – product/customer/front-office perspective
- Y – process/business/back-office perspective, and
- Z – marketing/business-to-customer (B2C) perspective.
## 1. Happening now ## >> VERY SOON << Smart nappies Cryptocurrencies (Y) Robotic care companions (XY) Distributed ledgers (Y) >> SOON << Deep ocean wind farms Concentrated solar power Smart controls and appliances (XY) Precision agriculture (Y) >> A BIT LATER << Vertical agriculture (Y) Predictive policing (Y) Cultured meat (XY) Autonomous vehicles (XY) >> LATER << Wireless energy transfer (XY) Micro-scale ambient energy harvesting (Y) Delivery robots & passenger drones (XY) Intention decoding algorithms (XYZ) | ## 4. Fringe science & technology ## Defined as highly improbable, but not actually impossible. >> MUCH LATER << Digital footprint eraser (XY) Personal digital shields (XY) Human head transplants Human cloning & de-extinction >> MUCH MUCH LATER << Distributed autonomous corporations (Y) Space solar power (Y) Space elevators (XY) Fully immersive virtual reality (XYZ) >> MUCH MUCH MUCH LATER << Artificial consciousness Asteroid mining Force fields Beam-powered proposing Zero-point energy Self-reconfiguring modular robots Space-shifting matter Whole Earth virtualization Reactionless drive Telepathy We can’t talk about this one |
## 2. Near future (10-20 years) ## >> SOONER 10-20 << Medical tricorders Smart flooring & carpets (XY) Mega-scale desalination Self-writing software (Y) Predictive gene-based health care (XY) Automated knowledge discovery (XYZ) >> A BIT LATER 10-20 << Diagnostic toilets (XY) Smart energy grids (Y) Public mood monitoring (XYZ) Programmable bacteria Autonomous robotic surgery Emotionally aware machines (XYZ) >> LATER 10-20 << Balloon-powered internet (XYZ) Powered exoskeletons (XY) Airborne wind turbines Avatar companions (XYZ) Autonomous ships & submarines (XY) Resource gamification (Y) Drone freight delivery (XYZ) Autonomous passenger aircraft (XY) Algal biofuels Human-organ printing Peer-to-peer energy trading & transmission (Y) Lifelong personal avatar assistants (XYZ) Humanoid sex robots (XYZ) Human bio-hacking >> MUCH LATER 10-20 << Computerized shoes & clothing (XYZ) Metallic hydrogen energy storage Water harvesting from air 3D-printing of food & farmaceuticals (XY) Artificial human blood substitute Smart dust (XYZ) Internet of DNA (XYZ) | ## 3. Distant future (20 years+) ## >> SOONER 20+ << Planetary-scale spectroscopy Implantable phones (XY) e-tagging of humans (XYZ) Conversational machine interfaces (XYZ) Life-expectancy algorithms (XYZ) Stratospheric aerosols >> A BIT LATER 20+ << Male pregnancy & artificial wombs DNA data storage (XY) Genomic vaccines Quantum safe cryptography (XY) AI advisors & decision-making machines (XYZ) AI board members & politicians (Y) Invisibility shields (XY) >> LATER 20+ << Vacuum-tube transport (XY) Smart glasses & contact lenses (XY) Broadcasting of electricity (Y) Swarm robotics (Y) New materials (Y) Low-cost space travel (XY) Thought control – machine interfaces (XYZ) Cognitive prosthetics (X) Factory photosynthesis >> MUCH LATER 20+ << Scramjets (XY) Pollution-eating buildings (Y) Bio-plastics (Y) 4-dimensional materials (XYZ) Fusion power (Y) Planet colonialization (XY) Dream reading & recording (X) Data uploading to the brain (XYZ) Transhuman technologies (XYZ) |
TABLE built upon Richard Watson‘s Table of disruptive technologies & innovation.
Author
Dejan Krizaj, University of Primorska
HOW TO CITE:
Krizaj, D. (2018). Table of disruptive technologies & innovation (in tourism). In AIRTH Encyclopedia of Innovation in Tourism and Hospitality. Retrieved: <insert-date>, from http://www.airth.global