10 Emerging Trends in Technology

Deloitte has released a study identifying 10 emerging trends in technology.

The trends are:

1. Virtualization—will remain a significant technology, delivering a range of benefits to enterprises in 2008.
2. Managing talent—could involve migrating applications away from platforms where skill pools appear to be poor; or to train staff; or make the underlying technology easier to use.
3. Superceding of the conventional light bulb—this year may see the incandescent light bulb replaced by the white LED bulb.
4. The renaissance of Nanotechnology—nanotechnology could allow the manufacture of solar panels based on plastics instead of silicon.
5. A move to online authentication—while initially being regarded as an affront to liberty by some, could ultimately be good for business and for users.
6. The rising value of digital protection—providing a suite of services designed to protect data would address customer demand and also provide a predictable cash flow.
7. The flight to privacy—2008 may see the resistance growing to the volume and depth of information that websites are capturing about customers’ online behavior.
8. XBRL goes XL—Momentum behind the XBRL reporting language may be greater than ever this year, with governments, financial authorities, companies and investors all favoring its adoption.
9. Digital divide for the digerati—digital data incompatibility is expected to grow along with the volume of data.
10. Water scarcity—for consumers, in 2008, active water management may become as important as other environmental measures, such as carbon footprint reduction.

The study can be downloaded from here.