Distruptive/revolutionary versus evolutionary/sustaining technology

Is the distinction between them valid?

First lets look at what each technology is.

Disruptive Technology

"Disruptive technologies are usually those innovations that initially do not improve the focus of the company. Disruptive technologies often don't have a market when they're created. A market must be developed and often it's made up of new customers that the established companies in that field haven't been called on to serve (often 'down-market' from their current customers--smaller computers, smaller numbers, etc). The initial benefits of the disruptive technologies are not features that their current customers are calling for. For example, small, light-weight hard drives with less capacity and a higher cost per megabyte of storage are not appealing to desktop computer users. They don't care about weight because they don't move their machines. They want storage and price. Laptop computer users, however, highly value lightweight storage and are willing to buy disk drives with less capacity if they make significant gains in size and weight. What makes small disk drives a disruptive technology is that they begin to improve in capacity and cost until they reach the same or better price points and storage capabilities as the larger drives. Now desktop customers also want lightweight, high-capacity hard drives and they go to the new companies, leaving their old suppliers scrambling to adopt the new technology." (Deb, 2003)

Sustaining Technology
"Sustaining technologies are those technologies or improvements that sustain an organization's focus, goals, and customers. Sustaining technologies allow an organization to do their job better, to improve their products and to increase customer satisfaction. In addition, sustaining technologies provide obvious improvements in the things that current customers want. In an example that Christensen uses in his book, desktop computer users want disk drives with more capacity at the same or lower cost. A sustaining technology would be a new technique or production method or disk drive that delivered increased storage capacity for desktop computer users.
Sustaining technologies can be radical. For example, a method of manufacturing more cardboard boxes per hour might involve completely different equipment for the operation. What it doesn't involve, though, is a change of focus or a creating a new market." (Deb, 2003)

Now lets have a look at some examples:

Disruptive Technology
The telephone.
The computer.
The internet.

Sustaining Technology
The modern washing machine which now uses less water and power than the first original washing machine.
Any technology which has been improved on

In general, "old" products based on sustaining technology are perceived to be superior to the 'new" ones based on disruptive technology.

Conclusion

It would be fair to think that all technology must have started out as a disruptive technology as they had to be something absolutely new and disruptive to begin with.

I admit I am finding it hard to see the distinction between sustaining and disruptive technology. I wrote this blog entry as a way of making me research the topic further and maybe coming away with a clear understanding on it but I am finding the line between very blurred.

Deb (October 3rd, 2003). Tech, Knowledge, and Community. retrieved August 22nd, 2012 from http://www.extension.iastate.edu/mt/dcoates/archives/000606.html 

Disruptive Technology

Disruptive technology is a term coined by Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen to describe a new technology that unexpectedly displaces an established technology. Disruptive technology lacks refinement, often has performance problems because it is new, appeals to a limited audience, and may not yet have a proven practical application.

Lets take a look at some of the disruptive technologies in the reading 'You'll want one of these'

Super-vision
Wouldn't it be great to have x-ray vision?
As a mum I can see how handy this would be. To be able to look staraight through the walls and spy on what mischief my girls were up to and for later on, in their teenage years, when they start inviting boys home...
But alas it is something that has yet to be invented.
But the next best thing has been. Engineers at Cambridge Consultants, in the UK, announced, in 2006, that they had built what they called a Prism 200 which was a briefcase-sized system that could detect people through a brick wall by firing off pulses of ultrawide-band radar and listening for returning echoes.

How does one use it?
By standing with your back to the wall while the machine scans, using ultra-wideband radio frequencies, then you look at the display to see what is going on.


To watch a quick youtube clip on a Prism 200, click here.

Who can use it?
It is expected that it will be used to law enforcement agencies, emergency services or soldiers in high-risk and hostile situations.

Disappearing act
Cloak of Invisability. If you have ever watched Harry Potter you know what the Cloak of Invisibity is and to be truthful we have all thought about what we could do if we could actually own one right?



But is it all just fiction or is the Cloak of Invisibity a reality?
Apparently it is something of a reality.
How does it work?
By steering electromagnetic waves around an object it disappears. So far the only way to do that is with metamaterials which are made up of electronic components which are designed to interact with light and direct it in a controllable fashion.

Dr. Susumu Tachi, from Keio University, has come up with their version of the invisiblity cloak - a retro-reflective projection technology which uses a computer, a video camera and projector to shine background images onto the front of a subject wearing specialised clothing, creating the illusion of invisibility. you can watch their youtube clip here.
The way they do it is not exactly what I imagine when I think about using an invisibility cloak as I always imagined myself being invisible to others not just on camera.

In the US, at the start of the year, researchers had made a breakthrough with being able to make an 18cm cylinder invisible by using plasmonic metamaterials.

"When light strikes an object, it rebounds off its surface towards another direction, just like throwing a tennis ball against a wall. The reason we see objects is because light rays bounce off materials towards our eyes and our eyes are able to process the information.
Due to their unique properties, plasmonic metamaterials have the opposite scattering effect to everyday materials.
When the scattered fields from the cloak and the object interfere, they cancel each other out and the overall effect is transparency and invisibility at all angles of observation." (Daily Mail, 2012)

But it can only be invisible to microwave scanners.

I am sure that the Cloak of Invisibility will be here in the future and researchers are getting closer but will be here for my lifetime?

Jet packs/Rocket belts
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just put on your jet pack and fly to work, not having to worry about traffic?



Well it seems this could be a reality. There are already a few companies that have invented and sell them.
There is the  Martin Jetpack which is the said to be the worlds first practical jetpack.
"is the result of inspiration and many years of development work by Glenn Martin and an enthusiastic team of engineers and other experts. It uses sophisticated composites and a highly efficient propulsion system to achieve the goal of personal flight, with many safety features including a ballistic parachute." (The Martin Jetpack, n.d.)
And there is the JetLev which is powered by a 200 hp engine that pumps water through a 10-meter hose at 1,000 gallons per minute, generating more than 420 lbs. of thrust. It is on sale for $100,000.
For $250,000, you can buy a Tam rocket Belt which goes more than 60 mph but only lasts for 30 seconds.
For $155,000, you can buy the Jet Pack H202 that goes up to 70mph but it only lasts for 33 seconds.
It seems they may still be in the developement stage.
But will they become the transportation of the future?






Daily Mail Reporter (January 26th, 2012). Breakthrough in bid to create 'invisibility cloak' as 3D object is made to vanish for first time. Retrieved August 21st, 2012 from
 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2091792/Invisibility-cloak-breakthrough-3D-object-vanish-time.html
Martin Jetpack (n.d.). Retrieved august 21st, 2012 from http://martinjetpack.com/

Technology Substitution

New technology is always being created and when it does it usually replaces existing technology.

There have been many significant examples of technological substitution over the years, such as:

• With music it went from the gramophone to record players, to cassette tape players, to Compact Disc's. Now a days music is becoming more likely to be downloaded from the internet straight to an iPhone or MP3 player.

• With movies it went from movie projectors videos to DVD's and now onto Blu-Rays but like with music, it is also becoming increasingly popular to download a movie from online movie web sites.

• They way we take photo's has changed from the camera obscura, a device dating back to the ancient Chinese and ancient Greeks which uses a pinhole or lens to project an image of the scene outside upside-down onto a viewing surface. It has in more recent times changed from a camera which takes film to the digital cameras we have today.

So when, as a business or organisation, do we shift to using the new technology and when do we phase out the old technology?
It is not an easy thing for a business or organization to know when it is right to make a change or to just leave things running as they are. There are a lot of people out there with the attitude "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", which is all good if the technology is working fine and business is pumping.
But if they are not willingly to make the change, how are they going to keep up or ahead of their competition? and how do they know that the new technology is going to work for the better?
There are lots to consider. For example:

• How much is the technology going to cost?
• Will the way we run the business/organization change much?
• Will we need to retrain staff?
• Will we need to add new departments, such as an IT department?
• What concerns will there be for OSH (Occupational Safety and Health)?
• Are there any government regulations to think about?

With all these considerations it cannot be an easy task for a business/organization to change the technology they use. Sometimes the consequences of implementing a new, sometimes even unproven, technology can lead to disaster. For example, the INCIS project which has been described as "One of the biggest bureaucratic bungles in NZ history" (Dale, 2000). Just a few of the reasons why it was a disaster were:
1. It was too over ambitious - "INCIS was big and was going to lead the world" (Dale, 2000)
2. INCIS specified a lot of high technology at the start, but as it was such a big project, quite a lot of it became obsolete along the way.
3. Having an unrealistic timetable - the INCIS completion date slipped from March '97 to, eventually, August '99 when it was canned.

A lot of time, money and research needs to go into the thought process of implementing a new technology.



Bibliography
Dale, T (2000). How to plan a computer disaster. Retrieved August 19th, 2012 from http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/research/RG/svg/tony/papers/incis.html

Push and Pull

What is technology push and market pull?

'Technology push' is when the technology has been developed but the need  must be created.

'Market pull' is when a business has a need for a product and technology develops to fill that need.



Sometimes a designer will design a new or improved product just because they believe that the very existence of the product will create market pull. Designs like this may either succeed or fail, depending on consumer demand, how innovative the product is, and the state of the market at the time.

An example of 'Technology push' include the first Sony walkman which was created because the chairman of Sony got sick of travelling with the companies existing portable stereo as it was too heavy. Sony embarked on an aggressive marketing plan by targeting teenagers hoping that the walkman would become associated with youth and leisure activities. Their marketing plan was successful.



Another example of 'Technology push' was the Sinclair C5, which we all know was a failure (you can read more about it in an earlier post).

Children and Technology

I found this artcile- Switched-on iPad infants put to the test - an interesting read.
Before having children, the thought of children growing up in front of a TV or computer screen made me believe it was because of bad parenting. And children who came around to our house, who sat on the couch and played their handheld computer games, I felt were just rude.
Maybe some parents do it as a way of having a constant babysitter and I, myself, am guilty of using a DVD, computer or the Wii to entertain my children, especially in the last few years while studying and have found games, such as Angry Birds, on the iPhone very handy while out and about.
It is fantastic that children these days have the opportunity to have access and ability to use all the modern technologies, such as the iPad, as it is where the future lies. To see an infant or child pick up and use iPads and computers so easily and to quickly work out how to use it, is an amazing thing to watch. It can take adults ages to work out how to use modern technology, so for a child to pick it up and work it out, sometimes after only being shown a few times, its just fantastic.
After researching iPads and children using them I found out that iPads are not just for fun. iPads and their apps, are also being recognized for helping children with disabilities such as Autism. It helps with communicating and aid in learning, which you can read more about here, where you can read about why iPads are successful and click on some links to reviews by parents who have autistic children.

Technology Convergence

In my mind the convergence of technology is a wonderful thing. To be able to create something new simply by combing two or more technologies together is fantastic.
It is nothing new. Look at the cellphone - it started off being made just so you can call people away from the home or office. Then it got texting capabilities. Now-a-days the simple, little, cellphone can do a wide range of things from making phone calls, to taking pictures, and from taking video footage to reading your emails and browsing the interent.
It makes you wonder can a phone do anymore than it already does?
But everyday there is a new app, or somone designing a new app.
Below is a digram to illastrate technology convergence

An Image of Technology Convergence



This image shows examples of how technology has merged over the years.
Moving image has gone from picture theatre to iPod.
Computing has gone from computer to cellphone.

What technology convergence are we going to see and buy in the next ten years?
Anything, it seems, is possible.

My Top Ten Predicted Future Trends

The following are the ten trends which I believe we are most likely to be using and be seeing more of, in ten years time.

More wired applications. For me it is not surprising that the world is moving towards a world where almost everything is connected to the internet. We already have, in what feels like a short time, phones, TV’s, e-books, computers etc which can connect to the internet. My imagination goes wild with the endless possibilities of what else, of the stuff around my home, could be connected to the internet – microwaves, the refrigerator, my bed? The blog entry at Digital Pacific also has this same view “By 2020, it is expected that almost every device will be wired to the internet – from microwaves to sofas. Furthermore, more applications will be specifically designed to be net friendly.”

I am also remembering the video clip we were given to watch – A Day Made of Glass. I don’t believe that in 10 years time this will be the world we live in but I think we will be a lot closer to it.

Mobile internet will be more common than browsing via the computer. Having internet on the go and being able to connect just about anywhere at any time on your mobile phone is a much easier, more convenient way to browse the web than turning on a computer, which unless you have an internet stick (or something similar) you would have to wait until you got home or to an internet cafe etc. Most people like convenience.   

On the Digital Pacific Company Blog, their blog entry “Top Ten Future Trends- The Internet by 2020” they also mentioned that their number 8 trend was that they think Mobile internet technology is will be the most popular way to browse the web by 2020 and as a result many sites will be specifically catered towards mobile devices.

I do not think it will be strictly phones either and looking at Cisco’s IBSG post on Ten Technology Trends That Will Change the World in Ten Years, on slide 4, there is a graph which shows internet growth and underneath the images of the people there is ‘Connected Devices Per Person’ which shows there was 0.08 devices connected per person in 2003, 1.84 in 2010 and they predict in 2015 there will be 3.47 and 6.58 by 2020. Which show that the number of connected devices is on the rise and is it no wonder when we now have phones, kindles laptops, iPads and even computer type games like Wii which can all be connected to the internet?

Solar power. As power is becoming more expensive for the average household I think more and more people will be turning to alternative means of powering and heating their homes.

With looking at using alternative sources of power, we will need to look at the technology we use. We already have solar powered gadgets such as garden lights, calculators and torches but we need to be looking at our every day gadgets and how to make them solar powered. I found a website which has great solar powered inventions – Smashing Hub – it has solar powered camera straps, chairs which you can sit in and charge your electronic gadgets, barbeque grills and even boats.

Just a few days ago a solar powered airplane completed its 4,000-mile journey, making the first solar-powered intercontinental round-trip air journey. You read the article here.

By trawling the internet you can come across many examples of new solar powered gadgets which, to me, is proof that there is only going to be more and more solar powered gadgets emerging in the next 10 years.

Cars which are not reliant on petrol. Petrol is getting more and more expensive and you can’t help but wonder when the world is going to run out and how are we going to travel from A to B when it does. There are already many alternatives to fuel and I am predicting that in the next 10 years this is going to rise. At Web Ecoist they have written an article on the 7 alternatives to fuel that have already been developed – compressed air, vegetable oil, hydrogen fuel cells, ethanol, water, electric power and wood pellets . With so many alternatives it is just a matter of time before people turn to these alternatives to running their vehicles but to do this they will also need to purchase cars which are able to be run on these alternatives. For example, the electric vehicle which was used in the early 1900’s and Fuel Cell vehicles which run on fuel cells, which is electricity from a catalyst-facilitated chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen ions in a cell. Fuel cell busses are being trialled at Sun Line Transit in Thousand Palms, Alameda-Contra Costa Transit (AC Transit), and Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (Santa Clara VTA).

Although there seems to be a pattern between the price of fuel and the sale of fuel alternative cars, it does seem that the sale for the fuel alternative car is rising. According to a table I found on Ev World, The Future in Motion, on the 1^st, January 2012, in the USA, when fuel was at $3.38, alternative fuel car sales were $14,902. When fuel was at its peak on the 1^st, April at $3.89, sales were $29,799 and last month when fuel was $3.54, sales were $23,778. These figures show that sales for fuel alternative cars are definitely on the rise.

More technology in schools. As the world is fast becoming a world surrounded in technology, it only makes sense that schools get on board and use more technology to assist in the learning of their students.

When I went to primary school there was only one computer in the classroom which sat in a corner and was hardly ever used. We had to wait until we went to high school before we had any real access to a computer and then it was only the geeks and nerds who used them. But these days, schools are supplying more computers and netbooks etc, for their classrooms which the children seem to love using and it is not just the schools with money. The school my 6 year old daughter goes to, does a lot of fundraising to pay for the netbooks and computers which are in each classroom and the children love the time and learning they get to do on them. They get to use them every day for playing math and reading games.

I don’t believe it will be strictly left at just computers and netbooks either. At Howick College, a Ministry of Education pilot programme urged students to use their cellphones in the classroom and use them for learning, rather than keep them at home. You can watch the One News report here. On the same report it was mentioned that at Wellington High, paper was on the way out and that two thirds of the year nine students have netbooks and every student has their own blog and high tech programmes which let students work like professionals. Teachers were also creating lesson online.

Robots. The invention of robots has been around for centuries, starting back to when Henri Maillardet made Automaton in the 1800’s. But robots have come a long since then and they are being created not just for entertainment but for actually being very useful. For example, the swumanoid which is a human-like robotic swimmer that they are hoping will help athletes swim faster.

There is also the Rescue robot (you can read about it by clicking on a link underneath the swumanoid article) which was created to help rescue miners who were trapped.

There is no shortage of new articles, on the internet, about new types of robots being created so, to me, this is proof that, in the next 10 years, there is going to be more and more robots being created to do a variety of tasks from social experiences to being the ones put in danger to save a human life. I feel we are still at the beginning of discovering the possibilities of what a robot can do.

Smartphones. This is an obvious prediction because statistics show that the use of smartphones is already on the rise. Devin Coldewey wrote an article which backs up my prediction on this.

He says

“In 2009, smartphones only made up 18 percent of mobiles bought. But late 2011 saw their numbers increasing, up to almost half. Now, just seven months later, it's up to two out of every three.”

And with iPhone 5 already in the making and being released in the very near future (rumoured to be in October) it looks as though the future in smartphones is very high.

Text by thinking. According to FutureTimeline.net, by the year 2020 we will be able to text by thinking which is achieved by a sensor-mounted headset worn by the user. The device contains brain-machine interface technology which analyses brain waves, converts them into digital signals and displays the resulting letters on-screen.  This I think is a real possibility and it would be great for the times when you are driving and you need to send a text to someone to say you are going to be late or that you will pick them up in 5 minutes.

5g Network. As, with all technology, there is always a new technology on the horizon as soon as the last one is released and since 3g came out in 2001 and 4g came out in 2011 I can predict that by 2020 there will be 5g and according to FutureTimeline.net they agree. They are saying that some of the new features of the 5g are wearable devices with AI technology, IPv6 and High-altitude stratospheric platform station (HAPS) systems.

Holographic TV. There has to be something new with the TV by 2020 and as every TV is already going digital and some even having 3D, it only fair to think that we will be getting holographic TV’s. According to Peter Pachel, Japan's Communications Ministry has set a goal for creating holographic TV by 2020.

Bibliography

Alternative Fuel Vehicles (N.A.). Consumer Energy Centre. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012 from http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/transportation/afvs

Cisco (July 13^th, 2011). Retrieved 28^th, July 2012, from http://www.slideshare.net/CiscoIBSG/ten-technology-trends-that-will-change-the-world-in-ten-years

Coldewey, Devin (13^th, July 2012). Two out of Three Phones Bought in the US are Smartphones. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.gadgetbox.msnbc.msn.com/technology/gadgetbox/two-out-three-phones-bought-us-are-smartphones-879330

DesMarias, Christina (28^th, July 2012). iPhone 5 and Everything You want to Know, PCWorld.  Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.pcworld.com/article/260005/iphone_5_and_everything_you_want_to_know.html

Digital Pacific (Monday August 15^th, 2011). Retrieved 28^th, July 2012, from  http://www.digitalpacific.com.au/blog/top-ten-future-trends-the-internet-by-2020/

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Future 2020 timeline content (N.A.). Future Tmeline.Net. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012 from http://www.futuretimeline.net/21stcentury/2020.htm#mobilestandard

Hybrid, Electric Car Sales Soar Despite Falling Fuel Prices (). Ev World. Retrieved 29^th July, 2012 from http://evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=28372

Nancy Atkinson (23^rd, July 2012). Solar-powered plane comes home after 4,000-mile odyssey. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48311607/ns/technology_and_science-innovation

One News (Monday July 26^th, 2010). Retrieved 28^th, July 2012, from http://tvnz.co.nz/technology-news/nz-taking-lead-in-classrooms-future-3674120/video

Pachel, Peter (7^th, October 2008). Holographic TV Could be Here by 2020, dvice.com. retrieved 29^th, July 2012 from http://dvice.com/archives/2008/10/holographic_tv.php

Quyinn, Ali (2012). 10 Great Solar Powered Inventions, Smashing Hub. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://smashinghub.com/10-great-solar-powered-technology-inventions.htm

Roach, John (2012). Swumanoid Robot Help Future Olympians Go for Gold, Future of Tech. Retrieved 29^th, July 2012, from http://www.futureoftech.msnbc.msn.com/technology/futureoftech/swumanoid-robot-help-future-olympians-go-gold-913877