Great advancements in technology have simply revolutionised our world. Nothing is the same as it was twenty years ago, where technology is concerned. With a simple click, you could perform a magnificent operation. These advancements are increasing rapidly and will surely leave an impact on our economy. The aim of this essay is to anticipate how technology will impact on our future economy with contrast to the events of the first and second industrial revolutions. Technological innovations are mainly divided into five categories. Firstly, there is information management. For example, smartphones will have better functions, data storage will become bigger and cheaper and monitoring of machines, processes and people will be easier and more widespread. These improvements will help farmers monitor the weather, doctors track our vital signs, engineers keep track of road and bridge safety and businesses better predict both what and how much to produce.
Moreover, robotics might be the biggest visible change in our future world. Robots have been around for a while, but the next generation will be more agile, flexible, adaptable and probably able to learn and interact with humans. These characteristics will significantly expand their use in the workplace and everyday life. We will see increased use of these modern robots in factories, hospitals, stores and the home. One big spin-off of the robotic technology would be “autonomous” vehicles — that is, cars and trucks that can drive themselves with no direct human operator. Futurists see big benefits from reduced accidents to better traffic coordination and saved driving time. However, this can result in redundancy for employees.
In addition, genomics might be the most controversial of the new technologies because it deals with applying scientific methods and technologies to modifying living organisms, both plant and animal, including humans. Applications like DNA sequencing, synthetic biology and genetic decoding are part of genomics. Genomics has enormous potential in anticipating and fighting disease, repairing the body from injuries and accidents and improving agricultural productivity. Of course, questions have been raised about the appropriateness and possible consequences of intervening with nature.
Furthermore , advances in manufacturing and materials include 3D production, where a customized product can be built virtually anywhere using a layering technique. Some think 3D production will revolutionize manufacturing by making products more adaptive and specific for tasks and thereby more useful. Molecular-sized materials have widespread applications in medical devices and electronics.
What is more, energy is another aspect. For instance, improved battery capacity will allow electric vehicles to have longer ranges, and this will significantly increase their usefulness and appeal. Also, electric generating plants today only store 3 to 4 percent of their electricity. Significantly increasing this rate will reduce the need for expensive and sometimes controversial power plants to be built. Also big advances in techniques for safely accessing non-renewable energy (oil, natural gas) and developing cost-competitive renewable energy sources like solar and wind power are predicted .
Nevertheless, the great economic revolutions in history occur when new communication technologies converge with new energy systems. Accompanying communication revolutions manage the new complex commercial activities made possible by the new energy flows. In the 19th century, cheap steam powered print technology and the introduction of public schools gave rise to a print-literate work force with the communication skills to manage the increased flow of commercial activity made possible by coal and steam power technology, accompaning in the First Industrial Revolution. In the 20th century, communication — the telephone, and later radio and television — became the communication medium to manage a more complex and dispersed oil, auto, and suburban era, and the mass consumer culture of the Second Industrial Revolution.
Today, Internet technology and renewable energies are beginning to merge to create a new infrastructure for a Third Industrial Revolution that will change the way power is distributed in the 21st century. As said earlier, in the coming era, hundreds of millions of people will produce their own renewable energy in their homes, offices, and factories and share green electricity with each other. The establishment of a Third Industrial Revolution infrastructure will create thousands of new businesses and millions of jobs and lay the basis for a sustainable global economy in the 21st century.
The Third Industrial Revolution is the last of the great Industrial Revolutions and will lay the basis for an emerging collaborative age. The conventional, centralized business operations of the First and Second Industrial Revolutions will increasingly be included by the distributed business practices of the Third Industrial Revolution; and the traditional, hierarchical organization of economic and political power will give way to lateral power organized across society.