Future Technology Essay Research Paper F U

Future Technology Essay, Research Paper

F U T U R E O F T E C H N O L O G Y

Dr.Nenno / Economics

Research Paper

Turkka Hirvonen

May 5 2000

People often think that future is all about flying cars, robots and space travelling. Maybe it will be like that, who knows, but at least until this day the changes haven.t been remarkable. Companies are all the time investing more money on research and development. This indicates that companies and government are interested to achieve and find new technological inventions that would change the markets. All ready one of the computer related inventions, Internet, has changed the spreading of information globally. E-companies. are stocks are rising in the stock markets like rockets. This is a great example how future technology will change the economics around the world as it affects greatly our everyday life. .Internet is worldwide network of connected computers. This network enables you to communicate with the rest of the world in different ways..(1) Has been approximated that the total amount of information globally doubles every 18 months, which indicates that internet, as an important part of media nowadays, affects everyone of us though we might not have a possibility to be on-line. The approximated number of people who are on-line daily is more than 18%. .As you can imagine and as you probably may have seen, there are a lot companies. You can find the big ones like Coca-Cola, Disney, Xerox, IBM. Apart from supplying (product) information and amusement, they mostly use the web for name and product branding (recognition). There’s a completely new industry with lots and lots of Net based companies like the search engines, banner exchanges, hosting services, (Net) marketers and software enterprises. And there are others, which have expanded their originally offline business field to the Net (Credit Card companies, Researchers, Marketers, Yellow Pages). Small and medium business companies selling to consumers. A great part of them use the Net to expand their offline business, others try to make a living on it. And some of them see the necessity to transfer from one to the other in the future. Business-to-business companies are also found on the Net. In short, all kind of enterprises have taken the step to the online world..(2) Internet is not only a way to spend time surfing, but it is also an very good way to make money by transforming products, services and markets. It is an easy way to reach people when thinking advertising and it is an easy way to people to reach the information wanted, but the competition between companies in the virtual reality of Internet, is as hard as in the real world.

Government.s space program also influences and will influence economics of the future. U.S. government.s NASA (North American Space Association) has done great job exploring space and research new opportunities in outer space and other planets. The question is how the new future technology will change the direction of economics and by that our living on Earth or maybe on some other planet. The world population is growing fast. The room to live on earth might be a problem in future, and Earth might not be able to feed the upcoming population. This is one of the reasons why we have to explore the space for new opportunities. The problem is the money. Are taxpayers willing to pay. After the resent failure of sending a $266 million Pathfinder to Mars, taxpayers started doubt is the space program worth it, but mistakes that are caused by understaffed and overworked space teams are not unique to interplanetary missions, like NASA.s Pathfinder mission. A single broken cord can turn to a $400 million cost, but who said it is not risky.Is this $450 billion plan going to give taxpayers their moneys back. No, because the new technology will help their children and grandchildren to live their everyday lives in polluted and overpopulated environment caused by the past generations. .In recent years, cost-reduction efforts throughout America.s space industry have had profound effects on the workforce. Older and more experienced workers were the predominant target of cost-conscious layoffs or of contract swapping prior to retirement-benefits vesting. But even the younger workers, supposedly their eventual replacement, were victimized by the cuts..(3)This is what the taxpayers should understand; their selfish use of money on researching new technology might be a threat for the future generations. .If we were to bring back a rock in 2005 that clearly shows evidence of ancient life on the planet or fi we were to find evidence of life on Mars, that would be great impetus for a human program. A manned mission must have a compelling scientific or economic rationale., said Alan Ladwig, NASA.s associate administrator.(4)

The greatest effect of future technology has is on the productivity. Technological change, or innovation, is a contributor to the growth of productivity. From the development of plows to the invention of computers, history shows many example of technologies that have increased productivity. New products, new methods of production, new ways of organizing production(Ford.s assembly line) or marketing products and new methods of communication can each demonstrate how productivity increases. And when productivity increases faster than the population, standard of living increases. This makes people.s