CIO —
Today’s science fiction often becomes tomorrow’s reality. Science fiction writers presaged flight, nuclear weapons, cyberspace and computer viruses, among other changes. "It’s good for CIOs to read science fiction," says Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley technology forecaster. Read what your new hires are reading, he says, "and you’ll get a sense of what they’ll want to build when they’re middle managers. You’ll also relate to them better," he says. Thinking a little more tactically, should any sci-fi technology ideas be on your radar now? Check out these five visions that are moving into the real world.
Roll-Up Displays
Why they’re cool: Resize at will.
What CIOs could love: Reduced eye strain, saved desk space.
Displays offer fertile ground for imagination: Just envision miniature flat panels that you could slap on objects as if they were stickers, for instant displays. On a more practical level, wouldn’t it be nice to have a way to instantly make your cell phone display bigger?
This would probably involve building a display that could bend or even roll up. That last concept might seem completely outlandish—displays consist of glass and other substances no more inclined to bend than the typical CEO. Yet such displays have been demonstrated by the likes of Philips and Xerox and might not be far away from market.
A typical flat-panel display features several layers, including a glass substrate with a transistor backplane that includes semiconductor, insulating and metal layers. A liquid crystal is sandwiched between this and a color filter layer. To make a display bend, you need more flexible materials, such as plastic in place of glass, and in some cases, organic semiconductors.
Such materials form the basis of prototype 2- to 4-inch displays that have been built for the U.S. military by Universal Display, L3 and Xerox’s PARC subsidiary. These displays—made on stainless steel foil—curve around the wrist for improved mobility.
Meanwhile, Philips and PARC have both demonstrated flexible displays, some made using printer-style jet arrays, for use with cell phones and other handhelds. Robert Street, a PARC senior research fellow, says that the company’s jet-printed arrays and rollable displays are in early prototype stages—mostly because of manufacturing challenges and the need to develop manufacturing equipment.
Cognitive Radio
Why it’s cool: Makes smarter use of wireless spectrum.
What CIOs could love: Faster and more reliable wireless networks.
There’s plenty of unused wireless spectrum out there that corporate nomads would love to utilize. Yet it isn’t available to clogged parts of the spectrum. Cognitive radio—using software algorithms that help it immediately find an open spectrum anytime the normal frequency is filled—could solve the problem. Cognitive radio could produce a faster and more reliable wireless network than today’s, creating higher bandwidth by adapting to spectrum conditions.
