In any case, new technologies now promise a second generation of biofuels, using grain and sugarcane straw, or any other kind of plant waste.
Whatever the case, new technology is now being tested that will allow airlines to route cell phone calls via satellite, thereby avoiding any potential interference with the cockpit.
As with so many other cases involving new technologies, this one was a battle of metaphors.
"We have seen many cases of new technologies looking for a problem, while much better and simpler solutions were available.
To test this hypothesis, economists have looked for evidence of some of its implications: income should be higher for educated individuals in cases where new technologies that are complex to understand come available and become profitable, and school enrollment should increase where returns to education are higher.
It is safe to think that this will also be the case for new technologies such as Emotiv and Project Soli.
As is often the case with new technologies, the sorts of projects currently doing very well are geek labours of love, geeky toys like the Oculus Rift, geeky remakes of old school games or genres that they care about.
While the current cost of adoption is too high for VR to reach under-funded schools, it will eventually decrease, as is almost always the case with new technologies.
M-PESA, however, owes its leading position in the worldwide mobile banking business to a variety of factors, including not only its country of origin – a place where city workers regularly sent money back home to family in rural villages – but also because of fewer regulations, the backing of the country's largest operator, Safaricom, and, as is often the case with new technologies, good timing.
So, while policy pushes the case for new technologies to deliver healthcare improvement, the empirical literature continues to highlight an implementation gap.
