There is no let-up in the growth of the number of patents issued each year, but the introduction of fundamentally new classes of technology seems rarer now than it was in the past.
We are shocked that the 'Tiffany' network which is known for its high journalistic standards would bar all its reporters from favorably describing classes of technology the network does not like.
And in the interim, people are making huge bets on entire classes of technology that carry a real risk of being obsoleted before they're so much as alpha launched, if they ever alpha launch, much less before ordinary users ever even try them in real numbers.
Part of the problem is that today's technologies lack the intelligence to determine when to interrupt people and, more importantly, when to leave them be.Now a new class of technologies is being designed to help users to regain their focus and enjoy more lucidity and concentration.
But just as citizens can demand safer cities, more humane governments and even economic reform, we can demand a new class of technologies.
This work examines how awareness systems, a class of technologies that support sustained and effortless communication between individuals and groups, can support family communication.
More recently, a desire to make greater use of incredible amounts of available digital data has sparked interest in an entirely new class of technologies aimed at that end alone.
