Emerging Technologies, what fascinating words! What is it? What does it mean to us? Firstly, let us take the time machine go back to 1880, when Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. This magnificent invention brought us brightness. After all, what use is a light bulb without electricity? Edison set up a system of power distribution in New York City. In the next ten years, word of mouth and lower electricity costs led to a rapid increase from one hundred to three million bulb users and make it cover wider and wider area. In the meanwhile, he had perfected the bulb from 150 hours last time originally to 1200 hours. We call the improvement of the bulb and deployment of the electricity as emerging technologies in Mr. Edison's century. We can say that emerging technologies are the latest innovation which could be applied into the reality. Back to now, 2004, what emerging technologies we are facing? How will they change our world and affect our lives in the next year or next decade?

Nowadays, Emerging Technologies cover various areas from IT to Telecommunication, from Biology to Chemistry, from Medicine to Genome. In this article, we will have a glimpse at some current leading edge projects in these different areas.

Imagine when you speaking to equipment in English, it will translate the other language and speak out with the same meaning. At IBM's Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, the computer scientist is developing the 'universal translation' software that gleans meaning from phrases in one language and conveys it in any other language, enabling people from different cultures to communicate. Unlike commercial systems that translate Web documents word by word or work only in specific contexts like travel planning, this software does what's called semantic analysis: it extracts the most likely meaning of text or speech, stores it in terms of concepts like actions and needs, and expresses the same idea in another language.

We always connect the word 'programming' with the computer. Now, we need to change our concept. Some scientists began programming cells instead of computers. In fact, they began to program cells as if they were computers. The researchers delve into the inchoate field of synthetic biology, assiduously assembling genes into networks designed to direct cells to perform almost any task their programmers conceive. The most ambitious project they had planned-though the furthest from realization-is to program adult stem cells.

With the human eye responsive to only a narrow slice of the electromagnetic spectrum, people have long sought ways to see beyond the limits of visible light. X-rays illuminate the ghostly shadows of bones, ultraviolet light makes certain chemicals shine, and near-infrared radiation provides night vision. Now researchers are working to open a new part of the spectrum: terahertz radiation, or t-rays. Able to easily penetrate many common materials without the medical risks of x-rays, t-rays promise to transform fields like airport security and medical imaging, revealing not only the shape but also the composition of hidden objects, from explosives to cancers.

This budding technology known as distributed storage could help you organise the documents, spreadsheets, music, photos, and videos or maintain regular backup files in case of theft or crash more easily by storing data in the nooks and crannies of the internet, a few keystrokes away from any computer, anywhere. What is this system? Have you ever used music-sharing services such as KaZaA? It let you download and trade songs from Internet-connected PCs. This kind of system is basic distributed-storage systems. But the researchers want to extend the concept to all types of data. The beauty of such system is that it would provide all-purpose protection and convenience without being complicated to use. You can move files across machines, replicate them, remove them and they way in which you get them is unchanged.

The blazing-fast Internet access of the future - imagine downloading movies in seconds - might just depend on a little plumbing in the network. Tiny droplets of fluid inside fiber-optic channels could improve the flow of data-carrying photons, speeding transmission and improving reliability. To Realize this radical idea, the prototype devices, called microfluidic optical fibers, may be the key to super fast delivery of everything from e-mail to Web-based computer programs, once "bandwidth' again becomes the mantra.

Now, I hope you have some idea about emerging technologies. But it is not just this, the world is changing dramatically everyday because the new technologies keep coming up. Do you want to be the technology superstar? If it is yes, you should keep telling yourself, "I can change the world in one day!" Keep asking yourself, "What might change the world?" Keep reminding yourself, "Innovation can happen everywhere at anytime!"