Emerging Technologies

12
Emergence of Technology
M
echanic arts , col l ectiv ely has the same famil iar sense as the
w ord technology. [2]
Innov ativ e methods that hav e been dev eloped ov er the centuries
hav e opened up new technol ogies. Some of w hich are credited to
theoretical researches w hil e others to commercial research and
dev elopment. [3]
Pri ma ri ly t h ese d evel opment s fa l l i n t o t wo ca t ego ri es :
Ideological and Substantive.
“Ideological dev elopments are those w hich create changes
in the prev ailing conception of the mechanic arts themselves .”
“Whereas, substantiv e dev elopments are those w hich change
the material dev elopment of the machinery itsel f, and of
the institutional setting from w hich it is emerged.”
Most technologies dev eloped are generally new but may incl ude
or be deriv ed from ol der technol ogies that w ere stil l controv ersial
or rel ativ ely underdev eloped in their true potential.
Technol ogy either grow s in an incremental manner or in a disruptiv e
manner. Incremental manner is w hen the same technol ogy simply
continues to improv e w ith more innov ativ e methodology. Disruptiv e
manner is w hen technol ogy is repl aced by a better al ternativ e
technol ogy making the former obsol ete.
An example of the former is the gradual rol l-out of BD (Bl u-ray Disk)
as a dev elopment intended to fol l ow on from the prev ious optical
technol ogy DV D (Digital V ideo Disk). By contrast, as
aforementioned, disruptiv e technol ogies are those w here a new
method repl aces the prev ious technology, making it redundant, for
example, the repl acement of CDs and DV Ds replaced by Fl ash USB
(Univ ersal Serial Bus) driv es. [4]