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HOW WILL THE WORKPLACE EVOLVE IN THE YEARS BEFORE WE ENTER IT

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HOW WILL THE WORKPLACE EVOLVE IN THE YEARS BEFORE WE ENTER IT

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One way we might see communication change in the future is through augmented reality. In an augmented-reality system, you view the world through a technological overlay. This could take the form of a hand-held device like a smartphone -- there are several augmented-reality applications already available for some phones. Another possible application is through a set of augmented-reality glasses. In either case, you can view the world around you and see real-time digital information about what you're viewing.

The classic example of augmented reality is the restaurant review. You could stand in front of a restaurant and, through an augmented-reality system, read customer reviews or view the daily specials without ever walking inside. But the applications don't have to stop with locations. Augmented-reality systems might extend to people as well. Imagine looking at a stranger and seeing that person's name, Facebook profile, Twitter handle and other information. Clearly, augmented reality systems will raise concerns about privacy and safety, but such systems are already in development.

Then there's video conferencing. While the technology has existed for years, video calls aren't popular in the United States. It might be because the hardware hasn't been compelling or cost-effective enough. But now webcams are starting to appear on televisions and are standard on many laptops. Are we about to enter an era of video conferencing, or is it too much work to make sure you and your house look nice before you order that pizza?

One drawback to video conferencing is that it either requires you to stay in one place for the duration of the call or to hold a device so that you're visible for the whole conversation. We've become used to having a great deal of freedom while on the phone. Will we really adopt a technology that will necessitate that we keep still? Perhaps we'll use video conferencing for special occasions or short conversations.

Language barriers are disappearing as well. Devices that can translate languages in real time are allowing people from different countries and cultures to communicate without the need for an interpreter.

In the distant future, we may be able to communicate by sending our thoughts through a network directly into someone else's brain. We're decades away from such technology, but scientists are working on creating brain-computer interfaces that allow people to transmit thoughts directly to a computer. Perhaps 50 years from now we'll all use an electronic version of telepathy.

The technology of communication evolves at a blistering pace. It may turn out that our predictions don't even scratch the surface. Only time will tell.

Learn more about communication through the links below.

Related HowStuffWorks Articles

More Great Links

Sources

German, Kent. "Sprint unveils first 4g phone." CNET. March 23, 2010. (April 6, 2010) http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-12261_7-20000998-10356022.html

Hiemstra, Glen. "The Future of Communication and Conversation." Futurist.com. Jan. 15, 2008. (April 6, 2010) http://www.futurist.com/2008/01/15/the-future-of-communication-and-conversation/

Leonhard, Gerd. "The Future of Communication and Social Media." NBS Sao Paulo. March 2010. (April 5, 2010) http://www.slideshare.net/gleonhard/future-of-communication-and-social-media-gerd-leonhard-at-nbs-sao-paulo

Quick, Darren. "Brain-to-brain communication over the Internet." Gizmag. Oct. 6, 2009. (March 29, 2010) http://www.gizmag.com/brain-to-brain-communication/13055/

Science Daily. "Brain-Computer Interface Allows Person-to-person Communication Through Power Of Thought." Oct. 6, 2009. (March 29, 2010) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091006102637.htm

The Science Channel. "Wired NextFest: The Future of Communication." HowStuffWorks.com. https://videos.howstuffworks.com/science-channel/32471-wired-nextfest-the-future-of-communication-video.htm

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One way we might see communication change in the future is through augmented reality. In an augmented-reality system, you view the world through a technological overlay. This could take the form of a hand-held device like a smartphone -- there are several augmented-reality applications already available for some phones.

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Definition

Gertrude has returned to work at her toy company job after a week's vacation. She heads to her office and cringes when she turns on her computer. Her email inbox shows 400 messages waiting for her reply as well as a bunch of voicemails. Gertrude sighs and realizes there is no escape from workplace communication.

Workplace communication is the transmitting of information between one person or group and another person or group in an organization. It can include emails, text messages, voicemails, notes, etc.

Important Advantages

Workplace communication is vital to an organization's ability to be productive and operate smoothly.

1. Workplace communication improves worker productivity.

Research has shown that effective lateral and work group communication leads to an improvement in overall company performance. It has also been discovered that employees who were graded as highest in production had received the most effective communication from their superiors. For example, Gertrude works in engineering, and her prototypes of toys receive accolades. She is an effective communicator about her designs and how they will be played with in real life by kids. In addition, she receives specific guidance from her superiors, allowing her to create designs quickly and efficiently.

2. Workplace communication can increase employee job satisfaction.

Employees feel empowered if they are able to have upward communication . This type of communication is when information flows upward in an organization and usually consists of feedback. If bosses or managers are able to listen to employees and respond, this leads to an increase in employee job satisfaction.

In addition, employees are also happy if there is intense downward communication , which is information flowing down from superiors or managers to direct reports. Gertrude recently sent an email to her boss recommending that her department upgrade its design software. Her upward communication feedback was not just acknowledged but also acted upon, resulting in a very happy design team.

3. Workplace communication can also have a positive effect on absenteeism and turnover rates.

Communication flow is very important to workers. Employees have to feel secure that they are receiving truthful and updated information from superiors. They also want to have the ability to share ideas, thoughts and concerns within the company. Studies have shown that even after a layoff, companies that have excellent communication are able to retain the surviving employees.

Gertrude did survive a corporate merger and was very concerned about her future with the company. Her immediate managers communicated right away that she was a huge value to the organization and would be getting a promotion within the year. This ultimately provided Gertrude with a reason to fully commit to a new organizational structure.

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strategies & examples - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Workplace Communication: Importance, Strategies & Examples - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Gertrude has returned to work at her toy company job after a week's vacation. She heads to her office and cringes when she turns on her computer. Her email inbox shows 400 messages waiting for her reply as well as a bunch of voicemails. Gertrude sighs and realizes there is no escape from workplace communication.

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North Carolina's economy and population have changed rapidly over the past several years, and our state's success hinges on the ability to adapt to these changes - and to be ready for future ones, too. That's why it's so important to look for ways to improve how our educational systems are preparing North Carolinians for meaningful employment both now and in the years to come.

Two out of three jobs in our state will soon require some form of postsecondary education, but less than half of working-age North Carolinians have earned a credential beyond high school. We must do better by making sure that North Carolinians have the opportunity to go beyond high school to earn the skills and credentials needed to compete for higher-skilled - and higher-paying - jobs.

For many years, the state's educational systems (early childhood, K-12, community colleges and universities) were viewed as separate entities, and were largely operated that way. But for a student, getting an education is a continuous learning experience that spans across all of these systems, making each one a critical step along that student's path. Early childhood education, for example, lays the foundation for growth in elementary school, which fosters better high school experiences and a stronger start toward higher education, which in turn leads to better opportunities for success in the workforce - and a more skilled talent pool for employers.

Linking our educational systems together and better aligning them with both students' and employers' needs is vital for our state's success. It has been encouraging to see that in more recent years, educational systems have forged partnerships to ensure smoother transitions for students as they move along their educational journeys. Our educational institutions and employers are also working together to develop talent and training pipelines, and to raise awareness among students and teachers as to how the skills and concepts learned in school apply to real-world, real-workplace situations.

For instance, last month Asheboro City Schools, Randolph Community College and the Randolph County School System sponsored the first AMP (Advanced Manufacturing Pathway) Camp, which enabled 17 rising 8th- and 9th- graders and 20 middle and high school teachers to come to RCC for a free weeklong camp to learn more about advanced manufacturing - a growing industry in our area and our state as a whole.

Creating opportunities like the AMP Camp to increase student interest in these skills achieves two goals: 1) helping better prepare students for good jobs and careers, and 2) developing more job-ready talent for our employers' changing workforce needs.

These same two goals are driving the work of the My Future NC Commission, a bipartisan group of members from across the state in the education, business, government, nonprofit and faith communities. In addition to reviewing state and national research, the commission has been visiting communities throughout the state to listen and learn from fellow North Carolinians about how to better align our educational systems and provide our employers with more homegrown, highly skilled workers ready for the jobs of the future.

MFNC's final listening session will be held from 2:30-5 p.m. Wednesday at the Randolph Community College Continuing Education and Industrial Center in Asheboro. The event is free and open to the public, and we invite you to join this exciting conversation. We also would welcome your thoughts via MFNC's online survey: https://www.ednc.org/reach-nc-poll/myfuturenc-survey/.

By the end of this process, the commission hopes to recommend:

* A statewide goal for the number of North Carolinians who need education beyond high school.

* The benchmarks needed to help students succeed along their journey - such as targets for kindergarten readiness, third grade literacy, eighth grade proficiency in reading and math, college readiness, and workforce alignment in critical areas.

* The policy reforms and initiatives necessary to achieve these goals and targets.

North Carolina needs a long-term strategy to align a highly skilled and talented workforce with better opportunities to support and strengthen our communities' economic growth. Our students' economic opportunities - and our state's economic success - depends on it.

* Dr. Robert Shackleford is president of Randolph Community College. Gus Agudelo is a member of the Asheboro City School Board of Education since 2011 and a myFutureNC Commissioner.

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Linking future economic success to education

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North Carolina's economy and population have changed rapidly over the past several years, and our state's success hinges on the ability to adapt to these changes - and to be ready for future ones, too.

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10 Ways Technology Will Change The World By 2025

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And you thought technology was crazy already.

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In this final installment, we dive into completely unchartered territory as we predict what the future economy will look like for our sure-to-be-kick-ass offspring. These predictions are of those jumping into the workforce around the year 2040, or as we will dub them, the Creative Generation, or GenCreate. We're taking bets!

Diversity ain't goin' away

Diversity will take on dichotomous trends over the next 20 years in the United States. On one hand, the melting pot will become more flavorful, as increasing ethnic diversity and global connectivity produce new and innovative ideas to further human progress.

On the other hand, increased diversity has usually come in tandem with deep divides between so-called natives, who desire an exclusive state. The mixing of different races and cultures will enrich us with new foods, art, and information that bring us together, but it will also come with different behaviors, norms, and beliefs that can be exploited to divide us.

Nonetheless, some of our kids will be zipping or flying (if Kalanick, Musk and co. come through) around in driverless cars, smoking marijuana while reading a history book on the ramifications of the Great Recession, and chuckling at the 2016 presidential election.

Taking a stab at the future political arena

Depending on the longevity of Trump's influence, Republicans may continue to adopt a more nationalistic bent, pushing against immigration and incentivizing industries to stay in the states through subsidies and other privileges, while favoring programs like social security and Medicare to take care of our elders.

Alternatively, Democrats could begin to favor more libertarian-esque policy measures and champion immigration and more market-oriented policies. Left-leaning politics, garnished with libertarian stances on policy issues, will appear on the menu (with the transition to clean energy the most-likely signifier). However, they will ensure that government remains involved in reshaping the workforce to compete in world markets.

Similar to the inversed cultural trends, the sharing economy and accompanying labor force will require specialization collaboration. By then, the tycoons making cheddar from automation will be competing globally, bringing in specialized labor from around the world to collaborate under their roofs. This will create political tension as elected officials try to take on the murky contracts between workers and employers, consultant and client, contractor and app, or whatever they are.

Additionally, as the labor participation rate inches downward as a result of technology disrupting labor patterns and demographics, income inequality will continue to be a political issue. State-legislated distribution of wealth will be proposed, but in different ways from both sides. This period may finally allow a universal basic income to become a reality, garnering more support from the left side of the aisle.

On the other hand, if the electoral system is adjusted in the next couple elections to a preferential voting type system, our kids may be able to enjoy a more nuanced election with less mudslinging. The 2016 presidential election brought to light a general discontentment with the electoral process in which policy issues were seldom discussed, political contenders were left in the dark, and voters were generally unhappy with their options and ensuing selection.

Machine learning transforms education

According to corporations , recent students display deficiencies in areas such as critical thinking, problem-solving, analytical reasoning, communicating and working in multicultural teams.

As we transition from a service-based economy to a knowledge-based economy, the emphasis in these quasi-trade schools will be on creative collaboration and having the ability to work alongside not only machines, but other people. Being able to work synergistically with others and apply the second-natured technical skills will be paramount to the next generation's success.

Indeed, as education becomes more personalized and attuned to individual strengths and weaknesses, it will assist the generation in creating more specialized skills for the freelance economy. But, human capital will not be enough. Social capital-who we know within our networks of family, work, and community-will hopefully bridge the cultural gaps and become increasingly important to GenCreate's future earnings.

In the next couple decades, majors in philosophy, economics, and other social sciences will rise to prominence because these help students develop critical thinking skills, incorporate the lessons from history, and more clearly understand the impacts of technology on human life. The gender split will become more even within these realms, but we will still see the large gap in the more technical, engineering fields.

The dividend paycheck

Assuming inflation is a thing that happens, GenCreate will see much larger paychecks than millennials. However, how we get paid could be substantially different. In the next 10-to-15 years, productivity will increase so much that the average work day will officially decrease by at least a couple hours. Employers will either have to pay more per hour of work or will distribute ownership rights to the business and capital equipment.

We see similar pay structures today, particularly for top-level executives. Instead of CEOs getting monstrous salaries or large hourly wages, many receive stock options and partial ownership of the company. In other words, every quarter, they receive a dividend payment, which is a portion of the company's profit divided amongst shareholders. This will either be a new, competitive way for employers to attract workers or it will be enforced through legislation.

Retirement accounts vs. homeownership

Sadly, student loan debt will continue to plague the next generation much like it plagues our own, and may have even more of an impact on economic mobility. Seeing as income streams will likely be unsteady in a freelance economy, consumer debt will likely increase as well.

Unless the influential political economists decide that it doesn't matter, the next generation will also see large tax increases in order to pay off the national debt that will have grown to well over 100 percent of the United States' GDP.

Don't expect your kids to buy a home before they turn 40 unless you transfer your home to them when you die. However, technology might make savings and retirement accounts a less-daunting task. Fintech apps, pooled retirement plans, and easy-access health savings accounts will morph alongside the changing paychecks.

Our take

Although our (or anyone else's) predictions should be taken with a grain of salt, we are undoubtedly in a position to shape the future of our children for the better. Getting along with people from different cultural backgrounds will prove to be super helpful to that task.

However, this begins with education. It opens our eyes to the cultural dynamics of the world. In addition, allowing the technological avenues to widen in this area will not only let our generation adapt to coming disruptions, but also help our children soak in the necessary skills to be successful in a knowledge-based economy.

In some areas, our predictions seem a bit grim, but in others they look exciting. Politics will take an important role in whether or not these times are dark or bright. Alongside politics, how the next generation of entrepreneurs in business ownership set up their business models will either exacerbate wealth and social inequalities or reduce them.

Drastically reducing barriers to opportunity and innovation, embracing global competition and the movement of specialized labor, will allow GenCreate to actually identify with their generation's moniker-and create.

Tell us what you think of our predictions or if you want to throw any money in the pot.
Have something to add to this story? Comment below or join the discussion on . Header image: Shutterstock
Author

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What Will the Future Economy Look Like? Welcome to 2040 - [FKD]

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In this final installment, we dive into completely unchartered territory as we predict what the future economy will look like for our sure-to-be-kick-ass offspring. These predictions are of those jumping into the workforce around the year 2040, or as we will dub them, the Creative Generation, or GenCreate. We're taking bets!

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Why is the job market becoming more competitive when there has been a decline in birth rate?

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Answer (1 of 8): There may have been a decline in the local birth rate, but the global population has been growing faster than ever before. Combine that with cheap transportation, low trade and immigration barriers and increasing political stability, and many of the jobs that were open to your p...

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Every year since 2001 we've picked what we call the 10 Breakthrough Technologies. People often ask, what exactly do you mean by "breakthrough"? It's a reasonable question-some of our picks haven't yet reached widespread use, while others may be on the cusp of becoming commercially available. What we're really looking for is a technology, or perhaps even a collection of technologies, that will have a profound effect on our lives.

For this year, a new technique in artificial intelligence called GANs is giving machines imagination; artificial embryos, despite some thorny ethical constraints, are redefining how life can be created and are opening a research window into the early moments of a human life; and a pilot plant in the heart of Texas's petrochemical industry is attempting to create completely clean power from natural gas-probably a major energy source for the foreseeable future. These and the rest of our list will be worth keeping an eye on. -The Editors

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3-D Metal Printing

Now, however, it's becoming cheap and easy enough to be a potentially practical way of manufacturing parts. If widely adopted, it could change the way we mass-produce many products.

In the short term, manufacturers wouldn't need to maintain large inventories they could simply print an object, such as a replacement part for an aging car, whenever someone needs it.

In the longer term, large factories that mass-produce a limited range of parts might be replaced by smaller ones that make a wider variety, adapting to customers' changing needs.

The technology can create lighter, stronger parts, and complex shapes that aren't possible with conventional metal fabrication methods. It can also provide more precise control of the microstructure of metals. In 2017, researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory announced they had developed a 3-D-printing method for creating stainless-steel parts twice as strong as traditionally made ones.

Also in 2017, 3-D-printing company Markforged, a small startup based outside Boston, released the first 3-D metal printer for under $100,000.

Another Boston-area startup, Desktop Metal, began to ship its first metal prototyping machines in December 2017. It plans to begin selling larger machines, designed for manufacturing, that are 100 times faster than older metal printing methods.

The printing of metal parts is also getting easier. Desktop Metal now offers software that generates designs ready for 3-D printing. Users tell the program the specs of the object they want to print, and the software produces a computer model suitable for printing.

GE, which has long been a proponent of using 3-D printing in its aviation products (see " 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2013: Additive Manufacturing"), has a test version of its new metal printer that is fast enough to make large parts. The company plans to begin selling the printer in 2018. - Erin Winick

Artificial Embryos

In a breakthrough that redefines how life can be created, embryologists working at the University of Cambridge in the UK have grown realistic-looking mouse embryos using only stem cells. No egg. No sperm. Just cells plucked from another embryo.

The researchers placed the cells carefully in a three-dimensional scaffold and watched, fascinated, as they started communicating and lining up into the distinctive bullet shape of a mouse embryo several days old.

"We know that stem cells are magical in their powerful potential of what they can do. We did not realize they could self-organize so beautifully or perfectly," Magdelena Zernicka-Goetz, who headed the team, told an interviewer at the time.

Zernicka-Goetz says her "synthetic" embryos probably couldn't have grown into mice. Nonetheless, they're a hint that soon we could have mammals born without an egg at all.

That isn't Zernicka-Goetz's goal. She wants to study how the cells of an early embryo begin taking on their specialized roles. The next step, she says, is to make an artificial embryo out of human stem cells, work that's being pursued at the University of Michigan and Rockefeller University.

Synthetic human embryos would be a boon to scientists, letting them tease apart events early in development. And since such embryos start with easily manipulated stem cells, labs will be able to employ a full range of tools, such as gene editing, to investigate them as they grow.

Artificial embryos, however, pose ethical questions. What if they turn out to be indistinguishable from real embryos? How long can they be grown in the lab before they feel pain? We need to address those questions before the science races ahead much further, bioethicists say. - Antonio Regalado

Sensing City

Numerous smart-city schemes have run into delays, dialed down their ambitious goals, or priced out everyone except the super-wealthy. A new project in Toronto, called Quayside, is hoping to change that pattern of failures by rethinking an urban neighborhood from the ground up and rebuilding it around the latest digital technologies.

Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs, based in New York City, is collaborating with the Canadian government on the high-tech project, slated for Toronto's industrial waterfront.

One of the project's goals is to base decisions about design, policy, and technology on information from an extensive network of sensors that gather data on everything from air quality to noise levels to people's activities.

The plan calls for all vehicles to be autonomous and shared. Robots will roam underground doing menial chores like delivering the mail. Sidewalk Labs says it will open access to the software and systems it's creating so other companies can build services on top of them, much as people build apps for mobile phones.

The company intends to closely monitor public infrastructure, and this has raised concerns about data governance and privacy. But Sidewalk Labs believes it can work with the community and the local government to alleviate those worries.

"What's distinctive about what we're trying to do in Quayside is that the project is not only extraordinarily ambitious but also has a certain amount of humility," says Rit Aggarwala, the executive in charge of Sidewalk Labs' urban-systems planning. That humility may help Quayside avoid the pitfalls that have plagued previous smart-city initiatives.

Other North American cities are already clamoring to be next on Sidewalk Labs' list, according to Waterfront Toronto, the public agency overseeing Quayside's development. "San Francisco, Denver, Los Angeles, and Boston have all called asking for introductions," says the agency's CEO, Will Fleissig. - Elizabeth Woyke

AI for Everybody

Artificial intelligence has so far been mainly the plaything of big tech companies like Amazon, Baidu, Google, and Microsoft, as well as some startups. For many other companies and parts of the economy, AI systems are too expensive and too difficult to implement fully.

What's the solution? Machine-learning tools based in the cloud are bringing AI to a far broader audience. So far, Amazon dominates cloud AI with its AWS subsidiary. Google is challenging that with TensorFlow, an open-source AI library that can be used to build other machine-learning software. Recently Google announced Cloud AutoML, a suite of pre-trained systems that could make AI simpler to use.

It is uncertain which of these companies will become the leader in offering AI cloud services.But it is a huge business opportunity for the winners.

These products will be essential if the AI revolution is going to spread more broadly through different parts of the economy.

Currently AI is used mostly in the tech industry, where it has created efficiencies and produced new products and services. But many other businesses and industries have struggled to take advantage of the advances in artificial intelligence. Sectors such as medicine, manufacturing, and energy could also be transformed if they were able to implement the technology more fully, with a huge boost to economic productivity.

Most companies, though, still don't have enough people who know how to use cloud AI. So Amazon and Google are also setting up consultancy services. Once the cloud puts the technology within the reach of almost everyone, the real AI revolution can begin.
- Jackie Snow

Dueling Neural Networks

Artificial intelligence is getting very good at identifying things: show it a million pictures, and it can tell you with uncanny accuracy which ones depict a pedestrian crossing a street. But AI is hopeless at generating images of pedestrians by itself. If it could do that, it would be able to create gobs of realistic but synthetic pictures depicting pedestrians in various settings, which a self-driving car could use to train itself without ever going out on the road.

The problem is, creating something entirely new requires imagination and until now that has perplexed AIs.

Over time, the generator can become so good at producing images that the discriminator can't spot fakes. Essentially, the generator has been taught to recognize, and then create, realistic-looking images of pedestrians.

The technology has become one of the most promising advances in AI in the past decade, able to help machines produce results that fool even humans.

GANs have been put to use creating realistic-sounding speech and photorealistic fake imagery. In one compelling example, researchers from chipmaker Nvidia primed a GAN with celebrity photographs to create hundreds of credible faces of people who don't exist. Another research group made not-unconvincing fake paintings that look like the works of van Gogh. Pushed further, GANs can reimagine images in different ways making a sunny road appear snowy, or turning horses into zebras.

The results aren't always perfect: GANs can conjure up bicycles with two sets of handlebars, say, or faces with eyebrows in the wrong place. But because the images and sounds are often startlingly realistic, some experts believe there's a sense in which GANs are beginning to understand the underlying structure of the world they see and hear. And that means AI may gain, along with a sense of imagination, a more independent ability to make sense of what it sees in the world. - Jamie Condliffe

Babel-Fish Earbuds

In the cult sci-fi classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, you slide a yellow Babel fish into your ear to get translations in an instant. In the real world, Google has come up with an interim solution: a $159 pair of earbuds, called Pixel Buds. These work with its Pixel smartphones and Google Translate app to produce practically real-time translation.

Google Translate already has a conversation feature, and its iOS and Android apps let two users speak as it automatically figures out what languages they're using and then translates them. But background noise can make it hard for the app to understand what people are saying, and also to figure out when one person has stopped speaking and it's time to start translating.

Pixel Buds get around these problems because the wearer taps and holds a finger on the right earbud while talking. Splitting the interaction between the phone and the earbuds gives each person control of a microphone and helps the speakers maintain eye contact, since they're not trying to pass a phone back and forth.

The Pixel Buds were widely panned for subpar design. They do look silly, and they may not fit well in your ears. They can also be hard to set up with a phone.

Clunky hardware can be fixed, though. Pixel Buds show the promise of mutually intelligible communication between languages in close to real time. And no fish required. - Rachel Metz

Zero-Carbon Natural Gas

The world is probably stuck with natural gas as one of our primary sources of electricity for the foreseeable future. Cheap and readily available, it now accounts for more than 30 percent of US electricity and 22 percent of world electricity. And although it's cleaner than coal, it's still a massive source of carbon emissions.

A pilot power plant just outside Houston, in the heart of the US petroleum and refining industry, is testing a technology that could make clean energy from natural gas a reality. The company behind the 50-megawatt project, Net Power, believes it can generate power at least as cheaply as standard natural-gas plants and capture essentially all the carbon dioxide released in the process.

If so, it would mean the world has a way to produce carbon-free energy from a fossil fuel at a reasonable cost. Such natural-gas plants could be cranked up and down on demand, avoiding the high capital costs of nuclear power and sidestepping the unsteady supply that renewables generally provide.

Net Power is a collaboration between technology development firm 8 Rivers Capital, Exelon Generation, and energy construction firm CB&I. The company is in the process of commissioning the plant and has begun initial testing. It intends to release results from early evaluations in the months ahead.

The plant puts the carbon dioxide released from burning natural gas under high pressure and heat, using the resulting supercritical CO ₂ as the "working fluid" that drives a specially built turbine. Much of the carbon dioxide can be continuously recycled; the rest can be captured cheaply.

A key part of pushing down the costs depends on selling that carbon dioxide. Today the main use is in helping to extract oil from petroleum wells. That's a limited market, and not a particularly green one. Eventually, however, Net Power hopes to see growing demand for carbon dioxide in cement manufacturing and in making plastics and other carbon-based materials.

Net Power's technology won't solve all the problems with natural gas, particularly on the extraction side. But as long as we're using natural gas, we might as well use it as cleanly as possible. Of all the clean-energy technologies in development, Net Power's is one of the furthest along to promise more than a marginal advance in cutting carbon emissions. - James Temple

Perfect Online Privacy

The tool is an emerging cryptographic protocol called a zero-knowledge proof. Though researchers have worked on it for decades, interest has exploded in the past year, thanks in part to the growing obsession with cryptocurrencies, most of which aren't private.

Much of the credit for a practical zero-knowledge proof goes to Zcash, a digital currency that launched in late 2016. Zcash's developers used a method called a zk-SNARK (for "zero-knowledge succinct non-interactive argument of knowledge") to give users the power to transact anonymously.

That's not normally possible in Bitcoin and most other public blockchain systems, in which transactions are visible to everyone. Though these transactions are theoretically anonymous, they can be combined with other data to track and even identify users. Vitalik Buterin, creator of Ethereum, the world's second-most-popular blockchain network, has described zk-SNARKs as an "absolutely game-changing technology."

For banks, this could be a way to use blockchains in payment systems without sacrificing their clients' privacy. Last year, JPMorgan Chase added zk-SNARKs to its own blockchain-based payment system.

For all their promise, though, zk-SNARKs are computation-heavy and slow. They also require a so-called "trusted setup," creating a cryptographic key that could compromise the whole system if it fell into the wrong hands. But researchers are looking at alternatives that deploy zero-knowledge proofs more efficiently and don't require such a key. - Mike Orcutt

Genetic Fortune-Telling

One day, babies will get DNA report cards at birth. These reports will offer predictions about their chances of suffering a heart attack or cancer, of getting hooked on tobacco, and of being smarter than average.

The science making these report cards possible has suddenly arrived, thanks to huge genetic studies some involving more than a million people.

It turns out that most common diseases and many behaviors and traits, including intelligence, are a result of not one or a few genes but many acting in concert. Using the data from large ongoing genetic studies, scientists are creating what they call "polygenic risk scores."

Though the new DNA tests offer probabilities, not diagnoses, they could greatly benefit medicine. For example, if women at high risk for breast cancer got more mammograms and those at low risk got fewer, those exams might catch more real cancers and set off fewer false alarms.

Pharmaceutical companies can also use the scores in clinical trials of preventive drugs for such illnesses as Alzheimer's or heart disease. By picking volunteers who are more likely to get sick, they can more accurately test how well the drugs work.

The trouble is, the predictions are far from perfect. Who wants to know they might develop Alzheimer's? What if someone with a low risk score for cancer puts off being screened, and then develops cancer anyway?

Polygenic scores are also controversial because they can predict any trait, not only diseases. For instance, they can now forecast about 10 percent of a person's performance on IQ tests. As the scores improve, it's likely that DNA IQ predictions will become routinely available. But how will parents and educators use that information?

To behavioral geneticist Eric Turkheimer, the chance that genetic data will be used for both good and bad is what makes the new technology "simultaneously exciting and alarming." - Antonio Regalado

Materials' Quantum Leap

The prospect of powerful new quantum computers comes with a puzzle. They'll be capable of feats of computation inconceivable with today's machines, but we haven't yet figured out what we might do with those powers.

One likely and enticing possibility: precisely designing molecules.

Chemists are already dreaming of new proteins for far more effective drugs, novel electrolytes for better batteries, compounds that could turn sunlight directly into a liquid fuel, and much more efficient solar cells.

We don't have these things because molecules are ridiculously hard to model on a classical computer. Try simulating the behavior of the electrons in even a relatively simple molecule and you run into complexities far beyond the capabilities of today's computers.

But it's a natural problem for quantum computers, which instead of digital bits representing 1s and 0 s use "qubits" that are themselves quantum systems. Recently, IBM researchers used a quantum computer with seven qubits to model a small molecule made of three atoms.

It should become possible to accurately simulate far larger and more interesting molecules as scientists build machines with more qubits and, just as important, better quantum algorithms. - David Rotman

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You'll want to keep an eye on these 10 breakthrough technologies this year

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Every year since 2001 we've picked what we call the 10 Breakthrough Technologies. People often ask, what exactly do you mean by "breakthrough"? It's a reasonable question-some of our picks haven't yet reached widespread use, while others may be on the cusp of becoming commercially available.