The importance of scenarios in the prediction of the social implications of emerging technologies and services

Emerging technologies can be defined as those cutting-edge technological innovations (process or

product) that are currently being developed and deployed in a variety of fields, such as bioinformatics,

material science, and robotics. In the information and communication technology (ICT)

space, high-tech examples of emerging technologies include: sophisticated forms of automatic

identification using motion analysis, location-based services with real-time activity monitoring

and tracking, wearable computing with embedded point of view (POV) cameras, and implantable

devices which can perform condition monitoring and measure physiological characteristics in

living things (Michael & Michael, 2009). Emerging services usually stem from the integration

and convergence of two or more emerging technologies and are radically changing the way we

live and work and relate to one another via social computing (Michael, 2004). Consider the use

of an embedded global positioning chipset on board a 3G smart phone with the ability to geotag

photographs and video taken at a scene anywhere in the world, and to verify who in fact took

the picture via an identification implant under the skin.