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.