Subject Guides: NMD 100: Introduction to New Media: Home

Origins of Emerging Technology

When reading about technologies of interest, consider and look for:

who developed the technology (academic affiliation? government? business? combination? other?)
how it was developed (funding source?)
where it was developed (academic? government? business? combination? other?)
in books or articles, look at the introduction (may lay out the field of study and major players)

All can be clues to how we understand where emerging technologies come from.

In addition, consider books like the one below, that provide histories of technologies of interest:

The Computing Universe (ebook): A Journey Through a Revolution by Tony Hey; Gyuri Pápay
The authors explain the ideas behind hardware, software, algorithms, Moore's Law, the birth of the personal computer, the Internet and the Web, the Turing Test, Jeopardy's Watson, World of Warcraft, spyware, Google, Facebook, and quantum computing.

Impact of Emerging Technologies

Use scholarly databases to find studies or critiques of your technology and their impact on people, places, society, etc. Several databases that will be a good place to start are:

ACM Digital Library
Provides access to publications from the Association for Computing Machinery. Requires login with UMaine account.
Communication and Mass Media Complete
Contains journals focusing on various aspects of communication. Requires login with UMaine account.
Education Full Text
Provides access to education and education-related literature. Requires login with UMaine account.
ERIC - Education (ProQuest)
Provides access to education-related literature. Requires login with UMaine account.
PsycINFO
Contains access to articles in the field of psychology and psychological aspects of related disciplines, including sociology and education. Requires login with UMaine account.
PubMed
U.S. National Library of Medicine; affiliated with the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Covers medical and some life science journals. Compiles citations; some citation sources may need to be accessed from a UMaine account.
Worldwide Political Science Abstracts
Indexes and provides access to articles involving politics and public policy. Requires login with UMaine account.

Google Scholar (UM)
Locations: UM
Remote Access: Available

Common Technologies considered "Emerging" 1-3 Years Ago

Sample Google Search for 2012
Nexis Uni
Search in this news database to find past information about emerging technologies.

New Technologies

Artificial Intelligence: Description and Impact

Hot Topics: Artificial Intelligence