MIT's top 10 emerging technologies

Here are 10 emerging technologies with the potential to shape the way we live and do business, writes India's Economic Times.

The editors of Technology Review, MIT's magazine of innovation, have unveiled their annual list of emerging technologies that have the potential to create fundamental shifts in areas from energy to healthcare, computing to communications.

The list includes technologies that should reach the market within a year, such as paper-based medical tests and virtual personal-assistant software.

Selling software-as-a-service (SaaS) to sceptical federal IT managers is proving easier these days, reports eWeek.

State and local governments prove turning to SaaS and the cloud can save taxpayer dollars while improving service to constituents.

Using hosted applications and services from Salesforce.com, Google Apps, Amazon.com's Amazon EC2 and other cloud computing vendors, US local governments from coast to coast are turning to the Internet to build cost-effective, scalable and reliable solutions.

If the electric car ever goes mainstream, it will probably be because of Ian Clifford, says Canada's Autonet.

The 46-year-old head of Toronto-based Zenn Motor Company (Zenn is an acronym for 'zero emissions, no noise') is developing a fully-functional electricity-fuelled vehicle that's on track to make the biggest inroads into this currently niche market.

“If we introduce a car that's as good as or better than the ones it replaces, the belief is that consumer demand will follow,” says Clifford.