Senior researchers at the Interdisciplinary Center for Technological Analysis and Forecasting near Tel Aviv University explained to the chairman of the Knesset's Science Committee the forecasts that should serve as a planning tool for decision makers. The science editor was there
According to Dr. Sharan, this disrupts the long-term scientific planning and ultimately harms the economic decisions made in the country. In Europe, the issue is receiving attention today, and all major countries are investing at least one million euros a year in it. The center also works with the European market and in certain frameworks such as the sixth framework program for R&D Huaf won tenders to perform analyzes and forecasts.
The government should encourage working from home
Later in the event, several experts from the center presented their predictions for various fields. One of the studies dealt with Israel and Europe in the research company, in which Dr. Yoel Raban and Dr. Tal Sofer reviewed various aspects of the e-Living survey on the adoption of information technologies in households. The survey was conducted simultaneously in six countries - Great Britain, Norway, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria and Israel within the framework of the fifth program of the European Union.
Intermediate: The PC stops the Internet
The main findings discovered in the report are: high dependence between Internet adoption and demographic variables (income, education), the ability to use a computer is a barrier to the spread of Internet use - in other words, the absolute identity in which access to the Internet is mainly from computers inhibits the development of the Internet due to the existence of a large population that is afraid from the computer According to Dr. Raban, this will be resolved when it will be possible to access the Internet from the phone and the digital television.
The survey also shows that internet abandonment rates are high among new users; 20 percent on average are 'computer refusers' - most of them are adults who have retired from work.
An interesting comparative figure: Israelis surf the Internet much more than even the Scandinavians - on average in all the countries that participated in the survey, people devote half an hour a day to surfing the Internet and in Israel - over an hour.
Haredim, Arabs and immigrants use the Internet less, so the older Israelis actually surf much more than an hour a day.
The use of the Internet slightly suppresses television viewing, but hardly affects major leisure activities. The Internet complements and does not replace leisure activities.
The study also shows that 64 percent of households have a computer, 50 percent of households access the Internet.
"This gap is closing. in two or three years. It's a process that takes time. There are many people who access high-speed Internet, these are people who have never had a computer before.
In the same report, the gender aspects were also examined - the differences in the use of information technology between men and women. According to Dr. Tal Sofer, women tend to find the computer more scary and addictive than men.; Men find the computer more positive than women, but the differences are narrowing.
Men are more involved in Internet activities in general. For women, there is no connection to the years of experience. For men, the more years of experience the user has, the longer he uses it. One of the conclusions reached by Sofer is that the government should encourage working from home and studying from home and thus expose women to closing the digital gap.
Intermediate: a combination of nanotechnology, biology, computer science and neuroscience
Dr. Aharon Hauptman defined technological forecasting not as "future" but as a tool for economic planning. "There is more than one future, we need to identify these futures and direct as much as possible to the future we desire. In particular, the connection between the technological trends and the socio-cultural trends must be found. For example, the institute examines the macro effects of technological changes on industry and the economy - consequences for work, culture, leisure, education and more.
Hauptman cites a study conducted by the Merrill Lynch company about the exchange of technologies. According to the study, basic developments in science and technology appear twice a century and lead to the creation of massive wealth, until their influence fades and then the next revolution appears. The previous revolution - that of computing has not yet reached the peak of its influence on everyday life - something that is expected to happen in 2025. The next thing whose influence will fade only in 2081, after it will leave its influence on everyday life will be nanotechnology or more precisely the combination of nanotechnology and biotechnology, which in the meantime is called nanobiology. A connection of these two with information systems, the product of the current revolution, will bring us to a completely different level of technological development that is difficult for us to even grasp today. The center is currently working on prediction and assessment in nanobiology; Brain-machine interfaces and a combination of all this together with cognitive processes.
Even in the field of computers we have not yet reached the full potential. If today we are excited about fast internet at a rate of 1.5 megabytes per second, in 15-20 years we will be talking about rates of 40 terabits or 40 thousand megabytes - thousands of meters faster.
Of course, most of the time these are forecasts for reasonable periods ahead, and as an example Hauptman cites a ICT forecast made by the corresponding institute in Japan for the Japanese government in 2001. According to this forecast: In 2013, laptops with flexible paper-like screens will be widely used; Around the same time, 2025D video conferencing will be widely used in realistic visualization; In 2029, expert systems will replace lawyers, judges and patent registrars; And in XNUMX the ability to read the information stored in the human brain will be developed. The last prediction may not happen exactly but it gives a sense of the tremendous merger between nanotechnology, biology, computer science and the human brain, which is currently being talked about in forecasting institutes.
In any case, two of the fields are already seen to be merging today: nanotechnology and biology - when talking about DNA computers on the one hand (meaning the use of biological materials to make a computer) and on the other hand - nanorobots that will travel through the bloodstream and cure us of various diseases - use of nanotechnology for medical purposes. The connection with computer science is natural - since the developments in both fields, such as the decoding of the genome or models for building nanorobots, could not exist without the products of the information revolution.
Intermediate: observation from space
Dr. Avraham Tal presented the research in which the center participates and which deal in the field of remote sensing. According to him, the limitations of computing prevented the field of remote sensing from flourishing in the past, even though it has existed since the XNUMXs. This is because transmitting images from space was very heavy on the computing means that existed at the time. Today it is already a standard field and image processing laboratories operate in all universities. The images are sometimes taken at several wavelengths and thus it is possible to analyze the images for the needs of urban planning, agriculture, forestry, and more. One of the works currently under analysis is predicting areas prone to sinkholes on the Dead Sea coast. In these maps we see areas of sinkholes that already exist and that the phenomena of humidity and temperature appear in them but there are no sinkholes. The rise of the sea level caused the rise of fresh ground water and the mass of the salt and collapse.
Another phenomenon - springs that are in the sea. We see it by sea surface temperatures. The water is less salty and it evaporates and cools the area around it. We discovered that there is a sequence of emanations up to the area of Einat Kana, Samar.
Another study dealt with thermal imaging of the entire Dead Sea at night. The work for the Water Commission was done on 8 different dates to verify that this is a phenomenon. These outcrops indicate the entry of less salty water - brackish or sweet which may indicate a place where it is possible to drill into the groundwater and extract water for use.
Another study presented by Tal is a thermal photograph at night of the central area and a thermal photograph in the morning hours of the Haifa area. In these photographs you can clearly see the urban heat island. The city absorbs a lot of radiation during the day and releases it slowly at night, because of the materials the city is built from, unlike the agricultural areas that cool down after sunset. You can identify almost any city by the brown spot. In the morning there are differences of 10-12 degrees between the urban areas and the neighboring areas. You can see by the colors that Carmel is a cool area while the industrial areas are very hot.
The Dead Sea - a wasted resource
And after Avraham Tal mentioned the Dead Sea, Dr. Mira Markus-Klish spoke about strategic planning commissioned at the request of the Dead Sea R&D Center to initiate, encourage and support scientific research that has an applied value in the exploitation of the medical and economic potential that contributes to the sustainable development of a sea area the salt. The conclusion is that the Dead Sea is a vital resource for the country and it is necessary for someone to lift the glove and establish integrated medical, agricultural, industrial and tourism centers there to attract population and economic activity there.
MK Polishok-Bloch thanked the researchers for the interesting lectures and asked them to appear at the next meetings of the Knesset's Science and Technology Committee (each researcher individually) - among other things, for a meeting that will deal with women in high-tech and another meeting that will deal with sinkholes in the Dead Sea. She called for increasing the connection between the academy and the policy makers.
