Every January, the editors of IEEE Spectrum supply up some predictions about technical developments we anticipate to be within the information over the approaching yr. You’ll discover a couple dozen of these described within the following particular report. In fact, the variety of issues we may have written about is way greater, so we needed to be selective in choosing which tasks to characteristic. And we’re not ashamed to confess, gee-whiz attraction usually formed our selections.

For instance, this yr’s survey contains an odd pair of latest plane that shall be taking to the skies. One, whose design was impressed by the enormous airships of years previous, is longer than a soccer discipline; the opposite, a futuristic single-seat vertical-takeoff craft powered by electrical energy, is in regards to the size of a small automotive.

Whereas among the different tales may not gentle up your creativeness as a lot, they spotlight vital technical points the world faces—just like the challenges of shifting from fossil fuels to a hydrogen-based power financial system or the menace that new plutonium breeder reactors in China may speed up the proliferation of nuclear weapons. So whether or not you favor studying about matters which can be heavy or gentle (even lighter than air), it is best to discover one thing right here to get you warmed up for 2023.