Suchergebnisse

The current economic and technological environment requires making difficult choices about technology investments. Technologies that could be critical to meeting the enduring challenges faced by the Department of the Air Force are proliferating and developing at an accelerating pace. In some cases, these technologies have dual-use applications that are the focus of commercial activity in the United States and abroad. Current and potential adversaries, especially those with near-peer capacity, are developing increasingly robust capabilities to challenge U.S. dominance. U.S. government and civilian organizations face budget constraints that will require choices to be made about which of the gamut of technologies to invest in to meet these challenges. A systematic method of comparing and evaluating technology options to ensure that limited resources are invested wisely is needed. This report summarizes a framework and process to characterize and compare potential game-changing technologies (GCTs) based on the likely operational advantage given specific technological capabilities and concepts of operation or implementation. The objective of framework and process was to maximize the value of government or private-sector investments by providing a means for preliminary guidance on investments in technologies with the greatest consequence. Comparisons of GCTs in this framework are based on assessments of performance in validated analyses, modeling, or simulations in comparison with baseline technologies. However, comparisons go beyond performance to also consider the research, development, and implementation challenges, as well as costs associated with achieving, fielding, and sustaining the GCT capabilities that could lead to the greatest increase in operational advantage

This title examines global technology trends in biotechnology, nanotechnology, and materials science, with an eye towards their applications in the year 2015. It is aimed at members of the intelligence community, policy-makers, technologists, and the general public

"This report describes the results of the Law Enforcement Futuring Workshop, which was held at RAND's Washington Office in Arlington, Virginia, from July 22 to 25, 2014. The objective of this workshop was to identify high-priority technology needs for law enforcement based on consideration of current and future trends in society, technology, and law enforcement over a ten- to 20-year time period. During the workshop, participants developed sets of future scenarios, constructed pathways from the present to alternative futures, and considered how law enforcement use of technology might affect these pathways. They then identified technology needs (including training and changes in policies or practice) that, if addressed, could enable pathways to desirable futures or prevent or mitigate the effects of pathways to undesirable futures. On the final days of the workshop, the technology needs were prioritized using a Delphi method. The output of this workshop described in the report included ten future scenarios and 30 technology needs. The technology needs fell into three general categories--technology-related knowledge and practice, information sharing and use, and technology research and development--and were placed into three priority tiers"--Back cover