ABSTRACT
Technology could be employed to open up the opportunities for education and research for millions of people. The Government also expressed its concern that public money spent on science and technology might not always be directed in a way that best satisfied industrial needs. A Technology Foresight exercise was established in order to predict the future needs of society. Many scientists believed that the Government would try to restrict its spending on science and technology to those areas most useful for industrial application. Liquid crystal display technology, which was invented in the uk, was developed abroad because nobody in the grant-awarding bodies believed that it was an idea which had any commercial future. It is not too difficult to predict some of the areas in which scientists and engineers will develop the technology in the five or ten years which lie ahead, but it is much harder to imagine how people will adapt to the changes which it can bring.
