ACADEMY
PUBLICATIONS
15 October 2020
Archiving Big Data beyond 2040: DNA as a candidate
Datacenters, including the “cloud”, store humanity’s digital big data on hard disks and magnetic tapes whose limited lifespan requires expensive copies to be made every five to seven years; they devour resources such as land, electricity, water and scarce materials. In comparison, storage at a molecular scale in a polymer such as DNA could have a density ten million times higher, last ten thousand times longer without the need for periodic copying, and consume very little energy. Indeed, DNA is stable at ordinary temperatures for several millennia and can be easily duplicated or deliberately destroyed. The required technologies already exist. […]
15 June 2020
COVID-19 Crisis – Accelerating the digital transformation: for a more agile and less dependent France
NATF Position paper The situation of confinement into which our country and a large part of the planet has been plunged has led to an acceleration in the use of digital techniques to compensate for the limitation of travelling. This acceleration has been accompanied by a remarkable appropriation of the available digital resources by citizens as well as by many private and public organisations. New uses and new applications have proliferated in many fields such as health, education or economic activities such as work organisation or mass distribution. In these areas the initiatives that have emerged go far beyond palliative […]
12 May 2020
For selective confinement assisted by digital tracing
Open Letter For selective confinement assisted by digital tracing In the absence of a vaccine against Covid19 and treatments to cure this disease, we had to temporarily accept the systematic confinement of the population with the aim of slowing the spread of the epidemic and avoid the saturation of our healthcare system. This could only be achieved at the cost of our freedom of movement, the functioning of the economy, our material and psychological well-being and the quality of education received by our children. In order to put an end to this confinement without triggering a resurgence of the epidemic […]
06 April 2018
Resurgence of artificial intelligence and machine learning
In a report voted in plenary session on 14 March, the NATF deems it necessary to build an “AI plan” at European and national level that will make it possible to reinforce investments in computing resources and technological research. The Academy recommends supporting and encouraging a responsible approach to AI that aims to simultaneously develop the performance and ethical acceptability of intelligent algorithms. Designed to penetrate the majority of practices and environments, in business as in civil society, AI represents a double challenge – competitiveness for our companies and national sovereignty. AI and automatic learning use a wide range of […]
08 December 2015
Big data: a change of paradigm
The National Academy of technologies of France (NATF) invites French public authorities to intensively develop training schemes in Big Data techniques Big Data represents a change in paradigm such that public authorities would be advised to accompany the movement, notably in terms of education/training schemes and the major companies should be made more aware of what is at stake. In essence, this is the conclusion to the investigations and debates carried out at the Academy, embodied in an Academic Report* published recently, offering a full analysis of the “Opportunities vs. threats” of Big Data on French enterprises. Big Data represents […]
04 December 2015
Energy and carbon prints effects of ICTs on energy consumption round the world
What is the impact of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) on the energy consumption levels of Society today and what are the Greenhouse Gas emissions from the ICT domain as a whole? The National Academy of Technologies of France (NATF) conducted hearings of numerous French and non-French experts to assess the energy and environmental balance ‘well-to-wheel’ due to the sole ICT sector, taking into consideration the impacts of operating the various apparatus and infrastructures and the energy and carbon print savings generated in other associate sectors. The net energy and carbon balance, concludes the Academic Report* turns out be clearly […]
10 November 2015
Technology and climate change several solutions to mitigate the effects and to adapt
Advice Note adopted by vote by the National Academy of Technologies of France (NATF) in Plenary session, November 4, 2015 Ever since the National Academy of Technologies of France (NATF) was established [2000], it has dealt with the relationships – in its academic reports, advice notes and recommendations – between technology and the economic, social and environmental impacts due to the deployment of human activities. The COP21 conference is an important milestone is the framing of a global policy in the area of climate change, but certainly will not spell the end of a process that will continue for numerous […]
01 March 2014
Large Socio-Technical Systems. EDP Sciences, 2014
Large scale Socio-Technical Systems (LSTSs) operating over networks (such as the electricity system , the railways , the airspace system , Internet…) have radically changed our daily lives over the past few decades and also transformed the way our Societies work . They represent a phenomenon that is conducive to enthusiasm , which contributes to the democratization process of societies everywhere, offering new features and services over the coming years , consequences and sources of new techniques and technologies : in this light , LSTSs appeared as a natural field for investigation by our Academy . They have undergone considerable […]
10 April 2010
Life expectancy for digital data supports: what is the risk that data we wish to save may one day be erased?
Edp Sciences : April 2010, 106 pp. Life expectancy for digital data supports: what is the risk that data we wish to save may one day be erased? Why should we pay any attention to long-term preservation of digital data, at a time when digital storage capacities have never been so abundant or so cheap? This question leads to a point that is becoming more and more relevant: our societies today generate ever-increasing amounts of information, while, at the same time, the expected operational life of the supports available has never been so short, relatively speaking. Short-term data storage or […]
01 September 2009
“10 Questions about Robots”, addressed by Philippe Coiffet
“10 Questions about Robots”, addressed by Philippe COIFFET, Ed. Le Manuscrit,Paris, Sept. 2009 This booklet gives a rapid overview to the questions that the public at large raises most frequently when referring to Robots. It is a popular theme, in films, novels and even documentary reports … but we never actually meet a Robot. Why are they “absent”?, what is their specific ”intelligence”?, and what relationship do they have with human beings? – three questions that form the backdrop to most of those we hear and read. Given the rapid evolution of technologies, one question often relegated to science fiction […]