technological progress and new design  

Your opening claim here...
Your opening claim here strikes me as inaccurate, or - at the very least - far too broad. And, no.

We may be to quick in discoun...
We may be too quick in discounting todays designers. Five decades from now, the next generation will be celebrating "turn of the century" design in a similar fashion as we do for Mid Century stuff.
Please be patient and keep an open mind.

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Gosh eyes wide shut! Have you heard of rapid prototyping, 5 axis cnc, the festo air jellyfish thing, biotechnology, compostable plastics, that free hand air drawn plastic chair thingy, 3d laser scanning, mag lev trains, base load solar, e-books, , cloud computing, point clouds...the list is endless, indeed its overwhelming and perhaps thats why designers sometimes shy away...too much specialisation but don't worry great things are coming.

any example?
the chrome tubing and the wassily chair
the double curve plywood molding and the eames lcw
any example on the biotechnology? 3d laser scanning? etc.

example : rapid prototyping
check out MGX
they make vases, lighting, ... with rapid prototyping technology
http://www.materialise.com/materialise/view/en/114832-.MGX+Design+produc...