At first thought, I want to say that my interests lie with last word art. There's something extremely daunting about making something that radically transforming from a medium or concept that most people already take for granted. At the same time, people around me are often very first-word oriented; looking at my recent work for this class, I believe that I've been drawn into the first-word realm of things.
Technology has shaped culture at almost every step of the way--of course, the obvious examples are things such as agriculture, industrial revolution, the internet, etc. But something I think that is very interesting happening in our culture today is the way the internet has shaped very different cultures in the West and in China. Technology today being tied up largely in software has also widened an intellectual + educational gap, exacerbating existing income/wage/socioeconomic gaps. On the flip side, I think small sub cultures can drive technologies as well. For example, niche music and art tech is drive by those who need it and make the case and perhaps build it.
The phrase technologically novel immediately brings to mind countless examples that exist in today's world. AR/VR, blockchain, etc are examples of technologies that people are working immensely hard to try to find uses for, but 99% of what's made/exists will not be remembered beyond the year its made. However, I do think that this kind of research will influence the 1% of products that are the last word, and that the last word wouldn't have existed without the first word. In addition, obsoletism has never been more pervasive than today, and software changes so fast that the foundational value of products can't be based purely on its technology. I think last word stuff is not only technologically novel, but also conceptually, philosophically, and aesthetically challenging.