Nobody can give you an exact answer because each person will choose their specialty. me for example I answer you that the renewable energies are the technology of the future. A computer scientist will tell you that IT is the most important. A biologist will tell you bio agriculture is the future .....
I think you asked about techniques/technologies that help principal investigators and others while conducting research.
I think using reference management software such as Mandeley, Endnote and Zotero is good no matter what your research is, using voice recorders to record and retrieve information is helpful, using data logging equipment depending on your field, using your phone/camera to take images and store them, the ability to use MS packages such as Excel helps when creating databases, etc. Transcription software is also helpful and so is data analysis software such as SSPS and NVivo.