NEWS, COMMENTARY, DEBATE AND ACCESS TO FUTUREWORLD'S COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE BASE
We live in a strange new world. Odourless aftershave. Wheat-free bread. Virtual assistants. Pointless pastries, devoid of sugar, made with boosted broccoli from basement farms, yet deliciously popular. And cities without streets. China's latest planned urban extravaganza, a megalopolis known as Yuyuan or 'Harmony Garden', isn't built around roads and streets. The walkways and thoroughfares linking the multiuse 3D-printed buildings can accommodate pedestrians, ebikes and hoverboards. Jogging and ...
As futurists, we often tend to favour a techno-optimistic view. After all, if you don't think the future can be better through your own efforts, then what's the point of trying to create the future? But we should not ignore the dystopian scenarios, some of which are pretty horrific, and possible, even if we think them unlikely. Here are ten predictions from the future that will be bound to ...
You may not have been aware of it, but the world was facing a possible shortage of helium, which is used in space rockets and MRI medical devices. Helium, besides being lighter than air, and a safe way to inflate party balloons, is an inert, stable element that won't combust or explode under pressure, making it almost unique in some scientific applications. But it can't be made in a ...
We've talked a lot about 3D printing over the years, and its potential to disrupt traditional manufacturing businesses. Now metal 3D printing is about to go mainstream, with office-friendly studio systems and high-speed manufacturing systems from Desktop Metal. And in a variety of metals, from titanium to stainless steel. Let the 4th Industrial Revolution begin!
Does your prize rose bush send you an email when it needs specific nutrients, or tweet incessantly when it's thirsty? Does your Labrador retriever ping you on your smartphone, when he's restless and wants a walk? Only if you've got smart soil sensors, for the rose, and a smart dog-collar for the Lab. But all these things we've connected to the 'net, they all need power - battery power, and even enhanced with tiny solar cells, like all electronics, they eventually wear out and have to be replaced, or ...
Amazon is invading the home with its Echo devices, and Alexa is set to become the Operating System for the smart home. But it doesn't end there. Amazon also wants to sell you financial services - and anything else a household might need. Read this piece about Amazon's threat to the UK insurance industry:https://banknxt.com/61791/amazon-insurance/ ...
Chinese. No, wait, American. Actually, it's a global company, with tech from the United States, and manufacturing in several countries, but mainly China. You would be forgiven for surmising that Apple Inc would be the first company to cross the US$ 1 trillion threshold. A couple of years ago, Apple came close, with a market capitalization of US$ 947 billion, but has subsequently seen its star losing lustre. A more recent entry into the Top Five, Facebook Inc has been battling it out with Microsoft ...
As we enter an era of new materials sciences we cannot begin to imagine whats possible...and it will mostly be great for our greener, healthier future!
Harri Valpola, founder of The Curious AI Company, says all of the AI currently in use is second rate. He wants to change that. AI systems that are trained on lots of data can be better than humans at solving problems involving new data, like predictions, but they are incapable of the kind of abstract reasoning that humans and animals employ when they want to achieve something - planning. This ...
One of the big questions we regularly encounter in our discussions with clients, particularly in financial services, is whether the Internet giants - Google, Facebook, Amazon et al - will become banks.We've argued consistently that the last thing they want is to enter the regulated, constricted world of traditional banking. Rather, they will reinvent the entire process of lending and spending ...
Elon Musk is not afraid to take a chance, if the potential rewards are there. His latest concept called BFR could stand for Big Freaking Rocket or Big Fat Risk - either would make sense. But there is method in his apparent madness.The key to all this lies in reusability, the holy grail of affordable and profitable launch systems. SpaceX has already proved they can reuse the first stage of the ...
There is, it seems, no end to Elon Musk's determination to reshape life as we know it. Just watch this video - his latest idea is to use SpaceX rockets to transport people to anywhere on earth in under an hour! He's disrupting finance with PayPal, space with SpaceX, transport with Tesla, hyperloop and The Boring Company, man-machine interface with NeuralLink, energy with SolarCity, from ...
AI is dead. Long live accelerated AI. Now deep learning by computers has been internalised in the CPU, the very heart of the machine. It's called self-learning. Cognitive computing required deep neural networks that had to be trained on extensive datasets, but Intel's neuromorphic chip combines training and inference for on-chip learning on the fly. That sounds like a mouthful, and it is. Simply put, AI systems required supercomputers and advanced software to learn how to deal with different ...
It's not a third arm, but a third thumb is already available, way before 2023:https://twitter.com/businessinsider/status/912547290702680064 ...
We published this MindBullet more than two years ago about autonomous businesses on the blockchain. Now they're getting airtime as DAO or decentralised autonomous organisations. I prefer the name 'blockchain businesses', better than an acronym and more descriptive. Were we ahead of the game? Read the attached news link by Chris Skinner and decide for yourself!
Biometrics is becoming a massive focus area, as cyber-security moves to centre stage in a troubled and uncertain world. But fingerprints and face scans are just so yesterday!Latest technologies include everything from body-odour recognition (phew!) to vein mapping, brain prints - and now, tracking your heart rhythms as a means to identify you. ...
And the self-driving juggernaut rolls on - really! Daimler is launching fleets of self-driving trucks that run in convoys on selected US highways. And within a few weeks, Tesla will be unveiling its electric self-driving long-haul trucks, Logistics will never be the same....
Flying cars are just a science fiction dream, aren't they? Not any more. Dozens of companies have launched prototypes, and this week, Dubai started first trials of driverless helicopter taxis whizzing through the city skyscrapers.This is just one example of the radical changes taking place across the world - and the speed at which they are happening. Only a few years ago, the idea of drivers ...
All of us in the "rest of the world" need to be very alert to the forces shaping our future...and the reality of a world experiencing and coping with myriad examples of broken trust is but one of our challenges! Pres. Trump's current rhetoric is alarming and a warning for all of us as he is destroying one of the key vestiges of whatever remains of trust in the world - the reliability of a ...
Chris Skinner has opened a great debate - what does the future corporate structure need to be...what can it be...what should it be? With IoT showing that power moves to the fringe and kills the cloud, communication models enabling instant global impacts, we have to ask the big questions!
