NEWS, COMMENTARY, DEBATE AND ACCESS TO FUTUREWORLD'S COMPLETE KNOWLEDGE BASE
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!
Modern day Postmen...armed with micro ATMS, pedal (literally) hight tech solutions to rural areas across India.
India talks of "Digital India"...and they mean business. With a population beyond 1 billion young people, remote villages with scrappy infrastructure they needed to focus on what will enable and empower a nation in the digital future. many threads have converged fast - from withdrawing 75% of all cash from society in a weekend to the Gov's AARDHAR program, to Jin's aggressive reduction of ...
Elon Musk’s impact on the world is truly astonishing. This infographic from Futurism.com tracks what he has achieved in only the first (almost) nine months of 2017.
Celia Estefan broke down and wept as she stepped onto the runway in Sucre, Bolivia. She is the last person evacuated from Cuba and marks the end of an appalling and heroic six-year migration of 44 million people from the Caribbean to new lives all across Latin America. "It is just in time," says Miriam Gomez of Mexico's National Hurricane Centre. "We've just upgraded Hurricane Franklin to Category 5, and we have Gert, Harvey and Irma right behind him. There is no way anyone will be able to live on ...
China's success as the biggest producer of cars - mainly electric cars - the world has ever seen, has led to a problem of massive over capacity. There are not enough adults in the world, with driving skills, to drive all the cars produced every year. Admittedly many of the latest vehicles are self-driving, but at the budget end of the scale, devoid of radar and software, basic cars are just dumb machines, even if they run on batteries rather than gasoline. The shift to autonomous cars has also ...
We wrote the MindBullet alongside back in 2012, and targeted 2017 as the possible date something similar could happen. Not bad, when you read the story attached!
We 'predicted' that China would de-commit from all fossil fuels by 2020. That's what our MindBullet said 12 years ago. Well, China is not going fossil free that soon, but they are on a declared strategy to dominate electric vehicles!
The WHO (World Health Organization) predicts an increase in illegal surgeries and black-market organ transplants because of the increasing capability of medical microbots. They are designed for patients to swallow, as if it were a pill made out of digestible enzymes. Fitted with tiny microblades or needles, they quickly move to clean blocked arteries, detect disease and treat cancer. Microbots are also useful for delivering medication to specific parts of the body and addressing hormone or metabolic ...
More than a decade ago we speculated on the ability for robots and automation to enable people to retire earlier, and published a MindBullet along those lines. Now we see this looming concern with robots 'replacing' jobs for people, and the support for basic income for people made redundant by technology. I think I'm inclined to agree with Gerd Leonhard, we are on the cusp of a tipping point ...
I would hope this could happen even sooner.
A decade ago we wrote about bionic eyes giving people 'better than human' eyesight. We've also published MindBullets about upgrading humans - because we can! Now it seems these future scenarios are becoming reality, as so often happens. A new bionic lens for cataract patients will not only restore their sight - it promises to improve on the best natural eyesight. What if someone who can ...
Millions of people around the globe suffer from deafness and blindness - but that will soon end; and when it comes to helping the deaf, we have to thank Siri, Apple's digital assistant! Early experiments showed that transplanting stem cells into the eyes of rats with damaged retinas cured blindness. Now scientists are using the same technology to repair diseases which commonly cause deteriorating sight in humans, namely glaucoma, retinal detachment and macular degeneration. In fact, thanks to ...
Despite the new nukes being planned or built in the UK and Finland, it seems that the general appetite for nuclear power in Europe is declining. Germany has long had a plan to phase out nuclear, to appease the Greens, and now France - a big proponent of nuclear power - has publicly committed to closing down several nukes in the next few years.
Benedict Evans shares his thoughts on the second order consequences of autonomous vehicles and says they will have an impact on all sorts of things, from cigarettes to cities!http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2017/3/20/cars-and-second-order-consequences ...
More likely we will learn to use our minds to move and respond with verbal cues or eye movements.
Unfortunately, this fictional article is becoming a reality in some parts of Europe. I can see it become even more of a reality in future, but I hope it doe not. Travelling and seeing the many wonders of the world is something I enjoy and have been privileged to do a lot in my career. That ahs made me a better person, with more exposure to different cultures and lifestyles, that I would never ...
Whether we like it or not, we are all traceable through our electronic on-line footprint. Our phones, credit cards, open table restaurant booking apps confirm where we are and when we were there. If you use twitter, facebook and instagram, your already sharing your life in some small or even large way. Embrace it, but don't be an over sharer of every minute of every waking day of your ...
Thinking smaller about the future of AI is a fascinating thought...and could change its future profoundly. It demands a shift in design thinking...from solutions frameworks to semantic thinking ...more humanlike...
We've pointed out before that migration is a natural human phenomenon and has been responsible for building some of the greatest nations on earth, like the United States. The current trend toward closing borders is bad for growth. Here the Economist shows, with data, that Europe needs more migrants to avoid shrinking populations, and by implication, shrinking economies.
