NEWS FROM THE FUTURE
MindBullets is a part of the global FutureWorld Network, constantly sensitive to changes in the technological, economic, social, political and business landscape. The MindBullets Contributors scan this rapidly changing environment for clues about possible future trends. The results of this synthesis are combined by our contributors into an on-going series of MindBullets: News from the Future - with a summary emailed to you every Thursday and the complete MindBullets data base available online to explore each scenario in more detail. Exciting scenarios of alternative futures based on breakthrough thinking today. A powerful tool to help you learn from the future - a new MindBullet every week!
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Ten years ago, it was all about sending a selfie, or perhaps something more risqué and risky, to your beloved, or the secret of your heart's desire. Now it's a lot different. We've moved beyond snapchat and Instagram; haptic telepresence is simulated teleportation. We've conquered space and time, virtually; and with brain-computer interfaces our very thoughts can be shared. But still lovers lament... Roses are red, violets are blue,I searched for a mate, my AI chose you. Our first date was ...
Dr Akihiro Miaku the famous Japanese tycoon who died earlier this year under mysterious circumstances (rumoured poisoning) is back in the headlines, after his will was leaked to the press by a disgruntled, anonymous, family member. Dr Miaku, who had significant business interests in the Japanese renewable energy sector, was revealed to have left his entire 3 billion Yen (27.5 million USD) fortune to his wife - a hologram nicknamed Suzi. The eccentric billionaire married his hologram wife 11 ...
Change is inevitable, but many businesses don't like or want change. Not when they're on top, and milking the cash cow; if it's not broke, don't try to fix it! But just because you're making super profits, and your customers adore you, doesn't mean it's going to be that way forever, even if you're Apple or Coca-Cola. Just ask Kodak. Shareholders and employees like to think it's 'their' business, but it's not much fun running or owning a business with no customers; a bit like a morgue, except that ...
Donated blood used to be good enough if it was free of infection and if it was the same type as the patient's. But now there's another criterion on which it is rated: the age of the donor. When a geneticist published research in 2018, concluding that plasma from young blood improves the physical health of older individuals, every second start-up wannabe took notice. It is claimed that the young blood will, by implication, also counteract the development of age-related diseases like dementia and ...
We've just begun a new year in the early 'twenties, and looking back with perfect hindsight over the past 20 years, we might be shocked at how deeply digital transformation has changed our businesses, and our lives. It's no longer about the 4th Industrial Revolution, it's the fourth age of humanity, of society, of the world - we've become Digital Humans. It's all very well to blame it on smartphones, even though, back in 2002, all we had were BlackBerrys and Nokia Communicators - remember them? In ...
As everyone knows, expected lifespans have increased dramatically over the last ten years. According to top genetic scientists, a 100-year-old today can expect to live until 150. That's fantastic, unless you are the government that has to foot the bill to keep all these geriatrics alive, healthy and well-fed. Although people may well be able to live until they are 150, since most people still retire at 75, the elderly are becoming an unaffordable burden on the state, and the society compelled to look ...
We've had vertical gardens and basement farms for some time now, in our cities, but now landscaping has taken on a whole new dimension. With 3D printers and bio-engineered shrubs and trees, terraced gardens and leafy lanes can be laid out by the robots, straight from the architect's designs. What's more, genetically altered algae are used to construct bio solar cells that form part of the leaf structure, harvesting solar power from panels that look and act like, well, leaves - nature's very own ...
What students need and what society needs, is not a PhD thesis in the form of 200-400 pages of new analysis, but rather the results of an applied trial in the real business world. It's a no-brainer, right? You'd think so, but it took hundreds of student protests around the globe and a US$ 3.5 trillion defaulted student loans crisis in the US; but now the world can finally see that startups should be the new dissertations. In 2018, the Indian Institute of Technology announced that they would ...
The Butterfly Effect theorizes that the beating of the wings of a single butterfly in Japan could cause a hurricane in Hawaii. What it really means, is that everything in nature and the world is connected on some level, however insignificant it may seem. And the greatest connection is at the molecular level, beyond the nanoscale. Much like the way smart systems can detect someone moving in the next room, by analyzing faint disturbances in the background WiFi signals, we can now 'see' into opaque ...
That's the problem with artificial intelligence - it's pretty cold and mechanical; and it lacks emotional intelligence. Companies like Google and Amazon have worked hard over the last five years to inject some warmth and 'humanity' into their voice assistants, but it's an uphill battle. "Not very witty, and no sense of humor either," was how one reviewer described the latest incarnation of Siri on Apple's iPhones. Which is why more and more people are starting to rebuff smart assistants and work ...
To those who don't know its secrets, science is indistinguishable from magic. In times of exponential technological growth, many people can no longer logically comprehend the way the increasingly digitized world around them works. In the past, people turned to religions, deities and mythologies to make sense of what they could not understand. These days though, the old religions, such as Christianity, Islam and Hinduism have lost a lot of appeal, not least because of their problematically ...
In dramatic style, China has surged ahead with the production of organic fruit and vegetables at affordable prices. Since the breakthrough achieved five years ago, China's 'ion farmers' have grown exponentially - and it's all thanks to electricity! If it sounds like science fiction, you're excused, but in fact electromagnetic pulses are beating pests and accelerating plant growth in millions of greenhouses across the country. Facing the daunting task of feeding a burgeoning population with ...
Very few people expected that the New Zealand law, which allows customs officials to inspect and copy data on travellers' digital devices, would still be enforced months later. The only alternative is for the passenger to pay a hefty fine, but how is that really different from a bribe? Right from the start, with the new law introduced in October last year, human rights groups have been up in arms, but this week the wider world took notice as well. A highly agitated male, sweating profusely, was ...
In the last couple of decades, air traffic has rocketed. Annual air passenger numbers have shot up from less than 8 billion in 2018 to over 20 billion today. That's almost three times the world population, every year! Bearing in mind that hardly any flights exceed 24 hours, that means that, on average, 60 million people are boarding flights, somewhere, every day. And that doesn't include drone taxis and private planes. The only way major air terminals can cope with the hordes is increased reliance ...
Beauty queens around the world have taken to social media to complain about the judges' ruling in last night's Miss World beauty pageant. Erica (28), a Japanese humanoid robot, who is also a well-known television personality, was chosen as the first runner-up in the prestigious competition. Her fellow, human, competitors feel that Erica's artificial beauty and artificial intelligence gave her an unfair advantage over flesh and blood women who have to diet and endure gruelling physical training to ...
That's a question fraught with questions of its own. Smarter than which humans? In what way? And so on. On average, people think they are smarter than average; which is a statistical impossibility. What that really means, is that most of us think we're smarter than we really are. Now I'm not talking about geniuses with super-high IQs, or those millionaires that have upgraded their brains with neuroprosthetics. They're clearly in a different category, almost another species. Nevermind them. But most ...
"Existing economic theories are incapable of meeting the needs of the future, and we need an economic transition, away from neoclassical economics and market capitalism," said the latest Sustainable Development report. In other words, capitalism and free markets are not good enough to guarantee prosperity for the people of the world. According to the UN. This position is bound to stir up heated debate from all quarters. No one can argue with the fact that democratic market economies and global trade ...
In the last 15 years, we have witnessed the stunning rise of an exponential technology - machine learning and artificial intelligence. Like Moore's Law on steroids, smart machines and computer systems have created entirely new global industries, turbo-boosted productivity, and destroyed old, industrial age business sectors. The Economist, now a purely digital research and analysis house, estimates the 'new value' created by this phenomenon at over US$ 19 trillion globally. But a full 70% of this ...
A bit more than a decade ago, it would have cost you US$ 10,000 to have your entire genome sequenced; four years ago, about $100. But now, you can take the highest bidder, and get paid for your genomic data. Of course, the first complete sequence of a human genome was an enormous undertaking, as there was no reference data, and the project cost an estimated US$ 2.7 billion, but Moore's Law soon came into effect, and prices plummeted as the tech became mainstream and automated. Soon it was the ...
The global crypto community is in an uproar this morning. Overnight a group of hackers, who go by the name of "Gotya," managed to hack into the main Bitcoin blockchain, making off with billions of dollars' worth of cryptocurrency in the process. Gotya appears to have used advanced quantum computing power to break into the blockchain network using what is known as a 'routing attack'. In essence, the hackers managed to temporarily fork the core Bitcoin (BTC) blockchain in order to double-spend coins ...
