Big data analytics answers the question of what the most profitable industries are.. The most profitable sector in the United States is electrical equipment manufacturing, according to Powerlytics, a big data analytics company that offers financial insights into millions of businesses.
Continue reading… “Top 10 most profitable businesses in the U.S.”
Gartner predicts sales of smart clothing will exceed 10 million in 2015.
Some of the hottest products of 2014 are smartwatches and fitness bands. We’ve seen a dizzying array of watches from many major manufacturers, and fitness bands released by some of the biggest tech firms in the world. (Videos)
Continue reading… “‘Smart garments’ will be the hottest trend of 2015”
The articles posted on the Impact Lab represent an unusual mix, all of which are oriented around future trends, future thinking, or recent innovations that may more may not alter the course of history.
With that in mind, here are the posts that caught most people’s attention over 2014.
Continue reading… “Top 10 Articles on ImpactLab.net”
Terraforming Mars
While scientists believe that at one time, long ago, Mars had an atmosphere similar to Earth’s and was covered with flowing water, the reality today is quite different. In fact, the surface of Mars is so hostile that a vacation in Antarctica would seem pleasant by comparison.
In addition to the extreme cold, there is little atmosphere to speak of and virtually no oxygen. However, a team of students from Germany wants to change that. Their plan is to introduce cyanobacteria into the atmosphere which would convert the ample supplies of CO² into oxygen gas, thus paving the way for possible settlements.
Continue reading… “Latest thinking about terraforming Mars, introducing cyanobacteria”
Engineers have invented a material designed to help cool buildings.
Engineers at Stanford have invented a revolutionary coating material that can help cool buildings, even on sunny days, by radiating heat away from the buildings and sending it directly into space.
Continue reading… “Stanford engineers invent high-tech mirrors to help cool buldings”
Audi E-tron
At the LA Auto Show in California, Audi technical development chief Ulrich Hackenberg told reporters that his employer plans to release an electric car with a range of 280 miles “around 2017.” Hackenberg wouldn’t say what kind of car – or crossover, perhaps – it will be, but one report said it would be “a large car, fitting five large people with ample luggage space.” Most observers expect it to be a sedan to take on the Tesla Model S.
Continue reading… “Audi plans to release an EV family car with a range of 280 miles by 2017”
The goal of the research was to focus on the target frequencies while ignoring the distractor frequencies.
As we get older, we have an increasingly harder time ignoring distractions. According to new research in the Cell Press journal Neuron, by learning to discriminate a sound amidst progressively more disruptive distractions, we can diminish our distractibility.
Continue reading… “Sound training can help an aging brain ignore distractions”
What do astronauts do with human waste?
Recently, NASA asked researchers to come up with a way to use all of the human waste expected to pile up when it builds a moon base. The best answer was to use it to fuel spacecrafts on their trips back to Earth.
Continue reading… “NASA will use human waste to fuel spacecrafts”
Ocean Spiral
They have built terminal 3 of Singapore’s airport and the The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line aka Trans-Tokyo Bay Highway. Aqualine is a bridge–tunnel combination across Tokyo Bay in Japan. It connects the city of Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture with the city of Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture, and forms part of National Route 409. With an overall length of 14 km, it includes a 4.4 km bridge and 9.6 km tunnel underneath the bay—the fourth-longest underwater tunnel in the world.
3D printed LED
Electronics, like antennas and batteries can be 3D printed. But LED’s and semiconductors have been elusive. You would need some other manufacturing technique to make them work, which limits what they can do and where they’ll fit. A team of Princeton researchers recently solved this problem, however.
Continue reading… “New 3D printing technology will put electronics into just about everything”
Platinum metals and water are the most profitable potential for operations of asteroid mining.
Deep Space Industries and Planetary Resources have announced that they will pursue their plans if asteroid mining. The companies have received contracts from NASA to study asteroid redirection.
Continue reading… “Mining asteroids comes closer to reality”
It’s hard to wait for the future to get here and give us all the amazing things we’ve dreamed up in our countless sci-fi books and movies (I’m still waiting for the hover-boards Back to the Future promised me). Though much of what we’ve seen on the big screen is still decades or millennia away… or straight up impossible by our current understanding of the universe, there are several sci-fi level technological and scientific advances we’re likely to see in just the next decade.
Blogger Jordan Lejuwaan over at High Existence has compiled a list of ten such advances to look forward to in the not-to-distant future:
Continue reading… “10 Ways the Next 10 Years will be Awesome!”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.