Year: 2018

Impact Lab > 2018
DaVinci Institute, Money Talk, Record Breaker, Tom Frey

Will we ever have trillionaires?

21st Annual HRC National Dinner

Do you know what you’d do with a trillion dollars? Would you buy a fleet of private jets or dune buggies or maybe dine on gold-plated chicken wings ? Or would you just withdraw a huge pile of cash and burn it for fun ?

Some sums of money are so large, they defy imagination: a trillion dollars is just shy of Mexico’s gross domestic product. So, for some perspective: to accrue a billion dollars on the median US household income of just under $60,000 would take more than 16,000 years, assuming you spent none of it. To make a trillion would take you over 16 million years.

Apple recently became the first US-listed company with a market value of $1 trillion . So how long will it be before an individual passes the same milestone, and what will they have to do to get so filthy rich?

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Analysis, Big Problems, Healthcare

The five universal laws of human stupidity

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In 1976, a professor of economic history at the University of California, Berkeley published an essay outlining the fundamental laws of a force he perceived as humanity’s greatest existential threat: Stupidity.

Stupid people, Carlo M. Cipolla explained, share several identifying traits: they are abundant, they are irrational, and they cause problems for others without apparent benefit to themselves, thereby lowering society’s total well-being. There are no defenses against stupidity, argued the Italian-born professor, who died in 2000. The only way a society can avoid being crushed by the burden of its idiots is if the non-stupid work even harder to offset the losses of their stupid brethren.

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Engineering, Fashion, Wearables

The first graphene jacket is here, and it’s magical

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At 595 euros ($695) a pop, Vollebak’s new graphene jacket isn’t for everyone. But if even half of what its creators promise is true, it could be worth every cent. According to the company, it shares many of the magical properties of graphene–absorbing heat and then warming you up over time, conducting electricity, repelling bacteria, and dissipating your body’s excess humidity. According to Vollebak, it’s the world’s first jacket made out of the notoriously difficult-to-manufacture material.

Graphene is the thinnest possible form of graphite, which you can find in your everyday pencil. It’s purely bi-dimensional, a single layer of carbon atoms that has unbelievable properties that will one day revolutionize everything from aerospace engineering to medicine. Its diverse uses are seemingly endless: It can stop a bullet if you add enough layers. It can change the color of your hair with no adverse effects. It can turn the walls of your home into a giant fire detector. “It’s so strong and so stretchy that the fibers of a spider web coated in graphene could catch a falling plane,” as Vollebak puts it in its marketing materials.

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Blockchain, Business, Computer Security

Blockchain trends for 2018

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While the mainstream viability of cryptocurrency remains in question, one of the technologies that has emerged in its wake is primed to do big things.

Blockchain continues to grow in popularity as people across multiple industries find new applications for it. Recently, Deloitte released a report entitled, ‘2018 Global Blockchain Survey’. In it, they explore several relevant, blockchain trends that are worth paying attention to in 2018 and onward.

If you are interested in exploring what blockchain can do for your business or whether your startup idea can benefit from this versatile and secure technology, the prospects are rather promising.

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Automation, City Planning, Future, Robotics

Cities will automate first. We should prepare now

Olympics Autonomous Driving

Three robotic arms move brushes languidly across canvases as the glass eyes of cameras gaze ahead. The robots are painting a still life—lit with a tarnished black standing lamp—of a stuffed fox, a bird perched on a branch, a skull in the center, and a seashell to the side.

This summer in Paris, it is not only the clutch of international travelers filling the museums, but robotic visitors as well. The Grande Palais is hosting an exhibit called “Artistes and Robots” that features works created via artificial intelligence and robotic hosts. Elsewhere, AI-produced art is growing increasingly indistinguishable from the “real thing.” Since 2016, teams of programmers have competed in an annual RobotArt competition (here are this year’s finalists), and robot-made art will go on sale at the Seattle Art Fair this summer, alongside works that came solely from human hands.

This partnership between human and machine is what lies ahead as automation tools permeate our lives at a quickening pace. As many worry about the potential for robots to steal our jobs (or lead a violent overthrow of society), the reality may be more nuanced: They may end up being something more like creative collaborators, much like these robotic artists on display.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Business, Employment, Latest Trend

AI will create as many new jobs as it loses

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PwC, the business consultancy, reckons that as many UK jobs will be created by AI as will be lost by AI.

A PwC report forecasts that about 20% of UK jobs will be automated by 2037—but 20% more jobs will also be created.

That’s 7 million jobs lost and 7.2 million jobs gained.

PwC reckons that manufacturing sector jobs could be reduced by around 25% – a net loss of nearly 700,000 jobs.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Driverless vehicles, Latest Trend, Robotics

Robot laws: Why we need a code of conduct for AI – and fast

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From election-rigging bots to potentially lethal autonomous cars, artificial intelligence is straining legal boundaries. Here’s what we need to keep it in check.

THE car’s computer saw Elaine Herzberg pushing her bicycle across the highway a full six seconds before it struck her. Travelling at just under 70 kilometres per hour, it had more than enough time to stop or swerve. But it did neither, hitting her head on. Herzberg died in hospital, the first pedestrian to be killed by an autonomous vehicle.

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Business, Human Behavior, Latest Trend

Companies are buying these portable soundproof rooms like crazy to fix the worst thing about their open floor offices

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Room is a new company that’s created private, semi-soundproof phone booths for noisy, crowded offices.

Already, the company has snagged high profile clients like NASA, Salesforce, and Nike.

Room says they’re on track to sell $10 million worth of product in their first year of business.

If you work in an open office, it’s likely that you’ve ducked into a hallway, a closet, or even the bathroom to get a few moments of quiet to make a phone call.

With the move to the open office and the collective banishment of cubicles, finding a quiet, private place can sometimes be close to impossible.

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Biotech, Breakthrough Thinking, Environment, Green Friendly

Drink that! An edible water orb

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Using reverse spherification, a biotech researcher in Bengaluru is making edible water orbs.

Bengaluru-based biotechnology researcher Richard Gomes, who has created an “edible water orb” from natural materials, has a modest disclaimer: the technique used by his team is not unique or even particularly new; it’s used in many biotech labs to hold delicate cells together. “The orb provides a stable and sterile environment for cells to grow,” says Gomes, resident biologist at Workbench Projects, a co-working makerspace in Bengaluru. Gomes and his team wanted to take the idea forward and create an alternative to plastic water bottles, potentially replacing them with edible and biodegradable globules that can hold around 50ml of water. They are exploring options to make these orbs bigger, so that they can hold around 100ml, and manufacture them commercially and at scale.

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Alternative Transportation, Aviation, Driverless vehicles, Future, Transportation, Travel

4 futuristic transport methods that will change how we travel around the world

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Since the invention of air travel, the world has felt like a smaller place – it’s now possible for pretty much anyone to fly around the globe, learning about different countries and cultures. It’s pretty amazing.

But some companies aren’t satisfied with this – they want to make the world seem even smaller, with faster, more efficient and more comfortable methods of transport.

Ever dreamed of exploring the Australian Outback but been put off by the long flight? A Virgin Galactic flight from London to Sydney might take two hours within the next decade.

Here are four methods of futuristic transportation that are going to change how we travel around the world.

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Alternative Transportation, Business, Finance, Science & Technology News

Bird is the fastest startup ever to reach a $1 billion valuation

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Electric scooter startup Bird is the fastest company to reach a valuation of $1 billion.

Bird, one of many scooter startups currently sweeping the US, was last valued at $400 million after closing $100 million in series B funding in early March. In late May, Bird was reported to be raising $150 million in series C funding led by Sequoia Capital, at a $1 billion valuation.

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Business, China, Economy, Science & Technology News, Shopping

Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) are now valued at a combined $1 trillion USD.

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Alibaba and Tencent alone now account for almost one-third of the MSCI China Index, fueling its 47 percent gain in 2017.

As of this past March, China had skyrocketed to 164 unicorns, worth a combined $628.4 billion USD. Roughly 50 percent are controlled or backed by BAT.

But BAT isn’t keeping ambitions local. Worldwide, BAT invests in over 150 companies, spanning the gamut from AI to biotech.

And with access to more internet users than the U.S. and all of Europe combined, BAT is fueled by the greatest treasure trove of data on the planet.

Continue reading… “Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent (BAT) are now valued at a combined $1 trillion USD.”