CCS Insights published 100 tech predictions for the next few years, and the COVID-19 pandemic lurks behind many of them.
An ongoing health crisis and a global recession: even for the most attuned of analysts, the past months have brought in a load of unexpected events that have made the coming years especially difficult to envision.
Yet research firm CCS Insights has taken up the challenge and delivered a set of 100 tech predictions for the years 2021 and beyond. The exercise is an annual one for the company, which last year anticipated, among many other things, that the next decade could see the rise of deep fake detection technology, or the adoption of domestic robots in some households.
A new field of litigation has evolved in the United State: denouncing fertility fraud. In the latest episode, a nation-wide firm, Peiffer Wolf Carr Kane & Conway, announced that it was pursuing two fertility doctors who allegedly used their own sperm a generation ago to get women pregnant and without informing them.
This is just the tip of the iceberg, according to Adam Wolf, the lawyer handling the cases. He claims that hundreds of fertility fraud cases will emerge across the US as people begin to investigate their geneology using home DNA testing kits.
In the first case, a San Francisco woman discovered that both of her children were the offspring of her fertility doctor, Dr Michael S. Kiken. Furthermore, through Kiken, the children are carriers of Tay Sachs disease.
In the second case a San Diego woman sought the help of Dr Philip Milgram in 1988 for artificial insemination, which resulted in the birth of their son. Milgram told her that he had used the sperm of a healthy and anonymous sperm donor — but he allegedly used his own instead.
With change being the one constant, it is almost certain that more sectors will face disruption in Australia and across Asia in the future. Which industries will be next? Three experts weigh in.
Gravity Industries’ suit could quickly get a medic to a remote casualty site.
The “Iron Man” jet suit we first saw back in 2017 might be less crazy than we first thought. Inventor Richard Browning and his company Gravity Industries have demonstrated that it may be a viable option to quickly get medical help to victims in remote areas. Working with the UK’s Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS), Browning flew to a simulated casualty on a remote mountainous site in just 90 seconds, a fraction of the time it would take to walk there.
The sooner a paramedic can get to a victim, the sooner they can stabilize them and call for a helicopter or other support. “We think this technology could enable our team to reach some patients much quicker than ever before,” said GNAAS director of operations Andy Mawson. “In many cases this would ease the patient’s suffering. In some cases, it would save their lives.”
But so far no company has been able to mine lithium from clay commercially
Elon Musk told investors last week that Tesla has secured access to 10,000 acres of lithium-rich clay deposits in Nevada and planned to use a new, “very sustainable way” of extracting the metal.
Tesla Inc. secured its own lithium mining rights in Nevada after dropping a plan to buy a company there, according to people familiar with the matter.
The automaker held discussions in recent months with Cypress Development Corp., which is seeking to extract lithium from clay deposits in southwest Nevada, but the parties didn’t reach a deal, the people said, asking not to be named because the information isn’t public. The electric car maker, which has vowed to slash its battery costs by 50 per cent, instead focused on the plan that chief executive Elon Musk outlined last week to dig for lithium on its own in the state.
Venezuela deployed its first Bitcoin satellite node.
It allows for a node on the ground to receive Bitcoin transaction details from a Blockstream satellite without internet.
Venezuela has poor internet connectivity.
Venezuela has its first Bitcoin satellite node capable of processing transactions without an internet connection.
The Venezuelan “space node” was set up in the country by Anibal Garrido and the Anibal Cripto team. It uses technology from Blockstream, which contracts satellites—in this case, EUTELSAT-113 – to broadcast data between points via offline connections. That’s huge in a country where internet infrastructure is lacking.
Emirati officials brief Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum about a possible moon mission, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, September 29, 2020.
Gulf state boosts space program, could become fourth nation in the world to land on the moon.
The United Arab Emirates plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2024, a top Emirati official said Tuesday, the latest gamble in the stars by the oil-rich nation that could see it become only the fourth nation on Earth to accomplish that goal.
The announcement by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, who also serves as the vice president and prime minister of the hereditarily ruled UAE, shows the rapid expansion of the space program that bears his name. Already, an Emirati space probe is hurtling through space on its way to Mars while last year it sent its first astronaut to the International Space Station.
The Korean automaker will dip its toes in the field of freaky-looking robots.
Remember the Hyundai Elevate concept from CES 2019? Probably not because so much happens at CES, it’s hard to keep track of the real breakthroughs, worthy attention-grabbers and the fluff. Well, we should definitely pay a little more attention to Hyundai and its Elevate concept because the Korean automaker announced a new division on Tuesday devoted to “ultimate mobility vehicles.”
If the Elevate concept defines what an “ultimate mobility vehicle” is, that means Hyundai just created a studio to design walking cars. They’re sort of freaky, honestly. The New Horizons Studio, as it’s called, will develop vehicles “to wander with unprecedented mobility,” the automaker said in the announcement. “Wander” is an appropriate word since the Elevate concept sports long legs that let the vehicle “walk” over what would typically be terrain a standard vehicle would never get past. Specifically, Hyundai imagined the Elevate as a perfect rescue vehicle to step over rocks, rubble and other debris with ease.
To define how the world should look, neural networks are making up their own rules
Researchers demonstrate how deep learning could eventually replace traditional anesthetic practices.
Academics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Massachusetts General Hospital have demonstrated how neural networks can be trained to administer anesthetic during surgery.
Over the past decade, machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), and deep learning algorithms have been developed and applied to a range of sectors and applications, including in the medical field.
Whey proteins in cow and goat milk also could inhibit the virus but is less effective than human breast milk.
Human breast milk could help to prevent or treat COVID-19, according to a new study by Chinese scientists, lending support to World Health Organisation guidelines that mothers should breastfeed their newborn babies even if they are infected with the coronavirus.
This is Desserto by Adriano Di Marti, a vegan leather made from cactus that is an eco and animal-friendly alternative to animal leather or synthetic leather. Like the aforementioned leathers, Desserto has competitive features, such as elasticity and it’s also customizable and breathable. It’s also biodegradable, flexible, non-toxic, and doesn’t stain.
If socializing makes you cringe, you’re not alone. Scientists say the pandemic is re-shaping our senses of fear and disgust, and it’s unclear how long the change will last.
WATCHING A RERUN of the 1990s sitcom Seinfeld gave me the first inkling that COVID-19 might be rearranging my mind for the long term. On the screen, the characters sat across the table from each other at Monk’s Café. Kramer flopped into the frame, draping his arm around another occupied chair. As his arm touched another person, I physically recoiled.
By then, my hometown of New Orleans was a few weeks into the pandemic, and I was already stepping off the curb whenever a stranger approached. If someone slipped by my paranoia and caught me unaware on the sidewalk, I held my breath and rolled my eyes as they barged past. Those behaviors felt natural, even though by mid-March, scientists were already pointing out the low risk of coronavirus transmission in the outdoors. All of my friends reported feeling something similar, and one told me that she had to turn off the TV if a subway scene came on. We’re not alone. Even as some states begin to reopen, most Americans—regardless of political affiliation—say that they’re uncomfortable going into crowded situations, indoors and out, according to a recent Morning Consult poll.
Neuroscientists and psychologists propose that people aren’t cringing around strangers and crowds because of pre-existing senses of fear or disgust. Instead, many in society are simultaneously learning a new emotional experience.
