‘Blade Runner’ was set in November 2019. So how close have we come to that prediction of our future?

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Science-fiction movies are pretty goddamn awesome because it goes beyond the restrictions of realism and predicts what can or cannot happen in the future. Netflix’s Black Mirror is likely everyone’s hot favourite now because it’s showing us the deranged situation we’ll be in 15-20 years from now. But what if I say that we are already living in a future that was foreseen by a movie from the 80’s? What if I say that the predictions made in it were pretty accurate and that we need to pull our socks up and start making amends? Yes, I am talking about Blade Runner.

Blade Runner is a 1982 sci-fi film directed by Ridley Scott, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. It is loosely based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The movie is set in a dystopian (Well, not dystopian any more) future Los Angeles of 2019 in which synthetic humans (replicants) are revolting against the people who are building them and using them as slaves. That’s where Ford’s Rick Deckard comes in who’s tasked with hunting down replicants and it is through his eyes we get to see what Scott (And Dick) thinks November 2019 will look like.

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The 10+ most important job skills every company will be looking for in 2020

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As the world evolves to embrace the 4th industrial revolution, our workplaces are changing. Just as other industrial revolutions transformed the skillset and experience required from the workforce, we can expect the same from this revolution. Only five years from now, 35 percent of the skills seen as essential today will change according to the World Economic Forum. While we’re not able to predict the future, yet, here are the ten most important job skills (plus a bonus one) every company will be looking for in 2020.

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Co-working spaces pose threat to commercial real estate market, Fed official says

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LaunchBio CEO Joan Siefert Rose leads a tour of life sciences co-working lab, BioLabs NC.

The growing popularity of co-working spaces like WeWork could pose a risk to the US economy in the next economic downturn, a Fed official warned on Friday.

Boston Federal Reserve Bank President Eric Rosengren, who has publicly dissented with the Fed’s recent interest rate cuts, said lower rates will boost risk in “unexpected places.”

“Evolving market models, along with low interest rates, are creating a new type of potential financial stability risk in commercial real estate,” he said at an event in New York City. “One such market model is the development of co-working spaces in many major urban office markets.”

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“This may be the single biggest business opportunity in human history”

Dr. Jonathan Foley, 50, executive director for Project Drawdown, joined me for a discussion about climate change (watch in the video player above). His statement, “This may be the single biggest business opportunity in human history,” sounds like hyperbole but there may be no one better qualified to make that statement correctly.

With a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of Wisconsin and having spent three decades doing and managing research into climate change, he is certainly qualified on the science. His case that the business opportunity is there hinges on this key premise:

We literally have to reinvent our energy systems, our food systems, our manufacturing, our cities. Everything! You can look at that is like, ‘Crap, that’s a really big problem.’ I think we have to look at as “Wow, what a great opportunity!” especially if we do it right. We can improve lives. We can reduce inequity. We could solve some of our other social ills if we do it wisely. And we could build a better world for future generations and for ourselves.

If we’re going to have to reinvent so much of our modern world, the investment opportunity does begin to be interesting. Clearly, the need for investment capital is there. What about getting a return on that capital?

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Elon Musk doubled down on his theory that the world population is headed for collapse

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Elon Musk believes the human population is headed for decline. REUTERS/Mike Blake

In a tweet on Friday, Elon Musk doubled down on his theory that the global population will be in decline by 2050.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO first backed the theory in 2017 in response to a New Scientist article about a “population bomb.”

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Five traditional industries on the verge of an innovation boom

 

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According to the technology and data company Crunchbase, an astounding $825 million in venture capital investment has flowed into legal and legal-tech sectors just since the start of 2018.What do you think about when you hear the terms “disruption” and “technological innovation?” What industries and sectors come to mind?

Autonomous cars, cloud computing, artificial intelligence, genetic testing, cryptocurrencies and various other technologies likely populate the top of your list.

However, if you strictly limit your perception of innovation to these flashy concepts, you could be missing out on transformational booms that are happening across industries that wouldn’t be categorized as cutting edge.

Because of significant injections of investment capital and a traunch of fresh ideas, new companies and opportunities are arising in traditional fields that may challenge your perception about which markets are hot versus which are not.

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Older, less white, less religious: What America will look like in 2040

 

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Future foretold: A new America in 2040

Here is how fast America is changing: By the time today’s teenagers hit their 30s, there will be — for the first time ever — more minorities than whites, more old people than children, and more people practicing Islam than Judaism.

The big picture: The slow demographic shifts we’ve watched over decades will finally reach a tipping point in the 2040s. They’ll transform what America looks like, where we live and what we fear.

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Top 5 Predictions for VR/AR Breakthroughs

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Convergence is accelerating disruption… everywhere!

Exponential technologies are colliding into each other, reinventing products, services and industries.

In this third installment of our Convergence Catalyzer series, I’ll be synthesizing key insights from my annual entrepreneurs’ mastermind event, Abundance 360, which takes place every January in Beverly Hills. This five-blog series looks at 3D Printing, Artificial Intelligence, VR/AR, Energy & Transportation, and Blockchain.

Today, let’s dive into Virtual and Augmented Reality…

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IBM researchers predict 5 innovations will change our lives in 5 years

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IBM Research has a long history of inventing the future, so the big tech company’s researchers take their predictions seriously. Today they are revealing their annual “5 in 5” predictions, which detail five innovations that will change our lives in the next five years.

IBM will talk about the predictions at its Think 2019 event in San Francisco on Wednesday from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. Pacific time.

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New projection : World population will level off, then fall forever

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The conventional wisdom is that the global population is hurtling toward catastrophe — some project it could hit a staggering 11 billion by the year 2100.

But a new book examines the data and comes to a radically different conclusion: instead of continuing to rise, the population will level out in about 30 years — and then start to decline, possibly forever.

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Too few cybersecurity professionals is a gigantic problem for 2019

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As the new year begins gaining steam, there is ostensibly a piece of good news on the cyber front. Major cyberattacks have been in a lull in recent months, and still are.

The good tidings are fleeting, however. Attacks typically come in waves. The next one is due, and 2019 will be the worst year yet — a sad reality as companies increasingly pursue digitization to drive efficiency and simultaneously move into the “target zone” of cyberattacks.

This bad news is compounded by the harsh reality that there are not nearly enough cybersecurity pros to properly respond to all the threats.

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The hottest jobs going into 2019

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Technology is continuing to change the landscape for the job market.

PayScale recently released a report of its “hottest jobs” of 2018, and technology dominated the list of fastest-growing occupations. Design and communication positions also cracked the top 10.

“The abundance of data has necessitated [hiring people] to analyze, model, store, and protect this important commodity,” PayScale Chief Economist Katie Bardaro told Yahoo Finance. “Therefore, the jobs we see as the most in demand are those that fall into these categories: data scientist, data warehouse engineers, and cybersecurity specialists.”

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