Bill Gates made these 15 predictions back in 1999 — and it’s scary how accurate he was

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His forecasts turned out to be eerily prescient.

In 1999, Bill Gates wrote a book titled Business @ the Speed of Thought.

In the book, Gates made 15 bold predictions that at the time might have sounded outrageous.

But as Markus Kirjonen, a business student, once noted on his blog, Gates’ forecasts turned out to be eerily prescient.

Here are the 15 predictions Gates made just about 20 years ago — and how close they’ve come to being true.

Continue reading… “Bill Gates made these 15 predictions back in 1999 — and it’s scary how accurate he was”

How Bill Gates aims to save $233 billion by reinventing the toilet

Gates Foundation spent $200 million funding toilet research

LIXIL is among companies drawn to potential $6 billion market

Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he’s betting big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a half million lives and deliver $200 billion-plus in savings.

The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent $200 million over seven years funding sanitation research, showcased some 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertilizer.

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Gene editing for good

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How CRISPR could transform global development.

Today, more people are living healthy, productive lives than ever before. This good news may come as a surprise, but there is plenty of evidence for it. Since the early 1990s, global child mortality has been cut in half. There have been massive reductions in cases of tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/AIDS. The incidence of polio has decreased by 99 percent, bringing the world to the verge of eradicating a major infectious disease, a feat humanity has accomplished only once before, with smallpox. The proportion of the world’s population in extreme poverty, defined by the World Bank as living on less than $1.90 per day, has fallen from 35 percent to about 11 percent.

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Bill Gates thinks these six innovations could change the world

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When Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press, he changed the course of history. You could say the same about Thomas Edison’s light bulb, Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, and Grace Hopper’s compiler. What will be the next great invention to transform history? Here are a few innovations that I think are worth watching.

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Thanks to Thanksgiving shoppers, Jeff Bezos is now the world’s only living $100-billion man

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Jeff Bezos had a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving weekend. After record-breaking weekend sales, Amazon’s stock price hit an all-time high of $1,213.41 a share on Monday. That pushed Bezos’ net worth to over $100 billion, which is up 35% from the same period last year, according to Bloomberg. Continue reading… “Thanks to Thanksgiving shoppers, Jeff Bezos is now the world’s only living $100-billion man”

Bill Gates just purchased an enormous amount of land to build his own “smart city”

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24,800 acres of land will soon become a “smart city” in Arizona. One of Bill Gates’ investment firms is investing millions into this project, hoping that its proximity to local hubs and ability to be completely molded will allow for innovation.

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Bill Gates and Richard Branson are investing in a mysterious new meat

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Just as Whole Foods shareholders and the Federal Trade Commission gave the green light to Amazon’s $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods, news broke that a number of high-profile investors—including billionaires Bill Gates and Richard Branson—have decided to pour their money into a very different sort of food venture: Memphis Meats, a San Francisco-based company that is developing meat from stem cells.

The start-up is part of a growing “clean meat” movement intended to produce a variety of sustainable, lab-grown meat products using animal cells, without having to actually feed or slaughter any animals in the process.

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Bio-sensing contacts can monitor for signs of disease

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Finger pricks, blood draws, and urine testing are miserable for just about everyone. But now researchers are working on a new concept to make testing for disease much easier. The project? A contact lens that would use the condition of the eyes to help spot illness.

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How will human rights change in the era of A.I.

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Will we have more rights or fewer rights when artificial intelligence kicks in? How about the right to have our diseases cured, the right to a full head of hair, the right to a job that matches our skills, or the right to marry our perfect mate?

In response to advances in neuroscience and technologies that alter or read brain activity, some researchers are proposing a recognition of new human rights to mental integrity. These would protect people from having their thoughts abused, hacked, or stolen. The idea of this kind of human right is a recognition that although brain-related technologies have the potential to transform our lives in many positive ways, they also have the potential to threaten personal freedom and privacy.

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We’re beginning to see the medical revolution CRISPR had promised

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There’s a revolution happening in biology, and its name is CRISPR.

CRISPR (pronounced “crisper”) is a powerful technique for editing DNA. It has received an enormous amount of attention in the scientific and popular press, largely based on the promise of what this powerful gene editing technology will someday do.

Continue reading… “We’re beginning to see the medical revolution CRISPR had promised”

Complementary AI-human hybrid intelligence

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As AI becomes smarter, many are calling for caution, in case science fiction was right about robots destroying their masters. Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking have all called for caution in the development of intelligent systems. When computers can make critical decisions for themselves there is reason to be worried, especially if the outcome is not in your favor

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