Envision the year 2040: A hypersonic flight from New York to London, a swift air urban mobility drone navigating London’s bustling traffic, and seamless holographic conferences in the air—all made possible by the convergence of cutting-edge technologies. This isn’t science fiction but a glimpse into the imminent future. Our team of foresight specialists at MarketsandMarkets has decoded the top Mega Trends that are poised to shape our lives across Horizon 1, 2, and 3.
Continue reading… “Beyond Tomorrow: Mega Trends Shaping the Future in 2040”TikTok is opening 300 ghost kitchens to deliver food trends made famous by creators
TikTok Kitchens will be operated out of existing restaurants
By Shawn Knight
In brief: Video-minded social networking service TikTok in a surprise move has announced a partnership with Virtual Dining Concepts (VDC) to bring some of the platform’s most popular food trends to life.
TikTok Kitchen will be a delivery-only brand. The service will operate out of existing restaurants as ghost kitchens, with VDC promising restaurateurs the ability to earn up to $500 or more in profit daily in exchange for use of their equipment and staff to cook for the brand.
The concept may sound strange, but it’s increasing in popularity. VDC, for example, is also behind MrBeast Burger, the online-only food ordering service created by Internet personality Jimmy Donaldson (MrBeast on YouTube) a year ago. The service is currently operating out of more than 1,000 ghost kitchens across North America and Europe.
Continue reading… “TikTok is opening 300 ghost kitchens to deliver food trends made famous by creators”Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange set to launch an NFT marketplace
The marketplace is aimed at creators and traders of collectables in visual arts, music, games, sports, and more.
Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange has revealed plans to launch its own non-fungible token (NFT) marketplace where users can create, buy and sell digital collector’s items
Continue reading… “Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange set to launch an NFT marketplace”South Korea’s fertility rate falls to lowest in the world
The nation’s capital Seoul logs the lowest birth rate of 0.64
South Korea’s fertility rate fell to the lowest in the world last year, data showed on Wednesday, February 24, as uncertainty over the coronavirus discouraged couples from marrying and having children.
The number of expected babies per South Korean woman fell to 0.84 in 2020, dropping further from the country’s previous record low of 0.92 a year earlier, the official annual reading from the Statistics Korea showed.
That is the lowest among over 180 member countries of the World Bank, and far below 1.73 in the United States and 1.42 in Japan.
Continue reading… “South Korea’s fertility rate falls to lowest in the world”‘I wanted to meet a mate and have a baby without wasting time’: the rise of platonic co-parenting
Jenica Anderson and Stephan DuVal, with their daughter.
They’re ready to start a family, but can’t wait for The One. As ‘mating’ sites boom under lockdown, we meet those hoping for a better way to raise a child
When Jenica Anderson and Stephan DuVal clicked on one another’s online profile on Modamily.com – tagline “A new way to family” – neither was looking for romance. They were both in their late 30s, and their short bios indicated that they shared similar views on health and education, had solid incomes and were searching for the same thing: a non-romantic partner to have – and raise – a child with. A co-parent.
Anderson, 38, a geologist from Montana, US, had matched with and spoken to 10 different men, mostly via so-called mating sites – matchmaking sites for people who want a baby without a romantic relationship – when she had her first phone call with DuVal, from Vancouver, Canada, in spring 2019. Their conversations quickly started to run into the night and, that June, she flew out to spend the weekend with him. They talked, went hiking and jumped into a lake together. “It felt like a date,” says DuVal, 37, a camera operator. “Except we could be totally honest about wanting to have a kid soon, without the goofiness and flirting of a first date. You’re looking to achieve a common goal.”
Whole Foods predicts top food trends for 2021
John Mackey discusses how supermarket chain has adjusted amid the COVID-19 pandemic
Expect veggie jerky, probiotic-packed sauerkraut and chickpea tofu in snack food aisles.
The future of snacking will be packed with immunity-boosting ingredients, like mushroom broth, fruit and veggie jerky and probiotic-fueled packs of roasted garlic sauerkraut.
More Americans are apparently looking to incorporate healthy supplements into their snacking habits, according to Whole Foods Market’s list of “Top 10 Food Trends for 2021,” released Monday.
Continue reading… “Whole Foods predicts top food trends for 2021”
Tech companies are starting to let their employees work from anywhere — as long as they take a lower salary
Software firm VMware will start cutting pay for employees who leave Silicon Valley, according to a recent Bloomberg report.
While employees can work remotely on a permanent basis, they could face an 18% pay cut for moving to a city like Denver, Bloomberg reports.
VMware isn’t the only company reconsidering employee pay. Facebook will start adjusting salaries in January based on where employees live, according to The New York Times.
Twitter has had a pay localization policy in place for years as part of a broader push to decentralize its workforce.
Continue reading… “Tech companies are starting to let their employees work from anywhere — as long as they take a lower salary”
Germany in August – Electric vehicles crushing it at record 13.2 market share
Germany, Europe’s largest auto market, saw a record 13.2% plugin electric vehicle market share in August 2020, up over 5× from the 2.6% result of August 2019. This comes immediately after July itself broke new ground at 11.4% market share. The overall auto market in August was down 20% from an unusually high August 2019.
Pure battery electric vehicles (BEVs) and plugin hybrids (PHEVs) contributed fairly evenly to August’s plugin result, with 6.4% and 6.8% of the market, respectively. The year-to-date division of labour is 4.3% BEV and 4.8% PHEV, giving a cumulative plugin market share of almost 9.2% so far in 2020, up from 3.0% in full year 2019.
Continue reading… “Germany in August – Electric vehicles crushing it at record 13.2 market share”
The office, as you know it, is dead
Plexiglass, masks, warning signs: Is this the office of the future?
New York (CNN Business)Bustling skyscrapers and office parks packed with workers could be a relic of the pre-pandemic world.
The health crisis has forced millions of Americans to abandon their offices in favor of working from home, for better or worse. Now there are signs this may not be a short-term phenomenon, but more of a permanent shift in favor of remote work even after a Covid-19 vaccine is in place.
More than two-thirds (68%) of large company CEOs plan to downsize their office space, according to a survey released Tuesday by KPMG.
Continue reading… “The office, as you know it, is dead”
Research: Professionals say working from home has made them more effective
In March, everything changed in an instant. And now, for the past six months, we’ve been living in a remarkably different kind of world.
Our living rooms became boardrooms; our business lunches became Zoom chats and the supply chain was, for a time, crippled. The global pandemic changed the way we lived and the way we worked. While some of us thought the change was only temporary, maybe for a few weeks, we were actually experiencing the dramatic onset of the theoretical topic we all called “the future of work.”
Continue reading… “Research: Professionals say working from home has made them more effective”
18 companies now hiring remote workers
Big brands from a wide swath of industries are looking to fill long-term posts, according to Flexjobs.com.
Unemployment remains high as Americans emerge from the pandemic-driven lockdown, but 18 well-known companies that made the switch to telecommuting are currently hiring for long-term remote work, according to Flexjobs.com.
This is welcome news: Working remotely is not only safer from COVID-19, it’s very popular, especially among those who had the opportunity to work from home (WFH), after fears of the spread of COVID-19 shifted the way many Americans work.
Some companies that have made the complete shift to remote work are hiring now, and it means a job with a recognizable company name. And there’s a wide swath of industries, too, including big tech, credit card or affiliated companies, real estate, social media, sales, higher education, research and advisory, social and viewing management, software, family history research, and an online retailer, Flexjobs.com said.
Continue reading… “18 companies now hiring remote workers”
Big-money investors gear up for a trillion-dollar bet on farmland
Ray Williams bought this land just north of the small town of Dumont, in Butler County, Iowa.
For a glimpse of what could happen to a trillion dollars worth of American farmland, meet Ray Williams.
He’s a lawyer-turned-farmer, growing organic grain and feeding young cows on 3,000 acres in northeastern Oregon. Last year, he and his brother Tom decided that they were getting too old for the long hours and hard work.
“We told our clients, you don’t want to rely on senior citizens for your high quality organic products. Trust me on this!” says Williams, age 68.
Their farm sold for $23 million. The buyer was a company registered in Delaware with a mailing address in Manhattan. The people behind that company wish to remain anonymous.
This left Williams with a pile of money to invest, and he parked almost $3 million of it in farmland halfway across the country. He bought 293 acres in Butler County, Iowa, from a farmer named Rich Showalter, and another 160 acres in O’Brien County from the estate of a woman who was born in Iowa but died in Indiana at the age of 100.
The end result: Control over this land has passed to people with little personal connection to it, who live a thousand miles away. The new owners will decide what happens to that land, whether to plow or drain it, or even to stop farming it entirely. Their decisions will have profound effects on rural communities, wildlife and even the global climate.
Continue reading… “Big-money investors gear up for a trillion-dollar bet on farmland”
