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2022 predictions

The Top 10 Technology and Business Trends of 2022

December 31, 2021

The impact of Covid-19 continues to be felt as several technologies are poised to pick up steam in the new year.

As Covid-19 vaccinations increase globally, life is getting back to normal. However, it’s no longer the world we experienced before the pandemic. The long-term nature of this global crisis has changed customer needs and daily lifestyles. This will, in turn, change what I expect the world to look like in 2022 and beyond. Let’s review the top 10 technology and business trends that we’ll likely encounter in the coming year.

2022 predictions

2022 energy forecast: Ultra-dense power delivery networks are re-shaping the future of drones and robotics design and development

December 31, 2021

BY MARK ALLINSON

It is estimated by the year 2030 there will be a global skilled labor shortage of up to 85 million jobs, which equates to $8.5 trillion, according to a recent Korn Ferry report.

Many of these jobs will be in the industrial and service sectors where the Covid pandemic has exposed weaknesses in global supply chains and labor pools. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and robots can alleviate this situation by efficiently automating manual tasks.

Today, UAVs are being quickly ushered into service for a host of unique and mission-critical applications, including security/surveillance, parcel delivery, agriculture, defense and even natural disaster recovery and humanitarian aid delivery missions.

As we look a few years into the future, we can see UAVs assuming greater roles in more hazardous types of applications such as high-voltage wire inspection, bridge/tower inspection and commercial shipping hull inspection/repair.

Using UAVs for these types of applications has several benefits, including faster response times and real-time data gathering. More importantly, the use of unmanned systems for high-risk activities currently performed by human workers eliminates the risk of employee injury, collateral damage and associated liability costs.

2022 predictions

Seven predictions for healthcare technology trends in 2022

December 31, 2021

In the wake of a pandemic, shifting care delivery models, and a surge of clinical content, Wolters Kluwer healthcare experts have identified seven healthcare technology trends for 2022.

While the coronavirus in 2020 dramatically altered the way healthcare is practiced in the U.S. and around the world, 2021 has had its own unique challenges — namely, divergent views on vaccines, powerful COVID-19 variants, and hospitals bursting at the seams as they balance caring for patients with and without the virus.

Technology has proven crucial to keeping the healthcare industry resilient in the face of so many challenges. Simultaneously, the widespread adoption of virtual care delivery along with the rapid pace of vaccine creation and distribution have provided hope for many as the world adjusted to “the new normal”.

So, what’s in store for 2022?

Our Wolters Kluwer healthcare experts have identified seven healthcare technology trends for 2022 that they anticipate will empower healthcare professionals to continue pushing towards delivering quality care for all.

Latest Trend

TikTok is opening 300 ghost kitchens to deliver food trends made famous by creators

December 31, 2021

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.

Space Flight

SpinLaunch Successfully Throws A 10-Meter Dart Toward Space

December 31, 2021

It’s not like we are doing any mining for exotic materials on the Moon or Mars, so I suspect that this interesting intellectual capital might sit on a shelf for a few decades.

By Michael Barnard

SpinLaunch is playing with a different, electric model for mass launching to orbit. It is trying to throw mass into space, but there are challenges.

In October, a company called SpinLaunch threw a 10-meter long dart at the sky, reaching roughly 10,000 meters in altitude. So what, you might ask. Well, it did it in a novel and interesting way, which one day might actually be useful for throwing stuff into orbit using electricity instead of rocket fuel.

new technology

Scientists Create Mind-Blowing Tool to ‘See’ Millions of Brain Cell Connections in Mice

December 31, 2021

Every green glowing area is one synapse in a living mouse’s brain. The image shows dense constellations of millions of synapses throughout the mouse cortex. Credit: Austin Graves, Johns Hopkins Medicine

To solve the mysteries of how learning and memory occur, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have created a system to track millions of connections among brain cells in mice — all at the same time — when the animals’ whiskers are tweaked, an indicator for learning.

Researchers say the new tool gives an unprecedented view of brain cell activity in a synapse — a tiny space between two brain cells, where molecules and chemicals are passed back and forth.

“It was science fiction to be able to image nearly every synapse in the brain and watch a change in behavior,” says Richard Huganir, Ph.D., Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Neuroscience and Psychological and Brain Sciences at The Johns Hopkins University and director of the Department of Neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

A summary of the research was published online first Oct. 18 and in its final form Nov. 25 in the journal eLife.

Cancer

Nanoparticle therapeutic enhances cancer immunotherapy

December 29, 2021

Summary:Researchers have discovered that a nanoparticle therapeutic enhances cancer immunotherapy and is a possible new approach in treating malignant pleural effusion (MPE). MPE is the accumulation of fluid between the chest wall and lungs and is accompanied by malignant cells and/or tumors.

Researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine have discovered that a nanoparticle therapeutic enhances cancer immunotherapy and is a possible new approach in treating malignant pleural effusion (MPE). MPE is the accumulation of fluid between the chest wall and lungs and is accompanied by malignant cells and/or tumors.

Results from the study are published in the current issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Amazon.com

Electric Cargo Planes: The Next Stage Of Amazon’s Delivery Transformation

December 29, 2021

Flying cars, also known as electric air taxis, have been around us for a long time thanks to sci-fi staples such as “Back to the Future” and “The Jetsons.” But with major brands like Boeing (NYSE:BA), Airbus (OTCPK:EADSF), Hyundai, and Toyota (NYSE:TM) now promising to whisk riders through the skies in flying taxis and receiving a heady dose of Wall Street endorsement, the dream is increasingly getting closer to reality.

Indeed, many experts are now upbeat that air mobility over short distances is closer to becoming a reality than ever before in history, thanks mainly to massive advancements in battery technologies and autonomous flight. And make no mistake about it: Flying taxis have real potential to completely restructure public and private transportation, decongest our roads, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

In fact, a Morgan Stanley Research study says the autonomous urban aircraft market will continue to mature during the current decade and then boom globally to reach $1.5 trillion by 2040.

This year, we have witnessed two electric aircraft startups go public: Joby Aviation Inc. (NYSE:JOBY), which went public in August, and Archer Aviation Inc. (NYSE:ACHR), which was listed in September, both via SPAC deals.

And, it appears there’s no shortage of electric aircraft companies in the IPO pipeline: Amazon and UPS-backed Beta Technologies have developed Alia, an electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or “eVTOL,” helicopter-like aircraft that can take off and land without runways.

Aviation

Archer’s Maker eVTOL performs first hover flight

December 29, 2021

By VYTE KLISAUSKAITE

Archer Aviation’s electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) demonstrator Maker has completed its first hover flight, marking the company’s first full and complete systems validation.

“The past six months have been an incredible journey, from unveiling Maker to watching it take its first flight,” said Brett Adcock, Archer co-founder and co-CEO. “It’s been humbling to build a leading eVTOL company and educate the public on clean transportation alternatives.”

Archer’s Maker demonstrator is an autonomous two-seater eVTOL vehicle that has been certified for flight testing by the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The next step is to test Maker’s capabilities of forward flying.

AI

DeepMind’s New AI With a Memory Outperforms Algorithms 25 Times Its Size

December 28, 2021

By Edd Gent – Dec 20, 202131,578

Bigger is better—or at least that’s been the attitude of those designing AI language models in recent years. But now DeepMind is questioning thisrationale, and says giving an AI a memory can help it compete with models 25 times its size.

When OpenAI released its GPT-3 model last June, it rewrote the rulebook for language AIs. The lab’s researchers showed that simply scaling up the size of a neural network and the data it was trained on could significantly boost performance on a wide variety of language tasks.

Since then, a host of other tech companies have jumped on the bandwagon, developing their own large language models and achieving similar boosts in performance. But despite the successes, concerns have been raised about the approach, most notably by former Google researcher Timnit Gebru.

In the paper that led to her being forced out of the company, Gebru and colleagues highlighted that the sheer size of these models and their datasets makes them even more inscrutable than your average neural network, which are already known for being black boxes. This is likely to make detecting and mitigating bias in these models even harder.

Augmented Reality

New haptic device communicates emotion with nearly 80% accuracy of human touch

December 28, 2021

by Amy Blumenthal

With the spread of the omicron variant, not everyone can or is eager to travel for the winter break. But what if virtual touch could bring you assurance that you were not alone?

At the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, computer scientist and roboticist Heather Culbertson has been exploring various methods to simulate touch. As part of a new study, Culbertson a senior author on this study, along with researchers at Stanford, her alma mater, wanted to see if two companions (platonic or romantic), could communicate and express care and emotion remotely. People perceive a partner’s true intentions through in-person touch an estimated 57 percent of the time. When interacting with a device that simulated human touch, respondents were able to discern the touch’s intention 45 percent of the time. Thus, devices in this study appear to perform with approximately 79 percent accuracy of perceived human touch.

brain hacking

Scientists taught a petri dish of brain cells to play pong faster than an AI

December 28, 2021

By Hope Corrigan

Move over Alder Lake, this is a new kind of hybrid chip.

As a lover of tough single player games, I’m quite accustomed to getting my butt handed to me by AI, and usually not even a real one. I also happen to be the owner of a full sized human brain. Though it’s not without its problems, the human brain’s ability to learn and change is usually why I eventually overcome those difficult in-game challenges.

So when I read about a few human brain cells in a petri dish that are already performing much better at a videogame than AI can, it’s concerning to me and my gaming future. New Scientist reports that a team in Australia has been growing these small puddles of brain and now one has learnt to play Pong, in fairly impressive time.

Cortical labs is a company working on integrating biological neurons with your more traditional silicon based computing hardware. They grow brain cells on microelectronic arrays, so the cells can be stimulated. These hybrid chips are said to be able to learn and restructure themselves to get past problems, like stopping a sneaky ball that wants in your goal.