What's Emerging Mid-July 2020
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy
Introduction
Welcome to our mid-July newsletter.
In the next few weeks, Paul will be continuing to work on a regional tourism project and a strategic view for a national cleaning company. He is also participating in a working group with the Leading Edge Foundation in the UK looking at the industrialisation of robots, He is also presenting to Charles Sturt University on the Future of Work for veterinary students and working on a council vision and strategy
If any of this interests you then please Contact Us
The Emergent Futures Team
In case you missed it. The most popular link from the last edition:
Last newsletter it was a draw between:
Facebook tests Forecast, an app for making predictions about world events, like COVID-19
AND
The video on: High Resolution Neural Face Swapping for Visual Effects
What are we Writing About?
Paul has published a post: Four scenarios for the next six weeks in Victoria and the implications for the longer term in all of Australia.
This article builds on what he said in late May:
“I think the most likely scenario is one of ongoing clusters of infection and wider outbreaks as we increase the number and range of interactions between people. This will be exacerbated by complacency in the general population. If cases stay low for a number of weeks, it is my view that this increases the risk in the medium term as it is exhausting for people to maintain hygiene and social distancing measures in the face of a threat that does not seem to be materialising.
There are particular risks in regional areas what have experienced little or no disease to date but may get an influx of visitors as restrictions on travel are reduced.
The government response will be to jump on these outbreaks as quickly as possible through testing and contact tracing and some level of shutdown, depending on the scale of the problem. This becomes harder the more interactions there are between people, but I am confident that we can achieve this and not end up experiencing some of the terrible situations in other countries.
The shutdown responses may include:
Shutdowns of individual businesses, organisations and schools as we have already been experiencing.
Wider shutdowns of areas or building types as we have seen in the closure of nightclubs in South Korea.
Wider regional restriction or even imposition/reimposition of state barriers to movement if things start to get out of hand”
You can read it by going to our Home Page and looking under our latest work
What’s Emerging?
Sydney to become home to world's tallest 'hybrid timber' tower
Atlassian plans to build the world's tallest hybrid timber tower for its new headquarters next to Central Station, reshaping the skyline at the southern end of Sydney's CBD.
The 40-storey building will become the centrepiece of the state government-planned tech hub, which will eventually span from Central to near Redfern station… Read more
Electric fire trucks: Volvo Penta unveils “game-changing” electric driveline
Rosenbauer’s Concept Fire Truck and its new electric driveline are currently undergoing intensive testing, and the two companies expect it will soon enter real-world customer testing later this year with fire departments in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Dubai. …. Read more
Networks of self-driving trucks are becoming a reality in the US
The self-driving truck company TuSimple is laying the groundwork for a futuristic autonomous freight industry.…. Read more
ARE GEO-BLOCKED CONCERTS THE FUTURE OF MUSIC?
London-based singer Laura Marling is trying out a novelty: geo-blocked concerts. She and her team have already sold out two major concerts of this variety. On June 6, the Grammy-nominated folk singer played from a chapel in her home city to 4,000 fans in North America; she performed another sold-out concert for viewers in the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe. As with private Zoom calls, ticket holders were emailed custom YouTube links shortly before the show began. Only those accessing the link from specific geographical areas could view the concerts. …. Read more
Top super fund dumps coal miners as emissions cuts intensify
First State Super, which holds $130 billion in retirement savings, is distributing a new climate plan among its members detailing initiatives to shield their money from the threats of global warming, including setting a 30 per cent emissions-reduction target across its investment portfolio by 2023 and a 45 per cent cut by 2030 …. Read more
You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Fujitsu tells 80,000 of its Japan employees: From now on, you work remotely
“For employees in Japan, this latest initiative will mark the end of the conventional notion of commuting to and from offices, while simultaneously granting them a higher degree of autonomy based on the principle of trust,” .…. Read more
Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (ENE-COVID): a nationwide, population-based seroepidemiological study
This is all a bit technical but the key point is that despite all of the disease issues with COVID-19 in Spain there is still only 5% of the population with immunity. That means the population is still highly susceptible and leaves any theory of herd immunity virtually impossible to contemplate.…. Read more
Three projects linking Aboriginal communities and police that are helping to stop more Indigenous people going to jail
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the imprisonment rate for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander men is 4.7 per cent — more than 10 times the rate of the general male population. Three programs in NSW that may offer some answers show that success begins with listening to Aboriginal communities …. Read more
Apple supplier Foxconn to invest $1 billion in India, sources say
Foxconn plans to invest up to $1 billion to expand a factory in southern India where the Taiwanese contract manufacturer assembles Apple iPhones …. Read more
Tyson Turns to Robot Butchers, Spurred by Coronavirus Outbreaks
The pandemic is speeding meatpackers’ shift from human meat cutters to automated ones, but machines can’t yet match people’s ability …. Read more
Groundbreaking report reveals racial bias in English football commentary
Racial bias is a clear and significant problem in English football commentary, according to a groundbreaking study that found players with lighter skin are regularly and overwhelmingly praised for intelligence, work ethic and quality compared with those with darker skin, who are reduced to physical and athletic attributes …. Read more
Inside the Tasmanian village where everyone will be living with dementia
"The colour of the planters [outside homes], the type of tree, the type of cul-de-sac you're in, the colour of my front door, all of those things help to orientate to your home,".Residents will live in households of eight, which Ms O'Flaherty says is based on research findings that small household living is both more familiar and more pleasant for people with dementia than traditional large aged care homes . …. Read more
Amazon reveals plan to build huge robot warehouse in Western Sydney
Construction on the 200,000 square metre robotics fulfilment centre has already begun at Kemps Creek in Sydney's west, close to the under-construction Western Sydney airport.
The advanced storage and distribution facility is expected to create 1,500 warehouse jobs, in addition to 700 jobs during its construction. …. Read more
China study warns of possible new 'pandemic virus' from pigs
A new flu virus found in Chinese pigs has become more infectious to humans and needs to be watched closely in case it becomes a potential “pandemic virus”, a study said, although experts said there is no imminent threat. …… Read more
Business Tips
Following on from last edition there is a lot of interest in new applications and changes in video conference services. Here are a few options for you to think about.
Microsoft’s solution to Zoom fatigue is to trick your brain
. The video conferencing tool for Teams now uses artificial intelligence to take a cutout of your live video image and place it into a fixed position within a setting. Could this be one of the big game changers that eats into Zoom’s lead? It certainly looks like the start of feature wars. …. Read more
mmhmm beta preview
This looks really interesting. It is an application that allows you to present in video conferencing mode a little like comedy shows like SNL and The Daily Show and The Weekly. Parts of it look a little too gimmicky for my liking but it has great promise, again things like these may become features of the big players. You can sign up to be a beta user/tester. …..Read more
Zoom launches Hardware as a Service with multiple vendor options
Zoom Video equips users with video conferencing hardware that allows professionals in conference rooms to easily video call with partners or clients on any device. With Zoom Phone, users receive the same device flexibility and frictionless transfers between desk phones to smartphones to computers. …. Read more