What's Emerging mid-March 2024
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy.
Welcome to our mid-March Newsletter
In the next few weeks Paul will be working on the strategy consultation process with RSL Victoria and working with a Melbourne Council. He will also be facilitating an economic development workshop in Canberra and presenting to an economic development conference in Western Australia. He will also continue in his role of venture philanthropy organisation Social Venture Partners Melbourne that is conducting a wide-ranging strategy review in March (stand by for news from that).
If you are interested in talking to us about any of our strategy approaches, foresight approaches, workshops, or conference presentations for next year, please Contact Us.
The Emergent Futures Team
In case you missed it. The most popular link from the last edition was again one of our business tips:
Two keys to go from being busy to becoming productive and having guilt-free time for your personal life
These two scheduling methods can help you get deep work done and have guilt-free time for things you enjoy outside of work.....…. Read More
What are we Writing About?
Paul’s presentation to the The CEO Institute in Melbourne on Foresight for Practical Strategy is now up on our website. You can look at it by going to our home page and looking under our latest work.
What’s Emerging
Fierce rivals Honda and Nissan join forces to take on Chinese car makers
The announcement by the two arch-rival firms has been described by experts as an attempt to catch up with EV competitors, particularly from China, after years of Japanese car companies focusing on hybrid vehicles.........…..Read More
Avoiding fusion plasma tearing instability with deep reinforcement learning
For stable and efficient fusion energy production using a tokamak reactor, it is essential to maintain a high-pressure hydrogenic plasma without plasma disruption. Therefore, it is necessary to actively control the tokamak based on the observed plasma state, to manoeuvre high-pressure plasma while avoiding tearing instability, the leading cause of disruptions. This presents an obstacle-avoidance problem for which artificial intelligence based on reinforcement learning has recently shown remarkable performance. Paul: While I have been generally sceptical around the current AI hype there are some great applications of AI occurring. This is just one.......…..Read More
How the Pentagon Learned to Use Targeted Ads to Find Its Targets—and Vladimir Putin
Meet the guy who taught US intelligence agencies how to make the most of the ad tech ecosystem, "the largest information-gathering enterprise ever conceived by man."........…..Read More
Epigenetics opens new pathway to producing climate-resilient crops
Rather than altering the genetic code itself, epigenetics studies the changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression. Genetically, nothing has changed in the plant, only the mechanism for how it reacts has been altered. The potential is extraordinary. Not only would growers benefit but this new branch of science could quell consumer and export concerns about genetic modifications and even enhance trade............……. Read more
Bad news for skiers as snow season could shrink by 78% this century
German researcher Veronika Mitterwallner and her colleagues show average annual snow-cover days may decline by 78% in the Australian Alps and 51% in the Southern Alps of Aotearoa New Zealand (under a high-emissions scenario) by 2071–2100. Worldwide, they found 13% of ski areas will lose all natural snow cover by the end of the century.......……. Read More
CSIRO achieves record efficiency for next-gen roll-to-roll printed solar cells
CSIRO’s Renewable Energy Systems Group Leader, Dr Anthony Chesman, said the achievement was the result of more than a decade’s research and development. “CSIRO’s thin and light-weight solar cells are now on the cusp of emerging from the lab to create clean energy in the real world,” Dr Chesman said. “We’ve solved several engineering problems to achieve record results across a large surface area of interconnected modules. .....…..Read more
VFACTS 2023: The best-selling hybrids and plug-in hybrids in Australia
More than 1.2 million new cars were sold in Australia throughout 2023, with almost 110,000 of these being hybrid or plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicles.Last year was a record one for both hybrids and PHEVs, as the 98,439 hybrids bettered the previous year’s record by 20 per cent when 81,816 were sold. Paul: I am a little surprised about the level of hybrid sales given where we are with electric cars........…..Read more
China’s green steel push could crush Australia’s dirty iron ore exports
Australia’s largest export, iron ore, has long been a powerhouse of economic growth. Over the past two decades, its contribution to our national income has surged from just A$8 billion in 2005 to over A$124 billion today. But the Australian iron ore industry faces a major challenge as its biggest customers – China’s steel mills – move to drastically reduce their carbon footprint......….. Read more
US surgeons transplant a gene-edited pig kidney into a patient for the first time
The patient, Richard "Rick" Slayman of Weymouth, Massachusetts, is recovering well from the surgery last Saturday and is expected to be discharged soon, doctors said on Thursday. Transplant surgeon Tatsuo Kawai said the team believed the pig kidney would work for at least two years.……. Read more
Introducing Devin, the first AI software engineer
A ChatGPT for Music Is Here. Inside Suno, the Startup Changing Everything
’M JUST A soul trapped in this circuitry.” The voice singing those lyrics is raw and plaintive, dipping into blue notes. A lone acoustic guitar chugs behind it, punctuating the vocal phrases with tasteful runs. But there’s no human behind the voice, no hands on that guitar. There is, in fact, no guitar. In the space of 15 seconds, this credible, even moving, blues song was generated by the latest AI model from a startup named Suno. Paul: The demo is very good……..Read more
Nigerian businesses increasingly skip traditional banks and turn to Moniepoint
Chidi Ebule keeps at least 10 payment machines on the check-out counter of his grocery store in Lagos, so his customers can use cards from any bank or fintech company they prefer. But in recent months, he has needed to use only one machine for most transactions: the one provided by local fintech major Moniepoint.............….….Read more
China's food delivery market explodes to $208bn as workers scrape by
Food delivery services in China exploded in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Even now that restrictions have been lifted, the convenience of paying a 5 yuan delivery fee to get food delivered in about 30 minutes has allowed the trend to take root. China's food delivery market reached 1.5 trillion yuan in 2023, 2.3 times the size in 2020, according to estimates by Guangzhou-based iiMedia Research. Guolian Securities projects that the market could exceed 2.2 trillion yuan by 2030.....….…Read more.
BYD launches cheaper Seagull electric car with starting price under $10,000 to fuel price war
BYD kicked off a price war with gas-powered cars last month with the launch of its Qin Plus EV, starting at $15,200 (see our last newsletter). The Chinese automaker said the new EV officially opened “a new era of electricity is lower than oil. “.The DM-i model (PHEV) is even cheaper, starting at 79,800 yuan ($11,000) with up to 74 mi (120 km) NEDC all-electric range. The EV version is offered with either a 48 kWh or 57.6 kWh battery pack for up to 261 mi (420 km) or 316 mi (510 km) CLTC range, respectively.....… Read more.
Swarms of AI "killer robots" are the future of war
Swarms of self-guided automated weapons systems will fight future wars. What will they decide to do?....……...… Read more.
Business and Other Tips
Amazon selling partners can now access even more generative AI features to create high-quality product listings
Amazon is continuing to innovate on how it helps sellers succeed by giving them the option to provide a URL to their own website and leverage a new generative AI capability to easily create high-quality product detail pages in Amazon’s store....…..read more
The best VPN services of 2024: Expert tested and reviewed
Using a VPN is critical when traveling or using the internet in a public place like a coffee shop to keep your data secure and prevent anyone else on the network from stealing your passwords or eavesdropping on your activity. VPNs are also great for streaming because they unlock access (in some cases, with dubious legality) to content and sports unavailable in a user's location....…. Read More
10 Insider Tips to Raise General Operating Support for Not for Profits
While many foundations and donors loosened restrictions on giving during the pandemic, it’s still unclear whether that trend will continue. Yet the costs of running a nonprofit, and holding onto talented staff, keep rising.……Read More
Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month
the numbers speak for themselves:
The AI assistant has had 2.3 million conversations, two-thirds of Klarna’s customer service chats
It is doing the equivalent work of 700 full-time agents
It is on par with human agents in regard to customer satisfaction score
It is more accurate in errand resolution, leading to a 25% drop in repeat inquiries
Customers now resolve their errands in less than 2 mins compared to 11 mins previously
Please forward this email to anyone you think might be interested in it, and they can subscribe using the button below. Or contact us directly if you want to discuss any of the issues.
Thanks for reading What's Emerging! Subscribe for free to receive new posts twice a month.