What's Emerging September 2020
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy
Introduction
Welcome to our end of September newsletter.
Firstly an apology for this newsletter being late. Last week was a week of multiple deadlines and we just could not get to the newsletter.
In the next few weeks, Paul will be working on a platform strategy in the cleaning industry. He is also working on a community vision project for a Melbourne Council, and creating a consortium in the Not for Profit sector to assist in the “Build it Back Better” movement. He is also participating in a working group with the Leading Edge Forum in the UK looking at the industrialisation of robots. He will be presenting to The Vet Expo in Sydney, and TAFE Boards and directors via the VDC. He will also be participating in Map Camp in the UK to improve his skills in Wardley Mapping and receiving training in the Haier model of management with Boundaryless.
If any of this interests you or you want to talk about the use of foresight in your strategy then please Contact Us
The Emergent Futures Team
In case you missed it. The most popular link from the last edition:
Actually the most popular link was on how to build your own lightboard for presentations with 20% of people clicking on it. However seeing as this was also the most popular link in the previous edition and more than 1/3 of subscribers had already looked at it we replaced it. Here is the link in case you still wanted to look at it.
What are we Writing About?
Paul’s presentation to Samvaad India is now up. It is about what the not for profit sector might be able to learn from China and platform strategies. You can go to our HOME PAGE to see the presentation under our latest work.
What’s Emerging?
Consumer IoT is broken and our stupid optimism is to blame
The greatest challenge for connected device companies is the ongoing cost of operating those devices. Mellow, the maker of a connected sous vide machine has roughly $4,000 in monthly costs associated with the device and those costs go up the more people use it. And that doesn’t include the ongoing costs associated with having a developer update the Android and iOS apps. .…. Read More
Australian flying car racing series to feature “virtual force fields”
Airspeeder, the performance electric flying car racing series planned for South Australia, has secured a strategic partnership with cyber security firm Acronis, a major supporter of the Formula One racing series in a high-tech deal that will enable the racing series to fly with “virtual force fields”.
The Airspeeder racing league is planned to commence in 2021, and has been described by pundits as the “Formula One of the skies”..…. Read more
BP projects peak oil demand is very close or already happened
Global oil consumption is slated to plateau early this decade even without vastly stronger measures to combat climate change, BP said in a new analysis. BP now sees this moment arriving a decade sooner than last year's version of their long-term outlook for oil-and-gas, coal, renewables, cars and more. .…. Read more
Lab-grown bone could change the way we test new medical treatments
The study, led by researchers from the University’s Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Insigneo Institute for in silico Medicine, along with collaborators from Universitat Ramon Llull, Spain, developed a bone-on-a-chip device containing mini scaffolding that can be used to grow human bone tissue in the laboratory.
The field of organ-on--chip aims to create small devices that contain miniature versions of organs such as bone, liver or lungs in the laboratory ….. Read more
Microsoft's underwater data centre resurfaces after two years
Two years ago, Microsoft sank a data centre off the coast of Orkney in a wild experiment.
That data centre has now been retrieved from the ocean floor, and Microsoft researchers are assessing how it has performed, and what they can learn from it about energy efficiency..…. Read more
Israeli Scientists Develop Mapping System for Blind Pedestrians
The study, published in the journal Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, examined the possibility of using OpenStreetMap to map spatial data relevant to blind pedestrians while calculating optimized walking routes. …. Read more
Swedes to build wind-powered transatlantic cargo ship
A Swedish consortium including the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, maritime consultancy SSPA, and lead by ship designers Wallenius Marine has developed the wind Powered Car Carrier, or wPCC for short. …. Read more
New child and youth mortality estimates show dramatic reductions, but progress is threatened by impact of COVID-19
There have been dramatic reductions in child and youth mortality over the last 29 years. Globally, under-five mortality has dropped by 59% since 1990—from 93 deaths per 1,000 live births then to 38 deaths in 2019. Mortality among 5-14-year-olds declined by 54% from 15 deaths per 1,000 to 7 deaths, and among 15-24-year-olds by 34% from 17 deaths per 1,000 to 11 deaths …. Read more
'Biohackers' TV series stored on synthetic DNA
The first episode of the newly released series "Biohackers" was stored in the form of synthetic DNA. This was made possible by the research of Prof. Reinhard Heckel of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and his colleague Prof. Robert Grass of ETH Zürich.They have developed a method that permits the stable storage of large quantities of data on DNA for over 1000 years..…. Read more
Unstaffed, digital supermarkets transform rural Sweden
The Lifvs start-up has opened 19 stores across the country, choosing remote places that have lost their local shops….Read more
Airbus reveals 'zero emission' commercial aircraft concepts
The world's first zero-emission commercial aircraft could enter service by 2035, Airbus says.…. Read more
South Korea, Singapore, Germany Lead BNEF Ranking of Top Digitalization Markets
BNEF’s annual ranking highlights the top countries for industrial digital transformation and technology development, taking into account policy, technology, investment, education levels, venture funding and more. …. Read more
Japan’s 60-Foot-Tall ‘Gundam’ Robot Can Now Walk, Kneel, and Turn Its Head
The impressive robot is based on the popular Gundam character that debuted in Yoshiyuki Tomino’s and Sunrise’s anime series, Mobile Suit Gundam, in 1979. Gundam Factory Yokohama has been working on the robot since January 2020, and hoped to finish it in tandem with the opening of Gundam Factory amusement park, which was scheduled for October 2020. However, due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, the opening has been delayed indefinitely and the RX-78 Gundam robot will remain at the Port of Yokohama for about a year…..Read more
ROBOTS AND HUMANS CAN WORK TOGETHER TO MASTER AN ANCIENT SPORT
In a new study published in Science Robotics, researchers describe how a robot named Curly defeated human teams in curling, three matches to one. But rather than feel inferior to our artificially intelligent competitors, take heart — Curly is also an example of how humans and machines might one day work together. .… Read more
Business Tips
Make tracking your work easier than ever with Tables
I am always interested when Google release tools that it has developed to solve internal problems. Here is one worth looking at for project management (Paul)….. Read More
Microsoft Teams gets breakout rooms, custom layouts and virtual commutes
Paul : part of the ongoing features battle which I think means Teams will beat Zoom, especially in the enterprise space. There is space for both of them but in my view Zoom will lose market share.….. Read more
How to be an introverted leader
A useful piece for both introverted leaders and people who lead teams that have introverts in them…. Read more
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