Our world is changing faster than ever, and technologies like artificial intelligence are transforming our workplaces. Here we look at what that means for future leaders and which leadership skills are becoming essential today.
The blockchain revolution, online gaming and virtual reality are powerful new technologies that promise to change our online experience. After summarizing advances in these hot technologies, we use the collective intelligence of our TechCast Experts to forecast the coming Internet that is likely to emerge from their application.
Here’s what learned:
Security May Arrive About 2027 We found a sharp division of opinion, with roughly half of our experts thinking there is little or no chance that the Internet would become secure — and the other half thinks there is about a 60% probability that blockchain and quantum cryptography will solve the problem at about 2027. After noting the success of Gilder’s previous forecasts, we tend to accept those who agree with Gilder.
Circa 2010
Wound & ulcer microcurrent electrical stimulation electrotherapy device. Treats infection. Accelerated healing. For all wounds & ulcers. Clinic & home use.
In August, the US Air Force Research Laboratory 711th Human Performance Wing launched its iNeuraLS project, an effort to speed up pilot training through brain stimulation.
Some will feel a slight tingling sensation. Others will feel nothing at all.
The electrode placed inside the ear canal isn’t designed to shock. Rather, the US Air Force Research Laboratory (ARFL) believes the earbud-like device, when placed next to the brain’s vagas nerve, will have more of an intellectually stimulating effect. It ought to create moments of super learning, controllable periods of focus that allow pilots to soak up their flight training faster than humanly possible.
Circa 2015
A look at the application of fluctuating magnetic fields, especially the Cells Alive System (CAS), in food refrigeration.
“I was focused on those 10 people up front that were simulating a tactical operation and a little less so on the screens,” McCarthy told reporters the day after the exercise. “The only screens that I really cared about were the lower ones that showed how they were moving the pieces from the battlefield.”
In other words, Project Convergence was not about the boom. It was not about hitting the targets.
Which is good. Because not all of them did.
Magnetic stimulation is helping some people with depression—but the $12,000 treatment is also being unleashed in untested ways.
Circa 2013
“When the induced field is above a certain threshold, and is directed in an appropriate orientation relative to the brain’s neuronal pathways, localized axonal depolarizations are produced, thus activating the neurons in the relevant brain structure.”
First the machine is calibrated by placing it over a part of the brain that causes the subject’s hand to move. Then the coils are aimed at the brain region under treatment. The treatment lasts about 15 to 30 minutes, repeated over several weeks, and is noninvasive–all the person feels is a slight buzzing, and there are no side effects. This makes it a more palatable relative of other treatments that also target the brain directly, such as electroconvulsive therapy (formerly electroshock), or surgically implanted electrodes.
At around 60 million light-years from Earth, the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, NGC 1365, is captured beautifully in this image by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Located in the constellation of Fornax (the Furnace), the blue and fiery orange swirls show us where stars have just formed and the dusty sites of future stellar nurseries.
At the outer edges of the image, enormous star-forming regions within NGC 1365 can be seen. The bright, light-blue regions indicate the presence of hundreds of baby stars that formed from coalescing gas and dust within the galaxy’s outer arms.
This Hubble image was captured as part of a joint survey with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. The survey will help scientists understand how the diversity of galaxy environments observed in the nearby universe, including NGC 1365 and other galaxies such as NGC 2835 and NGC 2775, influence the formation of stars and star clusters. Expected to image over 100,000 gas clouds and star-forming regions beyond our Milky Way, the PHANGS survey is expected to uncover and clarify many of the links between cold gas clouds, star formation, and the overall shape and morphology of galaxies.