Insights November 27th, 2015

Each week Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker, summarizes the top-5 future looking developments and news items that I find to be inspiring, interesting, concerning, or downright strange. Each day I read through dozens of blogs and news websites to find those things that we should be aware of.
Top-5 Futures for November 27th: The Cyberspace Revolution features Jennifer Granick, Wall Street Journal’s Demographic 2050 Destiny, Volvo using Hololens, Tech Tats, and reprogramming the human brain.

The Lifecycle of a Revolution, Jennifer Granick

In the early days of the public internet, we believed that we were helping build something totally new, a world that would leave behind the shackles of age, of race, of gender, of class, even of law. Twenty years on, “cyberspace” looks a lot less revolutionary than it once did. Hackers have become information security professionals. Racism and sexism have proven resilient enough to thrive in the digital world. Big companies are getting even bigger, and the decisions corporations not just governments make about security, privacy, and free speech affect hundreds of thousands, or millions, of people.  Centralization, Regulation, and Globalization are the key words, and over the next twenty years, we’ll see these forces change digital networks and information security as we know it today. So where does that leave security, openness, innovation, and freedom?

Via Blackhat

Wall Street Journal’s Demographic 2050 Destiny

Screen Shot 2015-11-25 at 6.48.25 AM
Via WSJ

Microsoft, Volvo team up to sell cars using Hololens

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Image via Microsoft

People who want to buy a new Volvo in the future may search for the car of their dreams by looking at holographic renderings rather than walking around a physical showroom filled with vehicles.
The Swedish car maker announced a new partnership with Microsoft this week to use the tech giant’s HoloLens augmented reality headset in order to provide a virtual showroom experience to customers. Scott Erickson, a senior director in charge of marketing on the HoloLens team, said in a blog post announcing the deal that it could allow users to examine the interior of a car, or look at its drivetrain in action.
Via PCWorld

Temp tech tattoos can monitor your health and location

Chaotic Moon has developed a technology called “Tech Tats.” They are stick-on tattoos that contain electronic components, including a microcontroller and LED lights. Company CEO Ben Lamm called them “the new wearable” and thinks that they can be a more permanent version of Fitbit and other fitness trackers.
Tech Tats could detect if you’re stressed, monitor your body temp, blood pressure and heart rate, and then transmit all those data through their electroconductive paint.

Via Engadget

Can The Human Brain Be Reprogrammed?

What if you could flip a switch to change someone’s behavior? The key may lie in reprogramming neurons.

Via DNews
See the last 4 week’s Top-5 Futures here:

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Nikolas Badminton is a world-respected futurist speaker that researches, speaks, and writes about the future of work, how technology is affecting the workplace, how workers are adapting, the sharing economy, and how the world is evolving. He appears at conferences in Canada, USA, UK, and Europe. Email him to book him for your radio, TV show, or conference.

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Nikolas Badminton

Nikolas Badminton is the Chief Futurist of the Futurist Think Tank. He is world-renowned futurist speaker, a Fellow of The RSA (FRSA), a media personality, and has worked with over 400 of the world’s most impactful companies to establish strategic foresight capabilities, identify trends shaping our world, help anticipate unforeseen risks, and design equitable futures for all. In his new book – ‘Facing Our Futures’ – he challenges short-term thinking and provides executives and organizations with the foundations for futures design and the tools to ignite curiosity, create a framework for futures exploration, and shift their mindset from what is to WHAT IF…

Contact Nikolas