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Future Trends: Wearables, eSports, and Mars

Insights May 27th, 2016

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 he reads through dozens of blogs and news websites to find those things that we should be aware of.
In Future Trends: Wearables, eSports, and Mars we look at the trends that we should be aware of today, May 27th, 2016.

The future of wearable technologies

Technology has been always crucial to the development of fashion, but as technology improves and advances, it is being more and more closely integrated into our clothing.
Wearable technologies currently exist in two spaces – as conceptual pieces by artisan designers, and as engineering driven wearable products that are taken to market. But, as Danielle Wilde explains, the future for wearable technologies lies in creating products with expressive aesthetic qualities that can be taken to market.
Danielle Wilde is a visiting research Fellow, Centre for Smart Materials and Performance Textiles at RMIT University.

NASA is building the next Mars rover in mixed reality

poked my head inside NASA’s latest Mars rover. During a mixed-reality demonstration at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, as soon as I strapped on a HoloLens, a vibrant holographic vehicle popped up in front of me.
I walked around a model of the next-gen rover, which was only visible to the headset wearers in the room, before crouching down for close inspection. As I leaned in to look at one of the corners, the spacecraft’s platinum-gray exterior disappeared to reveal a set of neatly aligned internal parts. As I continued to inch forward, my movement kept peeling away the layers of the rover until I could see the floor beneath my feet again.
The ability to investigate the design of NASA’s latest spacecraft, which is being engineered for the next mission to Mars in 2020, makes ProtoSpace a unique use for Microsoft’s augmented-reality headset. The project enables JPL designers and engineers to not only visualize their designs as virtual 3-D objects, but also pinpoint potential problems that could affect space missions along the way.

Via Engadget

West Ham becomes first English Premiership football club to sign an e-sports player

West Ham United has become the first football team in the U.K. to embrace e-sports afterthe club signed pro gamer and World Cup runner-up Sean Allen, aka Dragonn.
Market research firm Newzoo tipped the global e-sports market to reach $463 million this year and grow to surpass $1 billion before 2020, and, while the English Premiership is one of the most visible sports franchises globally, few teams have forayed into digital sports.
Allen lost in last year’s FIFA interactive World Cup final but has qualified for every ranking FIFA e-sports event this year. The 24-year-old has taken West Ham squad number 50, and will wear the club’s shirt while representing them at professional tournaments.
Via TechCrunch

Law enforcement: Retrieval and redaction of body-worn camera video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bBZCHJUzMg
Via IBM Analytics

Robert Reich – Into the World of Work

Did you ever wish Robert Reich was your commencement speaker? Come into his last class of the year and find out what young people need to know as they enter the world of work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAUU4VjeiDU
Via Inequality Media

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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