Insights October 13th, 2017

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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 Exponential Minds’ The Future of Self-driving Communities we look at Voyage’s bold step, 6 cyborgs taking it to the next level, a robot helping sick kids get back to school, Tesla’s infrastructure gap, and what it’s like to be a self-driving car.

Voyage’s first self-driving car deployment

We have deployed our first self-driving taxi service at The Villages, a retirement community in San Jose, CA.

This amazing community has over 4,000 residents, 15 miles of challenging road, and tons of points of interest. Residents can summon one of three Voyage self-driving cars, and travel effortlessly and autonomously around the community.

You can read an in-depth article about our deployment in The New York Times, and watch our video below to meet some of our first passengers

Read more at Voyage

The Future is Here: Six Of Today’s Most Advanced, Real-Life Cyborgs

Today, people’s bodies are more perfectly melded with technology than we could have imagined mere decades ago. Superhuman strength, dexterity, and senses are no longer science-fiction — they’re already here.
Though cutting-edge technology offers us a glimpse into the capabilities of enhanced humans in the future, it’s most useful these days as support for people who have been affected by a disability. Cyborg technology can replace missing limbs, organs, and bodily senses. Sometimes, it can even enhance the body’s typical function.
Read more at Futurism

A Robot That Helps Sick Kids Go To School

A rare genetic disorder often prevents 17-year-old Jade Gadd from leaving her house. Denied the normal life most teenagers enjoy, she is unable to go to school regularly and left feeling isolated. Recently, that has all begun to change with the help of a small robot, who takes her physical place in class, relays information and allows her to stay connected with her teachers and classmates (from Bloomberg).

The World Must Spend $2.7 Trillion on Charging Stations for Tesla to Fly

A $2.7 trillion chasm stands between electric vehicles and the infrastructure needed to make them popular.
That’s how much Morgan Stanley says must be spent on building the supporting ecosystem for EVs to reach its forecast of 526 million units by 2040.
The estimate, projected by scaling up Tesla Inc.’s current network of charging stations to assembly plants, shows how infrastructure can be the biggest bottleneck for the industry’s expansion, Morgan Stanley said in a Oct. 9 report.
Read more at Bloomberg

Who Wants To Be A Self Driving Car?

Project from Moovel Labs lets participants experience driving in the perspective of vehicular self-driving tech:

 

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Futurist Keynote Speaker and Consultant - Nikolas Badminton

CEO of EXPONENTIAL MINDS and an award-winning Futurist Speaker, researcher and author. His expertise and thought leadership will guide you from complacency to thinking exponentially, planning for longevity, and encouraging a culture of innovation. You will then establish resiliency and abundance in your organization. Please reach out to discuss how he can help you, and read on to see what is happening in the world this week.

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