Technology is perhaps the greatest agent of change in the modern world. While never without risk,
technological breakthroughs promise innovative solutions to the most pressing global challenges of
our time. From batteries that can provide power to whole villages to microchips that could take the
place of organs in medical research, this year’s 10 emerging technologies offer a vivid glimpse of the
power of innovation to improve lives, transform industries and safeguard our planet.
To compile this list, the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies, a panel
of global experts, draws on the collective expertise of the Forum’s communities to identify the most
important recent technological trends. By doing so, the Meta-Council aims to raise awareness of
their potential and contribute to closing the gaps in investment, regulation and public understanding
that so often thwart progress.
Keynote at the Everything IoT Global Leadership Summit. How combining IoT with Impact Investing can enable a purpose driven world with global impact - climate - food - water security. IoT Climate Impact Framework. Impact Phenomenon. Plus the latest view on the bleeding edge Smart City innovation initiatives.
Copyright and property of Matthew Bailey 2016
Denver Startup Week - How can IoT positively impact Climate Change?Matthew Bailey
Session from Denver Startup Week Sept 2016. How can IoT positively impact Climate Change?
https://www.denverstartupweek.org/schedule/2248-practical-iot-how-will-iot-effect-climate-change
Presentation from a sold out live interactive session with Matthew Bailey (IoT Pioneer), Sherri Hammons (CTO, IQ Navigator), Mark Ende (TeechRiot), Paul Kucera (NCAR/UCAR), JobberTechTalk, CTekCorp
Also proposal for a nationwide IoT Climate Change Framework.
Keynote at the Everything IoT Global Leadership Summit. How combining IoT with Impact Investing can enable a purpose driven world with global impact - climate - food - water security. IoT Climate Impact Framework. Impact Phenomenon. Plus the latest view on the bleeding edge Smart City innovation initiatives.
Copyright and property of Matthew Bailey 2016
Denver Startup Week - How can IoT positively impact Climate Change?Matthew Bailey
Session from Denver Startup Week Sept 2016. How can IoT positively impact Climate Change?
https://www.denverstartupweek.org/schedule/2248-practical-iot-how-will-iot-effect-climate-change
Presentation from a sold out live interactive session with Matthew Bailey (IoT Pioneer), Sherri Hammons (CTO, IQ Navigator), Mark Ende (TeechRiot), Paul Kucera (NCAR/UCAR), JobberTechTalk, CTekCorp
Also proposal for a nationwide IoT Climate Change Framework.
Pioneering the Future: Recent Innovations and New Technology Ideasapurvasawant25
In 2023, technology innovation is reaching new heights. Quantum computing, with its immense processing power, is poised to tackle complex problems in cryptography and materials science. AI continues to advance, with smarter algorithms reshaping industries like healthcare and finance. The widespread adoption of 5G technology promises faster connectivity and unlocks the potential of augmented reality and the Internet of Things. Sustainable energy solutions, from improved solar panels to grid management, are addressing environmental concerns. Biotechnology innovations, such as gene editing and personalized medicine, are transforming healthcare. The year 2023 marks a promising era of tech innovation that's set to redefine our world.
The interconnection of nanodevices with Internet has led to development of a new phase of IoT called Internet of nanothings IoNT . Thus, Internet of nanothings IoNT is essentially the interconnection of nanoscale devices with existing networks. IoNT applications are prevalent everywhere. IoNT has the potential to take medicine, energy, electronics, drug, agriculture, and many other sectors to a whole new dimension. The development of IoNT will have a great impact on almost every field in near future. This paper provides an introduction to the Internet of nanothings, its architecture, applications, benefits, and challenges. Matthew N. O. Sadiku | Nishu Gupta | Sarhan M. Musa "Internet of Nanothings: A Primer" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-6 , October 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd29298.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/electronics-and-communication-engineering/29298/internet-of-nanothings-a-primer/matthew-n-o-sadiku
The Internet of Things will radically transform the ways we interact with our world and control our surroundings.
iMinds insights is a quarterly publication providing you with relevant tech updates based on interviews with academic and industry experts. iMinds is a digital research center and incubator based in Belgium.
Décryptage de l'Internet des objets au travers des 4 axes majeurs de la transformation digitale (Data, Cloud, Mobile, Empowerment). Présentation de l'AWT dans le cadre du Café Numérique spécial "Internet des objets" à Louvain-la-Neuve, le 20 octobre 2014
Revue de presse IoT / Data du 19/03/2017Romain Bochet
Bonjour,
Voici la revue de presse IoT/data/energie du 19 mars 2017.
Cette semaine, Google étend son projet de détection des potentiels toits solaires (à tester !), plusieurs villes qui ne sont pas des hubs de l’innovation se lancent dans des initiatives de smartcity et de 5G. La data des réseaux subit des évolutions dans différents points de vues, d’une fabrication qui met en doute au compteur communicant à l’exploitation (en Chine) en passant par les datacenter Schneider pour traiter les données au plus proche du lieu de leur production.
Bonne lecture et à la semaine prochaine !
Sommaire :
- Bradford City Council, the Internet-of-Things and better public service
- D’un pays à l’autre, les compteurs communicants sont-ils les mêmes ?
- Turin to become Italy’s first 5G city, aims for total deployment by 2020
- Schneider Electric targets IoT and edge apps with micro data centre
- Big data lab to boost digital economy
- Project Sunroof Now Predicting Rooftop Solar Potential In All 50 US States
Throughout history new infrastructures has been added to the existing infrastructures. By dividing infrastructure into different types I aim to highlight Europeans competitiveness in each of them. The infrastructures are bio-, nanoscale-, space-, virtual- and traditional infrastructures. Europe’s possibilities to be forerunners and create and have successful companies working in these infrastructures will be an important factor for our ability to prosper in society and to create new jobs. Infrastructure matters.
MTBiz is for you if you are looking for contemporary information on business, economy and especially on banking industry of Bangladesh. You would also find periodical information on Global Economy and Commodity Markets.
this issue.
Climate Governance Initiative Australia
The AICD is the host of the Climate Governance
Initiative Australia which assists in supporting
our members in meeting the challenges and
opportunities of governing climate change risk.
As host of the Australian Chapter of the Climate
Governance Initiative, our members have
access to a global network of experts in risk
and resilience and to non-executive directors
who are leading their organisations’ governance
response to climate change.
The Climate Governance Initiative (CGI) is an
active and rapidly expanding network of over
20 bodies globally, whose Chapters promote the
World Economic Forum Climate Governance
Principles for boards and effective climate
governance within their jurisdictions. The
principles are set out in Appendix 2 of this guide.
The principles support directors to gain
awareness, embed climate considerations into
board decision making, and understand and act
upon the risks and opportunities that climate
change poses to their organisations.
CGI chapters have already been established
in many comparable countries, including the
UK, US (hosted by the National Association of
Corporate Directors), Canada (hosted by the
Institute of Corporate Directors) and France.
Australian Bushfire
and Climate Plan
Final report of the National Bushfire and Climate Summit 2020
The severity and scale of Australian bushfires
is escalating
Australia’s Black Summer fires over 2019 and 2020
were unprecedented in scale and levels of destruction.
Fuelled by climate change, the hottest and driest year
ever recorded resulted in fires that burned through land
two-and-a-half times the size of Tasmania (more than 17
million hectares), killed more than a billion animals, and
affected nearly 80 percent of Australians. This included
the tragic loss of over 450 lives from the fires and
smoke, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, and
thousands of other buildings.
While unprecedented, this tragedy was not
unforeseen, nor unexpected. For decades climate
scientists have warned of an increase in climaterelated disasters, including longer and more
dangerous bushfire seasons, which have become
directly observable over the last 20 years. Extremely
hot, dry conditions, underpinned by years of reduced
rainfall and a severe drought, set the scene for the
Black Summer crisis.
Recommendations - The 3 Rs - Response,
Readiness and Recovery
There is no doubt that bushfires in Australia have
become more frequent, ferocious and unpredictable
with major losses in 2001/02 in NSW, 2003 in the
ACT, 2013 in Tasmania and NSW, 2018 in Queensland,
2009 Black Saturday Fires in Victoria and 2019/20 in
Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. We are
now in a new era of supercharged bushfire risk, forcing
a fundamental rethink of how we prevent, prepare for,
respond to, and recover from bushfires.
This Australian Bushfire and Climate Plan report
provides a broad plan and practical ideas for
governments, fire and land management agencies
and communities to help us mitigate and adapt to
worsening fire conditions. The 165 recommendations
include many measures that can be implemented right
now, to ensure communities are better protected.
More Related Content
Similar to Top10 Emerging Technologies Report (June 2016)
Pioneering the Future: Recent Innovations and New Technology Ideasapurvasawant25
In 2023, technology innovation is reaching new heights. Quantum computing, with its immense processing power, is poised to tackle complex problems in cryptography and materials science. AI continues to advance, with smarter algorithms reshaping industries like healthcare and finance. The widespread adoption of 5G technology promises faster connectivity and unlocks the potential of augmented reality and the Internet of Things. Sustainable energy solutions, from improved solar panels to grid management, are addressing environmental concerns. Biotechnology innovations, such as gene editing and personalized medicine, are transforming healthcare. The year 2023 marks a promising era of tech innovation that's set to redefine our world.
The interconnection of nanodevices with Internet has led to development of a new phase of IoT called Internet of nanothings IoNT . Thus, Internet of nanothings IoNT is essentially the interconnection of nanoscale devices with existing networks. IoNT applications are prevalent everywhere. IoNT has the potential to take medicine, energy, electronics, drug, agriculture, and many other sectors to a whole new dimension. The development of IoNT will have a great impact on almost every field in near future. This paper provides an introduction to the Internet of nanothings, its architecture, applications, benefits, and challenges. Matthew N. O. Sadiku | Nishu Gupta | Sarhan M. Musa "Internet of Nanothings: A Primer" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-3 | Issue-6 , October 2019, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd29298.pdf Paper URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/electronics-and-communication-engineering/29298/internet-of-nanothings-a-primer/matthew-n-o-sadiku
The Internet of Things will radically transform the ways we interact with our world and control our surroundings.
iMinds insights is a quarterly publication providing you with relevant tech updates based on interviews with academic and industry experts. iMinds is a digital research center and incubator based in Belgium.
Décryptage de l'Internet des objets au travers des 4 axes majeurs de la transformation digitale (Data, Cloud, Mobile, Empowerment). Présentation de l'AWT dans le cadre du Café Numérique spécial "Internet des objets" à Louvain-la-Neuve, le 20 octobre 2014
Revue de presse IoT / Data du 19/03/2017Romain Bochet
Bonjour,
Voici la revue de presse IoT/data/energie du 19 mars 2017.
Cette semaine, Google étend son projet de détection des potentiels toits solaires (à tester !), plusieurs villes qui ne sont pas des hubs de l’innovation se lancent dans des initiatives de smartcity et de 5G. La data des réseaux subit des évolutions dans différents points de vues, d’une fabrication qui met en doute au compteur communicant à l’exploitation (en Chine) en passant par les datacenter Schneider pour traiter les données au plus proche du lieu de leur production.
Bonne lecture et à la semaine prochaine !
Sommaire :
- Bradford City Council, the Internet-of-Things and better public service
- D’un pays à l’autre, les compteurs communicants sont-ils les mêmes ?
- Turin to become Italy’s first 5G city, aims for total deployment by 2020
- Schneider Electric targets IoT and edge apps with micro data centre
- Big data lab to boost digital economy
- Project Sunroof Now Predicting Rooftop Solar Potential In All 50 US States
Throughout history new infrastructures has been added to the existing infrastructures. By dividing infrastructure into different types I aim to highlight Europeans competitiveness in each of them. The infrastructures are bio-, nanoscale-, space-, virtual- and traditional infrastructures. Europe’s possibilities to be forerunners and create and have successful companies working in these infrastructures will be an important factor for our ability to prosper in society and to create new jobs. Infrastructure matters.
MTBiz is for you if you are looking for contemporary information on business, economy and especially on banking industry of Bangladesh. You would also find periodical information on Global Economy and Commodity Markets.
this issue.
Climate Governance Initiative Australia
The AICD is the host of the Climate Governance
Initiative Australia which assists in supporting
our members in meeting the challenges and
opportunities of governing climate change risk.
As host of the Australian Chapter of the Climate
Governance Initiative, our members have
access to a global network of experts in risk
and resilience and to non-executive directors
who are leading their organisations’ governance
response to climate change.
The Climate Governance Initiative (CGI) is an
active and rapidly expanding network of over
20 bodies globally, whose Chapters promote the
World Economic Forum Climate Governance
Principles for boards and effective climate
governance within their jurisdictions. The
principles are set out in Appendix 2 of this guide.
The principles support directors to gain
awareness, embed climate considerations into
board decision making, and understand and act
upon the risks and opportunities that climate
change poses to their organisations.
CGI chapters have already been established
in many comparable countries, including the
UK, US (hosted by the National Association of
Corporate Directors), Canada (hosted by the
Institute of Corporate Directors) and France.
Australian Bushfire
and Climate Plan
Final report of the National Bushfire and Climate Summit 2020
The severity and scale of Australian bushfires
is escalating
Australia’s Black Summer fires over 2019 and 2020
were unprecedented in scale and levels of destruction.
Fuelled by climate change, the hottest and driest year
ever recorded resulted in fires that burned through land
two-and-a-half times the size of Tasmania (more than 17
million hectares), killed more than a billion animals, and
affected nearly 80 percent of Australians. This included
the tragic loss of over 450 lives from the fires and
smoke, more than 3,000 homes were destroyed, and
thousands of other buildings.
While unprecedented, this tragedy was not
unforeseen, nor unexpected. For decades climate
scientists have warned of an increase in climaterelated disasters, including longer and more
dangerous bushfire seasons, which have become
directly observable over the last 20 years. Extremely
hot, dry conditions, underpinned by years of reduced
rainfall and a severe drought, set the scene for the
Black Summer crisis.
Recommendations - The 3 Rs - Response,
Readiness and Recovery
There is no doubt that bushfires in Australia have
become more frequent, ferocious and unpredictable
with major losses in 2001/02 in NSW, 2003 in the
ACT, 2013 in Tasmania and NSW, 2018 in Queensland,
2009 Black Saturday Fires in Victoria and 2019/20 in
Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australia. We are
now in a new era of supercharged bushfire risk, forcing
a fundamental rethink of how we prevent, prepare for,
respond to, and recover from bushfires.
This Australian Bushfire and Climate Plan report
provides a broad plan and practical ideas for
governments, fire and land management agencies
and communities to help us mitigate and adapt to
worsening fire conditions. The 165 recommendations
include many measures that can be implemented right
now, to ensure communities are better protected.
How to work with petroleum hydrocarbon suppliers to reduce and eliminate cont...Turlough Guerin GAICD FGIA
Petroleum hydrocarbon suppliers affect a mine's goals for environmental performance because of the extensive reach of petroleum hydrocarbon products into the mining and minerals product life cycle, their impact on operational efficiencies, cost, and mine viability, and their potential for leaving negative environmental as well as safety legacies. The supplied petroleum hydrocarbon life cycle is a framework that enables structured engagement between supplier and customer on a range of environmental performance issues because it is an example of input into the mining industry that affects the entire mining and minerals processing an value chain. Engagement with suppliers in a proactive manner can be a risk management strategy. Questions for businesses to ask in relation to suppliers and their role in minimizing business risks and creating new value are offered (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/rem.21669).
Governments would get bigger bang for taxpayer
buck by instead spending more on upgrading existing infrastructure,
and on social infrastructure such as aged care and mental health care.
Choosing net zero is
an economic necessity
Australia pays a high price of a global failure
to deliver new growth in recovery. Compared
to this dismal future, Deloitte Access Economics
estimates a new growth recovery could
grow Australia’s economy by $680 billion
(present value terms) and increase GDP
by 2.6% in 2070 – adding over 250,000 jobs
to the Australian economy by 2070.
The world of venture capital has seen huge changes over the past decade. Ten years ago there were fewer than
20 known unicorns in the US5
; there are now over 2006
. Annual investment of global venture capital has increased
more than fivefold over the same period, rising to $264 billion by 2019. This investment has been dominated by the
tech sector harnessing digital frontiers to disrupt traditional industries – including cloud computing, mobile apps,
marketplaces, data platforms, machine learning and deep tech.7
It is an ecosystem that acts as the birthplace for
innovation and brands that can shape the future of consumerism, sectors and markets.
As COVID-19 has taken hold of the
world, the question of whether venture
capital, and early stage investing more
broadly, is backing and scaling the
innovations our world really needs has
never been more pertinent. Life science
and biotech investing is an asset class
perhaps most resilient and relevant to
the short-term impact of COVID-19,
but there is another impact-critical
investment area that is emerging as
an increasingly important investment
frontier: climate tech.
This research represents a first-ofits-kind analysis of the state of global
climate tech investing. We define what
it is and show how this new frontier
of venture investing is becoming a
standout investing opportunity for the
2020s. Representing 6% of global
annual venture capital funding in 2019,
our analysis finds this segment has
grown over 3750% in absolute terms
since 2013. This is on the order of 3
times the growth rate of VC investment
into AI, during a time period renowned
for its uptick in AI investment.8
Looking forward can climate tech in the
2020s follow a similar journey to the
artificial intelligence (AI) investing boom
in the 2010s? The substantial rates of
growth seen in climate tech in the late
2010s, and the overarching need for
new transformational solutions across
multiple sectors of the economy,
suggests yes. The stage appears set
for an explosion of climate tech into the
mainstream investment and corporate
landscape in the decade ahead.
Nine shifts will radically change the way construction projects are delivered—and similar
industries have already undergone many of the shifts. A combination of sustainability
requirements, cost pressure, skills scarcity, new materials, industrial approaches, digitalization,
and a new breed of player looks set to transform the value chain. The shifts ahead include
productization and specialization, increased value-chain control, and greater customercentricity
and branding. Consolidation and internationalization will create the scale needed to
allow higher levels of investment in digitalization, R&D and equipment, and sustainability as well
as human capital.
Sustainable Finance Industry Guide
This industry guide provides information about sustainable finance in the built environment in Australia. It is designed to support investor understanding of Australia’s world-class rating tools and standards, and how these can be applied to direct more capital towards sustainable finance for our built environment. Included are insights that reflect lessons learnt when using a rating scheme to establish an investment framework, conduct
due diligence or report on an issuance.
Precincts to Support the Delivery of Zero Energy
This report frames the physical and organisational context for precinct action and identifies potential programs and government solutions that may be applied to better streamline the realisation of precinct-scale action to progress towards zero energy (and carbon) ready residential buildings within both new and existing precincts.
The report was developed based on a literature review and engagement with more than 80 stakeholders from industry, academia and government with the aim of identifying appropriate government action in the form of proposed solutions that may be applicable across Commonwealth, state and territory and/ or local governments.
The report has given focus to opportunities for precincts that are not already considered in the Trajectory to ensure that a wider system response is taken to considering the zero energy (and carbon) ready outcomes being sought.
When seeking funding, environmental and sustainability professionals must clarify how their role and the proposed project fit within the business' strategy.
This article provides a checklist for those seeking funding for sustainability and environmental projects.
The suggested questions will assist non-executive directors in evaluating sustainability-focused proposals.
GDG Cloud Southlake #33: Boule & Rebala: Effective AppSec in SDLC using Deplo...James Anderson
Effective Application Security in Software Delivery lifecycle using Deployment Firewall and DBOM
The modern software delivery process (or the CI/CD process) includes many tools, distributed teams, open-source code, and cloud platforms. Constant focus on speed to release software to market, along with the traditional slow and manual security checks has caused gaps in continuous security as an important piece in the software supply chain. Today organizations feel more susceptible to external and internal cyber threats due to the vast attack surface in their applications supply chain and the lack of end-to-end governance and risk management.
The software team must secure its software delivery process to avoid vulnerability and security breaches. This needs to be achieved with existing tool chains and without extensive rework of the delivery processes. This talk will present strategies and techniques for providing visibility into the true risk of the existing vulnerabilities, preventing the introduction of security issues in the software, resolving vulnerabilities in production environments quickly, and capturing the deployment bill of materials (DBOM).
Speakers:
Bob Boule
Robert Boule is a technology enthusiast with PASSION for technology and making things work along with a knack for helping others understand how things work. He comes with around 20 years of solution engineering experience in application security, software continuous delivery, and SaaS platforms. He is known for his dynamic presentations in CI/CD and application security integrated in software delivery lifecycle.
Gopinath Rebala
Gopinath Rebala is the CTO of OpsMx, where he has overall responsibility for the machine learning and data processing architectures for Secure Software Delivery. Gopi also has a strong connection with our customers, leading design and architecture for strategic implementations. Gopi is a frequent speaker and well-known leader in continuous delivery and integrating security into software delivery.
Software Delivery At the Speed of AI: Inflectra Invests In AI-Powered QualityInflectra
In this insightful webinar, Inflectra explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming software development and testing. Discover how AI-powered tools are revolutionizing every stage of the software development lifecycle (SDLC), from design and prototyping to testing, deployment, and monitoring.
Learn about:
• The Future of Testing: How AI is shifting testing towards verification, analysis, and higher-level skills, while reducing repetitive tasks.
• Test Automation: How AI-powered test case generation, optimization, and self-healing tests are making testing more efficient and effective.
• Visual Testing: Explore the emerging capabilities of AI in visual testing and how it's set to revolutionize UI verification.
• Inflectra's AI Solutions: See demonstrations of Inflectra's cutting-edge AI tools like the ChatGPT plugin and Azure Open AI platform, designed to streamline your testing process.
Whether you're a developer, tester, or QA professional, this webinar will give you valuable insights into how AI is shaping the future of software delivery.
GraphRAG is All You need? LLM & Knowledge GraphGuy Korland
Guy Korland, CEO and Co-founder of FalkorDB, will review two articles on the integration of language models with knowledge graphs.
1. Unifying Large Language Models and Knowledge Graphs: A Roadmap.
https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.08302
2. Microsoft Research's GraphRAG paper and a review paper on various uses of knowledge graphs:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/graphrag-unlocking-llm-discovery-on-narrative-private-data/
Elevating Tactical DDD Patterns Through Object CalisthenicsDorra BARTAGUIZ
After immersing yourself in the blue book and its red counterpart, attending DDD-focused conferences, and applying tactical patterns, you're left with a crucial question: How do I ensure my design is effective? Tactical patterns within Domain-Driven Design (DDD) serve as guiding principles for creating clear and manageable domain models. However, achieving success with these patterns requires additional guidance. Interestingly, we've observed that a set of constraints initially designed for training purposes remarkably aligns with effective pattern implementation, offering a more ‘mechanical’ approach. Let's explore together how Object Calisthenics can elevate the design of your tactical DDD patterns, offering concrete help for those venturing into DDD for the first time!
Generating a custom Ruby SDK for your web service or Rails API using Smithyg2nightmarescribd
Have you ever wanted a Ruby client API to communicate with your web service? Smithy is a protocol-agnostic language for defining services and SDKs. Smithy Ruby is an implementation of Smithy that generates a Ruby SDK using a Smithy model. In this talk, we will explore Smithy and Smithy Ruby to learn how to generate custom feature-rich SDKs that can communicate with any web service, such as a Rails JSON API.
JMeter webinar - integration with InfluxDB and GrafanaRTTS
Watch this recorded webinar about real-time monitoring of application performance. See how to integrate Apache JMeter, the open-source leader in performance testing, with InfluxDB, the open-source time-series database, and Grafana, the open-source analytics and visualization application.
In this webinar, we will review the benefits of leveraging InfluxDB and Grafana when executing load tests and demonstrate how these tools are used to visualize performance metrics.
Length: 30 minutes
Session Overview
-------------------------------------------
During this webinar, we will cover the following topics while demonstrating the integrations of JMeter, InfluxDB and Grafana:
- What out-of-the-box solutions are available for real-time monitoring JMeter tests?
- What are the benefits of integrating InfluxDB and Grafana into the load testing stack?
- Which features are provided by Grafana?
- Demonstration of InfluxDB and Grafana using a practice web application
To view the webinar recording, go to:
https://www.rttsweb.com/jmeter-integration-webinar
Encryption in Microsoft 365 - ExpertsLive Netherlands 2024Albert Hoitingh
In this session I delve into the encryption technology used in Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Purview. Including the concepts of Customer Key and Double Key Encryption.
Dev Dives: Train smarter, not harder – active learning and UiPath LLMs for do...UiPathCommunity
💥 Speed, accuracy, and scaling – discover the superpowers of GenAI in action with UiPath Document Understanding and Communications Mining™:
See how to accelerate model training and optimize model performance with active learning
Learn about the latest enhancements to out-of-the-box document processing – with little to no training required
Get an exclusive demo of the new family of UiPath LLMs – GenAI models specialized for processing different types of documents and messages
This is a hands-on session specifically designed for automation developers and AI enthusiasts seeking to enhance their knowledge in leveraging the latest intelligent document processing capabilities offered by UiPath.
Speakers:
👨🏫 Andras Palfi, Senior Product Manager, UiPath
👩🏫 Lenka Dulovicova, Product Program Manager, UiPath
DevOps and Testing slides at DASA ConnectKari Kakkonen
My and Rik Marselis slides at 30.5.2024 DASA Connect conference. We discuss about what is testing, then what is agile testing and finally what is Testing in DevOps. Finally we had lovely workshop with the participants trying to find out different ways to think about quality and testing in different parts of the DevOps infinity loop.
The Art of the Pitch: WordPress Relationships and SalesLaura Byrne
Clients don’t know what they don’t know. What web solutions are right for them? How does WordPress come into the picture? How do you make sure you understand scope and timeline? What do you do if sometime changes?
All these questions and more will be explored as we talk about matching clients’ needs with what your agency offers without pulling teeth or pulling your hair out. Practical tips, and strategies for successful relationship building that leads to closing the deal.
State of ICS and IoT Cyber Threat Landscape Report 2024 previewPrayukth K V
The IoT and OT threat landscape report has been prepared by the Threat Research Team at Sectrio using data from Sectrio, cyber threat intelligence farming facilities spread across over 85 cities around the world. In addition, Sectrio also runs AI-based advanced threat and payload engagement facilities that serve as sinks to attract and engage sophisticated threat actors, and newer malware including new variants and latent threats that are at an earlier stage of development.
The latest edition of the OT/ICS and IoT security Threat Landscape Report 2024 also covers:
State of global ICS asset and network exposure
Sectoral targets and attacks as well as the cost of ransom
Global APT activity, AI usage, actor and tactic profiles, and implications
Rise in volumes of AI-powered cyberattacks
Major cyber events in 2024
Malware and malicious payload trends
Cyberattack types and targets
Vulnerability exploit attempts on CVEs
Attacks on counties – USA
Expansion of bot farms – how, where, and why
In-depth analysis of the cyber threat landscape across North America, South America, Europe, APAC, and the Middle East
Why are attacks on smart factories rising?
Cyber risk predictions
Axis of attacks – Europe
Systemic attacks in the Middle East
Download the full report from here:
https://sectrio.com/resources/ot-threat-landscape-reports/sectrio-releases-ot-ics-and-iot-security-threat-landscape-report-2024/
Transcript: Selling digital books in 2024: Insights from industry leaders - T...BookNet Canada
The publishing industry has been selling digital audiobooks and ebooks for over a decade and has found its groove. What’s changed? What has stayed the same? Where do we go from here? Join a group of leading sales peers from across the industry for a conversation about the lessons learned since the popularization of digital books, best practices, digital book supply chain management, and more.
Link to video recording: https://bnctechforum.ca/sessions/selling-digital-books-in-2024-insights-from-industry-leaders/
Presented by BookNet Canada on May 28, 2024, with support from the Department of Canadian Heritage.
3. 3Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Contents
5 Introduction
6 Nanosensors and the Internet of
Nanothings
7 Next Generation Batteries
8 The Blockchain
9 Two Dimensionsional Materials
10 Autonomous Vehicles
11 Organs-on-chips
12 Perovskite Solar Cells
13 Open AI Ecosystem
14 Optogenetics
15 Systems Metabolic Engineering
16 Acknowledgments
5. 5Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Introduction
Technology is perhaps the greatest agent of change in the modern world. While never without risk,
technological breakthroughs promise innovative solutions to the most pressing global challenges of
our time. From batteries that can provide power to whole villages to microchips that could take the
place of organs in medical research, this year’s 10 emerging technologies offer a vivid glimpse of the
power of innovation to improve lives, transform industries and safeguard our planet.
To compile this list, the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies, a panel
of global experts, draws on the collective expertise of the Forum’s communities to identify the most
important recent technological trends. By doing so, the Meta-Council aims to raise awareness of
their potential and contribute to closing the gaps in investment, regulation and public understanding
that so often thwart progress.
Mariette DiChristina,
Editor-in-Chief,
Scientific American;
Vice-chair, Meta-
Council on Emerging
Technologies
Bernard Meyerson,
Chief Innovation
Officer, IBM
Corporation; Chair,
Meta-Council
on Emerging
Technologies
6. 6 Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Nanosensors and the Internet of
Nanothings
Tiny sensors that can connect to
the web
The Internet of Things (IoT), built from inexpensive
microsensors and microprocessors paired with tiny power
supplies and wireless antennas, is rapidly expanding
the online universe from computers and mobile gadgets
to ordinary pieces of the physical world: thermostats,
cars, door locks, even pet trackers. New IoT devices are
announced almost daily, and analysts expected to up to 30
billion of them to be online by 2020.
The explosion of connected items, especially those
monitored and controlled by artificial intelligence systems,
can endow ordinary things with amazing capabilities—a
house that unlocks the front door when it recognizes
its owner arriving home from work, for example, or an
implanted heart monitor that calls the doctor if the organ
shows signs of failing. But the real Big Bang in the online
universe may lie just ahead.
Scientists have started shrinking sensors from millimeters
or microns in size to the nanometer scale, small enough
to circulate within living bodies and to mix directly into
construction materials. This is a crucial first step toward an
Internet of Nano Things (IoNT) that could take medicine,
energy efficiency, and many other sectors to a whole new
dimension.
Some of the most advanced nanosensors to date have
been crafted by using the tools of synthetic biology to
modify single-celled organisms, such as bacteria. The
goal here is to fashion simple biocomputers that use DNA
and proteins to recognize specific chemical targets, store
a few bits of information, and then report their status by
changing color or emitting some other easily detectable
signal. Synlogic, a start-up in Cambridge, Mass., is working
to commercialize computationally enabled strains of
probiotic bacteria to treat rare metabolic disorders. Beyond
medicine, such cellular nanosensors could find many uses in
agriculture and drug manufacturing.
Many nanosensors have also been made from non-
biological materials, such as carbon nanotubes, that can
both sense and signal, acting as wireless nanoantennas.
Because they are so small, nanosensors can collect
information from millions of different points. External devices
can then integrate the data to generate incredibly detailed
maps showing the slightest changes in light, vibration,
electrical currents, magnetic fields, chemical concentrations
and other environmental conditions.
The transition from smart nanosensors to the IoNT seems
inevitable, but big challenges will have to be met. One
technical hurdle is to integrate all the components needed
for a self-powered nanodevice to detect a change and
transmit a signal to the web. Other obstacles include thorny
issues of privacy and safety. Any nanodevices introduced
into the body, deliberately or inadvertently, could be toxic
or provoke immune reactions. The technology could also
enable unwelcome surveillance. Initial applications might
be able to avoid the most vexing issues by embedding
nanosensors in simpler, less risky organisms such as
plants and non-infectious microorganisms used in industrial
processing.
When it arrives, the IoNT could provide much more detailed,
inexpensive, and up-to-date pictures of our cities, homes,
factories—even our bodies. Today traffic lights, wearables or
surveillance cameras are getting connected to the Internet.
Next up: billions of nanosensors harvesting huge amounts of
real-time information and beaming it up to the cloud.
7. 7Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Next Generation Batteries
Making large-scale power storage
possible
Solar and wind power capacity have been growing at
double-digit rates, but the sun sets, and the wind can be
capricious. Although every year wind farms get larger and
solar cells get more efficient, thanks to advances in materials
such as perovskites, these renewable sources of energy still
satisfy less than five percent of global electricity demand.
In many places, renewables are relegated to niche roles
because of the lack of an affordable, reliable technology to
store the excess energy that they make when conditions
are ideal and to release the power onto the grid as demand
picks up. Better batteries could solve this problem, enabling
emissions-free renewables to grow even faster—and making
it easier to bring reliable electricity to the 1.2 billion people
who currently live without it.
Within the past few years, new kinds of batteries have
been demonstrated that deliver high enough capacity
to serve whole factories, towns, or even “mini-grids”
connecting isolated rural communities. These batteries
are based on sodium, aluminium or zinc. They avoid the
heavy metals and caustic chemicals used in older lead-
acid battery chemistries. And they are more affordable,
more scalable, and safer than the lithium batteries currently
used in advanced electronics and electric cars. The newer
technology is much better suited to support transmissions
systems that rely heavily on solar or wind power.
Last October, for example, Fluidic Energy announced an
agreement with the government of Indonesia to deploy 35
megawatts of solar panel capacity to 500 remote villages,
electrifying the homes of 1.7 million people. The system will
use Fluidic’s zinc-air batteries to store up to 250 megawatt-
hours of energy in order to provide reliable electricity
regardless of the weather. In April, the company inked a
similar deal with the government of Madagascar to put 100
remote villages there on a solar-powered mini-grid backed
by zinc-air batteries.
For people who currently have no access to the grid—no
light to work by at night, no Internet to mine for information,
no power to do the washing or to irrigate the crops—the
combination of renewable generation and grid-scale
batteries is utterly transformative, a potent antidote for
poverty. But better batteries also hold enormous promise
for the rich world as it struggles to meet the formidable
challenge of removing most carbon emissions from
electricity generation within the next few decades—and
doing so at the same time that demand for electricity is
growing.
The ideal battery is not yet in hand. The new technologies
have plenty of room for further improvement. But until
recently, advances in grid-scale batteries had been few and
far between. So it is heartening to see the pace of progress
quickening.
8. 8 Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Blockchain–the technology behind the bitcoin digital
currency–is a decentralized public ledger of transactions
that no one person or company owns or controls. Instead,
every user can access the entire blockchain, and every
transfer of funds from one account to another is recorded
in a secure and verifiable form by using mathematical
techniques borrowed from cryptography. With copies of the
blockchain scattered all over the planet, it is considered to
be effectively tamper-proof.
The challenges that bitcoin poses to law enforcement and
international currency controls have been widely discussed.
But the blockchain ledger has uses far beyond simple
monetary transactions. Like the Internet, the blockchain
is an open, global infrastructure upon which other
technologies and applications can be built. And like the
Internet, it allows people to bypass traditional intermediaries
in their dealings with each other, thereby lowering or even
eliminating transaction costs.
By using the blockchain, individuals can exchange money
or purchase insurance securely without a bank account,
even across national borders—a feature that could be
transformative for the two billion people in the world
currently underserved by financial institutions. Blockchain
technology lets strangers record simple, enforceable
contracts without a lawyer. It makes it possible to sell real
estate, event tickets, stocks, and almost any other kind of
property or right without a broker.
The long-term consequences for professional intermediaries,
such as banks, attorneys and brokers, could be profound—
and not necessarily in negative ways, because these
industries themselves pay huge amounts of transaction
fees as a cost of doing business. Analysts at Santander
InnoVentures, for example, have estimated that by 2022,
blockchain technology could save banks more $20 billion
annually in costs.
Some 50 big-name banks have announced blockchain
initiatives. Investors have poured more than $1 billion in the
past year into start-ups formed to exploit the blockchain for
a wide range of businesses. Tech giants such as Microsoft,
IBM and Google all have blockchain projects underway.
Many of these companies are attracted by the potential
to use the blockchain to address the privacy and security
problems that continue to plague Internet commerce.
Because blockchain transactions are recorded using
public and private keys—long strings of characters that
are unreadable by humans—people can choose to remain
anonymous while enabling third parties to verify that they
shook, digitally, on an agreement. And not just people: an
institution can use the blockchain to store public records
and binding promises. Researchers at the University of
Cambridge in the U.K., for example, have shown how drug
companies could be required to add detailed descriptions
of their upcoming clinical drug trials to the blockchain.
This would prevent the companies from later moving the
goalposts if the trial did not pan out as anticipated, an all-
too-common tactic. In London, mayoral candidate George
Galloway has proposed putting the city’s annual budget on
the blockchain ledger to foster collective auditing by citizens.
Perhaps the most encouraging benefit of blockchain
technology is the incentive it creates for participants to work
honestly where rules apply equally to all. Bitcoin did lead to
some famous abuses in trading of contraband, and some
nefarious applications of blockchain technology are probably
inevitable. The technology doesn’t make theft impossible,
just harder. But as an infrastructure that improves society’s
public records repository and reinforces representative and
participatory legal and governance systems, blockchain
technology has the potential to enhance privacy, security
and freedom of conveyance of data—which surely ranks up
there with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Blockchain
A revolutionary decentralized trust
system
9. 9Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
New materials can change the world. There is a reason
we talk about the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. Concrete,
stainless steel, and silicon made the modern era possible.
Now a new class of materials, each consisting of a single
layer of atoms, are emerging, with far-reaching potential.
Known as two-dimensional materials, this class has grown
within the past few years to include lattice-like layers of
carbon (graphene), boron (borophene) and hexagonal boron
nitride (aka white graphene), germanium (germanene),
silicon (silicene), phosphorous (phosphorene) and tin
(stanene). More 2-D materials have been shown theoretically
possible but not yet synthesized, such as graphyne from
carbon. Each has exciting properties, and the various 2-D
substances can be combined like Lego bricks to build still
more new materials.
This revolution in monolayers started in 2004 when two
scientists famously created 2-D graphene using Scotch
tape—probably the first time that Nobel-prize-winning
science has been done using a tool found in kindergarten
classrooms. Graphene is stronger than steel, harder than
diamond, lighter than almost anything, transparent, flexible,
and an ultrafast electrical conductor. It is also impervious
to most substances except water vapor, which flows freely
through its molecular mesh.
Initially more costly than gold, graphene has tumbled in price
thanks to improved production technologies. Hexagonal
boron nitride is now also commercially available and set to
follow a similar trajectory. Graphene has become cheap
enough to incorporate it in water filters, which could make
desalination and waste-water treatment far more affordable.
As the cost continues to fall, graphene could be added
to road paving mixtures or concrete to clean up urban
air—on top of its other strengths, the stuff absorbs carbon
monoxide and nitrogen oxides from the atmosphere.
Other 2-D materials will probably follow the trajectory that
graphene has, simultaneously finding use in high-volume
applications as the cost falls, and in high-value products
like electronics as technologists work out ways to exploit
their unique properties. Graphene, for example, has been
used to make flexible sensors that can been sewn into
garments—or now actually 3-D printed directly into fabrics
using new additive manufacturing techniques. When added
to polymers, graphene can yield stronger yet lighter airplane
wings and bicycle tires.
Hexagonal boron nitride has been combined with graphene
and boron nitride to improve lithium-ion batteries and
supercapacitors. By packing more energy into smaller
volumes, the materials can reduce charging times, extend
battery life, and lower weight and waste for everything from
smart phones to electric vehicles.
Whenever new materials enter the environment, toxicity
is always a concern. It’s smart to be cautious and to
keep an eye out for problems. Ten years of research into
the toxicology of graphene has, so far, yielded nothing
that raises any concerns over its effects on health or the
environment. But studies continue.
The invention of 2-D materials has created a new box of
powerful tools for technologists. Scientists and engineers
are excitedly mixing and matching these ultrathin
compounds—each with unique optical, mechanical
and electrical properties—to produce tailored materials
optimised for a wide range of functions. Steel and silicon,
the foundations of 20th
-century industrialization, look clumsy
and crude by comparison.
Two-Dimensional Materials
“Wonder materials” are becoming
increasingly affordable
10. 10 Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
The rise of the automobile transformed modern society.
It changed where we live, what we buy, how we work,
and who we call friends. As cars and trucks became
commonplace, they created whole classes of jobs and
made other professions obsolete.
We are now on the cusp of an equally transformative
technological shift in transportation: from vehicles driven
by humans to vehicles that drive themselves. The long-
term impact of autonomous vehicles on society is hard to
predict, but also hard to overstate. The only certainty is that
wherever this technology becomes ubiquitous, life will be
different than it was.
Google and other companies have been testing self-driving
cars for several years now, with good success. These
autos process vast amounts of sensory data from on-
board radars, cameras, ultrasonic range-finders, GPS, and
stored maps to navigate routes through ever more complex
and rapidly changing traffic situations without any human
involvement.
Consumer use of vehicles with autonomous capabilities,
however, is just beginning. Adoption will proceed gradually,
through the steady implementation of increasingly intelligent
safety and convenience features in otherwise ordinary cars.
Some models, for example, already offer hands-off parallel
parking, automatic lane-keeping, emergency braking, or
even semi-autonomous cruise control. Last October, Tesla
Motors made available a software package that enables
a limited form of self-driving operation for owners of its
vehicles to download.
This trend is likely to continue as such technology matures
and as legal and regulatory barriers start to fall. A half-
dozen states have already authorized autonomous road
vehicles, and more have plans to do so. Discussions are
well underway among auto insurers and legislators about
how to apportion liability and costs when self-driving cars
get into crashes, as they inevitably will—although it is widely
expected that these cars will prove to be much safer, on
average, than driver-operated cars are today.
There is plenty of room for improvement on that front. In
the United States, crashes and collisions claim more than
30,000 lives and cause some 2.3 million injuries annually.
Self-driving systems may have bugs—the software that runs
them is complicated—but they are free from the myriad
distractions and risk-taking behaviors that are the most
common causes of crashes today. In the near term, semi-
autonomous safety systems that engage only to prevent
accidents, but that otherwise leave the driver in charge, will
also likely reduce the human cost of driving significantly.
Far more profound transformations will follow once cars and
trucks can be trusted to pilot themselves routinely—even
with no one inside. Exclusive car ownership could then
cease to be the necessity of modern living that it is today
for so many people. Shared cars and driverless taxi and
delivery services could become the norm. This transition
might help the aged and infirm—an increasing fraction of
the population—to “age in place” more gracefully. Shared
programmable vehicles could reduce the need for local
parking structures, reduce congestion by preventing
accidents and enabling safe travel at higher speeds and
closer following distances, and unlock numerous secondary
benefits.
Like every technology, autonomous vehicles will involve
drawbacks as well. In some distant day, commercial driving
may no longer be a sustainable career. Shared vehicles
raise some thorny privacy and security concerns. In some
regions, increased affordability of car access may greatly
exacerbate traffic and pollution problems rather than easing
them. But the many benefits of self-driving cars and trucks
are so compelling that their widespread adoption is a
question of when, not if.
Autonomous Vehicles
Self-driving cars coming sooner
than expected
11. 11Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Outside of Hollywood special effects shops, you won’t find
living human organs floating in biology labs. Set aside all
the technical difficulties with sustaining an organ outside the
body—full organs are too precious as transplants to use
in experiments. But many important biological studies and
practical drug tests can be done only by studying an organ
as it operates. A new technology could fill this need by
growing functional pieces of human organs in miniature, on
microchips.
In 2010, Donald Ingber from the Wyss Institute developed
a lung-on-a-chip, the first of its kind. The private sector
quickly jumped in, with companies such as Emulate, headed
by Ingber and others from the Wyss Institute, forming
partnerships with researchers in industry and government,
including DARPA, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency. So far, various groups have reported
success making miniature models of the lung, liver, kidney,
heart, bone marrow, and cornea. Others will certainly follow.
Each organ-on-a-chip is roughly the size of a USB memory
stick. It is made from a flexible, translucent polymer.
Microfluidic tubes, each less than a millimeter in diameter
and lined with human cells taken from the organ of interest,
run in complex patterns within the chip. When nutrients,
blood, and test compounds such as experimental drugs are
pumped through the tubes, the cells replicate some of the
key functions of a living organ.
The chambers inside the chip can be arranged to simulate
the particular structure of an organ tissue, such as a tiny air
sac in a lung. Air running through a channel, for example,
can then very accurately simulate human breathing.
Meanwhile, blood laced with bacteria can be pumped
through other tubes, and scientists can then observe how
the cells respond to the infection, all without any risk to a
person. The technology allows scientists to see biological
mechanisms and physiological behaviors never before seen.
Organ microchips will also give a boost to companies
developing new medicines. Their ability to emulate human
organs allows for more realistic and accurate tests of drug
candidates. Last year, for example, one group used a chip
to mimic the way that endocrine cells secrete hormones into
the blood stream and used this to perform crucial tests on a
diabetes drug.
Other groups are exploring the use of organs-on-chips
in personalized medicine. In principle, these microchips
could be constructed using stems cells derived from the
patients themselves, and then tests could be run to identify
individualized therapies that are more likely to succeed.
There is reason to hope that miniature organs could greatly
reduce the pharmaceutical industry’s reliance on animal
testing of experimental compounds. Millions of animals
are sacrificed each year to such tests, and the practice
provokes heated controversy. Ethical considerations aside,
it has proven to be immensely wasteful—animal trials rarely
provide reliable insights into how humans will react to the
same drug. Tests done on miniaturized human organs might
do better.
Military and biodefence researchers see the potential
for organs-on-chips to save lives in a different way. The
simulated lung, and other devices like it, could be the next
big step in testing responses to biological, chemical or
radiological weapons. It isn’t possible to do this today, for
obvious ethical reasons.
Organs-on-chips
Using chips instead of organs for
medical testing purposes
12. 12 Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
The silicon solar cells that currently dominate the world
market suffer from three fundamental limitations. A
promising new way of making high-efficiency solar cells,
using perovskites instead of silicon, could address all three
at once and supercharge the production of electricity from
sunlight.
The first major limitation of silicon photovoltaic (PV) cells is
that they are made from a material that is rarely found in
nature in the pure, elemental form needed. While there is
no shortage of silicon in the form of silicon dioxide (beach
sand), it takes tremendous amounts of energy to get rid
of the oxygen attached to it. Typically, manufacturers
melt silicon dioxide at 1500–2000 degrees Celsius in an
electrode arc furnace. The energy needed to run such
furnaces sets a fundamental lower limit on the production
cost of silicon PV cells and also adds to the emissions of
greenhouse gases from their manufacture.
Perovskites—a wide-ranging class of materials in which
organic molecules, made mostly of carbon and hydrogen,
bind with a metal such as lead and a halogen such as
chlorine in a three-dimensional crystal lattice—can be
made much more cheaply and with fewer emissions.
Manufacturers can mix up batches of liquid solutions and
then deposit the perovskites as thin films on surfaces of
virtually any shape, no furnace needed. The film itself weighs
very little.
Those features thus eliminate the second big limitation
of silicon solar cells, which is their rigidity and weight.
Silicon PV cells work best when they are flat and housed
in large, heavy panels. But those panels make large-scale
installations very expensive, which is in part why you
typically see them on rooftops and big solar “farms.”
The third major limitation of conventional solar cells is their
power conversion efficiency, which has been stuck at
25 percent for 15 years. When they were first described,
perovskites offered much lower efficiency. In 2009,
perovskite cells made of lead, iodide and methylammonium
converted less than 4 percent of the sunlight that hit them
into electricity. But the pace of improvement in perovskites
has been phenomenal, thanks in part to the fact that
thousands of different chemical compositions are possible
within this class of material. By 2016, perovskite solar-cell
efficiencies were above 20 percent—a five-fold improvement
in just seven years and a stunning doubling in efficiency
within just the past two years. They are now commercially
competitive with silicon PV cells, and the efficiency limits
of perovskites could be far higher still. Whereas silicon
PV technology is now mature, perovskite PVs continue to
improve rapidly.
Researchers still need to answer some important questions
about perovskites, such as how durable they will be when
exposed to years of weathering and how to industrialize
their production to churn out quantities large enough to
compete with silicon wafers in the global market. But even
a relatively small initial supply of these new cells could be
important in bringing solar power to remote locations that
are not yet connected to any electrical grid. When paired
with emerging battery technology, perovskite solar cells
could help transform the lives of 1.2 billion people who
currently lack reliable electricity (see “Next Generation
Batteries page 7”).
Perovskite Solar Cells
Making progress towards
ubiquitous solar power generation
13. 13Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
One of the advantages that CEOs and celebrities have over
ordinary workers is that they don’t need to spend much
time handling the uninteresting, time-consuming aspects
of daily life: scheduling appointments, making travel plans,
searching for the information they want. The elite have PAs,
personal assistants who handle such things. But soon—
maybe even this year—most of us will be able to afford
this luxury for the price of few lattes a month, thanks to the
emergence of an open AI ecosystem.
AI here refers, of course, to artificial intelligence. Apple’s Siri,
Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s OK Google, and Amazon’s
Echo services are nifty in the way that they extract
questions from speech using natural-language processing
and then do a limited set of useful things, such as look for
a restaurant, get driving directions, find an open slot for a
meeting, or run a simple web search. But too often their
response to a request for help is “Sorry, I don’t know about
that” or “here’s what I found on the web.” You would never
confuse these digital assistants for a human PA. Moreover,
these systems are proprietary and hard for entrepreneurs to
extend with new features.
But over the past several years, several pieces of emerging
technology have linked together in ways that make it easier
to build far more powerful, human-like digital assistants—
that is, into an open AI ecosystem. This ecosystem
connects not only to our mobile devices and computers—
and through them to our messages, contacts, finances,
calendars and work files—but also to the thermostat in the
bedroom, the scale in the bathroom, the bracelet on the
wrist, even the car in the driveway. The interconnection
of the Internet with the Internet of Things and your own
personal data, all instantly available almost anywhere via
spoken conversations with an AI, could unlock higher
productivity and better health and happiness for millions of
people within the next few years.
By pooling anonymized health data and providing
personalized health advice to individuals, such systems
should lead to substantial improvements in health and
reductions in the costs of health care. Applications of AI
to financial services could reduce unintentional errors, as
well as intentional (fraudulent) ones—offering new layers of
protection to an aging population.
The secret ingredient in this technology that has been largely
lacking to date is context. Up to now, machines have been
largely oblivious to the details of our work, our bodies,
our lives. A human PA knows when you are interruptible,
stressed, bored, tired or hungry. The PA knows who and
what is important to you, and also what you would prefer
to avoid. AI systems are gaining the ability to acquire
and interpret contextual cues so that they can gain these
skills as well. Although initially these AI assistants will not
outperform the human variety, they will be useful—and
roughly a thousand times less expensive.
Various companies have already demonstrated AI systems
that have some of these capabilities. Microsoft Research
built one that knows when you are too busy to take a call
(and which calls should ring through regardless) and that
automatically schedules meetings at times you would likely
choose yourself. Other companies such as Angel.ai have
introduced services that search for flights that suit your
preferences and constraints based on simple plain-English
requests.
Just as discretion and loyalty are prized among human PAs,
digital versions will succeed only to the extent that we trust
them with our security and privacy. Vendors will no doubt try
to use such systems to influence our purchase choices. We
will have to decide when and whether we are comfortable
with that.
Open AI Ecosystem
From artificial to contextual
intelligence
14. 14 Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Brains—even relatively simple ones like those in mice—
are daunting in their complexity. Neuroscientists and
psychologists can observe how brains respond to various
kinds of stimuli, and they have even mapped how genes are
expressed throughout the brain. But with no way to control
when individual neurons and other kinds of brain cells turn
on and off, researchers found it very difficult to explain how
brains do what they do, at least not in the detail needed to
thoroughly understand—and eventually cure—conditions
such as Parkinson’s disease and major depression.
Scientists tried using electrodes to record neuronal activity,
and that works to some extent. But it is a crude and
imprecise method because electrodes stimulate every
neuron nearby and cannot distinguish among different kinds
of brain cells.
A breakthrough came in 2005, when neurogeneticists
demonstrated a way to use genetic engineering to make
neurons respond to particular colors of light. The technique,
known as optogenetics, built on research done in the 1970s
on pigment proteins, known collectively as rhodopsins and
encoded by the opsin gene family. These proteins work
like light-activated ion pumps. Microbes, lacking eyes, use
rhodopsins to help extract energy and information from
incoming light.
By inserting one or more opsin genes into particular neurons
in mice, biologists are now able to use visible light to turn
specific neurons on or off at will. Over the years, scientists
have tailored versions of these proteins that respond to
distinct colors, ranging from deep red to green to yellow to
blue. By putting different genes into different cells, they use
pulses of light of various colors to activate one neuron and
then several of its neighbours in a precisely timed sequence.
That is a crucial advance because in living brains, timing is
everything. A signal issued at one moment may have the
complete opposite effect from the same signal sent out a
few milliseconds later.
The invention of optogenetics greatly accelerated the pace
of progress in brain science. But experimenters were limited
by the difficulty of delivering light deep into brain tissue. Now
ultrathin, flexible microchips, each one hardly bigger than a
neuron, are being tested as injectable devices to put nerves
under wireless control. They can be inserted deep into a
brain with minimal damage to overlying tissue.
Optogenetics has already opened new doors to brain
disorders, including tremors in Parkinson’s disease, chronic
pain, vision damage and depression. The neurochemistry
of the brain is clearly important for some brain conditions,
which is why drugs can help improve symptoms—up to a
point. But where the high-speed electrical circuitry of the
brain is also disturbed, optogenetic research, especially
when enhanced by emerging wireless microchip technology,
could offer new routes to treatment. Recent research
suggests, for example, that in some cases non-invasive light
therapy that shuts down specific neurons can treat chronic
pain, providing a welcome alternative to opoids.
With mental disorders affecting one in four people globally
and psychiatric diseases a leading source of disability,
the better understanding of the brain that advanced
optogenetics will provide cannot come soon enough.
Optogenetics
Using light to control genetically
modified neurons
15. 15Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Trace the products we buy and use every day—from
plastics and fabrics to cosmetics and fuels—back to their
origins, and you’ll find that the vast majority were made
using stuff that came from deep underground. The factories
that make the products of modern life do so, by and large,
out of chemicals of various kinds. And those chemicals
come from plants powered primarily by fossil fuels that
transform feedstocks—also mainly petrochemicals—into
myriad other compounds.
It would be much better for the climate, and possibly
better for the global economy as well, to make many of the
chemical inputs to industry from living organisms instead of
from oil, gas, and coal. We already use agricultural products
in this way, of course—we wear cotton clothes and live
in wooden houses—but plants are not the only source of
ingredients. Microbes arguably offer even more potential,
in the long term, to make inexpensive materials in the
incredible variety of properties that we now take for granted.
Rather than digging the raw materials of modern life from
the ground, we can instead “brew” them in giant bioreactors
filled with living microorganisms.
For bio-based chemical production to really take off, it must
compete with conventional chemical production on both
price and performance. This goal now seems within reach,
thanks to advances in systems metabolic engineering, a
discipline that tweaks the biochemistry of microbes so that
more of their energy and resources go into synthesizing
useful chemical products. Sometimes the tweaks involve
changing the genetic makeup of the organism, and
sometimes it involves more complex engineering of
microbial metabolism and brewing conditions as a system.
With recent advances in synthetic biology, systems biology,
and evolutionary engineering, metabolic engineers are
now able to create biological systems that manufacture
chemicals that are hard to produce by conventional
means (and thus expensive). In one recent successful
demonstration, microbes were customized to make PLGA
[poly(lactate-co-glycolate)], an implantable, biodegradable
polymer used in surgical sutures, implants, and prosthetics,
as well as in drug delivery materials for cancer and
infections.
Systems metabolic engineering has also been used to
create strains of yeast that make opioids for pain treatment.
These drugs are widely needed in the world, and in
particular in the developing world, where pain is insufficiently
managed today.
The range of chemicals that can be made using metabolic
engineering is widening every year. Although the technique
is not likely to replicate all of the products currently made
from petrochemicals, it is likely to yield novel chemicals
that could never be made affordably from fossil fuels—in
particular, complex organic compounds that currently are
very expensive because they must be extracted from plants
or animals that make them in only tiny amounts.
Unlike fossil fuels, chemicals made from microbes are
indefinitely renewable and emit relatively little greenhouse
gas—indeed, some could potentially even serve to reverse
the flow of carbon from Earth to atmosphere by absorbing
carbon dioxide or methane and incorporating it into
products that are eventually buried as solid waste.
As biochemical production scales up to large industrial
use, it will be important to avoid both competing with food
production for land use and also accidental releases of
engineered microorganisms into the environment. Although
these highly engineered microbes will likely be at a great
disadvantage in the wild, it’s best to keep them safely in their
tanks, happily working away at making useful stuff for the
benefit of humanity and the environment.
Systems Metabolic Engineering
Chemicals from renewable sources’
microorganisms
16. 16 Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2016
Acknowledgments
Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies
Bernard Meyerson (Chair)
Chief Innovation Officer, IBM Corporation
Mariette DiChristina (Vice-Chair)
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific American
Noubar Afeyan
Managing Partner and Chief Executive Officer, Flagship
Ventures
Nayef Al-Rodhan
Honorary Fellow, St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford
Jeffrey Carbeck
Specialist Leader, Advanced Materials and Manufacturing,
DC Innovations, Deloitte
George Chen Guodiang
Professor, School of Life Sciences, Tsinghua University
Liam Condon
Chief Executive Officer, Bayer CropScience
Lee Sang Yup
Distinguished Professor, Director and Dean, Korea
Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Geoffrey Ling
Director, Biological Technologies Office, DARPA
Henry Markram
Professor, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
(EPFL)
Kiyoshi Matsuda
Chief Innovation Officer, Corporate Strategy Office,
Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corporation
Andrew D. Maynard
Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society,
Arizona State University
Apurv Mishra
Founder, Glavio Wearable Computing
Robert Pepper
Vice-President, Global Technology Policy, Cisco
Françoise Roure
Senior National Adviser, National Advisory Board on
Industry, Energy and Technologies, Ministry of Finances and
Public Accounts of France
Leila Takayama
Senior Researcher, Google
Zhang Dongxiao
Dean and Chair Professor, College of Engineering, Peking
University
Report Team (World Economic Forum)
Fernando Gomez
Head of Chemistry and Advanced Materials, Basic and
Infrastructure Industries
Rigas Hadzilacos
Meta-Council Manager, Specialist, Knowledge Network and
Analysis
Production Team
Mike Hanley
Head of Digital Communications, Member of the Executive
Committee, Digital Content and Editing
Oliver Cann
Head of Media Content, Media Relations
Ceri Parker
Commissioning Editor, Digital Content and Editing
Floris Landi
Graphic Designer, Publications
Special Thanks to:
Javier Garcia-Martinez
Professor, University of Alicante
Global Agenda Council on Nanotechnology
Wayt Gibbs
Contributing editor, Scientific American
Tim Harper
Chief Executive Officer, G2O Water
Global Agenda Council on Nanotechnology
Corinna Lathan
Founder and Chief Executive Officer, AnthroTronix
Global Agenda Council on Artificial Intelligence & Robotics
Mihaela Ulieru
Research Professor, Carleton University
Global Agenda Council on Data-Driven Development
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