Trends Identified
Web/internet: 'Quantum computing is the future'
The open web created by idealist geeks, hippies and academics, who believed in the free and generative flow of knowledge, is being overrun by a web that is safer, more controlled and commercial, created by problem-solving pragmatists. Henry Ford worked out how to make money by making products people wanted to own and buy for themselves. Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs are working out how to make money from allowing people to share, on their terms. Facebook and Apple are spawning cloud capitalism, in which consumers allow companies to manage information, media, ideas, money, software, tools and preferences on their behalf, holding everything in vast, floating clouds of shared data. We will be invited to trade invasions into our privacy – companies knowing ever more about our lives – for a more personalised service. We will be able to share, but on their terms. Julian Assange and the movement that has been ignited by WikiLeaks is the most radical version of the alternative: a free, egalitarian, open and public web. The fate of this movement will be a sign of things to come. If it can command broad support, then the open web has a chance to remain a mainstream force. If, however, it becomes little more than a guerrilla campaign, then the open web could be pushed to the margins, along with national public radio. By 2035, the web, as a single space largely made up of webpages accessed on computers, will be long gone. As the web goes mobile, those who pay more will get faster access. We will be sharing videos, simulations, experiences and environments, on a multiplicity of devices to which we'll pay as much attention as a light switch. Yet, many of the big changes of the next 25 years will come from unknowns working in their bedrooms and garages. And by 2035 we will be talking about the coming of quantum computing, which will take us beyond the world of binary, digital computing, on and off, black and white, 0s and 1s. The small town of Waterloo, Ontario, which is home to the Perimeter Institute, funded by the founder of BlackBerry, currently houses the largest collection of theoretical physicists in the world. The bedrooms of Waterloo are where the next web may well be made.
2011
20 predictions for the next 25 years
The Guardian
Technology and science: rapid, rapid change
The pace of technological and scientific innovation will increase. Computers will become smaller, faster, and cheaper, which means that more people, in both developed and developing countries, will be connected via the Internet. Mobile phone technology, now the dominant tool of communication in many regions, will reach close to global coverage in the coming generation.22 Technologies will become more than repositories of knowledge: they will be increasingly smarter, more autonomous, and more anthropomorphic, with voice- and gesture-based commands.
2011
Megatrends and the future of humanitarian action
International Review of the Red Cross
Accelerating technological change
The pace of technological change is accelerating. The shifts in technological paradigms that once were separated by centuries or millennia — such as the development of agriculture or the industrial revolutions based on steam and then electric power — are now occurring within a single lifetime. Indeed, the pace at which new technologies are being adopted by the market and used in society has rocketed over the past century and a half. In the early 1900s, it took more than 30 years for a quarter of the US population to adopt telephones and radios — but more recently, the World Wide Web reached this level in only seven years.
2015
Assessment of global megatrends - an update
European Environment Agency (EEA)
Health
The past century has delivered remarkable advances in health, as is illustrated by the increase of 4.7 years (male) and 5.1 years (female) to the average global life expectancy at birth between 1990 and 2010. However, translating public health knowledge into practice has been fragmented and fraught with difficulty. Whilst biomedical technology and capacity to enhance the quality of health care and prevention have improved significantly, access to health care remains vastly lopsided, with the poor and disadvantaged suffering a disproportionate burden of illness and disease.
2013
Now for the long term - The Report of the Oxford Martin Commission for Future Generations
Oxford Martin School
Governments enhance ties with the private sector
The past year has been one of readjustment between developed and emerging economies, between the public and private sectors and between global institutions and nations. These adjustments will continue as governments, organizations and institutions define their roles in the post-crisis world.
2011
Tracking global trends - How six key developments are shaping the business world
EY
New geopolitical tensions
The past year has seen a complete upset of our geopolitics’ fragile balance. That could make the global stability of the next couple of decades a complete question mark. North Korean missile launches. Thousands of refugees crossing borders to flee turmoil. Hackers meddling in other nations’ elections. Rising nationalist sentiment worldwide. Headlines in 2016 (and so far, 2017) have been dominated by never-ending political drama that’s been fuelling a ‘geopolitical minefield’ and an ‘unprecedented geopolitical shift’ – whether it’s managing unpredictable North Korea, the plight of Syrian refugees, or Britain’s transition from the European Union. Throw in widespread hacking, nuclear missiles and other dangerous technology, and it’s easy to see why maintaining basic diplomacy becomes vital.
2017
10 grand challenges we’ll face by 2050
The BBC
Access to Information
The pervasiveness of ICT will enable more people to access and exploit sophisticated networks of information systems. For example, in 2007 there were 280 million mobile phone subscribers in Africa, a penetration rate of 30.4%. This number is expected to rise to 50% by 2012 and may result in total coverage in as little as 10 years.162 The Internet and associated technologies, together with digitised portable communications, will increasingly become the means by which a rapidly expanding array of audio, visual and written information products are distributed.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Digital–physical blur: Extending intelligence to the edge
The physical world is coming online as objects, devices, and machines acquire more digital intelligence. What’s emerging is more than just an “Internet of Things”; it’s a new layer of connected intelligence that augments the actions of individuals, automates processes, and incorporates digitally empowered machines into our lives, increasing our insight into and control over the tangible world. There are benefits for consumers and businesses. Consumers become better informed and better equipped to influence the ways they experience everything around them. And businesses get real-time connections to the physical world that allow machines as well as employees to act and react faster—and more intelligently.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture
Next-generation robotics
The popular imagination has long foreseen a world where robots take over all manner of everyday tasks.This robotic future has stubbornly refused to materialize, however, with robots still limited to factory assembly lines and other controlled tasks. Although heavily used (in the automotive industry, for instance) these robots are large and dangerous to human co-workers; they have to be separated by safety cages. Advances in robotics technology are making human-machine collaboration an everyday reality. Better and cheaper sensors make a robot more able to understand and respond to its environment. Robot bodies are becoming more adaptive and flexible, with designers taking inspiration from the extraordinary flexibility and dexterity of complex biological structures, such as the human hand. And robots are becoming more connected, benefiting from the cloud-computing revolution by being able to access instructions and information remotely, rather than having to be programmed as a fully autonomous unit. The new age of robotics takes these machines away from the big manufacturing assembly lines, and into a wide variety of tasks. Using GPS technology, just like smartphones, robots are beginning to be used in precision agriculture for weed control and harvesting. In Japan, robots are being trialled in nursing roles: they help patients out of bed and support stroke victims in regaining control of their limbs. Smaller and more dextrous robots, such as Dexter Bot, Baxter and LBR iiwa, are designed to be easily programmable and to handle manufacturing tasks that are laborious or uncomfortable for human workers. Indeed, robots are ideal for tasks that are too repetitive or dangerous for humans to undertake, and can work 24 hours a day at a lower cost than human workers. In reality, new-generation robotic machines are likely to collaborate with humans rather than replace them. Even considering advances in design and artificial intelligence, human involvement and oversight will remain essential. There remains the risk that robots may displace human workers from jobs, although previous generations of automation have tended to lead to higher productivity and growth with benefits throughout the economy. Decades-old fears of networked robots running out of control may become more salient with next generation robotics linked into the web – but more likely familiarisation as people employ domestic robots to do household chores will reduce fears rather than fan them. And new research into social robots – that know how to collaborate and build working alliances with humans – means that a future where robots and humans work together, each to do what it does best – is a strong likelihood. Nevertheless, however, the next generation of robotics poses novel questions for fields from philosophy to anthropology about the human relationship to machines.
2015
Top 10 emerging technologies of 2015
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Demography
The population in developing regions is projected to increase from 5.9 billion in 2013 to 8.2 billion in 2050 whilst the population of developed regions will remain around 1.3 billion people;
2015
SDG industry matrix
KPMG