Trends Identified
Space solar power
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Rebeam (US), Solaren Corp (US).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Space elevators
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Thoth Technology (Canada).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Fully immersive virtual reality (VR)
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Improbable (UK), HelloVR (US), Magic Leap (US), Microsoft (US). See also Mind Maze (US), Facebook (US) and possibly Apple (US).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Artificial conciosness
Example of Organizationsactive in the area:Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Possibly Alphabet/Google (US).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Space exploration will open up in 2018 - Eye-catching space missions could boost dreams of setting up bases on celestial bodies
If all goes well, on November 26th 2018 NASA’s InSight unmanned spacecraft will slice into Mars’s thin atmosphere at a blistering 3.2km (2 miles) a second, open a parachute, fire retrorockets, jettison its heat shield and softly land. It will be the culmination of an exciting year of space travel.
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist
Crash course - Scientists will learn whether an asteroid is likely to collide with earth
The asteroid Bennu first made headlines back in 1999. That was when scientists discovered this halfkilometre- wide ball of ice and rock and realised that its changing orbit, which brings it close to Earth every six years, could send it crashing into our planet in a century or so. The impact would be catastrophic, releasing 10,000 times more energy than from the asteroid which exploded so spectacularly over Chelyabinsk, in Russia, in 2013. Scientists made ambitious plans to learn more.
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist
Entangled web - A big year for quantum technology
Particles that can be in two places at once, or seemingly connected across vast distances: some of the predictions of quantum mechanics are downright weird. But after nearly a century of those effects being mere laboratory curiosities, engineers are finding that they have wide-ranging practical applications. In 2018 the world will hear a lot more about them.
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist
Putting Einstein to the test - The nearest supermassive black hole will give astronomers a great laboratory
In 2015, almost exactly a century after he concocted it, Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity got a spectacular confirmation when scientists detected gravitational waves. These undulations, launched by the dances of distant, massive objects, minutely stretch the weft and warp of space time itself (and thereby of experiments designed to intercept them).
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist
Human obsolescence - How quickly will machines sweep man aside?
Predictions about artificial intelligence (AI) have a patchy record. Any greybeard in the field will tell you tales of previous hype cycles in the 1970s and 1980s that crashed when their fabulous promises were not fulfilled. Now, though, times are good again. A spurt of progress in machine learning, a sub-field of AI, has companies piling in. The technology is being used for everything from working out how best to aim advertisements at web-surfers to how to develop selfdriving cars. A landmark was working out how to beat humans at Go, an East Asian strategy game that computers have historically found hard. An AI created by DeepMind, a British subsidiary of Google, beat a human champion of the game in 2015.
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist
Silencing is golden - A new era of medicine will come into view
Medical historians of the future will describe 2018 as the year that “advanced” medicines started to become a reality. It is hard, without the benefit of hindsight, to appreciate fully the long-term significance of any individual development. Nevertheless, it is clear from a pattern of expected events during 2018 that the world is on the threshold of an exciting medical future.
2018
The world in 2018
The Economist