Trends Identified
Platform-Only Business Models Cede Ground
In 2017, we saw some interesting developments at the world’s most notable platforms, Uber and AirBnB, which indicated a move beyond platform-only business models and into acquisition and partnership with asset providers. This underlined a need to differentiate and overcome some of the challenges that a platform-only model presents, with the objective of increasing the value of both digital and physical assets.
2018
Top 10 Tech Trends For 2018
Forbes
Platform Economy
The next wave of disruptive innovation will arise from the technology-enabled, platformdriven ecosystems now taking shape across industries. Having strategically harnessed technology to produce digital businesses, leaders are now creating the adaptable, scalable, and interconnected platform economy that underpins success in an ecosystem-based digital economy.
2016
Accenture Technology Vision 2016
Accenture
Plasmonic Materials - Light-controlled nanomaterials are revolutionizing sensor technology
Writing in Scientific American in 2007, Harry A. Atwater of the California Institute of Technology predicted that a technology he called “plasmonics” could eventually lead to an array of applications, from highly sensitive biological detectors to invisibility cloaks. A decade later various plasmonic technologies are already a commercial reality, and others are transitioning from the laboratory to the market. These technologies all rely on controlling the interaction between an electromagnetic field and the free electrons in a metal (typically gold or silver) that account for the metal’s conductivity and optical properties. Free electrons on a metal’s surface oscillate collectively when hit by light, forming what is known as surface plasmon. When a piece of metal is large, the free electrons reflect the light that hits them, giving the material its shine. But when a metal measures just a few nanometers, its free electrons are confined in a very small space, limiting the frequency at which they can vibrate. The specific frequency of the oscillation depends on the size of the metal nanoparticle. In a phenomenon called resonance, the plasmon absorbs only the fraction of incoming light that oscillates at the same frequency as the plasmon itself does (reflecting the rest of the light). This surface plasmon resonance can be exploited to create nanoantennas, efficient solar cells and other useful devices.
2018
Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2018
Scientific American
Planets, planets everywhere
One possibly habitable planet is already known to exist near Earth. Many more will soon be found
2016
World in 2017
The Economist
Planetary-scale spectropy
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (European consortium of Example of Organizationsactive in the area: countries).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Planetary Stewardship in an Age of Scarcity
We are experiencing a confluence of powerful trends. Huge, extraordinary, universal trends, any one of which could impact upon our present way of life are coming together. The scale is planetary; the scope is centuries; the stakes are civilisation; and the speed headlong. At times the problems seem intractable, and all tax the capacity and competency of bureaucracies to tackle them. There is the interplay of three potent forces – growing demand, constrained supply and increased regulation. As one participant put it: “We are like the sorcerer’s apprentice – having started something we can no longer control”. Nevertheless, understanding an organisation’s full exposure to resource risk, especially energy and the environment, will be a defining factor determining long‐term viability.
2011
Just imagine - RICS strategic foresight 2030
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS)
Planet colonization
Example of Organizationsactive in the area: Space X (US), UAE Mars Mission (UAE), NASA (US).
2018
Table of disruptive technologies
Imperial College London
Physics: 'Within a decade, we'll know what dark matter is'
The next 25 years will see fundamental advances in our understanding of the underlying structure of matter and of the universe. At the moment, we have successful descriptions of both, but we have open questions. For example, why do particles of matter have mass and what is the dark matter that provides most of the matter in the universe? I am optimistic that the answer to the mass question will be found within a few years, whether or not it is the mythical Higgs boson, and believe that the answer to the dark matter question will be found within a decade. Key roles in answering these questions will be made by experiments at Cern's Large Hadron Collider, which started operations in earnest last year and is expected to run for most of the next 20 years; others will be played by astrophysical searches for dark matter and cosmological observations such as those from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite. Many theoretical proposals for answering these questions invoke new principles in physics, such as the existence of additional dimensions of space or a "supersymmetry" between the constituents of matter and the forces between them, and we will discover whether these ideas are useful for physics. Both these ideas play roles in string theory, the best guess we have for a complete theory of all the fundamental forces including gravity. Will string theory be pinned down within 20 years? My crystal ball is cloudy on this point, but I am sure that we physicists will have an exciting time trying to find out.
2011
20 predictions for the next 25 years
The Guardian
Physical value sensors based on nanomaterials
Physical value sensors based on nanomaterials could be used in special measuring devices. They comprise two sub-groups of innovative products: 1 electromagnetic wave measurement sensors: hard x-ray, ultraviolet, infrared, radio emissions, etc.; 2 sensors designed to measure linear and angular displacement (produced using materials made from nanotubes with zero transverse deformation coefficient), acceleration (based on the tunnel effect with sensitive nanoelements), and terahertz radiation using planar nanostructures (based on ultra-thin metal films). This sub-group also includes optical nanosensors for mechanical stress (based on elastic inverted photon crystals), etc.
2016
Russia 2030: science and technology foresight
Russia, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Physical fights back
Digital has had the limelight long enough — there are two brand experience headliners now. The time has come to blend the digital with the physical.
2018
Fjord trends 2018
Fjord