Trends Identified
Mixed Reality Technology
[Definition] Technology which interacts with users through real-time combination of virtual information such as computer graphics, sound, haptic information and smell with objects of actual environment. [Application]. Can be used in various aspects of life, including smart work (resolves difficulties caused by compatibility of work and household burdens to provide a more flexible working environment), smart home schooling, and leisure activities of mobility impaired.
2018
KISTEP 10 Emerging Technologies 2018
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Mixed reality - Experiences get more intuitive, immersive, and empowering
The enterprise potential of argumented reality and virtual reality continues to grow as companies explore use cases and move beyond pilot applications. Increasingly, these efforts intersect with opportunities made possible by Internet of Things technology—sensors and connected devices that help build a more integrated and extended digital and physical landscape. Yet amid this flurry of activity, many overlook the larger implications of AR and VR’s emergence. Design patterns are evolving dramatically, with 2D screens giving way to tools that use sensors, gestures, voice, context, and digital content to help humans interact more naturally with the increasingly intelligent world around us. Though it may be several years before mixed reality’s ultimate end game materializes, the time to begin exploring this dynamic new world—and the digital assets it comprises—is now.
2017
Tech trends 2017 - the kinetic enterprise
Deloitte
Mixed Reality
Clearly, there’s interest in this area, as expressed by the $1.9 billion invested in Magic Leap. But Evans is less inspired by the idea of augmenting our existing world–like digital recipes we can see when we’re at the stove–and more by wearable devices that can see and interpret, what’s going on around us. If such a computer could you who people in front of you are, when you last met them, and how they fit into your life or business, that would be exciting. So would it being able to tell you instantly if a product you’re holding at a store is available cheaper online.
2018
The Most Important Tech Trends Of 2018, According To Top VCs
Fast Company
Mining Metals from Desalination Brine
As the global population continues to grow and developing countries emerge from poverty, freshwater is at risk of becoming one of the Earth’s most limited natural resources. In addition to water for drinking, sanitation and industry in human settlements, a significant proportion of the world’s agricultural production comes from irrigated crops grown in arid areas. With rivers like the Colorado, the Murray-Darling and the Yellow River no longer reaching the sea for long periods of time, the attraction of desalinating seawater as a new source of freshwater can only increase. Desalination has serious drawbacks, however. In addition to high energy use (a topic covered in last year’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies), the process produces a reject-concentrated brine, which can have a serious impact on marine life when returned to the sea. Perhaps the most promising approach to solving this problem is to see the brine from desalination not as waste, but as a resource to be harvested for valuable materials. These include lithium, magnesium and uranium, as well as the more common sodium, calcium and potassium elements. Lithium and magnesium are valuable for use in high-performance batteries and lightweight alloys, for example, while rare earth elements used in electric motors and wind turbines – where potential shortages are already a strategic concern – may also be recovered. New processes using catalyst-assisted chemistry raise the possibility of extracting these metals from reject desalination brine at a cost that may eventually become competitive with land-based mining of ores or lake deposits. This economic benefit may offset the overall cost of desalination, making it more viable on a large scale, in turn reducing the human pressures on freshwater ecosystems.
2014
Top 10 emerging technologies for 2014
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Minimising Vulnerability and Fostering Resilience: An Investment for the Future of Europe
The ESPAS Report Global Trends to 2030 noted that 'The world is becoming steadily more complex, more challenging and also more insecure'. Since the publication of the Report in 2015, the sense of uncertainty has become even stronger in Europe and elsewhere. The referendum on Brexit, the 2016 US elections, as well as the political conditions in several European countries have demonstrated the risks that even well-established institutional systems can face due to a growing sense of uncertainty and dissatisfaction among citizens with current policies.
2016
Shaping the future
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Minerals
Out to 2040, a range of new factors influencing availability and supplies of certain critical minerals will remain vulnerable to disruption. Demand for minerals is likely to continue to increase in response to population growth, continuing industrialisation and higher material prosperity. New discoveries allied to technological advances will provide sufficient reserves, such that accessibility, rather than availability, is the primary concern.
2010
Global strategic trends - out to 2040
UK, Ministry of Defence
Mind the information and skills gaps
In addition to the fault lines developing geopolitically, CEOs are working to bridge the gaps in their own capabilities. Organisations are struggling to translate a deluge of data into better decision making. There is a shortage of skilled talent to clean, integrate, and extract value from big data and move beyond baby steps toward artificial intelligence (AI). One of the more striking findings in this year’s survey was the fact that — despite billions of dollars of investment1 and priority positioning on the C-suite agenda — the gap between the information CEOs need and what they get has not closed in the past ten years.
2019
22nd Annual global CEO survey
PWC
Millennials are the most digitally savvy generation, but they face tough challenges
While millennials are the most educated across advanced economies, they are also the most underutilised generation.
2017
Surfing the digital tsunami
Australia, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)