Sci/Tech

Is it ethical to put money and resources into trying to develop technological enhancements for human capabilities, when there are so many alternative well-tested mechanisms available to address pressing problems such as social injustice, poverty, poor sanitation, and endemic disease? Is that a failure of priority? Why make a strenuous effort in the hope of allowing an elite few individuals to become “better than well”, courtesy of new technology, when so many people are currently so “less than well”?

On Day 1 of the World Future Trends conference, Daniel Epstein of the Unreasonable Institute, blew the minds of a fairly sophisticated audience that by all accounts lives and breathes trends and innovation for a living.

originally published at The Trends and Foresight blog.

Professor Lee Cronin heads up a world-class team of 45 researchers at Glasgow University in England. His team has figured out how to turn a 3D printer into a sort of universal chemistry set capable of “printing” prescription drugs via downloadable chemistry.

In much the same way that we now expect every child’s toy to talk, in the future, we will expect virtually everything we own to be connected to the Internet. Our mushrooming “Internet of Things” is growing exponentially, and estimates of its progression vary tremendously. GSMA estimates connecting 24 billion devices by 2020, while Cisco and Ericsson think we will hit 50 billion. Depending on a few key breakthroughs, these estimates may all be on low end, and here’s why.

Brooklyn-based MakerBot has just released its 4th generation 3D desktop printer called MakerBot Replicator 2 and it is going to change small business as we know it.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could turn on your television and it instantly knew what show you wanted to watch? We all dream of an easier life, so what if we got into our car and it knew where we wanted to go, or turned on a radio and it played the perfect music, or pressed “call” on our phone and we would instantly be connected to the person we most wanted to talk to. Our days are filled with countless decisions and the stress level of all these choices is growing steadily. Yes, we want to be in control, but control can be very taxing. That’s why I was so intrigued when I came across a new iPad app called MindMeld that is based on the emerging science of “anticipatory computing.”

As the world’s leading producer of synthetic rubber for the automotive industry, Lanxess is very interested in positioning itself at the forefront of our mobile future. One of the biggest trends for this industry is the push to make vehicles driverless. While most people have been focusing on the driverless technology inside the vehicle itself, where noteworthy accomplishments seen to be happening on a daily basis, the shift will also cause huge changes to occur in area’s like insurance, public policy, parking, delivery services, and especially highway engineering.