WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Over $3Trillion worth of goods are transported illegally, and this new technology gives law enforcement a major new weapon in the race to find them.   A little while ago I talked about a company called Planet, that can watch the world, and everything on...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF With so much information being generated we need a new way to store it all, and DNA is a perfect storage solution.   In a world awash with data, DNA is a hugely efficient and compact way to store it. After all, the data on every...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF GPS signals are often unreliable and they don’t reach every part of Earth, such as the deep oceans, this breakthrough replaces GPS everywhere.   Over the past year I’ve been increasingly discussing how researchers around the world, from the US to China, have been experimenting...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Renewable energy is clean and green, but when the sun goes down and the wind drops energy output falls, which means sustainable renewable energy needs grid scale battery storage to support it.   Multinational energy utility Engie has launched a new grid connected storage project...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF When it comes to security and surveillance governments hold all the cards, Edward Snowden wants to change that.   In today’s world digital security is just as important as physical security to those who find themselves constantly online in hostile countries or environments, and while...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Technology isn’t just democratising mobility above ground, it’s increasingly reducing the cost of exploring the world’s deepest oceans too.   There’s a lot of talk recently about conquering space, whether it’s by living on the Moon or Mars, and space tourism, but the fact still...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As it gets easier to create high quality, natural sounding “human-like” avatars we’ll see more emerge and take on new and varied roles.   Over the past couple of years there’s been a huge increase in the amount of press columns devoted to the topic...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the number of small renewable energy installations around the world grow individual communities are increasingly cutting out the energy companies and trading energy directly with one another.   Residents in a Bangkok neighbourhood in Thailand are trying out a new blockchain based peer to...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Increasingly most people don’t believe the news they’re seeing is real, this new technology helps news organisations and outlets regain that trust.   Falsifying photos and videos used to take a lot of work – either you used CGI to generate photorealistic images from scratch,...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our understanding of how to turn mundane objects and materials into batteries increases in the future anything and everything could be a battery.   As I discussed a little while ago Carbon Fiber is going through its own little revolution, firstly it can now...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to detect and weed out fake news is quickly rising up the political agenda, and companies are in an arms race to try to find solutions fast.   Any fact-checker who works in the media has a straightforward but challenging job – make...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Up until know hospitals have had to run multiple tests to identify multiple pathogens, which takes time and can cost lives, now they just need one.   Imagine being able to use one test to screen for every type of known and unknown human disease...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI will help organisations and society at large unlock untold new opportunities, in this report Microsoft discusses how to maximise the upsides while minimising the downsides.   Firstly, thank you to the team at Microsoft for reaching out and asking me to participate in their...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The rate and pace of change is accelerating, and in the next two decades the transportation industry will change more than it has in the past thousand years.   Last year I was writing about the goings on and unveilings, for example, of Dubai’s first...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The airline industry is one of the world’s heaviest polluters and it’s getting worse as air travel increases, electric aircraft will reverse that trend.   Over the past year or so I’ve been discussing the eventual emergence of fully electric aircraft and sky taxis, such...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Surgery is getting the robotic treatment, and it could mean better working conditions for doctors, and better outcomes for patients.   When Luke Hares met with gynecological surgeon Mark Slack four years ago to talk him through his idea of Versius, the first UK built surgical...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Certain drugs have to be delivered at certain times, and as we start to use nanomachines to release drugs telling the time in someone’s body becomes vitally important.   Recently I wrote about new simple blood tests that can detect cancer and chronic pain, and now...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world is changing faster than ever before, leading to a shortage of talent, meaning companies are being forced to find new ways to adapt and overcome skills shortages.   Everyone by now understands that the workplace, and the workforce is changing as a result...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many companies are trying to lower the cost of launching goods and people into space, and this is one of the craziest yet, but it’s likely going to work.   A number of companies are exploring ways to launch a rocket not from a launchpad,...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the pace of change continues to accelerate many companies find keeping up with it a daunting prospect, and it’s no less of an issue for the financial services community.   Firstly, thank you to Bharadwaj and the team for inviting me to be this...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF 3D printed clothes can be customised and printed on demand using sustainable new materials, giving fashion designers new options and reducing the industry’s environmental impact.   Downloadable 3D printed personalised sustainable fashion. I think you’ll agree it’s quite a catchy phrase – or at least...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We’re told that machines can’t be creative, at least in the human sense, but nevertheless they can still “create” art – and sell it.   A few months ago I wrote an article about a Google backed Artificial Intelligence (AI) based out of Germany that...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Over the past few years people have been killed when their semi-autonomous cars got confused and blinded by the Sun so scientists have turned to biology to solve the problem.   A little while ago a man driving a Tesla on autopilot was killed when...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Augmented Reality glasses and Virtual Reality headsets use complex computers and optics to create their effects, researchers believe they can eliminate these overheads by beaming the images directly into your eyes.   Researchers have proposed a new way to build Augmented Reality (AR) smart glasses...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Artificial Intelligence is being used more and more to vet candidates, now it could soon be used to help match them to jobs too.   Recently I wrote a report on the Future of Education 2020 to 2070, and there’s been plenty of speculation about...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Education that prepares children for the changes in the decades to come is vital, and Singapore have one of the most ambitious education visions of any country.   By whatever yard stick you care to measure it by Singapore has one of the highest achieving...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Carriers all around the world rely on physical SIMs to keep their customers locked into contracts and make it difficult to change, apple wants to change that.   Each new iPhone is usually good news for mobile network operators. The latest Apple device always comes with...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF By combining the power of AI with 3D printing the US military hopes to revolutionise how products are designed and made everywhere.   One thing about aircraft, especially ones that fly from aircraft carriers, that are increasingly being turned into floating factories and flying fortresses,...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Time crystals are unique, and new, and it’s believed they could open the door to creating incredibly weird and useful new materials.   Physicists at Yale University have discovered something extraordinary, a new material that more and more people are calling “Time Crystals,” a form...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Scientists have long wondered what the smallest unit that could sustain life and replicate itself would be, and now they know.   Scientists have created quantum artificial life for the first time using a revolutionary new quantum algorithm and IBM’s experimental quantum computing platform. The...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The internet was supposed to empower people, but so far most of that power is being concentrated in big centralised platform companies instead.   The founder of the World Wide Web thinks it’s broken and has a plan to fix it. Tim Berners-Lee, the British...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Mining blockchain uses up an extraordinary amount of electricity, equivalent to an entire country, so companies are trying to fix the issue.   Proof of Work (PoW), the common consensus mechanism that secures Bitcoin and numerous other cryptocurrency blockchains, has given the technology a reputation for...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to create and control discrete chemical and biological processes and reactions is extremely difficult, this new language aims to simplify it, alot.   Synthetic biology is an exciting new field of research that applies engineering principles to biology, and so far it’s being used...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Somewhere out there there’s an asteroid withEarth’s name on it, and NASA’s new spacecraft will be the one to try to deflect it.   Within near-Earth space there are a crazy 18,000 asteroids whose orbit occasionally brings them close to Earth. Over the course of millions of...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s world will be increasingly connected, and connecting old legacy devices and things has been difficult, but it’s about to get much easier.   Engineers are good at making minuscule antennas. Nowadays, we can cram antennas into our smartphones or smartwatches without much trouble. But...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robotic plants could help find mines and pollutants buried in soil, or be used to explore alien planets for signs of organic material.   Plants are getting a lot of attention all of a sudden, whether it’s from researchers who are trying to turn them...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There is an increasing amount of interest in creating drugs that improve cognition and intelligence, and their use is on the rise.   The use of drugs by people hoping to boost mental performance is rising worldwide, finds the largest ever study of the trend....

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Countries around the world reinventing mobility and transportation, and the Hyperloop is a crucial part of many countries future vision.   Elon Musk’s dream of travelling by hyperloop, essentially a Mach 1 train in a vacuum tube, is getting closer to reality as the UAE...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A new form of modular, multi-stage malware that’s capable of infecting anything and almost everything is getting cybersecurity experts worried.   A dangerous and potentially destructive new IoT malware sample has recently surfaced that for the first time this year is not just another cheap...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Plastic waste is a menace at sea and on land, but an ambitious project hopes to clean up 90% of the oceans plastic waste within a decade.   Plastic waste has become a growing issue over the past decade or so which is why more...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cyber attacks are getting out of control, but evolving, roving “good samaritan” forms of malware could become the new cops of the internet and the future of cybersecurity.   Security researchers have discovered a very odd new botnet that, rather than posing a threat, seems...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As we unlock more secrets of the human brain we are slowly but surely getting better at communicating with each other telepathically.   Telepathic communication is nothing new but it’s still in its early years as a technology. The first major telepathic breakthrough came in 2012...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Mental health issues are growing in number but in many cases they go left undiagnosed or treated, this breakthrough could help change that.   Today we can use smartphones to detect cancer, dementia, eye diseases, heart disease, illness and even inherited genetic conditions, but could...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Despite solar power’s increasing popularity until now customers it’s been difficult and expensive for customers to store the excess energy from their solar panels to use later, meaning they often still have to be attached to the energy grid.   Recently we passed the 1...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Displays can increasingly be placed anywhere, and now the same can be said of loudspeakers.   We all are familiar with loudspeakers; the critical element found in almost every household in one form or the other – whether they’re in smartphones, TV’s or stashed in...