WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Wired headphones get tangled, wireless headphones need charging, so why bother with headphones at all?   When Apple introduced the iPhone 7 they removed the headphone jack and spun it as a win for consumers who could now use wireless headphones, obviously preferably Apple branded...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As Connected Home devices become more capable and popular they will give insurers new insights into previously private user behaviours, and fundamentally change how insurance is sold.   Connected home devices, that range from Alexa to smart fire alarms, lighting, security systems, thermostats, TV’s and...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s materials will be lighter, stronger and more flexible than todays, and that opens up a whole host of new applications.   The world’s lightest 3D printed structure, a Graphene Aerogel, is so lightweight that it can be placed on top of a cotton ball...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Carbon fiber’s light weight and superior strength make it idea for many applications, but up until now it’s been expensive and very difficult to work with to create products, that’s all about to change.   Modern carbon fibre bikes, stiffer and stronger than their metal...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The advent of powerful AI tools, adaptable neural networks and the democratisation of hi definition rendering have taken fake news to a new level and this program aims to unmask the fakes.   We’ve all seen that video where Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms make it seem like Barack...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to 3D print materials with different and unique properties opens up a whole new range of use cases and applications, from car design to implanted medical devices, to soft robots and beyond.   A two year collaboration between BMW and MIT has produced...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Robots are on the rise, they’re getting more capable of handling more situations, and this presents businesses around the world, and especially in the UK, with new opportunities.   Robots are set to play an increasing role in our future, and today there are many...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today we are used to the majority of our influencers, and contacts, being human, but as we progress into the future more of the encounters we have will be with virtual entities, in the form of avatars, bots and virtual vloggers like these.   It...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Unless you’d been asleep at the wheel recently you can’t help but notice that it looks like the days of the combustion engine are numbered and that electric vehicles are the future…   It’s no secret that Volkswagen wants to sell more electric cars in...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Large platform dominate today’s internet landscape and in this article AP asks whether or not they are good stewards of our information, and, more importantly, whether they can be trusted with it.   The Associated Press needs no introduction, today they are news organisation behind...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to precisely turn genes on and off “at will” will revolutionise personal medicine and bring about the creation of new revolutionary healthcare treatments.   The gene editing tool CRISPR is one of the most exciting developments in modern genetics, for example recently it...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The way we produce food today is, for the most part, hugely wasteful and has a huge impact on the environment, vertical farms, clean meat, and now other “animal free” products are starting to disrupt the status quo.   Over the past year we’ve seen...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI becomes increasingly pervasive in healthcare companies need to be aware that a new simple attack on their AI imaging and diagnostic systems could cause untold chaos, and even result in deaths.   Recently we’ve seen how a duelling AI that adjusted a pixel or...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The self-driving car revolution will arrive earlier than many people expect, because global companies are in an arms race to own the “new” future where cars are provided as a service.   It’s evident to anyone who’s been following the progress and roll out of...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI’s that can learn quickly, and from very small data sets, will fundamentally change how we train AI’s, their capabilities, and how fast they are deployed into the market.   Recently we saw a new “Master algorithm” that could be used to create the first...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF 51 percent attacks are rare, but as criminals continue to gain access to more computing power smaller cryptocurrency networks are in increasing danger of being comandeered.   This week not one but three cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin Gold, Verge Coin, and Monacoin, were hit with a rarely seen cyber...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We all have memories we’d like to change, keep, or even, perhaps, edit, embellish, or erase, and now the technology to do all of these and more, including correcting blindness and reversing dementia, has just been demonstrated in living subjects.   Recently scientists transferred memories...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF We all suffer from pain now and again, but for chronic pain sufferers the condition can leave them feeling depressed, disheartened, and isolated, this new test that lets people see pain could be a game changer.   Around 100 million Americans are in pain right now. Chronic...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As both our online, as well as our offline privacy, continue to be eroded, scientists are using AI to fight back.   Most of us probably don’t like the idea of some stranger finding out who we are, and then where we live, or what...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Displays will one day be more than just slabs of glass stuck to our devices, and this is another step in that journey.   Palm reading could take on a whole new meaning, thanks to a new invention from Japan in the form of a...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are lots of dangerous industrial applications, and other use cases, where equipment of all kinds suffer extreme wear and tear, this new material could extend the life of products by multiples of time.   The idea of creating self-repairing machines has been a popular...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The arrival of driverless vehicles on our streets won’t rely on consumers buying them, they’ll be provided as a service by companies, as such you can expect their appearance on streets near you to come sooner rather than later.   In the race to deploy...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Materials are an integral part of many products, and ones that can self-heal will help extend the life and usefulness of the products they’re used to make.   Robots already seem to have a great bag of tricks to draw on. They can balance, run,...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The same technologies that are helping us catch and profile criminals, or surveil civilians at scale, AI, biometrics, machine vision and so on, are also helping companies find, interview, analyse and categorise job seekers faster and more effectively than ever.   Companies, like RBS and...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the world comes to rely more and more on bots and robots we need better, and faster, ways to train them.   A newly expanded simulator system could be our high-speed ticket to building fully autonomous bots and robots, or so says Nvidia’s CEO....

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It’s likely that our flirtation with battery packs in cars won’t last as long as we think as new wirelessly charged cars start emerging, and as new materials let the cars themselves become the batteries.   Lamborghini and MIT recently introduced the Terzo Millennio concept, which...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As governments and organisations around the world race to install new plug in electric vehicle charging stations, manufacturers, are already thinking ahead and they’ll be bringing wirelessly charged cars to the market sooner than anyone thinks.   A new electric car that uses wireless charging...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to read someone’s mind leads down two roads. It can either be used as part of a dystopian state apparatus, or to help catch criminals and help people who can’t communicate communicate.   It’s frustrating to have a clear mental image of something...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Blockchain has enormous potential to improve the efficiency of supply chains and especially MRO, and this is one of the world’s first proof of concepts.   Air France KLM’s engineering and maintenance division is evaluating the potential for Blockchain to become its new digital ledger...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As automation, in the form of autonomous hardware and software based robots, becomes more commonplace, law makers are debating who should be responsible for their actions.   If a robot, acting autonomously, injures or otherwise wrongs a human, who will be held responsible? Some European...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Asides from being able to make it rain in places where rain traditionally doesn’t fall there are a lot of questions about the broader impact geo-engineering has on other parts of the globe.   Last year China announced plans to spend hundreds of millions of...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the world continues to embrace automation one of the biggest problems could be figuring out the best way for robots and humans to work together.   After debuting to much fanfare last year Flippy the burger flipping robot, made by Miso Robotics, who was...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Not everyone has access to a lab grade microscope, and if you’re a doctor in the middle of nowhere that’s an issue that will delay disease diagnosis and potentially put lives at risk, this breakthrough will revolutionise front line medicine.   Today we are on...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As AI’s capabilities improve it will revolutionise how we generate, transmit, sell and consume energy.   It shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have a significant impact on the energy sector, and at all stages of its lifecycle. Whether...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF DNA computers will be the next, next computing revolution after Quantum computers, and their power could be truly staggering.   By making DNA endlessly change researchers from the University of Manchester in the UK, who last year created the first ever blueprint for a DNA...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There has, arguably, never been a better time, or a risker time to invest in today’s markets, but as every industry undergoes titanic transformation investors who are ill advised, or who lack the right vision, could quickly find themselves on the wrong end of tomorrow’s...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Making sure countries subject to nuclear disarmament treaties are actually decommissioning real, not fake, nuclear weapons has always posed a problem, this breakthrough will no longer let the fakers get away with it.   In past negotiations aimed at reducing the arsenals of the world’s...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF You could argue that DNA is actually the oldest programming language on Earth, and today we’re starting to learn how to write and program it in new ways to create new a completely new class of living, biological computers.   Hot on the heels of...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today our computing platforms are mechanical and non-organic, but tomorrow’s will be biological, and immensely powerful, this is just one of a host of breakthroughs in the space.   The bacteria E. coli might sometimes make us sick, but they have served as a workhorse in science...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Logic gates are a crucial component of today’s modern computing platforms, and creating ones using nothing more than DNA will help herald in a new era of immensely powerful biological computers.   DNA based logic gates, small computing devices which “perform logical operations on one...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The pace of change, and disruption, is accelerating. In this presentation I show just how fast, and how crazy, the world’s business environment is getting, it’s impact on every sector, and what you can do to future proof yourself.   Firstly, I’d like to thank...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future will have a huge impact on the future of communities, both good and bad, but with proper foresight and planning tomorrow’s communities could be brighter and better for everyone.   Firstly, I’d like to thank Jay and Chantel for inviting me to present...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The brain still has many mysteries, memory formation being one of them, but breakthroughs in epigenetics and neuroscience are starting to unravel them and it could lead to new sci-fi like capabilities and revolutionary new healthcare treatments.   A lot has been going on in...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF When they were developed plastics were a wonder material, but their environmental legacy is proving devastating, now a fluke discovery is giving people hope that today’s plastic scourge can efficiently be broken down and recycled.   We’re increasingly being told that plastic is a horrible,...

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today we can simulate 10 percent of the human brain in a supercomputer, but a whole brain simulation would revolutionise neuroscience, unlock the secrets of the brain and lead to new breakthrough cognitive treatments.   The renowned physicist Dr. Richard Feynman once said “What I...