Category Archives: Futurist

If you're into oscillations, wave patterns, circuitry, mechanized arpeggios, computer percussion sounds and the general alternate universe of retro synthesizers and a sort of dystopian dance pop that can be made with them, you might enjoy the music of Seth Haley, who performs under the name Com Truise.

For Kraftwerk fanatics or Giorgio Moroder obsessives, Haley is making tightly meshed music that has a op-art, retro-futurist quality, evoking pixelated keyboard music of the early '80s. Fans of Neon Indian will relate to the ways that Com Truise conjures the airless sonic data burblings of a bygone self-satisfied techno-pipedream era. Haley designs much of the art that goes along with Com Truise releases, and the visuals seem to line up perfectly with the sound, with a particular obsolete palette and a strange, imposing but soothing grid-like quality.

Com Truise and Clark perform at at Ballroom at the Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden, May 21, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $17 to $20. 203-288-6400, thespacect.com.

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Retro-Futurist Com Truise At Ballroom - CTNow

If you're into oscillations, wave patterns, circuitry, mechanized arpeggios, computer percussion sounds and the general alternate universe of retro synthesizers and a sort of dystopian dance pop that can be made with them, you might enjoy the music of Seth Haley, who performs under the name Com Truise.

For Kraftwerk fanatics or Giorgio Moroder obsessives, Haley is making tightly meshed music that has a op-art, retro-futurist quality, evoking pixelated keyboard music of the early '80s. Fans of Neon Indian will relate to the ways that Com Truise conjures the airless sonic data burblings of a bygone self-satisfied techno-pipedream era. Haley designs much of the art that goes along with Com Truise releases, and the visuals seem to line up perfectly with the sound, with a particular obsolete palette and a strange, imposing but soothing grid-like quality.

Com Truise and Clark perform at at Ballroom at the Outer Space, 295 Treadwell St., Hamden, May 21, at 8 p.m. Tickets are $17 to $20. 203-288-6400, thespacect.com.

Excerpt from:
Retro-Futurist Com Truise At Ballroom - Hartford Courant

Consequence of Sound (blog)

Revisiting the Retro-Futurist Dreams and Nightmares of The Fifth Element Consequence of Sound (blog) It's a grungy near-dystopia full of bureaucratic struggle at nearly every turn, but the plausibility of a New York that just kept building atop itself makes it all the more realistic. It's retro-futurism, delivered with an alt-'90s sheen that's at once ... and more »

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Revisiting the Retro-Futurist Dreams and Nightmares of The Fifth Element - Consequence of Sound (blog)

Dr. Bertalan Mesko, PhD is The Medical Futurist analyzing how science fiction technologies can become reality in medicine and healthcare. As a geek physician with a PhD in genomics, he is also an Amazon Top 100 author. With 500+ presentations including courses at Harvard, Stanford and Yale Universities, Singularity University's Futuremed course at NASA Ames campus and organizations including the 10 biggest pharmaceutical companies, he is one of the top voices globally on healthcare technology. Dr. Mesko has been featured by dozens of top publications and influencers, including CNN, the World Health Organization, National Geographic, Forbes, TIME magazine, BBC, and the New York Times. He publishes his analyses regularly on medicalfuturist.com.

"If you work in the life sciences supply chain, NEXUS has become the one industry event that you can't afford to miss, providing attendees with high caliber speakers and innovators who are at the forefront of the industry and offer invaluable insight on global track and trace trends and new, disruptive technologies," said Shabbir Dahod, president and CEO, TraceLink. "This year, we are delighted to host Dr. Bertalan Mesko, one of the world's leading influencers on digital health. There is a natural synergy between his pioneering vision and the future opportunities that can be achieved from a digital life sciences supply chain, and we are excited that NEXUS will be the venue for this revolutionary industry discussion."

"Drug serialization is one of the greatest transformations currently affecting the pharmaceutical supply chain and, while this brings significant challenges, it also presents a positive opportunity for innovation and advancement," said Dr. Bertalan Mesko. "Technology will play a pivotal role in advancing the future of the medical and healthcare industries and in this case, ensuring patient safety. I am delighted to join business leaders and companies at the forefront of this transformation at NEXUS 17, discuss the latest developments and debate the positive impact of technology in helping to shape the future of the pharmaceutical industry."

Additional keynote presentations include experts from the European Medicines Verification Organisation (EMVO) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), as well as industry leaders from Recipharm, Sanofi, Santen, Aurobindo and Tjoapack.

NEXUS 17 is open to everyone in the life sciences community at a registration fee of 995. TraceLink customers can register for a special discounted rate of 795. To register for NEXUS 17 in Barcelona, please visithttp://nexus-tracelink.com/

About TraceLinkTraceLink is the World's Largest Track and Trace Network for connecting the Life Sciences supply chain and eliminating counterfeit prescription drugs from the global marketplace. Leading businesses trust the TraceLink Life Sciences Cloud to deliver complete global connectivity, visibility and traceability of pharmaceuticals from ingredient to patient. A single point and click connection to the Life Sciences Cloud creates a supply chain control tower that delivers the information, insight and collaboration needed to improve performance and reduce risk across global supply, manufacturing and distribution operations. A winner of numerous industry awards including Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 (ranked number 149 in 2016), the Amazon AWS Global Start-Up Challenge Grand Prize, and the Edison Award for Innovation in Health Management, the Life Sciences Cloud is used by businesses across the globe to meet strategic goals in ensuring global compliance, fighting drug counterfeiting, improving on-time and in-full delivery, protecting product quality and reducing operational cost. For more information on TraceLink and our solutions, visit http://www.tracelink.com or follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

TraceLink is funded by Goldman Sachs, FirstMark Capital, Volition Capital and F-Prime Capital.

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dr-bertalan-mesko-the-medical-futurist-to-deliver-headline-keynote-at-tracelink-nexus-17-300453421.html

SOURCE TraceLink

http://www.tracelink.com

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Dr. Bertalan Mesko, 'The Medical Futurist' to Deliver Headline ... - PR Newswire (press release)

A drop in deaths from car accidents could mean a shortage of organs for transplant, and pig organs could be used for gene-editing

With the growth in vegetarianism and the rise of laboratory-engineered meat substitutes, the future of hog production may lie as much in medical research as it does on the dinner plate, says a Canadian futurist.

Self-driving cars may become the catalyst for using pigs to create human organs, Nikolas Badminton told a packed house at Ontarios London Swine Conference earlier this year.

Ninety people in the United States die each day in car accidents, and those deaths produce a significant number of the organs used in transplants.

Badminton said self-driving cars will eliminate this statistic and create a shortage of organs available for transplants.

To respond, researchers could turn to gene-editing technology already used by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, to create pigs resistant to PRRS (porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome) to alter pigs so they can grow human organs.

Controversy over the ethics could become a problem, but Badminton said that an organ availability crisis combined with acceptance of other technological advances, such as cloning, could change attitudes.

He also said livestock meat production faces pressure from world growth in veganism.

In the U.K., veganism has exploded by 360 percent. Vegan food sales are up 1,500 percent.

Some unusual alternatives already serve this growing market, such as lab-cultured meat and meat look-alikes derived from vegetables.

Insects are another source of protein and have long been consumed in other countries. Theyre making inroads in North America too, he said. Among other things, Badminton also said artificially intelligent help may start to be offered for farms in three to five years, and he advised farmers to keep a watch on the renewable energy industry.

A study undertaken in the United States showed that no crop could earn a farmer more than what the same acreage of solar power could generate.

So theres people in North Carolina, utility companies going to farmers and saying, well pay between $300 and $700 an acre to have solar on your land.

Badminton also pointed to how advances in data management might improve performance, but those advances come with drawbacks, a major one being security.

As we get online and get access to this data, were potentially leaving backdoors open for people to walk in, Badminton said. Thered be nothing worse than having a technologically savvy operation on a farm and then a hacker holding it hostage.

Badminton also described a growing interest in water conservation inspiring greater adoption of aquaponics, a system in which fish waste is used to fertilize plants and the plant waste in turn is used to feed fish, and hydroponics, as well as the trend of locating food production closer or even within city limits.

He used examples such as fish farms at Singapores airport and the AeroFarms hydroponic vertical farm in New Jersey that grows greens in a former steel mill.

He also mentioned a Dutch grocer that grows herbs right on its store shelves and buyers clip what they want.

Its an innovative farmers world, he said, where technological change will result in more efficient and sustainable practices that will benefit you and the rest of humanity as well.

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Self-driving cars could affect pig production: futurist - Western Producer (subscription)

MILLIONS of Australians are destined for the unemployment queue if they don't "wake up" to the robot revolution, warns futurist Shara Evans.

Creeping automation is set to transform how we work, shop and socialise - and the changes are a lot closer than most people realise.

New research by recruitment agency Randstad reveals that 84 per cent of Australians surveyed are not concerned that automation will affect their future job prospects, while 77 per cent believe that they won't need to change careers in the next 10 years.

But the reality was the opposite, said Ms Evans, who suggested Australians "take their heads out of the sand" and wise up to the dramatic transformation that had already begun.

"The reality is that 40 per cent of current jobs in Australia won't exist in 10 to 15 years due to automation - that's five million jobs gone," she said,citing the latest report on the topic by CEDA.

"If I look at the exponential advancements in technology, it is very clear that this figure will continue to rise."

The really scary part? It's not future innovation that puts our jobs at risk, but existing technology that is available for use right now.

SALARIES WIPED OUT

A recent report by consulting firm McKinsey found that45 per cent of the activities people are currently paid for could be automated using currently demonstrated technologies.

Robotic checkout systems are being rolled out at convenience stores in Japan, and insurance firm Fukoku Life replaced 34 of its claims assessors with robots earlier this year.

The company laid off the workers after spending $2.36 million on a computer program that calculates payouts to policyholders, a move it said would boost productivity by 30 per cent.

Fukoku Life expected to save about $1.65 million a year on salaries with the new system, meaning it would pay itself off in less than two years.

Amazon now has 45,000 robots moving products around its cavernous warehouses, an approach that has been adopted by companies like DHL Logistics as they scramble to keep up with the e-commerce giant.

Chinese e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, last weekpredicted that even chief executives like himself would see their jobs taken over by robots.

And Volvo has predicted that driverless cars will become commercially available in the next five years, a prospect that would make taxi and Uber drivers redundant.

The rise of automation is so significant that Microsoft founder Bill Gates has called for governments to impose a "robot tax" to slow down the pace of automation - a suggestion Ms Evans said was "a nice idea", but not viable to implement.

"We are already seeing robots performing concierge tasks within the retail space, and the future workplace will see humanoid type robots with greater physical capabilities," she said.

The appeal of robots was not just their ability to do things faster than humans; in industries like agriculture or mining, Ms Evans said, they could be used to gather valuable data on ground conditions, with sensors to detect mineral deposits or analyse the bugs on crops.

And more and more businesses would start to use robots and artificial intelligence systems as they became cheaper, while skill shortages threatened to speed up the spread of the technology.

MAKE YOURSELF IRREPLACEABLE

So how can you keep your job safe from the robots?

According to Ms Evans, the key was to be aware of which aspects of your role could be automated, and look for ways to develop skills that will make you irreplaceable.

"There are certain job categories that are more prone to automation first," she said.

"If a job is a lot of predictable, repetitive behaviour and a fairly low cost to implement automation to replicate that labour, those are the kinds of jobs that are likely to be affected first."

Next on the list were jobs involving data processing and data collection, both of which could be easily replaced by artificial intelligence - like the Japanese insurance company mentioned above.

Even those people lucky enough to stay employed would likely find their job descriptions changing, Ms Evans said.

"If you've got someone who used to just analyse data and is not really doing a whole lot of social interaction, and that task has been subsumed by an AI bot, their job role might take on more of a customer-centric focus," she said.

"But that particular individual may not be suited to move into the more customer-centred focus because of their innate personality."

Emotional intelligence, strategic planning, social and creative skills would remain in demand, she said.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The impact of the changes would depend on how well they had prepared. Ms Evans said.

"For somebody that has their head in the sand and they find their job has been replaced by automation, and they haven't bothered to look at what else they're good at reskilling, those changes would be pretty devastating," she said.

But on the flip side, young Australian who kept their finger on the pulse would be the first to benefit from the "amazing possibilities of future job roles that aren't even invented yet", Ms Evans said, citing fields such as genetic research, bionics and 3D printing as likely growth areas.

"They might look at 3D printing and realise how many different materials are being used and become a materials expert, or learn how to program and design robots - or become an expert on integrating them into the workforce," she said.

"There's just so many new job possibilities that the technology will open up. Yes, jobs will disappear, but new ones will be created; you've just got to make sure that you've got the skill sets to step into those roles."

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO

Do a skills inventory to understand what you are good at and what you want to do.

If your job does change, what other kinds of jobs would you enjoy doing? Where do they sit in the spectrum of automation?

Ask yourself how your skill set fits in with the jobs market and, if you need additional skills, take proactive measures to gain them.

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Futurist warns we need to wake up to the robot threat - Caboolture News

There will be more change in the next 20 years than any 20- to 50-year period in history. In fact, future historians may well look back on this time as a historical transit as significant as the beginning of the Industrial Revolution or the Renaissance.

It is hard to imagine any area of life that will not be changed. This means that life will be disconcerting, disorienting and disruptive, and that reality as we know it today will end. This, of course, means that a significant percentage of humanity will endure a great psychological upset as we all like, or at least accept, our version of reality.

This is not a warning but a call for readers of this column to begin to prepare for massive, inevitable change. The name of this column is The Futurist. It is my responsibility as a futurist to be a catalyst to get people to think about the future and to help readers and audiences find context and concepts.

Here are just some of the changes ahead for Americans between now and the late 2030s:

Electric cars become the majority of all cars driven.

Autos that are autonomous, meaning driverless, become 25 to 75 percent of cars on the road.

The number of cars in America drops by 30 percent.

A move from fossil fuels to renewables, a move to energy that is free.

A movement toward a marginal-cost economy with ever lower prices for any part of the global economy that is connected to technology.

A loss of some 50 percent of all current jobs and professions due to artificial intelligence and big data.

The complete transformation of education and medicine.

The ability to extend the human lifetime to a maximum of 125 to 150 years.

Increasing the average life span from 80 to 100.

The emergence of a new,21st-century religion in which man and technology merge.

An emerging collective global consciousness.

The widespread use of virtual reality which will alter entertainment, education, training, travel and personal relations, in short redefining most human experiences.

Global legalization of marijuana.

Largely curing cancer and other diseases as a result of altering DNA for personalized treatments.

Climate change will redefine weather, seasons and coastlines and will create both tens of millions of refugees per year and hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars of real estate and other economic losses.

An urgent development of crew consciousness for This Spaceship Earth as the red warning light and buzzer for getting "all hands on deck" starts to go off in the next five years.

A reinvention beginning of both capitalism and democracy.

The list could go on, but the above provides an indication of what lies ahead. I am so confident of these forecasts that you can cut out this column and file it away to read in 2025 or 2030.

Recently I have been receiving an increasing number of requests to deliver keynote presentations to organizations as the desire increases to seek out a futurist as uncertainty and unease increases. My career as a speaker actually took off when the Great Recession hit.

My current presentation is called Shift//Transformation: 2017-2037. In it, I start off with some definitions and quotes that I want to share with readers of this column as they may help you prepare for the massive changes ahead.

The definition of shift: To put something aside and replace it with another or others, to change or exchange.

The definition of transformation: A change in form, appearance, nature or character.

A quote from Dr. Alvin Toffler, one of the greatest futurists of the last 50 years:The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

And perhaps my favorite quote about the future, from Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish essayist who died in 1936:We should try to be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past.

So, in your business, your profession or your personal life, open up to embracing change and accepting transformation so you can prepare yourself to enjoy being alive during one of the most interesting times in history.

Sarasota resident David Houle is a globally recognized futurist. He has given speeches on six continents, written seven books and is futurist in residence at the Ringling College of Art + Design. His website is davidhoule.com. Email him at david@davidhoule.com.

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DAVID HOULE, THE FUTURIST: Disruption ahead in the next 20 years - Sarasota Herald-Tribune

It's tough enough getting and keeping a job when competing against other humans... but what about when you're competing with the relentless advance of technology? National Political Editor Malcolm Farr talks us through the relentless advance of technology, and how it is shaping the workplace.

Think your cosy office job is safe?

MILLIONS of Australians are destined for the unemployment queue if they dont wake up to the robot revolution, warns futurist Shara Evans.

Creeping automation is set to transform how we work, shop and socialise and the changes are a lot closer than most people realise.

New research by recruitment agency Randstad reveals that 84 per cent of Australians surveyed are not concerned that automation will affect their future job prospects, while 77 per cent believe that they wont need to change careers in the next 10 years.

But the reality was the opposite, said Ms Evans, who suggested Australians take their heads out of the sand and wise up to the dramatic transformation that had already begun.

The reality is that 40 per cent of current jobs in Australia wont exist in 10 to 15 years due to automation thats five million jobs gone, she said, citing the latest report on the topic by CEDA.

If I look at the exponential advancements in technology, it is very clear that this figure will continue to rise.

The really scary part? Its not future innovation that puts our jobs at risk, but existing technology that is available for use right now.

SALARIES WIPED OUT

A recent report by consulting firm McKinsey found that 45 per cent of the activities people are currently paid for could be automated using currently demonstrated technologies.

Robotic checkout systems are being rolled out at convenience stores in Japan, and insurance firm Fukoku Life replaced 34 of its claims assessors with robots earlier this year.

The company laid off the workers after spending $2.36 million on a computer program that calculates payouts to policyholders, a move it said would boost productivity by 30 per cent.

Fukoku Life expected to save about $1.65 million a year on salaries with the new system, meaning it would pay itself off in less than two years.

Amazon now has 45,000 robots moving products around its cavernous warehouses, an approach that has been adopted by companies like DHL Logistics as they scramble to keep up with the e-commerce giant.

Chinese e-commerce billionaire Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, last week predicted that even chief executives like himself would see their jobs taken over by robots.

And Volvo has predicted that driverless cars will become commercially available in the next five years, a prospect that would make taxi and Uber drivers redundant.

The rise of automation is so significant that Microsoft founder Bill Gates has called for governments to impose a robot tax to slow down the pace of automation a suggestion Ms Evans said was a nice idea, but not viable to implement.

We are already seeing robots performing concierge tasks within the retail space, and the future workplace will see humanoid type robots with greater physical capabilities, she said.

The appeal of robots was not just their ability to do things faster than humans; in industries like agriculture or mining, Ms Evans said, they could be used to gather valuable data on ground conditions, with sensors to detect mineral deposits or analyse the bugs on crops.

And more and more businesses would start to use robots and artificial intelligence systems as they became cheaper, while skill shortages threatened to speed up the spread of the technology.

MAKE YOURSELF IRREPLACEABLE

So how can you keep your job safe from the robots?

According to Ms Evans, the key was to be aware of which aspects of your role could be automated, and look for ways to develop skills that will make you irreplaceable.

There are certain job categories that are more prone to automation first, she said.

If a job is a lot of predictable, repetitive behaviour and a fairly low cost to implement automation to replicate that labour, those are the kinds of jobs that are likely to be affected first.

Next on the list were jobs involving data processing and data collection, both of which could be easily replaced by artificial intelligence like the Japanese insurance company mentioned above.

Even those people lucky enough to stay employed would likely find their job descriptions changing, Ms Evans said.

Shara Evans with the Ehang 184 autonomous personal flying vehicle at the Consumer Electronics Show.Source:Supplied

If youve got someone who used to just analyse data and is not really doing a whole lot of social interaction, and that task has been subsumed by an AI bot, their job role might take on more of a customer-centric focus, she said.

But that particular individual may not be suited to move into the more customer-centred focus because of their innate personality.

Emotional intelligence, strategic planning, social and creative skills would remain in demand, she said.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

The impact of the changes would depend on how well they had prepared. Ms Evans said.

For somebody that has their head in the sand and they find their job has been replaced by automation, and they havent bothered to look at what else theyre good at reskilling, those changes would be pretty devastating, she said.

But on the flip side, young Australian who kept their finger on the pulse would be the first to benefit from the amazing possibilities of future job roles that aren't even invented yet, Ms Evans said, citing fields such as genetic research, bionics and 3D printing as likely growth areas.

They might look at 3D printing and realise how many different materials are being used and become a materials expert, or learn how to program and design robots or become an expert on integrating them into the workforce, she said.

Theres just so many new job possibilities that the technology will open up. Yes, jobs will disappear, but new ones will be created; youve just got to make sure that youve got the skill sets to step into those roles.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO

Do a skills inventory to understand what you are good at and what you want to do.

If your job does change, what other kinds of jobs would you enjoy doing? Where do they sit in the spectrum of automation?

Ask yourself how your skill set fits in with the jobs market and, if you need additional skills, take proactive measures to gain them.

dana.mccauley@news.com.au

How will the AI revolution change the world? Will there be a rise in robots? And how could AI soon be changing healthcare? Bloomberg follows the March of the Machines.

Originally posted here:
Australians need to 'wake up' to the robot threat, with five million jobs at risk: Futurist Shara Evans - NEWS.com.au

The group trying to save Scarborough's Futurist Theatre says it needs more support from the public.

Campaigners are still waiting to hear about their application for a judicial review into Scarborough Borough Council's decision to demolish the building.

That was lodged last month by a new company that's been set up by the group-Save The Futurist Theatre (Scarborough) Ltd.

The group are still trying to raise more than 10,000 in order to fund the legal services and so far have raised just over 1,000.

They have also raised nearly the 6,000 target they need to cover the costs of specialist legal advice regarding the council's decision on the theatre.

The group is planning to hold a public meeting within the coming weeks.

Debi Silver is from Save The Futurist Theatre (Scarborough) Ltd. She said:

"The reason we're taking legal action against Scarborough Borough Council is because we're not happy with how the whole thing has been dealt with.

At the end of the day, we don't feel what they've done has been done correctly and it's left us with no other option.

I can't tell you the amount of work that's gone into bringing this case forward, presenting it to our solicitors.

This is a huge undertaking that's gone on, it's not been done lightly. Please continue to support the campaign and please donate some money to our JustGiving page."

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Futurist Campaign Group Asks For More Public Backing - Yorkshire Coast Radio

Growing up we are all asked as kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? Some said, a doctor, a teacher or even an astronaut. We decided to ask a group of 6 year olds the same question. Many of them gave similar answers. But, a recent study shows 6 out of every 10 kids will grow up to take a job that doesnt even exist yet. Youre probably asking yourself, what are those jobs that dont exist?

We wanted to know too, so we went to the man who knows best. His name is Thomas Frey and he is known as Googles top futurist. Frey and his team gather and analyze data to better predict the future.

Frey says, jobs like an accountant will still be around in 10 to 20 years, but the tools we use to do that job will be vastly different.

Driverless cars are rapidly approaching and that means new jobs will be coming, but Frey says, that also means old jobs will be dwindling.

Were not going to have traffic cops, traffic cars, people writing insurance policies for cars or rental car industries.

Frey assures us that theres no such thing as a robot-apocalypse, but we should be ready for our old jobs to change. One of the things weve learned is that entire jobs dont go away, were automating tasks out of existence," says Frey.

He says the number one job of the future is that of a hustler. Its all about adapting to whatever future technology and changes come our way.

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Predicting the future of jobs - ABC2 News