Category Archives: Futurist

"The virus, COVID-19, may well have been one negative feedback."Gaias Return

Influential environmentalist James Lovelock has long believed that the Earth self-regulates like a living organism.

His Gaia theory, named after the Greek deity of the same name who represents the personification of the Earth, suggests that our planets environment adjusts itself in response abuse such as what humanity is currently throwing at it.

And given our horrendous treatment of the environment, Gaia is about to return with a vengeance, the 102-year-old warns in anew commentary piece for The Guardian.

While that kind of argument may sound a bit like the plot of Avatar, it is an elegant encapsulation of the idea that our actions are throwing processes that long preexisted us seriously out of whack. And that means we need to act right now or face serious consequences.

Lovelock argues that surface temperatures of our planet were modulated for billions of years thanks to Gaia: forests, oceans and other elements in the the Earths regulating system, which kept the surface temperature fairly constant and near optimal for life.

But humanity has messed with that carefully balanced formula substantially.

Two genocidal acts suffocation by greenhouse gases and the clearance of the rainforests have caused changes on a scale not seen in millions of years, he writes. We are entering into a heat age in which the temperature and sea levels will be rising decade by decade until the world becomes unrecognizable.

To Lovelock, we cant simply put up a bunch more solar and wind farms to end our reliance on burning fossil fuels. In fact, the environmentalist made a surprising conclusion: We need to build more nuclear power stations to overcome that, though the greens will first have to get over their overblown fears of radiation.

And a global pandemic should come as a warning, he said. The virus, COVID-19, may well have been one negative feedback, Lovelock writes. Gaia will try harder next time with something even nastier.

READ MORE: Beware: Gaia may destroy humans before we destroy the Earth [The Guardian]

More on climate action: World Leaders Mocked for Flying Private Jets to Climate Conference

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Famed Scientist Warns That Earth May Rise Up and Kill Humanity - Futurism

It's an obscene concentration of wealth.Richer, Richest

Tesla shares are surging yet again and that has CEO Elon Musks net worth blasting past the competition, leaving the likes of Warren Buffet and Amazons Jeff Bezos in the dust.

By Monday, Musks riches rose to just over $335 billion, just over a third of a trillion dollars. The increase was the result of Tesla shares jumping some 8.5 percent on Monday, Bloomberg reports.

In many ways, its an obscene concentration of wealth. Just a tiny fraction of his riches could be used for philanthropic endeavors to great effect, especially when it comes to world hunger, asDavid Beasley, the director of the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), pointed out during a CNN interview last week.

Whats indisputable is that Musk is ascending to never-seen-before levels of personal wealth. The CEO billionaire is now three times richer than Buffet, a man who became the richest person in the world back in 2008 with a measly net worth of just $62 billion at the time.

Musks own riches made him the worlds richest person earlier this year for the second time, eclipsing Blue Origin CEOand space competitor and Bezos.

The news comes a week after rental car company Hertz announced a massive deal with Tesla involving the ordering of some 100,000 cars. But on Monday, Musk admitted on Twitter that hed like to emphasize that no contract has been signed yet.

The revelation had Tesla shares sliding, cutting back on some of the gains the company has made over the last week. Tuesday, shares dropped as much as 5.2 percent, according to Bloomberg.

Tesla is still up 56 percent in the last month alone and is now worth over $1 trillion as of Monday, though.

Similarly, Musks personal wealth is breaking records. The CEO just became the first person to be worth more than $300 billion last week, and now hes soared far past that.

The top one percent are amassing unprecedented amounts of money, an inflection point as levels of economic inequality continue to rise, particularly in the US.Where it all leads, at this point, is anyones guess.

READ MORE: Elon Musk Is Now Three Times Richer Than Warren Buffett [Bloomberg]

More on Elon Musk: Elon Musks World Hunger Tweet Is Taking the UN Wildly Out of Context

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Elon Musk's Net Worth Is Now Three Times That of Warren Buffett's - Futurism

Think like a Novation Launchpad or an AKAI MPD, but in the shape of a drum kit. Codenamed the Collector, this futuristic vision from the mind of Liu Tianchen aims at bridging the worlds of electronic music and actual instrument-playing together. The rather slick-looking electronic drum kit features six adjustable pads and two pedals mounted on a folding frame. The kit comes with a folding stool too, and two drumsticks, giving you a near-authentic drumming experience.

The difference, however, is in the fact that the Collector doesnt rely on a pre-existing bank of drum sounds, but instead, gives the artist the flexibility to collect and build their own banks, either by purchasing samples online or making samples of their own. Then, working just like any good MIDI controller, the Collector lets you create beats using these samples in a way that closes the gap between actually jamming on a real-life drum kit, and just simply pressing buttons on a MIDI controller. When youre done, the entire setup packs up like an easel and stool, and stands flat vertically against a wall, occupying a fraction of the space that a real drum kit would.

The Collector Future Drum Kit is a winner of the Red Dot Design Concept Award for the year 2021.

Designer: Liu Tianchen

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This futuristic drum kit lets you sample real world audio and turn them into synthesized rhythms - Yanko Design

Back into safe mode.Safe Mode

Things are not looking good for NASAs groundbreaking Hubble Space Telescope.

The orbital observatory has been put into safe mode yet again, according to a NASA update, and halting all science operations. Hubbles science instruments encountered an issue on October 23, related to synchronizing instruments and the commands and data requests sent from Earth.

Its yet another unfortunate predicament for the groundbreaking spacecraft, which has been in orbit in 1990, delivering some of the most magnificent views of our galaxy in human history.

A quick reset allowed scientists to resume science operations the next morning. But just two days later, the telescopes instruments issued the same error again multiple times.

As a precaution, the telescopes instruments entered safe mode state, as designed.

Now, Hubble scientists are poring over the data to figure out how to address the synchronization issue and how to get more data from the spacecraft. NASA says these that these activities are expected to take at least one week.

NASA also says that the rest of the spacecraft is operating as expected.

The news comes after the aging space telescope experienced some serious computer issues, forcing teams to switch to an on-board backup computer earlier this year.

In July, NASA announced some good news, revealing that the move was successful.

Hubble has been in orbit for 31 long years and has had to be serviced in person several times. The last time astronauts were able to visit the telescope for servicing was in 2009.

But that was on board NASAs Space Shuttle, which has long been retired. Astronauts currently have no way to return to the telescope, making any software or hardware issues exceedingly difficult to address and meaning that any new problem could potentially be fatal.

READ MORE: Hubble Remains in Safe Mode, NASA Team Investigating [NASA]

More on Hubble: Gaze in Awe at This Fiery Pac-Man Shaped Supernova, Gobbling Stars

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Oops: NASA Admits That the Hubble Space Telescope Is Busted Again - Futurism

A team of researchers successfully tested a sample of Martian dirt, first scooped up by NASAs Mars Curiosity rover in March 2017, by directing the rover mix it with chemical reagents inside a cup.

This mixture then released organic molecules which NASA has never detected on the surface of Mars ever before, Inverse reports.

While its an exciting discovery, it falls short of demonstrating that carbon-based lifeforms once lived on the surface of the Red Planet. It is, however, a step in that direction.

This experiment was definitely successful, Mava Millan, postdoctoral fellow at NASAs Goddard Spaceflight Center and lead author of a new study published on Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy, told Inverse.

While we havent found what we were looking for, biosignatures, we showed that this technique is really promising, she added.

The experiment has expanded the inventory of molecules present in Martian samples and demonstrated a powerful tool to further enable the search for polar organic molecules of biotic or prebiotic relevance, Millan and her team concluded in their paper.

The two chemicals most prominently found in the mixture were benzoic acid and ammonia, both possible indicators of ancient life.

One of the things that we were trying to look for [when searching for] organic molecule on Mars is to understand the past habitability of Mars and to look for bioindicators, Millan told Inverse.

The team is now hoping to find the molecules parents, or where they came from. Millan and her team suggest in their paper that they could be the result of geological processes.

Its not the first time Curiosityhas detected organic molecules in Martian soil, but the new discovery is expanding the list of organic molecules detected by NASA.

The news comes after an international team of astrobiologists detected a presence of thiophenes, which are special compounds found in coal, crude oil and white truffles back on Earth, after analyzing samples picked up by Curiosity.

The researchers suggested in March 2020 that the thiophenes could be a sign of ancient life on Mars, but more research is still needed.

Meanwhile, Millan and her team are hoping NASAs Perseverance rover will shed more light on the organic molecules.

READ MORE: NASA just found these organic molecules on Mars for the first time [Inverse]

More on Curiosity: Scientists Say NASAs Mars Rover Is on the Site of Ancient Ponds, Not a Huge Lake

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NASA Rover Detects Organic Molecules on the Surface of Mars - Futurism

HRH Prince Mohamed Bin Salman announced this project at the beginning of 2021, presented as a unique cluster of hyper-connected communities along a central spine, based on three layers: a pedestrian surface layer, where there will be zero cars, an intermediate service layer, and a base layer for underground high-speed, emissions-free transportation. The Line has already started taking shape, as The Daily Mail reports, with the first machines tunneling through the mountains.

The Line is part of NEOM, a large-scale project that envisions a futuristic city-state that would be 100% sustainable, unfolding over 10,000 square miles in the Tabuk province of Saudi Arabia. NEOM is meant to become a high-tech hub, as well as a major touristic attraction. Within this impressive urban development, the Line is planned to run along a 105-mile (170 km) area as a type of city with zero cars and zero streets, preserving 95% of the surrounding natural environment.

At the surface level, the one million future residents will have access to all essential services within walking distance. Everything will be powered by renewable energy. All logistics and deliveries will be conducted underground, at the invisible middle layer of the Line. Finally, ultra-high-speed trains, controlled by Artificial Intelligence, will ensure passenger and cargo transportation at the base level.

According to the NEOM project, this is an unprecedented approach to urban design, helping people reclaim the space that is typically occupied by cars and congested roads. NEOM aims to become the worlds largest carbon-free urban system, incorporating various types of renewable energy, as well as the latest technology. This massive city-state is estimated to cost around $500 billion.

With the Lines construction having kicked off, the first residents of this three-layered community cluster could start settling in as soon as 2024. It will take longer for the huge NEOM city-state to be completed, but tourists will be able to visit it in the near future.

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A Smart, Sustainable Futuristic City With No Cars and No Roads Is Starting to Take Shape - autoevolution

One of my favorite investment reads from the past year is 100 Baggers: Stocks that Return 100-to-1 and How to Find Them, by Christopher Mayer.

The best investment books are loaded with data. Mayer and his publisher spent $50,000 on the research to find all of the stocks that grew 100x between 1962 and 2010.

Id never seen this type of information collected in just one place. Its worth digging into the appendix to get the big picture:

(Courtesy image)

Getting 100-to-one returns doesnt happen overnight. It usually takes years, often decades.

Having a few exceptional growth stocks can work wonders for a portfolio. The best time to sell a great stock is possibly never. (Meanwhile, the best time to sell an awful stock is ASAP.)

The 1960s were a period of unprecedented growth. More 100-baggers came out in the 1960s than the subsequent decades. Having more time to grow was also extremely helpful.

Great companies were made in the 1970s and 1980s, too. It took a 1980s bull market to really get things going.

The number of 100-baggers from the 1990s started to decline for some reason. It could have have been the effects of a lost decade for stocks from 2000 to 2010. It is also possible that there are still many 100-baggers coming out from the 1990s and early 2000s we just havent seen them hit maturity yet. (Also, the cutoff date from the study was around 2010.)

Financial regulation in the post-9/11 era meant that many companies started going public much later in their life cycles. This was fine for venture capitalists and unfortunate for individual investor, who started to miss out on some of the best opportunities.

But heres the most interesting thing:The time that it takes to get a 100x return on top growth stocks appears to be shortening.

This requires a higher annualized rate of return on capital invested. Digital technology made this possible, along with network effects and automation.

(Courtesy image)

And the lifecycle of organizations seems to be accelerating from boom to bust.

(Courtesy image)

Ive only ever had one 100-bagger in my portfolio, taking just two years and generating annualized returns of 900% from 2016 to 2018. This involved an unprecedented rate of growth in what was to become the fastest growing asset in the world (it was a cryptocurrency Ethereum).

In the next issue of my newsletter, well talk about what it takes to become a 100x opportunity and where to find them. (Subscribe here.)

P.S. TheDunning-Krugereffect looks a lot like theGartner Hype Cycleand the learning curve of Robinhood traders. #stonks

(Courtesy image)

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Yes, the world really is moving faster: On the data behind high-growth stocks - Technical.ly Delaware

Lidl has become the latest retailer to unveil its Christmas advert.

The discounters ad depicts Christmas dinner in the present day and in a various futuristic universes, where the Chrsitmas turkey is carved by lasers and living on the moon is the equivalent of moving to Spain, in a nod to its commitment to always maintain low prices.

Viewers are also treated to a preview of Lidls new 2021 Christmas jumper, which is worn by one of the characters throughout the two-minute film.

The ad will air for the first time during ITVs Coronation Street commercial break tonight (5 November).

After a challenging couple of years, the nation wants to look forward, not back, which is why weve set our light-hearted ad decades in the future, said Lidl marketing director Claire Farrant.

Given our commitment to always be Big on quality, Lidl on price this year we wanted our Christmas advert to show that we really do mean always, no matter what the future has in store for us!

Products featured in the advert includeits Deluxe Pigs in Blankets, Crmant de Loire (8.49), a Vegan Garland and a full festive spread with a free-range British turkey.

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Lidl commits to low prices forever with futuristic Christmas ad - The Grocer

The future is here, and were excited to be a part of it.

Today, virtual and augmented reality has been a topic of focus for us and many other investors, as both the hardware and software layers continue to be built out. As we look ahead, use cases are a critical part of the story.

According to Perkins Cole, most people think virtual reality (VR) / augmented reality (AR) use cases are primarily in gaming (61%), followed by healthcare applications and education.

Investment Implications of Virtual Reality Adoption

When the first iPhone launched, the functionality was limited. The App Store primarily housed simple apps and games. But as consumers adopted smartphones, developers flocked to the ecosystem, and the use cases (and value) exploded.

The same thing is happening today with VR and AR. Use cases today are still fairly limited to gaming and interactive entertainment. However, its interesting to think of what they might be in the future as the ecosystem gets built out.

Facebook has this vision and is positioning themselves to be the underlying layer of this new era of Virtual Reality. Earlier this week, the company reported earnings (see our notes here). The companys other segment grew 195% year/year primarily driven by Quest 2 sales. They also announced their new name Meta. In his keynote address, Mark Zuckerberg shared his vision of the future and the potential applications of VR/AR down the road.

This has been a long time coming, yet we are still early in the story. As we look ahead, were excited to see the continued investment in AR/VR and what this means for consumers and the world.

Twitter: @_SeanDavid

The author or his firm may have positions in mentioned securities at the time of publication.Any opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not in any way represent the views or opinions of any other person or entity.

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Welcome To The Futuristic Era Of Virtual Reality - See It Market

Richard Browing, the founder of Gravity Industries, first made headlines a few years ago with his 'real-life Iron Man' jet suit that could let soldiers soar through the skies above war zones at over 80mph (128kph).

Now, he has demonstrated this jet suit's capabilities in front of the Army People Conference in Farnborough. Gravity calls it a world-first technology powered by five gas turbines capable of reaching an altitude of up to 12,000 feet.

(Photo : Wikimedia Commons)Richard Browning flying the "Daedalus" jet suit at Hurst Spit, Hampshire, England

Daily Mailshared in their recent article that Richard Browning has once again worn his futuristic jet suit to demonstrate in front of the Army bosses during the Army People Conference on November 2. An Army spokesperson said that the demonstration is meant to show them the potential of the jet suit's application by British soldiers in the future.

They explained that the conference opened with a capability display of Browning's jet suit. The demonstration showcased both innovation and technological advancements, which are two of the main drivers of the conference this year.

For his demonstration this time, Browning took off and landed both on the hood of a jeep parked nearby and on the cabin roof of a truck before flying to a balcony where Army bosses and onlookers were. As seen on the footage, many of them were amazed and took the chance to capture a photograph of the real-life Iron Man in action.

ALSO READ: Let's Defy Gravity! The Era of Gravity Suit

Today's demonstration in front of the British Armed Forces is not Browning's first time. Earlier this year, he also demonstrated for the Royal Marines from the 42 and 47 Commando groups that worked with Gravity Industries.

A videoposted by Browning's company to YouTube showed that aboard the offshore patrol vessel HMS Tamar, Browning used the jet suit to explore its potential to be used as part of marine boarding operations.

Before that, Browning also had demonstrations over the Plymouth sound for the Navy. Officials said that the demonstration is intended to help them understand whether the jet suit will be of help to military operations in the future.

In 2019, Browning also performed a demonstration on HMS Queen Elizabeth, which stunned passengers from a nearby private yacht with its smooth ride through the air. The ship at that time was off the coast of Annapolis, Maryland, on its three-month war-game exercise with US allies.

According to Born to Engineer, Gravity Industries is built around the jet suit, which they call the Daedalus Mark 1. It uses miniature jet engines to achieve a vertical flight.

Browning uses his arms to control both the direction and speed of the flight of the suit that uses kerosene engines, which can provide a 48.5 pounds (22kilogram) thrust each.

Moreover, he can see the jet suit's fuel consumption and other data within the head-up display inside the helmet he is wearing. This helps him to better pilot the suit.

In 2019, Gravity Industries received a Guinness World Records Awardfor the "fastest speed reached in a body-controlled jet-engine-powered suit" with a speed of 32.02mph (51.53kph).

RELATED ARTICLE: Real-Life Iron Man: Air Ambulance Uses Jet Packs for Emergency Services

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Futuristic Jet Suit Shows Off In Front of Army Bosses to Demonstrate Potential for Application by British Soldiers - Science Times