In this issue: A FUTURE WITHOUT PEOPLE BAREFACED FUN DRONE NETWORKS And much, much more... ------------------------------------------------------------ ____ ____ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ * / __ )/ __ \/ | / _/ | / / |/ / | / _/ / / __ / /_/ / /| | / // |/ / /|_/ / /| | / // / / /_/ / _ _/ ___ |_/ // /| / / / / ___ |_/ // /___ /_____/_/ |_/_/ |_/___/_/ |_/_/ /_/_/ |_/___/_____/ *Feeding hungry minds since 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail email issue 102 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail is a free monthly (usually) newsletter dedicated to intellectual miscellany and ephemera. A file of hand- picked curiosities, cerebral snacks and fortuitous facts. To subscribe or unsubscribe (or to search the whole 13- year brainmail archive) visit: http://brainmail.nowandnext.com/ Like it? - then surely share it on social media. ------------------------------------------------------------ : INSIGHTS & IDEAS > A future without people A study of 800 global business leaders by Korn Ferry (an executive search firm) has found that over two thirds of bosses in the UK think technology will create more value in the future than people. 44 per cent also said that developments in AI, robotics and automation would make employees "largely irrelevant." Ref: City AM (UK) > Barefaced fun Some parents of primary-school children have been reduced to tears by the competitive pressure of hosting the 'class teddy' at home at weekends. Apparently the need to fill in the teddy's diary and take photographs of the bear having fun has been too much to bear. Hosting bears over holiday periods can be especially stressful. Personally I'm encouraged by the parent who wrote that their bear had been "wandering aimlessly around B&Q" (A DIY superstore). Ref: Times Educational Supplement (UK) > Peer-to-peer insurance Here's a classic example of finding the future buried in the past. Many insurance companies started life when individuals banded together to share losses. Now the internet is facilitating much the same thing. Peer groups are setting up whereby each individual is both the insurer and the insured. Payouts are made only if the majority of group members agree and are proportional to the value of the goods insured. Micro-payments minimise operating costs and any group is able to negotiate remedial costs through collective bargaining. This model may well represent the future of healthcare insurance, especially as any group could, in theory, band together to influence the behaviour of individual members. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Flash memory Research from Hadasah University in Jerusalem suggests that your life really does flash past you before you die. Tests involving people that have survived near-death experiences suggest that memories rarely run in chronological order and, rather weirdly, often appear from the point of view of a third person. Even weirder, many participants claimed that they had felt the emotions of the third party, especially periods of pain in their lives. Ref: Journal of Consciousness and Cognition > Drone networks The future of transport, especially in rural Africa, is small and in the air, according to Andreas Raptopoulis, co-founder of Palo-Alto-based Matternet. He believes that the cost of building roads across Africa is too high from both a financial and an environmental perspective. His idea is to build highways of drones to transport items that are light but high value - for example, medicines. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > An internet of everything to be hacked You're probably feeling pretty smug about the smart thermostat or lighting system recently installed in your home. But researchers from the Weizmann Institute in Israel have shown that it's possible for hackers to gain control of a lighting system using a 'worm' that travels from house to house and ultimately damages the entire grid by rapidly turning lights on and off. One wonders about other so-called smart household appliances. Bringing a nation to its knees by taking control of its internet-connected toasters? Ref: The Times (UK) > Be careful what you wish for This isn't an idea or an invention, but it sure makes me laugh. Gary Kremen, the founder of the online dating site Match.com, lost his girlfriend to a man she met on Match.com. Beautiful. Ref: The Daily Mirror (UK) > Robot rage A robot called Xiao Pang ("Little Fatty"), which was on display at a high-tech fair in Shenzhen, China, injured a man after "attacking" its glass display booth. Similar in some ways to Microsoft's AI tweeting chatbot called Tay, which went into a racist rant. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > Sweet idea A firm called Morphotonix, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, has developed a way to print credit-card style holograms on chocolate. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Not all likes are equal A study has found that 'liking' a cause online can have little to do with commitment. For example, a study by the University of California at San Diego found that the Save Darfur campaign on Facebook produced 1.2 million likes by the end of January 2010, but raised funds equivalent to just 8 US cents per like. However, another study looking at the Egyptian uprising found that Facebook was critical in galvanising the early protestors. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Tokyo shop watch Cat cafes have been spotted in Tokyo. The idea is that free-roaming moggies mingle among customers enjoying a hot mocha, thereby reducing stress. So what's next? How about doggie diners at the Battersea Dogs' Home, or koala cafes in Katoomba? Ref: Time Out (UK) > Wave farewell to big waves (maybe) The number of big waves on Australia's east coast could fall by as much as a third by the end of the century due to climate change, according to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology in Melbourne. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > When a trend is a fad This is more an observation than a thing. Video Ezy in Australia once asked me what to do about 3D TV. I said nothing. Just wait. There were bigger things they should be worried about - like people downloading movies. It has taken a while, but indications are that 3D is now dead. Lifeless. Kaput. Samsung, LG and Sony have all announced that they will no longer be making 3D TVs. Is this simply about people not wanting to wear glasses? With hindsight we'll see. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) > In God we trust A survey has identified whom we trust. Doctors top the list at 89 per cent, while teachers are at 86 per cent. Judges are at 80 per cent, scientists 79 per cent, and hairdressers 69 per cent. The least trusted people are politicians at 21 per cent, real estate agents (yes I'm still thinking of you, Sally in Sydney) at 25 per cent, journalists at 25 per cent, and business leaders at 35 per cent. God was not ranked. Ref: The Times (UK) > A very big bubble A study by McKinsey says that the value of the digital economy now exceeds that of energy or agriculture globally. As the financial writer Noah Smith duly observed: "The danger is not that we are in a tech bubble, but rather that we're in "an everything bubble." Ref: The Times (UK) > Why 4.8 is the magic number A study by Professor Xueming Luo of the University of Texas (US) has found that 4.8 years is the ideal length of time for a CEO to be in a post. This is because the strength of employee relationships tends to improve the longer the CEO stays around. But if a CEO becomes too established, he or she relies too heavily on colleagues for insight and so ties with customers and the outside world weaken. Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : THE NUMBERS In the early 1990s, around half of 17-20-year-olds in the UK held a driving licence; now it's around a third. Ref: Sunday Times (UK) Attendance at Sunday Mass in England and Wales has dropped by half since 1960. Meanwhile the average age of worshippers has risen from 37 in 1980 to 52 in 2012. Ref: The Economist (UK) India has - or soon will have - one fifth of the world's entire working-age population. (Let's hope someone can find all of them something to do.) Ref: The Economist (UK) 50 per cent of 13-to-19-year-olds in the UK have never written a thank-you letter; 26 per cent have never written a birthday or Christmas card. Meanwhile, 58 per cent think that writing by hand is too slow and 9 per cent don't own a pen. All according to a survey by Bic (the pen company). Ref: Daily Mirror (UK) One third of all US children born in 1860 didn't make it to their fifth birthday. That's right, one in three. In 1960, one child in 30 died before reaching kindergarten age. Now it's just one child in 200. Ref: Gapminder Of the 500 companies that appeared on the Fortune 500 list in 1955, only 61 (12.2 per cent) were still on the list 59 years later in 2014. Fifty years ago the life expectancy of a Fortune 500 firm was around 75 years. Today it's about 15 years and declining. Ref: AEI.org (US) The distance that UK kids stray from home on their own has shrunk by 90% since the 70s. Meanwhile, 43% of adults think a child shouldn't play outdoors unsupervised until the age of 14. More UK children are now admitted to hospitals for injuries incurred falling out of bed than falling out of trees. Ref: TV channel Eden (UK) 25 per cent of the 35,000 annual deaths on America's roads are now linked to mobile phone use. Ref: The Economist (UK), W.H.O. 1,158 care home residents in the UK died of thirst between 2003 and 2012. Ref: ONS (UK) Since 2009, the number of people in America on food stamps has grown from 21 million to 47 million - one-sixth of the entire country. Ref: Fortune (US) 35 per cent of Russia's wealth is in the hands of 110 people. Ref: The Guardian (UK) Before the Renaissance, 75 per cent of all the world's books were Chinese. Ref: Prospect/Daily Telegraph (UK) Bicycles outsold cars in 26 EU countries during 2012. Ref: BBC (UK) The All-Party Beer Group is the largest all-party (cross-bench) subject matter group in Westminster, boasting 300 members (almost half of all MPs). Ref: British Medical Journal (UK) Climate change could cause global crop yields to decline by as much as 30 per cent by 2030 according to a summary of 1,700 studies. Ref: Nature (US) Frost & Sullivan (a market research company) says that 26 million people will be using car-sharing services by 2020 (up from 5 million in 2014). Ref: New York Times (US) The rate of owner occupation in the UK has declined to 64.7 per cent, the lowest level since 1988. Ref: The Guardian (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "Creativity is intelligence having fun." - Albert Einstein (Quoted in Ad Age, US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : WORD DETECTIVE CASP (Conversational Agent for Social Promotion): Software that monitors an individual's social media and responds as though it were the individual. For example, a CASP can make relevant comments on photos posted by your friends. Mind you, if your friends find out, they might not be your friends for very long. Ref: AAAI Spring Symposium at Stamford (US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : SHOP OF THE MONTH The Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company. Not quite what it seems. This store, which sells super-hero stuff, is actually a shop front for a nonprofit called 826NYC, which is a kids' writing, mentoring and publishing centre. Ref: Time Out (US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : CHARITY OF THE MONTH The Hope Project in Northampton http://hopeenterprises.org.uk/tools.php ------------------------------------------------------------ : BOOK OF THE MONTH A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit A book about change and transformation. A book about getting lost, staying lost, and what happens when people are found. ------------------------------------------------------------ : PREDICTION OF THE MONTH Gartner predicts that by 2018, 50% of business ethics violations will be related to data. Ref: Forbes (US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : WEB SIGHT OF THE MONTH A way to exchange time, value or skills without using money. I'm not sure what the tax authorities will think of this if it ever becomes ubiquitous. www.timebanking.org ------------------------------------------------------------ : STILL HUNGRY? Not a lot of people know this, but brainmail is put together using some of the leftover bits from the What's Next trends report. So if this snack-sized newsletter is leaving you a bit hungry, go to nowandnext.com for something more substantial (and that's free too). ------------------------------------------------------------ : BRAINMAIL LIVE If you are looking for an interesting speaker for your next conference, workshop, or event ask your speaker agency about Richard Watson or contact him direct via nowandnext.com. Richard, who is based in London, is the creator of brainmail (along with Matt Doyle and Phil Beresford, both of whom had the good sense to stay in Australia). ------------------------------------------------------------ : SMALL PRINT The material appearing in brainmail is sourced from a variety of usually reliable publications worldwide. However, we cannot guarantee the truthfulness of stories and a degree of commonsense should be applied before quoting or using any material in a commercial context. If something appears to be too good to be true it probably is. That's all folks. Back soon...