Trends of the future

The cell phone is dead - at least in the future. Most technology experts agree on that. The reason: The user behavior of the future provides for a light, practical equipment that does not have to be held in your hands, which offers a multitude of advantages. One solution is the smartwatch. A far more logical smart glasses. Because, as currently Microsoft with its already available for software developers HoloLens shows, it will soon come to the merger of two concepts: The "augmented reality" (augmented reality), which is also already heavily used on the phone, complements images, Videos or maps with additional digitally overlaid information. Virtual reality lets you immerse yourself in a completely digital world via VR glasses. 

If both concepts are used together - as "mixed reality" - unforeseen possibilities arise. The real environment in the view through corresponding glasses mingles with virtual elements and extended information. Voice control or a virtual interface can be used to call up all desired applications and information. Examples: An architect no longer needs a model, not even "real" plans. The planned building appears in the middle of the room, can be moved, changed. Or: a large number of devices, such as televisions and telephones, are no longer needed. At the touch of a button, you sit from one second to the next in a huge cinema room and watch the current blockbuster streaming. And the phone call of the future could soon look like this: Both interlocutors sit comfortably in an environment they generate and chat - as if they were actually in the same room.

HoloLens is the first device on the market. However, the "mixed reality" will only be suitable if further progress has been made in terms of miniaturization. Above all, a tiny, powerful battery is needed.

A lot of fundamental changes are coming to our society. The most important are technologically conditioned. And: The fear of the new technologies is not so big, wants to know about a representative survey from Porsche Consulting regarding robots in the health sector: Three out of four citizens in Germany have no objection, when a surgery in the hospital "colleague robot" instead of a Surgeons would lead the scalpel. 56 percent would be maintained by a machine. Only 23 percent generally reject medical robots, 44 percent care robots.

Even more encouragement will find the Dating by virtual reality. Online dating sites have changed the search for the joy of life decades ago. MySugardaddy VR is set to launch the world's first virtual reality dating community in the fall. As soon as users immerse themselves in virtual reality with their VR glasses, they experience their flirting partner in the shape of an individually designed avatar. And even though the avatar's design might not quite match 100's percentage of reality, at least the potential new lover can be checked out with a real conversation.

Around 40 percent of all electronic devices could be controlled in just a few years by the contact with the body. "Connected Life" means, so to speak, the increasing integration and control of electronics - up to electronic implants in the body. Especially in the field of health, this is imminent: An intelligent contact lens that not only improves eyesight, but also measures vital signs such as blood sugar levels and sends the result directly to the smartphone or displays via micro-LED in the lens? What still sounds like material from a sci-fi movie is already being developed by companies like Google and Novartis. According to the current Oliver Wyman analysis "Connected Life 2025", 2025 already controls 10 percent of today's consumer goods via implants.

A distinction is made between five development steps of the "Connected Life":1. Devices are connected to the Internet, eg the TV2. Devices communicate with each other, eg washing machine with the dryer.3. The human communicates contactlessly with devices, eg via language, facial expressions or Gestik.4. Devices communicate with sensors on the skin or in clothing (patches) .5. Devices communicate with sensors in the skin (implants).

Steps 1, 2 and 3 have long been there: Many TV sets are now web-enabled, and all other devices - for example acoustic assistant "Alexa" & Co - communicate like crazy. The next steps - "intelligent textiles and implants - follow soon: Clothing equipped with sensors, for example, which reports the owner's heart rate to the smartphone, is largely ready for the market. The number of patents in the field of “smart clothing” in Europe has more than doubled in the last ten years, to just under 8.000. Samsung, for example, is currently working on the "S-Patch 3" prototype, which is attached to the body and continuously sends vital signs.

4,9 millions of Austrians play video games, according to the latest study by GfK on behalf of the Austrian Association for Entertainment Software (ÖVUS). Most gamers (3,5 millions) play on the smartphone. PCs with 2,3 millions and consoles with 2,2 million gamers follow in second and third place, but are used by their fans all the more.

And, as with many, which enjoys a wide popularity, also here the competition idea becomes more important. In Europe alone, around 22 million players are now assigned to the eSport. Top players in South Korea, the mother of all eSport countries, earn up to 230.000 dollars a year. Spanish e-sportsman Carlos "ocelote" Rodríguez said in an interview that he has already earned 2013 through pay, merchandising, prize money, advertising contracts and streaming between 600.000 and 700.000 Euro.

This is made possible by the huge number of people who watch while playing. Because: Meanwhile, about "Lets Play" videos on Youtube are just as popular as the actual games. The German Erik Range aka "Gronkh" has been playing for many years and can point to 4,6 millions of Youtube subscribers. He is already earning 40.000 Euro a month, rumored annual salary 2017: Proud 700.000 Euro.

But it is also clear: eSports and video production is demanding, professional work, requires training, know-how and, above all, long-term stamina.

It should once again be a veritable revolution. In any case, the new speeds in mobile networks will allow for emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and the Internet of Things (IoT). This has one main reason: the enormous amount of data that has to be sent through the network.

5G is to become the consistent advancement of the existing mobile radio technology - with much larger bandwidths and latencies in the low, single-digit millisecond range. Up to ten gigabits per second should be achieved. That would be about ten times faster than the current LTE standard. In Austria, the starting signal will be fired in autumn when the licenses are auctioned off. Around 500 million euros are expected for the state treasury. A big issue is the number of radio cells that are needed. 5G needs in the long term up to ten times as many, but much smaller antennas than the current standard.

The new future standard for wireless WLAN connections goes in the same direction. The data volumes in the WLAN networks have long since recorded enormous data throughput to enable movie and music streaming and much more. Up to 50 devices should be normal in the home network. Current benefits are already reaching their limits. This should be different with the WLAN ax standard (IEEE 802.11ax), the successor of WLAN ac: The aim of WLAN ax is to improve the efficiency of the WLAN protocol with high subscriber density - and thus at least four times faster. In lab conditions routers and smartphones already communicated with more than 10 Gbit / s, at this speed 1,4 Gigabyte data per second could be sent, reports Asus. In addition, with WLAN ax, which uses 2,4 GHz as well as the 5 Ghz band, neighboring networks will no longer interfere with each other. New wireless routers are already expected with spring 2018.

Both standards are expected by the media industry, as the future of TV and radio will be seen after the end of terrestrial television (and possibly soon radio) in the mobile network. A free network access to domestic streaming offers is already being discussed.

Bio-cyclic-vegan agriculture - This is the latest development in agriculture. The concept is not completely new: pioneers have already laid the foundations for this in the 20 and 30 years. The "natural farming", which represented a form of management in the interwar years, is in its ideals very similar to the bio-cyclic-vegan concept.

What's it all about? Unlike "bio vegan", which indicates biological process quality and vegan product quality, bio-vegan farming is starting to grow to produce organic and vegan crops. Resources that are associated with animal suffering and exploitation (eg manure, manure, slaughterhouse waste) are consistently dispensed with. In organic farming, these substances, some of which originate from conventional factory farming, are commonly used. By the way, with the bio-cyclic-vegan cultivation also the climate thinking is taken into account.

The cultivation method has been globally valid as an organic standard since the end of 2017 and is thus equivalent to EU organic certification. However, biocyclic-vegan cultivation is only just beginning; in Germany only two companies are allowed to mark their products with the "biocyclic-vegan cultivation" label.

The first products to be labeled with the term "bio-cyclic-vegan" in the supermarkets will be oranges, clementines, lemons, pomegranates, kiwis, cherry tomatoes and olive oil.

Every second full-time worker is experiencing changes in working life due to Artificial Intelligence, according to the study "Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace 2018" by the IMWF Institute for Management and Economic Research and the Toluna Market Research Institute: With 63 percent, most people concerned said they lacked a "human component" Reason for their fears. 55 percent see AI applications as "cheap competition" that will lead to declining wages for human labor. Each 46 percent complain that it remains unclear how Artificial Intelligence makes decisions, or that programming errors have serious consequences. 41 percent fear losing their own jobs, 39 percent think AI makes individual, creative or extraordinary solutions to tasks impossible. 36 percent of all employees explicitly do not share these fears. Four percent even expect no change in working life through artificial intelligence. The remainder has no clear opinion on this topic.

Limits for the machines So it's no wonder that the call for an ethical framework for AI is getting louder and louder. This process is already underway, assures Thomas Kremer, Board Member for Data Protection, Legal Affairs and Compliance at Deutsche Telekom: “Recently, Google boss Sundar Pichai published seven guidelines on the ethical use of AI. The EU Commission wants to set up an “on-demand” platform and an observatory for AI in order to facilitate “access to the latest algorithms”. An ethics charter is also due to come in 2019. “In the meantime, development is progressing rapidly, as a McKinsey study reveals: 85 percent of those responsible from the automotive, mechanical engineering and aerospace and defense industries assume that technological breakthroughs such as artificial intelligence , the Internet of Things and data-based business models will completely change your company. Three out of four people responsible named the speed of change as a key factor. Almost every second person believes the extent of the change has never been seen before. One factor testifies to the fact that the process cannot be stopped: According to market researcher PwC, the German economy alone should grow by more than 2030 percent by 430. That corresponds to a sum of around XNUMX billion euros. "Artificial intelligence has the potential to become a 'game changer'", says Christian Kirschniak, Head of Data & Analytics Advisory PwC Europe. “Thanks to AI technologies, there will be many things in the near future that we cannot imagine today and that go far beyond simple automation or acceleration.” According to sectors, the healthcare sector and the automotive industry are particularly affected, followed by the financial sector and the transport and logistics sector.

The traffic of the future could soon conquer the airspace, at least Volocopter, pioneer in the development of air taxis, is sure and is already working on concepts how this will work. The concept integrates air taxis into existing transport structures and offers additional mobility for up to 10.000 passengers per day from the very first point-to-point connection. With dozens of Volo-Hubs and Volo-Ports in one city, they bring up to 100.000 passengers per hour to their destination.

Volocopter are emission-free, electrically powered aircraft that take off and land vertically. They are to offer particularly high security, as all critical flight and control elements are redundantly installed. Volocopters are based on drone technology, but powerful enough to accommodate two people in each Volocopter and fly up to 27 kilometers. The Karlsruhe-based company has already shown that the Volocopter flies safely - most recently in Dubai and Las Vegas. Florian Reuter, from Volocopter GmbH. "We work on the whole ecosystem because we want to establish urban air taxi services around the world. That includes the physical as well as the digital infrastructure. "

When it comes to values ​​and educational goals, the moral principle of "honesty" is at the top of three out of four people (74 percent). Respect (62 percent), Reliability (61 percent), and Helpfulness (60 percent) are also values ​​that are considered very important. This emerges from a recent representative survey of the Ipsos Institute in collaboration with futurologist Horst Opaschowski, in which 1.000 persons were interviewed from 14 years - with the neighbor Germany, mind you.

Futurist Opaschowski: "The understanding of values ​​stands for appreciation and value preservation and ensures a new sustainability in the values ​​and education debate. It can be conservative and conservative, hesitant and doubtful, but also open to innovation and change. After all, value change is a process that is never completed and that constantly changes the value hierarchy. "

What the parent generation considers "especially important" in education does not agree in every respect with the ideas of the younger generation. The 14- to 24-year-olds would, if they had to raise a child today, very special emphasis on self-employment (64 percent - remaining population: 59 percent) lay. Assertiveness (61 percent - remaining: 49 percent) and teamwork (55 percent - remaining: 45 percent) play a much greater role as educational goal in teens and twens.

Only four out of ten (42 percent) in 28 countries worldwide believe that everyone in their country enjoys the same human rights. This result of a study by the market and social research institute Ipsos gives rise to doubts about how universal human rights actually are. While one in five (20%) is not positioned on this issue, one in three (33%) bluntly states that not everyone has the same human rights in their home country. Interestingly, Germans and Chinese see their country here above average positive, each almost two-thirds (63%) believe in equal human rights. In South Africa (25%) and Italy (28%), the picture is completely different. Only one out of three (31%) believes that human rights abuses are a problem in other countries, but not really in his. Four out of ten reject this statement, confirming that they have committed violations in their home country. One in four can not decide on this question. The only country in the 28 polled countries where a majority (55%) believes that human rights are not a problem in their country is Germany. Especially in Colombia (69%), South Africa, Peru and Mexico (each 60%) large majorities are taking the opposite.

Most citizens (78%) agree that a law protecting human rights is important in their country, with only six percent disagreeing. Especially in Serbia (90%), Hungary (88%), Colombia (88%), South Africa (86%) and Germany (84%) one is of the opinion. Interestingly, in Brazil (12%), Saudi Arabia (11%) and Turkey, this view is barely represented. Even if large sections of the population consider human rights important, only one in two respondents (56%) say they know a lot about them.

The findings are from the Global Advisor study conducted by 2018 on the Ipsos Online Panel among 23.249 individuals in 28 countries.

According to a study by international consultancy AT Kearney, up to 2040 percent of meat products in 60 will no longer come from animals. Dr. Carsten Gerhardt, partner and agricultural expert at AT Kearney, said: "Already 2040 will only produce 40 percent of the animals' consumed meat products. This also means a shrinking of factory farming with all its problems. "

While the authors claim that the global meat market continues to grow, the authors suggest that new alternatives to meat and cultivated meat are increasingly displacing ordinary meat. In the study titled "How Does Cultured Meat and Meat Alternatives Disrupt the Agricultural and Food Industry?" Cultivated meat could significantly reduce the area and fertilization problem and make obsolete the use of antibiotics and other substances for the breeding and protection of animals. The release states: "We feed most of the crops to animals to produce meat that is ultimately consumed by humans. (...) With projections of an increase in the world's population today from 7,6 billion to around 10 billion in 2050, there is no way around artificial meat and meat alternatives. "

Image: AT Kearney

Carinthia will be part of a research project between the province of Carinthia and the company EHang Overseas, model and test region for the testing of "passenger drones" in the areas of tourism, passenger and goods transport. Test areas could include the grounds of Klagenfurt airport, the Wörthersee area and the logistics center. Center in Villach / Fürnitz (LCAS). According to the Mobility Councilor Sebastian Schuschnig, which of these can be implemented in any form will be worked out in the next project steps together with the manufacturer and the authorities. Safety is a top priority for the company. The systems are redundant and each of the 16 rotors is equipped with its own engine and its own battery. The flight taxi can accommodate two seats and storage space for luggage and will be set up at defined and thus secured take-off and landing areas. The doors remain automatically closed until the rotors are stationary. These take-off and landing areas are waiting for passengers, but also serve as charging stations for the taxis. The electrically operated drones reach an airspeed up to 130km / h and a range between 50-70km. The maximum flight duration is 30 minutes. The volume is comparable with a maximum of 65db with a vacuum cleaner.

Picture: SURAAA, kk