Week in Focus 

Global Trends- WC 19th July

This article aims to bring a roundup of important news to note as it relates to technology. From artificial intelligence beginning to take a bigger role in our society to advanced ways to track health problems and reduce emergency situations, we round up all news that is news in short, comprehensible terms. If you’re ready to join us in this interesting session, let’s dive right in!

Artificial Intelligence to help us with more than assistance? 

Ever since its initial inception in 1956, artificial intelligence has become a household name with its simplest and most common form being Google voice translate containing up to 103 languages and being actively used by more than half a billion a day. The human dependence on artificial intelligence has been risen in recent times as highly accurate AI became established in the late 2020s.

The efficiency with which artificial intelligence functions led to curiosity about how much people would actually trust artificial intelligence as it is commonly said that “AI is the future”. A survey conducted in America, China, and some European countries showed that a good number of people actually think handing legislative functions to artificial intelligence could be good except in the United States.

It may be quite easy to see why people would subscribe to this idea as what you give is what you get with machines and there may be no room for manipulation.

The unique ability of artificial intelligence to get even better over time as it learns new things may also be a reason why it could function in this role.

But there is a big BUT. The ability to get better over time, efficiency, and lack of room for manipulation are just a few thoughts to consider when we talk about artificial intelligence. There are many more important questions to be asked as well as possibilities to be considered in this idea.

One particular possibility as seen with certain AI algorithms is that they often generate behaviors totally different from what they would normally be expected to do and this could be a scary sight.

Also, Artificial intelligence is developed by individuals and they are designed based on what its creator wants it to perform hence the idea of creating a completely autonomous system that can effectively handle various changes that come with human behavior could be brought into question.

Seeing that a fraction of the population already thinks AI  legislation is a good thing, it is only a matter of time before more people begin to accept this idea. If this becomes a thing, there are some important points we may need to consider.

• The blending of certain artificial intelligence systems may be able to help balance the inadequacies they may display during use.
• Some groundbreaking inventions especially in fields of science and technology are usually due to artificial intelligence combining various variables at once and in quick time. Some inventions made by individuals may be hard to explain seeing that several random actions are taken to achieve a result hence, being able to completely break down these processes may be quite difficult. Artificial intelligence helps take records of these processes and could even reproduce them.
• Despite this hugely impressive aspect of artificial intelligence helping out in inventions, credit is rarely given to them by the higher authorities as it relates to patent laws and this is because only human ideas can be patented. This of course would only hold for a while as it is expected that with continual AI input, more credit would have to be given. Should AI be considered a potential legislative tool, it ought to be held accountable for its actions and a system can definitely be designed for this.
• The need to reinstate Artificial intelligence as decision-makers should not come as a surprise. Artificial intelligence has proved very useful in various aspects of our lives from movie choices to even much more important choices like self-discovery. Seeing that certain individuals even trust artificial intelligence than their own selves, it isn’t really to see how a larger number of people wouldn’t subscribe to the idea of artificial intelligence autonomy.
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Tangible Assets and digital assets fused into one

Scientists in Massachusetts Institute of Technology have made a groundbreaking discovery of a digital fiber that is able to store memory, sense temperature, and even contain a program for understanding physical activity.

This developing fiber could take the sale of virtual and physical assets miles further as with the purchase of a single valuable asset especially relating to sports or performance-related activities, important memories fitted into it so for the price of one, people get two valuable assets. This technology could also add more spice to the sale of NFTs.

The importance of this new digital fiber is far more beyond just digital asset sale (like NFTs highlights) as it can be used as a tracker of physical activities in a more comfortable manner and can provide updated data of important body features.

Presenting a choice between regular jobs and having a startup with getting a startup becoming much easier 

If you aren’t a huge fan of working with employers and prefer to be your own boss, Pietra Prima is a perfect companion as it allows users to start up their brand, set up commerce, set up pricing for items, and even display them on popular marketplaces. It does this by sourcing, warehousing, and distributing these items.

Pietra started a $15M Series A funding led by founders fund (a venture capital firm) which allows loads of users to have access to the democratized creative space.

Pietra’s future projection involves helping over a million individuals startup their own businesses in the next five years. This startup involves handling the multiple aspects of a high-performing business with additions to even the little details also included. Pietra offers services like custom packaging, product photography, storage, presentation of assets in fine detail as well as using important social media platforms to reach out to potential customers and deliver these items.

Interesting Investment Options to place your money where our mouth is 

As the effect of the Coronavirus, pandemic begins to die down and normal life as we know it begins to bloom, certain aspects which are already steadily growing may experience even more growth. Below, we highlight investment options that could come in handy as we try to make some money in alternate ways.

Home Pets: it is no longer news that domesticated animals are a part of our daily lives as they not only keep us company but they also provide emotional support. During the course of the Coronavirus pandemic, man and pet certainly drew closer but as the effect of the pandemic reduces and individuals begin to return to their daily lives, they do not forget all the support their pets gave and they would still be intent on taking great care of them. This prompts out alternative investment forms which could include pet foods, pet wares, and grooming tools as well as pet vaccination and care keeping.

Beauty and Hair Care: This space has actually been explosively growing for a while but the haircare sector is set to experience even more growth. To back up our claims that the hair care industry is experiencing excellent growth, statistics show that subscribers to Reddit about hair care products experienced a 20 thousand increase every month since last year.

Adult care and disease management: Another potential goldmine worth exploration as the world reopens up is adult care and disease management. Especially important in the adult care and disease management space is dementia management. This disease has around 50M people suffering from it annually and this number grows by 10M every year and as people grow much older the severity of this disease increases. This space becomes particularly appealing when you consider that in the US, at-home care especially for the aged costs approximately $3.5K a month. Apart from just home care, the development of private adult care facilities could be on the rise as well as people begin to desire more personal and specific treatment for the elderly ones and this could fetch up to $5K a month.

Self Controlling Transport Services Providing more Dynamic to what Technology Provides

In the early parts of this article, we discussed how artificial intelligence and technology, in general, have contributed to our world as we know it. A high possibility is there that technology does not only end in handling minor tasks, they could be trusted with much higher responsibilities. This is seen in the case of a more open approach regarding autonomous transport especially regarding making it public as it could potentially reduce the rate of accidents and could be properly regulated.

Technology Oriented Luxurious Superyachts Serving Top-end luxury through multi-faced views

Not only is technology fused into how we perform our daily activities, it is also potentially changing how we enjoy luxury and how we define it in general. This influence is taken a step further with the design of tech and sci-fi-inspired yachts. This yacht is named the Estrella superyacht and was designed by Yeojin Jung, a Ph. D. student with its design taking after the iconic star wars design.

The concept of her design allows a dynamic experience while on the sea as it allows people in three different aspects of the yacht to have views from different angles without the ship losing its balance. Although this item has not gone into production yet, it is certainly a sneak peek into how rapidly technology is growing in our world today.

Conceptual Efficient Workout Assistant

A particularly important aspect of technology and maybe the most important is its ability to make our lives so much easier.

An example of that is seen with the concept of all-around workout systems.

This system is described as all-round as it posses the ability to assist in workout sessions through its bench with a wide range of multi-position arms, relax the body and heat itself up to maintain comfort during exercises as well as even play some music to keep the workout going even when the going gets tough.
To round this impressive range of functions up, this system is also able to deliver massages after workout sessions to loosen up tense muscles.

Transformable Luxury Home Office Chair 

The world’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic has sort of enlightened individuals on the need to create items that could provide a different range of solutions while maintaining comfort importantly.
This solution is what this transformable luxury comfort chair provides as it is capable of folding into a comfy sitting chair. It is also able to transform into a cubic design to provide complete privacy and comfortable working space.

Helping Teens Become More Responsible with their Finances through Kid-focused Fintech

As the world continues to evolve, the age at which people desire to become independent tends to reduce. The main individuals to begin the quest for personal independence are mostly up-and-coming teenagers as well as young adults.

It is estimated that thirty years from now, a large part of financial participants would be present teenagers and young adults. It could prove a little too risky allowing young people complete access to their finances which is why banks are beginning to develop working systems that allow parents to keep track of their children’s finances.

To maintain between parents and young adults in this space, financial tech companies like Copper Banking are actively working to help teens take control of their finances. This company aims to relieve the dependence of young adults on their parents for financial support as it allows teens to build their accounts and earn money through referrals.

Apart from just being able to earn money on their own, an online platform named Greenlight card allows children to save and invest some of their earned funds.

Should parents still decide to keep tabs on how their children spend without the use of banks, GoHenry allows parents to regulate how their children spend via spending limits and choosing what and when kids can spend on.

Apart from just substantial contributions in how children spend money and what they spend on, Fintech also helps children receive contributions from their loved ones towards the important aspect of their lives. An example of a company actively aiding this is Earlybird.

Surge In Cyber Security Investments

Although the Covid-19 has brought so much bad luck the way of us all especially in how it restricts movements and organization of our daily activities. Without the introduction of technology, everyone would probably be experiencing a standstill. The introduction of technology especially in this period has led to a surge in remote jobs and workstations. The increase in workstations certainly makes for an increased need to invest in cybersecurity to keep files and documents safe.

The essence of cybersecurity is not only limited to keeping remote workstations safe but even as the world opens upon a road to recovery, constant protection against cyber threats in public establishments and even private institutes led to a rapid increase in investor interests in 2020.

NFTs Are Not Done Yet – Introducing Ways NFTs Could Further Enrich Gamers 

NFTs were initially known as a means to help highly valuable items like memes retain a worthy value. This was actually quite important as it allowed people to earn income passively especially due to the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the world at large reopens and recovers from the effects of the global pandemic, there is a growing belief that NFTs may be on the decline but this isn’t the case as an online gaming platform called Hello Anon a part riddle and part scrabble game aims to push the growth of NFTs further by providing a platform when tiles are purchased by game players to win certain games.

As the tiles continue to win and become known as sort of a winning formula, their popularity increases and this leads to their increase in value, and these NFT tiles could be sold for more money.

Permanent Storage without Backups and Numerous Passwords 

Flash drives, CD-Roms, and hard drives are just about a few physical storage devices capable of handling the storage of important files but since they are physical items, they are prone to destruction via physical conditions and disasters. Should you also choose to migrate your storage to the cloud, the impact of hackers and other security threats are to be expected while still having to keep up with several passwords and constant backups.

With an aim to create a much better storage method without much hassle, Arweave is a cryptocurrency that utilizes blockchain technology to keep files safe by not necessarily hiding it but making its users continually contribute to its safety in its open state.

Just like most decentralized platforms, tokens are like the fuel through which everything functions. These tokens can be mined by users or purchased on other platforms.

Also included in the Arweave setup is an Ardrive which has to be purchased and this drive takes your enjoyment of this cryptocurrency to a whole new level by providing private, decentralized storage for your items as well. To ensure that this setup continues to develop, a feature known as Gitopia which allows developers to include protocols and mine currencies as well.

Adding More Luxury To The Quality of Life 

Air conditioners are absolute essentials in ensuring that the weather is just perfect for us but controlling these gadgets could seem quite a hassle especially when the remote controllers are a fair distance off.

To take the luxury air conditioners to provide certain steps further, Sensibo allows users to easily control air conditioners from their mobile devices and this easy control helps in energy-saving and ensures more efficient use of the air conditioners.

Wow Bao Carving a Niche Out of Existing Platforms

With the increase in the number of businesses and population worldwide, innovation has certainly been the mother of new inventions. This saying particularly holds true considering how several constantly growing companies like Uber developed. It simply built on the exiting platform taxis provided and created a way for the comfort taxis provide to even get much better.

Wow Bao is another company using this technique of building on already existing setups and it does this in the food industry. Chinese food is already an incredible luxury as it is but Wao Bao takes this luxury to a whole new level by allowing a huge diversity in Chinese foods as it creates a platform for already set up restaurants or even personal individuals to start selling Chinese foods.

Wao Bao allows even small restaurants and individuals to deliver already cooked and preserved foods to different people hence several customers can enjoy a variety of foods. Apart from just being an online system, this company also provides easy access to foods by setting up offline stores to conveniently serve individuals online and offline. It consists of shops set up in Airports, open areas, and more.

A summary of trends you are missing 

1. Artificial Intelligence to help us with more than assistance?. Teasing thoughts of artificial intelligence in the legislature.

2. Tangible Assets and digital assets fused into one

3. Presenting a choice between regular jobs and having a startup with getting a startup becoming much easier

4. Interesting Investment Options to place your money where our mouth is. Alternative investments platforms currently experiencing exponential growth.

5. Self Controlling Transport Services Providing more Dynamic to what Technology Provides

6. Technology Oriented Luxurious Superyachts Serving Top-end luxury through multi-faced views

7. Conceptual Efficient Workout Assistant

8. Transformable Luxury Home Office Chair

9. Helping Teens Become More Responsible with their Finances through Kid-focused Fintech

10. Surge In Cybersecurity Investments

11. NFTs Are Not Done Yet – Introducing Ways NFTs Could Further Enrich Gamers

12. Permanent Storage without Backups and Numerous Passwords

13. Adding More Luxury To The Quality of Life

14. Wow Bao Carving a Niche Out of Existing Platforms