1st March 2019
MIT’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2019, chosen by Bill Gates. Including, robot dexterity, predicting preemies, gut probe in a pill, and a carbon dioxide catcher. And…here is Momentum’s, Little Book of 10 Trends for 2019. One Travel and Tourism related trend, ‘Frequent Travellers’ (number 7) announces some new buzzwords – Experiencification (the increase in consumers wanting to have experiences in all areas of their lives) and Immersion Fascination (both the need and desire to connect with a brand or company in unique ways).
A couple of interesting articles from The Economist across the last few weeks : What psychology experiments tell you about why people deny facts – ‘reasoning did not evolve to help individuals achieve greater knowledge and make better decisions. Rather…it evolved to improve the ability of ancestral hunter-gatherers to co-operate in small groups…. What would happen if we turned Facebook off?…and How Melvyn Bragg made high culture highly popular. Radio 4’s “In Our Time” proves that there is a mass market for deep thinking (registration may be necessary)
Some sobering environmental pieces to ponder – Photographer Edward Burtynsky is recording humanity’s impact on the Earth, one epic-scale photo at a time. This a World Without Clouds, ‘A state-of-the-art supercomputer simulation indicates that a feedback loop between global warming and cloud loss can push Earth’s climate past a disastrous tipping point in as little as a century’…and this is It’s Freezing in LA!: A new independent publication on climate change.
From Wired. Never before seen Nasa photos show the majesty of space travel. A new book peeks into Nasa’s archive to shed a little light on sixty years of space exploration.
‘For several months, Cara has been working up the courage to approach her mom about what she saw on Instagram. Not long ago, the 11-year-old—who, like all the other kids in this story, is referred to by a pseudonym—discovered that her mom had been posting photos of her, without prior approval, for much of her life. “I’ve wanted to bring it up. It’s weird seeing myself up there, and sometimes there’s pics I don’t like of myself, This is what happens, when kids realise their whole life is already online.
‘Right now, children are filming themselves chewing, whispering and tapping to give their adult audience an ASMR (autonomous sensory meridian response) buzz. The Chinese government banned them, and PayPal blocked their payments, yet some still earn thousands. But at what cost?’ Wired on – the dodgy, vulnerable fame of YouTube’s child ASMR stars.
This new Mothercare ad, celebrates the reality of childbirth.
The symbol of counter-culture, is at long last, just…culture. Spike Jonze’s ad for US marijuana retailer MedMen, aims to normalise getting high.
This is the interactive, Atlas Of Emotions, supported by the Dalai Lama. ‘The Dalai Lama imagined a map of our emotions to develop a calm mind. The Atlas represents what researchers have learned from the psychological study of emotion.’
And this is worth a watch. Tucker Carlson (of Fox News) interviews the historian (@rcbregman) who called out billionaires at Davos, and it went so badly the segment never aired.