Future trends

The article explores the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the consulting industry, particularly focusing on whether AI could replace traditional consulting firms like McKinsey & Company. It discusses the rise of AI-driven platforms and tools that offer data analysis, problem-solving, and decision-making capabilities comparable to those of human consultants.

While acknowledging the significant advancements in AI technology, the article also highlights the limitations and challenges AI faces in fully replacing human consultants. These include complexity of human interaction and the need for contextual understanding.

In a Forbes article, Bernard Marr predicts the 25 most important technology trends that will define the next 10 years. Not surprisingly, a number of them involve A.I. and IoT. Others will come from things like virtual, augmented and mixed realities; nanotechnologies; 3D printing; and Big Data.

The past 20 years have given us major technological game-changers, like Bluetooth, social media, and, of course, the iPhone. Other innovations include flash drives, hybrid cars, GPS, and the Cloud.

The speed of change in technology is increasing exponentially—every new development drives a number of others, each of which drives more, resulting in faster and faster change. It looks like this:

What technology trends do you think will drive the next 10 years?

The 2019 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to three scientists who played a large role in developing lithium-ion batteries: Stanley Whittingham of the U.K., American John Goodenough (at 97, the oldest Nobel laureate ever), and Japan’s Akira Yoshino. Whittingham created the first functional lithium-ion battery in the 1970s, then Goodenough increased its capacity two-fold over the next 10 years. Finally, Yoshino removed the pure lithium, making it much safer to use.

Lithium-ion batteries are indispensable in today’s world, used in everything from cellphones to cordless power tools to electric cars. Rechargeable and able to store large amounts of energy, they have revolutionized electronics. As the Nobel Committee put it, "...this year’s chemistry laureates have laid the foundation of a wireless, fossil fuel-free society."

The internet today isn’t what Tim Berners-Lee pictured when he invented the World Wide Web nearly three decades ago.

Berners-Lee says the web is “at a tipping point” as it faces threats like market concentration, data breaches, user frustration with ads and privacy, hate speech and so-called “fake news.”

“If you’d asked me 10 years ago, I would have said humanity is going to do a good job with this,” he said. “If we connect all these people together, they are such wonderful people they will get along. I was wrong.”

Berners-Lee’s World Wide Web Foundation has unveiled a “Contract for the Web” outlining principles to protect the internet as a basic right for everyone. One key pillar of this initiative is that companies respect consumers’ privacy and personal data.

5G, or 5th generation mobile, is the next big leap in wireless communications. 5G will radically improve the bandwidth, capacity and reliability of mobile broadband, and will push mobile speeds from 100 Mbps to upward of 10 Gbps.  

But the real excitement over 5G comes with new uses that simply aren’t possible with today’s networks. Many of these involve the revolution in sensors, low-cost transmitters and cloud-based software known as the Internet of Things (IoT).  

As billions more things go online over the next several years, they will be using 5G networks to send and receive massive amounts of new data. Uses for that information will scale up from the personal to the global — connecting you, your home and your community.  

Online shopping is skyrocketing. So what are cities going to do about it?

The rising numbers of deliveries are adding to concerns about traffic and pollution in rapidly growing cities around the world. In Europe and Asia, cities have barred deliveries during certain hours, built warehouses to centralise distribution and provided millions in funding to encourage firms to switch to quieter, greener equipment. In the U.S., discussions about how to handle the glut of online shipments were somewhat slower to start, but they're happening now.

In response to the increasing congestion, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a test ban on deliveries during commuter hours on some of the city's most crowded streets. Cities in Europe have taken other kinds of steps. Paris, for example, has sponsored logistics hubs, while one of London's bus operators is looking at the possibility of using buses for parcel delivery.

In America, on a unanimous voice vote, a Senate committee approved legislation that authorizes self-driving car makers to sell as many as 80,000 vehicles a year within three years that would be exempt from current safety standards as manufacturers develop technology for autonomous vehicles.

The legislation only allows for the exemption—which gives car makers the chance to test and design new technology while potentially foregoing traditional standards for items such as the placement of controls and displays, rear-view mirrors or protection from the impact of steering wheels in a crash—in cases where manufacturers can show the exempted car or component is as safe as that already on the road.

 “This is cutting-edge technology that is advancing extremely fast,” said U.S. Sen. Gary Peters. “It’s going to happen a lot sooner than people realize. This is not decades—it’s a matter of a few years.”

At SoftBank Group's annual shareholders meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday, founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son said: "Some say SoftBank is a mobile phone company, but that's wrong [...] We are an information revolution company. A cellphone is just a device. From now on, we will be in an age where all infrastructure will be connected by information networks."

Son has about 30 targets lined up in emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things. SoftBank, he made it clear, intends to be at the forefront of all these fields.

Amazon swooped in to buy the high-end grocer Whole Foods on Friday, paying $13.7 billion, or $42 a share—a healthy 27% premium on the previous day's closing price.

So what's in it for Amazon?

There are a couple of strategic plays at work for the online retail giant.

For starters, acquiring Whole Foods' 440 US stores—many of them in prime locations—could bolster the network for AmazonFresh, the company's grocery delivery service.

"To efficiently ship groceries to consumers, you need physical distribution (item-picking to put parcels together, click-and-collect points) close to the consumer," analysts at Bernstein wrote in a research note. "Stores are ideally located for that. They won't look like stores in five years' time, but they will be in those locations."