Tech Industry Regulation in the US Becomes Real

Regardless of whether major social media firms and tech companies enable these on board AI capabilities or not, it’s clear to me that we’ve reached a point in the US social consciousness that tech companies managing all this personal data need to be regulated. While I’ll be the first to admit that the slow-moving government regulatory process is ill-matched to the rapidly evolving tech industry, that’s still not an excuse for not doing anything. As a result, in 2019, I believe the first government regulations of the tech industry will be put into place, specifically around data privacy and disclosure rules.

It’s clear from the backlash that companies like Facebook have been receiving that many consumers are very concerned with how much data has been collected not only about their online activities, but their location, and many other very specific (and very private) aspects of their lives. Despite the companies’ claims that we gave over most all of this information willingly (thanks to the confusingly worded and never read license agreements), common sense tells us that the vast majority of us did not understand or know how the data was being analyzed and used.

Legislators from both parties recognize these concerns, and despite the highly polarized political climate, are likely going to easily agree to some kind of limitations on the type of data that’s collected, how it’s analyzed, and how it’s ultimately used. Whether the US builds on Europe’s GDPR regulations, the privacy laws instated in California last year, or something entirely different remains to be seen, but now that the value and potential impact of personal data has been made clear, there’s no doubt we will see laws that control the valued commodity that it is.

Global reserves of indium are running out

An Indium produced in industry comes as the by-product of smelting zinc and lead sulphide ores, some of which can contain 1% indium. Specimens of uncombed indium metal have been found in a region of Russia and an indium mineral, indie, has been found in Siberia, but it is rare. The present cost of indium is about $1 to $5/g, depending on quantity and purity. Indium is a rare, soft and malleable post-transition metal, found primarily in zinc ore.

It is mined almost exclusively in Canada, China, the US and Russia. Indium is used in various electronic applications such as LCDs and touchscreens, solar cells, LEDs and various batteries. It is also useful in making alloys, medical imaging, and in the control rods of nuclear reactors. Its role in electronic screens drives most of the production demand, which by now has resulted in global reserves being almost completely exhausted. 

Recycling is one option being pursued to solve this problem, but it will only suffice in the short term. Fortunately, new alternative materials are being introduced, derived from carbon nanotube compounds that can take on the role previously filled by indium. Indium does not react with carbon, silicon, or boron, and the corresponding carbide, silicide, and boride are not known. No reaction takes place between hydrogen and indium, but indium (III) and indium (I) hydrates can be formed. It dissolvers in acids and is stable in water and air.

Aquaculture provides the majority of the world's seafood

Aquaculture – the cultivating of freshwater and saltwater fish under controlled conditions – has remained one of the fastest growing industries in the agricultural sector. Since the late 1980s, traditional "capture" fisheries have been on a plateau. Aquaculture, by contrast, increased by 8.8% per year from 1985 to 2010 and had witnessed an eightfold increase by the mid-2020s. It now accounts for the majority of the world's seafood, surpassing wild catch harvests by weight. The capture fishing industry itself has faced severe problems. Overfishing, climate change and pollution have all contributed to the sharp decline of yields. The largest centres for aquaculture remain in East and Southeast Asia – with the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia seeing large increases in production.

Cambodia in particular has seen massive growth. New techniques have been adopted, helping to increase both sustainability and yield. One such method, used for the cultivation of jumbo shrimp, is super-intensive stacked raceways. Shrimp are grown in large, enclosed tubes called raceways, in which computers monitor and control a steady circulation of mineral water.  As they mature, they are moved down the stacked columns of tubes, until they reach the final bottom row, fully grown, where they are harvested. This method greatly increases the output of shrimp farms, up to one million pounds of shrimp per square acre, and can be deployed almost anywhere.

 The growth of aquaculture has caused a major shift in commerce and trade. Countries previously reliant on imports are now capable of producing vast quantities of fish, crustaceans, seaweed and other seafood Numerous start-up companies have appeared to fill the growing industry. Aquaculture as a whole will become one of the most vital industries in the world this century, as traditional commercial fishing breaks down and produces unsustainable yields.

For Blockchain and B2B, real transaction volumes will start to flo

Block chain in the B2B world has been all hype with no significant transaction volume, but there are signs that this will change in 2019. To deal with cash flow, financing, settlements, and other ways of sharing value at scale, you need to get past the current hour-by-hour volatility and ensure a stable medium of exchange. The emergence of mature stable coin players such as True USD (backed by IBM and others), USD coin (backed by Goldman Sachs and IDG) and DAI stable coin (an algorithmic stable coin) signals the start of a transition from a floating bubble crypto-economy to an internet of value tethered to the established economy. 

Many industry leaders have already achieved significant business benefits, including greater transparency, enhanced security, improved traceability, increased efficiency and speed of transactions, and reduced costs. Competitive advantages like transaction processing speed, convenience, and access will no longer be enough to retain customers, and B2B payments players will have to start evaluating more service driven benchmarks such as a frictionless user experience and interface that is both convenient and accessible.

Intuitive and responsive platforms that can be highly customized will become the frontrunners in this crowded space in the coming years. In addition, after years of talk and discussions, it seems that Ethereum and Bitcoin are implementing architectural changes to address the scalability challenges that have been considered a barrier to widespread adoption. For B2B blockchain use, 2019 could be a significant year.

Good User Interface in Anyways

A user interface is the vehicle that takes you places. Those places are the different functions of the software application or website. A good interface should allow you to perform those functions faster and with less effort. Simply put, a good User Interface is important because it can turn potential visitors to buyers as it facilitates interactions between the user and your website or web application.  A good User Interface Design presents a seamless blend of visual design, interaction design, and information architecture: Visual Design.

Most hardware devices also include a user interface, though it is typically not as complex as a software interface. A common example of a hardware device with a user interface is a remote control. Other devices, such as digital cameras, audio mixing consoles, and stereo systems also have a user interface. Touchscreen smartphones entered the market shortly after that, introducing a range of other tactile command prompts like the poke (to simulate pressing a button), the pinch (to zoom in and out), the press, hold and drag.

These tactile commands gained traction quickly among the public for a number of reasons: They were new. All the cool (famous) kids were doing it. Touchscreen technology became cheap and mainstream. But most of all, the movements felt intuitive, natural. Simply put, User Interface Design is important because it can make or break your customer base. It creates fewer problems, increases user involvement, perfects functionality and creates a strong link between your customers and your website.

The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider

The High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (HL-LHC) is a major upgrade of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that is completed by 2026. This new design boosts the machine's luminosity by a factor of between five and seven, allowing 10 times more data to be accumulated, providing a better chance to see rare processes and improving statistically marginal measurements.

Luminosity is a way of measuring the performance of an accelerator: it is proportional to the number of collisions that occur in a given amount of time. The HL-LHC can perform detailed studies of the new particles observed at the LHC, such as the Higgs boson. It enables the observation of rare processes that were inaccessible at the previous sensitivity levels. More than 15 million Higgs bosons can be produced each year, for example, compared to the 1.2 million produced in 2011-2012.

The development of the HL-LHC depends on several technological innovations that are exceptionally challenging to researchers – such as cutting-edge Tesla superconducting magnets, very compact and ultra-precise superconducting cavities for beam rotation, and 300-metre-long high-power superconducting links with zero energy dissipation. Together, these upgrades help to advance and further refine the knowledge already gained from the Higgs boson and provide fresh insights into so-called "New Physics", a more fundamental and general theory than that of the Standard Model.

Self-learning software (SLS)

Building on the industry shift toward SaaS, a new trend in the software space is emerging that combines both SaaS and AI. Leading companies from Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and IBM have begun offering their AI infrastructure as a service to their clients. In other words, no longer is AI and machine learning accessible to only to software giants, now any company and developer can access online AI resources to build self-learning software (SLS).

At home, this could mean having an SLS system manage your future smart home, including tasks like pre-heating your home before you arrive or keeping track of groceries you need to buy. By the 2020s and into the 2030s, these SLS systems will play a vital role in the corporate, government, military, and consumer markets, gradually helping each improve their productivity and reduce waste of all kinds.

The only way the SaaS and SLS models work is if the Internet (or the infrastructure behind it) continues to grow and improve, alongside the computing and storage hardware that runs the ‘cloud' these SaaS/SLS systems operate on. The coming decade will see the next evolution, the next quantum leap in communication and interconnectivity, entirely intermediated by a range of future computer interfaces and it may just reshape what it means to be human.