HORIZON weekly 10th June 2025 from Future Horizon


HORIZON

Your weekly dispatch of strategic foresight on emerging technologies from Future Horizon

Hello, and welcome to the HORIZON weekly newsletter. Particularly warm greetings to our many new subscribers - please do forward this on to colleagues and connections in your network who would also enjoy the insights.

Below you will find some hand-picked fresh thought-leadership content, giving you an overview of recent developments, topical innovations, and what we're seeing and hearing out there towards the digital frontier.

Thank you for reading and being a part of the HORIZON community.

If this Email has been forwarded to you, you can access previous editions and sign-up to receive future instances for free at: https://future-horizon.kit.com/posts


Recent articles

Not supervision, but super-vision...without any requirement to munch carrots like you may have been encouraged to eat as a child.


Scientists at the University of Science and Technology in Hefei, China have developed contact lenses they claim turns infrared into visible light.

Humans typically see shorter-wavelength light in the 400 to 700 nanometre range (what humans can see make up less than one hundredth of a per cent of the electromagnetic spectrum).

Some animals use other parts of electromagnetic spectrum which are imperceptible to humans such as far-infrared, or ultraviolet light.

As detailed in a paper published in the journal Cell, as well as being non-invasive the breakthrough contacts don't even require an external power source.

These new soft lenses are infused with nanoparticles, which convert the near infrared light (in the 800-1600 range) into what the human eye can see.

In tests, human participants wearing the contacts could detect and identify infrared patterns plus distinguish three different "colours" of infrared light, expanding the human visual spectrum beyond its natural limitations.

Incredibly, they can even work when people have their eyes closed.

Testers also said their infrared vision improved when they closed their eyes: this is because eyelids help to block visible light more than infrared (so there was less visible light to interfere).

Not only may that eventually mean curing colour-blindess or enhanced low-light vision for the masses (such as in dust or fog), but the contacts could even be used to receive signals wirelessly.

The contacts are not perfect, and are not yet able to capture fine details; the team plan to iterate in order to achieve more precise spatial resolution and higher sensitivity.

The researchers estimate that, once production-ready and mass-produced, the lenses could be relatively affordable at a cost of ~$200 per pair.

The global eyewear market size (including spectacles and contact lenses) is valued around USD$200 Billion annually today - some estimates project this could grow to over USD$300 Billion by the end of the decade.

Such innovative smart devices may revolutionise not only eyewear but also medical imaging, information security, or emergency rescue.

This is a demonstrable manifestation of several of the 2030 anticipations we published previously: Wearables Becoming Implants, Augmented Reality And The Impact On Mobile Devices, plus Convergence Of Bio, Health-tech, and Digital.

Eye-based tech was also covered in this previous post: https://lnkd.in/gS_xzxk2


A group of 16-18 year-olds, not speaking to anyone, focused on their own little world, holding a device in their hand and tapping away - sound familiar?


What made the scene unique was that there wasn't a single tablet, laptop, gaming device, or mobile phone in this real-life scene encountered earlier this past week.

All were using scientific calculators; this was in a mid-semester test.

A refreshingly simple throwback, of sorts.

Elsewhere in the same location was this decidedly Old School physical example of a five-and-a-quarter floppy disc (pictured).

First introduced in 1976, it commonly had a capacity of 360KB; equating to approximately 20 seconds of MP3-quality music today (assuming one minute of a song is 1MB).

In 2025 this medium is thus obsolete, and very rarely used for storing (or transferring) data.

"100% certified and error free" might not necessarily still hold true today!

Floppy discs are still in active use in exceptional circumstances, and in some surprisingly critical services - such as aviation.

Officials have stated that some of the mission-critical Air Traffic Control systems used by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the USA still rely on floppy discs.

Busy Newark airport has in recent weeks experienced two significant technical outages, with blackouts causing chaos but thankfully no crashes.

Nevertheless, hundreds of flights were diverted, delayed, or canceled - leaving thousands of passengers stranded; all because of neglected infrastructure shorn of investment which is no longer fit-for-purpose.

Legacy aircraft that remain flying such as the Boeing 747 still rely on floppy disks to update critical navigation data.

Despite aviation having a "safety first" mantra, there is difficult balance to be found whereby any such proven, reliable, built-to-last system gets more difficult, expensive, and riskier to upgrade (or replace) over time.

Emerging and frontier technologies can deliver enormous benefits in capability, productivity, and reliability - if applied correctly to the right use case(s).

Shiny and new isn't always the right option, especially when in-vogue tech becomes a hammer looking for a nail.

As the students found in their test, sometimes tried-and-trusted tech may also be sufficiently "good enough" in the circumstances.

Conversely, by kicking the can down the road vis older core tech the likes of Newark airport now have very little room for manoeuvre, with a spectrum of choices about what to do next that likely range from Bad to Worse.

There is no single, uniformly correct answer on how, when, and where to apply technology - but what does always remain valid is the "why?".

Get objective, outside-in external expertise - that isn't trying to sell you solutions.

If your organisation is struggling to recognise and realise value from investments in technology to effect change, let's talk.


Falling in love with the solution - instead of the problem.


A fragrance spray vending machine feels like an answer to a question that did not need to be asked - even if it is cashless, user-friendly, and allows for two sprays from five "premium scent options" for $1.

One of the most common issues when working with organisations who clamour to be more creative and innovative with technology yet fail to deliver value is that they fail to fall in love with the problem.

Corporate teams focus too much, and become dogmatically obsessed with, the solutions they are aiming to create (typically to hit erroneous Key Performance Indicator (KPI) targets they will be measured against).

Best of luck to this nascent local Singapore venture - they might need it.


Thank-you for reading and being part of our community - we trust you find these original pieces on frontier technology and digital innovation useful, valuable, and thought-provoking as we bridge the gap between today and what future tech might bring tomorrow in Plain English.

When you're ready, contact us to discuss how we can deliver independent, objective, and unbiased strategic foresight around the implications of emerging technologies for your organisation -

https://www.futurehorizon.digital/

Think bold.

Think broad.

Think beyond.


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As ever, we welcome all forms of feedback: compliments as well as constructive criticism! If there are particular topics you want to see more - or less - of, please let us know. You can reach us at horizon-weekly@futurehorizon.digital


Future Horizon - a trading name of PLACE Solutions Pte. Ltd Singapore (UEN 201800654G).
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HORIZON is the weekly short summary Email from Future Horizon where the latest digital innovations and emerging technologies are explained in Plain English.

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