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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.

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Recent articles

Winnowing frontier technologies: separating the wheat from the chaff. ​ The future belongs to those who discern and champion what truly matters, whilst the chaff gets swept away by the winds of change. ​ In farming, to winnow is a method during harvest to separate the valuable seeds from what is effectively debris. ​ In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff (such as husk) particles, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery. ​ More broadly, "separating the wheat from the chaff" is an idiom for judging which items, things or even people in a group are best and which others are less so. ​ When it comes to assessing frontier and emerging technologies, the concept of winnow can play a fundamental role in determining which innovations rise to prominence and, ultimately, deliver the most long-term value. ​ New technologies have consistently reshaped industries and markets throughout history, but their success has never been uniform; not every innovation thrives and achieves the perceived potential. ​ As an example, the dot-com boom of the late 1990s saw an explosion of internet-based businesses; a time of great optimism which transformed global commerce and communication. ​ Whilst many ultimately failed when the bubble burst, the winnowing process propelled a select group (e.g.: Amazon) to lead the digital revolution: the pioneers that continually adapted, innovated, and provided real value. ​ Emerging technologies today - including Artificial Intelligence, Quantum computing, and Augmented Reality - face the same critical filtration when we look to the future. ​ So in a time of uncertainty and instability, when every organisation is conscious of cashflow, how can senior executives make the correct choices about what may be wheat and which is chaff? ​ The value lies in identifying not just the cutting-edge aspects of these technologies, but how they address specific challenges, create efficiencies, present risks, or unlock new opportunities. ​ It's about analysing what the future might bring using strategic foresight, taking an outside-in perspective, and partnering for mutual long-term benefit. ​ History reminds us that it’s not the novelty of any technology that determines its success; it is its ability to align with real-world needs and deliver measurable impact. ​ Organisations that understand winnowing and participate in regular future-forward assessment processes demonstrably position themselves to be industry leaders in the face of rapid change. ​ Choosing the right technological investments and partnerships is not something to be done merely once; it is a strategic and collaborative co-creation imperative that relying on internal resource alone cannot deliver. ​ Those that embrace strategic foresight navigate volatility with confidence, focusing investments on fostering technologies that stand the test of time and create lasting value.

Often found as filler in food, the future might finally see a fecund form and function for fungi to become fuel. ​ As 3D-printed, biodegradable, non-toxic, sustainable batteries. ​ Batteries are now vital to so much of what we do daily. ​ They do, of course, degrade in both capacity and performance over time. ​ Depending on which flavour they are (e.g.: alkaline), this can be due to a combination of factors. ​ These include temperature spikes, chemical reactions during charging and discharging, plus the natural aging of materials through usage. ​ How much they can be - and indeed are - recycled depends on the use and composition of the battery. ​ Lead-acid batteries - found in most internal combustion vehicles - have high rates of end-of-life recycled, whereas Lithium-Ion which power many mobile devices have much lower percentages right now. ​ So being able to have power provided by living things naturally (pun-intended) has obvious merits, especially if once done it degrades itself down from the inside. ​ A team from a Swiss materials science and technology research institute (Empa) has created an innovative living power unit by combining two types of fungi. ​ Using fungal metabolism to convert nutrients from microbes into energy, it's more technically accurate to describe it as a microbial fuel cell. ​ Fungal cells are mixed into printing ink (itself based on degradable cellulose), and then a 3D-printer can precisely create complex shapes as required. ​ The fungal batteries can even be stored in a dried state, activated as necessary by simply adding water and nutrients. ​ The fungal power sources rely on sugar and microbes to generate electricity, and are thus almost entirely produced from organic materials (including being encased in beeswax). ​ Due to this, after use they can simply be composted. ​ Potential use cases include using them to supply sensors in remote regions with power. ​ Though not yet perfected for commercial release, the researchers will continue to experiment to refine the product and make it more efficient. ​ Our future might see us feeding batteries...rather than charging them. ​ More conventional Solid State Batteries (SSBs) were previously covered here: https://lnkd.in/g33Q6r2e

The 5 pillars of the Mamba Mentality: Fearlessness, Relentlessness, Passion, Obsessiveness, and Resilience. ​ These were prescribed by legendary late basketball player Kobe Bryant. ​ Widely regarded as one of the sport's greatest and most influential players, among many career honours Bryant won five National Basketball Association (NBA)​ championships. ​ He spent his entire 20-year career with the Los Angeles Lakers​; following his retirement in 2016, he tragically died in a helicopter accident in 2020. ​ Bryant became synonymous with a particular way to score: the fadeaway. ​ A fadeaway is a jump shot in basketball where a player throws the ball towards the net while jumping backwards away from the basket. ​ It's more difficult than a regular jump shot to execute because it requires more strength and accuracy, jumping off of and landing on one foot. ​ This type of shot is challenging to block because it creates space between the defender and the shooter. ​ Researchers from ​NVIDIA​ and ​Carnegie Mellon University​ are now teaching robots to move like top athletes such as Kobe. ​ They have developed the ASAP (Aligning Simulation and Real Physics) framework to bridge between simulation and reality. ​ It allows humanoid robots to execute high-level athletic movements previously thought too complex for machines via a two-stage process. ​ Pre-training is the starting point; using human motion data, algorithms are taught the motion rules for a given movement (be it athletic or even dancing). ​ This baseline is then deployed into the real-world by the droid, collecting data as it iterates in order to close the dynamic gap between simulated and actual physics. ​ Though a little clunky and limited, the team concluded that humanoid robots can get much better at moving like humans - though they did have to cease testing because of overheating and mechanical failures. ​ Even as we get ever closer to robots that can mimic - and exceed - our physical agility and dexterity in the future, IF we're smart then they won't be able to mirror our winning mental models such as the "Mamba" of Kobe. ​ Previous contentious video post on robots shooting basketball hoops: https://lnkd.in/ghQua-4T

Thank-you for reading and being part of our community - we trust you find these original pieces on emerging 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.

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