SELECTED INSIGHTS
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WHAT IS CHANGING?
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WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
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Researchers have shown off a means to spray-paint batteries onto any surface |
This means traditional packaging for batteries has given way to a much more flexible approach that allows all kinds of new design and integration possibilities for storage devices |
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As global capitalism goes into ever deeper crisis, there are many examples of healthy cooperatives all over the world. Is this the way forward? |
The cooperative movement could be an important part of the solution to successive economic crises, because they provide localism and stable continuity in a world of outsourcing and uncertainty |
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Scientists are reporting an advance toward treating disease with minute capsules containing not drugs — but the DNA and other biological machinery for making the drug |
Unlike bacterial systems, artificial ones are modular, and it is easier to modify them. An artificial, remotely activated nanoparticle system containing DNA and the other “parts” necessary to make proteins, are the workhorses of the human cell and are often used as drugs |
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A researcher has developed durable biodegradable plastic that may replace metals, and can be used in manufacturing cars and waster pipes, etc. |
This could have a long-term impact on many industries, including car manufacturing, in which plastic parts could replace metallic car parts. Durable plastics consume less energy during the production process, and there are additional benefits as well. If polypropylene car parts replaced traditional steel, cars would be lighter overall and consume less fuel. Is your industry threatened by these increasing types of developments? Contact us today to hear how we can help paint a complete picture of the opportunities and threats you face in the near future |
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Marks & Spencer has become the first major UK retailer to go fully ‘carbon neutral’ five years after launching its sustainability project, ‘Plan A’ |
Since the launch of Plan A, M&S has reduced waste by 31 per cent or 80,000 tonnes and 100 per cent of waste is now recycled. Nothing ends up in landfill. What’s your plan to become carbon neutral? |
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Increases to the age at which workers can retire risk becoming ‘unreasonable’, a leading think-tank warned yesterday. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said workers must brace themselves for a state pension age of 67 or older becoming the norm |
Increasing pension ages further must reach a limit where it is unreasonable to expect most people to be able to continue working. What’s your HR policy on this issue? |
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Imagine drinking orange juice out of an orange-flavored container that you can chew after. Or ice cream in a non-melting chocolate envelope. WikiCells, unveiled last week, could change how we store our food |
Long after the last drop of orange juice’s been guzzled or the last slice of American cheese been unwrapped, plastic packaging travels down the removal chain, breaking into smaller and smaller bits, fluttering around in landfills or floating in ocean gyres. If all that packaging was edible, though, we’d have eaten it up along with with our OJ and cheese, and it would never be seen again |
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Big companies like General Electric and Siemens, who build some of the world’s most complex and costly pieces of healthcare kit, are also working to develop cheaper medical devices that can secure sales in emerging markets and, potentially, win business at home |
The new wave of thinking effectively turns on its head the idea that healthcare innovation must always make something more high-tech, more sophisticated, more complex – and hence more expensive. Contact us today to find out how we help companies from many industries achieve frugal innovation |
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Comcast has identified a growth area of its business: selling ads for Video on Demand programming. The only hurdles are the need for more free VoD content and making sure that the viewer will sit and watch each ad – but it’s already working on solution for both |
Expect the way that ads appear in Video On Demand content to evolve dramatically over the next few months. Shifts in technology from “dynamically inserting” ads to ensuring that viewers don’t have the ability to fast-forward through advertisements will change the way that ads and VoD content mix, according to Comcast executives, leading to what they’re calling a “hockey stick jump” in ad revenue from the service |
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By synchronizing 98 tiny cameras in a single device, engineers from Duke University and the University of Arizona have created a prototype camera that could capture up to 50 gigapixels of data (50,000 megapixels) and images with unprecedented detail |
The camera can capture images of things that photographers cannot see themselves, but can only detect when the image is viewed later. Huge variety of applications for science and technology can be expected |
