From the monthly archives:

January 2016

The Babel fish is Becoming Reality

January 31, 2016

In Douglas Adams iconic science fiction saga from the 1970s, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, one of the alien species is the Babel fish. To quote the book, “The Babel fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brain wave energy, absorbing all unconscious frequencies and […]

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Civilisations Retrograde

January 28, 2016

There are just a few menacing yet fascinating places left on Earth. These places are usually active conflict zones or rugged areas where rebel groups lurk, nations with unfriendly governments, or otherwise unstable locations where battle has recently ended. They have terrible reputations. But nevertheless, these places are intriguing, because they weren’t always in trouble. […]

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World Economic Forum 2016 and the Fourth Industrial Revolution

January 24, 2016

The World Economic Forum this year, seems to have been very much about the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We have written about this already here on the Bearing Wave, although we would like to highlight this page which is a menu  of the WEF´s excellent articles on the topic, and the brief video below, which puts […]

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Kenyas Mega Projects

January 22, 2016

Today CNN highlight Kenya´s mega projects in a visual presentation which is worth a look. Kenya is already an infrastructure powerhouse of East Africa, but it is just the start of development. The next few years may see a quantum leap forward with tens of billions of dollars to be spent on some of the […]

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Cities Driving Development

January 18, 2016

To create a framework for sustainable development beyond 2015, the United Nations has announced a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals, also known as the Global Goals. Broader in scope than the preceding set of Millennium Development Goals, the new goals identify a long list of targets that address the role of cities in human […]

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The Rise of the Robots in the Financial Industry

January 15, 2016

In financial markets, automated trading has been around for many years. Software such as the ORC Liquidator allows automated trading engines for derivatives. Trading firms and banks rely on ORC Liquidator and similar software to automate a wide variety of sophisticated trading strategies on trading venues globally. Algorithmic trading is designed to react extremely quickly […]

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The Big Picture – Talking Nation Brand with Foreign Policy Group

January 12, 2016

The Foreign Policy Group talk nation brand, digital diplomacy, and the importance of the big picture Foreign Policy Magazine has a long pedigree. Since its founding in 1970 the magazine has become well-known for reporting diplomatic and political developments from around the globe. So it seems a natural progression for the FP Group to branch […]

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The Future of Cities Depends on Innovative Financing

January 11, 2016

Ever-more people move into cities, and as the urbanisation trend continues, it is projected that hundreds of trillions of dollars will be needed for investment in urban infrastructure in upcoming decades. Where will all the money come from? Well, as we have written about previously on this blog, in general the  lack  of  investable  projects  […]

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Money Grows on Degrees

January 10, 2016

Information graphics or infographics is becoming increasingly popular on the web. Infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly. They can improve cognition by utilizing graphics to enhance the human visual system’s ability to see patterns and trends. This week, Zac Jackson at Pearson Education sent […]

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Disruptive Innovation in the Payment Industry

January 9, 2016

Over recent years the financial sector has confronted a dramatic increase in innovation in technology, services, and platforms and to some degree in organisational structure. The need to innovate is broadly-based and not just a financial sector challenge. Typically in financial services, as in most other sectors in todays world of increasing hyper competition, there is […]

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The Historic Link Between Cities and Innovation

January 7, 2016

Richard Florida has written an interesting article on The Atlantic CITYLABs website, about The Historic Link Between Cities and Innovation, and we recommend it. As Florida points out, density spurs innovation by pushing people and ideas together, enabling them to combine and recombine in new ways. As Joseph Schumpeter famously wrote, “Innovation is creative destruction, […]

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Virtual Reality Comes Through

January 2, 2016

Virtual Reality has been around for 30 years, but  application have continuously flopped as the technology has not been mature for mainstream use. As with so many other new technologies, breakthrough is about the availability of cheap platforms, and we have this now with smart phones and low-cost computer helmet screens. With the platform in […]

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