Equity Crowdfunding. Mebotics. Why the market for 3D printing will triple in five years - Quartz. Wall Street is starting to wake up to the potential of 3D printing.
This morning Citi analyst Kenneth Wong released a bullish note projecting that the market for 3D printing and related services will triple by 2018, citing the leading companies in this area, Stratasys and 3D Systems. (Granted, such rapid growth is possible partly because the industry is still tiny, just $1.7 billion in 2011, with the market for 3D printed parts accounting for about half of that.) Wong attributes future growth to such mouthfuls as “broader adoption across more upstream production applications and the consumer end market,” and “increased utilization of existing systems as customers start to extend use case beyond small batch digital manufacturing,” but here’s what that means in plain English. 3D printing will explode in 2014, thanks to the expiration of key patents.
Finland, a trade crossroads of the future? Finland’s geopolitical position could undergo a radical change by the year 2040, according to future researcher Dr.
Mika Aaltonen from Aalto University and Michael Loescher, an ex-adviser to the U.S. administration. In their recently published “Arctic Storm” (Arktinen Myrsky) report, Aaltonen and Loescher outline global warming, the melting of the Arctic Ocean and a new rail line from St. Petersburg to Vladivostok as factors that could contribute to a change in Finland’s fortunes. The authors describe how a Trans-Asian railway could give Finland a fast route to Asia, and easy access to a market of four billion consumers. Global warming and the ensuing melting of the Arctic Ocean ice will open up new ship routes. The researchers believe that global warming will also make it easier to tap into energy resources in northern Canada and Russia. How Big Power Companies Are Trying To Quash The Disownership Economy.
Entrenched industries are working tirelessly to save you from the new products and services you want.
As established companies stifle innovation in industries as diverse as energy, housing, and transportation, entrepreneurs are increasingly finding themselves fighting not only to win customers, but also the hearts and minds of the very legislators and regulators whose campaigns have often been funded by, you guessed it, the established companies. In 2007, I co-founded Sunrun to tackle one such engrained industry: electric energy. We developed a way for families to get rooftop solar power without incurring upfront costs or having to understand solar technology. We choose the equipment, foot the installation cost, and charge monthly for the power these systems generate, as a utility might.
In 11 states, the average Sunrun family typically pays us 15% less than they used to pay their monopoly utility. Kickstarter and the wisdom of crowdfunders. People who donate to Kickstarter are affirming their values, identity and sense of community ©Angus Greig Earlier this summer, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, an Oscar-nominated documentary film-maker, decided she needed $80,000 to finance her next project.
Once, she might have tapped up movie studios, private equity firms or rich investors. Yasuni in Ecuador Shows That Environmentalists Just Don't Care About The Environment. Climate Council welcomes 'crowd funding' - ABC Rural. Posted Wed 9 Oct 2013, 2:05pm AEDT One of the members of the newly-formed Climate Council says he can see a future where more scientific groups are funded by the public, not the government.
Wikileaks Just Released A Massive 'Insurance' File That No One Can Open. World's Biggest Data Breaches - Static. Is Carbon-Free Shipping possible? New Study On IQ And National Per Capita Income. New Study On IQ And National Per Capita Income German social scientist Heiner Rindermann boldly goes where Tatu Vanhanen and Richard Lynn have gone before: Yet another study of the relationship between IQ and national per capita income.
It’s not just how free the market is. Some economists are looking at another factor that determines how much a country’s economy flourishes: how smart its people are. For a study published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, researchers analyzed test scores from 90 countries and found that the intelligence of the people, particularly the smartest 5 percent, made a big contribution to the strength of their economies. Yes, smart people are crucial to the success of an economy. The Climate Change Real Estate Boom Is Coming. Fabulously wealthy British futurist James Martin spoke about climate change at New York’s Lincoln Center and how it will change global population patterns in one of his last public appearances before passing away on June 30 at 79 years of age.
Martin, who donated more than $150 million to Oxford University and lived on his own private Bermudan island, believed one of the biggest land booms in history is on its way--and it will happen in less than 100 years. At the June 15 Global Future 2045 conference, Martin explained that events like Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Katrina will hit major American cities harder and more frequently because of climate change. Scientists and politicians have even come to the conclusion that whole countries such as Mauritius and Tuvalu will need to evacuate due to rising sea levels. Annual Impact Report 2013.