Introduction to 'Thomas Frey.' According to Goggle 'Arguably one of the best and most innovative futures thinker!'

Author of the book “Communicating with the Future,” Futurist Speaker Thomas Frey is a powerful visionary who is revolutionising our thinking about the future.

Here's the latest insight article from his business website 'FuturesistSpeaker.Com.'

'Hearing aids are for old people. At least that’s what I thought when I was young and invincible attending rock concerts far louder than they should have been.

Even though I still have most of my hearing relatively intact, I’m also part of the aging baby boom generation whose sheer size is already beginning to tax the limits of today’s healthcare systems.

People over the age of 65 typically spend 3-5 times more on healthcare than those who are younger, so unless we figure out ways to radically disrupt this trend, we may all be dealing with some rather dire affordability issues.

As a tiny pebble being dropped into the massive pond of healthcare costs, one of the first truly disruptive technologies for the hearing aid industry may be Google Glass with its conductive-bone audio transmission capabilities.

Three features that give it such disruptive potential are the elimination of an earpiece, the processing capabilities of its onboard microprocessor, and an open API that allows the geeks of the world to develop apps far more ingenious than anything in existence.

Here are a few thoughts on why this tiny sub-category of Google Glass will likely have such a massive impact.'

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Where's Commercial Lighting Going Next?

Bioluminescent Trees and Plants in the Street, Shop, School, Office and Home?

It's funny really. 25 years ago I worked at Concord Lighting - a top gun commercial lighting manufacturer - as a Design Engineer. I'd scratch my head as to where 'Lighting Fittings' - the common-a-garden artifacts in your den, bathroom and kitchen - would go next?

Most people know about light emitting organisms such as jellyfishes, fireflies and mushrooms. Some time ago, genetic engineers transferred genes responsible for the luciferin and luciferase proteins into a tobacco plant. These firefly proteins were then manufactured by the tobacco plant, causing it to glow and emit light.

Could glowing trees one day replace street lights?

What if this technology could be extended further to say, a maple tree or a juniper bush? Designer Audrey Richard-Laurent speculates on combining trees and streetlights into bioluminescent trees.

In urban areas, one usually sees a row of trees parallel to streetlights. Why not hybridize them? An elegant, yet far fetched idea? Don’t be to sure.

Edward A Quinto of the International Society for Bioluminescence and Chemiluminescence produced a glowing christmas tree.

Bioluminescence works to replicate processes for creating light found in chemical reactions in the natural world–such as with certain jellyfish or bacteria–for human purposes.

Chemiluminescence refers to the emission of light with limited emission of heat as a result of chemical reaction. Many researchers feel that both of these processes have the potential to produce sustainable, non-petroleum-based light sources.

Other potential applications might be glow in the dark designer pets, agricultural crops and domestic plants that luminesce when they need watering, new methods for detecting bacterial contamination of meats and other foods and glowing grass on golf yards that allow you to play golf after dark.

Would you like a Photonic Tatto? Their coming!