Pictures of the Future

Mumbai in 2025. Architect and urban planner Vijay Mukherjee is showing former fellow students from San Francisco and Shanghai how he and others have transformed the Indian megacity into a world-class metropolis.

Particularly in emerging markets, megacities face huge challenges ranging from rampant growth and stretched budgets to inefficient infrastructures. Nevertheless, sustainable development is achievable. What’s needed is political leadership, help from private investors, and intelligent technological solutions.

Chongqing, the world’s largest city, doesn’t have it easy. Located deep in China’s interior, it has long been cut off from the boom that’s swept other regions. Now it’s catching up.

Beijing is reinventing itself for the 2008 Olympic Games. In addition to building high-tech sports facilities, the city is modernizing and expanding its transportation and energy infrastructures, relocating production facilities, and looking even further ahead.

Hong Kong and Macau are discovering new niches where they can benefit from China’s booming economy. One serves as a revolving door to the Chinese market, the other as a luxurious retreat for wealthy Chinese visitors. Both need top technology.

It’s October 2020, and we’re at the "Best Innovations of the Year" awards ceremony in a high-rise building in Shanghai. The ceremony is a meeting point for innovators from all over the world.

To make money from innovations, a company must be versatile and able to motivate its inventors and innovators. Companies must also give their creative people plenty of intellectual elbow room, while nevertheless ensuring that their efforts are in line with business strategy and that customers are involved from the word go. Siemens' goal is to become the world leader at this difficult juggling act.

Steven Veldhoen, 42, has worked for Booz Allen Hamilton (BAH) in Europe, the U.S., and Asia for 18 years as a business consultant specializing in the automotive industry. He is currently based in Tokyo, where he co-leads BAH technology and strategy consulting activities for Japan and Korea. He also plays an important role in BAH’s global Innovation Team, which helps companies improve their innovative strength. Veldhoen studied business administration in the Netherlands and Spain. Prior to joining BAH, he worked with ABN Amro Bank in the Netherlands and the U.S.

October 18, 2020. The City of New York is testing a new class of autonomous networked systems. The mobile devices learn by seeing. A meta text (machine language) report generated by the devices and automatically paraphrased into human language explains how they perceive the world around them.

Vision systems are proliferating—in surveillance, in the automotive sector, in industrial environments, healthcare, and the military. Behind this trend is a revolution in the accuracy of image processing, the ability to fuse key data from large numbers of sensors in such a way as to automate processes or provide decision support, and the ability of systems to intelligently interpret and report what they see.

Video monitoring systems that automatically detect unauthorized persons and follow their every step are edging out of labs and moving into the mainstream. On the way are systems that differentiate between humans, animals and vehicles, identify unusual behavior, and track suspects even in crowded environments.

Roke Manor Celebration / Rail Record / Steam Power/ Airbags with Ears / Sensor Sees and Feels

An MR Interface Developed at Johns Hopkins Opens the Door to Regenerating Cardiac Tissues.

Prof. Dr. Hermann Requardt on the differences between innovators and traditional researchers. Prof. Dr. Hermann Requardt is a member of the Siemens AG Corporate Executive Committee and is head of Corporate Technology .