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By its very definition, progress across humanity, society, and business is about evolution. Developments and inventions are rarely unique; they are more often than not an evolution of things that already exist. As French writer Simone de Beauvoir aptly put it, to make something good of the future, you have to look the present in the face. In a business context, the evolution of both historical tools and recent trends will shape the future of how we work.

Though the future of work will always be in the future, the future of your work has never been closer. The rise of robots, machine intelligence, distributed ledgers, quantum physics, gig labour, the unexaggerated death of privacy, a world eaten alive by software all of these trends point to a new world that is shaping up quite differently from anything we have ever seen, or worked in, before.

A recent Cognizant report looked at milestone inventions over the past centuries to see how they can help to inform, and transform, future technological developments. Here we explore how the apps, systems, tools, and processes of the past and present will define the future of business.

John Leonard Riddell invented the first practical binocular microscope in 1851, changing the course of medicine forever by allowing doctors to diagnose problems at a cellular level. The medicinal microscope simultaneously made the world a better place and created an entire industry that today employs millions of people around the world.

Just as microscopes changed the course of medicine more than a century ago, artificial intelligence (AI) will function as a datascope for businesses to see more data, integrate it with other data, and ultimately, make faster decisions. New tools do not necessarily automate people out of the equation completely; they allow professionals to do things they were not previously capable of.

The future world of work will see people and technology work symbiotically, with AI allowing us to grapple with a world awash with information that is denser, more complex, and coming at us faster than ever before. In turn, AI will open new opportunities for commercial growth and levels of employment for billions, making the world an even better place.

Cloud computing is the lifeblood of both our personal and professional lives, with nearly every transaction and interaction taking place via some form of private, public, or hybrid cloud. The cloud has supercharged distributed computing that is, a system where individual computers across different locations are networked together and information is shared by passing messages between the processors. Google search engine is an example of distributed computing, as are cellular networks and intranets. But with more internet-connected devices VR headsets, health trackers, toothbrushes coming online and 5G accelerating everything, we will need more computing power.

Edge computing is the answer to this problem. A framework where data is processed as close as possible to its originating source the edge of the network rather than in centralised systems, edge computing will enable a new era of business.

In the not-too-distant future, geodistributed machine learning (GDML), or AI on the edge, will allow organisations to meet governance challenges posed by data that is born in geographically distributed places or used in dispersed locations. With reduced latency and real time responsiveness, we will see technologies such as augmented reality truly shape the enterprise realm and play a significant role in how work is performed.

Z1 the worlds first electromechanical binary programmable computer was created by German scientist Konrad Zuse in his parents living room in 1938. This humble moment kicked off the greatest technological revolution in history. Virtually everything we do in life and business is influenced by binary computing power, from the systems that run our cars to those that power modern businesses. However, these computers still operate according to one of the simplest concepts a series of ones and zeros.

Where a bit can only be either one or zero, a qubit can be both one and zero at exactly the same time. The future of business AI, machine learning, and predictive modelling will be powered by the qubit via quantum computing. And this future is in sight, with companies such as IBM, D-Wave, and Alphabet all working to develop useable quantum computers.

The future of work and business is an elusive concept that either excites or terrifies, largely due to the unknown nature of it. However, it is not so unknown, as the clues to the future actually lie in our past. In a world that will be awash with unfathomable amounts of data, we will need new tools like those that transformed our world in the past to realise the immense opportunity that is right in front of us.

Euan Davis, European Lead, Centre for the Future of Work, Cognizant

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The future of business: learning from the past - ITProPortal

By combining laser pulses (red) with scanning tunneling microscopy, researchers can achieve a temporal resolution of several hundred attoseconds when imaging quantum processes such as an electronic wave packet (colored wave) with atomic spatial resolution. [Image: Christian Hackenberger]

An elusive challenge in the field of microscopy has been to achieve concurrent atomic-scale resolution in both space and time. With a groundbreaking proof-of-concept study, researchers in Germany have demonstrated a new technique that attains this goal by combining scanning tunneling microscopy with ultrashort laser pulses (Science, doi: 10.1126/science.aaz1098).

Such an ultrafast, high-definition microscope has wide-ranging applications in areas like nanoelectronics, lightwave electronics, chemistry and quantum computing.

Current imaging techniques that are able to resolve objects at the atomic levelfor instance, scanning tunneling microscopylack the temporal resolution necessary to track electron movement. Ultrafast laser spectroscopy can measure electron dynamics at natural time scales but misses the mark in terms of spatial definition.

For his doctoral work, Manish Garg of the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Germany studied femtosecond physics and found himself becoming frustrated with the low spatial resolution of the technique. As a result, he began working with electron pulses but hit a wall when trying to compress them to shorter time scales, since electrons repel each other even in a vacuum.

There are a lot of techniques where you have one resolutiontemporal or spatialand you push to get to get the other, said Garg. This has been quite a challenge and a big bottleneck in the field.

Garg and his colleague Klaus Kern, an expert in scanning tunneling microscopy, overcame this obstacle by integrating a phase-locking train of ultrafast laser pulses with a scanning tunneling microscope. For the first time, a technique was able to simultaneously probe electron dynamics in the sub-angstrom and sub-femtosecond regimes, which are the natural length and time scales of atoms.

The researchers focused optical pulses with a time duration of less than 6 femtoseconds into the apex of a nanotip in a scanning tunneling microscope junction. The pulses are precisely tuned with the same carrier-envelope phase, which creates a high electric field that lowers the tunneling barrier. Electrons tunnel between the nanotip and the sample, and by measuring the changes in intensity of this induced tunneling current, they can distinguish atomic-level dynamics in the surface at high speeds.

Garg and Kern demonstrated the power of their device by studying the carrier decay dynamics of collective oscillations of electrons in a gold nanorod.

This type of optical field-driven tunneling microscopy enables topography mapping of surfaces at the same spatial resolution as a conventional scanning tunneling microscope. The added capability to control electron tunneling at small time scales essentially transforms the microscope into a high-speed camera for the quantum world.

All electronics are shrinking to smaller dimensions,said Garg, and if you want to understand the electron dynamics happening in the small dimensions of a circuit, you should be able to do it with our technique.

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Atomic-Scale Resolution in Space and Time - Optics & Photonics News

[applause] Good evening. Im honored to be here and grateful that youre tuning in. Im Gretchen Whitmer, the 49th governor of the great state of Michigan. Tonight, I am at my daughter Sherry and Sydneys public school, East Lansing High School. Were here today with families and parents, teachers, and, most importantly, students. I want to thank you all for coming. But tonight, Im going to talk to those of you who are watching at home. Id need a lot more than 10 minutes to respond to what the president just said. So instead of talking about what he is saying, Im going to highlight what Democrats are doing. After all, you can listen to what someone says, but to know the truth, watch what they do. Michiganders are no different from Americans everywhere. We love our families and want a good life today and a better life tomorrow for our kids. We work hard, and we expect our government to work hard for us as well. We have grit and value loyalty, and we still root for the Detroit Lions. We and all Americans might be weary of todays politics, but we must stay engaged. Our country, our democracy, our future demand it. Were capable of great things when we work together. We cannot forget that despite the dishonesty and division of the last few years and that we heard tonight from the president of the United States, together, we have boundless potential. And young Americans are proving that every day by taking action. Thats what I want to focus on tonight. Monty Scott is 13 years old and lives in Muskegon Heights, Mich. Montys street was covered in potholes. They were ankle-deep, and he got tired of waiting for them to get fixed. So he grabbed a shovel and a bucket of dirt and filled them in himself. During my campaign, people told me to fix the damn roads because blown tires and broken windshields are downright dangerous, and car repairs take money from rent, child care, or groceries. And we, the Democrats, are doing something about it. In Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker passed a multibillion-dollar plan to rebuild their roads and bridges. Gov. Phil Murphy is replacing lead pipes in New Jersey. All across the country, Democratic leaders are rebuilding bridges, fixing roads, expanding broadband, and cleaning up drinking water. Everyone in this country benefits when we invest in infrastructure. Congressional Democrats have presented proposals to keep us moving forward, but President Trump and the Republicans in the Senate are blocking the path. When it comes to infrastructure, Monty has tried to do more with a shovel and a pile of dirt than the Republicans in D.C. have with the Oval Office and the U.S. Senate. Bullying people on Twitter doesnt fix bridges. It burns them. Our energy should be used to solve problems. And its true for health care, too. For me, for so many Americans, health care is personal, not political. When I was 30, I became a member of the sandwich generation. That means I was sandwiched between two generations of my own family for whom I was the primary caregiver. I was holding down a new job, caring for my newborn daughter, as well as my mom at the end of her brain cancer battle. I was up all night with a baby, and during the day, I had to fight my moms insurance company when they wrongly denied her coverage for chemotherapy. It was hard. It exposed the harsh realities of our workplaces, our health care system, and our child care system. And it changed me. I lost patience for people who are just talk and no action. So as a state senator, I worked with a Republican governor and legislature to expand health care coverage to more than 680,000 Michiganders under the Affordable Care Act. Today, Democrats from Maine to Montana are expanding coverage and lowering costs. In Kansas, Gov. Laura Kelly is working across the aisle to bring Medicaid coverage to tens of thousands. In New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham enshrined A.C.A. protections into law. Every Democrat running for president has a plan to expand health care for all Americans. Every one of them has supported the Affordable Care Act with coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. They may have different plans, but the goal is the same. President Trump, sadly, has a different plan. Hes asking the courts to rip those lifesaving protections away. Its pretty simple. Democrats are trying to make your health care better. Republicans in Washington are trying to take it away. Think about kids like 17-year-old Blake Carroll from Idaho, who organized a fund-raiser to pay for his moms colon cancer treatment, or 19-year-old Ebony Meyers from Utah, who sells art to help pay for her own rare genetic disorder treatment. No one should have to crowdsource their health care, not in America. But the reality is, not everyone in America has a job with health care and benefits. In fact, many have jobs that dont even pay enough to cover their monthly expenses. It doesnt matter what the president says about the stock market. What matters is that millions of people struggle to get by or dont have enough money at the end of the month after paying for transportation, student loans, or prescription drugs. American workers are hurting in my own state, our neighbors in Wisconsin, and Ohio, Pennsylvania, and all over the country. Wages have stagnated, while C.E.O. pay has skyrocketed. So when the president says the economy is strong, my question is, strong for whom? Strong for the wealthy, who are reaping rewards from tax cuts they dont need? The American economy needs to be a different kind of strong strong for the science teacher spending her own money to buy supplies for her classroom. Strong for the single mom picking up extra hours so she can afford her daughters soccer cleats. Strong for the small business owner who has to make payroll at the end of the month. Michigan invented the middle class, so we know if the economy doesnt work for working people, it just doesnt work. Who fights for working, hard-working Americans? Democrats do. In the U.S. House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democrats passed a landmark bill on equal pay, another bill to give 30 million Americans a raise by increasing the minimum wage, and groundbreaking legislation to finally give Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices for Americas seniors and families. Those three bills, and more than 275 other bipartisan bills, are just gathering dust on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnells desk. Senator McConnell, America needs you to move those bills. Meanwhile, Democrats across the country are getting things done. Pennsylvanias Gov. Tom Wolf is expanding the right to overtime pay. Michigan is, too. Because if youre on the clock, you deserve to get paid. Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper are working to give hard-working teachers a raise. And speaking of the classroom, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers unilaterally increased school funding by $65 million last year, and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has enacted free, all-day kindergarten. In 29 states, weve helped pass minimum wage hikes into law which will lift people out of poverty and improve lives for families. Thats strength. Thats action. Democracy takes action, and thats why Im so inspired by young people. They respond to mass shootings, demanding policies that make schools safer. They react to a world thats literally on fire with fire in their bellies to push leaders to finally take action on climate change. They take on a road filled with potholes with a shovel and some dirt. Its what gives me great confidence in our future, and its why sometimes it feels like theyre the adults in the room. But it shouldnt have to be that way. Its not their mess to clean up. Its ours. The choices we make today create their reality tomorrow. Young people, Im talking to you, and your parents and grandparents. Democrats want safe schools. We want everyone to have a path to a good life, whether its through a union apprenticeship, a community college a four-year university, without drowning in debt. We want your water to be clean. We want you to love who you love and to live authentically as your true selves. And we want women to have autonomy over our bodies. We want our country welcoming and everyones vote counted. 2020 is a big year. Its the year my daughter Sherry will graduate from high school. Its also the year shell cast her first ballot, along with millions of young Americans. The two things are connected, because walking across a graduation stage is as important as walking into the voting booth for the first time. Her future, all our kids futures, will be determined not just by their dreams, but by our actions. As we witness the impeachment process in Washington, there are some things each of us, no matter our party, should demand. The truth matters, facts matter, and no one should be above the law. Its not what those senators say. Tomorrow, its about what they do that matters. Remember, listen to what people say, but watch what they do. Its time for action. Generations of Americans are counting on us. Lets not let them down. Thank you for listening. God bless America. Good night. [applause] [cheers]

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Democrats Counter Trump on Health Care and Condemn His Conduct - The New York Times

NEWTON, Iowa Democrats had a certain vision for this.

There would be boundless throngs braving the Iowa slush, aghast at the incumbent and roused by his prospective successors. There would be a presidential field that looked like the country. There would be unity, or something like it, burying intraparty squabbles beneath a heap of agreed-upon progressive policies or maybe even articles of impeachment to complete the job early.

And now, well.

From an event space in Newton, where a hand-countable crowd whispered anxieties about Joseph R. Biden Jr., to a union hall in Ottumwa, where the filmmaker Michael Moore filled in for a Washington-bound Bernie Sanders with talk of democratic socialism and Icelandic gender parity, the restless final Iowa days of this endless pre-primary campaign have less resembled a resistance fantasy than a kind of rolling low-grade panic attack for Democrats.

It is an angst both long in coming and amplified by recent events, coaxed by the ghosts of caucuses past and the specter of another unbearable failure, three years and three months after the one they swore they would be prepared to redeem this time.

Impeachment? President Trumps Senate trial has served only to sideline several would-be opponents tethered to the Capitol and overshadow the rest, while the president, buoyed by a likely acquittal, stormed into Iowa on Thursday to savage them all as the totally sick left before an audience that outnumbered any Democrats.

Unity? Supporters of Hillary Clinton and Mr. Sanders have found themselves relitigating the quarrels of 2016, a feud revived by Mrs. Clintons recent assertion that nobody likes Mr. Sanders and exacerbated when a top Sanders surrogate, Representative Rashida Tlaib, joined some Iowans in booing the partys last nominee on Friday night.

And that diverse and talented field? The top remaining Democratic contenders are all white, mostly male and mostly old, encapsulated by Mr. Biden, the former vice president and long-assumed front-runner, who is wrapping up an Iowa campaign premised often on delivering somber addresses to small rooms about the soul of the nation and the relative strength of his swing-state polling. Some allies would consider Monday night a success if, even in defeat, he finishes ahead of Pete Buttigieg, the millennial former mayor of a small city in Indiana.

Theres two ways people get inspired, in my experience, Mr. Biden told voters in Newton during a wandering answer about climate change. One, by really inspirational people like the John Kennedys of the world or the Abraham Lincolns of the world. And others by really lousy leaders.

The lousy leader in this formulation seemed intuitive enough. Less clear was whether Mr. Biden had just conceded that the Democrats on offer were no Kennedys or Lincolns.

Seated in back, David Moseley, 72, said he had traveled to Iowa from Seattle to assess his options in person. He took his place in a gathering heavy on gentle applause and precarious digression as Mr. Biden moved through his remarks with a signature medley of not a joke interjection and Barack and I reminiscences.

We dont have a candidate that fits the entire coalition that we need, Mr. Moseley ruled.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the play is going great.

Of course, much of the campaign strain has been born of healthy political combat, an ongoing debate over the partys direction and purpose. Mr. Biden and Mr. Buttigieg have argued that a big-tent enterprise requires consensus and restraint. Lets not choose between boldness and unity, Mr. Buttigieg told voters in Ottumwa on Tuesday, suggesting that he was offering both. Lets not choose between the right way to govern and the best way to win.

Mr. Sanders, the leader in recent Iowa polls, and Senator Elizabeth Warren have spoken with more urgency, insisting that the scale of the countrys ills demands significant intervention, a zeal that has informed the electricity of their rallies.

Kickass women win, Ms. Warren said to cheers late Friday evening, thanking her female surrogates after arriving in Des Moines during a break from impeachment duties.

Our campaign, Mr. Sanders thundered in Indianola on Saturday, is the campaign of energy.

In a state with a quadrennial tradition of nebulous energy metrics crowd size, lawn signs, the willingness of volunteers to slog through snow to reach one last door this years contest has been especially difficult to gauge.

There is still conspicuous passion, measured by the odometers of canvassers in Im a Warren Democrat apparel; the BOOT-A-TRUMP shirt at a Buttigieg rally; the blotted tears of a grateful, cane-shuffling Biden supporter after a hug from the candidate. Thats real, the man, Brian Peters, 59, said, nodding firmly.

But where the final Iowa stretch typically monopolizes national media attention and all but guarantees a major boost for successful candidates, recent days have passed under the cloud cover of impeachment and a global health crisis. The states eventual winner, who could generally expect days of momentum-sustaining news coverage, will instead run up against the State of the Union on Tuesday.

It is a fate somewhat difficult to fathom after over a year of Democratic obsession with getting this moment just right, with an all-consuming search for possible party saviors Oprah! Beto! Kamala! and debates so overstuffed that even two nights of 10-candidate forums could not accommodate the full slate.

I have Steve Bullock shirts! said Martha Viner, 71, from Albia, recalling the ill-fated campaign of the Montana governor. Im the only person.

The prospect of a muddled outcome on Monday has only encouraged a yearlong tendency toward punditry among both voters and candidates.

Senator Amy Klobuchar, addressing a group at a bike shop on Saturday in Bettendorf, appeared to set off on a cycling-based electability argument, recalling a trip on wheels once from Minnesota to Wyoming. That just shows you the grit I bring to this stage, she said.

Andrew Yang, the former technology executive, focused his case on a digital data point. Im the only candidate in the field that Donald Trump has not tweeted about, he told reporters at a session hosted by Bloomberg News, because he knows Im better at the internet than he is.

The top contenders have been no more subtle. Ms. Warrens team recently debuted signs reading, UNITE THE PARTY, implying that she is the only candidate who can connect its disparate factions.

And the campaigns of Mr. Biden and Mr. Sanders have continued a running dialogue over voter risk tolerance.

This is no time to take a risk, one Biden ad narrated.

This isnt the time to play it safe, Mr. Moore, the filmmaker, advised in Ottumwa, speaking to Sanders supporters alongside two other Vermont celebrities: Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, of ice cream fame.

Perhaps most striking, at events across the state last week, was the sense that any Democratic nominee might be left to manage an unwieldy coalition moderates, socialists, Trump-repelled independents.

Asked what it means to be a Democrat in 2020, caucusgoers drifted toward differing, if not always contradictory, definitions.

Looking out for people instead of corporations, said Lauren Strathman, 37, a Sanders supporter from Bloomfield.

Sanity, Mr. Peters, the Biden supporter, said.

It means we need to get out and vote, said Maureen OConnor, 61, from Waterloo, and get Trump the hell out of there.

And as Mr. Moore prepared to leave the union hall he had commanded with Mr. Sanders away in Washington, swaddled in a hoodie and a Hawkeyes baseball cap as Ben and Jerry scooped ice cream for guests, he wondered what a party tent should even look like in these volatile political times.

Democrats might well nominate someone who has long resisted calling himself a member of their tribe. In fact, Mr. Moore hopes they do.

Were going to elect somebody whos not officially a Democrat, he said, smiling a little. The flaps are off the tent.

Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting from Waterloo, Iowa, Nick Corasaniti from Bettendorf, and Astead W. Herndon from Urbandale.

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Democrats Had a 2020 Vision. This Isnt Quite What They Expected. - The New York Times

She can actually address things in a way that people can comprehend it, said Mayor Sheldon Neeley of Flint, a Democrat who said the governor was skilled in speaking to voters who had lost faith in government. She can reach and she can touch and she can articulate a message for those individuals to be able to re-engage.

But where liberals described a leader tough enough to not back down to Republican demands, conservatives complained about an unwilling negotiator whose actions as governor have veered to the left of her campaign rhetoric.

Governor Whitmer ran as a moderate who would fix the roads and build bridges, said Tori Sachs, a former aide to Ms. Whitmers Republican predecessor who is now the executive director of Michigan Rising Action, a conservative advocacy group. But so far, Ms. Sachs said, Ms. Whitmers tenure has been defined by failure on the road issue and budget vetoes that she said displayed a level of political vindictiveness unfamiliar in Lansing.

Ms. Whitmers roughly 10-minute rebuttal to the president, to be delivered from East Lansing High School, carries both potential pitfalls and the opportunity to elevate her national profile.

Members of Congress frequently give the responses including Representative Veronica Escobar, Democrat of Texas, who will give a Spanish-language rebuttal to the president on Tuesday. But both parties have at times tapped state-level politicians for the role, which is seen as an annual proving ground for up-and-coming politicians.

Nikki Haley, then the governor of South Carolina, gave the Republican response to President Barack Obamas speech in 2016, a year before she became Mr. Trumps ambassador to the United Nations. Kathleen Sebelius, who once gave the Democratic response to President George W. Bush when she was governor of Kansas, was later named to Mr. Obamas cabinet. And Stacey Abrams, a former Georgia state legislator who narrowly lost the 2018 race for governor, gave the Democratic response last year.

But missteps in the speech can become a punchline for years, as Senator Marco Rubio of Florida learned when he reached for a sip of water during his 2013 response. And Ms. Whitmers speech comes at an especially fraught time, with an election looming, an impeachment trial fresh in mind and a president known for riffing. Ms. Whitmer said she was still considering having different pieces of material prepared for her speech, with the option of adding or subtracting based on what Mr. Trump says.

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Democrats Turn to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan for Trump State of the Union Response - The New York Times