Each week Nikolas Badminton, Futurist Speaker, summarizes the top-5 future looking developments and news items that I find to be inspiring, interesting, concerning, or downright strange. Each day I read through dozens of blogs and news websites to find those things that we should be aware of.

Top-5 Futures for December 25th: Step Aside Santa, We’ve Got Elon Musk lays down the truth that we don’t need an overweight, white-bearded, meglomaniac to serve humanity on Christmas Day. We just need more Elon Musk. Here we cover some of the amazing things that Elon, and his companies and collaborators, will continue to deliver to this world. His vision for everything is inspiring.

I came to the conclusion that we should aspire to increase the scope and scale of human consciousness in order to better understand what questions to ask. Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.

Elon Musk’s Vision for the Future

SpaceX Revolutionizing Space Travel

SpaceX’s much-hyped rocket landing was impressive, but you didn’t exactly get a good look at it if you were watching live. It seemed more like a matchstick putting itself out, really. Not to worry, though: SpaceX has delivered an ample supply of photos and video documenting every step of this milestone in private spaceflight. They help illustrate the challenge involved — SpaceX had to bring a tall, fire-belching Falcon 9 down to Earth relatively quickly while keeping it stable. While this probably won’t be the last time you see reusable rocket technology in action, it’s certainly one of the more dramatic examples.

Via Engadget

Hyperloop

The Hyperloop is a conceptual high-speed transportation system put forward by entrepreneur Elon Musk, incorporating reduced-pressure tubes in which pressurized capsules ride on an air cushion driven by linear induction motors and air compressors. Elon Musk lays down what it is in layman’s terms:

A Concord, a Railgun, and an Air Hockey table.

Elon Musk’s recently announced the design teams that would be taking part in a two-day Hyperloop design competition at Texas A&M University at the end of January. The teams consist of more than 1,000 students and over 100 universities from 20 countries, as well as three high schools.

Via The Verge

Tesla and Autopilot

What’s it really like trusting a car with your life at 70mph? Alex finds out by handing over complete control to the Tesla Model S fitted with ‘Autopilot’ mode!

Solar Power and Living

By all accounts Elon Musk had the inspiration to start the solar power company SolarCity at Burning Man. Now SolarCity is a provider of energy services and the company has over 13,000 employees.

Here’s SolarCity CEO, Lyndon Rive, on the challenges of conquering America’s rooftops

Bonus – Elon Musk: How I Became The Real ‘Iron Man’

See the last 4 week’s Top-5 Futures here:

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Nikolas Badminton is a world-respected futurist speaker that researches, speaks, and writes about the future of work, how technology is affecting the workplace, how workers are adapting, the sharing economy, and how the world is evolving. He appears at conferences in Canada, USA, UK, and Europe. Email him to book him for your radio, TV show, or conference.