Welcome to the Thomas Index Report for the week of December 27th. 

Back in 2019, 31 million cars around the world featured some level of automation. That number is expected to jump to over 54 million within the next two years as the autonomous vehicle market grows an estimated 37% by 2023. But with many people still concerned about these new vehicles, researchers are working to enhance safety on shared roads by improving the reliability of the traffic control devices used to keep all drivers safe.

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Approximately 70% of shoppers globally add products to their online carts — then abandon them before checking out. The reason? Most consumers say it’s because they had to create an account or faced a long or complex process prior to checkout.

Cart abandonment has beset merchants since they first began doing business online. The first true solution was express and one-click checkout payment options. Now, an emerging technology makes it easier than ever by allowing merchants to place their payment buttons anywhere online — and in the physical world. It’s called headless checkout.

Image: https://www.forbes.com

The pandemic has changed the world in many ways. One of the more noticeable is also one of the most surprising. The United States Census Bureau noted that business formation in 2020 showed a massive jump of 24 percent compared to the previous year. According to the New York Times, this growth spurt comes after nearly a decade of business formation being in a slump. The pandemic has shown us that many small businesses don't have the staying power that more giant corporations have had. Yet despite these warnings of small businesses closing down because they can't compete, new companies are being formed almost out of the ether. What is happening to cause the U.S. economy to boom so much, despite all the dire warnings against developing new businesses?

As an advisor to startups and entrepreneurs, I often hear the myth that all new businesses must start with a great idea. I have to disagree. I believe the best entrepreneurs start by finding a large opportunity, and only then use good ideas to capitalize on that opportunity. The best opportunities are recognized from painful needs, plus a growing population of customers with money to spend.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Meetings that just happen by default waste precious time, invite poor decisions, add to exhaustion, and fray relationships. Given these risks, I proposed in a previous article that successful meetings are intentionally designed. The basic idea is that to support people and move critical objectives forward, leaders need to ask themselves four questions: Why are you meeting? Who needs to be there? What conversation needs to happen? And how can you create the conditions that will enable that conversation? In my experience, leaders are often able to answer the first three questions with just a little extra effort. But they usually come up empty when it comes to the last one.

Image: Photograph by Klaus Vedfelt

Quantum computers, sensors and communications networks have the potential to bring about enormous societal and market opportunities — along with an equal amount of disruption. Unfortunately for most of us it takes a Ph.D. in physics to truly understand how quantum technologies work, and luminaries in the field of physics will be the first to admit that even their understanding of quantum mechanics remains incomplete.

CHICAGO, Dec. 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- BUNDLAR's revolutionary Augmented Reality (AR) platform, a comprehensive no-code solution to create, edit, and access AR, has won the 2021 "Most Innovative Augmented Reality Startup" Small Business Award. The Small Business awards recognize companies that have seen success as demonstrated through innovative products and services, an exemplary reputation within their industry, and client/customer satisfaction across the board. The BUNDLAR Augmented Reality Content Management System (AR CMS) was recently featured at TechConnect 2021, AWE 2021, and I/ITSEC 2021 where interested attendees were invited to create and publish their own AR experience in under 10 minutes.

"Augmented reality is the future of how we interact with content, and our mission is to make it as accessible as possible," commented Matthew Wren, BUNDLAR Founder, President, and CTO. "Our innovative software is speeding up the adoption of this technology, and successfully delivering the results our clients want and need," he added.

The explosion in human population seen since the Industrial Revolution, and especially within the last century, has created a huge demand for energy to power society. The main source of energy for billions of people worldwide is fossil fuels, which causes huge environmental damage and is driving climate change, leading to a warming planet.

Global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are 31.5 Gt, despite the fall in emissions during 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, the average annual CO2 concentration in the atmosphere was 412.5 parts per million. This is 50% higher than when the Industrial Revolution began in the 18th century.

Chemists may be one of the first researchers to see the benefits of working in virtual reality instead of actual reality. The VR software company Nanome has a 21st century replacement for the ball and stick models that date from 1865 as well as software models that create 2D images of molecules on computer screens.

Image: Software company Nanome has built a software platform that chemists and other researchers can use to build and experiment with molecules in virtual reality. Image: Nanome

CEOs, CFOs, CTOs, VPs of operations, logistics professionals and even purchasing have had a seat at the technology decision-making table for decades. But suddenly, there is a new technology influencer at the table: human resources. Until now, HR mostly only held the responsibility of onboarding new employees and sometimes training existing staff on how various warehouses, distribution centers and manufacturing technologies were to be used. Safety meant that environmental health and safety (EHS) leaders interfaced with HR and met both company policy and complied with OSHA rules and regulations. After a quarter-century in logistics leadership, HR professionals have not always been part of the conversation. Admittedly there was some skepticism if this was genuinely a trend or merely a fad.

As AI expands into more and more facets of our lives, there is also more scrutiny on who is developing it. Building ethical AI that works for everyone will require a diverse workforce that brings a broad range of perspectives. To achieve this, however, companies will need to look outside of the usual hubs, such as San Francisco. To aid in that effort, the authors have compiled the top 50 cities for AI talent and analyzed how diverse the population of developers is in each. This can help companies direct their recruiting and hiring as they try to build a broader, more diverse AI workforce.

A record 3% of all workers left their jobs in September, and 57% of tech executives have ranked the talent shortage higher than supply chain issues and cybersecurity threats as their top concern.

While half of Great Resignation quits come from the leisure and hospitality industries, the looming IT worker shortage could have potentially devastating effects across all industries and the digital acceleration efforts that have been implemented over the past 18 months.

Deloitte's Melissa Dale and NewTek's Chris Burgos discussed how the pivot to remote turned home offices to enterprise streaming video production studios and the longterm impact of that change in this clip from Streaming Media West 2022. Learn more about enterprise streaming at http://streamingmedia.com

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It certainly might not seem like it given the pandemic mayhem we’ve had, but the original form of SARS-CoV-2 was a bit of a slowpoke. After infiltrating our bodies, the virus would typically brew for about five or six days before symptoms kicked in. In the many months since that now-defunct version of the virus emerged, new variants have arrived to speed the timeline up. Estimates for this exposure-to-symptom gap, called the incubation period, clocked in at about five days for Alpha and four days for Delta. Now word has it that the newest kid on the pandemic block, Omicron, may have ratcheted it down to as little as three.

Venture capitalists are known for spotting and investing in promising upstarts, but an alternative approach is growing in popularity: incubating.

Why it matters: With startup investments pricier and competition stiffer, some investors are setting up startup studios or incubating companies — a trend that's expected to continue accelerating.

The big picture: The recent public listings of companies like Snowflake and Hims have put incubation and startup studios back in the spotlight.

Image: Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

It takes an effective team to attract and serve a community in business these days. With real-time online reviews and feedback via the Internet, and instant relationships via social media, a voice from the top that is inconsistent with what is heard from the firing line defines a dysfunctional and noncompetitive company for today’s customer. Thus team makeup is the critical success factor.

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Don’t chalk it up to a lack of motivation.

Victor’s subordinates were pushing him to make up his mind about a proposed major acquisition. He knew the clock was ticking, but he was worried about the downside. What if the promised synergies didn’t materialise? What if they bought a cat in the sack? The pressure was wearing him down. He felt low and exhausted.

Many entrepreneurs talk about how working for themselves for too long has made them “unemployable” and say they could never go back to a 9-5. Yet for whatever reason — be it a thirst for new experiences or the stress of keeping your afloat business 24/7 — plenty of people do decide to make the transition back to corporate.

Conservationists fear that horseshoe crabs, a 450-million-year-old living fossil, will be pushed to the brink of extinction because of the value of their blood to the pharmaceutical industry. Horseshoe crab blood provides a natural source of limulus amebocyte lysate (LAL) which is used to test vaccines, drugs, and medical devices to ensure that they aren’t contaminated with dangerous bacterial toxins called endotoxins. With hundreds of thousands of horseshoe crabs captured and bled of their milky-blue blood each year, conservation groups are now stepping up their advocacy efforts and taking legal action to help save horseshoe crabs and the other species that rely on them.

Image: Horseshoe crabs are bled at the Charles River Laboratory in South Carolina. Timothy Fadek

The new report by Expert Market Research titled, ‘Global Virtual Reality in Education Market Report and Forecast 2021-2026’, gives an in-depth analysis of the global virtual reality in education market, assessing the market based on its segments like component, deployment mode, application, and major regions. The report tracks the latest trends in the industry and studies their impact on the overall market. It also assesses the market dynamics, covering the key demand and price indicators, along with analysing the market based on the SWOT and Porter’s Five Forces models.