Imagine shopping in a store only to realize during checkout that your wallet and phone are both missing! However, what if the cashier told you that you could pay using your palm by hovering it over a scanner? By linking your palm to a credit card this may soon become a reality thanks to Amazon's newest product: Amazon One.

Like fingerprints, palm prints are unique to a person. Did you know that the ridges on our palms and the patterns of veins under the skin develop during the fetal stage, even before we are born? As the fetus grows in the mother's womb, the outer smooth layer of the skin forms first after which the inner layer develops and grows much faster. Also, as the growing fetus rubs against the sides of the womb, the skin gets pushed around. All this leads to the inner skin layer folding into ridges and that impacts the outer skin as well. The blood vessel patterns also develop in the womb within the first 20 weeks of development.

Palm scanners use infrared light to capture the ridges and vein patterns to create a person's “unique signature”. Palm scan technology has been around for some time. Unlike fingerprint scans that may not record correct information when there is a cut or bruise, or when fingers are wet, the patterns of veins don't change during the human lifetime. More importantly, unlike fingerprints that can be dusted from something people touch, it is not possible to get a picture of a person's palm and guess the vein patterns.

One of the biggest concerns is security as Amazon plans to store the users' data on the cloud. This is a risk as hackers can get access to this information unlike Apple's face scan technology that stores the data on your iPhone. Though there is much concern over Amazon One, it is a pretty impressive technology. Who knows—in the future, all you may need to do is wave your hand to pay!

The US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently asked scientists, lawyers, social scientists and other experts to consider some of these ethical dimensions. To give two examples: on privacy, as we let more listening devices into our homes, how do we prevent the data they collect falling into the wrong hands through hacking (黑客) or simply being sold between companies without us receiving any money? Another example: mixed reality, including virtual reality, will become pervasive in the next few years. As we move from headsets to what the IEEE committee describes as “more subtle and integrated sensory enhancements” we will use technology to live in an illusory world in many aspects of our lives. How do we balance the rights of the individual, control over our virtual identity, and the need to live and interact on a face-to-face basis while being empowered to live rich lives in mixed reality?

There is, of course, always a tension between innovation and regulation. But it can often seem that giant steps are taken in technology with minimal public discussion. Take the self-driving car: although it may be safer than human drivers and is likely to save more than a million lives a year worldwide, it will also take jobs from drivers, traffic police, sign-makers, car-repair companies, carmakers and more. Is this a bargain we want to make? In taking that decision, have we given thought to a car that knows everywhere we go, decides routes, perhaps, based on paid advertisements from shops along the way—and listens and sees everything we do on board? What will happen to that data and can it be kept safe?

Additionally, while some worry about the uncommon “trolley problem” of whom the car should choose to hit in a freak accident—an old lady or a mother and baby—perhaps the more frequent issue will be how we find out what the algorithm (算法) was thinking at the time of an accident, because AIs (Artificial Intelligence) are self-learning and devise their own strategies.

Similar concerns are emerging over the internet of things. Robot vacuum-cleaners already plot cleaning cycles using computer-aided vision that, for some models, is relayed to their manufacturers. As more things at home become connected, they will be hackable and the data they collect sellable.

It’s time for some messy, democratic discussions about the future of AI.

It’s a reality that food production, biodiversity and carbon storage in ecosystems are competing for the same land. As humans demand more food, so more forests are cleared, and farms become less pleasant to many wild animals and plants. Therefore, global conservation will fail unless it addresses the issue of food production.

Fortunately, some new technologies are being developed that make a system-wide revolution in food production possible. According to recent research, this transformation could meet increased global food demands by a growing human population on less than 20% of the world’s existing farmland.

Around four-fifths of the land is used to produce meat and dairy. Global meat consumption has increased by more than 50% in the past 20 years. Producing all that extra meat will mean either changing even more land into farms, or cramming even more cows, chickens and pigs into existing land. Neither option is good for biodiversity.

Unless food production is tackled head-on, we are left with no hope of long-term success. We need to tackle the cause of biodiversity change. The principal global approach to climate change is to focus on the cause and minimize greenhouse gas emissions, not to manufacture (制造) billions of parasols (遮阳伞). The same is required for biodiversity.

Luckily, lab-grown food provides an alternative. The process involves growing animal products from real animal cells, rather than growing actual animals. Animal cruelty would be eliminated and, with no need for cows wandering around in fields, the factory would take up far less space to produce the same amount of meat or milk.

Other emerging technologies include microbial protein production, where bacteria use energy derived (来自) from solar panels to change carbon dioxide and other nutrients into carbohydrates and proteins. This could generate as much protein as soybeans but in just 7% of the area.

It is even possible to generate sugars through extracting CO, from the atmosphere, all without ever passing through a living plant or animal. The resulting sugars are chemically the same as those derived from plants but would be generated in a tiny fraction of the area required by conventional crops.