What will be the biggest stories
of the year ahead?
In 2019, the driverless revolution finally hits the road.
So, this is science fiction
that's gonna become science fact.
New tech pays tribute to the old masters.
You'll have an explosion of Leonardo mania in 2019.
Flights will be cheaper than ever.
And, 50 years after the riots that kick-started
the modern gay-rights movement, the fight goes global.
In 2019, power dressing will take on a whole new meaning,
when this strange looking clothing hits the market.
Not so much high fashion as high tech,
it's a suit with built in power,
that will literally get people moving.
The suit that we're introducing in 2019
is actually an assist suit, so you have to be moving.
Think of it kind of like an electric bicycle,
you're pedaling, and getting extra power.
Part of the wearable robotics revolution,
the suit is made up of battery powered muscle packs,
which contract just like a human muscle
to boost the wearer's strength.
Those robotic muscles that we're providing
actually turn on and provide strength to the body
in a coordinated way, when you need it, while you're moving.
With the global population of over 60's
expected to more than double by 2050,
and retirement age increasing,
there's no shortage of potential markets.
In Japan, the average age of a construction worker is 48,
so there's lots of demand for the labor workforce.
But, don't expect the suits
to ease the burden on aching limbs
and overstretched health services any time soon.
As these suits don't come cheap.
According to the manufacturer,
they'll retail for around the cost
of a bespoke tailored suit.
The challenge globally is how do we
get such technologies to everybody?
It doesn't happen in the way that,
say for example, formula one technology
eventually trickles down into the average car.
2019 will be the year
low cost, long haul travel takes off.
You'll be able to buy a 10,000 mile flight
from London to Sydney for around $350.
And, this is why.
The world will boast two new state of the art
megahub airports, and competition between them
will drive down the cost of flying.
Daxing Airport, outside Beijing, is due to open in 2019.
And, will feed growing demand for air travel in China.
Over the next 20 years, the number
of Chinese air passengers is set to triple.
Beijing already has
one of the world's biggest airports.
And, for China, this new Megahub
will send an important message to the world.
The opening of Daxing Airport
is a symbol that the center of the world's economy
has shifted east to China.
Rivaling Daxing,
as a national symbol of global prestige,
will be a new Megahub airport in Istanbul.
Opened in 2018, it covers a staggering 26 square miles,
an area larger than the island of Manhattan.
And, in 2019, consumers will again
be the beneficiaries of a state sponsored economic push.
The Turkish government has actually
been giving fuel subsidies to its airlines
to try and help bring the tourism industry back.
But, the low fares offered by competition
between these hubs could be short-lived.
In a few years, many airlines will begin
offsetting their carbon, with the costs
potentially passed down to passengers.
You could describe 2019, perhaps,
as being the year to fly, because who knows
what's gonna happen to airfares when
the airlines actually have to start paying
to offset their emissions.
We discovered that Americans consider homosexuality
more harmful to society than adultery,
abortion, or prostitution.
In 2019, LGBT communities
will mark the anniversary of a seminal event.
It will be 50 years since patrons at New York gay bar,
the Stonewall Inn, resisted police attempts to arrest them.
The resulting Stonewall Riots,
kick-started the modern gay-rights movement.
I think anniversaries like the Stonewall Riots
are important because they remind us
just how far we've come.
But also, how much change is still needed
because those sorts of repressions and violence
is still happening in much of the world.
In many countries, the laws
that continue to allow intolerance and inequality
have their roots in religion.
These laws originate from two main sources,
Sharia law, and the British colonial
exportation of Christian principles.
But, one former British colony
has given hope to the global movement for change.
In 2018, India decriminalized homosexuality,
and guy-rights campaigners hope 2019 will be
the year other former British colonies follow suit.
In February, Kenya's high court will rule
on whether to decriminalize same-sex intimacy,
which is currently punishable with up to 14 years in prison.
Decriminalization would mean, for the first time,
LGBT Kenyans would start to participate
within the Kenyan democracy as equals.
We're going to be just a step closer
to figuring out how an equal Kenya looks like.
Campaigners hope that decriminalization
could start a domino effect across Africa.
I think it will be a tipping point for Africa.
It will be the beginning of the unraveling of these laws.
The Stonewall rioters
fought for the right to be free.
And, fundamental human rights will remain at the top
of the agenda for sexual and gender freedom in 2019.
In 2019, people are actually gonna be paying
to take robo-taxis in some cities in America, at least.
So, this is sort of science fiction
that's gonna become science fact.
With GM launching it's driverless taxi service,
and Waymo expanding its robo-taxis to new cities,
2019 will be the year
the driverless car revolution hits the road.
So, 2019 is a race to the starting line.
I think what gets interesting is when
this technology starts to scale up,
reach more cities, and ultimately,
more people have access to this really great technology.
Knight Rider.
It was hit 1980's TV show
Knight Rider that popularized self-driving cars
controlled by artificial intelligence.
Since then, billions of dollars of investment
have fueled the drive to turn the idea into reality.
Dubai has committed to a quarter of all trips
being driverless by 2030.
And, the driverless car industry
will be worth a predicted $550 billion by 2026.
We're talking very, very large numbers,
and that number reflects the optimism that this is
going to be a very significant technology in the future.
But, the advance of driverless cars
could be held up by a red flag.
As in March of 2018,
the first person was killed by a self-driving car.
At the moment, about 40,000 people
are killed on the roads, in America alone, each year.
So, imagine if you improved safety by 99%,
so you then are talking about 400 road deaths a year.
I think that would still be quite a hard sell.
That's somebody being killed by a robo-taxi every day.
But, manufacturers are confident
that the inevitable progress of technology
will win over the skeptics.
There is no cap on what a computer could do
in terms of safety, they'll just get better
and better every year.
I think you could pretty quickly see a flip from,
I don't wanna share the road with these killer machines,
to, I don't wanna share the road
with these killer humans anymore.
May 2019 will mark 500 years
since the death of the greatest polymath
in global history, Leonardo da Vinci.
I think you'll have an explosion
of Leonardo mania in 2019.
Leonardo painted the world's
most expensive picture, The Salvator Mundi,
which was auctioned for $450 million.
But, he was also a brilliant scientist and engineer.
In 2019, his art and notebooks
will be taking center stage at blockbuster exhibitions.
If I could have an afternoon with Leonardo da Vinci,
I'd show him the internet because he would be
so thrilled at the way we can now have
ways to be curious about anything we wanna know.
Leonardo sketched out designs
for inventions that followed centuries later,
such as scuba equipment, and the tank.
And, in 2019, another of his designs
will be getting a new lease of life,
as a flying car becomes commercially available.
The car flies thanks to folding helicopter blades,
which are derived from Leonardo's invention,
the aerial screw.
Leonardo would've loved the concept of a flying car.
When you look at that aerial screw,
that was designed as a prop for a plane
to bring angels down from the rafters.
But then, Leonardo blurs the fantasy into reality,
and spends the rest of life trying to build
a real flying machine.
Leonardo was the original outsider.
He's illegitimate, he's left handed,
he's a vegetarian, he's gay, he wears short purple tunics.
But, they love him in Florence, they embrace him.
And, that's the cool thing about the Renaissance was,
it embraced people who were sometimes matchlessly weird.
Five centuries after his death,
there are still simple lessons he can teach
today's divided world.
Leonardo was very tolerant, he realized
that we should bring people together,
not separate into tribes.
These are the type of things that we're still
trying to learn in 2019, 500 years after he died.