Ric Edelman: McKinsey's Views on Crypto

The world’s leading consultancy’s global head of crypto and his colleagues share what they’re paying attention to.

Ric Edelman: It's Friday, July 28. Coming up on the show today, the world's leading consulting firm, McKinsey and Co., and their views on crypto.

One of the most important tools in war: camouflage. It's no longer enough to merely hide from human eyes, though. Thanks to technology, thermal sensors now cost only $1,000. They can detect a vehicle five miles away. New camouflage, therefore, tricks those electronic sensors.

Multispectral camouflaging reduces radar reflections and heat signals. It fools not only soldiers, but thermal scanners by reflecting cooler wavelengths that are emitted by the ground.

Multispectral camouflage nets can work in snowfields, deserts, urban areas, and in woodlands. They can hide soldiers as well as tanks. There are also appearance modulation systems that use cameras to alter their own temperatures to match that of nearby objects.

And then there are adjustable visual camouflage. These are battery-powered sniper suits that have 500 LED lights embedded in the fabric. A helmet camera causes a light sensor to change the color and the luminosity of the LEDs to match the soldier's surroundings. They call this a Harry Potter Cloak.

Hyperspectral Sensors

And there's a company in British Columbia that's making camouflage coloration patterns that make objects appear invisible. Camouflage is not only big business in tech for the military, detecting those that are camouflaged is also a big deal. Hyperspectral sensors use sophisticated data processing to determine not just an object's shape, but its composition. Am I looking at something that's foliage, fabric, metal? The technology even detects anti-tank mines that have been buried. 

All of this is meant to make one side more likely to win a war. Can you hide yourself from your enemy? Can you detect an enemy that is trying to hide? If all this sounds a little bit creepy because we're getting good, we're getting better at war-making, keep in mind that much of the tech that we use in our civilian lives began as tools for the military. So you can expect a lot of these products to find their way into commercial applications in years to come.

Coming up next on The Truth About Your Future, my conversation with Matthew Higginson, a partner at McKinsey and Co. and his colleagues. Stay with us right here for The Truth About Your Future. 

To read the full transcript, click here.