Imagine you could build the city of the future, from scratch, right now. What would it look like? What would it do? It’s not a hypothetical question. According to this Salon article, software developer Plan IT intends to do exactly that: “Plan IT Valley” will be a new city located in northern Portugal, and is … Continue reading
Social networks like Facebook and G+ are great, but they all harbor a major bias: they’re restricted to human users only. Robots, tired of the lack of access and the blatant discrimination, have taken matters into their own hands and created a social network of their own. When the machines eventually rise up in revolt, … Continue reading
It’s no surprise that this preview for the book Present Shock, called “Why Futurists Suck,” would catch my eye when someone passed along the link: It’s hard not to take it personally when someone goes so far out of their way to denigrate futurists! But a quick read through the article on Good.is suggests the … Continue reading
California just became the third state to legalize autonomous cars. They’re not available to consumers yet, but test vehicles can now operate in public there, just as they can in Nevada and Florida. I reacted to this news with delight, while others had a more sober appraisal: I’ve written about the implications of driverless cars … Continue reading
Today, there are 7 billion people in the world speaking roughly 6,000 languages. One day, they’ll all be able to talk to each other naturally, without knowing any language except their own. This has some powerful implications for many areas of society, and we’ll take a look at four of them below. But first, allow … Continue reading
What’s the most complicated thing you’ve ever folded? Paper airplane? Road map, perhaps? I’ve folded my fair share of origami cranes in my day. Then there’s this guy, whose ornate paper dragons and hermit crabs beggar belief. But here’s something on a whole other level: a fully-functional, self-folding, flying robot inspired by pop-up books. Harvard’s … Continue reading
Ever received an email from your toaster? Neither have I, but in a future featuring the Internet of Things, it could become commonplace. What is the Internet of Things? Like the internet itself, it’s about connections. Way back in the ’70’s, ARPANET connected a handful of university mainframes. The internet it grew into connected individual … Continue reading
Automated systems grow more sophisticated every day. They’re now poised to take on many tasks that we would’ve considered “human-only” just a few years ago. We’ve discussed that trend here several times, from robot nurses and lawyers to robots that drive your car. While these developments are fascinating on their own, today I want to … Continue reading
Of all the branches of modern philosophy, ethics is both the most practical and the most baffling. For every clear-cut moral choice, there are a thousand what-ifs that cloud the picture. And as the future dawns and automated systems become more common, things will get murkier than ever. I’ll give you an example. Take Google’s … Continue reading
Step aside, Sherlock: there’s another big brain on the scene. He’s got deep knowledge, pieces together abstract concepts on the fly, and shares a name with your erstwhile partner. Meet Watson. If you watched Jeopardy last February, you got to witness the unusual intersection of cutting-edge intelligence research and popular game shows. In a handful … Continue reading
Cosmic Revolutions 