Picture this: it’s the near future, and you’re on a first date. You’re at an average restaurant in the suburbs, somewhere in the US. Your date, like half the people in the restaurant, is wearing a flat pin the size of a postage stamp on one lapel. As if you didn’t have enough reasons to … Continue reading
Imagine you’re on a long train ride. Bored, you turn to the landscape rolling past the windows, and decide to dress it up a bit. You conjure up some flocks of exotic birds to hang in the sky, and a few horses that appear to be running alongside. Before you know it, you’ve arrived at … Continue reading
Last week, we looked at some reasons why even the most rational individual might feel a touch of dread at the thought of a car that drives itself. This week, let’s zoom out a bit, and imagine a future society where driverless cars are the norm. I think this is a very plausible scenario, but … 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
This may come as a surprise, but the future of transportation has been around for two centuries already. Of course, back when ol’ Baron Karl first put two wheels together and rode them around 1817 Mannheim, he just thought he’d made a kind of a re-usable horse. He certainly had no idea his invention would … Continue reading
Some parts of being a kid never change. Best friends, schoolyard bullies, and after-school snacks will be around for another century at least (speaking from my experience here in the US). But new technology forces us to adapt, and children are not exempt. At the risk of sounding like an old fogey before my time, … Continue reading
This is Future Bites, a clearinghouse for bite-sized morsels of future news. Offered every Monday. To get a mix of Future Bites and future-focused essays delivered to your inbox, click “subscribe” at the right. This week, I offer you the latest in navigation apps. This one can not only route you around traffic jams, it … Continue reading
The future, being what it is, has a tendency to become the present. And so it is that although this blog is just half a year old, many things have changed since I last discussed them. Here’s a quick look at the state of the future as it stands today. Driverless Cars and the Law … Continue reading
The setting: your home. The time: 7:30pm, in the not-too-distant future. Your room is dim and cool, and the hum of a city evening drifts through the open windows. Your computer screen’s high-frequency flicker casts shadows all around. The metal object in your hand resembles an old-school headphone jack. It’s small and surprisingly heavy. You … 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
Cosmic Revolutions 