Ever wanted to text-chat with a bottlenose dolphin? Or collaborate with a bonobo on a chart-topping blues-rock anthem? I’m not promising it’ll happen, but… something like it might. A reader and friend passed along this bizarre and intriguing article from NPR: Peter Gabriel’s Interspecies Internet. The “interspecies internet” project is actually led by Neil Gershenfeld, … Continue reading
The word “metadata” has been popping up in the news a lot lately, thanks to the revelation that the U.S. National Security Agency has been collecting it from millions of Americans for years. And this is no flash-in-the-pan political scandal that will be forgotten next year; as our ultra-connected, electronic future continues to emerge, we’ll … Continue reading
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
America’s colors are changing – and I don’t mean the flag. As I mentioned on Monday, the Census Bureau found that over half of the babies born in 2011 were members of ethnic or racial minorities. Those babies are the future population of the United States, and it’s going to be an increasingly black, brown … Continue reading
The best way to solve the world’s hunger problem is a hotly debated topic. In the next few paragraphs, I’ll take a look at one fairly conventional idea, and explore another proposal that’s a bit more out of the box. But in the end, I’d like to poke at some of the assumptions underlying both … Continue reading
Three-dimensional printing is getting more flexible and powerful every day. You might have seen the 3D printed guitar, or the 3D printed race car (yes, they actually work). But how about a 3D printed gun? If pro-gun advocacy group Defense Distribution has anything to say about it, you’ll one day be able to create guns … Continue reading
Today’s Future Bites brings you the future of meat… maybe. Here’s Singularity Weblog with the latest on lab-grown animal tissue for human consumption. The motivation for growing meat flesh in-vitro, without the animal, is many-fold. After all, growing animals for consumption requires vast amounts of water, grain, fertilizer, land area and oil. Not to mention … Continue reading
I definitely spend more time wondering about the future than the average person, but I can hardly claim exclusive rights. Much like the sky, folks have been gazing into the future since ancient times. Here, I collect for you some of my favorite observations people have made on the subject over the centuries, along with … 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
The other night, I spent an enjoyable hour watching Gattaca, a 1997 sci-fi film I haven’t seen in probably ten years. Not all of it aged well: Ethan Hawke’s dialogue is cornier than I remember, and it has one of the silliest love scenes ever committed to film. But the core conceit remains compelling: a … Continue reading
Cosmic Revolutions 