Mechanization is bound to destroy jobs, which not surprisingly provokes fear. But trying to delay the inevitable only makes matters worse and prepares neither society nor laborer for the future.
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Living Online Is Not Quite Living
Handling daily tasks like shopping online instead of going out is as convenient as it is contrary to the real, and potentially agreeable process called ‘living.’
Germany’s Bosch and Daimler are teaming up to achieve a high level of success in autonomous parking, becoming the first to have a marketable system far from Silicon Valley.
Laws take time to catch up with reality. Could we program them into binary systems? It is tempting, but it is also dangerous.
In putting into use fast-moving ways of startups, the state looks to improve quality of public services. A hundred or so state-sponsored startups have already been launched with the hope of contributing to the modernization of the administration.
-OpEd- PARIS — We live in a society that changes rapidly, and we wish for schools that reassure us. Schools that are forward-looking, perhaps. Even our schools in the Third Republic that we refer to so often were anything but retrograde. On the contrary! The school believed in the ability of its Black Hussars — […]
Google and Facebook’s power endanger democratic discourse. It is time to design an infrastructure for European social media platforms.
Information technology was supposed to make everything move faster. We need to rethink the way we use our digital tools to serve our real needs.
The trend of what the French dubbed décroissance (degrowth) overlooks how progress and technology are bound to improve our lives.
A new study shows Germany must look for other ways to convince automobile buyers to switch to electric cars. Shall we say: quota?
People in Asia already trust robots enough to let them take care of their loved ones and deliver the evening news. Meanwhile, a hitchhiking robot’s world tour successfully passed through Germany, the Netherlands and Canada, but the American leg of the journey was cut short when it was decapitated and beaten to death in Philadelphia. […]
Blockchain may be the technical solution, as companies, international institutions and NGOs long for a global system that authenticate anyone’s identity, no matter where they are.
Machines replacing us humans: Depending on where you stand (and where you work!), this may sound like a dream or a nightmare. Societies have long been fascinated by the idea of handing over difficult jobs to robots, but individuals quickly start to fear what that may entail for their futures. For all the talk about […]
Just as they were during the information wars of the 18th century, education and critical thinking are key antidotes to disinformation.
Researchers in France have come up with a small but uber-adaptable prototype that could soon change how we type — and in any language we choose.
PARIS — The so-called millennium bug, or Y2K, was the first time many began to understand the full potential of malfunctioning software to do harm. Of course, the predicted December 31, 1999 disruption of the internet, electricity, banking systems, and transportation didn’t come to pass in the end. Still, the threat of bugs (and not […]
Thirty years after a young West German computer whiz working for the KGB was found dead, we return to an unsolved mystery from the final days before the Wall fell.
AI, Big Data and blockchain are some of the expensive tools that are necessary for precision farming, but their contribution to cost-effective and greener agriculture is making them essential to any farmer wanting to produce food for world markets.
The era of driverless cars is dawning. But are we really ready to just let our vehicles take over?
Researchers are sending remote-controlled aircraft into residential neighborhoods to figure out just who’s burning what in their stoves or fireplaces.
The digital relationship between the Asian neighbors has rapidly evolved over the past decade, and India must now think strategically about China’s ambitions in the way Western countries have been forced to do.
How VR can help patients suffering from eating disorders, phobias and schizophrenia.
This is a story about love, hate and Mark Twain. The object of Twain’s desire (then resentment): the typewriter. Twain first laid eyes on a “newfangled typing machine,” as he called it, sometime in the early 1870s. He was, by then, on his way to becoming the world’s most famous writer and humorist. At the same time, the tools of writing were undergoing a profound transformation — from fountain pens, with their leaking and smudging ink, to the pleasant sound of tapping a key whose corresponding letter was magically stamped to paper. The new technology did not emerge with the […]
Engineers in Antioquia decided to cross-reference data on solar radiation and cloud cover to encourage greater use of solar panels.
Will slow growth rates persist in a global dynamic of ‘secular stagnation?’ Or will the IT revolution set off new bursts of productivity?
Algorithms can certainly speed things up. But are they an appropriate tool processing residency and asylum claims that are nuanced and complex by nature?
One study says it will take at least 100 years to bridge the global gender gap. And 217 years to close the pay gap. But we can do something now.
Uber still has plenty of critics in Argentina, but its clearing key legal hurdles is a sign that there’s no turning back the clock on a digitally-driven marketplace.
BEIJING — A video is making the rounds across China’s internet. On a bus in the western city of Xi’an, an elderly man is seen shouting at a pregnant woman that she should give up her seat. “I am an old person! Can’t you see?” His attitude was so appalling that commentators online came down […]
The project ‘The Ocean Cleanup’ wants to use its system to rid the oceans from plastic waste. The founder thinks big about the planet and beyond. And he’s not a jerk.
The information storage technology can safeguard entire transaction histories and allow firms and consumers to see where food ingredients came from — and fast.
BUENOS AIRES — Facebook irritates me, entertains, consoles, bores and infuriates me, moves and depresses me — but above all, it exhausts me. Rewind to 2008, and I am in Pittsburgh working in a migrant help center. My Belgian friend Marie enters the office with her laptop and shows me a new platform where you […]
It’s not just Donald Trump’s wall. Around the world, people are erecting new and increasingly strict lines of division.
Tim Cook’s company has broken a stock market record, but a closer look at Apple’s operating numbers tells a more nuanced story.
French experts doubt that a machine can help you find your soulmate better than trusting the eternal language of love.
With technology rapidly advancing, what may set human workers apart is their ability to reason as much as their technical skills.
Researchers used visuals and scanning technology to gauge how people ‘feel’ about the contenders in Colombia’s current presidential election.
Internet giants have now started flirting with decentralization, to try and replace the so-far failed hopes of Bitcoin and blockchain technology.
Companies like Munich’s EOS are breaking new ground in the manufacturing world. And rather than kill industry jobs, their technology-driven approach may actually be saving them.
Countries like France can either prepare, and make research into artificial intelligence a national priority, or allow themselves to become digital colonies.