Category: Future

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Future OneShot

Watch: OneShot — Hello Dolly!

Watch: OneShot — Hello Dolly!

Can a clone have a birthday? Well, let’s just say that Dolly the sheep was delivered 22 years ago on July 5 — the world’s first cloned mammal to see the light of day. The result of a successful cloning experiment at The Roslin Institute in Scotland, the wooly work of science sparked public outcry back in 1996, eventually leading to an extension of the ban against embryo research in the United States. [youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/-uYYsNf61WA expand=1] Hello Dolly! — OneShot (© Roslin Institute) Fears of cloning linger: Earlier this year, Chinese researchers were busy trying to convince the public that […]

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Future Society

Extra! On The Perils Of Low-Cost Plastic Surgery In China

Extra! On The Perils Of Low-Cost Plastic Surgery In China

Over the past decade, there have been countless reports about the boom in cosmetic surgery in Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea. Names have even been given to particular facial features in vogue, including the term “red net face,” taken from the “red net” young female internet celebrities making a mark in […]

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Economy Future

Synthetic Diamonds Go Ultra Chic, With New Place Vendôme Boutique

A lab-grown diamond at Courbet, Paris on April 29
A lab-grown diamond at Courbet, Paris on April 29 Courbet Official

PARIS — The address is not by chance. Courbet, a jewelry designer that sells synthetic diamonds, has decided to open at the world’s most prestigious location for any jeweler: the Place Vendôme in Paris. Setting up shop at No. 7, becoming neighbor to establishments like Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, is a daring move, […]

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Future Geopolitics Society

Telegram: Why Russian Courts Can’t Really Block The App

Protesters during a rally to support Telegram in Kaliningrad on April, 30
Protesters during a rally to support Telegram in Kaliningrad on April, 30 Alexandr Podgorchuk

MOSCOW — On April 13, a Russian court decreed an immediate blocking of the app Telegram across the country. The decision came after the refusal of Telegram to provide Russian security services with access to users’ private messages. The authorities said it was a necessity in the fight against terrorist threats. However, Pavel Durov, founder […]

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Future Geopolitics

What Voters Read In A Candidate’s Face

Current Colombian President Santos
Current Colombian President Santos Xinhua/Wire/ZUMA

Researchers used visuals and scanning technology to gauge how people ‘feel’ about the contenders in Colombia’s current presidential election.

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Future Ideas

Population Control, The Environmental Fix No One Wants To Talk About

Rickshaws in Dhaka, Bangladesh
Rickshaws in Dhaka, Bangladesh Suvra Kanti Das/ZUMA

Climate change is a real and alarming problem. But there’s another — and intimately related — ticking time bomb threatening our planet: overpopulation.

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Economy Future

Femtech Finance: Why Women Founders Must Fight To Find Capital

Sealing the deal is tougher for women.
Sealing the deal is tougher for women. Perzonseo

MUNICH — Most investors just don’t understand what it’s all about — and so the scenario almost always plays out the same: Sophia Yen enters a room full of venture capitalists, almost all older men, and starts to explain to them something about a woman’s period. “They find that a bit disgusting,” she says. “Viagra […]

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Economy Future

Facebook, A Black Market For Five-Star Amazon Reviews

SAN FRANCISCO — On Amazon, customer comments can help a product surge in popularity. The online retail giant says that more than 99 percent of its reviews are legitimate because they are written by real shoppers who aren’t paid for them. But a Washington Post examination found that for some popular product categories, such as Bluetooth headphones and speakers, the vast majority of reviews appear to violate Amazon’s prohibition on paid reviews. Such reviews have certain characteristics, such as repetitive wording that people probably cut and paste in. Many of these fraudulent reviews originate on Facebook, where sellers seek shoppers […]

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Future Ideas

China’s BAT Tech Giants Giving GAFA Run For Their Money

Alibaba, the Chinese equivalent to Amazon, makes a profit almost four times that of Amazon.
Alibaba, the Chinese equivalent to Amazon, makes a profit almost four times that of Amazon. TPG/ZUMA

Upstarts no longer, the so-called BAT companies — Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent — are a force to be reckoned with.

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Future Ideas

Why Global Shipping Industry Must Climb Aboard Paris Climate Pact

Sailing to Rio, Brazil
Sailing to Rio, Brazil Kike Calvo/ZUMA

Latin American states, as major sea-trading nations that are also vulnerable to climate change, must act now to find ways to curb shipping pollution.

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Future Ideas

Brace Yourself For The Digital Counter-Revolution

Testing virtual reality technology
Testing virtual reality technology Eddie Kopp

The world has mostly embraced technological advances. But as fallout over the Facebook data-breach scandal suggests, the reaction could get nasty.

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Eyes on the U.S. Future

Live From The Blue Ridge Mountains, Where Facebook Stores Its Data

Data in bytes stored on tens of thousands of computer servers in Forest City.
Data in bytes stored on tens of thousands of computer servers in Forest City. Forest City Data Center Facebook Page

FOREST CITY — It was slow at the thrift shop, and manager Stephanie Henderson, 38, was looking at her laptop, trying to discover all that Facebook had collected on her: the posts, the memes, the photos, the messages to her family. She had been meaning to do this for weeks, ever since outrage over Facebook’s handling of user privacy first burst into her timeline. Now, she clicked a button. Her request for her Facebook data was sent. As she waited, Henderson tried to imagine what a decade’s worth of personal details might look like. “I’m afraid to see what Facebook […]

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Economy Eyes on the U.S. Future

Got AI? Connected Cows, Artificial Intelligence, Your Milk

Cows with their 'FitBits' that control Ida
Cows with their "FitBits" that control Ida Connecterra Facebook Page

‘Cow Fitbits’ and artificial intelligence are coming to the dairy farm, but some farmers aren’t impressed.

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Future Smarter Cities

Design And Ecology, An Ugly Truth About Green Energy

Wind Tree outside Geneva Bank
Wind Tree outside Geneva Bank c.c.new

Alternative energy projects might be good for the environment. But with a few exceptions, they’re awful on the eyes.

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Future Ideas

Europe To Silicon Valley: Time To Pay For Your False Promises

In Germany, where privacy matters, data should be protected
In Germany, where privacy matters, data should be protected Omer Messinger via ZUMA

-OpEd- MUNICH — We are making the world a better place: That has been a central promise that helped Silicon Valley’s Internet giants seduce the public, on their way to gaining unprecedented power over our lives. That vow remains at the heart of the message of Mark Zuckerberg and his company Facebook. The goal, as […]

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Future Ideas

Bankers Be Warned, GAFA Web Giants Are Coming For You

A cashless transaction in Ghent, Belgium.
A cashless transaction in Ghent, Belgium. Jonas Leupe

–OpEd- PARIS — The year is 2050. Cash has disappeared. People now pay for their purchases with their smartphones. And as in so many other sectors, Apple and Google are the big winners — along with Microsoft, who makes a small chip, which people implant under their skin to use as an electronic wallet. For […]

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Future Green Or Gone

Russia And China Lead New Rush To The Arctic

An Arctic view of the Northern Lights
An Arctic view of the Northern Lights Liu Shiping/ZUMA

With the melting of the ice, maritime traffic is growing, which means new economic opportunities, but also some cold and hard questions.

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Future Ideas

Channeling Jules Verne, A Measure Of Elon Musk’s Ambitions

A Tesla Trip To The Moon
A Tesla Trip To The Moon Georges Méliès/ Worldcrunch montage

-Analysis- PARIS — He is “a man of about forty-two years of age, of large build, but slightly round-shouldered. His massive head momentarily shook a shock of reddish hair, which resembled a lion’s mane.” This isn’t a description of Elon Musk, but of Michel Ardan, one of the characters in Jules Verne’s 1865 novel From […]

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Economy Future Ideas

Bitcoin, A Logical Return To Finance Of The Middle Ages

Bitcoin sign in Boston
Bitcoin sign in Boston Tim Pierce

-Analysis- PARIS — Michiel Van Aarnhem is a young and elegant advisor to the Dutch finance minister. He’s also an award-winning video producer. The educational video Bitcoin, Money of the Future?, which he made with his friend Jason Halbgewachs, a Justice Ministry official, took first prize in the European Central Bank (ECB)-sponsored Euro Video Challenge […]

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Future Smarter Cities

Can You Dig It? New Urban Experiments In Underground Architecture

Model of the 'earthscraper' by Bunker Arquitectura
Model of the "earthscraper" by Bunker Arquitectura Bunker Arquitectura official Facebook page

Some designers can’t wait to start burrowing. In Mexico, there’s even talk about building an ‘earthscraper.’

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Future Society

What Colombia’s Coffee Farmers Can Teach Us About Good Health

Farmer in process of drying and grinding coffee beans
Farmer in process of drying and grinding coffee beans Daniel Romero/ZUMA

BOGOTÁ — A new in-depth study of the well-being of Colombian coffee farmers could help provide the prescription for good health for us all. Understanding the fundamental elements of healthy living could lead to something of a “positive pandemic,” according to researchers of a project that began in 2012 after medical experts gathered in Toronto […]

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Future Society

Can Artificial Intelligence Solve China’s Demographic Crisis?

Shanghai at night
Shanghai at night Reinhard Kaufhold/ZUMA

BEIJING — Over the past decade or so, “The Low-Fertility Trap,” a hypothesis put forth by Wolfgang Lutz, Vegard Skirbekk and Maria Rita Testa, respectively Austrian, Norwegian and Italian scholars, has worried many countries facing the risks of an aging population. This includes China. The theory suggests that when a country’s birth rate is lower […]

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Future Green Or Gone

In Argentina, Cow Dung Generates Heaps Of Electricity

Moo-y bien
Moo-y bien Adecoagro official website

CHRISTOPHERSEN — Argentina’s Adecoagro, an industrial farming multinational has turned one of its dairy farms into a surprising source of power. A new technique for generating energy from cow dung has now proven to supply enough electricity from cowpat to power a town of 5,000 residents. Its biodigester system with a 1.4 MW capacity, began […]

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Future Geopolitics Society

11 Most Popular Worldcrunch Articles Of 2017

11 Most Popular Worldcrunch Articles Of 2017
Brigitte Tohm

Venice For Sale? Historic Buildings Flipped Into Airbnbs​​ LA STAMPA A Woman’s Perspective On Divorce In The Arab World More and more people in Muslim-majority countries are opting out of their marriages. And often it’s the woman who decides to end things. SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG Obama’s Shadow, White House photographer Pete Souza Looks Back LE TEMPS […]

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Future Geopolitics Society

Staff Favorites: Our 10 Best Stories Of 2017

Staff Favorites: Our 10 Best Stories Of 2017
Worldcrunch/Photofunia

A Call To Philosophers: Join The Fray, Help Fix Our World Our era of authoritarian rulers and “alternative facts’ makes the guiding light of philosophy more vital than ever. SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG Xi Jinping’s Dream Megacity To Burnish His Legacy Ground has been broken on the signature domestic project of the Chinese leader’s next term. It […]

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Future Geopolitics

2017 In Two Minutes, Our Video Year In Review

Times change? A Big Ben facelift began in 2017
Times change? A Big Ben facelift began in 2017 Rob Pinney/London News Pictures via ZUMA

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/embed/i2yAKwn4wBk?rel=0 expand=1] 2017 In 2 Minutes, A Video Year In Review

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Future Ideas

From Around The World, 8 Real Ways To Fight Fake News

In Vancouver, real or fake?
In Vancouver, real or fake? Liang Sen/Xinhua via ZUMA

By 2022, disinformation could completely replace real facts online. So what are we supposed to do about it? Sharp ideas from France to Denmark to the U.S. and beyond.

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Future Green Or Gone

Before (And After) The Flood: Climate Change Lessons From The Past

Ventura County, California on fire
Ventura County, California on fire Zhao Hanrong/Xinhua via ZUMA

GENEVA — A series of hurricanes of unprecedented intensity in the North Atlantic. Record-high temperatures all over the planet. Monstrous fires in California and Portugal. Entire regions hit by severe drought. Mountains collapsing… Has 2017 given us a foretaste of the disasters to come because of climate change? To answer this question and get a […]

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Future Ideas

Why Women Are Better Suited For Work In Our AI Future

Woman wearing a virtual reality headset
Woman wearing a virtual reality headset Li Mangmang/Xinhua/ZUMA

Women have intrinsic qualities that can help them in the fluid, digitalized labor markets of the future. But first they must have equal access to technical education.

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Economy Future

Why The World Can No Longer Ignore Bitcoin

Blockchain servers used in Bitcoin transactions
Blockchain servers used in Bitcoin transactions Marko Ahtisaari

-Analysis- PARIS — The whole world has been talking about it for over a week, and yet, — admit it — you still don’t quite get what all the Bitcoin fuss is about. You know it’s a virtual currency. But what is the point of having a currency you can barely use to pay for […]

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Future Smarter Cities Society

How Tiny Andorra Became A Major Hub In Smart Cities Movement

Andorra is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies
Andorra is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies Basil Venitis

ANDORRA LA VELLA — Perched in the Pyrenees between Spain and France, Andorra — with fewer than 80,000 inhabitants — is as small as it is remote. And yet, the European micro-nation is playing a big part these days in the field of urban studies, the Andorran daily El Periòdic reports. Researchers with the City […]

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Future Society

In Cashless Sweden, Even Panhandlers Accept Credit Cards

ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus spending his money money money
ABBA member Bjorn Ulvaeus spending his money money money ABBA Always Facebook page

In Stockholm and around the country cash has disappeared from businesses and banks. Everyone, except the elderly or those without digital access, pays with credit cards or mobile apps.

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Economy Future

Central Banks Are Not Cut Out For Cryptocurrencies

A Bitcoin ATM in Singapore
A Bitcoin ATM in Singapore Xinhua/ZUMA

NEW YORK — Should central banks embrace cryptocurrencies, or even pioneer their own? In a nutshell, no. Crypto assets are an unusual innovation, still in flux and often poorly understood. Trying to centralize them in a bureaucracy is exactly the wrong way to go. Yet China’s central bank claims it is working toward a blockchain-based digital currency. Singapore has already experimented in this direction. The phrase “Fedcoin” is sometimes bandied about, though I’ve seen no concrete sign of the U.S. Federal Reserve jumping on this bandwagon. In its recent quarterly review, the Bank of International Settlements asked central banks to […]

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Future Green Or Gone

Renewable Revolution, How Wind Energy Took Root In Germany

More than 28,000 wind turbines have already been installed in Germany
More than 28,000 wind turbines have already been installed in Germany Silas Stein/DPA/ZUMA

Eco-friendly national legislation and hard work on the local level has made it possible for wind farms to blossom throughout Germany. But it’s not without costs.

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Economy Future Geopolitics

R&D And Innovation, A Patent Failure In Latin America

Tech Cocktail conference in Buenos Aires
Tech Cocktail conference in Buenos Aires TechCo

In spite of dynamic consumer figures, Latin America lags when it comes to investment in research and development, those crucial agents of social and economic development.

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Future Society

Women And Robots, More Than Just A Pretty Face

Service robot ''L2B2''
Service robot ''L2B2'' Christoph Schmidt

The sex robot market is expanding, but women must play a core role in the development of all artificial intelligence to avoid a future designed with a male bias.

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Future Ideas

Make No Mistake, Cyber War Is A Real And Present Threat

A 2015 U.S. military cyber war drill
A 2015 U.S. military cyber war drill U.S. Department of Defense

-Analysis- PARIS — Imagine if a foreign entity neutralized the public health system in the Paris region. Or if it went on to attack the electric grid, interfering with the meteorological services, manipulating French President Emmanuel Macron’s emails and targeting the military and police communication systems. All from a computer keyboard. Nobody would get killed, […]

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Future Ideas

Computers Claiming Copyright And Other Puzzles Of Our AI Era

Painter, musician, writer
Painter, musician, writer M. Levin

-Analysis- Do GIFs have a place in serious publications? Where the hell is my giraffe emoji? Do androids dream of electric sheep? The digital world is presenting us with questions we never could have imagined we’d have to answer — and maybe we don’t. But there are also those brand new mind-boggling questions of a […]

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Food / Travel Future

Top Of The World, One Family’s Adventures To The North Pole

The Bardout family aboard their WHY boat
The Bardout family aboard their WHY boat Ghislain Bardout

Now on their third ‘Under the Pole’ expedition, French explorers Emmanuelle Périé-Bardout and Ghislain Bardout (and their two sons) just can’t get enough of the far north.

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Future Geopolitics Ideas

Collection Of DNA Spells Doom In India

Two scientists reading DNA genetic code
Two scientists reading DNA genetic code Linda Bartlett

-Analysis- In 2007, the department of biotechnology in India began drafting a controversial legislative bill to collect and store the DNA information of Indian citizens in a national databank to help solve criminal cases. Since then, the measure has largely failed to move forward due to inadequate safeguards to secure this sensitive personal information. The […]

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