Category: Future

Categories
Economy Future

Mixed Feelings From The Masses Awaiting Tesla’s New Model 3

Waiting for Tesla
Waiting for Tesla Misael Virgen/ZUMA

PALO ALTO — While his high-school classmates were blowing their money on Chipotle burritos and concert tickets, Truman Hale was saving up for a Tesla. In March of last year, after years of penny pinching, he plunked down a $1,000 deposit on a Model 3. Now a 21-year-old student at Arizona State University, he’s eager for more information about what will be his first car, which he hopes will be delivered before graduating in December 2018. “I want to only own electric cars,” he said. “I’m riding a bike because I’m saving for this car.” “The lack of information received […]

Categories
Food / Travel Future

In The Kitchen Of The Future, 3D Printers Prepare Your Food

3D pasta (yes, pasta)
3D pasta (yes, pasta) Sardegna Ricerche

CAGLIARI — Danilo Spiga isn’t your everyday chef. He is a trained engineer and all the dishes he cooks are crafted by 3D printers. None of the diners were sick after Spiga’s meal at a laboratory in the Italian city of Cagliari on the island of Sardinia. No one suffered from allergies or food poisoning […]

Categories
Future Ideas

A Few Jobs AI Can Never Render Obsolete

AI on QWERTY
AI on QWERTY Arthur Caranta

Technology is transforming how goods and services are sold, and may soon kick millions of workers out of a job. But certain professions can’t be replaced by bots.

Categories
Future Ideas

Zuckerberg’s Megalomania, A Big Brother Of Good Intentions

Dark blue
Dark blue Max Morse/TechCrunch

The Facebook founder’s recent self-important manifesto reads like comedy, until we see how it pushes us toward a different kind of authoritarianism.

Categories
Future Ideas

Perils And Convenience Of A Microchip Implant In Your Hand

Microchip, maxi danger?
Microchip, maxi danger? Frank May/DPA/ZUMA

Big Brother, if and when he arrives, will start out looking small. Take that mundane office badge or key card you use to pass security before entering your office. Rather than having to carry one around, and risk losing it, technological advances make it easy enough these days to get an RFID microchip implanted in […]

Categories
Economy Eyes on the U.S. Future Trump And The World

A Trump-Era Brain Drain? U.S.-Based Scientists Eye Switzerland

Inside Lausanne's EPFL
Inside Lausanne's EPFL Tommaso Donelli via Instagram

Foreign scientists working in the U.S. are seeking job prospects in Switzerland as they contemplate leaving a country under an unfriendly administration. For one Swiss agency, that’s not necessarily good news.

Categories
Future Ideas

Uber, Didi And The Ride-Hailing World War

Thumb war
Thumb war iphonedigital/Mark Warner/collage

SAO PAULO — The hatchet has been dug up. No surprise there. The truce brought about in the ride-hailing war by Didi Chuxing’s acquisition of Uber’s Chinese operation in August was only ever going to be temporary. Instead, this hiatus allowed both competitors to pick a new battleground: Brazil. São Paulo-based business magazine Exame reported […]

Categories
Future Society

With IFTTT, Your Whole Life Can Be Programmed Like A Computer

Welcome to the Matrix
Welcome to the Matrix Worldcrunch/Prisma

PARIS — The smartphone of Eudes, a web project manager, switches automatically from 3G to WiFi as soon as he’s near his office. It also downloads relevant newspaper articles just before he steps into the metro. Perhaps most importantly, Eudes is instantly notified when the coffee machine needs water. This automated magic is thanks to […]

Categories
Economy Future Geopolitics

Math Is Taking Over The Economy, That’s A Good Thing

Solving everything
Solving everything Stuart Pilbrow

PARIS — Find the distribution of random paths on a directed graph. Of course, when you say it like that, such a problem will hardly excite the masses. But if you had managed to find this mysterious distribution, you would have obtained the PageRank algorithm. And if you have PageRank, you have Google, now the […]

Categories
Future Society

Can A Bottled Spray Ensure That Your Lover Stays Faithful?

Spraying the love
Spraying the love spike/Worldcrunch

GENEVA — Beloved French singer Edith Piaf probably wasn’t aware of it but what made her see “La Vie en Rose,” or life through rose-tinted glasses, as she sings in one of her most famous love songs, could have just been a rush of phenylethylamine or oxytocin. Several types of hormones are released when a […]

Categories
Future Geopolitics

A Dirty Path From Smuggled Cigarettes To Terror Attacks

Black market cigarettes and viagra hauled in by UK customs police.
Black market cigarettes and viagra hauled in by UK customs police. HM Revenue & Customs

BERLIN — Organized crime syndicates have long smuggled drugs and cigarettes. Their distribution strategy is so effective that police around the world have a hard time tracing the channels that allow their products to reach the black market. But could these crimes also be funding terrorism? Members of what is believed to be a criminal […]

Categories
Future Ideas

Students Need New Mentality, Skill Set To Enter Job Market

Studying in Buenos Aires
Studying in Buenos Aires Herman Pineda

How the future of education, and work, look to an Argentine university rector.

Categories
Economy Future

In China, Local Governments Crack Down On Sharing Economy

Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing
Chinese ride-sharing app Didi Chuxing jetsettersreal via Instagram

Mirroring some of the battles Uber has faced in cities around the world, local car-hailing apps in China like Didi Chuxing are getting heat from municipal administrations trying to protect the status quo.

Categories
Future Society

In Sweden, A More Hands-On Approach To Premature Births

Newborn at Stockholm's Karolinska Danderyd hospital
Newborn at Stockholm's Karolinska Danderyd hospital 1177 VÃ¥rdguiden screenshot

Swedish hospitals are a model for a more natural, less clinical approach to caring for newborn and premature babies.

Categories
Future Ideas

Speed And Anonymity On The Internet Is Killing Truth

Connected in the bus
Connected in the bus Hernán Piñera

The great paradox of our time is that we’ve never had access to so much information, and yet have never been so badly informed.

Categories
Future Society

Take 5 — Water Innovation Around The World

Artist's impression of the Clear Orb project in Santa Monica, CA
Artist's impression of the Clear Orb project in Santa Monica, CA Official website

Droughts, demographics, industrialization, pollution, climate change … The need for more clean and accessible water is growing urgent in many places around the world. But beyond praying to the rain gods, what real-life responses are out there? Innovation is key both to help preserve clean water sources, as well as finding new ways to purify […]

Categories
Future Geopolitics

Chile Creates Latin America’s Largest Marine Park

Cunningham's triplefin off the coast of Chile
Cunningham's triplefin off the coast of Chile Eduardo Sorenson/Oceana Chile

In August, Chile broadened the protected sea zones under its watch to create a marine park that covers an area of 300,000 square kilometers, the largest such reserve in Latin America. Fishing and mineral extraction will now be banned from this area, which surrounds the Desventuradas islands in the Pacific Ocean. “At a time when […]

Categories
Economy Future Geopolitics

“Upcycling” — Turning Trash Into Products To Create Zero Waste

Stepping into the world of upcycling
Stepping into the world of upcycling knotandgrain via Instagram

PARIS — Can we one day live in a world where there’s zero trash? A German chemist named Michael Braungart believes it is possible. He encourages companies to put a complete end to waste in The Upcycle: Beyond Sustainability — Designing for Abundance, a book he co-wrote with U.S. architect and designer William McDonough. “The […]

Categories
Future Society

Urban Planning For The Ages, Buenos Aires Gets Senior-Friendly

A quarter of Buenos Aires residents are over 60 years old
A quarter of Buenos Aires residents are over 60 years old Claudio Santisteban/ZUMA

BUENOS AIRES — This city wants to make itself a kinder, friendlier place for the elderly, with plans to improve urban infrastructure and promote common-sense practices to help reduce accidents inside homes. Taking its lead from the World Health Organization (WHO), which has pushed in recent years for more user-friendly cities and better conditions for […]

Categories
Future Society

Extreme Body Images On Instagram Raise Eating Disorder Fears

Extreme Body Images On Instagram Raise Eating Disorder Fears
Instagram via nalasu

“Ab crack,” “thigh gap,” “bikini bridge” — these new body trends get thousands of likes on Instagram. Experts say they are terrible for women’s health of mind and body.

Categories
Eyes on the U.S. Future Trump And The World

The Trump-Clinton Race For Silicon Valley Support

A young Clinton supporter poses in front of posters of the two candidates before Monday's debate.
A young Clinton supporter poses in front of posters of the two candidates before Monday's debate. Qin Lang/Xinhua/ZUMA

Donald Trump has few supporters in liberal Silicon Valley: Even Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder and Facebook board member, who spoke for Trump at the Republican National Convention, hasn’t given a cent to the campaign. Yet the tech world doesn’t unanimously favor Democrats. Consider, for example, the financial support that Oculus founder Palmer Luckey has given to a pro-Trump trolling campaign. Luckey, 24, sold his virtual reality startup to Facebook for $2 billion after Oculus became a crowdfunding star. He has confirmed to the Daily Beast that he’s donated money to a group called Nimble America to produce memes and […]

Categories
Future Geopolitics

Water Is The New Oil — The Rising Threat Of “Blue Gold” Wars

Bangladeshi children taking a bath by collecting supply water beside a road in Dhaka
Bangladeshi children taking a bath by collecting supply water beside a road in Dhaka Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/ZUMA

Global warming, population booms, rising urbanization, industrialization — an explosive mixture that may make water supplies the world’s new spark for armed conflict.

Categories
Future Geopolitics

At Former Soviet Nuclear Test Site, “Best Not To Take Souvenirs”

At the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, aka the Polygon
At the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, aka the Polygon Ben Dalton

Hundreds of atomic bombs were detonated at the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in eastern Kazakhstan during the Soviet regime. Scientists are now conducting research on the site, which was shuttered 25 years ago, to evaluate how radiation affected the reg

Categories
Future

Just About Everything In Your House Can Be Hacked

Just one keystroke away
Just one keystroke away BrackezMassimo

Israeli researchers recently showed how data can be stolen from an offline computer. But computers aren’t the only devices that can be compromised.

Categories
Future

Epigenetics: Are Darwin’s Theories About To Evolve?

Detail of an epigenome.
Detail of an epigenome. Holly Hanessian/Creative Commons

MUNICH — The field of epigenetics is being lauded for its discoveries, which some describe as revolutionary. There’s talk of a wide range of scientific textbooks being rewritten. But are the findings really that groundbreaking? First, what is epigenetics? It is any additional information that gets tacked on top of the genome. Epigenetics refer to […]

Categories
Future

Bitcoin Bandit, When Gaming Goes “Paid-To-Play”

Bitcoin Bandit, When Gaming Goes "Paid-To-Play"
Bitcoin Bandit/Worldcrunch

Swiss developers turn the business model of online gaming on its head.

Categories
Future

Digital Oases For Cuba’s Internet Revolution

The Internet stations are biodegradable cubes, with fake grass flooring and solar panels.
The Internet stations are biodegradable cubes, with fake grass flooring and solar panels. Parawifi

HAVANA — Cuba“s belated embrace of the Internet has people packing into places like the Plaza de la Revolución and the colonial fort Castillito, two of the island’s just 114 public WiFi hotspots. Overall, the number of Cubans who regularly access the Web is still relatively small. But things are changing, and quickly. The Internet […]

Categories
Future Society

Digital Fort Knox: Inside The World’s Most Secretive Data Center

Inside the Swiss Fort Knox
Inside the Swiss Fort Knox Mount10-wiki

You won’t find gold or weapons stored deep in the granite caves of Switzerland’s Bernese Alps. Instead, the mountain range holds more precious treasure — servers and hard drives.

Categories
Future Terror in Europe

Telegram App Delivers The Secrecy Jihadists Covet

Messaging service Telegram
Messaging service Telegram Microsiervos

Police officers probing the attack on a priest in the quiet northern French town of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray were led to an unusual location in their investigation: Telegram, a messaging application that has 100 million active users worldwide. With both private and public chats, the application’s flexibility, as well as its policy on privacy, makes it attractive […]

Categories
Future Geopolitics

Can Chinese Solar Panels Keep The Lights On In Ghana?

A street in Accra, Ghana's capital
A street in Accra, Ghana's capital Francisco Anzola

ACCRA — It’s a hot and humid night in this capital city and a long line waits at the entrance of Papaye, Ghana’s top fast-food chain and a symbol of the country’s burgeoning middle class. But the restaurant seems closed, its neon lights turned off. The restaurant’s staff struggle to turn on the generator. A […]

Categories
Future

Pokemon Go Gives Lesson To Online Health Sector

Just make sure to warm up your neck
Just make sure to warm up your neck Jorge Sanz/Pacific Press/ZUMA

The virtual hunting game Pokémon Go, for which players have to walk and walk in search of monsters and objectives, has just taught the eHealth sector a valuable lesson.

Categories
Future

Living In Space, Russia Probes 55 Years After Yuri Gagarin

A 1960s Russian spacesuit on display at London's Science Museum
A 1960s Russian spacesuit on display at London's Science Museum Veronika Lukasova/ZUMA

Yuri Gagarin was the first to prove that humans can survive in outer space. For 55 years since, humanity has been striving to adapt to life in space, but the questions of exploring our galaxy and taking a journey to other planets still remain open-ended. Can technology help our bodies withstand prolonged spatial voyages? Running […]

Categories
Future Society

The Sly History Of Robots, Pre-Frankenstein To Post-Tesla

Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis
Fritz Lang's 1927 movie Metropolis Universal Film/Entertainment Pictures/ZUMA

Robots have always fascinated us. In fiction or in real life, they crossed our path, for better or for worse. But where do they really come from?

Categories
Economy Future

Is The Big Mac Index Obsolete?

Not so big anymore
Not so big anymore Emanuele

Japan’s Nomura company thinks technology prices tell us more about currency comparisons than fast food.

Categories
Future Society

Opticale, Pokemon Go Rival Pops Up In Neutral Switzerland

Playing Opticale by Lake Geneva
Playing Opticale by Lake Geneva Opticale's Facebook page

LAUSANNE — Inside Studio Furinkazan’s offices, the Celestial Cascades suddenly appear. The heavenly jungle, naturally, can only be seen through your smartphone screen: A red light flutters around in the room until it is caught on the corner of a desk. Then it turns into a Tudù, a small iridescent blue bird with squirrel ears. […]

Categories
Future Society

What Happens When Pokémon Go Sneaks Into Egypt

Beware of the Sandshrew
Beware of the Sandshrew PRORoderick Eime/Worldcrunch montage

Pokemon Go isn’t even available in Egypt. That hasn’t stopped young hunters from tracking down the creatures.

Categories
Economy Future Society

When Progress Kills Jobs, Facing The AI Employment Trap

The Progression Of Artificial Intelligence
The Progression Of Artificial Intelligence Jeff Rense and Roman Yampolsky

Technology is bringing us closer to Artificial Intelligence, which will undeniably wreak havoc with employment for millions worldwide. Smart solutions are needed now.

Categories
Future Society

Seed Vault Hidden In Norwegian Cave Holds Planet’s Biodiversity

Inside the Norwegian seed vault
Inside the Norwegian seed vault Global Crop Diversity Trust

SVALBARD — A cave 80 meters under a mountain looks like the entrance to a war bunker. Or a secret weapons factory. It could be the stuff of fiction: We almost expect Darth Vader to emerge from a wall. Or it could be the gate to an underworld that is populated with dwarfs and trolls […]

Categories
Economy Future

Qwant It! French Search Engine Takes On Google By Protecting Your Privacy

Don't Google it
Don't Google it Helene Snyder/Worldcrunch

PARIS — For more than three years now, the French startup Qwant has been trying to prove that a search engine can be efficient and profitable while respecting the privacy and anonymity of users. After a slow and difficult start, Qwant is finally taking off. Six months ago the search engine had 8 million visitors. […]

Categories
Future Ideas

Teaching Human Failings To Robots, That’s The Hard Part

Unsure
Unsure Peter Zuco

PARIS — Try to imagine that an intelligent robot is out to kill you. It remembers all your passwords and has access to all your data. Equipped with facial recognition technology, it can identify you wherever you go, even though you have no idea what it looks like. This nightmare is actually possible. Drone assassins […]

Exit mobile version