The United States seeks to strengthen its competitive edge over the European Union through broad deregulation. While this poses a genuine risk, it also presents Europe with a chance to step up and fill a void, globally.
Category: Future
With the announcement that Elon Musk will become part of Donald Trump’s administration, the tech billionaire’s influence on the U.S. will keep on growing. From pouring hundreds of millions into Trump’s campaign to bending social media narratives, Musk’s actions underscore the ease with which the techno-oligarchy can buy political sway, writes Natalia Viana of Brazil’s leading investigative platform Agência Pública.
A $2.4 billion project to exploit lithium deposits in Serbia’s Jadar Valley could cover 90% of Europe’s current lithium needs. But the plan has sparked protests across the country and created an unlikely coalition of opposition, which President Aleksandar Vučić’s government has sought to suppress.
How does déjà vu happen? Psychologists have long avoided the complicated question, but researchers are now trying to understand this uncanny phenomenon.
Should the U.S. revive nuclear power to satisfy the growing electricity demands of artificial intelligence? The Three Mile Island nuclear power plant offers a cautionary tale of technology outpacing expertise.
Russia’s Roskomnadzor agency blocked the Discord messaging application earlier this month, and thus disrupted one of the Russian military’s well-established communication systems. It’s a reminder of the Kremlin’s need for Western technology to wage its war against Ukraine.
Millions of people could die from antibiotic-resistant germs in the near future. But there are very few new antibiotics in the research pipelines of the big pharmaceutical companies, which are focused on developing more profitable drugs. What is behind this blatant injustice — and what can be done about it?
Tech’s biggest fortunes are funding a project to build a new city of 400,000 people just an hour outside of San Francisco. But the residents of the region’s most rural county are resisting.
If artificial intelligence-created content floods the internet, who decides what online information is worth archiving?
Have you ever been torn between two emotions and don’t know why? Research is uncovering how your brain can cause you experience two conflicting emotions at the same time.
Even if the exploding Hezbollah pagers was not the first supply chain attack, having thousands of remote, hand-held devices raised terrifying questions that hadn’t been widely considered before, marking a potential turning point in the public’s trust in their electronic devices, and in governments’ ability to protect them.
Need a break from the hustle and bustle or the doom and gloom? From zebras in their natural habitat to remotely blowing bubbles in a Florida garden, there’s bound to be something for you in the thousands of livestreams available on Earth — and even in orbit.
Along with much of central Europe, Poland has experienced large scale flooding that has impacted the country’s infrastructure, budget, and sense of safety. Will this tragedy change the way Poles view climate change?
Has social media become a breeding ground for racism ? Elon Musk has turned Twitter (now called X) into his own opinion platform, giving free rein to disinformation and weakening fact checking and user moderation. Meanwhile, the AI feeding the platform’s algorithm is built on harmful, racist bias, writes Cem Say for independent Turkish daily Oksijen.
From a 91-year-old fitness influencer in Canada to fashion grannies in China, elderly influencers are taking social media by storm, fighting back against ageist stereotypes while they inspire millions.
Despite hours of scrolling, smartphones hardly play a role in our dreams. Yet their absence may actually demonstrate our dependence on them.
Crop science may lead to a revolution in potato farming, creating new varieties resistant to disease and drought.
Bezos, Branson, Musk, Isaacman. Will the billionaires throwing untold resources into private space travel prove to be visionaries or just thrill seekers? The latest, Isaacman’s Polaris dawn mission, launched Tuesday with the objective to feature the first ever private spacewalk.
There is a burgeoning group of Italian women posting with the hashtag #influcirco (i.e. influencer circus), and wonders whether they are professional haters, or just fans seduced and then abandoned by the web stars who seemed like best friends during the loneliness of the pandemic.
Students at the Saint-Charles school in Monaco are starting their school year in a classroom created by French designer Stéphanie Marin. Today, rethinking school furniture to reflect current teaching methods and respond to ecological challenges has become necessary — and designers are not short on ideas.
How can trucks be powered in a non-polluting way? The industry has been looking for good solutions for a long time. Now, electric trucks are gaining ground. The shift towards electric could actually happen faster than with cars.
More and more teachers are finding a successful side career on social media as influencers. But commenting on exam results, dancing with students and even sharing personal stories about pupils raises ethical and legal questions.
France has accused Telegram CEO Pavel Durov of complicity in managing an online platform to allow illicit transactions by an organized group. But should businesses be left responsible for making decisions about the costs of risks?
Since 2021, engineers at the aerospace group Airbus have been working with the French National Sports Agency to build better equipment for disabled athletes. Their high-lying expertise will be in full display at the Paralympics Games Paris 2024.
Once crypto-cautious Russia has started experimenting with the digital financial market, prompting new regulations, formal exchange markets, and, as President Vladimir Putin hopes, new means of skirting Western sanctions.
Increasingly extreme temperatures are forcing summertime cultural events and festivals, from concerts to Spain’s traditional castell human towers, to adapt to a new climate reality.
Many of life’s biggest questions can’t be answered by an algorithm. We must learn to embrace uncertainty instead.
Climate change has become an inevitable issue in the Middle East and North Africa — which may soon experience 200 days of extreme heat annually — and with those changes come questions of environmental justice.
Categories
Worldcrunch Summer Reads: Tech
As the Worldcrunch Today crew takes a week of break, we offer a series of thematic articles straight from the Worldcrunch vault. AI Can Manipulate Us But Not Persuade Us — And We Must Regulate Accordingly -Analysis- TURIN — What does it mean to approach technology with an ethical perspective? Rather than seek the Ten […]
Oil development in Uganda and Tanzania, driven by the French multinational TotalEnergies, is met with opposition from local communities and social and environmental activists. The projects are surrounded by allegations of threats and human rights abuses.
Following the horrific death of Satnam Singh, an Indian citizen working in Italian fields under slavery-like conditions, Carlo Petrini, founder of the International Slow Food Movement, reflects on how food sovereignty, a term dear to Giorgia Meloni and her far right government, exposes migrant workers to numerous perils, which can cost human lives.
Funeral undertakers belong to one of the oldest professions in the world. But now, startups want to disrupt old-fashioned funeral homes. Unafraid to tackle taboos, new services offer ways to live on digitally after death.
Stromboli, located in Sicily’s Aeolian Islands, is one of the most famous volcanoes in the world, attracting tourists for its pristine black sand beaches. Yet due to its characteristics, including its uniquely consistent and predictable eruptions, it has also become an international reference point in the study of explosive dynamics.
Twenty-five years in the making, China has developed a mass surveillance state, from Beijing alleyways to rural villages. And citizens don’t object because they’ve been co-opted into it.
A better understanding of the placenta may help curb maternal and fetal mortality rates, but progress is slow.
Tools that use AI will help doctors work smarter and faster. But not all patient care can be improved by an algorithm.
The construction of parking spaces is an obligation in new urban building projects. But increasing the supply of parking in the city center doesn’t necessarily improve mobility. It may be just the opposite.
Presented at Madrid’s Matadero cultural center until late July, “Climate Fitness, Rituals of Adaptability” features five works that invite visitors to question the social and economic structures that have led to the climate crisis and consider other possible futures.
Driven by advances in artificial intelligence, the development of human-shaped robots is accelerating on both sides of the Pacific. China see it as a way of accelerating modernization of its industrial base, while American venture capitalists are betting on their mass adoption in warehouses and factories.
Despite stereotypes that portray Gen Z as hyperconnected and glued to their smartphones, studies show that young people are actually moving away from social media and using it more passively than their Millennial parents and teachers.