BIG unveil Oceanix their floating city concept backed by the UN
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the Earth’s population grows, and as climate change threatens to displace hundreds of millions of people the UN are now seriously considering building floating cities. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. In the future it’s not just NASA...
AI gets to grips with designing cities so humans don’t have to
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI is taking on more and more challenges, and “grunt work,” and now it’s starting to design our cities and communities. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. For the past couple of years, as I’ve watched the rise of...
Government can’t do it alone any more, says Apple’s CEO
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As individuals and organisations start becoming more powerful than many governments, people are wondering if private companies can solve humanity’s problems faster. As I travel around the world, from America to Africa, Europe to the Middle East, and Japan to Singapore, talking to people...
China’s AI anti-corruption program is getting shut down for being too good
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Corruption is endemic, and now China’s AI powered anti-corruption program is getting shut down in a record number of provinces because it’s allegedly too efficient. What would you do if you had a machine that could catch a thief, or a corrupt politician? Well,...
New AI Fake News generator is too dangerous to release, say its creators
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF It will not be long before we cannot differentiate the difference between real content and fake content, and that has a myriad of very serious implications, none of which we are prepared for. There are several very scary AI’s in existence today, take for...
US proposes to regulate AI the same way it regulates weapons exports
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI can be both very beneficial, but also in the wrong hand very dangerous, and the US is thinking about regulating it in the same way they regulate military hardware. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology has the capability to be one of, if not the,...
Dutch man, 69, applies to legally change his age to 49 years old
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As anti-aging technologies arrive one day the elderly may well have the bodies and minds much younger than their years, and that will cause a societal dilemma. There’s a lot more than you might realise going on in the world of ageing, or more...
US military identifies virtual nations as a potential security threat to US sovereignty
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The internet means citizens can now become part of large, virtual collectives, or nations, and there are fears these nations, with their own rules, welfare and support systems, could threaten the power and influence of sovereign nations. When is a nation not a nation?...
Confidence that American’s can spot fake bots plummets to all time low
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF If people can longer tell fake content or “people” from what’s real then there’s the threat that trust in each other, and in society and government, could break down. How times have changed. Just a few years ago, before the arrival of fake Chinese...
Ohio becomes first US state to let people pay business taxes in Bitcoin
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many investors have said Bitcoin will take off when you can pay your taxes with it, well that time might be getting closer. There’s a lot of legal uncertainty in the US surrounding cryptocurrencies, and many other investors, like Kevin O’Leary ABC show Shark Tank fame,...
MIT trained an AI to spot fake and biased news stories
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to detect and weed out fake news is quickly rising up the political agenda, and companies are in an arms race to try to find solutions fast. Any fact-checker who works in the media has a straightforward but challenging job – make...
Drexel’s new spray on antennas can connect everything to the internet
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Tomorrow’s world will be increasingly connected, and connecting old legacy devices and things has been difficult, but it’s about to get much easier. Engineers are good at making minuscule antennas. Nowadays, we can cram antennas into our smartphones or smartwatches without much trouble. But...
World’s first AI government policy maker gives China a diplomatic advantage
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF AI will play an increasingly central role in both government policy making and governing as China rolls out their first AI policy maker. If you’re a foreign policy maker with a government then, whether you like it or not, you’ll soon be working with...
Estonia becomes the world’s first virtual nation capable of rebooting itself
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Technology is showing us how ancient the concept of the traditional nation state is, and as virtual nations take shape being able to reboot them in times of war is crucial. How do you reboot an entire country? It’s an odd question, but in...
Canada ends its three year Universal Basic Income trial two years early
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Governments fear the fall out from the mass automation of jobs by AI will be extreme so they’re investigating new welfare systems to limit the damage, but solutions are illusive. 4,000 people in Ontario, Canada just lost their Universal Basic Income (UBI) cash and...
US military and DARPA team up to develop tech to uncover fake news
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The advent of powerful AI tools, adaptable neural networks and the democratisation of hi definition rendering have taken fake news to a new level and this program aims to unmask the fakes. We’ve all seen that video where Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered algorithms make it seem like Barack...
This AI reads your mind to recreate the faces you’re thinking of
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to read someone’s mind leads down two roads. It can either be used as part of a dystopian state apparatus, or to help catch criminals and help people who can’t communicate communicate. It’s frustrating to have a clear mental image of something...
Futurist keynote, Milton Keynes: The Future of Communities, Castleton European Summit
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The future will have a huge impact on the future of communities, both good and bad, but with proper foresight and planning tomorrow’s communities could be brighter and better for everyone. Firstly, I’d like to thank Jay and Chantel for inviting me to present...
Hackers use electromagnetic attack to steal data from air gapped systems
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Faraday cages are supposed to be the ultimate in stopping air gapped computer systems from being attacked and their data exfiltrated, but hackers in Israel have just proved that’s no longer the case. Two common methods of physical cybersecurity, air gapping and Faraday cages,...
China bans people with bad “social credit” from planes and trains
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Technology is a tool, it’s down to governments and individuals how they use and deploy it, and as such it can be used to do great good, or great harm. In another nod to Black Mirror, and to show it isn’t just a sci-fi...
