The Tech Giants Are Coming For Our Homes
The likes of Amazon, Google, Samsung, Apple and others are all competing for smart home dominance – but what drove so many of us to invite these multinational corporations into the highly personal spaces where we live?
Inside The Apple Team That Decides Which Apps Get On iPhones
Before a developer can sell an app on the App Store, it must be approved by Apple’s app review team. The former head of App Store reviews discusses why apps get rejected, competition between Apple and developers, and planning for WWDC.
Thailand: Turning Straw Into Gold
Huge amounts of rice straw are left over after the harvest in Thailand. Farmers often burn it, which is terrible for the environment. A young entrepreneur has found a new use for the material. Turned into paper, it can replace plastic food packaging.
How A New Technology Is Changing The Lives Of People Who Cannot Speak
Millions are robbed of the power of speech by illness, injury or lifelong conditions. Can the creation of bespoke digital voices transform their ability to communicate? The digital voice is not a remnant of who they were, but a promise of who they will be.
Silicon Valley Is Listening To Your Most Intimate Moments
For $12 an hour, “data associates” listened to snippets of random conversations and jotted down every word on their laptops. Amazon would only say the work was critical to a top-secret speech-recognition product. The clips included recordings of intimate moments inside people’s homes.
Things Are Changing At The World’s Oldest Hotel
Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan is not just the world’s oldest hotel, but the world’s oldest still-operating business. Or at least, that’s one way of looking at it. But things are changing here, just like they always have.
My Life In North Korea vs South Korea
North Korea was definitely the weirdest country I had ever visited and throughout that trip, I kept wondering what life was like in neighboring South Korea because it used to be the same country just over 60 years ago. To answer my questions, this year I traveled to South Korea and made this video.
How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class
Some major textbooks feature illustrations of Texas Instruments–series calculators alongside the text, so students can use their Texas Instruments calculator with the lesson plan, emphasizing how deeply interwoven Texas Instruments remains with the educational hegemony.
Could This Gorgeous Electric Plane Be The Tesla Of The Skies?
Called the “ZER0”, it’s an electric plane designed for efficiency rather than speed. The vehicle is only a concept, but it’s a compelling case study in how we might reconsider air travel to help the environment, developed by designer Joe Doucet.
Exit 12: Moved By War
Exit 12 is a New York-based dance company led by Veterans and military families. Through dance and choreography, Exit 12 tells stories about the effects of war — both to heal themselves and also to change the perceptions and stereotypes of the Veteran community.
The Display Of The Future Might Be In Your Contact Lens
As my eyes flitted around the room, I moved through a virtual interface only visible to me—scrolling through a calendar, looking up commute times home, and even controlling music playback. It’s all I theoretically need to do to use Mojo Lens, a smart contact lens coming from a company called Mojo Vision.
Old Tech’s New Wave, Or Why We Still Love Faxes, Pagers And Cassettes
Once seen as cutting edge, many of yesterday’s gadgets are – surprisingly – still in use or are making a comeback. But why is it that we are turning to retro solutions more frequently?
The SoftBank Effect: How $100 Billion Left Workers In A Hole
Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s chief executive, was hailed as a kingmaker in 2016 when he unveiled the Vision Fund. Using the cash hoard, Mr. Son poured money into fledgling companies across the world, many of which have a business model of hiring contractors who deliver their services. Above all, he urged these start-ups to grow as fast as possible.
Sperm, Skulls And Scandal… The Hidden History Of Coffee
Sperm, skulls and scandal… who knew coffee had such a dark history! Food historian Annie Gray reveals the hidden history of coffee.
“The Shivering Truth”, A 6 Episode Dark Comedy
The omnibus of painfully riotous emotional parables dripping from the deepest caverns of your unconscious are lovingly animated in stop-motion. In other words, it is the Truth.
“In The Absence”, Award-Winning Film About The Sinking Of A South Korean Ferry
When the passenger ferry MV Sewol sank off the coast of South Korea in 2014, over three hundred people lost their lives, most of them schoolchildren. Years later, the victims’ families and survivors are still demanding justice from national authorities.
Is The Hidden Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia Ready To Open To The World?
The ‘hidden kingdom’ of Saudi Arabia has been mostly closed to journalists and travelers…until now. In a glitzy PR push, the country wants to promote itself as a tourist destination. Foreign Correspondent rides the magic carpet to extraordinary sites, thousands of years old, holding mysteries archaeologists are just beginning to uncover.
Human Population Through Time
It took 200,000 years for our human population to reach 1 billion—and only 200 years to reach 7 billion. But growth has begun slowing, as women have fewer babies on average. When will our global population peak? And how can we minimize our impact on Earth’s resources, even as we approach 11 billion?
Counterfeiting Microsoft Windows Restore CDs Landed Me In Prison For A Year
In 2012, while living in China, longtime e-waste recycler Eric Lundgren manufactured 28,000 PC restore discs to be used in refurbished computers sold in the United States.
The Pentagon’s Push To Program Soldiers’ Brains
The military wants future super-soldiers to control robots with their thoughts. The mission is to make human beings something other than what we are, with powers beyond the ones we’re born with and beyond the ones we can organically attain.
The Love Story That Shocked The World
When Seretse Khama, an African prince, and Ruth Williams, a white middle-class clerk from Lloyd’s underwriters, got married in 1948, it provoked shock in Britain and Africa. Khama was exiled from Great Britain and later became the first president of Botswana when it became an independent country.