Why We Can’t Build Small Homes Anymore
U.S. homes are roughly 600 to 800 feet larger than those of comparable highly industrialized countries. The American obsession with large houses—a matter of culture, policy, and economics—restricts smaller, more affordable options.
The Canadian Genius Who Created Modern AI
For nearly 40 years, Geoff Hinton has been trying to get computers to learn like people do, a quest almost everyone thought was crazy or at least hopeless – right up until the moment it revolutionized the field. In this video, Bloomberg Businessweek’s Ashlee Vance meets the Godfather of AI.
How One NASA Image Tells Dozens Of Stories
In 2016, NASA used the Suomi NPP weather satellite to create a high resolution image of the earth at night. It can help us better understand the current developments and conflicts underway. The amount of light pollution is most severe in heavily populated areas, as well as in regions of high prosperity.
Gun Shop, America’s Love Affair With Guns
This film shows 2,328 firearms, out of the 393 million currently in the US. Arranged in a dizzying 24 frames per second progression, from handguns to semi-automatic rifles, “Gun Shop” encourages viewers to critically examine America’s love affair with guns.
Road To The Future
While road types can vary greatly depending on their use, location and construction method, the majority are formed from crushed rock, sand and asphalt in a process that releases volatile organic compounds into the atmosphere. In order to curb the environmental impact of road construction, a number of new innovations are now being trialed.
Smart Frames For Growing Plants In The City
French company, Urban Canopee, has developed lightweight, adaptable and flexible frames, which serve as support for climbing plants — both in isolation or in groups — and to create a verdant canopy. The company hopes the easy-to-use frames will be used to grow plants on the roofs of buildings and other public spaces.
Heatworks’ Tetra, An Internet-Connected Compact Countertop Dishwasher
Tetra is an internet-connected compact countertop dishwasher invented by Heatworks. It requires no plumbing and can be placed and used anywhere with a standard electrical outlet. With a smaller capacity than the average dishwasher available on the market today, Tetra holds two full place settings or 10 plates or 12 pint glasses.
The “Smart City” Makes Infrastructure And Surveillance Indistinguishable
The “smart city” is not an actually existing entity. It’s a misleading euphemism for a corporately controlled urban future. Urban command centers are built primarily for police, not planners, let alone the public.
Living Off The Grid In Paradise
Warrick Mitchell lives deep in one of the world’s most remote locations: Fiordland, New Zealand. His home in the country’s oldest national park is nestled in a vast wildness accessible only by boat or airplane, a four day’s walk from the nearest road.
How To Make An Attractive City
Cities are a big deal. We pretty much all have to live in them. We should try hard to get them right. So few cities are nice, very few out of many thousands are really beautiful; embarrassingly the more appealing ones tend to be old, which is weird because we’re mostly much better at making things now.
London Underground 1970-1980 By Mike Goldwater
The first thing that strikes anyone who regularly rides on the London Underground is how clean it looks in Mike Goldwater’s photographs. Homeward bound tourists keen to recapture the thrill of minding the gap and cooling their heels on overcrowded platforms are not offered a range of signature scents.
Playtronica Turns Your Body Into An Instrument
The world we live in is afraid of touch and interaction, so Playtronica decided to highlight it – turn human skin into a musical instrument. Now you can experience the future of human touch and do it with style.
Young Girls Force-Fed For Marriage In Mauritania
Some Mauritanian communities believe that the fatter girls look the wealthier and more attractive they appear to men. Sahar Zand meets the families force feeding their young girls a 9,000 calorie-a-day diet during a brutal “feeding season” in Mauritania.
Will Upzoning Neighborhoods Make Homes More Affordable?
Housing affordability is a growing issue in America, and there’s a battle over how to fix it happening on blocks across the country. Zoning—the rules that govern how cities use their land—is on the front line. Cities and states across the country are proposing new upzoning laws to combat the housing crisis. Will they work?
A Trek Through The Mysterious Accursed Mountains
Springtime in northern Albania sparks the herding of goats from the lowlands up to the towering mountainsides. Follow Prek Gjoni and his 160 goats on a grueling four-day journey across the spectacular Valbona Valley, a land that seems to exist out of time.
The Italian Village That Celebrates Ugliness
Celebrating “ugliness” for the past 140 years, Piobbico has become renowned for being the world capital of ugly people. Now, its utopian idea has blossomed into a worldwide movement. Today, the so-called “World Association of Ugly People” counts more than 30,000 members across 25 global chapters.
Science Fiction Short Film: Others Will Follow
The lone survivor of the first mission to Mars uses his last moments to pass the torch of inspiration. Others Will Follow was inspired by a speech written for President Nixon to deliver in the event that the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the moon.
America’s ‘War’ Against Switzerland
The not very widely known aerial fighting and bombing that occurred between the United States and Switzerland during World War II.
The Totally Isolated Tribe Of The Andaman
There are still people in this world who have no idea that civilization exists. On remote islands in the Bay of Bengal live mysterious tribes. Their origins are mysterious, but this film reveals how modern DNA analysis suggests that these ancient people have close links to Africa, from where they have been separated for 100,000 years.
The Internet’s Second Revolution
The second half of humanity is joining the internet. People in countries like India will change the internet, and it will change them. You have a whole bunch of languages that don’t enjoy very good support in terms of web browsers or input. And you have a whole bunch of people who can’t actually read or write.