Category: Futurist
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Retro futures and how they can help us to see what’s next (from 2018)
Science fiction ranging from Disneyland’s Tomorrowland to Star Wars and Star Trek and beyond contains lessons for how we got here and where we’re going. [Note: this piece originally ran on the Center’s website of February 14, 2018, but I strangely neglected to cross-post it here at the time. I have updated the now-defunct links…
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Retro Futures, ChatGPT, & More
In this short post, I dig into why a podcast about a teacher using (rather than banning) OpenAI’s ChatGPT program seemed eerily familiar… If you have a stack of dishes to do or face a 30 minute drive, then don’t miss the January 13th episode of Hard Fork a podcast from The New York Times…
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CES, Paradigm Shifts, Spandrels, and Collateral Damage
What this week’s Consumer Electronics Show has to do with death of cursive writing in American schools, how to break down the elements of disruption, and more. I spent the week leading tours of the automotive hall at CES with my friends at StoryTech. (My favorite exhibit was the quietly transformative What3Words.) As we explored new Electric…
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Frontiers of Scale
As media continues to fragment in the face of changes in legislation and technology, where will new big audiences come from? A few issues back, I explored how changes in legislation and technology are signaling the end of cheap digital scale for media. (Don’t worry: you don’t have to read that issue to understand this one.) If…
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Amazon’s New Pay-With-Your-Palm Tech and its Implications
If you live in Austin and love experiencing the sharpest edge of technology, then head to the Whole Foods at Arbor Trails. There you can use a new service called Amazon One to pay for your groceries simply by putting your palm on a scanner. Here’s an excerpt from a fascinating piece in last week’s…