Futurism

A.I. Pilots Are Not The Solution To Preventing Airline Disasters

We’re still trying to understand the horrific Germanwings tragedy. But already, some people are suggesting it could have been prevented if a computer had been flying the plane. But that’s not the solution. We spoke to an expert about why an A.I. pilot would open up an entirely new set of risks and complications. Airbus…

io9 George Dvorsky

DARPA Wants To Solve Ebola With DNA, Money, And Institutional Knowhow

Colonel Dan Wattendorf is a program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. His goal: To dramatically suppress Ebola, and infectious diseases like it, with a new, unconventional vaccine. And according to Wattendorf, the biggest hurdles he faces in accomplishing this mission “aren’t scientific, but institutional.” Above: Electron micrograph of an Ebola virus virion | Credit:…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

A Robotic Arm So Advanced It Helps To Build Copies Of Itself

Behold the new UR3 robotic arm. Smaller, lighter, and more nimble than its predecessors, the Universal Robot-built arm can be programmed for a wide variety of tasks — including the construction of its own parts. Photo: Universal Robots Based out of Odense, Denmark, Universal Robots has added UR3 to its impressive line of industrial robotic…

io9 George Dvorsky

Watch This Bipedal Robot Get Hammered With Dodgeballs

Introducing ATRIAS, a bipedal robot designed and built by Dynamic Robotics Labs. Its developers are optimistic that it’ll eventually become the world’s fastest two-legged robot. Until then, it’ll have to endure the physical abuse typically afforded robots these days. ATRIAS stands for “Assume The Robot Is A Sphere.” Alternately, the robot could have been named…

io9 George Dvorsky

Activists Stage Anti-AI Protest At SXSW

With chants of “I say robot, you say no-bot!”, a group of protesters took to the streets in Austin, Texas to warn against the rise of artificial intelligence. The movement, though small in number, may be the start of a larger trend. As reported in USA Today, yesterday’s march took place just outside the Convention…

io9 George Dvorsky

Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won’t Be As Easy As He Thought

Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy filled us all with hope that we could terraform Mars in the 21st century, with its plausible description of terraforming processes. But now, in the face of what we’ve learned about Mars in the past 20 years, he no longer thinks it’ll be that easy. Talking to SETI’s Blog Picture…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

Americans Fear a Biblical Apocalypse far More than Brits

Market research company YouGov wanted to know how people in the U.S. and the U.K. expected the world to end. What they found revealed a profound difference between the two countries. People in both nations fear the end of days will come on the heels of a nuclear war. Not too surprisingly, Brits feared this…

Tech News Annalee Newitz

This Short Movie About An Endless Future War Looks Unspeakably Great

Check out the trailer for The Shaman, a new short film debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival. As with a lot of short films we’ve seen lately, this has top-notch visual effects — but more than that, it looks like a thing of pure beauty. And it has an original story, with a concept I…

Trailers Charlie Jane Anders

These Futuristic Churches Will Fill Even Non-Believers With Awe

Who says churches have to look like monuments to an ancient architectural style? The greatest religious buildings have always reflected the aspirations of the time they were built. And these gorgeously futuristic houses of worship are no exception. Here are some of the most gorgeous futuristic churches in the world. Grundtvig’s Church, a Lutheran church…

io9 Vincze Miklós

The One Ebook You Have to Read If You Love Digital Books

You have not read a truly digital book until you’ve read The New World. The novella is about a woman trying to reclaim her dead husband’s head from a cult-like cryogenics company. But more than that, it is the most ambitious attempt I’ve seen at exploring a future where books lack physical form and are…

Books & Comics Sarah Zhang

Biggest Worldbuilding Mistake Made By Isaac Asimov And Frank Herbert?

Both Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novels and Frank Herbert’s Dune books imagine empires in space. But everything we know about technological change and development suggests that an empire could never spur rapid enough technological development to make it in space, argues an article in Time Magazine. Top image: Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov Writing in…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

This Cartoon Perfectly Sums Up the Optimism of 1950s Futurism

The December 28, 1959 issue of Life magazine featured this illustration of life in 1975. It’s over the top and cartoonish, of course, but it perfectly sums up all of the techno-optimism that was so prevalent in the late 1950s — the Golden Age of Futurism. The article that accompanied the illustration spelled out the…

Tech News Matt Novak

Brain-To-Brain Interfaces And The Science Of Telepathy

Recent advances in brain-computer interfaces are turning the science fantasy of transmitting thoughts directly from one brain to another into reality. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to walk a mile (or 1.6 kilometres) in somebody else’s shoes? Or have you ever tried to send a telepathic message to a partner in…

io9 Kristyn Bates — The Conversation

The High Tech Farms Where Our Future Food Will Grow in Nothing But Air

If our planet is going to support an extra four billion people by the end of the century, we’ll need to find some creative new ways to feed ourselves. One option would be to turn buildings into farms and grow our crops in the air. Another: To install networked food computers in everybody’s home. I’m…

Tech News Maddie Stone

The Top 10 Emerging Technologies Of 2015

Bernard Meyerson, chief innovation officer of IBM and chair of the World Economic Forum’s Meta-Council on Emerging Technologies, today published the Meta-Council’s list of the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2015. Above: In November 2014, the 3D printer aboard the International Space Station became operational, marking the orbital outpost’s first foray into additive manufacturing. Via…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

The Greatest Science Fiction Inventions That We Hope Never Become Real

Science fiction is filled with both incredible inventions that became reality and incredible inventions that we hope will become reality at some point in the future. But, then, there is also a third category of inventions that, while amazing, have some unexpectedly troubling implications. Pulled from this Kinja discussion, here are just some of the…

io9 Ria Misra

The 7 Least Plausible Solutions To The Fermi Paradox

One of the greatest conundrums to face humanity is the question of extraterrestrial life. Many explanations have been posited over the years to explain why we have yet to make first contact, some better than others. Here are seven of the weakest solutions to the vexing problem known as the Fermi Paradox. For those of…

io9 George Dvorsky

What Futuristic Inventions Must We Never, Ever Build?

No one sets out to make a dystopia, but there are some futuristic inventions that seem ripe for unintended consequences. So set aside that killer robot you’ve been putting together in your garage and for goodness sake halt your lab work on that food replacement pill, and tell us about your own personal tech nightmares.…

io9 Ria Misra

This Spectacular Super Jet Will Be The Most Eco-Friendly Ever

Designer Oscar Viñals has sketched out the designs for a concept aircraft called the “Progress Eagle.” The dramatic three deck, 800-seat super jet would utilize an advanced hybrid engine system for taking off and cruising, resulting in reduced noise and zero contaminant emissions. Early last year, Viñals unveiled his designs for the Sky Whale, a…

io9 George Dvorsky

These Basic Skills Are On The Verge Of Extinction

Every group of people has a set of skills that they think of as fundamental — but what those skills are tends to change a lot, depending on where, and especially when, you are. Here are the skills that, if they do survive in the future, may be so fundamentally changed that we can no…

io9 Ria Misra

A.I. Pilots Are Not The Solution To Preventing Airline Disasters

DARPA Wants To Solve Ebola With DNA, Money, And Institutional Knowhow

A Robotic Arm So Advanced It Helps To Build Copies Of Itself

Watch This Bipedal Robot Get Hammered With Dodgeballs

Activists Stage Anti-AI Protest At SXSW

Kim Stanley Robinson Says Colonizing Mars Won’t Be As Easy As He Thought

Americans Fear a Biblical Apocalypse far More than Brits

This Short Movie About An Endless Future War Looks Unspeakably Great

These Futuristic Churches Will Fill Even Non-Believers With Awe

The One Ebook You Have to Read If You Love Digital Books

Biggest Worldbuilding Mistake Made By Isaac Asimov And Frank Herbert?

This Cartoon Perfectly Sums Up the Optimism of 1950s Futurism

Brain-To-Brain Interfaces And The Science Of Telepathy

The High Tech Farms Where Our Future Food Will Grow in Nothing But Air

The Top 10 Emerging Technologies Of 2015

The Greatest Science Fiction Inventions That We Hope Never Become Real

The 7 Least Plausible Solutions To The Fermi Paradox

What Futuristic Inventions Must We Never, Ever Build?

This Spectacular Super Jet Will Be The Most Eco-Friendly Ever

These Basic Skills Are On The Verge Of Extinction

Travelers Experiencing the Longest Security Lines in TSA History

Could There Be a ‘Project Hail Mary’ Sequel?

Meta Has More Smart Glasses Coming Whether You Want Them or Not

Apple Requires Device-Level Age Verification in the UK Now. Could the US Be Next?

Astronomers Say Recent Rash of Meteor Sightings ‘Warrants Serious Investigation’

Did AMD Just Make the Best CPU for Gamers and Creators?

AI Just One-Shotted Another CEO

6 Magic School Anime and Manga to Discover Instead of Thinking About ‘Harry Potter’ Ever Again

Sonos Play Review: Call It a Comeback

Sonos Era 100 SL Review: The Cheapest Way Into Wired Sonos Sound

Asus ROG’s Massive Swift OLED Gaming Monitor Epitomizes Excess in the Best Way

The Ikea Varmblixt Smart Lamp Fills a Donut Hole in My Life

Nothing Headphone A vs. Headphone 1: Which Pair of ANC Wireless Headphones Wins?

Asus ROG’s Cetra Open Wireless Gaming Earbuds Might Be Better Than Wearing a Headset

Nintendo’s Talking Flower Is Annoying as Hell. I Love It

Level Lock Pro Review: As Good as a Secret Smart Lock Gets

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