Futurism

Cities of the Future Will Make a Place For Wilderness

All around the world, cities are spreading out into the surrounding land — but nature is unexpectedly asserting itself in the heart of the metropolises, as well. A number of carnivores are not just adapting to cities around the globe, but actually thriving. And meanwhile some urban trees can grow as much as eight times…

io9 Charles Choi

This is what it looks like to live “off the grid” in the United States

How far would you be willing to go to minimize your impact on the planet? Photographer Eric Valli has assembled an absolutely stunning series of images, documenting the lives of people who have decided to live out their lives “Off the Grid.” Valli says he spent a number of years living with four different groups,…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

David Brin on the Need to Restore Optimism to Science Fiction

David Brin fans can rejoice: It’s been nearly a decade since his last novel, Kiln People, but the critically acclaimed science fiction writer is now set to release his much anticipated book, Existence, on June 21st. Brin, the author of such hard SF works as Earth, The Postman (which was adapted into a major motion…

io9 George Dvorsky

Tomorrow’s stocks could be traded via neutrino beam

Neutrinos may not travel faster than light, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be put to good use. By sending encoded pulses of neutrinos on a 10,000 km shortcut directly through the Earth, financial firms and high-frequency trading companies think they can get a 44-millisecond communication advantage over their competitors. That might not sound like…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

Why Star Trek‘s Vision of the Future is Out of Date

Without a doubt, no show has done more to promote a positive vision of the future and a limitless sense of possibility than Star Trek. It’s a series that has inspired several generations of fans, and helped to spur the development of actual technologies we now take for granted. So it’s a crying shame that…

io9 George Dvorsky

“Silicene” could be the world’s next great wonder-substance

An international team of researchers has successfully created silicene, a hexagonal mesh of silicon atoms which, like graphene, measures just one atom tall. Silicene is thought to have electronic properties similar to graphene, with the added benefit of being more compatible with silicon-based electronics — a feature that could see it implemented in real-world applications…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

TED launches a groundbreaking online education initiative

Last month, the folks at TED announced their new education initiative. They call it “TED-Ed,” and it’s part of a brand new platform designed to “capture and amplify the voice of the world’s greatest teachers” in the form of short, sharp, animated videos. On Wednesday, TED-Ed took a big step forward by unveiling the Beta…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

It Doesn’t Really Matter if This Woman is From the Future

Throughout Sound of My Voice, in select theaters today, the big mystery is whether this beautiful, delicate cult leader is from the future, or just a big fake. Her followers are willing to do any absurd thing she demands of them, in exchange for a few morsels of future wisdom. But the deeper you go…

Movies Charlie Jane Anders

Optimistic Visions of the World After the Oil Runs Out

Our whole economy and way of life is based on the idea of cheap petroleum. So what happens when the oil starts to run out? Most scenarios assume that it will be catastrophic — rioting in the streets, governments collapsing, Mel Gibson fighting guys with big mohawks. But what are the optimistic scenarios for a…

Movies Jennifer Griffith and Charlie Jane Anders

The Amazing Seductiveness of a Cult Leader Who Knows the Future… Because She’s Been There

What if you were introduced to a spiritual guru who claimed to have traveled back in time from the year 2054? What would it take to make you believe her? Those are some of the questions raised by The Sound of My Voice, the Sundance sensation that’s coming to select theaters on April 27. You’ve…

Trailers Charlie Jane Anders

The Day Your Car Kidnaps You

Phillip K. Dick’s The Game Players of Titan takes place in a near future where cars drive their passengers, recording the day’s stops and visits. At the end of they day, the cars transmit everything they know about their drivers’ habits over to the police. Google’s fleet of self-driving Toyota Priuses have succeed in driving…

io9 Keith Veronese

Real-life Futurama tube-transport will catapult you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours

The Simpsons have the monorail. Futurama has the Tube Transport System. The difference is that tube-transport is a fantasy — at least for now. The folks at ET3 want to make what they call “Evacuated Tube Transport” a reality. Their proposed maglev system would be capable of propelling six-person-capacity cylinders to speeds of over 4000…

io9 Robbie Gonzalez

A Decisive Solution to Internet Spammers

Arctic Rising author Tobias Buckell has a new story in the first issue of a “multigenre fiction and comics magazine” called Fireside — and you can read the whole thing online at Wired. In “Press Enter to Execute,” a hired gun is taking a very radical approach to the people who flood your email inbox…

Books & Comics Charlie Jane Anders

This microbe could become the “off” switch for biological machines

In the Victorian era people marveled at what could be done by mixing and matching mechanical parts like the wheel, the magnet, the lever, and the piston. Today we mix and match biological parts like the gene, the enzyme, and the organ. Take a look at a new biological part that gives a microbe an…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell

How to build a Dyson sphere in five (relatively) easy steps

We are closer to being able to build a Dyson Sphere than we think. By enveloping the sun in a massive sphere of artificial habitats and solar panels, a Dyson Sphere would provide us with more energy than we would ever know what to do with while dramatically increasing our living space. Implausible you say?…

io9 George Dvorsky - Sentient Developments

How SEO software is changing the way we read and write

Flustered pundits claim that blogging has changed writing forever, but they’re wrong. You know what has really changed writing? Google search. Thousands of internet puppies are writing “content” that is perfectly optimized to rise to the top of search rankings. Search engine optimization (SEO) has become its own art, a genre designed to make writing…

io9 Annalee Newitz

South Korea unveils robotic prison guards, promises futuristic cavity searches

To round out their drug-sniffing clone dog army, South Korean authorities are now experimenting with robotic prison guards. Lest you think these cyber-wardens will be equipped with gatling guns in the style of Robocop’s ED-209, know that this alarm-equipped bot has more in common with the Death Star’s delivery droids. https://gizmodo.com/south-korean-airport-fights-drug-smugglers-with-cloned-5846518 Of course, the robots’…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

Could book publishing suffer the same fate as the comic book industry?

As Amazon.com’s dominance grows, we’re only just starting to see the shape of how different the publishing industry is going to look in another five or ten years. And web developer Baldur Bjarnason has a scary thought: if the e-book revolution and the rise of Amazon succeed in chipping away at the web of bookstores…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

Tupac Shakur came back from the dead as a hologram at Coachella

Given that we live in an era when Japanese pop groups build synthetic singers using preexisting members’ facial features, this shouldn’t be all that surprising. At the Coachella Music Festival last night, Tupac Shakur — who has been dead for almost 15 years — was resurrected by means of an unnervingly realistic hologram. The rapper…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

How would robotic prostitutes change the sex tourism industry?

Machines have already changed the face of manufacturing industries, but what happens when prostitutes find themselves replaced by robots? Will machines populate our brothels instead of flesh and blood people? Will the social stigma of paying for sex fade? And how will the availability of robotic sex partners impact countries whose economies depend, in part,…

io9 Lauren Davis

Cities of the Future Will Make a Place For Wilderness

This is what it looks like to live “off the grid” in the United States

David Brin on the Need to Restore Optimism to Science Fiction

Tomorrow’s stocks could be traded via neutrino beam

Why Star Trek‘s Vision of the Future is Out of Date

“Silicene” could be the world’s next great wonder-substance

TED launches a groundbreaking online education initiative

It Doesn’t Really Matter if This Woman is From the Future

Optimistic Visions of the World After the Oil Runs Out

The Amazing Seductiveness of a Cult Leader Who Knows the Future… Because She’s Been There

The Day Your Car Kidnaps You

Real-life Futurama tube-transport will catapult you from New York to Beijing in 2 hours

A Decisive Solution to Internet Spammers

This microbe could become the “off” switch for biological machines

How to build a Dyson sphere in five (relatively) easy steps

How SEO software is changing the way we read and write

South Korea unveils robotic prison guards, promises futuristic cavity searches

Could book publishing suffer the same fate as the comic book industry?

Tupac Shakur came back from the dead as a hologram at Coachella

How would robotic prostitutes change the sex tourism industry?

Trump Says He’ll Sign Order to Pay TSA

Deadpool Will Deface ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Classics for a New Secret Lair

Apple’s Siri Isn’t Just Going to Use One Chatbot. It’s Going to Use All of Them

Why ‘For All Mankind’ Season 5 Is the Key to the Rest of the Series

ASUS ZenScreen 15.6-Inch Portable Monitor Is Now Cheaper Than Black Friday in Amazon’s Big Spring Sale

Early Wildfires Are Surging Across the US—and Trump’s New Fire Agency Isn’t Ready

INIU Brings Another Power Bank to the Spring Sale as SnapGo Keychain Portable Charger Drops to Its Lowest Price

Attorney Hit With Historic Fine for Citing AI-Generated Cases

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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