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Articles by Sveta McShane
Which Way Next? A New Singularity Hub Channel to (Re)Imagine the Future
Every moment is a crossroads. Every day we make countless seemingly unimportant decisions, which linked together over weeks, months and years make up the fabric of our lives. This is true from the micro perspective of one human life and the macro perspective of human society. All the innumerable decisions made individually and collectively over time have brought us here, now. In this moment and every subsequent one, we are at yet another crossroads, facing the same question — which way next?
Bill Clinton Discusses "Moonshots" with Peter Diamandis, Endorses Abundance
“Why are you so optimistic about the future…don’t you read the papers?” President Bill Clinton recently pitched this playful question to Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of the X PRIZE Foundation, in an on-stage interview at the 2014 Clinton Global Initiative last week. A week earlier, the former U.S. president had appeared on CNN to recommend Abundance: The Future is Better than You Think, Diamandis’ book which was co-written with Steven Kotler.
Why the World Is Still Getting Better-and That's Likely to Continue
If you read or watch the news, you’ll likely think the world is falling to pieces. Trends like terrorism, climate change, and a growing population straining the planet’s finite resources can easily lead you to think our world is in crisis. But there’s another story, a story the news doesn’t often report. This story is backed by data, and it says we’re actually living in the most peaceful, abundant time in history, and things are likely to continue getting better. The News vs.
3 Ways Exponential Technologies are Impacting the Future of Learning
Nicole Wilson, who was Singularity University ’s vice president of faculty and curriculum until last year, believes education technology is currently in a phase of deceptive growth, and we are seeing the beginning of how exponential technologies are impacting 1) what we need to learn, 2) how we view schooling and society and 3) how we will teach and learn in the future. Exponential technologies have a tendency to move from a deceptively slow pace of development to a disruptively fast pace.
Machines Won’t Replace Us-We'll Become Their Mentors
“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.” –John Culkin (based on Marshall McLuhan’s ideas) Something big is happening in design and engineering. For all of human history, we have created tools that help us do what we want to do—faster, better, cheaper. But we have always had to direct those tools; tell them exactly what to do for us to achieve our goals.
This Playful Lab-in-a-Box Will Teach You How to Reprogram Life
We’re in the midst of a life sciences revolution. The natural world, including our own bodies, is becoming malleable in a completely unprecedented way. Today, we have the ability to turn any human cell into a stem cell and grow tissues in a lab. We’re getting closer to bio-printing full organs, as well using DNA as a viable information storage method. You can get your entire genome sequenced for $1000, and that price is only going down.
Why the World Is Better Than Ever-and Will Get Better Still
If you read or watch the news, you’ll likely think the world is falling to pieces. Trends like terrorism, climate change, and a growing population straining the planet’s finite resources can easily lead you to think our world is in crisis. But there’s another story, a story the news doesn’t often report. This story is backed by data, and it says we’re actually living in the most peaceful, abundant time in history, and things are likely to continue getting better.
The Future of Surgery Is Robotic, Data-Driven, and Artificially Intelligent
As far back as 3,500 years ago ancient Egyptian doctors were performing invasive surgeries. Even though our tools and knowledge have improved drastically over time, until very recently surgery was still a manual task for human hands. When it came out about 15 years ago, Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci surgical robot was a major innovation. The da Vinci robot helps surgeons be more precise and dexterous and to remove natural hand tremors during surgery.
Surprisingly, Plant Microbes May Be an Answer to Our Growing Food Needs
Organizations as diverse as the United Nations and Monsanto are in agreement that we need to double our food production globally by 2050 to feed the world’s population. But our current agricultural process is one of the biggest contributors to global warming. It emits more greenhouses gases than all the world’s cars combined and is a major consumer and polluter of our precious water resources. How can we sustainably feed everyone without overextending our planet’s resources?
Engineering Will Soon Be 'More Parenting Than Programming'
“What’s a crazy idea you believe in that others don’t agree with?” Peter Diamandis posed this classic question (which originated with Peter Thiel) during an interview with Steve Jurvetson at Singularity University’s first ever Global Summit. A successful venture capital investor, Jurvetson is known as someone with a keen ability to spot important technological trends before others catch on.
5 Incredible Ways Scientists Are Merging Our Brains With Machines
I've been reading Ramez Naam's fantastic book "Nexus," which is set in a near-future where a powerful nano-drug allows human minds to connect together. In the story, a group of enterprising neuroscientists and engineers discover they can use the drug in a new way — to run a computer operating system inside their brains.
Why Big Data Is Much More Personal Than You Think
Most people think of big data as some amorphous cloud of information. Even a definition everyone agrees on is hard to pin down. What makes data ‘big’? Most rely on the three V's to define it: “huge in volume, high in velocity, and diverse in variety”.
How Bacteria Will One Day Wire Your Favorite Devices
Imagine if one day the electrical wires in your cell phone were made by bacteria — and were even smaller and more conductive than today’s technology. Scientists at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst imagine just such a future of “biowires” laced throughout our devices. A research team, headed by Derek Lovley, has engineered a new strain of bacteria that creates highly conductive nanoscale wires made entirely of amino acids.
In the Future, Our Favorite Animal Products Will Be Animal-Free
A couple years ago, a friend told me he didn’t eat meat because he believed that in the future advanced AI would learn from us and treat humans the way we had treated less powerful species. He said he didn’t want to give AI any reason to treat him the way most humans treated the animals we ate. He was sort of kidding…but he also wasn’t.
The Netflix of Finance Suggests Stocks Based on Where You Shop
Exponential Finance celebrates the incredible opportunity at the intersection of technology and finance. Apply here to join Singularity University, CNBC, and hundreds of the world’s most forward-thinking financial leaders at Exponential Finance in June 2017. We would all love to take better care of our finances. But the sad truth is, many of us don’t. In the past several decades, we’ve seen the average American’s debt skyrocket and savings decrease over of the population.
The World Will Be Continuously Upgradable When Everything Is Connected
Exponential Finance celebrates the incredible opportunity at the intersection of technology and finance. One day in the future, we’ll look back in wonder at how our physical objects used to be singular, disconnected pieces of matter.
Ray Kurzweil’s Four Big Insights for Predicting the Future
Self-driving cars, virtual reality games, bioprinting human organs, human gene editing, AI personalities, 3D printing in space, three billion people connected to the Internet…. These incredible technological feats are all part of our world today. And while they are not evenly distributed, they are rapidly spreading and evolving — and in the process radically changing nearly every aspect of modern life.
5 Great Lessons on Scrappy Innovation for Big Companies Like GE
Kevin Nolan, CTO of GE Appliances, spent 28 years at General Electric, “trying to do innovation,” as he puts it, before giving up. He finally accepted he couldn’t do it, internally at least. At one point, Nolan watched how refrigerators were made and assembled at GE’s Appliance Park in Louisville, Kentucky and realized that the process of designing and building refrigerators today was not much different from the days of the icebox.
Machines Won't Replace Us, They'll Force Us to Evolve
Something big is happening in design and engineering. For all of human history, we have created tools that help us do what we want to do — faster, better, cheaper. But we have always had to direct those tools; tell them exactly what to do for us to achieve our goals. This hasn’t changed from the time of stone tools (which we had to wield with our hands) to modern digital design tools (which we wield with the click of the mouse).
Ray Kurzweil Predicts Three Technologies Will Define Our Future
This is the last in a four-part series looking at the big ideas in Ray Kurzweil’s book The Singularity Is Near. Be sure to read the other articles: Will the End of Moore’s Law Halt Computing’s Exponential Rise? Technology Feels Like It’s Accelerating — Because It Actually Is How to Think Exponentially and Better Predict the Future Over the last several decades, the digital revolution has changed nearly every aspect of our lives.
Why We Should Teach Kids to Code Biology, Not Just Software
“I predict that the domestication of biotechnology will dominate our lives during the next fifty years at least as much as the domestication of computers has dominated our lives during the previous fifty years.” Just recently, MIT researchers created a programming language for living cells that can be used by even those with no previous genetic engineering knowledge. This is part of a growing body of evidence pointing to a undeniable trend—Dyson’s vision is starting to come true.
This Amazing Computer Chip Is Made of Live Brain Cells
A few years ago, researchers from Germany and Japan were able to simulate one percent of human brain activity for a single second. It took the processing power of one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers to make that happen. Hands down, the human brain is by far the most powerful, energy efficient computer ever created. So what if we could harness the power of the human brain by using actual brain cells to power the next generation of computers?
Goodyear's Awesome New Spherical Tire Design For Autonomous Cars
What will the cars of the future be like? It’s fun to imagine how new technologies and design trends will influence future cars. Car bodies of the future might be completely 3D printed. They may be completely autonomous — and now, they might have multi-directional spherical tires.
As seen in I, Robot: Goodyear unveils spherical tires for self-driving cars
What will the cars of the future be like? It’s fun to imagine how new technologies and design trends will influence future cars. Car bodies of the future might be completely 3D printed. They may be completely autonomous — and now, they might have multi-directional spherical tires.
CRISPR/Cas9 Genome Editing Is a Huge Deal, But It’s Just the Tip of the Iceberg
CRISPR/Cas9 has been touted as an almost magical technology in the news—and rightly so. The technique allows scientists to alter the DNA of living cells and, it’s hoped, achieve a longstanding goal of science to treat disease at the genetic level. An estimated 6,000 diseases are caused by genetic mutations, and only 5% can be treated. Take sickle-cell anemia, for example. Often deadly, it is caused by a single mutation in one of the human body’s three billion DNA base pairs.
Printable Organs Are Closer Than Ever Thanks to Three Bioprinting Breakthroughs
Over the next few weeks, while browsing cuties on the dating app, Tinder, you may find an image of a celebrity with an ‘organ donor’ icon next to their photo. By swiping right (usually an action which means “sexy!”), you will be given the option to register as an organ donor. In what might seem an unlikely partnership, Tinder has partnered with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) to recruit organ donors. Why? Desperate times sometimes call for unconventional measures.
Sci-Fi Short Film 'Uncanny Valley' Paints a Dark Future for Virtual Reality
What’s the worst possible outcome of virtual reality technology going mainstream? A generation of burnt-out, washed-up VR junkies losing touch with reality and surviving only to sustain their virtual existence. That reality is where the haunting sci-fi short film, Uncanny Valley, begins. Written and directed by Argentine filmmaker Federico Heller, the short is already slated to be developed into a feature film. We are introduced to several men who are squatting in a decaying building.
LIVESTREAM: 'Future of Learning' Event Live Tonight at 6pm PST
If you can't join us in person for our Future of Learning event this evening at Singularity University, don't worry. You can watch the livestream from the comfort of your own home or office. During this fun evening of co-creation and imagination, we will be exploring the changing landscape of how we teach and learn in the information age. Have questions during our panel discussion? We'll be taking them @singularityu using #FutureLearning.
Exponential Finance: This Startup Lets Anyone Send Digital Cash Without a Bank
Come to Singularity Hub for the latest from the frontiers of finance and technology as we bring you coverage of Singularity University and CNBC's Exponential Finance conference. Today there are 6.8 billion cell phone subscriptions—almost as many as there are people alive—and anyone can send a message to any other phone.
Drones Portray Flying Lampshades in Cirque du Soleil's Short Film "Sparked"
The Flying Machine Arena is a drone wonderland. Researchers have used the sensored space to make quadcopters build structures with ropes and bricks, perform balancing acts, synchronize with music—they’ve even run tests allowing humans to juggle with flying machines. But the latest production goes a little further. Recorded using the arena, the new Cirque du Soleil short film “Sparked” combines human dramatic performance with ten computer-controlled flying machines.
US Navy Tests Exoskeleton to Boost Worker Strength and Productivity
Exoskeletons have made news in recent years for creating super-soldiers and allowing wheelchair users to walk again. Now, the US Navy will test and evaluate Lockheed Martin’s FORTIS exoskeletons for industrial applications at Navy shipyards. FORTIS is a lightweight, unpowered exoskeleton which can support tools of up to 36 lbs. It works by transferring weight away from the user’s body to the ground.
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