Petervan's Delicacies - Issue #122

The very best

About the absence of free will, the self, and much more that is not real. Made me think.

About Stephen Wolfram's recent talk about computational intelligence and computational contracts. Fascinating.

About the promise and perils of the transformative technology

About the tyranny of convenience in the seemingly dystopian world technology companies are building.

About everything becoming waste: former nations, extinct species, dead languages, discontinued software

A physicist at the University of Illinois devised an immersive game in which teams solve science puzzles to unlock a mystery — before it’s too late.

On April 17, 2019, Data & Society Founder and President danah boyd gave a talk at the Digital Public Library of America conference (DPLAfest). This is the transcript of that talk. I love the…

Developed in China, the lidar-based system can cut through city smog to resolve human-sized features at vast distances.

Data and Society

At F8, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a subtle redesign for Facebook that places more emphasis on Groups and new products like Secret Crush.

Meet the Fake People Who Will Soon Crowd Your Timelines. A remarkable advance in artificial portrait generation adds a new potential layer of deception to online fraudsters, astroturfers, and…

Sue Halpern writes about the advent of fifth-generation wireless technology, which will enable a grand leap in connectivity but which also brings an increased danger of cyberattacks and constant state surveillance.

Zeitgeist

Milken Global Conference | 29 April 2019 At the Milken Global Conference in Los Angeles, Dr. Parag Khanna moderated a panel on "The World Ahead" featuring Mr. Tung Chee-Hwa (Chairman of the Chinese Consultative People's Congress and former governor of Hong Kong), Mr. Stephen Schwarzman (Chairman of Blackstone), and Mr. Joseph Tsai (Vice Chairman of the Alibaba Group).

Innovation

What do you get when you combine Atul Gawande's expertise with three firms that hold a combined market capitalization of $1.6 trillion?

Tiny sensors with tinier legs, stamped out of silicon wafers, could one day soon help fix your cellphone battery or study your brain.

Future of work

The Innovation Excellence community is home to articles, webinars, videos, training and education - powering growth in the innovation management profession.

And one reason why it might actually be good for you.

Workplace software like Microsoft Teams, Slack and Facebook’s Workplace were supposed to make us more productive. They haven’t.

Ocado's new warehouse has thousands of robots zooming around a grid system to pack groceries. The thousands of robots can process 65,000 orders every week. T...

Internet Culture

Anna Wiener writes about Jack Dorsey, the C.E.O. of Twitter, and whether he is capable of controlling the system he’s created.

Humanity has changed nature profoundly, but it may be only the beginning. Researcher Lauren Holt explores what the far future could bring for the planet’s organisms – and for us.

FinTech

Consumers are more interested in a fee-based checking account (bundled with other services) from Amazon than a free checking account from the company.

Two massive investments by PayPal in the past few months put it in a better position to compete on a global scale.

Ethereum just got a vote of confidence in mid 2019. South Korean electronics giant Samsung is developing its own blockchain network which will likely result in its own token in 2020. Samsung is…

A wave of skepticism hardly hit the crypto assets market in 2018. 2019 will be a transition year on the way to a regulated market of tokenized assets. Security tokens are at the core of the rebound and three major disruptions are accelerating the redefinition of financial markets.

AI, Robots, Algorythms

The truth is it’s complicated and will become even more complicated. AI is already being used to hack us in multiple ways, from our gifting our data and private info to technology firms, to how our…

The new documentary 'I Am Human' chronicles how neurotechnology could restore sight, retrain the body, and treat diseases—then make us all more than human.

Bacon Productions present Almost Human with support from the Carlsberg Foundation Director: Jeppe Rønde Producer: Birgitte Rask Executive Producers: Mette Je...

Digital Ethics

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apparently likes these four words — enough, anyway, for them to appear behind him on a gigantic screen as he delivered his keynote address his company’s annual…

Art related

How could the potential of technology impact the way we perceive reproduction and ultimately human life? We explore the future of reproductive medicine in The Children of Tomorrow.

Here, we trace the spectaular history of stained glass, an age-old medium that has inspired and dazzled artists since ancient times.

As a major new exhibition of his work opens in Venice, the Belgian painter explains how painting can help us confront our own ignorance

Van Gogh Starry Night Exhibit at Amsterdam Light Festival

Aesthetics

It starts with a sketch. Then it evolves into a larger-than-life visual masterpiece, a celebration of human connection. Follow along as legendary artist and designer Es Devlin takes us on a visual tour of her work -- including iconic stage sculptures she's created for Beyoncé, Adele, Kanye West, U2 and more -- and previews her design for the upcoming World Expo 2020 in Dubai.