The Future And You
Ideas and opinion about the future based on verifiable facts of today.
Tags: [add tags]
136 Episodes of this Podcast:
February 3, 2010 Episode
Published: 2010-02-03 00:01:00Gregory Benford (Nebula Award winning author, physicist and professor) is today's featured guest. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the February 3, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 minutes] This is the second half of the interview recorded on January 16, 2010. Topics: the Neanderthal Genome Project and the two teams working on bringing back the Woolly Mammoth; his impression of the 3D movie Avatar; why he became an atheist and the growing cultural bias he sees toward those who remain religious; how e-books have the big New York book publishing houses terror-stricken; his approach to electronic rights for his own books; the goals of The Mars Society and of The L5 Society; the life extension product he is involved with (Genescient); his going to school with Vernor Vinge, and how they differ in their expectation of The Singularity; the new book he and Larry Niven are working on; and the short story he wrote that horrified his friend Ray Bradbury. In popular culture Gregory Benford: is a science fiction writer with over twenty novels to his credit; has won the Nebula Award twice; in 1989 was host and scriptwriter for the television documentary series A Galactic Odyssey; and also served as scientific consultant for Star Trek: The Next Generation. In academia Gregory Benford: has a doctorate in physics; is a professor of physics at the University of California; conducts research in plasma turbulence and in astrophysics; has published well over a hundred scientific papers; and has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA and the White House Council on Space Policy.
...MORE
January 27, 2010 Episode
Published: 2010-01-27 00:01:00Gregory Benford (Nebula Award winning author, physicist and professor) is today's featured guest. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the January 27, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 37 minutes] This interview was recorded on January 16, 2010. Topics: A new life extension product he is involved with (Genescient ) which will be available in the summer of 2010; life extension in general and his vision of its possibilities; how global warming might be mitigated using geoengineering methods such as carbon capture; what he learned by being co-founder and co-editor of the SF fanzine Void; the work of his friend Stephen Wolfram (inventor of Mathematica) including the new online calculating engine Wolfram Alpha. In popular culture Gregory Benford: is a science fiction writer with over twenty novels to his credit; has won the Nebula Award twice; in 1989 was host and scriptwriter for the television documentary series A Galactic Odyssey; and also served as scientific consultant for Star Trek: The Next Generation. In academia Gregory Benford: has a doctorate in physics; is a professor of physics at the University of California; conducts research in plasma turbulence and in astrophysics; has published well over a hundred scientific papers; and has served as an advisor to the Department of Energy, NASA and the White House Council on Space Policy.
...MORE
January 20, 2010 Episode
Published: 2010-01-20 00:01:00J.C. Hutchins (the award-winning novelist of the 7th Son technothriller trilogy) is today's featured guest. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the January 20, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 47 minutes] Topics: his innovative approaches to marketing his fiction through the Internet such as his viral videos (vlerbs he calls them) as well as free ebook-downloads and free audio book-downloads and, of course, the results he has been seeing. We also talk about innovative methods used by Cory Doctorow; the problematic trends going on in traditional book publishing; and the Amazon Kindle, one of which he owns and enjoys a great deal. J.C. Hutchins has been featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Asimovâs Science Fiction, on the BBC and Italian National Radio.
...MORE
January 13, 2010 Episode
Published: 2010-01-13 00:01:00Celebrating the new decade with Part Two of the summary of the changes your host expects we will see during the next ten years. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the January 13, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 31 minutes] This was recorded on January 2, 2010. Topics: By the end of this decade a wide variety of nanomaterials will be in almost all consumer products, and nanomaterials will become a mature field of engineering. Molecular manufacturing, however, will probably not be a mature engineering field, though many of the steps need to get us there will have been made. The US war on terrorism will spread to many progressively tinier places scattered all around the world--places which are poorly governed, or not governed at all. Atheism will increase, and the geographical locations where it carries a stigma will continue to shrink, but religions will still enjoy widespread popularity. Cell phones will become increasingly computer-like, and increasingly Internet connected. However, cell phones will be replaced almost completely in the second half of the decade by eyeglass computer cell phones which will have full-color 3-D displays in their lenses which can highlight and label what you are looking at in your surroundings or show you the TV show you missed last night. The Democratic Party might be foolish enough to split into two parties. By 2020 there will be more robots than humans in the developed nations. These robots will perform a wide variety of tasks, and a great deal of work, but it will still be a decade or so before they are as smart as people. A thousand miniature mole-like robots arrayed under the ground in a grid patten, and oriented like a vertical wall, will sweep once through an archaeological dig site and examine every grain of dirt for evidence of some past civilization. On that day archaeology will be changed forever. By the end of this decade there will be at least a hundred digital video cameras for every human being in the developed world. Their ownership will be split between individuals, corporations and governments; but the balance of power will shift to the individuals because they have a thousand times more eyes than the corporations and a million times more eyes than the governments; as well as because individuals are quick to post online what annoys them so that it can annoy everyone else too. This ocean of cameras will cover the earth with a relentless scrutiny which will change civilization in many ways. For example: Although new crimes will be invented, the traditional crimes we are familiar with today such as smuggling, auto theft and burglary will become more an more impossible to get away with. Terrorists too will eventually fail and fade away under the relentless watch of six billion eyes: it will become increasingly impossible to hide their equipment, their actions, and finally themselves, in a world in which Google Earth can display every square inch of the planet in real time. Even the biggest and most powerful dictators will cringe under the coming scrutiny. Law abiding citizens will find it simultaneously annoying and reassuring.
...MORE
January 6, 2010 Episode
Published: 2010-01-06 00:01:00Celebrating the new decade with a summary of the changes your host expects we will see during the next ten years. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the January 6, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes] This was recorded on January 2, 2010. Topics: All human knowledge will be available online; the brilliant new movie Avatar (and why my friends Extropia DaSilva and Khannea Suntzu insisted I watch it in 3D on an IMAX); free-roaming surgical robots smaller than insects will allow surgeons to perform delicate operations which are impossible today; cheap solar cells will be everywhere but cheap battery technology may lag behind and limit their potential (temporarily); the long bitter fight against TV moving online has begun and may get ugly; Amazon's Kindle and the inevitable fall of the giant chain book stores; why World of Warcraft will avoid becoming photorealistic; why old municipal waste dumps will become the new gold mines; Fareed Zakaria's recent guest who advocated a geoengineering solution to global warming, thus placing the regulation of the earth's temperature under direct human control; why luddism may become popular and maybe even trendy; professional genealogists as a group will be shamed, discredited and ridiculed as charlatans when personal DNA testing becomes widespread and shows that their work is riddled with errors; the Chinese government will have to make a choice soon, and if they get it wrong many Chinese will suffer and die. Other topics include: human life expectancy, artificial intelligence, the Internet, cell phones, voice recognition, The Singularity, cleaning robots, and why movie theaters will remain popular even though we'll get a better seat, sound and image in our home theaters.
...MORE
December 30, 2009 Episode
Published: 2009-12-30 00:01:00Five engineers and scientists experienced in large scale electrical energy production are today's featured guests. Topics: how California's energy follies have damaged Oregon and Washington State; why making fuel out of food may be the dumbest idea the US has ever pursued; why the US has not been building nuclear power plants even though France now uses them to generate almost 80% of its electricity, so much that France frequently exports electricity to its neighboring nations; potential problems with 'cap and trade'; and the astounding--and yet mandated--federal energy planning model which insists that oil will deflate in price by almost 2% per year for the next 30 years. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 30, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes] This panel was recorded on July 11, 2009 at LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN. The five panel members included:Robert G. Kennedy (author and engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory);Tom Trumpinski (physical chemist, formerly of Fermi Lab, and science writer);Dan Hoyt (programmer in the field of rocket science, and science fiction writer);Kenneth I. Roy (author and engineer with the US Department of Energy);Tim Bolgeo (electrical engineer, retired from The Tennessee Vally Authority. Also founder and chairman of LibertyCon in Chattanooga, where he is affectionately known as Uncle Timmy). Special thanks go to the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company for the use of their mics, sound board, and sound man; as well as to Derek Spraker (a LibertyCon organizer) who arranged for ARTC's assistance.
...MORE
December 23, 2009 Episode
Published: 2009-12-23 00:01:00Five engineers and scientists experienced in large scale electrical energy production are today's featured guests. Topics: The many struggles, controversies, incidents and allegations, as well as the political and financial problems facing America's power plants and electrical grid. Also: rolling blackouts, why California has more energy problems than any other state, environmentalism's impact, work-a-rounds and fail-safes, the selling of byproducts, and a wide variety of behind the scene facts most of the public has never heard. This discussion forum was entitled The Green Energy Panel, but in truth covered many related energy topics. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 23, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 46 minutes] This panel was recorded on July 11, 2009 at LibertyCon in Chattanooga TN. The five panel members included:Robert G. Kennedy (author and engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory);Tom Trumpinski (physical chemist, formerly of Fermi Lab, and science writer);Daniel M. Hoyt (programmer in the field of rocket science, and a science fiction writer);Kenneth I. Roy (author and engineer with the US Department of Energy);Tim Bolgeo (electrical engineer retired from The Tennessee Valley Authority. He is also the founder and chairman of LibertyCon in Chattanooga, where he is affectionately known as Uncle Timmy). Special thanks go to the Atlanta Radio Theatre Company for the use of their mics, sound board, and sound man; as well as to Derek Spraker (a LibertyCon organizer and friend of the host) who arranged for ARTC's assistance.
...MORE
December 16, 2009 Episode
Published: 2009-12-16 00:01:00Fourth Anniversary Episode; featuring a year in review, behind the scene tidbits, and miscellaneous commentary by the host. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 16, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 37 minutes] (For the third time in four years, the host is also the guest.) News Item: Stephen Euin Cobb was given a tiny cameo in Stuart Gibbon's first professional short story sale. Inspired by discussions about Second Life and Digital People which occurred on The Future And You during 2007 and 2008, the story is titled Proof of Life and was in the Oct/Nov issue of Cosmos Magazine. Cosmos is an award winning magazine sold on newsstands in all the English-speaking nations. Its offices are in Australia, but it is marketed internationally.
...MORE
December 9, 2009 Episode
Published: 2009-12-09 00:01:00Andrew Hessel (biologist, author and co-founder of the Pink Army Cooperative) is today's featured guest.Topics: how new drugs have been developed during the last few decades; why these processes cost so much; and how it may be possible to use open source techniques to develop new drugs faster, cheaper, better, and targeted for patients individually. This is the focus of the Pink Army Cooperative.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 9, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 23 minutes] (This interview was recorded on October 4, 2009 at the Singularity Summit in New York City.)Andrew Hessel, is a consulting biologist and author interested in synthetic biology and open source biology. He advocates the use of open source for writing DNA code. In software development, open source has led to robust code, highly skilled developer communities, and non-monopolistic pricing â in other words, good things for end users. If the same results can be achieved in genome engineering, open source could potentially create a more diversified and sustainable biotechnology industry.He earned his MSc. in bacterial genomics from the University of Calgary in 1995. He joined the Amgen Institute, a 120 person research facility located in Toronto, Canada, where he facilitated dozens of advanced research projects involving microarrays, genetic sequence analysis, and data mining. Today, the Institute, no longer affiliated with Amgen, is known as the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research. In 2002, he cofounded Miikana Therapeutics and helped create the virtual business model they successfully used. Miikana was sold to Entremed in December, 2005 for $21 million plus milestones.Since 2003, he has worked to raise awareness about the potential benefits of synthetic biology and open source biology. His efforts have been supported by the University of Oklahoma, the University of Toronto, MIT, and most recently, the Alberta Ingenuity Fund. His ongoing goal is to help create an open source biotechnology company that specializes in individually personalized cancer therapeutics.
...MORE
December 2, 2009 Episode
Published: 2009-12-02 00:01:00Aaron Franz and Carlos A. Mejia (a documentary film-making team) are today's featured guests. Aaron and Carlos are anti-transhumanism activists who have joined forces to create a documentary explaining the potential negative effects of transhumanism on the future of civilization in general, and on our individual lives in particular. Topics: Artificial Intelligence and The Singularity, Human Augmentation (especially the augmentation of connecting the Internet directly to the human mind), and their worry that we may have already gone too far. They also describe their documentary and their production company: TransAlchemy.com. Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the December 2, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 29 minutes] (This interview was recorded on October 3, 2009 at the Singularity Summit in New York City.)
...MORE
Copyright info: Stephen Euin Cobb
All syndicated content presented here is property of the original publisher
Now Playing: February 3, 2010 Episode
This Feed Exists in These User(s) Folders
