Library
Filter
View
101-200 of 312
Fully Charged spent an amazing day at the Sustainable City, a housing development in Dubai with 3,500 people already living there and it's still not quite finished. This truly is a remarkable achievement, a stark lesson to building contractors the world over. It's not more...
This article was originally published on the Economics of Happiness Blog.
“Anthropocene” is a widely proposed name for the geological epoch that covers human impact on our planet. But it is not synonymous with “climate change,” nor can it covered by “environmental problems.” Bigger and more shocking, the Anthropocene encapsulates the evidence that...
American capitalism has a hate-love relationship with the nation’s schools. On the “hate” side is a stream of complaints from business leaders and organizations about the many students, particularly in city schools, who fail achievement tests, are high school dropouts or, if...
To Burn or Not to Burn: In Sweden, waste incineration plants convert excess and non-recycled rubbish into energy. The Swedish government classifies this process as recycling, but is this form of waste disposal really sustainable?
NOTHING TO HIDE questions the growing, puzzling and passive public acceptance of massive corporate and governmental incursions into individual and group privacy and rights. People generally agree that mass surveillance regimes are inherently invasive and authoritarian. Yet at...
A major investigation of Facebook’s impact on privacy and democracy around the world.
The Edmund Hillary Fellowship (EHF) brings together visionary entrepreneurs, investors, and change-makers to build solutions to global problems from Aotearoa New Zealand. International Fellows receive exclusive access to New Zealand’s new Global Impact Visa, an open work visa...
In June this year, I spent two and a half months converting a 1986 Toyota Hiace into my home and office. Watch the camper conversion process and also see a tour of the finished van! - Jordan Osmond
To be online all the time and everywhere. It sounds great, but it has its drawbacks. As digital networks are closing in, there are fewer places to be really on your own. Being offline is becoming a luxury. Where can you be offline?
Dear Future is Motherboard and CNET's new documentary series built on the premise that technology and science are still capable of wowing us. Fusion energy, DIY off-grid energy systems, decentralized mesh networks, the search for life on other planets, and humanoid robots...
While the world is in crisis, there is a man who thinks the future is as bright as it can be. Peter Diamandis, author of the book Abundance and co-founder of Singularity University, sees how technology can soon provide all basic needs such as energy, clean drinking water and...
What is the true purpose of government? Critics would rightly say it's to control and dominate because that's the nature of every government we've known. Every government since the days of feudalism has been corrupted in some form, "captured" in other words, by monied, elite...
Machines that can think, learn and adapt are coming -- and that could mean that we humans will end up with significant unemployment. What should we do about it? In a straightforward talk about a controversial idea, futurist Martin Ford makes the case for separating income...
The next generation needs a paradigm and a code of identity that bind with a sense of purpose, community, and mission; an idea and a feeling that transcend superficial characteristics (like skin color, gender and orientation).
Questioning the pro-digital consensus
Important official legal disclaimer: This is a short work of fiction. Any resemblances to real people, people you may know, people you think you may know, etc., is entirely deliberate.
Three steps to help you see the truth and get back on track.
We live in a world of screens. The average adult spends the majority of their waking hours in front of some sort of screen or device. We're enthralled, we're addicted to these machines. How did we get here? Who benefits? What are the cumulative impacts on people, society and...
Futurists warning about the threats of AI are looking in the wrong place. Humanity is already facing an existential threat from an artificial intelligence we created hundreds of years ago. It’s called the Corporation.
The modern 'throwaway culture' was born in response to the needs of industrial capital. To move beyond it, we must rediscover the beauty of repair.
The FCC is planning to repeal the strong net neutrality rules that we fought so hard to get in 2015. Why do we care? Vimeo is the home to so many makers, watchers, and all-around internet video lovers. Net neutrality makes sure there is room for creativity and equal access...
Google is attempting to bring the cultural and spiritual dimensions of Uluru to its Street View platform. To do this, they have created an interactive, audiovisual guided tour, narrated by traditional owner Sammy Wilson and with song and music by Anangu elder Reggie Uluru.
Automation in the Information Age is different.
Purdue researchers have developed a flow battery that would allow electric cars to be recharged instantly at stations like conventional cars are. The technology is clean, safe, and cheap.
A major leak of Facebook’s internal guidelines shows how the social network deals with hate speech, graphic violence and sexual imagery. As regulators become increasingly concerned about the content available on Facebook, is it time the company took a more active approach to...
Storm clouds gather for a future that will be turbulent and dangerous. We need designers ready for this future.
This video provides basic guidance on livestreaming protests safely and effectively, as well as guidance on how to grow and engage your viewers. Download the Witness tip sheet on livestreaming protests here.
Out of the periphery of most online users, there’s a vast, hidden space used by people who want to remain anonymous, which filmmaker Alex Winter explores in his documentary Deep Web. The film focuses on the Silk Road, a black market hosted on the Darknet using bitcoin...
The ONE secret that Nikola Tesla wrested from nature on that fateful day in a Budapest park was the design for his most famous and important invention: the Alternating Current Induction Motor. Before Tesla’s breakthrough, all electricity and motors used a direct current...
Planning on going to a protest? You might not be aware that just by showing up, you can open yourself up to certain privacy risks — police often spy on protesters, and the smartphones they carry, and no matter how peaceful the demonstration, there’s always a chance that you...
Biomimicry, the practice of looking deeply into nature for solutions to engineering, design and other challenges, has inspired a film about it's ground-breaking vision for creating a long-term, sustainable world. This film covers how mimicking nature solves some of our most...
When I graduated from high school in 1985, college was the unquestionable next step for an intelligent, middle-class or upper-middle class young person. I entered an elite school not out of any particular ambition, but because the story that surrounded me said that this is...
Unpaywall is a web browser plug-in that brings free information to those who seek facts. The open-source service is disrupting traditional publishing by giving users access to peer-reviewed journal articles for free, and it's all totally legal.
Luke Skywalker wasn’t just a farmer. In the original 1977 Star Wars film, the lead character was desperate to leave his home planet of Tatooine, where his family farmed moisture from the atmosphere using devices called “vaporators”. In the planet’s hot and dry desert...
A short review of contributions from Buckminster Fuller.
While it may seem difficult these days to remain anonymous online, it's not impossible. We spoke with Kevin Mitnick, author of "The Art of Invisibility," who told us the one tool you should be using if you want to protect your identity.
YES! Magazine readers submitted their ideas for updating the classic icon. See the winning poster ideas—and download your favorites.
Mientras las tecnologías digitales están cambiando todo, seguimos teniendo instituciones políticas del siglo XIX. Sin embargo, en los márgenes del poder actual, crece un movimiento que escapa de las trincheras ideológicas tradicionales, para dar cuerpo a otra forma de hacer...
On January 30 – three days after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order restricting immigration from several predominantly Muslim countries – an American scientist employed by NASA was detained at the US border
When Joshua Browder developed the chatbot for DoNotPay, the original idea was just to help people out with their traffic ticket woes. DoNotPay has since successfully overturned more than 200,000 disputable parking tickets in London, New York, and Seattle. It’s also given free...
Today, Tuesday 7 March 2017, WikiLeaks begins its new series of leaks on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. Code-named "Vault 7" by WikiLeaks, it is the largest ever publication of confidential documents on the agency.
A look at how technology has evolved to bring us the extraordinary scenes seen on Planet Eart II.
The Venus Project is the culmination of Jacque Fresco’s life’s work to present a sustainable redesign of our culture. The project lays out a sustainable world civilization where technology and science are applied to redesigning our social system with the prime concern being...
A platform co-operative approach to information, rather than the models of Facebook and legacy media, provide reason for optimism, writes Dan Hind.
How to stop a robot turning evil.
Outside of Taos, New Mexico, you'll find a community of people living in off-grid homes made of garbage. The homes are called Earthships and were invented by Michael Reynolds. We went to Taos to check them out.
Videos are a fantastic tool for activism and advocacy. Here are a few video guides to creating films of your own. Produced by Witness, you can find many more helpful videos and written materials on their website.
“Only the paranoid survive.” — Andy Grove Andy Grove was a Hungarian refugee who escaped communism, studied engineering, and ultimately led the personal computer revolution as the CEO of Intel. He died earlier this year in Silicon Valley after a long fight with Parkinson’s...
Animated film by Steve Cutts for 'Are You Lost In The World Like Me?', taken from These Systems Are Failing- the debut album from Moby & The Void Pacific Choir.
The evidence that these powers are all needed is thin indeed. And the cost to all of our privacy is huge.
A short film covering the innovative research area of Cultured Meat and Cellular Agriculture. This film explores current developments in the field, as well as pondering what is next for this new science and the public perception of this interesting field of research.
I built this tiled roof hut in the bush using only primitive tools and materials. The tools I used have been made in my previous videos. It should be pointed out that I do not live in the wild and that this is just a hobby. It should be obvious to most that this is not a...
In this film we take a tour of Adam and Sian's beautiful off-grid tiny house truck that was built using mostly reclaimed building materials on the back of a 1969 Bedford truck.
In China, a sheltered internet has given rise to a new breed of app, and American companies are taking notice. What was once known as the land of cheap rip-offs may now offer a glimpse at the future.
Floating off the coast of Vancouver Island, a 45-minute boat ride to the nearest town, is a sustainable island fortress complete with a dance floor, art gallery and garden. For artists Catherine King and Wayne Adams, this is home: a labor of love 24 years in the making.
If you had to flee your country, what’s the one piece of technology you would take with you?
If you're not worried about the Investigatory Powers Bill (aka the Snoopers' Charter), you don't know enough about it. Visit Privacy International and join the campaign against new Government snooping powers.
My first impression at OuiShare Fest was a weird utopian blockchain mania: a poorly understood but massively hyped technology that will somehow fix all our social, political, and economic inequities. As I got to know some of the people here though, I started to see through...
When was the last time you opened your laptop midconversation or brought your desktop computer to the dinner table? Ridiculous, right? But if you are like a large number of Americans, you have done both with your smartphone.
Official US defence and NATO documents confirm that autonomous weapon systems will kill targets, including civilians, based on tweets, blogs and Instagram
REVERSING THE MISSISSIPPI is a documentary about a genius technologist and a rebel educator, two pioneers from opposite spectrums with one goal in common: Build a sustainable community. Can two men driven by determination overcome global challenges to change the world?
Anytime there’s a new development in robotics or artificial intelligence, popular culture almost instantly regurgitates the Skynet Terminator narrative. To wit, when Anti-Media reported on a new robot getting pushed around by its handlers, even we couldn’t resist alluding to...
Machines could take 50% of our jobs in the next 30 years, according to scientists. While we can’t predict the future, we can imagine a world without work – one where those who own the tech get rich from it and everyone else ekes out a living, propped up by an increasingly...
A look around Milipol, a homeland security fair in Paris, reveals the latest tools of state repression; including hacking tools and state surveillance tech.
Meet the Ghanaian entrepreneur who's building bikes out of bamboo.
Evan "Rabble" Henshaw-Plath is a coder, activist, anarchist, and a hacker. He is also one of the original developers of Twitter.
Among the issues tackled in the new documentary film "Drone" is the connection between video games and military recruitment. We air a clip from the film and speak to its director, Tonje Hessen Schei, as well as drone war whistleblower Brandon Bryant.
I know why Theresa May has that permanently appalled expression – she’s seen my internet history
Over the last century, cities have been designed to accommodate the automobile. So, how do we redesign them to benefit people?
Modulations is a feature-length documentary that captures a moment in history where humans and machines are fusing to create today's most exciting sounds.
Is reality obsolete? From low-tech function like body piercing and artificially-stocked fishing pools, to the latest in bionics and VR gaming, Iara Lee's 1995 cyber-age intellectual survey - call it a *.DOCumentary - downloads a Future Shockful of data and defines the...
Every Job I've Ever Had Has-Been (or Will-Be) Automated
Watch a tiny house get built with a lead lighting geodesic dome window! The 10 square metre tiny house cost around $2500 to build and was mostly made from recycled materials.
To be a great filmmaker, you don’t need to go to film school, have access to the latest gear, or have been born a creative genius. The most important ingredients for mastering the craft are time and dedication. To set yourself up for success then, the trick is to focus on the...
The time has come to turn our focus onto the very medium which allows us to connect: The Internet. As we know it today, it has only been around for a short time: it's still an adolescent; still changing and growing. But even as we speak, powerful forces and interests are...
Retracing rare earth elements, which are widely used in high end electronics and green technologies, to their origins. The film, developed with photographer Toby Smith, documents their voyage from container ships and ports, wholesalers and factories, back to the banks of a...
Everyone produces waste, and the Swedes are no different. It’s what they do with it that is unusual. Sweden recycles and sorts its waste so efficiently that less than 1 percent ends up in landfills. But perhaps even more interesting, and somewhat controversial (read why here...
POC21 is an innovation camp for open-source sustainability taking place at Chateau de Millemont (Paris) in 2015. 100+ makers, designers, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs and geeks join forces to prototype the collaborative, circular economy. Their ultimate goal: Overcome...
Motherboard dives head first into the R+D world surrounding the development of fungi as a viable replacement for plastic, and the people who hope it can lead to a better and more sustainable future.
For two weeks in March 2015, a film crew was given exclusive access to the Horizon-1 high-tech experimental community, which has been in development since 2006 via an undisclosed location in Western Europe. This film captures the opinions and perspectives of several project...
Previous generations of architects thought of how architecture could interpret the world, but I think now is the time to think of how architecture can change the world. We architects can assume that role and make a real difference in how people live and behave. – Giancarlo...
Online harassment is a major problem, but it's rarely prosecuted. If only we'd been warned about this in the early days of the internet.
In an age of ubiquitous surveillance, there are still some things you can do to keep your communications private—and not all of it is high-tech.
At the Repair and Service Center in Vienna, the long-term unemployed retrain to be "mechatronic engineers" and repair electronic devices. Founder Sepp Eisenriegler tirelessly initiates networks, projects, and cafés—all dedicated to the art of fixing things.
Boading, dubbed China's 'greenest city', is the world's biggest maker of solar panels and wind turbines, write Caleb Goods & Carla Lipsig-Mumme. But it's also has the country's worst pollution. Green energy, electric cars and the batteries that power them are great, but with...
This week we break Bill C-51, down Klanada's sinister new law, that would give the Canucks increased spying powers over its population. On the break, long standing hip-hop act Onyx, returns with "Fuck The Law." We wrap things up with an interview with Antoine, a computer...
NASA faked the moon landings, HIV was made by the government, and Elvis ain’t dead. Further fueled by “reliable evidence” on the Internet, these conspiracy theories can be added to and expanded upon for years, even decades in the case of the supposed UFO landings of Roswell...
Earthship is a concept of over 40 years and yet the first one ever built in Europe was in 2000. The idea is a trademark of Michael Reynolds — a US architect. In the 70s, Reynolds envisioned a home which would have three exciting traits — self sustainability, construction...
Some of the most popular apps on your smartphone ask for permissions that expose data to outside sources. We asked people on the street to read some of these permissions out loud so we could capture their reactions.
Scientific and technological innovations have the power to fundamentally transform human civilization as new possibilities previously deemed impossible are made realities. However, it is not the technologies themselves that dictate the nature of the political, economic or...
A six-part documentary series from Al Jazeera profiling architects who are using design as a form of activism and resistance to tackle the world's urban, environmental and social crises. The series follows architects from Vietnam, Nigeria, Spain, Pakistan, Israel/Occupied...
Perhaps you should; because they certainly are. But will the changes mean generations plagued with attention disorders and poor social skills or will it boost creativity?
The identity of the Sony hackers is still unknown. President Obama, in a December 19 press conference, announced: “We can confirm that North Korea engaged in this attack.” He then vowed: “We will respond. . . . We cannot have
China has overtaken the U.S. as the world’s top economy. But in taking a few examples from China, as well as investing in jobs that stay in America and taking steps to insure economic stability for the majority of American workers, the U.S. can come out on top again. And we...
Rape threats are an all-too-common reality for women online. Just as often, the anonymity of the Internet makes it nearly impossible to strike back at trolls. What’s more, as is well documented, social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook have been s
Beginning in Ethiopia, Professor Brian Cox discovers how the universe played a key role in our ascent from apeman to spaceman by driving the expansion of our brains. But big brains alone did not get us to space. To reveal what did, Brian heads out of Africa to the ancient...
When you walk or drive down a city street, what you are seeing all around you are manifestations of thoughts. Every building began as an idea in somebody’s mind. Somebody acquired the land. Somebody designed the house. Somebody had the idea to organize people together to...
WHAT IS THE MACHINE THAT KILLS SECRETS? WikiLeaks brought to light a new form of whistle-blowing, using powerful cryptographic code to hide leakers' identities while they spill the private data of government agencies and corporations.
Share this: