This Week's Awesome Stories From Around the Web (Through July 9th)
Alison E. Berman
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Exclusive: Why Microsoft Is Betting Its Future on AI
Casey Newton | The Verge
"Microsoft's historical instincts about where technology is going have been spot-on. But the company has a record of dropping the ball when it comes to acting on that instinct…The question looming over the company's efforts around AI is simple: Why should it it be different this time?"
THE FUTURE: Why We Need to Pick Up Alvin Toffler's Torch
Farhad Manjoo | The New York Times
"But even though these and bigger changes are just getting started — here come artificial intelligence, gene editing, drones, better virtual reality and a battery-powered transportation system — futurism has fallen out of favor. Even as the pace of technology keeps increasing, we haven't developed many good ways, as a society, to think about long-term change."
BIOTECH: The Future of Biotech in Design? Spiders, Slime, and Fungus
Meg Miller | Fast Company
"A jacket grown from microbes. A chair made of the fungus mycelium. Perfume concocted from 'designer' baker's yeast. As one-offs, these projects may seem far flung and wildly experimental, but together they point to a new movement within the design world…a field that marries the scientific know-how of biologists with the big-picture thinking of artists and designers."
SPACE: The Future of Archaeology Is 'Spacejunk'
Geoff Manaugh | The Atlantic
"The grand tour of the future, however, according to historian of astronomy Randall C. Brooks and conservationist Robert Barclay, might take place off the Earth entirely, involving a tour of derelict satellites and abandoned spacecraft, those ruined cathedrals of the sky…'In the twenty-first century we can be sure that people will be visiting heritage sites beyond the confines of our atmosphere.'"
VIRTUAL REALITY: Augmented Reality Has No Clothes
Bo Begole | TechCrunch
"The story for AR is much less straightforward…to the industrial AR apps, the killer app category for consumer AR will probably be training applications and how-to tutors for interacting with physical objects and materials in the real world. Is that too small of a niche for so much technology? Maybe not…I'd say the emperor's clothes are in fact real… they're maybe just a little bit skimpy."
Alison tells the stories of purpose-driven leaders and is fascinated by various intersections of technology and society. When not keeping a finger on the pulse of all things Singularity University, you'll likely find Alison in the woods sipping coffee and reading philosophy (new book recommendations are welcome).
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These Were Our Favorite Tech Stories From Around the Web in 2020