Episode 4.07 – Should a video game simulate the whole world?

We’re rapidly erasing the boundary between the make-believe worlds of video games and the real world of sensors and visualisation. Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2020 allows you to fly over the whole world – with all the cities and countryside presented in detail – just as they are in reality. Is it now possible to “fly” through everything we know about the world – from ground level, up to the heavens?

In this episode we’re joined once again by the amazing Dr. Mike Zyda – founder of the Institute for Creative Technologies at the University of Southern California. In 1997, Mike authored a hugely influential study that got the US military to adopt video game technologies for simulation.

One of his first projects was “America’s Army” – a video game that simulates the training recruits undergo on their way to becoming soldiers.

The boundaries between simulation and visualisation become very blurry when we head up into Near Earth Orbit – that’s everything below about 1000km above Earth’s surface.

Andreas Antoniades’ firm Saber Astronautics uses a mixture of observation, simulation, and visualisation to create a ‘mission control’ that looks, well, a lot like it would if you were in space (click “Login as Guest” below to see it for yourself):

Once again, big thanks to my nephew Andy for sharing with us his experiences of flying a Cessna 152 – both in simulation and for real!

Episode 2.13 Peer to Peer Planet with Michel Bauwens

Michel Bauwen’s P2P Foundation helps humanity share the best ideas at global scale, giving us a leg up through some tight years ahead.


 

(Over the next days we’ll be linking to all of the great projects Michel mentioned in his wide-ranging chat. Please stand by.)

 

Episode 1.13: Rise of the Robots with Ken Goldberg

Are the robots going to rise up in a “Singularity” that will first threaten our jobs, then our very existence? Dr. Ken Goldberg, Chair of the Robotics program at the University of California, Berkeley, tells us that while things are moving quickly, we’re moving into a world of ‘multiplicity’ – where multiple intelligences grow together to create a uniquely diverse world of human and machine minds.

Here’s a sample:

Ken wrote about the irrational fear of robots for the Wall Street Journal – you can read his piece here: The Robot-Human Alliance – WSJ

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Episode 1.07: Smartphones from the start through iPhone 8 and X

The smartphone is quite possibly the most important tool we’ve developed in the last two hundred years – a steam engine for the human mind. We use them to transform commerce, human connection, and play. The latest iPhones – iPhone 8 and iPhone X – point to where we’re going, where the device becomes so essential, and so much a part of ourselves, that they can intimately scan our faces to unlock their secrets.

Here’s a sample:

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Episode 1.05: The Future of Learning with Kate Torney

Pretty much every fact you’ll ever need for any problem you have to solve can now be accessed almost instantly through any smartphone. What does that mean about how we learn? And what about the places where we learn – schools and libraries? If everything is available everywhere, why go anywhere in search of knowledge? State Library of Victoria CEO Kate Torney explores why libraries have a future that remembers the past, yet looks out on a future where access to knowledge in only a part of the story.

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Episode 1.04: Tales of Autonomy with Genevieve Bell

When you give cows a voice, who listens? Connected lights and thermostats are great, but what happens when cows get connected and start milking themselves? What do we learn when we track our house cats when they’re not at home? How does the connected world reveal itself to us – and what are we learning from it? These questions – about autonomy, agency and authority – form the focus of anthropologist Genevieve Bell’s work, less for what they reveal about these animals than what they illuminate about ourselves. Are we listening to the connected world?

Here’s a taste:

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