At this time of year, it’s hard to escape abundance. The decorations, the food, the mountains of gifts, all signs of a season that doesn’t…
An aging population, automation, and housing shortages aren’t just tomorrow’s challenges; they’re today’s blind spots. It is ironic that just as many, if not most,…
We navigate our complex world by relying on assumptions about how things work, from the way a bicycle stays upright to why a baseball curves…
I often meet startup founders with truly groundbreaking ideas. When I ask them about their competitors, they frequently try to convince me that their product…
I’ve been writing this blog since 2010. In that very first post, I quoted figures estimating the content of the Internet had reached 487 billion…
It’s time to reduce our working week, and we can achieve it by better directing our technology to benefit society. Pioneering economist, John Maynard Keynes,…
George Orwell wrote about the “proles” in 1984 being kept placated and distracted by automated writing machines which churned out mediocre novels. It’s possible that…
If you’re reading this, it’s very likely that you are at least vaguely interested in technology. It’s even possible that you get a bit excited…
During my last trip on the London Underground, I was struck by the remarkable achievement of the nineteenth-century engineers who built its first Metropolitan Railway…
This month I had the privilege of delivering a keynote speech to open the Earth Digital Twin Workshop organised by JAXA (Japan’s national space agency)…