Noel Patton (founder of T.A. Sciences) is today's featured guest.

Topic: A product available today which may extend human lives well beyond traditional limits. Specifically what this product is, how it functions within living cells, and some of the scientific and medical research verifying its effectiveness.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the November 4, 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.)

The product is called TA-65™ and is an enzyme (a single molecule) that activates telomerase. Discovered in 2001 by the California bio-tech company Geron, in 2002 it was licensed by T.A. Sciences. Telemerase reverses the normal loss of telemeres which occurs each time cells divide throughout a human life and which sets a limit (called the Hayflick limit) on the number of times human body cells can divide, and consequently how long a human can live.

 

Eliezer Yudkowsky (co-founder and research fellow of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence) is today's featured guest.

Topics: the Singularity and the creation of Friendly AI; his estimate of the probability of success in making a Friendly AI; and why achieving AI using evolutionary software might be monumentally dangerous. He also talks about human rationality, such as: the percentage of humans today who can be considered rational; his own efforts to increase that number; how the listener can seek the path to greater rationality in his or her own thinking; the benefits of greater rationality; and the amount of success that can be expected in this pursuit.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 28, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 30 minutes] (This interview was recorded on October 4, 2009 at the Singularity Summit in New York City.)

Eliezer Yudkowsky is an artificial intelligence researcher concerned with the Singularity, and an advocate of Friendly Artificial Intelligence. He is the author of The Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence publications Creating Friendly AI (2001) and Levels of Organization in General Intelligence (2002). His most recent academic contributions include two chapters in Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's edited volume Global Catastrophic Risks.

Aside from research, he is also notable for his explanations of technical subjects in non-academic language, particularly on rationality, such as his article An Intuitive Explanation of Bayesian Reasoning. Also, along with Robin Hanson, he was one of the principal contributors to the blog Overcoming Bias sponsored by the Future of Humanity Institute of Oxford University. In early 2009, he helped to found LessWrong.com, a community blog devoted to refining the art of human rationality.

 

Michael Vassar and Michael Anissimov are today's featured guests. (Both are interviewed in their capacity as organizers of the Singularity Summit 2009 held earlier this month in New York City.)

Topics: the Singularity and artificial intelligence in general, and this year's Singularity Summit conference in particular. Also: the limits of human reasoning, public resistance to the Singularity, and trends within the transhumanist community.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 21, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 27 minutes]

Michael Vassar is President of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence and is responsible for the organization of the Singularity Summit. He has held positions with the Peace Corps and with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. He writes and speaks on topics relating to the safe development of disruptive technologies. His papers include the Lifeboat Foundation analysis of the risks of advanced molecular manufacturing (which he co-authored with Robert Freitas) and Corporate Cornucopia, which he authored for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Task Force. He holds an M.B.A. from Drexel University and a B.S. in biochemistry from Penn State.

Michael Anissimov writes and speaks on futurist issues, especially the relationships between accelerating change, nanotechnology, existential risk, transhumanism and the Singularity. His blog Accelerating Future has had over 4 million visits. He co-founded the non-profit Immortality Institute, the first organization focused on the abolition of nonconsensual death. He has worked or volunteered for, the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence, The Methuselah Foundation, The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and the Lifeboat Foundation. He has given talks to audiences at technology and philosophy conferences in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and at Yale University. A leading voice on the technological Singularity, he was quoted multiple times in Ray Kurzweil's 2005 book The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. He was profiled in the May 2007 issue of Psychology Today.

Michael Anissimov was the featured guest in The Future And You episode for the week of March 5, 2008. That episode (like all past episodes) is still available for your listening pleasure.

 

Gregory Benford and Aubrey de Grey (who both spoke at the Singularity Summit held earlier this month in New York City) are interviewed, as well as two attendees of this singular event which is so intently focused on the future.

Topics: the Singularity and artificial intelligence in general, and this year's Singularity Summit conference in particular. (The goal of this episode, in addition to being informative, is to provide a little of the convention's feel and mood--and if possible--it's energy.) Other related topics include life extension and mind uploading.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 14, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 25 minutes]

Doctor Gregory Benford is a Nebula award winning science fiction author. He has a doctorate in astrophysics, and is on the faculty of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of California. 

Doctor Aubrey de Grey is a medical doctor known for his work in promoting human life extension. He is an author and theoretician in the field of gerontology, and the Chief Science Officer of the Methuselah Foundation. He has been interviewed by 60 Minutes, the BBC, the New York Times, Fortune Magazine, the Washington Post, TED, Popular Science--even by Stephen Colbert for his comedy show The Colbert Report.

News Items include my activities at the Singularity Summit, such as people I met, talked with, ate with, and had ice cream with. The short version is that I had a lot of fun and met a lot of cool and exciting people, the long version contains considerably more detail.

 

Nathan P. Butler (a professional educator with eight years of teaching experience) is today's featured guest.

Topics: Is it permitted to teach atheism in public schools? Why it's done on a regular basis even though the answer is No. The balancing act of just how much religion must be avoided or not mentioned when teaching human history. In what ways kids themselves are different today thanks to the technologies they've grown up with; how those same technologies are changing teaching in the classroom. And why teachers are encouraged to give kids about five hours of homework everyday.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the October 7, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes]

Nathan P. Butler holds a 'Masters in Education with a Specialization in Integrating Technology in the Classroom.' He is also a groundbreaking podcaster, having been a podcaster years before podcasting had a name or a standardized means of distribution. He is also a mover and shaker in Star Wars Fandom through his work in with ChronoRadio and StarWarsFanworks, and for having written an exhaustive thousand-page-long chronology of the Star Wars universe which is titled 'Star Wars Timeline Gold.'

 

Nathan P. Butler (a professional educator with eight years of teaching experience) is today's featured guest.

Topics: trends in teaching in public schools; how one problem student can prevent an entire class from learning; whether or not smarter kids are being ignored to help slower kids; as well as trends in teacher's unions, merit pay, voucher systems and No Child Left Behind.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 30, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 43 minutes]

Nathan P. Butler holds a 'Masters in Education with a Specialization in Integrating Technology in the Classroom.' He is also a groundbreaking podcaster, having been a podcaster years before podcasting had a name or a standardized means of distribution. He is also a mover and shaker in Star Wars Fandom through his work in with ChronoRadio and StarWarsFanworks, and for having written an exhaustive thousand-page-long chronology of the Star Wars universe which is titled 'Star Wars Timeline Gold.'

 

Three Biotech Researchers (two geneticists and one agronomist) are today's featured guests.

Topics: problems involved in engineering a virus to kill a specific race or sex of human beings; genetics involved in regrowing human limbs for amputees; how we've made corn fields increase their yield ten-fold since the 1940s; exactly why US Stimulus Package money is so slow at get into research; why the Malthusian theory, in which exponential population growth produces mass starvation, has lost its validity; why some of our crops have become clones without a natural genetic diversity; how some crops have become dependant on us for survival; and how the Monsanto corporation has grown to dominate American agriculture.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 23, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 44 minutes] (This discussion panel was recorded in front of a live audience on July 11, 2009 at LiberyCon in Chattanooga Tennessee.)

Dr. Diane Mucci, formerly with the National Institute of Health (NIH), is currently a full time professor of biotechnology, and has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology. Cathy Smith is an insect molecular geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). And Gary Shelton is an agronomist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

 

Three Biotech Researchers (two geneticists and one agronomist) are today's featured guests.

Dr. Diane Mucci, formerly with the National Institute of Health (NIH), is currently a full time professor of biotechnology and has a Ph.D. in Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry, and Microbiology. Cathy Smith is an insect molecular geneticist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). And Gary Shelton is an agronomist with the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Topics: the future of our food supply; genetically modified crops; the good and bad trends in pest control; genetic and other methods used to increase crop production per acre and the trade offs involved in each; why organic farming methods cannot be scaled up to industrial levels sufficient to feed the world; ongoing research in the genetic control of insects and specifically how genetic methods are used to control insect pests; why insects have no blood; safety measures used in genetics labs; why a gene gun resembles a shot gun; transgenic plants; the future of neutracuticals; and how the human genome project is being expanded to include other species useful to our survival.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 16, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 45 minutes] (This discussion panel was recorded in front of a live audience on July 11, 2009 at LiberyCon in Chattanooga Tennessee.)

BTW: An ethanol re-education class is mentioned repeatedly--with a great deal of sarcasm. This does not refer to Alcoholics Anonymous but to the push that was going on within the US government to promote the idea of using ethanol made from corn to replace or supplement gasoline in automobiles. This is the notorious project that forced the price of corn around the world to double, producing an unexpected amount of hunger among people who rely on corn-based foods, such as tortillas, as their prime sustenance. Public sentiment has since shifted away from this idea.

 

Stephanie Osborn (author and former NASA payload flight controller) is today's featured guest.

Topics: Space Shuttle flights and the International Space Station; her work in astronaut training, and what it is that a payload flight controller does; Space Camp--the actual camp (where she herself taught) and how the real thing differs from the movie of the same name; her friend, the astronaut Kalpana Chawla; the technical side of what happened to cause seven astronauts to die in the Space Shuttle Columbia Disaster; and a little about her novels (such as Burnout) which are based on her experience in the space program.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 9, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 48 minutes] (This interview was recorded on July 11, 2009 at LiberyCon in Chattanooga Tennessee.)

Stephanie Osborn is a former payload flight controller, with over twenty years experience in civilian and military space programs. She has worked on numerous Space Shuttle flights and the International Space Station. As part of her work, she trained astronauts, and one of those astronauts was Kalpana Chawla (known to her friends by her initials: K.C.). Kalpana Chawla was one of the seven astronauts who died in 2003 when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas during reentry from earth orbit. Today, Stephanie is retired from space work. She tutors students in math and science from elementary school through college and writes science fiction mysteries based on her knowledge, experience and travels.

 

Dr. Ben Bova (author of more than 115 books about science and science fiction) is today's featured guest.

Topics: his work advising Woody Allen for the movie Sleeper; anecdotes about his friends Arthur C. Clarke, Harlan Ellison, and Gene Roddenberry; his writing an episode of Land of the Lost; his work with George Lucas; and the time he was on Good Morning America with Jim Henson, Kermit the frog and (first baseman for the Dodgers) Steve Garvey.

He also describes Joseph Stalin's insistence on building the world's first big rockets (big enough to carry the early nuclear weapons to the other side of the world); how this prompted John F. Kennedy to proclaim the famous Missile Gap; and lead to General Bernard Schriever's involvement in space, and the growing renown of Wernher von Braun. He also talks about high-powered gas dynamic lasers as defencive weapons against incoming nuclear missiles; how solar power satellites can solve humanity's energy needs; his own expectations of robots in war and in peace; the polarization of American politics; the future of space business, tourism and colonization; and the 1973 TV show The Starlost.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the September 2, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 48 minutes] This is the second half of the interview with Dr. Bova recorded on July 12, 2009.

Ben Bova is an award-winning author of more than 115 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has been involved in science and technology since the birth if the space age, and has worked with film makers and television producers such as Woody Allen, George Lucas, and Gene Roddenberry. He is President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He was editor of Analog Science Fiction magazine for seven years.  After leaving Analog, he went on to edit Omni Magazine. He has been the science analyst on CBS Morning News, and has appeared frequently on Good Morning America and The Today Show.

 

Dr. Ben Bova (author of more than 115 books about science and science fiction) is today's featured guest.

Topics: extreme human longevity, which Dr. Bova expects and endorses; why lasers are the ultimate weapon of defense against incoming missiles, and why the U.S. won't be defended by them until after the Obama Administration is out of office.

He also describes his participation in the Vanguard Rocket program just before and just after the Russians shocked the United States out of complacency by placing humanity's first satellite into earth orbit; his work popularizing science and science fiction while at Omni and Analog Magazines, as well as in his Grand Tour series of novels about human civilization spreading out from earth and colonizing our solar system; and some of the now-famous authors he discovered in the slush pile while they were yet unpublished, such as Orson Scott Card and Spider Robinson.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 26, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 40 minutes] (This interview was recorded on July 12, 2009 at LiberyCon in Chattanooga Tennessee where Dr. Bova was the convention's Literary Guest of Honor.)

Ben Bova is an award-winning author of more than 115 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has been involved in science and technology since the birth if the space age, and has worked with film makers and television producers such as Woody Allen, George Lucas, and Gene Roddenberry. He is President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of the Science Fiction Writers of America. He was editor of Analog Science Fiction magazine for seven years.  After leaving Analog, he went on to edit Omni Magazine. He has been the science analyst on CBS Morning News, and has appeared frequently on Good Morning America and the Today show.

 

José Cordeiro (author, researcher, professor, futurist, consultant and world traveler) is today's guest.

Topics: José Cordeiro's lectures at World Future 2009; The Singularity University (his involvement, its goals, and plans for its future expansion); his idea that 'Transhumanists are the futurists among the futurists'; the struggle schools all around the world are having trying to keep up with the ongoing information revolution and the success Finland's school system is seeing with a version of Life Long Learning. He also talks about: extreme human longevity, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence and other revolutionary technologies we will likely see.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 19, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 40 minutes] (This interview was recorded on July 18, 2009 at the Chicago Hilton during the World Future Society's annual convention where he was giving several presentations.)

José Luis Cordeiro is former director of the World Transhumanist Association, and of the Extropy Institute, and of the Venezuela Chapter of the Club of Rome. He is founder and president of the Venezuela Chapter of the World Future Society, co-founder of the Venezuelan Transhumanist Association, chair of the Venezuelan Node of the Millennium Project of the American Council of the United Nations University (UNU), advisor to the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, and a member of the Academic Committee of the Center for the Dissemination of Economic Knowledge (CEDICE).

Born in Caracas, Venezuela of European parents, José Cordeiro has studied, visited and worked in over 130 countries on five continents. His Bachelors and Masters degrees are in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has worked extensively in Africa, Europe and the Americas, and currently lives in Asia.

 

Young-sook Park 박영숙 (South Korean diplomat, author, and futurist) is today's guest.

Dr. Young-sook Park is President of the Korean Foster Care Association, as well as Chair of the United Nation's Millennium Project in Korea; Chair of the Korean Chapter of the World Future Society; Senior Advisor for the Australian Embassy in Seoul; and a member of the World Transhumanist Association.  She has been a teacher, a lecturer, a freelance journalist, a diplomat, and is the author of more than 22 books.

Topics: the massive chaos the South Korean government is expecting and preparing for when Kim Jong-il 김정일(North Korea's dictator) finally dies; how South Korea's prosperity is threatened by its ongoing population decline--which is greater than that of any other nation on earth today; why so many South Korean young people are attending college in the U.S. and Europe and after graduation are not returning to the land of their birth; as well as many other social political and technological trends involving the two Koreas, China, and the United States.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 12, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 42 minutes]

This interview was recorded on July 18, 2009 at the Chicago Hilton during the World Future Society's annual convention where Dr. Park was speaking.

Timothy C. Mack (President of the World Future Society) is today's guest.

The World Future Society is a nonprofit, nonpartisan scientific and educational association of people interested in how social and technological developments are shaping the future. The society works as a neutral clearinghouse for ideas about the future. These ideas include forecasts, recommendations, and alternative scenarios concerning the next 5, 10, or more years. Founded in 1966, the society is chartered as a nonprofit educational and scientific organization in Washington, D.C.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the August 5, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 44 minutes]

Timothy C. Mack is an attorney (a member of the New York and the District of Columbia bars). He has served as general counsel, consultant, and lobbyist for corporations, associations, non-profit organizations, and governmental groups struggling with cultural, technological and market issues worldwide. He has held research positions at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and the US National Academy of Sciences.

He has also served on the Budget Policy Task Force at the US General Accounting Office and on the Board of the MIT Enterprise Forum, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based non-profit group offering marketing, financial and technology services to new and innovative companies. As a change consultant, he has assisted the US General Services Agency and the US Department of Defense in developing strategic planning and change management strategies for innovation enhancement, privatization of public services, superfund clean up and transportation planning.

Since 1985, Timothy C. Mack has edited Futures Research Quarterly, the oldest and most respected professional journal in the foresight area. He has published numerous books and articles on trend analysis, and is currently writing a book on the social and economic impacts of the Internet on modern society and the global economy.

 

Nathan P. Butler (a professional educator with eight years of classroom teaching experience) is today's featured guest.

Topics: now that the flood gates of information are open wide (sometimes referred to as the Internet) we are all swimming in information so deep we can't see the bottom.  How this info-flood has changed schools and teaching and students and teachers and homework--even changed what is taught and how it is taught. The struggles teachers face in keeping up with these changes; the struggles students face in an always-online world; the rising importance of context over content; and the mixed bag of good and bad results from all this change.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 29, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 40 minutes]

Nathan P. Butler holds a 'Masters in Education with a Specialization in Integrating Technology in the Classroom.' He is also a groundbreaking podcaster, having been a podcaster years before podcasting had a name or a standardized means of distribution. He is also a mover and shaker in Star Wars Fandom through his work with ChronoRadio and StarWarsFanworks, and for having written an exhaustive thousand-page-long chronology of the Star Wars universe which is titled Star Wars Timeline Gold.

 

Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.

Topics: why Islamic fundamentalists feel threatened by the dominance of the Internet today, just as Christian fundamentalists felt threatened by the dominance of TV in the 1960s; now that online dating is a highly profitable business, how dating sites may try to change cultural ideas and habits about dating to stretch those dating years into a lifelong lifestyle to maximize their profits; why Internet technology may have more to do with fashion than with the 'needs' people have (or think they have); how technology is helping people to come together on a global basis and become more of a world community; also: cell phones, global warming and Second Life.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 22, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 36 minutes]

Robert Hooker has a Bachelors degree in Cognitive Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a Masters degree in Sociology from the Open University in Britain. For most of the 1990s Robert worked first as a researcher in Artificial Intelligence at Northwestern University Institute for Learning Sciences (ILS) and then as Web Developer and Entrepreneur. While at the Institute for Learning Sciences he worked with Virtual Reality, web based video delivery, Internet learning and content indexing. Current he works for Fujitsu Services in the United Kingdom. He has lived in London for the last 10 years.

 

Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.

Topics: his experience in AI research in the early 1990s; his PhD in sociology and the results of his sociological research inside Second Life; the importance of gender roles in the real world and in virtual worlds; ways to find answers to specific questions online; web page rankings and the google algorithms; and is the Internet is increasing or decreasing global acceptance of diversity?

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 15, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 37 minutes]

Robert Hooker has a Bachelors degree in Cognitive Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a Masters degree in Sociology from the Open University in Britain. For most of the 1990s Robert worked first as a researcher in Artificial Intelligence at Northwestern University Institute for Learning Sciences (ILS) and then as Web Developer and Entrepreneur. While at the Institute for Learning Sciences he worked with Virtual Reality, web based video delivery, Internet learning and content indexing. Current he works for Fujitsu Services in the United Kingdom. He has lived in London for the last 10 years.

 

Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.

Topics: powerful software which is totally free to download and use (such as: Open Office, Gimp, and Ubuntu); Web 3.0 verses 2.0; the buzzword The Cloud and what it means to users; trends in Microsoft Office and its global popularity; and the overwhelming reason why users have not adopted Linux even though it is excellent and free.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 8, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 30 minutes]

Robert Hooker has a Bachelors degree in Cognitive Sciences from the University of Chicago, and a Masters degree in Sociology from the Open University in Britain. For most of the 1990s Robert worked first as a researcher in Artificial Intelligence at Northwestern University Institute for Learning Sciences (ILS) and then as Web Developer and Entrepreneur. While at  the Institute for Learning Sciences he worked with Virtual Reality, web based video delivery, Internet learning and content indexing. Current he works for Fujitsu Services in the United Kingdom. He has lived in London for the last 10 years.

 

Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is our featured guest.

Topics: trends in England and Europe compared to the USA especially involving cell phones, Internet connections, and other technologies. Robert also talks about: the lack of national unity in the UK; bigotry and prejudice in Europe against non-European immigrants and against Eastern Europeans; how globalization is changing Europe (for good and bad); why the impact of China and India are large but completely different; and his observations of trends in North Africa based on the time he spend living in a suburb of Tunis, Tunisia.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 1, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 37 minutes]

Robert Hooker has a Bachelors in Cognitive Sciences  from the University of Chicago and a Masters in Sociology from the Open University in Britain. For most of the 1990s Robert worked first as a researcher in Artificial Intelligence at Northwestern University Institute for Learning Sciences (ILS) and then as Web Developer and Entrepreneur. While at  the Institute for Learning Sciences he worked with Virtual Reality, web based video delivery,  Internet learning and content indexing. Current he works for Fujitsu Services in the United Kingdom. He has lived in London for the last 10 years.

 

Tom Atwood (Editor-in-Chief of Robot Magazine) is our featured guest.

Topics: the latest in 3D displays for TV and for video games; self-fueling robots; robots in warfare now and in the near future; robots as smart weapons; robotic fighter jets; educational robots; robotic dance competitions; fighting methods used by TV battle robots; diversity of robotic body styles; and getting started in robotics without much money or without having to build your robot.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 24, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes]

Robot Magazine covers every aspect of the rapidly exploding field of robots. It has 'how-to' for robot hobbyists, 'what's going on' for robot enthusiasts and 'what's innovative' for tech and engineering professionals. Strong on education, it offers parents, teachers and kids guidance on using and playing with the latest consumer, toy and hobby robots that serve as educational tools and recreational fun. Every issue is full of hundreds of full color photos of robotic fun, gee whiz and hands on experience.

 

Tom Atwood (Editor-in-Chief of Robot Magazine) is our featured guest.

Topics: the astounding progress being made in all areas of robotics such as: how vacuum cleaning robots are getting improved house-mapping abilities; what's happening in artificial intelligence for robots; trends in Japanese robots; the brilliant new way in which robots are being used in physical therapy for post-operative patients; and which needs to advance more to put robots to work in our homes as cooks, house cleaners, gardeners and laundry workers -- artificial intelligence or the basic mechanics of robotic bodies.

Tom Atwood also talks about his conversation with Sebastian Thrun of Stanford University, winner of the Second DARPA Grand Challenge, about how Sabastian's team programmed their car to win the robotic auto race. (The DARPA Grand Challenge is a series of very long -- some might say 'grueling' -- road races sponsored by DARPA in which all the participants are computer controlled motor vehicles. Not toy cars; but full-sized cars and trucks with no human driver.  DARPA is the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency: the organization that created the Internet.)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 17, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 33 minutes]

Robot Magazine covers every aspect of the rapidly exploding field of robots. It has 'how-to' for robot hobbyists, 'what's going on' for robot enthusiasts and 'what's innovative' for tech and engineering professionals. Strong on education, it offers parents, teachers and kids guidance on using and playing with the latest consumer, toy and hobby robots that serve as educational tools and recreational fun. Every issue is full of hundreds of full color photos of robotic fun, gee whiz and hands on experience.

 

Tom Atwood (Editor-in-Chief of Robot Magazine) is our featured guest.

Topics: Robots are in a world-wide boom time. Hundreds of thousands of hobbyists are building robots. Competitive robot events draw Rock-Star-sized crowds and are doubling in attendance each year. High schools and colleges are using the building and programing of robots (from scratch and from kits) to get students enthused about science, math, logic, engineering, programming and many other crucial subjects. Open source collaboration is driving innovation in robotic software as well as hardware. Tom emphasizes how these learning benefits are also beginning to work their way into grade schools, and how all this learning forms a foundation for the future of the students and of our world.

Tom Atwood also describes an experiment in which rat brain tissue (grown in a culture dish) was wired to a robot and taught to successfully navigate an obstacle course.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 10, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 minutes]

Robot Magazine covers every aspect of the rapidly exploding field of robots. It has 'how-to' for robot hobbyists, 'what's going on' for robot enthusiasts and 'what's innovative' for tech and engineering professionals. Strong on education, it offers parents, teachers and kids guidance on using and playing with the latest consumer, toy and hobby robots that serve as educational tools and recreational fun. Every issue is full of hundreds of full color photos of robotic fun, gee whiz and hands on experience.

 

James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is our featured guest.

Topics: trends in medicine and the possibility that cancer may someday become completely curable. Privacy vs life-logging, twitter and the incessant text-messaging some people do about the trivial minutia of their daily lives. James suggests that 'When Orwell wrote in 1984 about people being watched by their TVs, what he didn't understand about the human condition is that a lot of people wanted the TV to watch them.' The compulsion of Googling one's own name, as well as  time travel paradoxes and human longevity.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 3, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 47 minutes]

James Maxey is the author of the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

 

James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is our featured guest.

Topics: the current search for other earths and what effect their discovery might have on people: the demise of circus freaks as professional performers; and (despite James' long-term atheism) his fascination with Angels, both in their original source material and in the popular culture.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 27, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 39 minutes]

James Maxey is the author of the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge, and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future, after the fall of our modern civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering. Humans are reduced to slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a wondrous place of magic.

Also in this episode we begin a 12 part serialization of a complete story from Jim Baen's Universe Magazine. The story is the Hugo Award nominated Article of Faith, written by Mike Resnick and read by Walt Boyes.

 

James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is our featured guest.

Topics: the various ways our modern civilization might come to an end (all the usual suspects along with  total economic collapse); disruptive technologies such as the large scale use of cheap solar cells which could lead to the abandonment of the electric power grid; how the differences between men and women may affect their acceptance of the robotic husbands and wives which will become available within a decade or two; life-sized anatomically-correct sex dolls of today and the 2007 movie, Lars and the Real Girl, which co-stars one such doll.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 20, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes]

James Maxey is the author of the Dragon Age fantasy series which includes the novels Bitterwood, Dragonforge and Dragonseed. Set a thousand years in the future -- after the fall of today's civilization, in a world dominated by the intelligent dragons we created through genetic engineering -- humans are reduced to pets and slaves, and the remnants of long forgotten nanotechnology make the world a place of wondrous magic.

 

Aliese, a college student, is today's featured guest.

Topics: trends in college in general, as well as in classes, dorm life, students and teachers. Also how personal computers and cell phones improve or degrade the learning experience. As well as YouTube, Facebook, Charlie Chaplin and wedding photography.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 13, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 38 minutes]

Aliese is studying for a degree in photography and fine arts, and has completed one year at a school with about 1,000 students.

 

Stephen Euin Cobb is today's featured guest. (This is the second half of the experiment in which the questions I normally pose to others I ask of myself.)

Topics: Why I am an atheist and why I am not an anti-theist; my insistance that there is a rapidly growing need for a new and different kind of tolerance, greater than any this world has ever seen before; how this universe will end, and why I think we will someday engineer other universes; why past predictions of the future have always been so wrong; the probability that we will invent faster-than-light travel; and my estimation of the probability of The Singularity.

Also described are: why I started doing this show, why I chose the future as my topic, and how doing this show for three years has completely re-written my understanding of the future.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 6, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb is an author, futurist and the host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You. He is also a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine, the online magazine from Baen Books. His articles have also appeared in Space and Time Magazine, H+ Magazine and >[gRiM]<>[cOuTuRe]< magazine. Within Second Life (as Boc Cryotank) he is a photographer and photojournalist. He has invented several games, the most popular being Death Stacks for which there is an annual tournament held each summer in Charlotte NC. He is also an artist, essayist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.

News: The Kepler mission to discover earth-like planets will radio its results to earth only once every thirty days. (NASA has not announced when this first report will be sent.  Possibly late May to mid June 2009) During Kepler's first 30 days of watching 100,000 stars, it will discover planets which orbit their star in ten days or less; as well as about half of the planets which orbit their star in fifteen days or less. In its second report Kepler will identify planets which orbit in less than 20 days, and about half of those that orbit in more than 20 days but less than 30 days. Every monthly report will increase, by a specific number of days, the orbital period of those planets discovered. But since the statistical probability of any planet crossing the face of its star diminishes with the size of its orbit, each of Kepler's monthly reports will contain fewer and fewer new planets. The first month will have, by far, the most.  Progessive reports will include planets in wider and wider orbits until the orbits of earthlike planets are (hopefully) revealed later in the three and a half year mission.

 

John Ringo (New York Times best selling novelist with over two million books in print) is today's featured guest.

Topics: Smart missiles smaller than insects; military tanks becoming robots; personal headup displays for soldiers; experiments with brain implants for soldiers; war going open-source; Chinese experiments with warfare in low earth orbit; the never-ending utility of bayonets; the bizarre fact that there is no such thing as a Chinese journalist; and the possibility that we will develop faster than light travel. He also describes his worry that a future teenager huddled in his mother's basement may write a biological virus which will wipe out all of humanity. 

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 22, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes]

Translated into seven languages, John Ringo's novels range from science fiction to a mix of military and political thrillers. Always outspoken, never dull and sometimes controversial, he has been an op-ed writer for the New York Post and a guest commentator on TV for Fox News. An avid essayist, his website contains many essays he has written on a wide variety of topics. By the time he graduated high school, John Ringo had lived in, or visited, 23 countries and attended 14 schools. A former paratrooper in the army airborne, he has enjoyed cave diving, rock climbing, repelling, hunting, and spear fishing.

News: Your host has been granted official press credentials for World Future 2009 in Chicago (July 17 to 19, 2009). This is the annual convention of the World Futurist Society (of which I'm a member). Hundreds of professional futurists are expected to attend and dozens are scheduled to speak. Press credentials will allow me to gather live interviews and collect business cards for phone interviews which can be done later.

 

John Ringo (New York Times best selling novelist with over two million books in print) is today's featured guest.

Topics: Specific examples of the tens of thousands of robots in use in war right now and how they are transforming the methods and nature of fighting for the individual soldiers on the ground; how this transformation will change the wars of the future; and the longstanding psychology in the US military that is driving this robotic transformation. Also, anecdotes about the years he went to grade school in Iran; the summer camp he went to in Switzerland; and some of his other travels around the world as a child and teenager.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the April 15, 2009 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 36 minutes]

Translated into seven languages, John Ringo's novels range from science fiction to a mix of military and political thrillers. Always outspoken and sometimes controversial, he has been an op-ed writer for the New York Post and a guest commentator on TV for Fox News. An avid essayist, his website contains many essays he has written on a wide variety of topics. By the time he graduated high school, John Ringo had lived in, or visited, 23 countries and attended 14 schools. A former paratrooper in the army airborne, he has enjoyed cave diving, rock climbing, repelling, hunting and spear fishing.