Power Play

Making one’s home “smart” may appear to be a logical step for modern dwellings, but with virtual assistants triggered by voice prompts, refrigerators that sense when your food is running low, and vacuum cleaners that zip around your home crashing into walls, we have substituted the home of the past for something altogether different. But is the smart home actually smart? And, if it’s not there yet, what could do the trick?

Presented by Deloitte

Episode art by Vicky Leta

Once the globe’s largest festival, World’s Fairs provided a glimpse into inventors’ newest creations, technologies, and human-contrived feats. The 1893 Chicago World’s Fair alone debuted electric irons, sewing machines, and laundry machines, along with the Ferris Wheel and Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, an early device for displaying motion pictures. So why do we no longer gather at massive exhibitions to show off our latest and greatest inventions? And what does the rise and fall of the World’s Fair tell us about the way technology and society are changing?

Presented by Deloitte

Episode art by Vicky Leta

This season, host Scott Nover and Quartz journalists around the world are checking in on how technology will, won’t, or simply shouldn’t change our lives in the next decade.

In many parts of the world, you’ve got a number attached to your name, and the value of that number acts as a gatekeeper between you and the things you want and need. Credit scores are determined by complicated math done by private companies so that other private companies can decide if they’ll lend to you, and if so how much, and at what rate. With a long history of bias and intractability, and in a global economy that runs on debt, the credit score system works…until it doesn’t.

Episode art by Vicky Leta

Leather is tough to greenify—vegan leather saves animals, but is largely made of petroleum-based plastic that doesn’t biodegrade. Plus, it doesn’t hold a candle to the look, feel, and smell of the real thing. But one day soon, you could be sporting shoes made of fungi, and you may even prefer it to the animal skin variety. The fashion industry just needs to decide it’s time to invest in mycelium.

Presented by EY

Episode art by Vicky Leta

What drives the global economy? Any student of economics is likely to mention the “invisible hand”—the collective self-interest that acts as the market’s guiding force in a more powerful and beneficial way than government intervention can. Legendary 18th century Scottish philosopher Adam Smith coined the usage of this term, and one major economics textbook popularized it. But a closer look at context suggests Smith was saying something else entirely.

Presented by EY

Episode art by Vicky Leta

In the past few years in the US, the transition to digital medical data records has made access to one’s own medical history both easier and, somehow, harder. Your test results are a couple of clicks away—if you remember on what site or app they are, and how to get on it. And the system is so complicated and regulated that in some cases, health providers are still using the humble fax machine to send records back and forth. This is the story of how far the US got with digital medical record keeping in a relatively short time—and how far it still has to go.

Presented by EY

Episode art by Vicky Leta

Space business is often associated with rockets, space tourism, and attention-seeking billionaires. But the most impactful industry to launch into space in the past decade doesn’t have much to do with any of the above. Their focus is observing Earth, via the many satellites that we use to monitor what is happening on our planet. From weather patterns to human rights violations to chlorophyll production, there is a lot about the world we can learn by looking in from the outside.

Presented by EY

Episode art by Vicky Leta

Wildfires are getting larger, closer to human settlements, and more frequent. America’s west coast is especially vulnerable, which has Silicon Valley paying close attention. Its answer? Firetech, a whole new startup industry focused on developing technology to control and prevent fires.

Presented by EY

Episode art by Vicky Leta

Humans have been burying their dead for at least 40,000 years. But in the last couple of centuries, especially in Western countries, the practice has become toxic: From embalming fluids to casket materials, burials can contaminate soil and groundwater, and endanger the health of funeral workers. Enter green burials, an industry devoted to handling death in an ecologically sustainable way.

Presented by EY

Episode art by Vicky Leta