Predicting Our Future

Predicting Our Future episodes:

• 02.08.2018

  Episode 16: How Homes Powered by Artificial Intelligence Will Know You and Take Care of You

  For most of human history, we’ve accepted that keeping a home clean and filled with essentials is a burden that we must bear. But are we on the cusp of witnessing a technological revolution where our homes will take care...

  
• 02.01.2018

  Episode 15: Amazon, Walmart, & The Home That Shops for Itself

  If you’re incredibly proficient at using your Amazon Echo, you might already being giving it directions to order more toilet paper or laundry detergent. But how long will it be before the home is communicating directly with Amazon or Walmart...

  
• 01.25.2018

  Episode 14: Your Home’s Operating System & The Artificial Intelligence That Will Power It

  Over the past few years, the public has mostly come to associate the voice activation capabilities of Amazon’s Echo and Google Home with smart speakers. But in fact these devices and others like them can be viewed as Trojan Horses...

  
• 01.18.2018

  Episode 13: Designing A Smart Lighting Plan: Voice Control, Presence Detection, & Light Switches

  The most influential companies in lighting are reimagining one of the most fundamental features of our homes: the light switch. Will the smart home of the future understand our lighting needs without us needing to flip a switch? In the...

  
• 01.11.2018

  Episode 12: Honeywell vs. Nest: The Battle for the Smart Thermostat

  While Nest wasn’t the first company to offer a smart thermostat, its first product quickly developed rock star status. Nest helped turn the thermostat -- a relatively forgettable device -- into a sexy offering that made consumers excited about other...

  
• 01.03.2018

  Episode 11: Searching Kickstarter for the Next Killer Smart Home Product

  The David and Goliath story of startups entering an entrenched industry and disrupting its leading players isn’t a new one. Yet within the smart home space, an unlikely development has birthed a particularly startup-friendly environment. Crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter and...

  
• 12.18.2017

  Episode 10: Smart Homes & IoT: A Century in the Making

  The idea of a home that can take care of its inhabitants has been around for over 100 years. But only in the last few decades have we seen technological breakthroughs that can make smart homes a reality. In the...

  
• 06.19.2017

  Episode 9: Disinterested Voters & 500,000 Elected Officials

  In the United States, there are over 500,000 elected officials. In the overwhelming majority of elections, less than half of eligible voters participate, resulting in one of the lowest levels of voter engagement of any Western democracy. In this episode,...

  
• 06.12.2017

  Episode 8: Hacking Elections, DDoS Attacks, & Online Voting Around the World

  In a 2016 testimony addressing the House Committee on Space, Science & Technology, Dan Wallach warned that the country’s voting infrastructure was vulnerable to hacking by foreign governments. Computer scientists have long spoken of the dangers of electronic voting machines,...

  
• 06.01.2017

  Episode 7: Can Online Voting Defeat the Broken Electoral College?

  In the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a little over a half of the voting age population cast their votes and the candidate who won the presidency lost the popular vote. Is the problem with low U.S. voter turnout due to...

  
• 04.12.2017

  Episode 6: The Tesla of Homebuilding

  Have we hit a tipping point for residential construction where the cost and quality of a factory-built home always compares favorably to the cost and quality of a conventionally-built home? Are Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists beginning to train...

  
• 04.05.2017

  Episode 5: Cars, Mars, & 3D Printing

  In 2012, six single-family homes were made by a 3D printer in China. The inventor of that technology is now working on a 3D printer designed to construct buildings on Mars. Does this technology have a future on Earth? Or...

  
• 03.29.2017

  Episode 4: NYC Goes Modular

  In the summer of 2016, the world’s tallest modular building at 32 stories high was completed at 461 Dean Street in Brooklyn, NY. Once the building’s apartment modules were completed at a factory located in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, they...

  
• 03.15.2017

  Episode 3: Google, China, & Overnight Cities

  If a trillion dollar market opportunity exists, you can bet the people at Google are thinking about it. Within X, Google’s most secretive lab, they’ve been working on solving the problem of how to make building construction more efficient in...

  
• 03.08.2017

  Episode 2: Half-priced Hamptons

  Modern homebuilders have taken the art of prefabrication to new heights where they can construct entire rooms complete with insulation, plumbing, and electric wiring all within a factory. These rooms, called “modules,” are then transported from the factory to the...

  
• 02.27.2017

  Episode 1: Home-in-a-box

  Between 1908 and 1942, Sears sold 100,000 homes that were delivered in kits consisting of 12,000 pieces. While Sears is no longer in the business of making prefabricated homes, a number of technology-driven startups have picked up the mantle and...

  
• 02.22.2017

  Introducing Predicting Our Future

  Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you could predict where the world was headed? What kind of company would you build or invest in if you could see what disruptions were coming next? This is a...