A futurist thinks he's speaking at a conference only to realize that he's been asked  to advise a secret meeting of billionaires.

Survival of the Richest

They are looking for ways to pretoct themselves fro some mysterious future "event." His conclusion?

"For all their wealth and power, they don’t believe they can affect the future."

The author goes on to ask whether transhumanists and techno-optimists aren't essentially the same as the billionaires -- looking or a way to save their own miserbale lives with little or no regard for anyone else.

Phil and Stephen discuss.

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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License | http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Image from Pixabay.com

Save the Billionaires!

A convergence of emerging technologies and emerging possibilities is at the heart of this, the greatest period of transformation in human history. Our world is changing in ways that are hard to predict...sometimes even hard to imagine. The World Transformed  is your guide to an astounding future that lies ahead -- and that will be here sooner than you think!

Technology

Tech News

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Software How-To

In this podcast, Michal Klaus, CEO at Ataccama, discusses what is required by governments around the world to successfully reopen their economies after the devastating impacts of Covid-19. The interview is conducted by Ron Powell, independent analyst and industry expert for the BeyeNetwork and executive producer for The World Transformed Fast Forward Series.

Ataccama: Reopening The Covid-19 World

In this edition of Fast Forward, Simon Bain, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ShieldIO and David Hicks (Vice President, Worldwide ISV Cloud Business Development and Marketing) with Oracle join us to discuss one of the biggest challenges software developers face in this era of heightened data security and strict regulatory requirements. 

More than ever, application developers and testers need access to live data (not masked and fake data) to ensure that their solutions are effective and error-free. But that data has never been better protected or harder to access. What if there was a way to test and develop new applications securely, in the cloud, with full access to data without ever having to decrypt it?

Learn more here: https://cloudmarketplace.oracle.com/marketplace/en_US/listing/61995171

About Our Guests:

Simon Bain, Founder and Chief Technology Officer of ShieldIO. He is known for developing award-winning security and search applications, including an innovative parallel processing search engine. Simon has worked with leading banks to implement on-line banking platforms and payment processing systems, and he created the first online voting application to be granted security clearance for use on interactive digital TV in the UK. He is also a published author on security and E-Voting and Holds 6 security patents

David Hicks is Vice President, ISV Cloud Business Development and Marketing for Oracle.  In this capacity he is responsible for driving Oracle Public Cloud adoption with Oracle broad partner community.  David also leads marketing focused on awareness, demand generation and go to market activities with partners. David joined Oracle in 2006 and has been in this role for the past six years.

 

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Data Is Money

Smart Cities, Part 2

Bill Pugh joins host Phil Bowermaster for an in-depth discussion of how smart cities are conceptualized and how smart city initiatives are rolled out. Bill explains how Smart Cities initiatives began with cities recognizing that they had unused or underused data assets and began looking for ways to use that data to address real-world problems. He also explains why it’s important to start addressing these kinds of issues regionally versus city by city.

Other topics include: How do cities decide to place infrastructure in the Cloud vs on the edge? How can they best incorporate the smart grid into the overall smart city architecture? What are the challenges what are the challenges cities face when it comes to making real improvements regarding traffic and congestion?

Join us.

About Our Guest:

With a background in telecommunications and IT, Bill Pugh is a Managing Partner Smart Connections Consulting, where he provides public and private sector clients technological thought leadership, guidance, and practical support for wired and wireless connected initiatives as well as roadmaps for open data and analytic objectives. Bill has over 25 years of experience in wired/wireless strategy of platform development and deployment of networking technologies for private and public companies. In recent years he has been engaged with cities on strategies for executing Smart City initiatives around Street lights, Smart Parking, Intelligent Traffic and Security.    SC 002-823 Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

It All Starts with Data

What if the planet Mars were to be made more Earth-like: the kind of place where human beings and other Earth life forms could live comfortably. Could we do it? Should we? Phil and Stephen discuss.

NextBigFuture says we can and tells how to do it:

Terraforming Mars in 50 Years with Large Orbital Mirrors, Bacteria and Factories

https://bit.ly/2U58VSA

George Dvorsky at Gizmodo says we'll never settle Mars:

Humans Will Never Colonize Mars

https://bit.ly/2BhENec

Meanwhile, one guy is talking about nuking the joint:

Looks Like Elon Musk Is Serious About Nuking Mars

https://bit.ly/32ozEg0

Lots to discuss here. If we can do it, is it the right thing to do? What if there is already life there? What if instead of changing Mars, we changed humans? And most importantly -- is there a board game available that lets you try your hand at Terraforming the red planet?

Join us.



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Eternity Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) | Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Terraforming Mars

Smart Cities, Part 1

In this edition of Fast Forward, Frannie Mattews, CEO of the Colorado Technology Association, joins us to discuss the many ways that Smart City technologies are transforming transportation, the workplace, and the communities in which we live. This show is Part 1 in our new ongoing series on Smart Cities. 

How will smart cities impact the economy and quality of life of the communities where they are  deployed? And what is the human impact of these technologies? Kicking off the discussion with us is Frannie Matthews, CEO of Colorado Technology Association (CTA).  

What is a Smart City? The answers vary, from the highly abstract and theoretical to the completely practical. Most definitions include the idea of making use of data to improve government services, quality of life, and basic infrastructure. Smart City deployments are heavily dependent on the Internet of Things (IOT) and a new class of smart devices. Such  technologies can make cities cleaner, safer, more energy efficient, and less congested.

But there are trade-offs . What new risks do we incur by giving our data over to Smart Cities applications? Our we making it easier for Big Brother to watch us? How do we balance the benefits and risks?

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Music: www.bensound.com

Videos and Images from Pixabay.com and other sources.

City photo by alejandro gonzalez on Unsplash

Save the Billionaires!

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