The Future And You

By Stephen Euin CobbScience Technology

The Future And You episodes

July 07, 2010 July 7, 2010 Episode
Robert V. Aldrich (author and public speaker) is today's featured guest.

Topics: we are in a wonderful boom-time for books, comics and movies, making this a great time to be a fan; and yet how the fans of anime are killing their beloved industry. He also gives commentary on Cowboy Bebop, Studio Ghibli, Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, the new Sherlock Holmes and Star Trek movies; and he talks about bit torrent and other methods of illegal downloading.

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the July 7, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 32 minutes] This interview was recorded in Charlotte NC, on June 5, 2010 at the science fiction and fantasy convention ConCarolinas.

Robert V. Aldrich is the author of the anime-style novels Crossworld and Queendom. He is a popular speaker at SF&F conventions where he shares his special depth of knowledge in areas of popular culture including anime, manga, science fiction and fantasy.
32 min
June 30, 2010 June 30, 2010 Episode
Edmund R. Schubert, Rich Sigfrit, Gail Z. Martin and one of ConCarolinas' venerable volunteers are today's featured guests.Topics: last week's relaunch of the redesigned Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show online magazine; the recent explosion in the popularity of online magazines; the few ways in which online magazines are actually better that paper magazines; and how Amazon is confusing the magazine publishers they hope will publish their magazines in electronic format on the Kindle. Also: how the Internet allows first-time authors to get the word out about their book; the importance of authors developing a relationship with their readers through social networks; and singing the praises of the iPad. As well as miscellaneous references to: The Rocky Horror Picture Show, A formal Steam Punk ball, and Klingon Karaoke.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 30, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 43 minutes] Today's show was recorded in Charlotte NC, on June 5, 2010. This episode was recorded at, and is dedicated to, the science fiction and fantasy convention ConCarolinas (which this year had the honor of hosting Deep South Con and featured as Literary Guest of Honor, one of our past guests: Jerry Pournelle).Edmund R. Schubert is editor-in-chief of Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show (the poplar online magazine of science fiction and fantasy). Rich Sigfrit (widely known as Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit) is a pioneering podcaster, as well as talented voice actor and comedian. Gail Z. Martin is the author of The Chronicles of The Necromancer fantasy series of novels.
43 min
June 23, 2010 June 23, 2010 Episode
James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is today's featured guest.Topics: scientific efforts in creating artificial life; computer displays built into the lenses of eyeglasses; the Google Goggles iPhone app; microbes designed to produce crude oil and diesel fuel; hard numbers on peak oil and peak coal; BP's Deepwater Horizon oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and the robots being used to seal the leak; as well as cheap solar cells and new battery technologies.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 23, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 31 minutes] Today's show was recorded in front of a live audience at ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC, on June 5, 2010.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.
31 min
June 16, 2010 June 16, 2010 Episode
James Maxey (author of the Dragon Age fantasy series and Nobody Gets the Girl) is our featured guest.Topics: an attractive new female android built in Japan; soccer playing robots; life in antarctic lakes; the increasing practicality of building an elevator to earth orbit; the matter/anti-matter balance of the universe; massively parallel processing in popular game computers; fresh new craters on Mars; how computers are now playing the stock market even more than human beings; and a new nano-fiber material with incredible strength which is made out of old t-shirts dipped into a boron solution and then heated in an oven (a miracle substance become cheap and easy to make).Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 16, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 minutes] Today's show was recorded in front of a live audience at ConCarolinas in Charlotte NC, on June 5, 2010.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.
36 min
June 09, 2010 June 9, 2010 Episode
Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.Topics: artificial intelligence; how and when conversational AI may appear in our lives; the semantic web as an AI platform; AI for Internet search; the money to be made in AI; simulating AI with a brute force program which is not intelligent at all; Wolfram Alpha; a new solution to the Fermi Paradox; the massive power of the social web; companies that try (and usually fail) to profit by crowd sourcing; how Wikipedia killed the old encyclopedias; Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs; and why he (Robert Hooker) was once presumed dead for three days.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 9, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 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.
35 min
June 02, 2010 June 2, 2010 Episode
Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.Topics: why Twitter is better than Facebook; examples of how Twitter has helped Robert promote his work; differences between the virtual world of Second Life and its new competitor Blue Mars; big and costly mistakes being made by those who own and operate both virtual worlds; and other assorted topics and trends.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the June 2, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 34 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. Currently he works for Fujitsu Services in the United Kingdom. He has lived in London for the last 10 years.
34 min
May 26, 2010 May 26, 2010 Episode
Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.Topics: a first-hand account of trends developing in England and Europe; the good and bad effects the Iceland volcano's ash cloud has had to business and to people as it spread across Europe; social trends which are specific to London (where iPad availability is still limited); why Apple's iPad is so popular and how this popularity will spawn a wave of similar pad-style computers from Apple's every competitor; how the iPad relates to ebooks and the continued decline of newspapers; trends in other popular media such as England's first political debate between candidates running for Prime Minister.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 26, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 40 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.
40 min
May 19, 2010 May 19, 2010 Episode
Robert Hooker (an Information Technology professional living in London) is today's featured guest.Topics: An explanation of Web 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0; how Google's failure at Web 2.0 is forcing the search giant to leapfrog from Web 1.0 straight into Web 3.0; the huge demand amongst businesses playing catchup, as they scramble to get into Web 2.0; the rise of smart phones and the attraction of the iPad; new trends in England, Europe, China, India, Greece and Poland; why the European Union will not fall apart despite all the awful rumors about Greece; why increasing longevity within the developed nations may cause all of us to spend half our lives as old people, and some of the ways civilization will need to adjust itself to make that new reality livable.Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 19, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 35 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.
35 min
May 12, 2010 May 12, 2010 Episode
Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) is today's featured guest.

Topics: The Glossary for Futurists and Trend Watchers. Your host reads a few selections from this (free to download) publication written by the consulting firm of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc. (In order to stay within fair-use laws only one tenth or less of the glossary was read into the show. If you enjoy the selections you may read the entire glossary for free by downloading it pdf format.)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 12, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 17 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb is (according to Wikipedia) a U.S. author, magazine writer, interviewer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You. He's also a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine; a contributing editor for Robot Magazine; and has written for Space and Time Magazine, H+ Magazine, and Grim Couture Magazine. He is also a game designer, artist, essayist, futurist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.
18 min
May 05, 2010 May 5, 2010 Episode
Stephen Euin Cobb (your host) is today's featured guest.

Topics: The debut of the first ever Robot Girlfriend. (In this case a sex doll that is only slightly robotic.) Why sex robots (as they become more numerous and more human-like over the next few years) will produce an emotional firestorm of outrage from both the far left and far right which will fill every corner of the media. Also: news that the ebook market is about to turn into a fight between three giants: Amazon, Apple and beginning this summer Google; the closing, after four years, of Jim Baen's Universe Magazine; and the huge increase in online SF&F magazines which pay their writers professional rates as defined by SF&FA (the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America).

Note: Here are a some submission pages of online fiction magazines which pay for stories. Many of these pay SFWA professional rates (five cents per word or better): Clarksworld, Abys & Apex, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Brain Harvest, Futurismic, Heliotrope, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed, Fantasy Magazine, and ThePedestalMagazine.) (Heliotrope pays 10 cents per word.)

Hosted by Stephen Euin Cobb, this is the May 5, 2010 episode of The Future And You. [Running time: 21 minutes]

Stephen Euin Cobb is (to quote Wikipedia) a U.S. author, magazine writer, interviewer and host of the award-winning podcast The Future and You. He's also a columnist and contributing editor for Jim Baen's Universe Magazine; a contributing editor for Robot Magazine; and has written for Space and Time Magazine, H+ Magazine, and Grim Couture Magazine. He is also a game designer, artist, essayist, futurist, transhumanist, and is on the Advisory Board of The Lifeboat Foundation.
21 min

About The Future And You

From the publisher's feed

This award-winning series explores The Future of Everything. What can we expect of next week, next year, next century? What will we eat, drive, wear, live in, vote for, want to buy, and want to avoid?…

What mistakes of the past will we make again, and which ones have we learned from? From the next tick of the clock to the ultimate end of the universe, every subject is fair game. Composed of interviews and essays, it's hosted by the author and futurist Stephen Euin Cobb. Guests include: famous authors and the occasional celebrity, but mostly futurists, innovators, technologists, analysts, entrepreneurs, and those pushing the limits of technology, as well as those struggling to understand the trends growing strong around us now--since it is those trends which will create the future in which we will all live. This program is not about magic, or prophecy, or psychic divination. Instead, we attempt to use verifiable facts as our foundation, and from them extrapolate forward. All such extrapolations--regardless of the credentials of those putting them forth--must be considered pure opinion. Time alone, will allow these extrapolations to be verified or nullified. Topics and themes explored include: nanotechnology and biotechnology; organlegging and organ transplants, molecular manufacturing and computers wired directly into the human brain; extropianism, transhumanism and the technology of individual immortality; terrorism, globalization, global warming and nuclear proliferation; cryonics and cryogenics; genetic engineering and the human genome project; embryos, cloning and stem cell research; astronomy and other space explorations (NASA, Hubble, exoplanets, SETI, ESA, CCCP, lasers and space probes); the singularity, robots, robotics and artificial intelligence (AI); remote sensing and waldoes; legal and illegal uses of the Internet (hackers and hacking, viruses and Trojan horses); solar cells, peak oil and alternative energy; aging and medical longevity; FTL (faster than light travel, as in Star Trek and Star Wars) and worm holes (as in StarGate SG-1); progress in health, education and neuroscience, as well as evolution, agriculture and inventions; and how what was once science fiction and fantasy is now biology, chemistry and physics. Everything from futurism to futurology. To learn more, check the show's website at: www.TheFutureAndYou.com