Daily Archives: January 29, 2020

Collaborations are always exciting stuff, especially in the heavier and more esoteric realms of music where theyre still a rare occurrence. Often, we see both participants in these endeavors tweak their usual approaches to create a new sound that neither party can fully lay claim to: it exists only in the interdependent product sense. This week, a fleeting occurrence of such a hybridization hits the physical realm: Japanese instrumental rock pioneers MONO and the enigmatic solo artist A.A. Williams release their collaborative Exit in Darkness EP on 10 vinyl tomorrow.

The Exit in Darkness EP is the result of less than a years gestation: following a chance discovery of A.A. Williams at her Roadburn set last April, the EP was recorded in London after MONOs summer tour with a digital release falling in December. Thats a quick turnaround, but the two tracks included fully realize the creative potency of the partnership. Instrumental post-rock often shines from its devotion to its conventions, but the intensely evocative vocals added here dont feel like a distraction from anything. Instead, they develop the themes of the underlying music in parallel, commanding equal attention without diverting any from everything else going on.

A.A. Williams wields her inimitable voice here as she does on her own material, expressively, and with incalculable precision. The subtle vibrato and bends in her delivery are applied with an artisans eye for detail that rounds out each lingering note. In both of the ruminative compositions, her lyrics express deeply-felt sentiments in succinct phrasing as if theyre bottled up within the songs runtime and have been left to ferment. With a little focus, its not hard to make out the words, but a listener could also simply let it all wash over them, enjoying the feelings intrinsic to each verse.

That innate emotion pairs well with MONOs instrumental contributions, which build an otherworldly sensation by layering simple, airy melodies that take flight to orbit around Williams riveting voice. Described by MONOs Takaakira Taka Goto as a portrayal of a world like a soul leaving the body and getting purified, theres a minimalistic sense to the orchestration, including sparse percussion. That minimalism creates the perfect space for A.A. Williams vocals to fill out, leading to a rich, impactful sound. In keeping with the theme, the mood becomes almost optimistic at the end of closing track Winter Light, as if a trial has been surpassed.

The Exit in DarknessEP leaves aside some of the heavier parts of MONOs musical inclinations, but theres still a weight to the record thats much higher than the 110-ish grams of the vinyl itself. MONO and A.A. Williams may never put another minute to wax together again, or if they do, it might sound entirely different this particular EP is an indelible record of a single brief collision in both of their respective careers, and for that its a necessary listen.

The Exit in Darkness EP releases tomorrow on vinyl via Pelagic Records.

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One of a Kind: MONO and A.A. Williams Forge a Singularity on the - Invisible Oranges

Few times in history has mankind ever united to solve a single goal. Even the ultimate moonshot in historyputting a man on the moonwas driven by international competition rather than unification.

So its perhaps fitting that mankind is now uniting to understand the organ that fundamentally makes us human: our brain. First envisioned in 2016 through a series of discussions on the grand challenges in neuroscience at Johns Hopkins University, the International Brain Initiative (IBI) came out this week in a forward-looking paper in Neuron.

Rather than each country formulating their own brain projects independently, the project argues, its high time for the world to come together and share their findings, resources, and expertise across borders. By uniting efforts, the IBI can help shape the future of neuroscience research at a global scalefor promoting brain and mental health, for stimulating international collaboration, for ethical neuroscience practices, and for crafting future generations of scientists.

It takes a world to understand the brain, said Caroline Montojo of the Kavli Foundation, which offered support to the project. When we have the best brains and the best minds working together, sharing information and research that could benefit us all.

The initiative, at the time of writing, includes Japans Brain/Minds, Australian Brain Alliance, the EUs Human Brain Project (HBP), Canadian Brain Research Strategy, the US BRAIN Initiative (BRAINI), the Korea Brain Initiative, and the China Brain Project.

The IBI comes at a time when global research divisions are prominent. Established national projects, such as the BRAINI and the HBP, have notably different goals at the operational level. The BRAINI, for example, prominently champions developing new tools to study brain functions, whereas the HBPs ultimate goal is to recreate the function of a human brain inside machines.

Even within single countries, divisions in practical paths forward have been, mildly put, chaotic. Chinas Brain Project, announced officially in 2016 and kicked off two years later, was plagued by different opinions on focus: should it be on solving brain disorders, or understanding the neurobiology behind cognition, or focused on engineering problems that more intimately link human brains with AI?

Then theres the underlying political milieu, where certain countries are cracking down on international researchers for fear that they may be stealing or selling trade secrets. To all these divisions, the IBI took a stance and said noits time to work together.

The biggest challenge that were facing is to really understand how the brain works, the mystery of the brain, to crack the code, said Dr. Yves De Koninck of the Canadian Brain Research Strategy. If were going to make the really big leap changes in the level of understanding of how the brain works in health and disease, we need to have global collaboration, I mean thats just absolutely vital, added Dr. Linda Lanyon at the IBI Data Standards and Sharing Working Group.

The IBI is best viewed as a grassroots organization driven by the views of neuroscientists across the globe, rather than a bureaucratic entity following the views of a select few. In a way, the IBI organizes itself similar to the United Nations, with a five-year strategic plan, multiple working groups, and a governance structure.

Its clear that the IBI benefited from a global recognition, and subsequent establishment, of large-scale neuroscience projects to understand the brain. Yet any single initiative is like the blind men and the elephant parabledespite millions (or even billions) of dollars in investment, due to the brains complexity each can only probe a small part of human brain function.

However, even with different end goals, findings from each project will likely benefit each otherif properly shared in an easily-interpretable manner (the Kavli Foundation also backs a standardized format for neuroscience data called Neurodata Without Borders 2.0). Tools developed from BRAINI, for example, will likely benefit brain mapping initiatives around the world, and neural simulations can inspire insights into brain disorders or better paths towards brain-machine interfaces. A synergistic international effort could provide greater overall impact and better utilization of precious research funding, the authors argued.

Working across political aisles is already tough; now imagine sharing terabytes of data across international borders to someone you hardly know. The IBI aims to provide a platform that explores new models of collaboration among scientists so that, to put it bluntly, no one gets screwed out of their recognition. In addition, the IBI also works outside the ivory tower with private and public funding bodies, industry partners, and government-related agencies on the social, economic, and ethical impacts of neuroscientific discoveries and their translation.

Thats huge. The initiative comes at a time when technological advances are increasingly making it easier to skirt ethical considerations and move forward with iffy research projects. Making human-animal hybrid embryos to understand the roots of intelligence? Conducting brain stimulation trials that may slowly change a persons personality? Linking multiple human minds into computers by probing their brain waves? These futuristic projects abound and will only grow in number as our ability to crack the neural code improves.

The IBI argues that neuroscientists across the globe need to take a moral stancesimilar to emerging projects for ethical AIto guide research in an ethical manner. With several countries infamous for pushing moral boundaries also joining the alliance, the IBI may put an international leash on less-savory projects going forward, while respecting diverse cultural frameworks.

IBI group members stressed that the initiative isnt meant to be bureaucratic. Rather, its adaptive and allows the organization to be shaped by the scientific community over time, the authors said. Integrating multiple goals of various brain projects together, the IBI serves as meta-middleman to promote coordination, share resources, and help unite different ideas on the future of neuroscience.

This IBI is quite unique in trying to go from the very microscopic scale of the synapses that encode information within the brain, all the way up to how the information manifests itself in human cognition and animal behavior, said Dr. Linda Richards of the Australian Brain Alliance.

Despite being years in the making, the initiative is just crossing the starting line. With a solid infrastructure now in place and enthusiasm amassed, an immediate focus for the IBI is to establish and develop the core working groups that are making progress toward short-term deliverables, the authors said. The execution of a five-year plan to propel neuroscience research forward will need considerable debates on specific aims, approaches, and technologies, but will also add to a foundation for collaboration and priority-setting across the world, they added.

This is a new era of neuroscience, where neuroscientists will have access to large datasets and new ways of sharing in a collaborative manner internationally, said Richards.

Is IBIs vision nave? Maybe. The most impactful technological advancements of our ageflight, nuclear weapons, conquering space, the Internethave all stemmed from the minds of a relatively small group of people working under duress from other people. But when it comes to truly understanding the brain, the basis of who we are and what we believe, the root cause of divided opinions and worldviews, the organ that could one day be directly manipulated and fundamentally alter humanity as a speciesfighting for a global consortium is the least we can do.

Image Credit: adike/Shutterstock.com

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Decoding the Brain Goes Global With the International Brain Initiative - Singularity Hub

Space and time are intertwined, called space-time, and gravity has the ability to stretch space-time. Objects with a large mass will be able to stretch space-time to the point where our perception of it changes, known as time dilation. The more mass an object has, the more it stretches and slows down time.

For example, Sagittarius A* the gigantic black hole at the centre of the galaxy would almost be able to stretch time to a point where it almost comes to a complete standstill.

Sagittarius A* has a radius of 22 million kilometres and a mass of more than four million times that of the Sun.

In other words, it is very dense.

And because it is so heavy, it has the ability to completely stretch out space-time, and travelling towards its centre means time would almost come to a standstill for you.

However, if you were somehow able to travel back out of a black hole, you could theoretically reverse the arrow of time.

Jeff Koch, a former physics professor, wrote on Q&A site Quora: Time does lose its arrow in a black hole. You could move back and forth in time.

But there is a major stumbling block if you were trying top achieve this.

The gravitational pull of a black hole is so immense that not even light can escape its grasp, so once you are closing into the singularity, a one-dimensional point where gravity becomes infinite and space and time become curved, there is no turning back.

READ MORE:Black hole mystery: Could discovery be a massive neutron star?

Prof Koch continued: But you cant avoid the singularity, because you are always forced to move forward in the radial space direction towards the singularity. You can not stay in one place or move away from the singularity.

Getting to a black hole would also be a major stumbling block.

In fact, the nearest black hole to our planet is located 6,523 light-years away. One light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.

The farthest humans have been from Earth is 248,655 miles (400,171 km) in 1970 as part of NASAs Apollo 13 mission when the craft swung around the far side of the moon it took almost three days to get there.

DON'T MISSTHIS is where you will travel to if you fall into a black hole[INSIGHT]First photographed black hole producing jets near to speed of light[STUDY]Scientists stunned by monster black holes in dwarf galaxies[ANALYSIS]

There are a few ways in which a black hole can form.

Scientists believe the most common instance is when a star, thousands of times the size of the Sun, collapses in on itself when it dies - known as a supernova.

Another way is when a large amount of matter, which can be in the form of a gas cloud or a star collapses in on itself through its own gravitational pull.

Finally, the collision of two neutron stars can cause a black hole.

The gist of all three ways is that a massive amount of mass located in one spot can cause a black hole.

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Time travel discovery: THIS is how you could move back and forward in time in a black hole - Express.co.uk

Like the settlers of old, space explorers will live off the land. But if self-sufficiency on Earth is difficult, its orders of magnitude more challenging in space, where there are no trees to build shelter, no plants and animals to eat, no water to drink, and no breathable air.

Like The Martians Mark Watney, future space explorers will have to use a heavy dose of science-y resourcefulness to survive hostile environments on the moon and Mars. Luckily, also like Mark Watney, theyll have access to some of the brightest brains on the planet.

Some of those brains, currently working at the European Space Agency, are making a machine that transmutes moon dust into oxygento breathe and make rocket fuel withand metal for building.

Truly, the surface of the moon is a barren wasteland. Its like being exposed to the vacuum of deep space with the modest benefit of a little ground under your feet and dust on your boots.

Its this dust, fine, grey, and bone dry, that may prove to be an invaluable resource for lunar homesteaders. Known as lunar regolith, moon dust is 40-45 percent oxygen by weight. Bound up in mineral and glass oxides, oxygen is the most abundant element on the moons surface.

Oxygen is also, obviously, necessary for breathable air, and its a key ingredient in rocket fuelbut you cant breathe or fuel ships with moon dust. Which is where ESA comes in.

The ESA team, led by University of Glasgow PhD candidate and ESA researcher Beth Lomax and ESA research fellow Alexandre Meurisse, is adapting an industrial method developed by UK company, Metalysis.

Called molten salt heat electrolysis, the process involves heating up a basket of simulated moon dustwhich is a close approximation to the real thingand calcium chloride salt to 950 degrees Celsius. The researchers then split off the oxygen with an electric current, leaving behind a pile of metal alloys.

The process can separate 95 percent of the oxygen in 50 hours, but in a pinch, 75 percent can be extracted in just the first 15 hours.

The team unveiled a proof-of-concept last October, which they said was a significant improvement on other similar processes that produce less oxygen or require far higher temperatures. And theres room for improvement. To that end, the team announced last week theyre setting up a new oxygen plant in the Netherlands to further refine things.

A key goal is to reduce the temperature. The higher the temperature, the more energy you need. And energy will be in finite supply on the moon. The team doesnt have a target temperature in mind, Meurisse told Singularity Hub in an email, but they believe they can do better. How much better depends on how lower temperatures affect other aspects of the process (like efficiency).

In addition to oxygen bound up in lunar dust, we know the moon has water. Though the details are still somewhat shrouded in mystery, scientists believe the moons water takes the form of ice in permanently shadowed areas at the poles.

Well need water to drink, of course, but we can also separate it into its elemental components, hydrogen and oxygen, by electrolysis. Provided we can get to the moons ice, how does the ESA processs energy requirements stack up to the electrolysis of water?

Meurisse said the two resources will likely have different trade-offs to consider (though we may well need need both to support a sustainable presence on the moon).

Because ESAs process involves high temperatures, its very energy intensive compared to water electrolysis which can be done at room temperature. But moon dust covers the entire surface as far as the eye can see. Grab a shovel and bag some up. The moons ice, on the other hand, will be rarer and much more difficult to mine, and we arent sure of its composition or what kind of processing itll require to make it usable.

Theres also something else to considerthat pile of metal left over once the oxygen has been pulled off and siphoned away. This metal may prove to be a reliable building material, something the ESA team will also look into exploiting in the coming years.

Could [the metals] be 3D printed directly, for example, or would they require refining? Meurisse asked. The precise combination of metals will depend on where on the Moon the regolith is acquired fromthere would be significant regional differences.

Next, the team will build a pilot plant that could operate on the moon (but wont be sent there yet) by the mid-2020s.

In the longer term, if the technology proves scalable and space-worthy, it could help make the moon into a gas station for spacecraft in Earth orbit and beyond. Manufacturing fuel on the lunar surface may prove more cost-efficient than dragging it up from Earth. Ultimately, explorers may use moon dust to breathe, build, and fuel missions across the solar system.

Image Credit: NASA

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This Marvelous Machine Splits Moon Dust Into Oxygen and Metal - Singularity Hub

Summary: Industrial revolutions reshaped the world. But during the long pause of tech progress since WWII, we forgot what they do to society. Here is a reminder. A timely one, since a new revolution has begun.

For the world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air. Treebeard the Ent in Tolkiens The Return of the King.

Technological progress slowed so much after WWII that we no longer remember what rapid change looks like. Compare two lives to see what it was like.

Bat Masterson was born on a farm in 1853, amidst people living hard lives with only simple machines. Women drew water from wells, making them old before their times. He became a gunfighter in the tech boom known as the Wild West. He was a sportswriter for the New York Morning Telegraph when he died in 1921 in a city of cars, telephones, electricity, and a powerful public health infrastructure. If we transported his mother through the Time Tunnel from her 1853 home to his 1921 home, how quickly could she adapt? Everything would be different, with a thousand advances beyond her imagination.

June Cleaver was a mother in the 1957 sitcom Leave it to Beaver

Another example: imagine if we shifted General Pershing one hundred years into the future from 1918 WWI to command a modern Army division. He would recognize all the major new tools: aircraft (fighters and bombers), submarines, rockets, radio, and tanks. But if we shifted the Duke of Wellington from the Battle of Waterloo (1815) to WWI (1917), the Duke would be lost amidst the new tech.

The specific dates of the previous industrial revolution are arbitrary, depending on whether one looks at the laboratory breakthroughs or when engineers build them. Whatever the dates, it reshaped the world.

The Singularity has happened; we call it the industrial revolution or the long nineteenth century. It was over by the close of 1918. Exponential yet basically unpredictable growth of technology, rendering long-term extrapolation impossible (even when attempted by geniuses) Check. Massive, profoundly dis-orienting transformation in the life of humanity, extending to our ecology, mentality and social organization? Check. Annihilation of the age-old constraints of space and time? Check.

The Singularity in Our Past Light-Cone by Cosma Shalizi (Assoc. Prof of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon).

The revolution gave per capita GDP in the developed nations a boost that lasted through the 1960s. But few noticed its ending. In the 1960s, people believed in a future of rapid technological progress. But all we got was the manned space program (an expensive trip to nowhere) and the supersonic transport (a premature technology) and radical changes in the narrow fields of communications and computing. So technological progress slowed, as did economic growth.

Now a new revolution might have begun.

The most obvious wave coming is more automation from the combination of semi-intelligent machines, better algorithms, improved cheap sensors, and better manipulators.

Algorithms have already changed the workplace. In the days of yore, for example, every bank had credit officers who personally approved each loan; now algorithms do so faster, better, and cheaper for most consumer loans and mortgages.

As the revolution begins, we have credit cards with chips (replacement for cash), self-driving cars with Star Trek-like sensors and computers, retail kiosks, and facial recognition systems. All have the ability to reshape the workplace. For example, fast-food ordering kiosks provide faster and cheaper service and customers prefer them.

An industrial revolution differs from the narrow advances in the past few generations by its breath. Drones, solar power, gigabyte broadband, smart machines, 3-D printing, re-usable spaceships these and a host of other new technologies are already reshaping our world.

Coming are far greater advances, such as guard robots, computer-generated actors and models, sexbots, and wonders as yet seen only in science fiction tales. They will have a Richter 10 impact on society.

{The arrival of sexbots} will blow up the world. It will make crack cocaine look like decaffeinated coffee. Anonymous (source here).

The pace of progress appears to be accelerating towards greater breakthrough technologies.Here are three candidates from a long list. Only a few need succeed to change everything.

All this is great news for our descendants, as we move to the wonderful world predicted by Lord Keynes in 1930. Revolutions do not solve problems so much as make them irrelevant. But rapid growth creates its own problems. Look at 1880s London in this slightly altered quotation from William Manchesters biography The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Visions of Glory.

The city itself is overwhelmed, engulfed by changes with which it has not learned to cope, and which are scarcely understood. Some were inherent in the trebling of the population, some consequences of industrialization. Particles of grime from the factory smokestacks produce impenetrable smog which reduces visibility to a few feet.

Much of the city stinks. The citys sewage system is at best inadequate and in the poorer of neighborhoods nonexistent. Buildings elsewhere are often constructed over cesspools which, however, have grown so vast that they form ponds, surrounding homes with moats of effluvia.

And the narrow, twisted streets are neither sealed nor asphalted. People lock their windows, even in summer, but they have a lot to keep out: odors, dust.

And then there was the manure from the horses (in 1880, NYC had 180 thousand) Nobody saw this coming, and so people had to react instead of prepare. Lets do better this time.

Among the biggest economic disruptions will be from big companies unable to ride these waves. Such as Xerox who dominated the copier business and invented most of the key elements of personal computing. Such as Kodak inventor of the digital camera (1975) and organic LEDs (1987), the one-time leader in digital radiography and blood testing equipment (history here). Such as GE whose serial screw-ups are legion (e.g., see Fast Heat: How Korea Won the Microwave War by Ira C. Magaziner and Mark Patinkin in the Harvard Business Review, January-February 1989).

The social and political problems from an industrial revolution will be even more difficult for investors to manage. Two can be foreseen. First, the struggle to share the fruits of increased productivity between labor and owners. This can be solved with a little wisdom, but often a little wisdom is more than a people have on tape. Failure at this could make burying gold in the backyard a winning strategy.

Second, coping with widespread unemployment. Many remain in denial about this. In their 2004 book, The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market, Frank Levy and Richard Murnane discuss fields where computerization should have little effect on the percentage of the workforce engaged in these tasks. They list truck driving as one such field. Only 16 years later that prediction looks foolish. Imagine what another 16 years will bring. Discussing the coming job apocalypse is beyond the scope of this article. I will write about it if there is any demand.

So far we prepare for these things by closing our eyes. I doubt that will prove successful, and it squanders our lead time.

Risk and reward. Greed and fear. Booms and busts. Industrial revolutions do not change their natures, but make all of these larger. Understanding the economic regime of our time can inform your decision-making in all aspects of life.

Just as the date is vague when the previous revolution began, so will the start of the next one. There are no milestones for such things. But if you look for it, you will see the signals.

Ideas!For some shopping ideas see my recommended books and filmsat Amazon. Also, see a story about our future: Ultra Violence: Tales from Venus.

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By Ray Kurzweil. See his website.

From the publisher

At the onset of the twenty-first century, humanity stands on the verge of the most transforming and the most thrilling period in its history. It will be an era in which the very nature of what it means to be human will be both enriched and challenged, as our species breaks the shackles of its genetic legacy and achieves inconceivable heights of intelligence, material progress, and longevity.

For over three decades, the great inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil has been one of the most respected and provocative advocates of the role of technology in our future. In his classic The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence

That merging is the essence of the Singularity, an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. In this new world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality. We will be able to assume different bodies and take on a range of personae at will. In practical terms, human aging and illness will be reversed; pollution will be stopped; world hunger and poverty will be solved. Nanotechnology will make it possible to create virtually any physical product using inexpensive information processes and will ultimately turn even death into a soluble problem.

While the social and philosophical ramifications of these changes will be profound, and the threats they pose considerable, The Singularity Is Near maintains a radically optimistic view of the future course of human development. As such, it offers a view of the coming age that is both a dramatic culmination of centuries of technological ingenuity and a genuinely inspiring vision of our ultimate destiny.

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The new industrial revolution will change everything - Fabius Maximus journal

Key takeaways:

Entrepreneur and investor Peter Diamandis predicts that the future of shopping will be always on, thanks to ubiquitous augmented reality.

Artificial intelligence is in position to streamline and personalise the process, while virtual reality shopping can be successful if it creates a more social experience.

Brands should prepare for far more data collection by asking the right questions and using AI to correlate more details.

SAN FRANCISCO Heres the future of shopping, as Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Peter Diamandis sees it: augmented reality glasses will present an always-on shopping mode, artificially intelligent digital assistants will know your taste better than you and clothing will be made exactly to your measurements.

And it could happen faster than one might think, he says. Diamandiss book, The Future is Faster Than You Think, out today and co-written with Steven Kotler, outlines his vision for how a number of converging innovations will drastically and imminently change industries like retail and advertising.

Diamandis is in the business of looking toward the future. In 1994, he founded the X Prize Foundation, which rewards technological development and whose board of trustees include filmmaker James Cameron, media mogul Arianna Huffington and Google co-founder Larry Page. In 2008, he co-founded Singularity University, the Silicon Valley innovation school that counts Moncler among its pupils.

On the fashion front, Diamandis outlines three key developments on his radar: shopping through virtual reality, in which an AI fashion advisor is there to guide you; AR shopping that is supercharged by AI and 5G; and 3D printing and just-in-time manufacturing.

The proliferation of AI and AI assistants, he says, will play a significant role in intuiting what people want and influencing purchasing decisions.

The question is, can AI ultimately become a better fashion adviser to me than any human can?I believe the answer is going to be yes because AI will know me even better than myself, he says. But this decade is less about AI displacing humans [and] more about AI-human collaboration.

Here is what Diamandis thinks fashion should be thinking about in the 2020s. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

AR and VR are two of your core pillars influencing fashion, but it seems that AR has so far been leading the charge.

If you look at comments by [Apple CEO] Tim Cook and others, they expect that augmented reality will be 10x the opportunity of VR. That's true.

We talk in the book about turning on shopping mode, so as you're walking down the street [wearing AR glasses], rather than seeing what the shop owner puts in the window, your AI knows what you're shopping for, your size and your favourite colours. Imagine looking into a window and seeing what's in the store that you might actually like. Even more interesting is if youre looking at a friends dress or jacket, and if you've got shopping mode on, the price and the designer pops up, and you can buy it right then.

What I find fascinating is being able to determine how the world sees you. Like [having] different ringtones depending on who is calling, imagine having a digital wardrobe so that when this group of friends sees you, you're wearing [one outfit], when strangers see you, youre wearing [something different].

Diamandis's new book, co-written with Steven Kotler, discusses how technological convergence could increase the pace of change in transportation, retail, advertising, education, health, entertainment, food and finance.

So why hasnt fashion been successful with VR? Three years ago, everyone in fashion was really excited about it.

VR has failed from the lack of being a social experience. But that's going to get solved. When you walk into a VR store, an AI fashion attendant will say, What are you looking for? And you can see in front of yourself a fashion show where everyone on the runway is you.

And there's also a digital twin of everything you own, which is fascinating. You can say, What is that going to look like with my shoes, my handbag, my tie? or whatever it might be.

A lot of these technologies are years away from becoming mainstream. Are there any specific technologies that a fashion brand should invest in now?

It's all about data and asking great questions, and I can start to ask AI to analyse it.

There is already a combination of sensors and networks, and we're heading toward a world where it's going to be possible for you to know anything you want, anytime, anywhere. Now, you can look up the GDP of Ghana in about 30 seconds, but if I asked you how many red sports cars have driven down the street in the last half hour? That's unlikely but the information is there.

Were heading toward what I call a trillion sensor economy which means that there will be cameras everywhere. So if I'm a fashion designer, I can ask, What colours are most popular today walking down Madison Avenue? Does it correlate with the temperature or the weather? Does it correlate with any fashion campaigns or Vogue covers?

While some of this technology might already exist, customers might not be ready to adopt it. How can brands navigate that without moving too fast?

The reality is for consumers to adopt; there really needs to be a 10x better price-performance improvement. It can't be a little bit better. It has to be a lot better. Sometimes you have to do that at your own cost to get people to shift over.

Amazon prioritised speed, cost and variety over profitability, but they won the world.But, its important to note, the adoption rate for technologies is accelerating.

Your book references the success of Amazon, but it hasnt yet mastered luxury fashion. Is Amazon well-positioned to offer luxury concessions?

Amazon's brand stands for cheaper, faster, more variety which is the opposite [of luxury]. Amazon is a global fulfilment house and a front-end for search. They'll have to do luxury goods through someone else's brand.

I mentor CEOs about software as a service and AI as a service. Every company today needs to rethink how they're building their organisation. You're not hiring the same old groups of people and building a giant org chart stuffed with people. You're now building an organisation where you have layers of software. Your fulfilment layer may be delivered by Amazon; your customer service layer may be provided by Amazon; your marketing may be provided by Amazon. And you're really at the top of the stack deciding what products you want to provide, shaping your brand.

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A top Silicon Valley futurist on how AI, AR and VR will shape fashion's future - Vogue Business

With the conclusion of the Infinity Saga and the exits of Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has more question marks than its had in years. And with a dearth of real information, rumors are flying about whats in store for the future of the franchise.

The latest tantalizing piece of potential information concerns Captain Marvel. Showbiz CheatSheet, citing current narrative projections in the MCU and leaks from Marvel insiders, reports that in addition to the long-rumored A-Force, Captain Marvel is the natural choice to lead another rumored superhero team: The Ultimates.

Marvel head Kevin Feige has said that Captain Marvel will be a core piece of the puzzle moving forward, and leading both the all-female A-Force and the mixed-gender Ultimates would certainly make that a promise kept.

The A-Force came to be in a short-lived comic series published in 2015 and 2016. It includes Captain Marvel, Medusa, She-Hulk, Singularity, Nico Minoru, and Dazzler Thor.

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She-Hulk is coming to her own Disney+ series. Jane Foster is taking on the mantle of Mighty Thor inThor: Love and Thunder. It would make sense to put Captain Marvel, a character played by an Oscar winner who already has a solo Marvel film under her belt, at the head of the team of characters whove already debuted in the MCU.

Like the A-Force, The Ultimates was also a limited comic book series published in the early aughts. It currently counts Black Panther, Ms. America (who will reportedly appear in a Disney+ show), Spectrum (who appeared inCaptain Marvel), and Blue Marvel as members. With the exception of the latter, an Ultimates movie would have the same advantage of featuring characters who already exist in the MCU.

It also seems likely that Marvel wants to get Captain Marvel and Black Panther on screen together, and an Ultimates movie would be a relatively easy way to do so.

Alas, however, these are just rumors, and whats at least as likely as an elaborate secret plan already being hatched is that Feige and company are still making decisions about the future.

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Captain Marvel Might Be Leading Two Superhero Teams in Future MCU Films - Fatherly

WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Captain Marvel #14, by Kelly Thompson, Lee Garbett, Tamra Bonvillain and VC's Clayton Cowles, on sale now.

Vox Supreme, the powerful mutated Kree who nearly destroyed the Inhumans, is using Captain Marvel to kill her fellow Avengers in a bid to get their genetic material. Threatening the lives of innocents all around the world with a series of hidden bombs, the villain has forced Carol intoa new costume through which he can monitor her actions to ensure her compliance. However, Captain Marvel hasproven tricky so far, hiding Thor and Tony Stark/Iron Man inside Singularity's pocket dimension and substituting clones for her comrades to buy time as she figures out how to diffuse Vox Supreme's bombs.

As she continues her quest in Captain Marvel#14,Carol comes face to face with an Avenger she might not be able to match: Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk.

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After explaining the situation to Thor and Tony in Singularity, Carol reports back to Vox Supreme, who threatens to kill more innocents if she doesn't work faster. The villain suspects Captain Marvel is attempting to undermine his operation due to the time she's spent in Singularity, where he's unable to monitor her. Ultimately, though, he decides he's still getting what he wants. His plans for the clones isn't entirely clear, but their genetic material is indeed furthering some nefarious goal.

Captain Marvel proceeds to pursue her next target: Avengers chairman T'Challa/Black Panther. Heading to find Black Panther just outside of Palo Alto,the Wakandan hero gets the jump on Carol, blasting her out of the sky. However, since he doesn't know his attacker is Captain Marvel due to her new suit, he's caught off guard by her immense powers and is knocked out.

That's when She-Hulk arrives.

RELATED: Marvel's She-Hulk Show Reportedly Starts Filming This Summer

Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema, Walters first appeared in 1980's Savage She-Hulk #1. She got her powers after receiving a blood transfusion from Bruce Banner/Hulk, her cousin. Although she's not as powerful as her unstoppable cousin in most conditions, She-Hulk is still incredibly formidable and retains more of her personality and sense. Currently, she's a member of the main Avengers team and has proven herself an absolute powerhouse in their battles.

When She-Hulk comes on the scene inCaptain Marvel#14, she hits Carol with a massive punch that sends her flying. Captain Marvel immediately admits that she wasn't expecting to take on She-Hulk.

With the clock ticking before Vox Supreme kills more innocents, Captain Marvel will now have to fight She-Hulk and subdue her long enough to get both her and Black Panther into Singularity. Jennifer Walters is definitely someone you don't want to fight without a plan, but Captain Marvel's anonymity may give her a major advantage. However, even if she does succeed, Carol is only making Vox Supreme stronger and furthering his malicious plans by bringing him Avengers clones. So unless she can figure out a solution soon, she'll have even bigger problems than a Hulk.

Captain Marvel #15 releases Feb. 19 from Marvel Comics.

KEEP READING:Captain America and Cyclops Join Marvel Snapshots in April

Did the DC Universe Just Get Rebooted... Again?

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Captain Marvel Faces the ONE Avenger Who Can Stop Her Rampage - CBR - Comic Book Resources

Bells ring out to mark a new day dawning on Arcadia, the quiet island of Battleworld where Marvel's mightiest women reside. As She-Hulk takes over command from the night shift, a team led by Captain Marvel patrols to ensure the island's safety. Carefree, the fliers, including Dazzler, Nico Minoru, and America Chavez, soar out over the ocean.

From the depths a megalodon appears, snapping its gnarly teeth at our fearless heroes and snagging America's hoodie. As she is dragged deep underwater, the team fights the giant shark, defending the people of Arcadia and trying to limit damage to their community. America wrestles free, Dazzler wounds the beast, and a very miffed America decides she doesn't need some megalodon stinking up the place, lifting it over her head and chucking it as far as she can.

America has saved everyone, but that doesn't matter in Battleworld, a land ruled and held together by the will of God Emperor Doom. Doom's laws are immutable and the consequences for breaking them weighty. The Thors who are essentially Doom's cops on Battleworld arrive and arrest America, taking her from her home, her people, and the family she has with Loki (in a female form) and Nico.

She-Hulk tries to fight for America to be allowed to stay but is met with draconian claims about law and order and the command that she do her job as Baroness of Arcadia. But it seems like Doom and his lackeys don't remember which giant green badass they're messing with.

Written by G. Willow Wilson and Marguerite Bennett, with pencils by Jorge Molina, inks by Jorge Molina and Craig Yeung, colors by Laura Martin and Matt Milla, and letters by Cory Petit, 2015's A-Force boasts the first all-female Avengers team. The events of the five-issue series take place as a part of Marvel's "Secret Wars" crossover event during which all the various universes that exist within the Marvel comics are destroyed and the surviving pieces of reality are cobbled together to form Battleworld.

Each domain of Battleworld looks completely different, and there are multiple versions of your favorite heroes living in different domains. In Arcadia, the all-female Avengers, who call themselves A-Force, live peacefully in their little feminist utopia. That is until the fateful day America is arrested and imprisoned.

This beloved series made FANGRRLS favorite comics of the decade list, and after "Secret Wars" ended the series lived on as A-Force (2016), continuing the story back in the non-Battleworld Marvel universe.

When the aforementioned giant shark is followed in quick succession by the arrival of a universe incarnated as a girl and a Sentinel (of X-Men fame), it becomes apparent that someone is trying to destabilize Arcadia. If She-Hulk wasn't already pissed, these additional anomalies make her angry enough to risk incurring Doom's wrath exploring one of the portals that open up over Arcadia. Her exploration leads her to discover the traitor in A-Force's midst: Loki.

With the Thors descending on Arcadia and Loki wresting control from She-Hulk, our heroes flee. In the process, Medusa is killed by the Thors and Singularity hides A-Force inside her she is a pocket universe after all. They eventually return and expose Loki for the power-hungry jerk she is, but not before Loki tears down the wall keeping the undead separate from the living. The forces of Arcadia fight back the surging hordes of death incarnate with Singularity's help, seemingly killing her in the process.

Arcadia is never the same after the events of A-Force. Where She-Hulk believed she was building a garden, a paradise away from the terrors of Battleworld, she finds that just under the surface is rot the rot of corruption, the rot of authoritarianism, the rot of a utopia based in lies. And once that rot is revealed, it's impossible to pretend it's not there. From complacency to feminist revolution and back again, A-Force is a story about how we delude ourselves into thinking everything is fine, but when we pay attention, we find ourselves in a complicated web of power, deceit, and cruelty, whether in a fictional story or IRL today.

Utopias aren't real in part because they are so hard to maintain. What makes for a perfect life? The answer depends on who you are, both in terms of your power and privilege and in terms of your personality. And how do you maintain that perfect life when some people aren't pleased with their station within it? Doom's solution an exacting and unquestionable system that metes out punishment without regard for context or cause works, but it only works for some, as becomes apparent in other "Secret Wars" stories.

If A-Force represents feminism within an imperfect world created by Doom (aka the patriarchy), then by extension, there is also a traitor in our midst. Until we are all committed to making our feminism anti-racist, queer-inclusive, trans-celebratory, fat-loving, anti-ableist, and so much more, we are the traitors we worry about. We are as power-hungry as Loki if we are unwilling to use our privilege to change the world.

After all, a feminist utopia that relies on extreme punishment, incarceration, and bowing to a patriarch is no utopia at all.

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A-Force brought a feminist utopia to life only to reveal its flaws - SYFY WIRE

Flying to the shelves this week from Marvel Comics,Captain Marvel #14 delves deeper into Kelly Thompsons The Last Avenger story arc with our favorite half-Kree hero.

Captain Marvel #14is a lot lighter in tone than the last two issues. This is mostly due to how much weve figured out at this point. With new light shed on Carols plan, fans can smile again knowing the good Captain has not actually gone rogue.

While Carols methods have been ruthless and unforgiving, her reasons have finally become clear. With this new villain mashup Vox Supreme puppeteering her every move, Carol has to be careful and quick thinking. Especially with the lives of countless Kree refugees at stake.

From the start, this issue follows a different pace from the previous two. We dont jump into Carol pounding on her next Avenger target hard and fast like before. In fact, we actually start with a little humor instead.

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Thompson seems to be slowly adjusting her readers (and potentially herself) back to a comfort zone after shocking them in issue #12 with what seemed to be Carol killing Thor. Its an interesting way to present this to us. First, shock the fans and grab the attention of the public in general. Then slowly bring us back to her usual style and so the old fans are comfortable and the newcomers see what shes all about.

After establishing what Carols working with as her plan right now, we do get back to her taking on her next target. Since we now know its all a ruse, it loses that dark tone, but Vox Supreme makes up for it in a few ways.

For starters, Voxs design is just eerie overall. His method of forcing Carol into doing this is somewhat cookie-cutter for villains, but it is still effective. Especially since hes detonated one his bombs from the start.

Theres just something about sickly neon green accenting black that just yells EVIL

What we now have is a story that is still very different from Thompsons usual works but is still familiar enough to not feel completely foreign. But most importantly, is the story still interesting now that the question is Captain Marvel going to kill all of the Avengers? has been answered?

The honest answer is yes. While the hook was Evil Carol what we have now is the mystery of this new villains full plan. What is Vox Supremes goal? Why did he appear now? And why is he using Carol specifically?

Captain Marvel #14even makes these questions more apparent. Tony and Carol are both unsure what to make of it. Carol even attempts to dig at Voxs plans before he shuts her out completely. We havent been given much to work with ourselves in figuring it out, and even though shes clearly not evil, Carol is still fighting the Avengers. This is still an active hook for the series.

Visually this comic is no slouch either. Each character shown has very defining features that stand out in their design. Thors monstrous upper body contrasts with Tonys smaller physique but Tonys overall more put together compared to Thor looking so rough. Carol, on the other hand, looks tired. Yes, the large shadows around her eyes really bring that home but more than that her expressions have this distaste to them.

This image kind of sums up the above paragraph.

The colors for this issue by Tamra Bonvillain are well decided on. Voxs pallet reminds me of a can of Monster Energy Drink, which is both weird and cool given his overall design. The backgrounds are very immersive from the space theme inside Singularity, to the vast dry area of Northern California.

Captain Marvel #14is lettered by VCs Clayton Cowles who also adds to the contrast between Tony and Thor. Thor is expressed very loud and bombastic while Tony, entirely because Carol damaged his windpipe, is struggling to speak at all.

This was a necessary issue to take a break from most of the nonstop action the previous two had. It explains the situation Carol is in more while also leaving us with many more questions on where we go from here.

This story arc has been fairly welcoming to anyone who may not have kept up withCaptain Marvelin recent times. Id still recommend checking out Thompsons entire run with the character, as well as her other works. But anyone with an interest in the story arc alone can jump right intoCaptain Marvel #12 with average knowledge of the Marvel Universe and go from there.

I hope to see Carol continue to take on the remaining Avengers almost as a test to see if she could. But I am more interested in knowing where the grand scheme of this tale is leading. As such I will continue to look forward to each issue and I still recommend checking this story out for anyone who hasnt.

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CAPTAIN MARVEL #14 Gives Us Answers But Then More Questions. - Monkeys Fighting Robots