By 2050, 70% of the world’s population is expected to live in cities. This brings up some interesting questions around privacy in public spaces. What happens when, under the guise of public safety, we decide that everyone with a smartphone ought to have their movements monitored? In Russia, you might get away with identifying criminals […]
If you think that they’re watching you, you’re probably right, especially if you live in China … or the United States. A report last year found those two countries – rivals in everything from robotics to artificial intelligence – are also tops when it comes to the number of surveillance cameras. China leads the way […]
No matter how smart you can make your city, criminals will always find a way to beat the system. Take pickpockets for example. In one major European city, authorities couldn’t figure out why “Pickpockets operate in this area” signs kept cropping up in highly trafficked locations. When the signs were taken down, someone would immediately replace […]
When it comes to determining how safe it is to drive in any given country, you can read all the statistics you want, but the best way to get some ground truth is to rent a car and see for yourself. For example, take the country of Rwanda. It’s the second most dangerous country in […]
About one in three people on the planet currently lack access to safe drinking water, according to the World Health Organization. You might recall that Cape Town nearly ran out of freshwater last year, and cities from Tokyo to London could also face water shortages in the next few decades. You’re probably thinking that the […]
If you watch the news regularly, you might think the world is a dangerous place, especially if you subscribe to one of the many online news aggregators that feed your paranoid echo chamber with personalized news feeds. In reality, both violent and property crimes have dropped significantly over the last 25 years. Public perception is […]
One of the things that you learn after being a digital nomad for a while is that some cities are much better designed than others. There is a certain aesthetic quality to a well-laid out urban center like New York City compared to, say, Boston, which one article on the topic of city grids said […]
We recently marveled at the rapid growth of an Internet of Things (IoT) startup called Samsara that went from $0 to $6.3 billion in valuation in just four years, quickly dominating sectors like fleet management and industrial automation. Of course, we live in a fantasy startup world where herds of billion-dollar unicorns roam wild, consuming […]
A lot of our articles on green technology focus on innovations that wean us away from the burning of fossil fuels, whether it’s improving solar fuel efficiency or designing advanced nuclear power plants. But another strategy to lighten the load on mother Earth rather than start packing for Mars is to be more efficient in […]
Oceanfront property is some of the most sought-after and expensive in the world. Nearly 25 years ago, the median value of waterfront properties was 64% more than the median value of all homes, according to Zillow. About five years ago, the difference was more like 116% – and that was while the housing market was […]