Professional Documents
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START
The tar-sands swirl
START
A bit of home at 11,000m
START
The prophet of hard things
GEAR
Interiors special
IDEAS BANK
Brain food and provocations
PLAY
Deep-sea robots
Clockwise from
left: Analytic
craftswoman
Hilda Hellstrm;
a 3D-printed
Generico chair;
Vincent Deary says
we must decide
to make more
effective decisions
089
PLAY
Puzzle master
PLAY
Art buzz
HOW TO
Life enhancement
Nicholas Coleridge
WIRED, 13 Hanover Square, London W1S 1HN
Please contact our editorial team via the following email addresses:
Reader feedback: rants@wired.co.uk
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Chairman and chief executive, Cond Nast International
Jonathan Newhouse
Directors: Jonathan Newhouse (chairman and chief executive),
Nicholas Coleridge (managing director), Stephen Quinn, Annie Holcroft, Pam Raynor,
Jamie Bill, Jean Faulkner, Shelagh Crofts, Albert Read, Patricia Stevenson
WIRED LOGO: BRENT CLARK. THE COLLAGES REPRESENT THE BREADTH OF WIREDS SUBJECTS. MATERIALS: (W) A KIWI PLANT AND SOME IVY; (I) A 1966 COWBOY ANNUAL; (R) A VICTORIAN SCIENCE PHOTOGRAPHIC
ANNUAL FOUND AT A FLEA MARKET, (E) WOOD FROM OLD FENCING; (D) SEVENTIES PENGUIN BOOK COVERS. THESE WERE GLUED AND STITCHED TOGETHER WITH THE HELP OF A LIGHT BOX AND THEN SCANNED AT 600DPI
OFF-PAGE
PRINT
FEEDBACK
Summon the
salmon! How?
With a fish cannon!
Motherboard stupid
FEEDBACK
PODCAST
REDESIGN
338
Theres a guy
called Klimchak
who makes music
whilst cooking. He
wants a waterproof
pair but hell have to
put some Marigolds
over them for now.
Imogen Heap on
her Mi.Mu glove
collaborators. For
more, visit wired.
co.uk/podcast
CONTRIBUTORS
MAKING WIRED / ROOFTOP ESCAPADES
WILLIAM POUNDSTONE
InHowTo,theauthorofHowtoPredictthe
Unpredictable shares his tips on beating
the system. I make contrarian decisions
several times a day, he says. I use the
rightmost seconds gures on my digital
watch. At a glance, theres a 50/50 chance
the number will be odd or even. Useful for
a strategic random l/r choice in sports.
CLARE DOWDY
The building
opposite MITs
CityFARM, from
where this shot
was taken, wasnt
just off-limits, it
was also still under
construction. Sorry,
health and safety
COVERLINES
GET
STICKY!
KEVIN GRAY
FROM THE
EDITOR
BSME ART DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR, CONSUMER 2013 PPA MEDIA BRAND
OF THE YEAR, CONSUMER 2013 DMA TECHNOLOGY MAGAZINE OF THE
YEAR 2012 DMA EDITOR OF THE YEAR 2012 BSME EDITOR OF THE YEAR,
SPECIAL INTEREST 2012 D&AD AWARD: COVERS 2012 DMA EDITOR OF
THE YEAR 2011 DMA MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR 2011 DMA TECHNOLOGY
MAGAZINE OF THE YEAR 2011 BSME ART DIRECTOR OF THE YEAR,
CONSUMER 2011 D&AD AWARD: ENTIRE MAGAZINE 2011 D&AD AWARD:
COVERS 2010 MAGGIES TECHNOLOGY COVER 2010 PPA DESIGNER
OF THE YEAR, CONSUMER 2010 BSME LAUNCH OF THE YEAR 2009
David Rowan
The tar
sand
swirls
gopro.madison.co.uk
A NEW
CLASS OF
PRODUCT:
GADI AMITS
DESIGNS
FITBIT
Originally aimed at
health-conscious
women, the Fitbit
got data-logging
to go mainstream.
LYTRO CAMERA
Its light-eld tech
allows users to
adjust the focus of
their photos after
theyve been taken.
PROJECT ARA
A Google project to
be released in 2015,
the Ara phone
uses swappable
components.
At 24 years
old a humans
cognitive motor
performance has
reached its peak.
How can your business tap
into youthful knowledge?
Well show you.
Presentations / Workshops
Reports / Events / Design
A bit of
home at
11,000m
FACTORYDESIGN
launches this December? It was designed in London, by Acumen Design Associates and
Factorydesign. Thai Airways, South African Airways and Cathay Pacic have sought out London
designers, too. The pre-eminence of the UK in design education gives the British industry
an edge when it comes to dening functioning interiors, says Peter Tennent, cofounder of
Factorydesign. In fact, the cabins for several airlines worldwide were created by four London
design rms Priestmangoode, JPA Design, Acumen Design Associates and Factorydesign.
Our motor- and racing-car industries are great at high-quality, low-quantity production,
says Paul Priestman, director of Priestmangoode. Londons four main aviation consultancies,
he says, borrow from that heritage. Heres a glimpse into how they work. Clare Dowdy
JPA DESIGN
With a background in
architecture and interior
design, JPA Designs founder
James Park has built a
reputation for designing
on-board areas that make
the best use of limited
space. Cabins have a nite
volume and airlines are keen
to maximise their products
to provide as much as they
can for their passengers,
says Park. For Singapore
Airlines investment in its
new Boeing 777-300ERs,
Park has created the ultimate
business-class cabin
with lie-at seating and
Above: Etihads
The Residence,
one of which will
be installed on
each of its A380s
Left: the new
business-class
cabin seat in
Singapore Airlines
Boeing 777-300ER
Tablet extra!
Download the WIRED
app to see the
designers sketches
A newcomer to the
sector, Factorydesign
has landed its biggest
client so far with
Etihad Airways. This
layout was achieved
by using a 5mm-thick
lightweight material
called E-leather. At
just 30kg per triple
seat, it reduces overall
seat weight by about
950kg, which in turn
could save $150,000$200,000 (88,000117,000) a year in
fuel. Founded in 1997
by designers Peter
Tennent, Adrian Berry
and Adam White,
it has worked with
luxury brands such as
Mont Blanc. We have
learnt to understand
the intimacy between
people and the objects
or world around them,
says Tennent.
Coming up: Cabin
interiors for Four
Seasons Hotels
luxury jet, launching
in February 2015.
factorydesign.co.uk
ACUMEN DESIGN
ASSOCIATES
Acumen has
more than 15
patented airline
products ying
more than any of
its competitors,
claims founder
Ian Dryburgh. Its
latest project was
installing divan-style
rst-class beds for
Etihad Airways. The
bed mechanism
with retracting and
rotating lap belts
is made to t into a
volume 3.8cm thick,
to maximise the
under-bed stowage.
A former automotive
designer, Dryburgh
devised British
Airways rst
bed in the sky.
Coming up: Acumen
is negotiating with
airlines to launch
its business-class
seat which converts
into the length of
standard rst-class
beds while allowing
for a high-density
cabin layout.
acumen-da.com
PRIESTMANGOODE
The biggest
UK player in
this sector,
Priestmangoode
has a London
staff of 50. We
have worked for
more airlines
and aircraft
manufacturers
than anyone else,
says cofounder
Paul Priestman.
Top: Acumens Aura
business-class seats
Above: Air Frances
new rst-class beds
This includes
Lufthansa,
Malaysia Airlines
and Qatar
Airways. It also
collaborates
with aircraft
suppliers and
manufacturers
such as Airbus,
Boeing and B/E
Aerospace to sell
new concepts to
airlines. Its big
break was building
Virgin Atlantics
rst at-bed seat,
pioneering a new
type of luxury
long-haul comfort.
Coming up: Air
Frances new
rst-class at
beds, which are
over 2m long
and 77cm wide,
due to their
fully retractable
armrests.
priestmangoode.
com
American ecologist
and hearing specialist
Caitlin OConnellRodwell is developing a
new hearing aid inspired
by elephants. Along
with sound, elephants
pick up groundbased vibrations, as
the skin of their feet
and trunks contains
mechanoreceptors
that can sense them.
We [humans] have the
same ability to detect
vibrations, but people
with normal hearing
dont focus on it, says
OConnell-Rodwell.
She has partnered
with HNU Photonics,
a research company
based on Maui, Hawaii,
to develop a patch that
adheres to the skin; this
transduces sound into
vibrations, which the
brain interprets as
a kind of Braille or Morse
code. When participants
touch the device, tiny
electromagnets vibrate.
Mechanoreceptors
sense the vibrations,
and send signals
to the brain.
It turns out that the
vibrotactile sense of
the hearing-impaired
is more pronounced
than that of people with
normal hearing, because
their brains process the
stimuli in the unused
auditory cortex. Theres
a big population that
is underserved and
could benet from the
same use of vibrations
as elephants. Joseph
Bennington-Castro
caitlineoconnell.com
HEAR LIKE
AN
ELEPHANT
FREEDOM
DAYS EVENT
1 AUGUST - 30 SEPTEMBER
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condition. Term: 48 months. Final Payment: 12,143. Finance subject to status. Guarantees may be required. Terms and Conditions apply. Jeep Financial Services, PO Box 4465, Slough, SL1 0RW. *New Cherokee models will benet from complimentary servicing covering the car
for three years or 30,000 miles, including protection for the rst MOT on all qualifying retail sales. Participating dealers only. Prices and specications correct at time of going to print (08/14). Chrysler and CNH Industrial are Ofcial Global Partners of the Expo Milano 2015. To nd
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PHONE
CONTACTS
GETTING
FRIENDLY
Chasing earthquakes
Want to scan our planets core in 3D? Karin Sigloch has
found a way to turn tremors into visualisations of Earth
Above: geophysicist
Karin Sigloch, near
Le Port, Runion,
where her research
ship was anchored
Right: a 3D render
made from waterdepth soundings
of the ocean floor
around Mauritius
6,000m
0m
San Francisco-based entrepreneur Ankur Jain, 24, wants to transform your phones address book and
create a new operating system in the process. His free iOS app, Humin, which launched in August, throws
out the alphabet. Instead, your contacts are ranked according to their relationship with you geography,
time of day, how often you speak, where you rst met and so on. When I land in London, my friends there
pop up, rather than me seeing Aaron every time I open my phone, says Jain. Humin creates a relationship
network from your email, LinkedIn, Google Calendar and Facebook networks. We also build the language
graph of how you know these people, Jain says. So you can search for person who I met through Madhu
at the WIRED ofce in London last week. All your personal data stays on your phone, so Humin doesnt
store any private information. Its not just a better contacts platform. We want to make a social operating
system and put real-world human interactions into searchable context. Good call. MV humin.com
EATS
INTERNATIONAL
DENMARK
EXERCISES
BIKING
JOGGING / RUNNING
PILATES
SEX
SHOPPING
STRENGTH
WALKING
FOOD
DARK BREAD
BREAKFAST CEREAL
EGGS
CHEESE
GREEN VEGETABLES
CHICKEN
MILK
CHOCOLATE
ROOT VEGETABLES
WHITE BREAD
YOGHURT
UNITED KINGDOM
FOOD
EXERC
IS
E
INFOGRAPHIC: VALERIO PELLEGRINI
S
AVERAGE
ERAGE CALORIE
INTAKE PER DAY
I N F O P O R N
AVERAGE CALORIES
BURNED PER DAY
HELP
SAVE
THE
LAPTOP
Your laptop needs help. Most of the worlds laptops are made in the Yangtze
River region. But the pressure of global demand has left the regions natural
resources stretched and unable to cope. In partnership with the Chinese
government, WWF helped create a sustainable development model for the
region, which is home to the iconic giant panda, as well as some 480 million
people. Together, we are revitalizing an ecosystem that can support both
people and nature. Help us look after the world where you live at panda.org
HOW TO
INSTALL A
GIANT
PROPELLER
POSITION
Three Voith
Schneider propellers
rotate on a vertical
axis to enable
the Bold Tern to
move into position.
PRE-LOAD
JACK UP
INSTALL
A crane wrapped
around one leg
stacks the tower
sections, followed
by the generator and
three turbine blades.
JACK DOWN
JET
FUEL
FROM
WATER
Researching for the
US Navy isnt all
paperwork therere
explosions and
remote-controlled
aeroplanes, too
H E B E S T T H I N G A B O U T W O R K I N G F O R T H E U S N AV Y ,
according to chemist Heather Willauer, is developing new technologies. That and access to the toy cupboard. One of her projects involved
50-tonne blasts of TNT and water mist. That was great, watching that go
kaboom, she says. Willauer is busy turning seawater into jet fuel. See, the
ingredients for vehicle-powering hydrocarbons exist in every drop of
seawater hydrogen (in the form of H20) and carbon (as CO2). But nobody knew how to separate and collect the stuff.
Willauer, the principal investigator for the US Naval Research Laboratory, has been working on the problem since 2006,
and in April her team synthesised a batch of fuel, put it in a remote-controlled plane with an internal combustion engine
(above), and held their breath. The plane ew. This means aircraft carriers may one day be able to use power from their
nuclear reactors to zap molecules from the ocean and recombine them into fuel for their ghters. While the liquid to propel
them is still in the R&D stage, Willauer says a person holding a vial of fuel rened from the sea wont be able to tell it
from the stuff thats pulled from the ground and the jets wont know the difference either. Matt Jancer nrl.navy.mil
Above: US Navy
researcher
Heather Willauer
with a model
P-51 Mustang MkII
JUMPING
THE TREND
The sharing
economy can also
come in handy
for the one per
cent. Flyblade
lets holidayers
share helicopters
to the Hamptons;
YachtPlus lets
you divvy up a
superyacht; at
Jumpseat, you
can carpool in
private jets;
and 3rdHome is
Airbnb for luxury
homes. But your
butler already
knew that.
1. MELT
2. MIX
Twice a week,
freight trains full
of uncoloured
parafn wax visit
the factory. An
oil-lled boiler
heats the train
cars with steam,
and the gloop is
pumped into silos
that hold up to
4,535kg of wax
each. The plant
empties a silo
nearly every day.
3. POUR
4. L ABEL
ROYGBIV colours
come off the
line every day,
but exotics
periwinkle, say
must wait until
the factory is
making larger
packs. Then
operators feed
the sticks into
funnels, which
drop one of
each colour on
to a platform so
a mechanical arm
can sweep them
into a box.
4
6. SCAN
A laser etches
a date code on
the cardboard,
and a metal
detector makes
sure nothing
but crayon is
inside. Then,
robotic packing
machines bundle
the boxes on to
pallets, or into the
cardboard display
cases that await
lucky children
in the school
classroom.
WAVES OF DATA
FROM SPACE
E A R LY A D O P T E R S
WHATS EXCITING
JUDE OWER
DEANA MURFITT
HUSSEIN KANJI
Founding partner,
Hoxton Ventures
Kepler launched
in 2009 and is still
going, despite two
malfunctioning
reaction wheels
J A PA N E S E D E S I G N E R S AT O S H I S U G I E WA N T S T O R E D E S I G N T H E
wheelchair; but rst he had to reinvent the wheel. We created a front wheel made up of 24
smaller ones, so it can make very tight turns, explains the CEO and cofounder of WHILL.
The California-based startup wants to transform the everyday lives of wheelchair users
an estimated 1.2 million of whom live in the UK.
WHILL has created the Type-A (pictured), with two omniwheels mounted at the front of
its 60cm-wide frame, giving a turning radius of just 71cm. The four-wheel drive can traverse
grass and gravel, and is controlled by a mouse rather than a joystick. Users can also adjust the
chair remotely using a smartphone app. Sugie claims the battery will last for 19km at speeds
up to 10kph, and that the chair gives users a more active posture thanks to its raised sliding
seat. We wanted to combat the negative association with illness or weakness, he says. I met
ayoungboywhosaidhegaveupgoingtoschoolbecausehewasembarrassedbyhiswheelchair.
The $9,500 (5,600) Type-A will be released in the US this autumn; due to US Food and
Drug Administration wheelchair regulations, the rst 250 will be sold as personal mobility
devices. A second model for medical use, called Type-M, is currently being developed.
Sugie hopes to launch it in the US, Japan and Europe in 2015. The wheelchair hasnt
changed for more than 80 years, says Sugie. That is too long. OF whill.jp
Mobility with
desirability
WIRED
STREETHUB
London-based StreetHub
collects the vibrancy of the
capitals myriad independent
retailers the quirky, the
artsy, the crafty and
bakes them into a one-stop
shopping app. Think indie,
but for the mainstream.
iOS, free streethub.com
PARALLELS ACCESS
0
WEIRD
Kiteboard your
way to funding
Looking to raise your series A? Extreme
sports are the Valleys latest networking tool
Ventures, and Susi
Mai, a professional
kiter), have included
Richard Branson,
Elon Musk and
Yahoo! CFO Kenneth
Goldman. Forbes
estimated the total
net worth of a recent
gathering (each
event can cater for
up to 120 people) at
$7bn (4.1bn).
Startups born at
MaiTai Global
include Postagram,
which began in 2010
when Matt Brezina
1
SEGWAY POLO
ULTIMATE FRISBEE
ENDURANCE CYCLING
SNOWKITING
COO L IF
YOURE 14
THE PROMASTER
SELFIE STICK
Teens are using
cameras-onsticks for perfectlyangled seles.
promaster.com
Londons
making a
hardware
network
A round of golf?
How old-fashioned.
These days, if you
want to secure a
deal with a tech
titan, youd better
start kiteboarding.
It has caught on so
widely that, among
entrepreneurs, its
practically a clich.
Attendees at
MaiTai Global, a
kiteboarding
retreat in Maui
(cofounded by Bill
Tai, a partner at
Charles River
20XX
20X
X Yea
Year ffoun
ounded
oun
ded
UMPING ONTHE MAKER BANDWAGON HAS NEVER BEEN EASIER,THANKSTO ALLTHE SCANNING,
milling and printing tools available and thats causing a boom in physical-stuff startups. London has lots
of people making great hardware, but its hard to nd each other because of how spread out the city is, says
Matt Webb, cofounder and CEO of design studio BERG. So WIRED and Webb set out to map the community.
Crowdsourcing data via Twitter, Facebook and Google+, we highlighted independent startups bringing a
physical product to market, locating 50 rms within the M25, 21 of which were founded in the past year.
Breaking into distributors without a track record is very, very hard, explains Webb. But Kickstarter
allows you to sell directly to customers. Its also becoming easier for startups to nd manufacturers.
London-based Blaze brought its cycle laser-light (WIRED 08.13) to market via PCH Internationals
accelerator programme (06.14), which opened up the product-making and -supply companys Chinese
manufacturing links. Blazes path is something we see happening a lot, says Webb. They have an idea,
Kickstart it, move to east London, then start manufacturing in east Asia. And of course theres the nature
of the capital itself. London offers a brilliant convergence of overlapping scenes, explains
Webb. Cambridge is up the road, so weve got access to that technology, theres lots of great design
colleges and Tech City has the investor base. Its such a vibrant sharing scene. KN
A RAP
WITH THE
PROPHET
OF HARD
THINGS
From Airbnb to Zynga,
Ben Horowitz explains
what founder talent
needs to catch his eye
Above: Ben
Horowitzs blog
(bhorowitz.com)
has a reported ten
million readers
HARD TRUTHS
FROM BEN
HOROWITZS BOOK
WIRED
TIRED
EXPIRED
Z-Man
X-Men
Big Action
Big Data
Big Society
Song Exploder
Mumblecore
Emojinalysis
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ORIGINAL
NEIL HUNT
CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER,
NETFLIX
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HEALTH MONEY
2014
NEXT
GEN
RETAIL
HEADLINE
PARTNER
TICKETING
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SESSION
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Ionut Alexandru
Budisteanu
Bucharest University
Sam Bompas
Founder,
Bompas & Parr
Jay Bregman
Founder & CEO,
Hailo
Esther Dyson
Founder, HICCup &
The Way to Wellville
Joel Jackson
Founder & CEO,
Mobius Motors
Intellectual, investor
and trained
cosmonaut, Dyson
now focuses on
community health.
Kenyas Mobius
Motors designs and
builds affordable
vehicles for Africas
mass market.
Emiliano Kargieman
CEO,
Satellogic
Eric Ladizinsky
Cofounder,
D-Wave Systems
Uma Ramakrishnan
Indias Centre for
Biological Sciences
Nina Tandon
CEO & cofounder,
EpiBone
Rachel Wingfield
Cofounder & creative
director, Loop.pH
Anne Wojcicki
CEO & cofounder,
23andMe
Kargieman is
pioneering the private
space sector and aims
to launch a fleet of
satellites into orbit.
At D-Wave, Ladizinsky
builds the worlds
fastest supercomputers and
quantum processors.
Ramakrishnan uses
evolutionary science
to explain biodiversity,
mainly in the Indian
subcontinent.
23andMe provides
rapid genetic testing
for people curious
about their DNA
make-up and ancestry.
A hot
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IF YOU STRIVE FOR SMART DESIGN AND
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Coffee lover
Hot stuff
Fab foods
The compact45
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multifunctional
ovens with
microwave, giving
you the option of
either standard
baking or the speed
of a traditional
microwave.
Preparing main
course and dessert
simultaneously?
Siemens 3D hot
air technology
distributes heat, so
sweet and savoury
can be cooked
together without
flavours mingling.
Combining hot
air and steam
cooking delivers
moist and tender
vegetables and
meats. In addition,
steam cooking is
healthy it retains
the nutrients and
minerals of foods.
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INSIDER
WIRED
INSIDERS
PICK OF
UPCOMING
EVENTS
WIRED
2014
Follow us on Twitter:
@WIREDINSIDERUK
Follow us on Instagram:
@WIREDINSIDERUK
WIRED 2014:
NEXT
GENERATION
Day three of
WIREDs flagship
event is back for
a second year.
Designed for
young minds aged
12-18, the day is set
to be an inspiring
combination of
talks, activities
and fun. Group
discounts available
for schools.
October 18,
wiredevents.co.uk
HOW TO BUILD
THE FUTURE
WIRED editor
David Rowan hosts
a conversation
with Silicon Valley
entrepreneur and
investor Peter Thiel.
The event, at Kings
Place, London, will
include lessons from
Thiels new book,
Zero to One, on the
principles that are
fundamental to
building success.
September 25,
kingsplace.co.uk
Abundance
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PIONEERS
FESTIVAL
A celebration
of technology,
science and
entrepreneurship in
Vienna. Welcoming
over 2,500 opinion
leaders, the future
of many industries
will be discussed.
Expect two days
of talks, product
demonstrations
and excellent
networking.
29-30 October,
pioneers.io/festival
Lockitron
app-enabled
door lock
WIRED
MONEY
REPORT
2014
ON JULY 1, WE GATHERED
TOGETHER FINANCE
TECHS BIG THINKERS IN
CANARY WHARF. HERE
ARE SOME KEY TAKEAWAYS
BY STEPHEN ARMSTRONG
MAKE CLICK-TO-BUY
A QUICKER PROCESS
SEBASTIAN SIEMIATKOWSKI KLARNA
IMAGINE 100 PEOPLE IN A QUEUE AT THE
32%
Proportion of
e-commerce
which now comes
from mobile
platforms.
Pat Phelan
053
DECISIONS
ARE NOT
BEST LEFT
TO EXPERTS
NOREENA HERTZ ECONOMIST
H e r t z c i te d a s t u d y o f p a ro l e
decisions in an Israeli court. Before
lunch, judges with low blood sugar
granted parole ten per cent of the
time. After lunch, a prisoners
chance of parole rose to 65 per cent.
If the Israeli research showed that
a good lunch has a huge impact
on justice, we needed to consider
how elements such as food and
sleep could impact global recession
and stock-market booms.
Our brains are not the rational,
objective things we might want them
to be, the 46-year-old UCL professor,
economist and author of Eyes Wide
Open: How to Make Smart Decisions in
aConfusingWorldexplained.Shethen
revealed her six top tips for making
better decisions, gathered from interviews with economists, neuroscientists, Hollywood producers, ghter
pilots, ER doctors, psychologists and
data scientists. Ironically, Hertz
admitted, her first tip was that we
$200BN
Amount wiped
off the US stock
market in three
minutes when
the Associated
Presss Twitter
account was
hacked to say
Barack Obama
had been injured.
Damian
Kimmelman
Kim Miller
Guevara
John G Booth
Midpoint
Daniel Klein
SumUp
Samer Karam
alice.
Margaret
MacKenzie
JustInvesting
Gavin Littlejohn
Money Dashboard
Jess Williamson
Barclays
Accelerator
Nicolas Cary
Blockchain
Jonathan Levin
Coinometrics
Paul Plewman
CurrencyTransfer
Nadav Avidan
eToro
Ed Hodges
InAuth
Graham Thomas
Join SAM
Philippe Gelis
Kantox
Juhi Gore
PixelPin
Lex Deak
QVentures
Peter Behrens
RateSetter
Dorian Selz
Squirro
Fredrik Hedberg
Tink
IN AN AGE OF INCREASINGTRANSPARENCY
OUR OTHER
SPEAKERS
David Birch
Consult Hyperion
John Coates
Neuroscientist
James B
Glattfelder
Scientist
Annette Heuser
Bertelsmann
Foundation
Nick Hungerford
Nutmeg
Peter Keenan
Zapp
Shakil Khan
CoinDesk
Damian
Kimmelman
DueDil
Brett King
Moven
Daniel Klein
SumUp
Matthias Krner
Fidor
Mike Laven
The Currency Cloud
Gareth Mackown
IBM GBS Europe
Alexander Mittal
FundersClub
Pat Phelan
Trustev
Lee Sankey
Barclays
Jess Williamson
Barclays
Accelerator
butthetimehascometodeclarethemto
the world, security expert Keren Elazari
from Gigaom Research urged the room.
If banks dont share such information,
she warned, criminal gangs will help
themselves to millions every day.
The criminals are innovating faster
than most of us, she said. They are
very organised, surprisingly sophisticated and undeterred in their efforts
to monetise your assets. Theyre even
crowdfunding malware development.
The Israeli outlined recent attacks by
advertising malware on the front page
of the New York Times; the progress of
Gameover ZeuS, a peer-to-peer botnet
which began in 2013 with a denial-ofservice attack on a California bank and
CYBER
VICTIMS
MUST UNITE
KEREN ELAZARI GIGAOM RESEARCH
055
LEFT TO RIGHT
Danae Ringelmann,
Indiegogo
Keren Elazari,
cybersleuth
Philipp Moehring,
AngelList
$350TN
The amount
worldwide tied
to the London
Interbank Offered
Rate, the rate for
inter-bank lending
and the subject of
a xing scandal
exposed in 2012.
James B
Glattfelder
HOW WE
MINIMISE THE
RISKS
DANAE RINGELMANN INDIEGOGO
THERE ARE THREE TYPES OF RISK, SAID
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AN
20
INTERIORS
14
SPECIAL
SOLAR FLAIR
THANKS FOR
THE SUN LAMPS
Dutch designer
Arnout Meijer wants
us to reconnect
with our circadian
rhythms by using
his lamps, which can
be adjusted from a
cool, bright white to
a warm and soothing
red, depending on
the time of day.
Hundreds of LEDs
produce a glow that
imitates the morning
Sun, or a calming
orange sunset when
its time to wind
down. 953 (wall
lamp, top. Others
tbc) arnoutmeijer.nl
SMASHING SCULPTURE
WHITE LIGHT
INTROVERSO2
ARIEL BY
JAKE DYSON
already outlined
between the slats,
its easier than you
might think to bash
out a vase that will
look somewhat like
the one on the right.
tbc cactusdesign.it
Thanks to Jake
Dysons heatpipe technology,
the bright LEDs
of this powerful
66W suspension
lamp are able to
function at their
ideal temperature.
This means that
a single downlight version of the
Ariel is perfect for
illuminating whole
dining tables,
workbenches or
drawing boards
with a clear 106
lm/W light. tbc
jakedyson.com
POTTED PLEASURES
PHYTOPHILER BY
DOSSOFIORITO
Phytophiler is a
range of terracotta
plant pots with
appendages that
help us appreciate
our leafy friends.
Here, our 29cm pot
has two adjustable
mirrors to reect the
best side of the fruit
or ower, and some
magnifying lenses.
Other options
include a net for
climbing plants and
a miniature lawn so
your bonsai trees
feel at home. 450
dosoorito.com
Made from 36
squares of white
Carrara marble and
standing 40cm
high, the intact
vase below makes
a sophisticated
table decoration.
COLOURFUL CLASSICS
20
INTERIORS
water collecting on
the seat. The brand
name Mal means
mould in Dutch,
and refers to the
aluminium-matrix
casting process.
995 do-shop.com
14
SPECIAL
3D LIGHT SHOW
DOMINO EFFECT
OP-LIGHT BY
BILGE NUR SALTIK
MEGALITH
TABLE BY DUFFY
It appears to be in
mid-collapse, but
this tables nine
steel supports,
based on the
monolith from
Stanley Kubricks
2001: A Space
Odysseyy, are
perfectly poised.
The 75cm-tall
glass-top table is
assembled on-site
so that its designer,
Chris Duffy, can
achieve a toppling
effect to suit any
home. 24,000
duffylondon.com
12PRINT ISSUES +
12DIGITALISSUES
= PAY ONLY 28
JUST VISIT
OR CALL
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DISCOUNTS
GIFT
TESTED
Revo SuperConnect
HOW WE TESTED
Audio was tested with a variety of content such as spoken word, classical
music and pop, and with sources such as DAB, FM and internet stations.
Signal strength was checked in numerous locations around the test house.
Pure Evoke F4
Ruark Radiogram R7
As well as being
compatible with
Pures wireless
multi-room system,
Jongo, the F4 has
FM, DAB (and DAB+)
and internet radio
comprehensive,
but ddly to set
up. A rechargeable
battery provides
useful portability
and you can add an
extra speaker. 7/10
179 (30 for extra
speaker) pure.com
The R7 is a hefty
block of aluminium,
walnut and glass,
with sound quality
to match. Frontfacing speakers and
a down-blasting
sub-woofer make
Connections: DAB,
DAB+, FM, internet
radio, network player,
Bluetooth, USB rec
Size: 20.9 x 17.5 x 11cm
Weight: 1.5kg
Speaker: 8.9cm driver
Power: mains/battery
On the right
wavelength
WIRED tunes in to radios with
distinctive styles and skill sets
Tivoli Albergo+
Compact and
powerful, when
paired with its
second speaker
the Albergo+
outclasses the allin-one-box brigade
with ease. The units
TESTED
Cool customers
WIRED tests four leading
fridge-freezers to find out which
keeps our groceries freshest
HOW WE TESTED
WIRED chose three high-prole designs and one entrylevel control fridge-freezer, and lled them with identical
groceries. Each fridge was set to its default temperature and
opened daily for ten days. WIRED asked Oonagh Laifeartaigh,
produce co-ordinator for Whole Foods, to rank the groceries on
freshness. Laifeartaighs ratings are based on the quality of the
food and have no bearing on fridge features and design.
Whirlpool
WBA33992 NFC IX
1774mm
An inner-door
design keeps highuse food at the
front and less
frequently accessed
items further back
595mm
1875mm
Samsung Food
ShowCase
The design is
luxurious, but its
not effective in use.
The strawberries
scored well, but
carrots were
soft and partly
decaying. And the
cucumber showed
signs of signicant
chill damage, says
Laifeartaigh. Even
so, the Samsung
is beautiful and
Id still pick this
one. 5/10 2,549
samsung.com/uk
Capacity: 570 litre
Energy rating: A+
Default temp: 5C
912mm
TIME SCALE
640mm
1875mm
LINEAR
CYCLE
CLOCK BY
BCXSY
This table-top
timepiece uses a
battery-powered
movement and a
familiar circular
motion, but in a
linear way. When
designers Boaz
Cohen and Sayaka
Yamamoto plotted
on a vertical axis
the 12 straight lines
to indicate the
hours, they found
that the points
joined to reveal
a shell shape.
Form satisfyingly
follows function.
tbc bcxsy.com
Beko EcoSmart
CFF6873GX
Smartly designed,
the Beko performed
well across all
our food groups,
with the carrots
remaining rm and
crisp, suggesting
good humidity,
and the cucumber
having less pitting
than most. It also
scored well with
the sh and meat,
which was easily
the best-kept in the
test group. 8/10
600 beko.co.uk
Capacity: 231 litre
Energy rating: A+
Default temp: 4C
545mm
20
14
INTERIORS
1740mm
SPECIAL
Hotpoint Iced
Diamond RFAA52P
CABINET OFFICE
CABINET-DESK
BY LAURA PETRAITYT
This modern take
on the traditional
writing desk offers
a workstation with
dual power sockets,
a laptop shelf and
LED lighting. When
youre done, the
hinged desktop
folds shut into
a sleek cabinet
STAR LIGHT
NARCISSUS
CHAIR BY
KIMXGENSAPA
What looks like a
mirror reecting
this seat-back
into innity is an
optical illusion
skilfully realised in
wood the louvre
slats provide
useful ledges for
holding books and
magazines. This
playful design
by Mun Kim from
South Korea and
Tsewang Gensapa
from India is part
of their Narcissus
collection. Other
pieces in the range
include a bookshelf
and wall lamp made
from the same light
and cost-effective
tulip wood. tbc
kimxgensapa.com
20
INTERIORS
14
SPECIAL
Opposing magnets
are the secret to
this 47 x 47 x 47cm
side-table made up
of wooden blocks.
Hovering in neat
formation, these
magnetised walnut
veneer cubes
are repelling each
drawing, a oating
cube, or a more
complex geometric
shape. In fact, its a
simple eight-sided
powder-coated
metal structure
that happens to
be very good at
misleading the eye.
Add multiple POVs
and candles into the
mix, and you have a
truly mind-bending
wall feature. tbc
notedesignstudio.se
PETAL POWER
PEONY BY MR
SHEEP DESIGN
Rather than use
an expensive 3D
printer to make
this intricate
bowl, Mr Sheep
(AKA Yide Yang)
cut at pieces
of Perspex that
would fold together
into the shape
of a bowl. Yangs
3D puzzle packs
at and opens
up to resemble a
blossoming ower.
tbc mango-studio.
avors.me
SLEEK BENCH
Tablet extra!
Download the WIRED
app to see more
interiors products
with an audacious,
if not comfy, sofa.
A boulder of rough,
natural Volvic
volcanic rock meets
a highly polished
carbon bre seat in
this technical tour
de force. The piece
also serves to draw
comparisons with
Peugots copper and
carbon-bre Onyx
supercar. 135,000
peugeotdesignlab.com
TESTED
Join
the fan
club
HOW WE TESTED
British designer
Jasper Startup
has used dark
Indonesian wicker
for the Wind S. It
wasnt powerful
enough to keep
our kite airborne,
and the crouching
Tablet extra!
Download the WIRED
app to read our
extended test reviews
Gervasoni
oni Wind S
SKELETAL SEAT
GENERICO CHAIR
This 3D-printed
seat uses the
bare minimum
of materials but
provides support
where needed.
Formed from ABS
plastic, its smooth
at all points of
contact despite
its sinister-looking,
half-dissolved
exoskeleton
its surprisingly
comfortable.
Each piece will
be produced on
demand to suit the
buyers specic
dimensions.
tbc marcohemmerling.com
Only load-bearing
parts of the
Generico remain
20
INTERIORS
14
WOODWORM DESIGN
SPECIAL
Stadler Form
Charly Little
Stadlers engineering
ensures hardly any
mechanical noise
accompanies the
sound of displaced
air here. Charly is
powerful for its size,
easily capable of
clearing your desktop
of paperwork though
it only lifted our kite
briey. (But theres
always the new,
larger model.) 6/10
100 stadlerform.ch
Diameter: 30.5cm
Oscillation: Yes
Max wind
speed: 16.5kph
Wind speed at two
metres: 9.2kph
CHIMENTI
TABLE BY
ALCAROL
Venetian sailors
referred to the gaps
between planks in
their boats the
result of shipworm
devouring the
wood around them
as chimenti.
Alcarols artists have
used this ancient
Venetian wood
and lled the gaps
with a transparent
epoxy resin, which
strengthens the
damaged planks.
Credit here must
be shared between
the molluscs and
the Italian design
studio. 8,000
mintshop.co.uk
Focusing on
the future
THE NIGERIAN ECONOMY IS NOW
AFRICAS LARGEST. AND ITS GROWTH
IS BEING DRIVEN BY AN AMBITIOUS
ENTREPRENEURIAL CLASS COUPLED
WITH THRIVING NATIONAL INDUSTRY
Affordable student loans are scarce in
Nigeria. So when Abia Imo David from
Akwa Ibom State needed to fund his
applied chemistry degree, he started
a creative studio to raise the funds.
Once he graduated, David continued
the fledgling business, producing high
quality music videos and photoshoots.
Nigeria is alive with entrepreneurs
like David (pictured). Having long relied
on resources such as oil and natural
gas, hundreds of exciting new companies are emerging in a range of industries. More than 120 million people are
mobile-phone subscribers in Nigeria
and the tech sector is thriving. Startups
are taking on everything from waste
disposal to government transparency.
SHELL / NIGERIA
Investing
in youth
In 2013 Shell donated
165m to projects that
support SMEs, agriculture,
education and healthcare
in the Niger Delta. Its
other projects include:
skoool
Nigeria
Education
skoool Nigeria
is an interactive
web-based tool
for teaching
maths and science
in Nigerian
primary and
secondary schools.
Shell Nigeria
co-sponsors the
initiative which
also includes
teaching aids.
LiveWIRE
Nigeria
Business
NIGERIA / BUSINESS
Hottest
Startups
Jumia
Already being hailed as
Africas amazon.com,
Nigerian e-commerce
site Jumia launched in 2012 to
near instant acclaim, providing
over 100,000 items, from fashion
and electronics to generators.
This spring it launched in Uganda,
its sixth international territory, and
it secured more than 20 million in
funding for further expansion.
Paga
Launched in 2011, Paga
is a mobile payment
service which allows
Nigerians to transfer money and
pay for purchases or bills via SMS
and online. The platform has
more than 1.6 million users and is
licensed by the Nigerian Central
Bank. It recently announced a
partnership with Western Union to
enable international transfers.
Business
development
Micro credit
Access to credit
is key for any
business. Since
1998, Shells micro
credit programme
has donated
millions of dollars
to help some
30,000 people
establish SMEs and
expand existing
businesses in the
Niger Delta.
SPDC
Scholarships
Higher education
Wecyclers
Lagos is home to
more than 18 million
people, who produce
some 10,000 tonnes of rubbish
a day. Wecyclers cyclists ride
around the city collecting
recyclable material. Participating
households are rewarded via
a phone-based points system
which can be exchanged for
goods or mobile phone top-ups.
Afrinolly
Both the Netflix and
IMDB of Nollywood,
Nigerias vast cinema
industry, the Lagos-based startup
has become one of its biggest
success stories. Users stream films
and TV shows using a free app
which, spurred on by the genres
popularity both in the country
and worldwide, has racked up
over four million downloads.
MALIYO Games
The Lagos games
studio is among the first
Nigerian developers to
eschew clones of western titles to
produce Africa-focused content.
Popular titles include Okada Ride,
named for Lagos traffic-dodging
motorcycles, and the Mosquito
Smasher series. Games can be
played on desktop computers
and some newer Nokia phones.
Visit: youtube.com/shellletsgo
S H AW WA R R E N
Shaw Warren
is a physicianresearcher at
Massachusetts
General Hospitals
Infectious
Disease Unit
and Harvard
Medical
School, Boston,
Massachusetts.
More information
regarding the
approach outlined
in this article
is available at
massgeneral.org/
id/labs/
warren/spirit
mice
mic
e ar
are
e go
good
odmodels
modelsfo
forr human
humanin
in
ammatory diseases. Inflammation is an
essential component of many diseases,
including cancer, atherosclerosis and
autoimmune diseases, so it seems likely
that the two species may differ in gene
responses to these diseases as well.
Because most researchers have
been assuming that mice and humans
have similar immune systems, we
still know very little about why the
species react differently to disease. In
general, immune cells from mice and
humans behave similarly when studied
in test-tube cell-culture systems.
However, their different responses
become manifest in mice or humans
in vivo. It therefore seems possible that
partofthespeciesdifferencemayreect
the way immune cells are controlled.
By way of analogy, such a difference
would be akin to a difference in
the software rather than in the
hardware of the immune system.
Mice have a high natural resistance
to inammation whereas humans do
not in many situations mice behave
as if already treated. Once we have a
better understanding of these differences, the solution might then be to
emulate mice rather than use them as a
poor proxy for humans. Indeed, it may
be possible to re-programme human
inammatory and immune responses
to become more like those in mice.
WILL POTTER
he agriculture industry is
waging an international
campaign to create a media
blackout. In response to
a series of investigations
by animal-welfare groups
that has resulted in criminal prosecutions and consumer
outrage, the industry is promoting
new ag-gag laws that make it illegal to photograph factory farms and
slaughterhouses. About half a dozen
US states currently have these laws,
and now this censorship model is
being adopted internationally.
So how should journalists respond
to investigative methods and sources
being criminalised? Just as the
best response to governments banning books is to encourage reading
them, the best response to banning
photographs is to encourage more
photography. Its time for journalists
to send in the drones.
As a reporter, I always want to see
whats hidden. When government
documents are redacted, it naturally
makes them more intriguing. And
when factory farms introduce new
laws to prohibit media exposure, it
makes me want to see what it is that
they are hiding.
Thats why, for my next investigation, I will be using aerial drone
photography to investigate factory farms, particularly in states
where these ag-gag laws are being
debated. Im not the only one who is
curious: my Kickstarter to finance
the project was funded by nearly 500
supporters in just ve days, and the
response was so overwhelming that
the project has been expanded.
Drones are cheap, simple and
potential game changers for newsrooms, the Columbia Journalism
Review recently noted in a cover
story. In the hands of journalists,
drones are already being used to
document mass protests, wildlife,
oil spills, war-torn landscapes and
natural disasters.
Will Potter is a
journalist and TED
Fellow based in
Washington, DC.
He is the author of
Green Is the New
Red: An Insiders
Account of a Social
Movement Under
Siege (City Lights)
V I N C E N T D E A RY
Start by deciding to
make effective decisions
Vincent Deary is a
health psychologist
at Northumbria
University. His
debut book is
How To Live (Allen
Lane), on why we
are so resistant to
conscious change
MICHAEL MAINELLI
We need to reinvent
the patent process
Michael Mainelli is
emeritus professor
of commerce at
Gresham College
and co-author of
The Price of Fish
(Nicholas Brealey)
0 76 / I D E A S B A N K / T O TA L R E C A L L
BEN AMBRIDGE
Ben Ambridges
book, Psy-Q
(Prole), contains a
version of Shepards
memory test as
well as tests of your
logical reasoning
and preferences in
a romantic partner
SPONSOR
THE
OCTOBER 18,
2014
LONDON
EVENT
PARTNER
A N E V E N T F RO M W I R E D T O I N S P I R E YO U N G M I N D S
Confirmed
speakers
include:
Rizzle Kicks, charttopping UK musicians
Suli Breaks, poet with
more than 220,000
YouTube followers
Roma Agrawal, an
architect who worked on
the Shard for six years
Beth Reekles, author
who self-published
The Kissing Booth
CONTACT: CLAIRE.DOBSON@CONDENAST.CO.UK
G ro u p t i c ke t s p o n s o r s w i l l re ce i ve eve n t p a r t n e r s ta t u s , h a ve t h e i r l o g o o n eve n t
co l l a t e r a l , b e t h a n ke d o n s t a g e a n d m o r e . Fo r eve n t d e t a i l s v i s i t w i r e d . co . u k /n e x t g e n
TICKETING PARTNER
W I R E D C U LT U R E / E D I T E D B Y O L I V E R F R A N K L I N / 0 8 1
Movements are
pre-programmed using
microcontrollers
Deep-sea
robots
Taiwanese artist Shih Chieh Huang makes glowing robot sea creatures
from everyday objects. The result: surreal sculptures that shimmer and
pulse like jellysh. To create each piece, Huang, 39, collects items, from
discarded furniture to plastic bags and cheap sensors, in his Brooklyn
studio. Ive always worked with household objects, says Huang, a TED
0 THE RAPTURE
WN OF THE DEAD
0 D AW
0 FA I L- S A F E
0 WA R O F T H E W O R L D S
AY T H E E A R T H S T O O D S T I L L
0 T H E D AY
-1 HOUR D R S T R A N G E L O V E
- 1 DAY I N D E P E N D E N C E D AY
-3 WEEKS S E E K I N G A F R I E N D F O R T H E
END OF THE WORLD
-28 DAYS D O N N I E D A R K O
-40 DAYS N O A H
-MONTHS M E L A N C H O L I A
-1 YEAR D E E P I M PA C T
-3 2 0 1 2
Y EARS Roland Emmerichs
-8 R I S E O F T H E P L A N E T
Y EARS O F T H E A P E S
- 20 T H E T E R M I N AT O R
Y EARS
PRE-APOCALYPSE
APOCALYPSE WHEN?
DURING
Shock
tactics
APOCALYPSE
+ 2,00 0 P L A N E T O F T H E A P E S
YEARS
+ 1,00 0
YEARS A F T E R E A R T H
+70 0 WA L L E
YEARS Begins in 2805, with a slobby human race
+50 0 WAT E R W O R L D
YEARS
+10 9 T H E M AT R I X
YEARS The machine uprising began in 2090, with
C A LY P S E T I M E L I N E / P L AY / 0 8 3
+5 1 X- M E N : D AY S O F F U T U R E PA S T
YEARS
+3 1
YEARS A K I R A
+1 0
YEARS T H E R O A D
+3 I AM LEGEND
YEARS
+2
YEARS T H E O M E G A M A N
+2 8
DAYS 2 8 D AY S L AT E R
0 W O R L D WA R Z
Technically
Tech
Te
chnica
nically
lly prepre-,, mi
pr
middand post
post-apo
post-apocalyptic,
-apocaly
-apo
calyptic
caly
ptic,,
ptic
with the end
ending
ing show
showing
ing
Shaun
Shau
n living
living in a po
poststzombie
zomb
zo
mbie world
w
world.
orld..
orld
0 T H E D AAYY A F T E R
TOMORROW
ELECTRIC ART / AP
POST-APOCALYPSE
Anniversary Wedding
Lifetime achievement
Private collection
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CADMODDED
PUPPETS
Handmade
movie
Director of photography
John Ashlee Prat adjusts the
lighting. The animators shoot
20 frames per day; the entire
film will have 125,280 frames
Tablet extra!
Download the WIRED
app to see more images
and watch the trailer
Terminal
velocity
THE BATTERY-POWERED RACER THAT
COULD TRANSFORM ELECTRIC CARS
CHASSIS
Built by the Italian rm Dallara,
which also makes the chassis for Indy cars,
the Formula E chassis is made of a strong,
lightweight carbon-bre composite.
As in a typical F1 car, the driver sits in an
aluminium tub for better crash protection.
STEERING WHEEL
Many of the controls here are what youd
nd on a typical race car, but now theres also
a knob for adjusting the motors power
and a button that engages a temporary speed
boost for passing. And, of course, a screen
displays how much juice is left in the battery.
TYRES
Michelin designed a 45cm tyre thats
treaded for all-weather performance and is so
rugged, it wont need to be changed mid-race.
This makes the series more sustainable
and also saves the teams cash a single tyre
gun can cost thousands of pounds.
BATTERY PACK
Behind the driver sits a 350kg cube
containing 164 lithium-ion batteries with a
racing capacity of 30 kilowatt-hours enough
for 20-30 minutes of hard driving. Races
will last twice that, so when a pit stop is due,
hell hop into a different, fully charged car.
ELECTRIC MOTOR
The 25.8kg cylindrical motor comes from
British company McLaren and is used in its
866,000 P1 hybrid. One important feature
is the motors regeneration system: whenever
the driver takes their foot off the throttle,
the spinning rotor charges the battery pack.
125cm
500cm
BE INVENTIVE
Meet our travel specialists face-to-face
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*Calls cost 10 pence per minute plus network extras. Booking fee of 2.10 per ticket applies. Advance box ofce closes 5 November 2014
Puzzle
master
The book also has a built-in socialmedia element. How will it work?
The 13 major characters in the books
have had Twitter and Google+ feeds
running for nine months, so when the
book comes out they will have had
social-media proles for over a year. We
have a YouTube channel that has about
three and a half hours of content on it.
We make them all here at our offices
in Connecticut. Nobody knows they
exist yet, but when the book comes out,
people will discover them.
Youve also collaborated with Google
Niantic Labs to create an accompanying Endgame smartphone app.
We wanted to build the puzzle in the
book using Google search results
and Maps co-ordinates. I was also
fascinated because Niantic had just
launched (augmented-reality title)
Ingress. So I approached John Hanke,
who runs Niantic, and he said, Weve
been thinking about the same things.
Were creating a separate ction for the
AR game, which springboards off six
novellas Google are publishing called
The Endgame Outsider.
TRENDING
TRUE BLOOD
FINALLY ENDS
And data proves
that pop cultures
vampire craze
is over, too
140
120
100
80
60
40
Time
BIG GAMES
THINK
SMALLER
Miniatures are suddenly
massive. Thanks to
Activisions NFC-enabled
Skylanders gaming gures
becoming a playground
phenomenon, this autumn
rival developers are rolling out
toys-to-life games of their
own, to conquer both consoles
and completist collectors.
WIRED measures up the
competition. Matt Kamen
Amiibo
Announced at this years E3,
Nintendos Amiibo gures work
with the Wii U gamepads
NFC detector and the 3DS via
a peripheral. Players can
use the toys to move data
between consoles and games.
*SOURCE: IMDB.COM
Previous page
(main image):
be the rst to visit
the URL hidden
in the exclusive
Endgame puzzle
created for WIRED
to win a copy
of the book
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
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2014
NEXT
GEN
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the digital
transformation
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NOVEMBER 24, 2014
LONDON
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INSECT
ARTISTS
Art
buzz
REN RI IS PUTTING HONEYBEES
HOMEMAKING SKILLS ON SHOW
THE CHARTS
YOUR PARENTS
WERE WRONG
You can get rich
from gaming if
youre very, very
good at it. Here are
its top earners in
June according to
esportsearnings.com
(winnings shown
in $1,000s)
600
500
400
300
200
100
ILLUSTRATION:
SEOR SALME
BANGER
ANALYSIS
Anyone can drop a beat the
question is: when? Rana June
wanted to nd out, so she created
Lightwave: activity-tracking wristbands
that analyse a crowds skin temperature,
movement and sweat levels to give DJs
feedback on energy levels, so they know
when to crank up the tempo. Its like
Google Analytics for real life, she says.
Lightwave blends Junes two
seemingly disparate career strands;
venture capitalist and DJ. Before
launching the California-based startup,
she founded Medialets, which raised
$30m (17m) in funding for its app
analytics technology. But after picking
up an early iPad, she became fascinated
by the freedom it offered to the formerly
machine-shackled DJ. When I was
playing guitar, I could wander around,
June says. So I thought, why not
untether the DJ? The result was a
portable, carbon-bre exoskeleton
running up to six iPads in sequence.
Lightwave stemmed from Junes
frustration at lacking the data she had
access to at Medialets; she wanted
to know how her DJ sets were being
received without relying on social media.
The wristbands, given out on the door
like regular event wristbands, debuted
at a raucous SXSW show where the
data was used to spur the crowd into
a girls-against-boys dance-off. June
has also deployed the technology at
Londons Emirates Stadium to give fans
real-time biometric data of footballers
performances, and is exploring its use in
cinemas, too. In business, if you cant
measure it, you cant manage it, says
June. Artists are part of this datadriven world, so why not embrace it?
Tom Banham lightwave.io
GAMES GET
EMOTIONAL
That Dragon, Cancer,
(in-game image
shown, below) starts
unlike any other game
we can think of: in an
intensive care unit,
with your character
the games creator,
Colorado-based
developer Ryan Green
caring for his fouryear-old son, who
has terminal cancer.
It stuck with me that
this experience was
like a game, recalls
Green, 34. You want
your child to stop
crying, but no matter
what mechanics
you try, you cant
comfort him.
The OUYA title
is part of a rise in
games, such as Dear
Esther, that tackle
overwhelming topics
such as grief. I want
people to feel what
we went through
and to be changed,
explains Green.
Thats something
games can do that no
other medium can.
There is, of course,
one big difference:
Gamers are used
to crafting their own
narrative, but this is
about experiencing
the limitation of
my agency in that
moment, Green
says. But I hope
that players can face
death and choose not
to fear it. Due this
autumn Kathryn Nave
thatdragoncancer.com
Space
craft
Animal
charms
HOW A LONDON-BASED DESIGNER
IS MAKING BACON BEAUTIFUL
1. CROWDSOURCED
DESTRUCTION
2.8m-Kickstarterfunded Planetary
Annihilation takes
destruction to a
galactic level, with
40-player online
battles across
hundreds of worlds.
September 23, for
Windows, Linux and
OS X uberent.com
2. ICE-CRYSTAL
CHANDELIER
The hand-blown
glass shards
of Lasvits Ice
chandelier
designed by
architect Daniel
Libeskind can be
recongured
to sparkle in any
size space.
tbc lasvit.com
3. CONSTRUCTIVE
ART PROJECT
Nathan Sawayas
spectacular LEGO
sculptures (WIRED
07.13) will put your
toy-box creations
to shame. The Art
Of The Brick, at
Londons Truman
Brewery from
September 26,
contains over
one million
bricks across 75
separate artworks.
artofthebrick.co.uk
4. FAN-FUNDED
FILM-MAKING
Zach Braffs
Kickstarted followup to Garden State,
Wish I Was Here,
is a moody, meta
affair. Its archly
indie soundtrack
debuts songs from
Bon Iver, The Shins
and Cat Power.
Out September 19
5. MIX-YOUROWN ALBUM
Designed by
Cambridgebased Novalia,
the jacket for DJ
Qberts new album
Extraterrestria/
GalaXXXian is
printed with
conductive ink
and contains
a Bluetooth chip,
so you can use it
to trigger samples.
djqbert.com
10
0 9 6 / P L AY / C U LT U R A L P I C K S O F T H E M O N T H / 1 0 . 1 4
6. SET PHASERS TO
CHANNEL-SURF
This ultra-accurate
universal remote
from British rm
The Wand Company
was made using 3D
scans of vintage
props used on the
set of Star Trek:
The Original Series.
120 thewand
company.com
7. SEPTUASUPERHEROES
Packed with 700
pages of comics
memorabilia, 75
Years of Marvel
is worthy of The
Collector himself.
$200 taschen.com
8. HACK-ANDSLASH IN HYRULE
Its a classic-game
mash-up in Koei
Tecmos Hyrule
Warriors, which
has Legend of
Zelda characters
using Dynasty
Warriors over-thetop ght moves.
Out September 19,
exclusive to Wii U
9. TOUCHSCREEN
SCRATCHING
Tuna Knobs, from
Dutch design rm
Tweetonig, turns
your smartphone
or tablet screen
into a DJ booth.
tunadjgear.com
In support of
Time for life with two limited edition timepieces in support of Doctors Without Borders/Mdecins
Sans Frontires. Each watch raises 100 for the Nobel Peace Prize winning humanitarian organization.
And still these handcrafted mechanical watches with the red 12 cost the same as the classic Tangente
models from NOMOS Glashtte. Help now, wear forever.
100 from every product sold is paid to Mdecins Sans Frontires UK, a UK registered charity no. 1026588. NOMOS retailers helping to help include C S Bedford,
C W Sellors, Catherine Jones, Fraser Hart, Hamilton & Inches, Mappin & Webb, Orro, Perfect Timing, Russell & Case, Stewart's Watches, Stuart Thexton,
Watches of Switzerland, Wempe. Find these and other authorised NOMOS retailers at www.nomos-watches.com, or order online at www.nomos-store.com.
Alex Allmont
Darcus Beese
Suli Breaks
Associate structural
engineer, WSP
Programmer
& artist
President,
Island Records
Spoken-word
artist
Ze Frank
Hungry Castle
Tim Peake
Beth Reekles
Experiential design
studio
Astronaut,
European Space Agency
Author, The
Kissing Booth
Vlogging pioneer Ze
Frank joined BuzzFeed in
2012 to discover new
formats in social video.
Barcelona-based Dave
Glass and Kill Cooper
specialise in creating
public art and fashion.
HEALTH MONEY
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tickets
available
EVENT PARTNER
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Cute Circuit
CyFi
Wearable technology
fashion label
Cofounder,
r00tz kids at Def Con
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UK-based
pop stars
Patrick StevensonKeating
Founder, Studio PSK
BOOK NOW
RETAIL
HOW TO
MAKE ROBOTS
GROW YOUR FOOD
HOW TO
HOW TO
HOW TO
HOW TO
MAKE A VIRAL
YOUTUBE VIDEO
HOW TO
HOW TO
MAKE MUSICAL
FRUIT AND PLANTS
MAKE A
PROFITABLE APP
BUILD A POCKET
SPACECRAFT
Studio PSK is a London
design studio working on
the bleeding edge of tech,
design, science and society.
NEXT
GEN
Event
workshops
HOW TO
2014
WHO ATTENDS
THE EVENT?
The WIRED Next
Generation event is open
only to those between
12- and 18- years old. Adults
are welcome only when
accompanying a teenager.
How to
Skateboard
at speed
CUT IT OUT
Trace the design
for your skateboard
on to the piece of
wood, aiming for a
metre in length and
leaving the back
wide enough for
the engine. Then,
says Bavetta, cut
it out using a jigsaw
and sand down the
edges to prevent
any splinters.
Cut your adhesive
tape to match
and stick it to the
top of the board.
GET ABOARD
Connect the glow
starter to the glow
plug then slot the
starter motor on
to the front of the
propeller and spin
it till the engine
starts. Leave it
running for a few
minutes then
remove the glow
starter. Test using
the transmitter to
control the servoconnected throttle
before jumping on
and trying it out.
How to
Learn a language
in three months
Find native
speakers
Lewis has a no
English rule when
learning a language
in its native country.
As well as getting
out and trying to
get by, he uses
italkI.com and
verbling.com to nd
reasonably priced
teachers. You can
use meetup.com
and internations.
org to nd people
to do a language
exchange in person
or over Skype
you teach them
and they teach
you. If you have
a spare bed, use
couchsurng.org
and search visitors
by language.
Troubleshoot
extensively
When learning
Mandarin, I
struggled with the
tones, so I spent
a week learning
nothing but, Lewis
says. Forvo.com
and rhinospike.
com are two free
pronunciation
resources. He
doesnt recommend
grammar books
until week nine
and then just
to dip in. Look at
constructions as
you become aware
of them. Try Assimil,
Teach Yourself and
Colloquial books,
and Harraps for
more technically
minded learners.
Make
mistakes
Your priority at
every stage is
communicating.
If I need to nd out
where the bathroom
is, I can say
Bathroom, where?
Its not a proper
sentence but its
understandable,
says Lewis. Dont
be demoralised.
Nobody cares if you
conjugate a verb
wrongly or sound
like Tarzan. Babies
crawl and stumble
before they walk.
We arent babies,
but we are allowed
to make mistakes
in the learning
process. Progress
is gradual.
Turn on
and tune in
Television and radio
stations are brilliant
for easy exposure
to a language. CNN
is one of the many
news websites
that have translate
buttons. Lewis is an
advocate of tunein.
com, which lets
you listen to
stations around
the world. Alexa.
coms listing of
the most popular
sites in each
country is also a
good insight into
what locals read.
This will help in
week ve when you
need new topics
to tackle with your
native teacher.
Try the
dramatic pause
People will reply
to you in English if
they think you are
feeling awkward.
Lewis deploys
amateur dramatics:
I hesitate, Jack
Sparrow style, he
says. I look into
the distance as if
on a quest and then
have time to nd
the word Im looking
for. If you do it right,
people assume
youre animated,
and if you do it
really right, they
will be incredibly
interested in
hearing you
speak. He adds: I
recognise that this
isnt for everyone.
Attempt to
blend in
When learning
Arabic in Egypt,
Lewis found
everyone was
talking to him
in English. After
watching people
around him, he
realised that he
looked like a typical
tourist so he
changed his clothes
a little. Sometimes,
he role-plays. He
says: The mandate
when I lived in China
was to make people
think that I was an
English teacher
who had lived there
for years. This was
a signal they should
be using their
tongue, not mine.
HOW TO
MAKE AN INFINITY MIRROR
Two reective surfaces facing each other will copy an image between
them seemingly for ever. Steve Sutton, president of the Freeside
Atlanta Makerspace, talks us through the process. Jeremy Cook
1. GATHER YOUR MATERIALS
Youll need two pieces of two-way mirrored
acrylic or a traditional mirror, LED (or other)
lights with a power supply, a 4 x 2 piece of
wood about ve times the length of your
frame, nails and a black material or paint.
4. LIGHT IT UP
For this effect to work properly, the middle
needs to be lit up. Black out the inside of the
frame between the mirrors with paint or tape.
Attach the lights inside the frame, between
where the mirrors go, then slide the mirrors in.
5. FINISH UP
Attach the fourth side of the frame. Sutton
uses a hinge and lock, but nails will work if you
are condent in your work. Drill a hole for your
power supply to run through. Turn it on, hang
it on the wall and enjoy your innite creation.
How to
Make a rocket stove
Dont want to
search for wood to
make a campre?
There is a better
way: the rocket
stove. Fear not,
despite its name
there is no thrust
involved, says
Matt Rhys-Roberts,
a permaculture
and sustainability
expert who has
built many of them.
Robin Hague
Soup it up
You need some
75mm diameter
pipe, which could
be made from
soup tins. Cut two
lengths, 250mm
and 100mm. Next
cut a 75mm hole
200mm along the
longer piece. Poke
the short piece into
the hole, so it sits in
without blocking off
the chimney piece.
Fix it up
Make a at piece
measuring 70mm
by 100mm (could
be from a attened
piece of the pipe)
and slide that into
the short length
of pipe so that
it divides it into
two. The tray
supports the fuel
while making an
air intake below it,
says Rhys-Roberts.
Wrap it up
Insulate the long
piece by wrapping
it in rock wool or
tting a bigger
piece of pipe around
it to make a gap.
This makes it
run much hotter,
drawing air in
under the at plate,
making it efcient
enough to need only
small sticks to cook
your meal with.
Fire it up
Sit the stove so
that the long pipe
is upright, its end
blocked by the
ground and the
short pipe near
the bottom. Place
sticks down into
the long pipe and
light them. Then
poke more sticks
into the top half of
the short pipe, on
top of the at plate.
William
Poundstone,
author of How
to Predict the
Unpredictable:
The Art of
Outsmarting
Almost Everyone
(Oneworld),
presents three
ways in which
we can all beat
the system
with a little
smart thinking.
How to
Compare with a
clean browser
Say you buy
chocolates for your
mothers birthday.
A year later, you
skip the research.
You gure that the
company that had
the best value last
year will be the best
value this year.
But some online
retailers offer
lower prices to new
customers than
to repeat buyers.
One remedy is
to block cookies
and website data
in your browsers
preferences.
But most of us
like having our
web experience
customised.
A more realistic
solution is to
maintain an
alternate, clean
and cookiedisabled browser
that you use just
for comparisons.
Follow the
uctuations
Use a website
or app such as
CamelCamelCamel
to track prices. The
Amazon price for
a saut pan has
been known to vary
from $429 to $160
(250 to 94) over
a two-year period.
Most people would
be shocked by this.
The smart buyer
can play day-trader
with such data and
wait for a favourable
time to buy. A good
rule of thumb is
never to pay more
than the average
of the lowest web
price over the past
year. If a product
(with no issues
of technological
obsolescence) is
selling at a 20 per
cent-plus discount
from the long-term
average, be ready to
pounce. That price
probably wont last.
104 / HOW TO / OUTSMART BIG DATA / BEAT TESTS / DETECT FAKE NUMBERS
How to
BEAT
MULTIPLE
CHOICE
TESTS
Our fates in school and beyond are
decided by quizzes, nals exams,
driving tests and professional
exams. Although test makers try to
put the correct answers in random
order, they fall into patterns. You can
use that to get an edge when you
have to guess tough questions. WP
Favour true on
a true-false test
Ideally the items
on such a test
should stand a
50-50 chance
of being true.
Actually, true
answers are rather
more common.
In a sample of
100 tests from
schools, colleges,
government and
other sources, 56
per cent of the
correct answers
were found to be
true. Its not hard
to imagine why.
Remembering
a fact is easier
than inventing a
falsehood. Test
makers follow
the path of least
resistance and
so produce an
excess of trues.
Bet on an answer
key that skips
Answer keys to
both true-false
and multiplechoice tests tend
to alternate rather
more than in a truly
random sequence.
Therefore, a
true answer is
disproportionately
likely to be followed
by a false one; a
multiple-choice
answer (such
as C, when it is
the third of ve
options) is unlikely
to be correct two
times in a row. This
fact should guide
your guessing.
So, when you are
guessing, choose
an answer different
from the previous
questions known
correct answer.
How to
Detect
fake
numbers
People lie with numbers. They make up fake
expenses for a tax return or an expense account and
fabricate nancial data to impress a lender or venture
capitalist. But when they do, they fall into unconscious
patterns. With a little practice you can learn to spot them.
For instance, here is the invented amount of a bad cheque
from a US embezzlement case: $87,602.93. For clarity Ill
strip off the dollar sign and decimal point.
A FAKE NUMBER: 8760293
Now, for comparison, here are some authentically random
digits (from the website random.org, which uses atmospheric noise to generate random strings).
A RANDOM NUMBER: 5044902
Youre probably thinking both numbers look random. But
there are several tell-tale differences. WP
DESCENDING SEQUENCES
In the made-up number, 8 is followed by 7, the digit
thats one less, and the 7 is followed by 6. Descending
runs of two, three or four consecutive digits are more
common in fabricated data. This reects the way
our brains are wired. When a crook free-associates
random numbers, they favour consecutive digits.
Ascending sequences (eg 2345) are also more common.
Eliminate the
outliers
The test makers
goal is to conceal
the correct answer
by surrounding
it with plausible
alternatives
(distractors).
Suppose these
are the choices:
(A) day lilies; (B)
white mice; (C)
pea plants; (D)
beans. Deduce the
answer without
the question*. Ask
yourself which of
these answers
doesnt belong.
Most would say
white mice, the
only animal. Now
a little reverseengineering: if
white mice were
correct, why
would the test
maker invent three
distractors that
involved plants
throwing the
correct answer
into sharp relief? It
would then make
more sense to
supply animals as
distractors. But
that didnt happen.
Of the remaining
answers, two are
edible and one
is not. By similar
logic, day lilies is an
outlier and is least
likely to be correct.
This leaves pea
plants and beans.
All the choices are
two words except
for beans. That
makes beans an
outlier and leaves
pea plants as
the best guess
the answer best
camouaged by
distractors.
MISSING ZEROS
Another tip-off is that fakers avoid making up round
numbers, which call attention to themselves, and
they generally shy away from 0s. Zeroes ought to
account for about ten per cent of the digits in large,
unrounded numbers. But in the embezzlers invented
cheque amounts, only about four per cent of digits
were 0s. Venture capitalists: beware of fake gures.
REPEATED STRINGS
Those making up numbers fall into mental ruts and
repeat digit sequences. The crook who made up the
fabricated number 8760293 overused both 87 and 93
in the amounts of his bad cheques. Ponzi schemer
Bernie Madoff unknowingly favoured the pair of 8 and
6 both in the statements he sent to investors as well
as in his self-reported golf scores.
MISSING REPEATS
The random number, 5044902, has two 4s in a
row. Two-digit repeats (such as 44 or 77) are fairly
common in honest numbers. After all, there ought to
be about a one-in-ten chance that a given digit will
be followed by itself. But the people who fabricate
numbers usually totally avoid repeating the same
digit two (or more) times in a row.
SCULPTURE: EDWARD CHEVERTON. THE FOUR TOYS ARE CUSTOM-MADE FROM FOUND DISCARDED OBJECTS AND MATERIALS BOUGHT IN JUNK SHOPS AND
99P STORES. BY PLAYING WITH AND COMBINING ITEMS THAT HAVE LOST THEIR ORIGINAL USE, THEY ARE RE-APPROPRIATED AND MADE FUN AGAIN
There was a time when I thought I was going to be left behind by the IT revolution. Ron Arad, p108
109
Ron Arad
has constantly refreshed
his creative vision
f o r d e c a d e s. To o p e n
W I R E D s d e s i g n i s s u e,
he shares his rules
for innovative thinking
BY
Nick Compton
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Gary Salter
1981_
1983_
1993_
1994_
Rover chair
Concrete stereo
2002_
Millennium House, Doha
2001_
Not Made By Hand
2002_
Bad-Tempered chair
2006_
2007_
Vipp bin
2009_
Oh, the farmer and cowman should be friends
2009_
Hotel Duomo, Rimini
2008_
1994_
1999_
1994_
2000_
The Big Blue, London
1995_
2004_
2006_
2007_
Oh Void
Tom Bloc
Thumbprint
2006_
Hotel Duomo, Rimini
2006_
2007_
2008_
2005_
Driade
2011_
2012_
Raviolo chair
2011_
2014_
Last Train
BE COMPETITIVE
I see things and
think: Why didnt
I think of that?
says Arad. So I
take pictures and
sketch on them
and see if I can
make them better.
And it works the
other way: if I come
up with an idea,
I imagine if I had
just seen it and ask
myself if I would
be jealous. If the
answer is yes, then
we move forward.
DO IT
YOURSELF
The rise of the
designer-maker
has been much
heralded in the
past couple of
years. But Arad
was at it three
decades ago,
hammering
out and bolting
together radical
designs using
sheet metal and
found objects.
The lesson: dont
just sit there.
LOOK AT THINGS
DIFFERENTLY
There is no
technology or
engineering
principle, ancient
or modern, that
cant be applied
in new ways. Arad
is as much about
re-appropriation
as invention itself.
As he says: We
had suitcases and
we had wheels but
it took a long time
for someone to put
them together.
PICK WISELY
Arad has an
expansive
comfort zone. It
is territory gained
by picking his
battles carefully,
accepting
challenges he
knows he is
equipped to answer
but will also push
him into new
areas. It means
acquiring new
skills and meeting
and working with
useful new people.
DONT RUSH IT
As Arad will tell
you, ideas are
cheap, so dont
be afraid to take
them so far, park
them, and move
on. They will still
be there, waiting
for your return
if you get round
to it. Arad might
one day reinvent
the bicycle wheel
or he might not.
There is other
stuff he has to be
getting on with.
115
Arad was born in Tel Aviv in 1951. His mother, Esther, was an
artist; his father, Grisha, was and at 97, still is an artist and
photographer. In the early 70s, Ron Arad studied art at Bezalel
Academy in Jerusalem before moving to London in 1973 to
study at the Architectural Association, at the time one of the
last bastions of utopian idealism. His tutors included inuential gures such as the deconstructionist Bernard Tschumi
and architect Peter Cook. Zaha Hadid was a classmate.
After graduating he went to work for an architectural
practice in Hampstead, but he was soon bored. It was the
late 70s and there was little construction going on. He left
for lunch one day and never went back. In 1981 he formed his
rst company withCarolineThorman, who isstill his business
partner. Arad called the company One Off, a cheeky boast and
a statement of intent. (He has always been good with titles
and wordplay: in 2011, he and his team designed a bike with
wheels made of sprung-steel loops for Elton Johns Aids
Foundation. It did not deliver a comfortable ride and Arad
tagged it the Two Nuns Bicycle. You know the joke about
the two nuns who go for a cycle ride to the village, he says,
explaining the christening process. One says, Ive never
come this way before. Its the cobbles, says the other.)
That year he picked up two leather seats from an old V8
Rover 200 in a scrapyard. He mounted one on scaffolding
poles and called it The Rover Chair. He made some more and
the first six were bought by Jean-Paul Gaultier. Arad was
soon a design star, although he thought of the chairs as more
Duchampian ready-mades rather than design. He is also keen
to point out that the lookalike chairs used on the Top Gear TV
set are not the genuine article. In the rst season they did
hire some Rover seats. But after that they made their own.
His early designs were, often literally, sharp-edged. A
trained welder, Arad created armchairs using nuts, bolts
and bent steel sheets. The work was post-punk, postindustrial, urban and exciting. Once he was installed in the
Chalk Farm studio there was more room for metal bashing
and bending: he produced the Bookworm, a spiraling metal
bookshelf, versions of which are ubiquitous in the homes of
todays creative workers. After this there were shows at the
Pompidou Centre and the V&A. Soon the blue-chip Italian
design companies were calling, wanting to produce industrialised versions of his designs in consumer-friendly materials.
He began to explore new methods and mass-manufacturing.
There is some irony, then, in the fact that Arad has become
the late-middle-aged poster boy for the application of
technologyindesign.Evenheadmitsthathesalittlesurprised
by the move from metal-shop to advanced technologies.
There was a time when I thought I was going to be left behind
by the IT revolution, he says. I didnt see myself clicking
a mouse, sitting in front of a screen. Now I am completely
addicted to my tablet. I still use my pencil but it is a light pen.
Arads friend and fellow collaborator with Swarovski
on its Digital Crystal projects, the American designer Yves
Andpeoplecomehere,theysay,becausetheywantsomething
different. But they dont really. They just want names.
There are lots of good architects, idealistic, devoted,
talented architects, but I wish there were more good clients.
For now, he picks and chooses projects, just enough to keep
theteamdownstairsbusy.ForthelastthreeyearsAradandhis
team have been working on a 150,000m2 development project
in Tel Aviv. They are also working on the renovation of the
Watergate Hotel in Washington and on a mixed-used development and apartments in a stretch of defunct commercial
buildingsinMiamichristenedIronSidebylocaldeveloperOfer
Mizrahi. Arad is hopeful about this project: Is it an oxymoron
to say an idealistic developer? Anyway, he might be one.
Arad still seems to be working out how architecture ts
into his story, how he can apply his magpie intelligence to
make it better, to design something that doesnt currently
exist. And how he can nd people who will let him.
Ron is unique as he is the only contemporary designer
that has successfully reconciled two separate branches of
design: the artist and maker of unique sculptural pieces,
and the designer of successful production objects, says
Yves Behar. When Ron shares his work with me, he goes
from design-art pieces to design production ideas uidly.
Its just the ambition to do both, its just the way he thinks.
Design is now a complex, splintered discipline: at one end
still developing, in a qualied way, the modernist mission
to make better things for a large number of people, using
machines; at the other disassembling designs defining
principles, creating conceptual interrogations, one-off
experiments, moving into art spaces and perhaps asking
the question that art should be asking. And it was Arad,
as much as anybody, who encouraged that splinter.
From 1998 to 2009 he was professor of design products
at the Royal College of Art in London. During that time,
he helped turn it into a global academic super-brand by
completely changing the way students were taught. He
started by combining the furniture and industrial-design
departments as he considered the distinction between the
two irrelevant. He then established a series of platforms that
were led by working designers like Jasper Morrison, Tom
Dixon and Konstantin Grcic who taught just one day per week.
I only wanted people who were too busy to teach, he says.
Arad thought of the course not as a kind of professional
preparation but as guided exploration for his charges. The
RCA was not a place for perfecting dovetail joints but for
asking fundamental questions about what design was, could
and should be. I wanted to extend their freedom. The word
should was never used, it was an illegal word.
RCA alumni who studied under Arad are known for a
refusal to accept traditional boundaries between art and
design, between craft and making and technology and
engineering, between functionality and spectacle and pure
wonder (see right). In that, they are all part of Arads story.
Arad fostered a generation of questioning designers eager
to experiment with form and technologies, says Corinna
Gardner, curator of contemporary product design at the
V&A, and who worked on the Barbicans Arad show Restless.
Italian designer Martino Gamper is also clear about Arads
inuence. Ron shaped a whole generation of designers,
he says. His impact will be felt for decades.
Arad describes his own practice as being curious and
earning the freedom to act on that curiosity. If no one was
interested in the things I was curious about, Id be in trouble.
But luckily other people have joined me in that delight.
Nick Compton is senior contributing editor at Wallpaper
magazine. He wrote about office design in 08.14
117
PHOTOGRAPHY:
David Vintiner
TALENT TO WATCH
The analytic
craftswoman
Materiality is a
buzzword in design
and architecture,
although it has
different meanings
according to whos
using it. For the
Gothenburg-born,
London-based
designer Hilda
Hellstrm, 29, the
term refers to the
perceived qualities
of the materials.
Hellstrm
graduated from
the Royal College
of Art in 2012. For
her nal show, The
Materiality of a
Natural Disaster,
she made foodstorage jars out
of radioactive
earth from the
Fukushima
disaster area
in Japan. Since
then, she has
been exploring
these ideas with a
process she calls
sedimentation.
Hellstrm
casts layers of
different coloured
Jesmonite, a
type of plaster,
and experiments
with the casting
process
sometimes the
strata are clear and
sharp, sometimes
they swirl and
tumble around
each other. The
results suggest
an alternative,
fantastical geology.
Hellstrm is
part of a new
wave of designermakers (she calls
herself an analytic
craftswoman)
determined
to create new
craft traditions.
Sometimes she
casts vases, other
times monolithic or
crystalline blocks
and then creates
the shape of a vase,
or part of a vase,
using a CNC milling
machine. She is
currently working
on new pieces for
a December show
at the Gothenburg
Museum of Art. Her
creative process
is changing in
other ways: she
recently returned to
Stockholm to
work from a studio
with sea views.
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Levon Biss
how designers
can use light.
Like many of his
contemporaries,
he has embraced
crowdfunding
as a way to free
himself from
touting his ideas
to manufacturers
or waiting for
a commission.
Funded on
Kickstarter in April
and launched in
July, the Vamp
(below) is a small
red box that
can connect via
Bluetooth with
any speaker to
play music. Ive
been collecting all
these speakers
left out on the
street, says the
36-year-old. They
are amazing at
producing sound.
The Vamp means
we can bring them
back to life.
Another of
his Kickstarterfunded projects
is the Double
O bicycle light,
which launches in
September. Bikelight makers are
lumen-obsessed,
he says. You cycle
around London at
night and youre
blinded by other
cyclists lights.
They dont need to
be that bright to
be effective. His
solution? Twelve
LEDs in a circle,
with a hole in the
middle. You get
a softer light.
Cocksedge has
also been working
with St. Thomas
Hospital to look
at light design
and the choice of
materials in its A&E
department. At
the beginning of
my career
I was interested in
moments, he says.
Now Im looking at
creating something
more permanent.
paulcocksedge
studios.com
The eclectic
creators
Rosario Hurtado
and Roberto Feo
aka El Ultimo Grito
are designers
designers. Mixing
graphic design, art,
cinema and other
media, they are
as interested in
process as result.
Hurtado (left)
arrived in London
from Madrid in
1989 and Feo (far
left) followed a year
later. Partners in
life and work,
they started
producing rough
and ready-made
designs in their at
of functional
installations and
one-off objects.
Imaginary
Architecture (2010)
is a series of
futuristic blownglass cityscapes
(left); Free range
(2011) is a cardboard
and resin table;
Designing an Echo
(2012) is stories
told in shadows,
including that of
the doomed Space
TALENT TO WATCH
The embalmer
At his RCA
graduation show
in 2012, Alvarez
presented the
Thread Wrapping
Machine, a sci-
spinning wheel that
cocoons and joins
wood and metal in
a colourful, gluey
web. It made him a
design star.
I invented a new
craft, Alvarez
says, and I feel like
of grounding
in ne arts,
cabinet making
and interior design,
as well the RCA
design product
MA course. Like
fellow Swede
Hilda Hellstrm,
Alvarez is part
of a new wave of
post-industrial
makers interested
in creating new,
but often low-tech,
processes, tools
and crafts. The
next project may be
bigger machines.
Or maybe not.
I created it so
no one can tell me
what to do with
it, Alvarez says.
antonalvarez.com
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Rafael Pinho
Shuttle Challenger.
From this month
until November,
the pair present
Burning Down the
House at the
Gwangju Biennale
in South Korea. In
it, a series of
video images will
cover the walls of
the site. They
have also been
working on megainatable rotating
structures to
be installed at
London Design
Week this month.
The pair are
optimistic about
the current craft
and making revival.
It is exciting to
see, but it has a
long way to go.
Hurtado says. It
has the potential
to generate
new social and
economic models,
which is probably
not the reason
that everyone is
so fascinated in it.
eugstudio.com
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Thomas Klementsson
Special thanks to
the following for
nominating, with
Ron Arad, Britains new
design talent.
SAM B ARON
Director of the
design department
at Fabrica, Italy
BEN EVANS
Director of
the London
Design Festival
ARIC CH EN
Curator of art and
design, M+ museum,
Hong Kong
The reframers
RCA graduates
Sarah van Gameren
and Tim Simpson
reframe the way
things are made.
The studio, founded
in 2008, has built
a reputation on
what the pair
call time-based
installations. In
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Phil Fisk
structure. They
use photosensitive
porcelain, seaweed
and UV light in
their Silverware
Vases. And for
this years Woven
Song they created
textile patterns by
translating organ
music punch cards.
In the past we
researched how
the moment that
products come into
being is perhaps
more interesting
than the end
The rainmakers
For ve months
from the end
of 2012, almost
80,000 people
travelled to the
Barbican Centre
in London with
the aim of not
getting rained
on. rAndom
Internationals
Rain Room
which took three
years to develop
enabled visitors
to walk around
a 100m2 indoor
downpour without
getting wet. To
achieve the effect,
the installation
used 3D mapping
cameras, pressure
regulators and
a pixellated grid
of sprinklers.
rAndom
International,
based in London
and Berlin, was
formed in 2002
by Hannes Koch
(far right), Florian
Ortkrass and
Stuart Wood
(right). It gained
immediate
attention with the
PixelRoller, a paint
roller customised
with print
ALICE RAWSTHORN
Author of Hello
World: Where Design
Meets Life
M ARIAN N E G OEB L
Managing director,
Finnish design
company Artek
JONAT HAN BELL
Editor at large,
Wallpaper magazine
AN N A CARN ICK
Managing editor,
LArcoBaleno, New York
BRENT DZEKCIORIUS
Founder of dzek,
which explores
materials and crafts
who approaches;
and Swarm (2010),
a cluster of LEDs
mounted on brass
rods which create
the effect of
swooping birds
and insects.
This month,
the studio opens
an installation at
Lunds Konsthall in
Sweden, with two
more promised for
next year. randominternational.com
PHOTOGRAPHY:
Todd Antony
121
TALENT TO WATCH
PHOTOGRAPHY:
CHRIS CRISMAN
Buttercrunch
lettuce
SERVER
FARM
Flowering
broccoli
THESE
VEGETABLES
HAVE NEVER
SEEN THE
SUN OR FELT
THE RAIN.
GROWN IN
CUSTOM-BUILT
INCUBATORS
INSIDE MITS
MEDIA LAB,
THEY REQUIRE
A FRACTION OF
THE NUTRIENTS,
ENERGY AND
TIME OF
CONVENTIONAL
CROPS AND
NO PESTICIDES.
IS THIS THE
ANSWER TO
THE WORLDS
FOOD CRISIS?
BY
KEVIN GRAY
125
venamidthecreativegeniusandgoofy
playfulness of MITs Media Lab near
Boston where giant inatable sharks
dangle from ceilings, workbenches are
populated by unblinking robot heads
and skinny scientists with mutton
chops and Hawaiian shirts pay rapt
attention to indecipherable whiteboard
scribbles Caleb Harper is an oddball.
While his coworkers develop articial
24
THE SPECIALIST
LEFT: Caleb
Harper is an
architect
by training,
specialising
in building
controlled
environments.
Prior to entering
MITs Media Lab,
he designed
data centres
and clean rooms
for hospitals
000
23
128
PREVIOUS SPREAD
Caleb Harpers
growing room at
MIT is made from
AD20 aluminium
and Plexiglas
OPTIMISED
FARMING
RIGHT: Green
Sense Farms says
it uses 0.1 per
cent of the water,
land and fertiliser
of eld farming,
and has 26
harvests a year
CLEAN AGRICULTURE
In the super-controlled environment of a laboratory setting, crop growth can
be adjusted with precise tweaks to water, nutrient, light and temperature levels.
Heres how Caleb Harpers team has hacked a 21st century indoor garden.
LEDs emit a uniform mixture of the red and blue light necessary
for photosynthesis without overheating the room. A PlayStation
camera detects weather conditions to adjust the brightness.
1.5 kg
1
2
3
4
PRODUCE OF
LONDON
BELOW: Zero
Carbon Food aims
to repurpose
underground
spaces to grow
pesticide-free
crops for foodies
within the M25
131
1.8 kg
.25kg
132
LASAGNE
IS A
FOOD
ITEM
BROTHER
IS A
RELATIONSHIP
HOME
IS A T YPE OF
ADDRESS
Recipe Puppy
Yummly
Google Contacts
Create a filter to match
address type home
FIND BROTHER
IN CONTACTS
FIND
INGREDIENTS
Ingredients: cheese,
meat, tomato sauce
BROTHER'S
HOME
ADDRESS
FIND WHAT
KIND OF FOOD
THAT IS
Address as geopoint
FIND WINE
RECOMMENDATION
FOR CHEESY,
MEAT Y, SAUCY,
ITALIAN
L ASAGNE
Recipe Puppy
Yummly
Geopoint as destination
Wine.com
WineStein
REQUEST TO USER
FIND ROUTE
TO DESTINATION
FROM CURRENT
LOCATION
WINE
RECOMMENDATIONS
MapQuest
ROUTE
MapQuest
Appellation: Napa
Valley, Loire Valley
Wine-Searcher
Route shape
BUILD ROUTE
CORRIDOR
WITH DISTANCE
ADDED
Corridor
Key
Contact
Food
Route
Geo
Wine
Order
Wine stores in
that corridor
ILLUSTRATION: LA TIGRE
ARRANGE WINE
STORES WITH
BOTTLES BY PRICE
ARRANGE SUITABLE
BOTTLES BY PRICE
The answer
Input
Output
LIST OF WINE
STORES WITH SUITABLE
BOTTLES ALONG
THE WAY TO BROTHERS
HOUSE
Time elapsed:
/ 20 of a second
The AI that
could conquer
the world
BY STEVEN LEV Y
135
Now, which can anticipate some of your needs, alerting you, for example,
that you should leave 15 minutes sooner for the airport because of
traffic delays. Microsoft, which has been pursuing machine-learning
techniques for decades, recently came out with a Siri-like system
called Cortana. Amazon uses voice technology in its Fire TV product.
But Kittlaus points out that all of these services are strictly limited.
Cheyer elaborates: Google Now has a huge knowledge graph you
can ask questions like Where was Abraham Lincoln born? And it
can name the city. You can also say, What is the population? of a city
and itll bring up a chart and answer. But you cannot say, What is the
population of the city where Abraham Lincoln was born? The system
may have the data for both these components, but it has no ability to put
them together, either to answer a query or to make a smart suggestion.
Like Siri, it cant do anything that coders havent explicitly
programmed it to do. Viv breaks through those constraints
by generating its own code on the fly, no programmers
required. Take a complicated command such as Give
me a ight to Dallas with a seat that Shaquille ONeal could
fit in. Viv will parse the sentence and then it will perform
its best trick: automatically generating a quick, efficient
program to link third-party sources of information together
say, Kayak, SeatGuru, and the NBA media guide so it
can identify available f lights with lots of legroom.
And it can do all of this in a fraction of a second.
Viv is an open system that will let innumerable businesses
and applications become part of its boundless brain. The
technical barriers are minimal, requiring brief training (in
some cases, minutes) for Viv to understand the jargon of the
specific topic. As Vivs knowledge grows, so will its understanding; its creators have designed it based on three principles
they call its pillars: it will be taught by the world, it will know
more than it is taught, and it will learn something every day. As
with other AI products, that teaching involves using sophisticated algorithms to interpret the language and behaviour of
people using the system the more people use it, the smarter
it gets. By knowing who its users are and which services they
interact with, Viv can sift through that vast trove of data and
nd new ways to connect and manipulate the information.
Kittlaus says the end result will be a digital assistant who
knows what you want before you ask for it. He envisions someone
unsteadily holding a phone to his mouth outside a club at 2am
and saying, Im drunk. Without any elaboration, Viv would
contact the users preferred car service, dispatch it to the
address where hes half passed out, and direct the driver to
take him home. No further consciousness required.
If Kittlaus is in some ways the Steve Jobs of Viv he is the
only non-engineer on the ten-person team and its main voice
on strategy and marketing Cheyer is the companys Steve
Wozniak, the projects key scientic mind. Unlike the whimsical
creator of the Apple II, though, Cheyer is aggressively analytical
in every facet of his life, even beyond the workbench. As a child,
he was a Rubiks Cube champion, averaging 26 seconds a solution.
When he encountered programming, he went in head-rst. I felt that
computers were invented for me, he says. And while in high school
he discovered a regimen to force the world to bend to his will. I live
my life by what I call verbally stated goals, he says. I crystallise a
feeling, a need, into words. I think about the words, and I tell everyone
I meet, This is what Im doing. I say it, and then I believe it. By telling
people, youre committed to it, and they help you. And it works.
He says he used the technique to land his early computing jobs,
including the most signicant at SRI International, a Menlo Park
think tank that invented the concept of computer windows and the
mouse. It was there, in the early 2000s, that Cheyer led the engineering
of a Darpa-backed AI effort to build a human-like system that could
sense the world, understand it, reason about it, plan, communicate and
act. The SRI-led team built what it called a Cognitive Assistant that
Learns and Organizes, or CALO. They set some AI high-water marks,
137
I crystallise a feeling,
a need, into words. I think
about the words, and
I tell everyone that I meet,
This is what Im doing.
ARTIFICIAL
INTELLIGENCE
IS HOT
Last year,
investors poured
$581m into 142
AI-startup deals,
according to CB
Insights. Here are
a few companies
to think about.
1
Vicarious
With $56m from
backers including
Mark Zuckerberg,
San Franciscobased Vicarious
aims to achieve
human-level
intelligence in
vision, language,
and motor control.
First step: cracking
visual perception.
2
DeepMind
Founded by Demis
Hassabis, Shane
Legg and Mustafa
Suleyman, the
London-based rm
teaches machines
new tasks. It was
bought by Google
in January for a
reported 400m
with an ethics board
as a condition.
3
Numenta
Cofounded by
Donna Dubinsky
and Palms
Jeff Hawkins,
Californiabased Numenta
emulates the
human neocortex
in helping the
machine to learn.
Reported funding
exceeds $23m.
POWER
PL ANT
BY JEREMY WHITE
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOFFER RUDQUIST
139
140
rom
H e n r y Fo r d s
industrial
production
model
plantsventilationsystem.Tofurtherreducepower
consumption, white foils on all the strip lights in
the hall ceiling reect natural sunlight to reduce
the use of articial lighting.
Perhaps the most obvious change in i-model
production is the extensive use of carbon bre,
which allows the manufacturer to offset the weight
of the heavy electric components with lightweight,
yet extremely stiff, body construction.
Unlike most vehicles with an integral body
and frame construction, the horizontally split
LifeDrive architecture of the i Series consists of
two independent modules: the Life carbon-bre
passenger compartment and the Drive powertrain and aluminium chassis section beneath.
The carbon-bre fabric is rst moulded into
its eventual shape in the preforming process.
The laminate is heated to create a stable, threedimensional form. Several of these preformed
pieces can then be assembled into a larger
component. This makes it possible to manufacture
much larger body components for the i8, which are
difficult to produce in aluminium or sheet steel.
After preforming, the next step in the process
is resination. The resin-injection procedure
which is used in aerospace, boat and wind-turbine
construction involves injecting liquid resin into
preformedfabricsectionsunderhighpressure.The
bonding of the bres with the resin and the subsequenthardeninggivesthematerialitsrigidityand
its name: carbon-bre-reinforced polymer (CFRP).
In a pressing plant with a closing force of up to
4,500tonnestheresinisbondedwiththehardening
agent and the section is cured. This eliminates the
need for an additional curing process or a classic
paint-shop and cathodic immersion-bath coating.
These time savings mean that BMW can produce
preformedpartsinamatterofsingle-digitminutes.
During assembly of the i8 Drive module, the
aluminium chassis is tted with a high-voltage
battery. Its then assembled with the drivetrain and
transmission units. Once the pre-assembled frontaxlecarrierandotherpartshavebeenmounted,the
Drive module is ready to move for nal assembly.
Meanwhile, the CFRP passenger cell half
the weight of steel and 30 per cent lighter than
aluminium makes its way from the body shop to
the assembly where, on the i8 assembly line, its
customer-specic equipment is tted. This is the
nalstepbeforethemarriageofthetwomodules,
where the CFRP passenger cell and the aluminium
chassis are bolted and bonded together. For this,
BMW has developed an adhesive that takes half an
hour to bond, ten times faster than normal. Finally,
the i8 is given its thermoplastic exterior skin.
The 110-metre i assembly line normal
productionlines canbemorethan1km comprises
just 14 workstations. This, of course, is due to the
parallel assembly processes and the fact that the
new CFRP structure comprises many fewer parts,
says Carsten Breitfeld, the i project director. At 20
hours, the total processing time in the body shop
and on the assembly line is half of what would be
required in a conventional production process.
Jeremy White is product editor at WIRED.
He wrote about Koenigsegg in 06.14
PREVIOUS SPREAD
Body shop
_
The i3 body shop robots at
work on the sideframe of the
BMW i3. Their task involves
the adhesive bonding of carbonbre parts. There are 160
robots working on the i3 and 30
working on the i8.
THIS SPREAD
Assembly
_
The usual cycle time between
stations on assembly lines for
conventional cars is 76 seconds,
but here, where the line is
optimised with more people
working on smaller volumes, the
cycle time is about half an hour.
FOLLOWING SPREAD
Marriage
_
An i8 in assembly at the
facilitys wedding station.
This is where the carbonbre body shell is joined to the
aluminium Drive module
which contains the battery
cells and entire drivetrain.
FINAL SPREAD
Last checks
_
(Left) The hybrids three-cylinder
1.5-litre turbo engine produces
231bhp and is manufactured
separately, in Birmingham. (Right)
An i8 at the nish line the light
tunnel where nal quality checks
are done to ensure a perfect nish.
142
144
000
Secretly loves
to catalogue
deep space
objects such
as voorwerps
Pretty excited
about modelling
protein-folding
mechanisms
in diseases
Identied
four species
of Serengeti
predator before
breakfast
Just counted
the arms on a
new category
of occulent
spiral galaxy
147
Will transcribe
part of the
Oxyrhynchus
Papyri later
this afternoon
About to map
climate change
using data
from historic
ships logs
Finds that
categorising
bat-screeches
is immensely
soothing
Likes to spend
her spare time
surveying
craters on the
lunar surface
HOW TO
MANAGE
A CROWD
Amy Robinson,
EyeWires creative
director, is a
crowdsourcing
expert. Here
are her three
key factors in
getting the
masses involved.
01
COMMUNITY
The single
most important
aspect of a
crowdsourcing
project, according
to Robinson.
We listen to the
players and make
sure they are part
of the lab, she
says. Participants
connect through
internal forums
but also through
social media.
02
THE DESIGN
The EyeWire team,
which includes
designers and
animators, put
themselves in
the shoes of the
players. Most
players dont have
a background in
neuroscience,
says Robinson.
The game needs
to be fun but
we also want
them to learn.
03
THE GAME
EyeWire stripped
out the labs
complex software
and technical
jargon. The
researchers are
getting asked
questions that
theyre not used
to being asked,
says Robinson.
This community
reminds you of
those questions
that fuel curiosity.
149
Chris Lintott
(left), Zooniverse
founder, and
Robert Simpson,
researcher and
web developer
to be a never-before-seen astronomical
object. Christened Hannys Voorwerp
(voorwerp means object in Dutch),
it remains the subject of intense scientific scrutiny. Later that year, a team
of volunteers compiled evidence for a
new type of galaxy blue and compact
which they named Pea galaxies.
When we did a survey of our volunteers we found out they werent astronomers, Lintott says. They werent
even huge science fans and werent
that interested in making new discoveries.Themajoritysaidtheyjustwanted
to make a contribution. With Galaxy
Zoo,SchawinskiandLintottdevelopeda
powerful pattern-recognition machine,
composed entirely of people who could
not only process data incredibly quickly
and accurately aggregating the results
via a democratic statistical process
but also enable individual serendipitous discoveries, a fundamental
component of scientic enquiry. With
robotic telescopes spewing terabytes of
imageseveryyear,theyfoundananswer
to big data in a big crowd of volunteers.
Since Galaxy Zoos rst discoveries, this
pioneering approach of crowdsourcing
150
alaxy Zoo
harnesses its
volunteers to
undertake imageand p a t t e r n recognitiontasks
that scientists
dont have the resources to complete.
Fordecades,[researchers]incomputer
science have been suggesting that we
should convert big-data problems into
games, Treuille says. Now we can
do this on a massive scale.
With Foldit and EteRNA, the best
work is not done via a statistical
aggregation, but by its most elite
players. A way of thinking about this
is that weve searched through 100,000
people and found a sub-set who were
amazing at this esoteric task, Treuille
tells WIRED on the phone from Pittsburgh.Ourtopplayersarenotbiochemistry or computer-science graduates,
but they are better than any graduates
who work on this project. After our
conversation, Treuille sends WIRED
a video interview with the worlds
number-one Foldit player. In it, a young
woman describes her gaming: I like to
take a messy protein and turn it into a
beautifullystreamlinedstructurewhere
everythingissymmetricalandthingsare
tucked in and nothing is hanging out.
Yes, thats what I like doing, she says.
Im an admin worker in a rehab team.
Im just answering telephones, working
on bespoke computer programs, interactingwithstaff.Itsrepetitive.WhenIgo
home I become a different person. I like
to measure myself against something
and its given me something that my
everyday life hasnt given me, which is
to use abilities I didnt know I had.
In 2009, Galaxy Zoo evolved into a
largerplatformcalledZooniverse,which
currently runs more than 20 scientic
projects for a community of more than a
millionpeople.WhenwestartedGalaxy
Zoo, we thought we would get a few
people from amateur astronomy clubs,
says Robert Simpson, a researcher and
web developer at Zooniverse, when
WIREDvisitshisofficesattheUniversity
of Oxfords astrophysics department.
Four thousand people took part.
Were starting to run out of galaxies.
According to Simpson, the Zooniverse
community contributes more than 50
years of effort per annum and over 70
scientific papers have resulted. We
dont let them sleep, he jokes. Its a
very good effort if you work out their
holidays and account for the time they
need to go to the toilet. We dont just
get one persons opinion, we get a vote
on everything we ask, and thats very
powerful in terms of creating catalogue
of things that only a human can nd.
Simpson shows WIRED an artists
impression of a planet with four
suns. It was found by Planet Hunters,
another Zooniverse project. Its a bit
like Tatooine, Simpson says. This
system has two stars in the centre, the
planet revolves around them and two
other stars orbiting around them. The
computers didnt spot it because no one
even thought of writing an algorithm to
look for this kind of system.
Zooniverse now ranges from archaeology to nature conservation. Snapshot
Serengeti, for example, uses images
from 225 cameras placed in a grid
across the Serengeti National Park.
The cameras are triggered by motion
and heat, taking images of animals in
various poses. The idea is to make a
census of the large predators and their
prey, Simpson says. Users are asked
what species they see and what they
are doing. They are mapping migration
patterns of these animals over a long
period of time. On Simpsons office
door, theres a list titled Army size,
with the names of various countries
crossed out, apart from India (1.3
million), the US (1.6 million) and
China (2.3 million). We just crossed
out North Korea. We used to compare
ourselvestohowmanyfootballstadiums
we could fill with our members, but
we had to upgrade to armies.
The significance of Zooniverses
popularity is best illustrated by the
science projects that it has inspired.
Consider EyeWire, a game launched in
2012 that asks players to map neuronal
circuitry. It was developed by Sebastian
Seung, a neuroscientist at Princeton
University and a former MIT professor
who is attempting to comprehensively
map how neurons are connected within
our brain. This sort of wiring diagram,
which Seung calls the connectome, is
GALAXY HUNT
Zooniverses
Galaxy Zoo uses
the crowd to
categorise deepspace objects
000
This reddish
galaxy was
spotted through
our own galactic
disk, hence
the stars in the
foreground
152
ne morning in
June 2014,
Simpson and his
team met Andrew
Bastawrous, an
eye surgeon from
theLondonSchool
of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and
Tunde Peto, an ophthalmologist from
Moorelds Eye Hospital. Bastawrous
has developed a smartphone add-on
that can diagnose eye disease (WIRED
08.14), an app called Peek (Portable Eye
Examination Kit), which he is using in
clinical studies in Kenya.
Simpson and Bastawrous, both TED
Fellows, met in March 2014 at TEDs
conference in Vancouver, and thought
Zooniverse might help Bastawrouss
project. Lately we have been joking
thatweshouldbedoingsomethingmore
worthwhilethanjustndingnewplanets
andgalaxies,laughsSimpson.Helping
Andrew is in that category of projects
that make a difference. At the meeting,
which took place at the University of
Oxford, Bastawrous showed a picture
that he took in a village in Kenya of an
elderly woman. Her eyes were cloudy,
her face expressionless. I see ladies like
her in the clinic every day, Bastawrous
says. The woman had glaucoma, an eye
diseasethatdevelopsslowlybutleadsto
blindness if not treated early. Unfortunately it was too late. The worst thing is
looking into someones eye and seeing
that theres nothing you can do.
Bastawrous needs a way of quickly
evaluating the thousands of images
that come from eye clinics. Its
relatively easy to spot images that
show abnormal features, says Peto,
whose team does image analysis for
Peek. But when you see nothing, you
spend a lot of time looking for minor
features. Its very time consuming.
Getting the Zooniverse crowd
to analyse these images is a typical
medium-sized project, Simpson adds.
Wecouldgetthisdoneinaboutaweek.
On hearing this, Bastawrous is
visibly cheered. Im excited that its
possible to have thousands of people
looking at these images.
EYE EXAMINATION
The Peek app uses
a smartphone
camera to scan
the retina. The
crowd analyses it
ANIMAL TRACKS
The Snapshot
Serengeti crowd
creates a detailed
log of activity from
225 cameras
Crowd-analysers
learn the main
features of the eye,
such as the optic
nerve and macula;
then they can spot
the anomalies
The website
enabled the crowd
to monitor this
cheetah and the
development of
her cubs over
a period of time
OVERHEARD IN
THE WIRED OFFICE
THIS MONTH
Im st-bumping
only from now on.
Ninety per cent
reduction in
germ transfer over
a handshake.
I need to practise
touching my eyeball.
It was like
Homeland, only
without the laughs.
We usually put the
Maxi-Cosi on the
Bugaboo but
our friend has an
UPPAbaby, which
is amazing. And I
just saw a stroller
with an LCD screen
and a solar panel
that charges your
iPhone as you walk.
WANT
MORE
WIRED?
Isnt it incredible
that 100 people a
year are killed by
lions? You cant
beat the classics.
Ugh. Reality.
So very dreary.
I have recently
discovered my legs.
EXTRA CREDIT
THIS MONTH
Photography for the
Ron Arad feature:
Ron Arad Studio;
Yael Pinus; Tom
Vack; Asa Bruno;
Erik and Petra
Hesmerg; Alberto
Ferrero; Jessica
Lawrence.
Thanks to Kelsey
Publishing for
housing our Test
fridge-freezers.
FAIRWELLS
THIS MONTH
WIRED loses two
troopers this
month, as our
tablet producer
and wired.co.uks
deputy editor leave
for pastures new.
Best of luck, ladies.
WIREDs picture
editor spent a
day atop a ladder,
lighting models for
our crowd science
feature. Thankfully,
the crowd also
warned him
whenever a bus was
about to atten him.
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