Category: technology

• Watch my Google Talk

  Last month, Google invited me to come give a talk about Cumulus. They filmed the entire event and you can watch it right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1mwp0uk2cQ&feature=youtube We discussed science fiction, creative process, social impacts of technology, venture capital investing, and predicting the future. I’ve always been amazed by the busy intersection of speculative fiction, engineering, and…

• William Hertling on the dangerous social implications of social media

  William Hertling writes all-too-plausible near-future science fiction novels and his bestselling Singularity Series extrapolates the future of artificial intelligence. In his latest novel, Kill Process, Hertling brings the lens of speculative fiction to bear on the present day. The story wrestles with the social impacts of social media, the centralization of power among big internet companies, and the burgeoning…

• What’s the deal with VR?

  Trying to figure out why VR is all the rage right now even though you probably haven’t tried it? A few weeks ago I got to try an pre-release “room scale” VR rig at a secret lab down in SoCal. After donning the goggles, my immediate reaction was “WOW.” I was suddenly standing in another…

• Reading Recommendation: Flash Boys

  Flash Boys by Michael Lewis is a riveting nonfiction thriller that exposes the dirty world of high-frequency trading on Wall Street. Lewis is an award-winning journalist whose investigative reporting reads like a first-rate page-turner. Finishing Flash Boys left me in awe of his mastery of the craft and reminded me how much I have to…

• Dr. Evil’s Milk Run

  I was thrilled when Brad Feld agreed to host this post about the lessons I learned over the course of writing my last three novels. The article focuses on cybersecurity and vulnerabilities in our public and financials institutions and is based on interviews with technologists, international money laundering investigators, and federal special agents. You can…

• Are Humans the Key to Discovery in a World of Digital Abundance?

  I wrote a column for Xconomy about how the internet has changed the way we discover new stuff (books, songs, movies, news, etc.). The shift has been far more fundamental than most people realize. For example, the vast majority of traffic to The New York Times comes not through their front page but through social…

• Science fiction and predicting the future | Ramez Naam interview

  “Science fiction is really important. But it’s not important because it is right – because it is almost never right. Science fiction is important because it makes us think deeply about what might be.” -Seth Godin What role does human imagination play in shaping the world we live in? How can science fiction help us…

• What’s the most important trend nobody is paying attention to?

  Welcome to the Good Question Series where I ask the most interesting people I know a single question that they are uniquely qualified to answer. It’s interview haiku, short and thought provoking. I’m out to prove that brevity and depth can coexist. .@pmarca what’s the most important trend nobody is paying attention to? — Eliot Peper (@eliotpeper)…

• What’s wrong with the Internet?

  Welcome to the Good Question Series where I ask the most interesting people I know a single question that they are uniquely qualified to answer. It’s interview haiku, short and thought provoking. I’m out to prove that brevity and depth can coexist. The Internet is not the answer. Firstly, it is compounding the already gaping…

• Where to find high-quality journalism on the Internet | Jeff Campagna Interview

  Jeff Campagna is an author, journalist, and co-founder of independent startup publisher Compass Cultura. His stories have appeared in The Daily Beast, Smithsonian Magazine, Vice Magazine, The Atlantic’s Longreads, Narrative.ly, and many other publications. Compass Cultura is a subscription-based publisher of high-quality, in-depth stories. Everything I’ve read there so far has been top notch. I…