It doesn't take long to walk from Siemen's old headquarters in Munich to its new one, inaugurated in June: the German industrial conglomerate has built it right next door. The design is cutting-edge, as are the building's environmental features. It is packed with energy-saving sensors; channeled rainwater is used to flush the toilets. General Electric, Siemens's big American rival, will soon hav..
What history tells us about the future of artificial intelligence - and how society should respond Experts warn that "the substitution of machinery for human labor" may "render the population redundant". They worry that "the discovery of this mighty power" has come "before we knew how to employ it rightly". Such fears are expressed today by those who worry that advances in artificial intelligenc..
A new kind of digital violations is hitting Twitter users, who can now be 'owned' and traded with virtual money Here is an idea for a fun game. Imagine playing with online trading cards, where you're buying and selling virtual people. Like baseball cards - remember those? Except instead of baseball players, they're real people, pulled from real people's Twitter accounts. Like yours! If you use T..
If technology is increasing inequality, it is how it changes power, not how it affects marginal productivity, that matters Is the World Bank - the institution that once championed the Washington Consensus - really breaking with the tech optimism of so many of the world's companies and economic leaders? Not exactly. The report released on 14 January is an internally conflicted document - at times..
From stamping out abuse to finally deciding how many characters is enough, here's what should be in Jack Dorsey's own 'While you were away' feed 1. Decide what Twitter is and what it isn't, and whether 140 characters is still enough Twitter's character limit dates back to the days of SMS messaging: it's long enough to include the whole message, an 18 character username, one colon and one space p..
Online encyclopedia reaches its 15th birthday preparing for challenges ahead around funding, mobile access and the developing world As Wikipedia turns 15, its operator The Wikimedia Foundation is hoping to secure its long-term future with a new endowment fund that aims to raise $100m over the next 10 years. The Wikimedia Endowment has been set up as a "permanent safekeeping fund" managed by the ..