Anab Jain: Designing the future

“This sort of speculative work explores the remarkable potential of technology and its new experiential aesthetics.” Anab Jain talks about design in a future world of insect cyborgs, mass surveillance, DNA monetization and guerilla infrastructure.

Miriah Meyer: Seeing Data

“In data visualization, what we really need to do is move beyond thinking that visualization is just about pretty pictures.” Miriah Meyer explains how data visualization can be more concise, practical and scientifically useful, and still be aesthetically pleasing.

Erik Hersman: BRCK breakthrough

illustration by Peter Durand

“The great challenge of our time is to connect people and information.” Erik Hersmanshows off the BRCK, a way to connect to the Internet that is physically robust, able to connect to multiple networks, a hub for all local devices and has enough backup power to survive a blackout.  www.brck.com

Lloyd and Zimbalist: Memory mapping the news

Alexis Lloyd and Michael Zimbalist, both from the New York Times R&D Lab, describe a new app for memory mapping the news, which they created for PopTech's iPad app. Unlike the old model of top-down publishing, it allows consumers to combine news with their own personal memories. Users can see timelines in real and perceived time and view stories from the archives within the context of their own lives.

Eben Upton: Raspberry Pi

Eben Upton founder of the Raspberry Pi Foundation, shows how he is hooking a new generation of kids on computer programming. “I remember sitting down with my wife for dinner…and we had this sudden, appalling realization that we had promised 600,000 people that we would build them a $25 dollar computer.”

NICK BILTON ON MULTITASKING AND MEDIA

Nick Bilton, Lead Technology Reporter for The New York Times “Bits” blog, says that digital media has resulted in a "new form of storytelling." Bilton, who is also a designer and user interface specialist, is co-founder of NYC Resistor, a hacker collective in Brooklyn, and is current book is titled, I Live in the Future: & Here’s How It Works.

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Alec Ross: Statecraft 3.0

Senior Advisor on Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Alec Ross, says it’s time to reboot US diplomatic efforts abroad. Ross calls for 21st century statecraft based on the innovative use of new media. Previously, Ross co-founded One Economy, a nonprofit devoted to closing the digital divide, and brought his expertise to then Senator Obama’s presidential campaign.

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Kelly Dobson: Machine Therapy

An eminent roboticist and Ph.D. at MIT's Media Lab, Kelly Dobson is exploring "machine therapy" - a personal, societal and psychoanalytical study of machine design and its effects on peoples' everyday lives. Watch as she exhibits Screambody, Blendie and Omo, three fascinating robots that respond to - and influence - their users in provocative ways. See Pop!Cast video

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Erin McKean on Wordnik

Self-proclaimed word geek Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of U.S. Dictionaries for Oxford University Press, is on a mission to debunk common misconceptions and elevate the use—and cool factor—of dictionaries. And what’s this about dictionaries being “the vodka of literature”?

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Jay Parkinson: Healthcare 2.0

Dr. Parkinson is re-imagining the doctor/patient relationship, marrying a 21st century toolkit - think social networking, IM, video chat, SMS and PayPal - with old-fashioned, doctor-in-your-neighborhood, quality care. Pay a virtual visit to his Web 2.0 primary care practice, Hello Health, which offers a new way of keeping people well.

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John Priscu: Life below the ice of Antarctic

Join polar scientist John Priscu – and his autonomous robots - as he takes us miles below the Antarctic ice to search for living organisms that may have been cut off from the rest of the planet’s ecosystem for millions of years.

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