What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future

Over the last month, North Americans have seen record-breaking heat, droughts, wildfires, and floods. The science is clear: we are living through the effects of climate change. Now scientists are trying to answer: is this the new normal?Guest: Daniel Swain, climate scientist at UCLA HostLizzie O’Leary  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For many white-collar workers, the full-time work from home era is coming to an end. Some are going back into offices five days a week. Many others will be expected to split the week between home and the office. As the new rules are laid down, office workers are asking themselves: do we want work to go back to the way it was? Or is it time, finally, to try something different? Guest: Brigid Schulte, director of the Better Life Lab at New AmericaHostHenry Grabar  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From Slate Studios & ServiceNow, this episode of Let’s Workflow It features Deryck Mitchelson – one of the leaders taking on the greatest workflow challenge of our time – the effort to vaccinate millions of citizens from COVID-19. As Director of Information Security for NHS National Services Scotland, Deryck manages his nation’s contact tracing and vaccination systems, and shares his unique perspective on the systems and technology necessary to turn vaccines into vaccinations.Listen and subscribe to Let’s Workflow It wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, the U.S. government released a new report that attempts to categorize 144 verified sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP. They could only definitively explain one of them. The new report signals a shift in the way we think about UAP. As technology has advanced and evidence of these encounters has increased, the question has become more urgent: What exactly is happening in our skies?Guest: Shane Harris, intelligence and national security reporter for the Washington PostHostLizzie O’Leary  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For nearly two years, an unprecedented experiment has been taking place in the town of El Zonte in El Salvador. Funded by a mysterious donor, the town’s residents built a Bitcoin economy, using the cryptocurrency to purchase just about anything. Now, El Slavador has passed a new law making it the first country to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender. Can they replicate El Zonte’s success at a national scale?Guest: Ezra Fieser, reporter at BloombergHostLizzie O’Leary  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever since police used a DNA platform called GEDmatch to crack the Golden State Killer case in 2018, police departments around the country have rushed to use genetic genealogy to crack their own cold cases. The result? Hundreds of violent cases solved. So--why are some states passing new laws to limit this new technology?Guest: Nila Bala, senior staff attorney at the Policing Project at NYU Law. HostLizzie O’Leary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the last decade, billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson have come to embody the future of space travel and exploration. What does it mean when the ideas and ambitions of a few powerful men come to dominate the conversation so thoroughly?Guest: Lucianne Walkowicz, astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and founder of the Just Space AllianceHostLizzie O’LearyThis episode is sponsored by Teamistry. You can listen here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two weeks ago, as wildfires burned north of Los Angeles, the crime app Citizen offered $30,000 for information that would lead to the arrest of a suspected arsonist. They had the wrong guy. Why is Citizen offering bounties in the first place? And what does this bounty debacle say about the app’s aspirations for the future?Guest: Joseph Cox, reporter at Motherboard HostHenry Grabar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After years of careful planning and public spats, Apple and Epic—the maker of Fortnite—have spent the last three weeks in court, fighting over the future of mobile gaming. What happens if, for once, Apple loses?Guest: Elizabeth Lopatto, deputy editor at the Verge HostLizzie O’Leary  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week, a hacker group called DarkSide shut down the Colonial Pipeline, which supplies 45 percent of the fuel consumed on the East Coast. Gas prices skyrocketed, people started hoarding gas, and DarkSide walked away with over $4 million in Bitcoin. How did they do it? And what makes this hack different from those we’ve seen before?Guest: David Uberti, cybersecurity reporter at the Wall Street JournalHostLizzie O’Leary Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.