Technology-led progress means a frantic pace that can stop us learning from technology’s past. Tomorrow Unlocked’s new audio series Fast Forward examines forces shaping technology by looking at the recent past. It distills practical learnings that might have been missed in the flurry of forward momentum.
Written and presented by BBC radio broadcaster, author and cultural theorist Ken Hollings, the 6-part series includes insightful interviews with industry, media and academic tech experts who have an eye on the future, against a backdrop of original music and immersive sound design. If you’re an innovator, a futurist or a thinker, listen to Fast Forward.
Hear more about the themes in the series and why trash is a goldmine for the internet in this episode of Unlocked, in conversation with Ken Hollings.
Subscribe to future episodes on these audio streaming services:
Spotify
Apple
Google Podcasts
Amazon music
Podbean
Episode 1 – Clouds of Personal Data: Welcome to the Labyrinth
How we can get our data priorities right in the age of The Cloud, with guests Prehistory of the Cloud author and Associate Professor Tung-Hui Hu of University of Michigan and Tanya Basu, senior reporter for MIT Technology.
Episode 2 – Future Supermarkets: Scan Purchase for Maximum Score
Carting listeners through the supermarket aisles to see how interactive experience and augmented reality are shaping shopping, with design researcher Benjamin Parry and Professor of Urban Technologies and Planning at MIT Senseable City Lab, Carlo Ratti.
Out June 16 2021
Episode 3 – Future Cities: Nowhere to Go but Here
While COVID-19 ushered in a new era of ‘digital suburbs,’ Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering Shoshanna Saxe (University of Toronto) outlines how future cities should adapt to technology. Architect and filmmaker Sarah Akigbogun (Women in Architecture) talks about how suburbia reinforced inequalities technology may be about to help break down.
Out June 23 2021
Episode 4 – Human or Machine: A plus B minus C
Set in the haunted Victorian parlor, we look at a famous test for machine intelligence from that era and its implications today, with artist Shardcore and AI tech author James Bridle.
Out June 30 2021
Episode 5 – Robot Colleagues: R.U.R. or Have U Ever Been?
100 years after Karel Čapek’s play coined the term ‘robot,’ we explore the automated workspace and ask why machines should look and behave like us, with Dr. Beth Singler of University of Cambridge and Professor Alan Winfield of Bristol Robotics Lab.
Out July 7 2021
Episode 6 – The New Space Race
The final episode considers new space missions like the lunar space station, mining on the Moon and crewed missions to Mars. With Professor Chris Welch of International Space University, Tanja Masson-Zwaan, Deputy Director of International Institute of Air and Space Law and Space engineer Vinita Marwaha Madill, founder of Rocket Women.
Out July 14 2021