Greetings, Future Tensers,
Today, many of us are surrounded by devices designed to make us safer—most recently, perhaps, a wearable that would help detect allergens in food. The trouble is that all those gadgets are constantly collecting data about us, and that data may, Elizabeth Weingarten warns, reveal more about us than we realize. Still, they can help us in surprising ways, too: Just consider the Tesla in autopilot mode that carried its driver to the hospital after he suffered a pulmonary embolism. That’s not to say all self-driving cars are entirely safe, of course, but even accidents can sometimes encourage technological progress.
In the unlikely event that you’re reading this newsletter while attending the Rio Olympics, we hope you’re being careful about your Wi-Fi logins—malicious “free” networks have been detected in the region. The real crisis in Rio, though, is environmental: You probably already know about the city’s polluted rivers, but Andrew Dana Hudson warns that those conditions may presage other crises that could transform the way we think about sports more generally. Fortunately, climate change has been an active part of the conversation at this year’s games, which we hope will inspire us to take action in response to this very real problem.
Here are some of the other stories that we read while making Futurama memes:
- Entertainment: Having helped us get used to streaming online television, Hulu is eliminating its free options. Will Oremus argues that that was the plan all along.
- Privacy: When workplace communications platforms preserve our data in perpetuity, they can sometimes expose us and our employers to legal risks. Josephine Wolff proposes that we need more ephemeral options.
- Gaming: Roll20 promises to recreate the experience of tabletop role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons online. We tried it out at Slate and had a blast.
- Sharing Economy: Even as it effectively pulls out of China, Uber controls an increasingly enormous slice of the global transportation market, suggesting that it’s time to regulate it accordingly.
Jacob Brogan
for Future Tense
