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io9Here’s A Map That Shows All The Future Megacities From Science Fiction
The cities of the future are massive, sprawling, beautiful monsters, covering entire coastlines — and in some cases, entire continents. Whether it’s Judge Dredd’s Mega-Cities or William Gibson’s “Sprawl,” future cities always devour land. Here’s a map of future megalopolises. So why are these cities so overwhelmingly large? And where do they come from? Here’s … Continued
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This slime mold conquered (a miniature map of) America
A yellow goo has invaded the world’s motorways, spreading from capital cities to the furthest reaches of the transport network and devouring everything in its path. The infestation was unleashed by Andrew Adamatzky, a researcher of unconventional computing at the University of the West of England in Bristol, along with colleagues from universities around the … Continued
Jacob Aron - New Scientist -
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What if the US highway system consisted entirely of subways instead?
Such is the scenario Australian designer Cameron Booth has dreamt up in two separate maps depicting both the U.S. Routes system and the U.S. Interstates as massive crisscrossing subway grids. For a somewhat similarly themed speculative geography project, see the effort to transform the entire globe into the New York City street grid. To witness … Continued
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Too bad this one-million-person city from New York to San Francisco was never built
Otherwise, we could pretend we were living in a Judge Dredd storyline. This 1969 design by Alan Boutwell and Mike Mitchell — the aptly titled Continuous city for 1.000.000 human beings — never took off, but this design and other fanciful megastructures offer a glimpse into an arcology-filled future the past never delivered. This million-person … Continued
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New map imposes New York City grid system on the world
If the Manhattan grid system was extended beyond the island, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would live at the intersection of 63,709th Street and East 10,894th Avenue. A wild interactive map by Harold Cooper, called ExtendNY, imagines an entire globe laid out according to the New York City grid of the Commissioners’ Plan … Continued
Sean Kane - Popular Science -
io9South Korean airport fights drug smugglers with cloned dogs
At Incheon Airport, the Korean Custom Service has turned to seven cloned pooches to sniff out drug mules. These golden Labrador Retrievers are all the genetic duplicates of Chase, a retired drug-sniffing dog whose nose was among the most discerning Incheon had ever seen. So far the airport’s had remarkable success apprehending smugglers with these … Continued
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Your next ocean vacation could be on an abandoned oil platform
What do you do with an oil platform after it has outlived its usefulness? You’ve got this giant structure, set up for people to live and work on it, and it’s solidly sunk into the ocean floor. Now designers are saying that the best way to deal with these leftovers of the oil economy is … Continued
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In 2015, the Toronto waterfront will be covered by hundreds of giant weather balloons
This is a glimpse of the future of Toronto. It’s the winning entry in a contest to design a pavillion for the 2015 Pan-American Games Award Pavilion in Toronto. Yes, those are hundreds of weather balloons filled with helium, clustered attractively together to create a surreal plastic cloud layer over the area. It will shelter … Continued
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io9Japanese researchers building sidewalks that look like discotheques
Researchers at Tokyo’s University of Electro-Communications are working on sidewalk innovations that will transform public thoroughfares into shimmering corridors of light. The first of these are lenticular lenses embedded in walkways — these lenses offer subtle navigational cues to pedestrians when they’re stuck in crowded spaces. Note the researchers: The images on the sheets laid … Continued
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Cities that hover in the clouds of gas giants
Ever since I read Iain M. Banks’ The Algebraist, about creatures who live on gas giant planets, I have dreamt of gas giant cities. Luckily, the amazing site ConceptArt.org issued a challenge a couple of years ago to design one. Here’s a gallery of some of the incredible work the concept artists came up with. … Continued
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io9Hypnotic 24-minute video transforms you into a Taipei mass transit car
YouTube videographer ISO8 captured this oddly compelling video of a ride on Taipei’s Neihu Line. The ride is mostly above ground and will allow you to finally live out any childhood dreams of someday growing up to become a Taiwanese subway car. For another firsthand view of a railway, check out this seven-hour ride through … Continued
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How to stop the water wars of 2050
Urban population growth is skyrocketing. The majority of people on Earth live in cities, and most of the water they drink has to be shipped in. Scientists say that by 2050, many cities will have seasonal water shortages. What happens when fresh groundwater starts to run out? Environmental researcher Robert I. McDonald and colleagues studied … Continued
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The never-was 1000 MPH transcontinental railroad from New York to Los Angeles
Here’s another speculative transit project right up there with that underground bullet train between New York and Philly. In 1948, Modern Mechanics showcased this supersonic cross-continental rocket train. You could go from NYC to LA in three hours! At 1,000-mph your train will travel as fast as the sun in its apparent motion across the … Continued
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io9Frustrated Berliners build oversized kaleidoscopes to block subway ads
Subway advertising is a risky proposition for the advertiser because you’ll never know if someone will remix your ad into, say, Darth Vader chugging a beer. In Berlin’s Friedrichstraße U-Bahn station, advertisers have eschewed print completely and have taken to projecting commercials on the subway’s walls. The city’s street artists have adapted accordingly: A couple … Continued
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She watched the sun rise from a smart bubble at the edge of the sea
Who doesn’t want to live at the tide line in a completely transparent bubble full of comfy chairs and a nice fluffy bed? This is post-human nomad existence at its most groovy. It may not be made of smart matter yet, but the Bubble House will make you feel like you’re living in an atmosphere … Continued
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io9Electric unicycle makes it look like you’re levitating down the street
This is the Solowheel, a briefcase-sized unicycle that allows you to zip around like The Gentlemen from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode “Hush.” Here’s a product description from manufacturer Inventist: Externally, the Solowheel consists of a wheel and two foldable foot platforms. Internally, the inner workings of the Solowheel use gyro sensors, a 1000-Watt … Continued
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io9This is the music you can create with a subway system
In the euphonious data visualization “Conductor,” Alexander Chen transforms the New York City subway system into a massive stringed instrument. Says Chen of the project: Conductor turns the New York subway system into an interactive string instrument. Using the MTA’s actual subway schedule, the piece begins in realtime by spawning trains which departed in the … Continued
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100 years ago, the New York Times predicted cars would be abolished today
Back in 1909, a fanciful New York Times journalist decided to spice things up by pretending to describe a futuristic 2009 “centennial celebration.” His portrait of future NYC is surprisingly eco-conscious and pedestrian-friendly. Thanks to pulp history scholar Jess Nevins, we’ve got access to a transcribed version of this story, written by mystery writer and … Continued
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io9Could self-aware cities be the first forms of artificial intelligence?
The cities of the future will be huge and super-dense — but will they also be alive? Could the increasingly complex systems needed to manage the next generation of megacities become our first true artificial intelligence? People have speculated before about the idea that the Internet might become self-aware and turn into the first “real” … Continued