<h2>Debtor&#8217;s Panopticon</h2>
A new app created by authorities in China tells you if any &#8220;deadbeat debtors&#8221; are within 500 meters — like Grindr, essentially, but for insolvent borrowers.
It sounds like dystopian fiction, but news of the Chinese app comes <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201901/16/WS5c3edfb8a3106c65c34e4d75.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">from China Daily</a>, a <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/economy/article/2054515/communist-party-mouthpiece-quotes-china-daily-foreign-media">state-run</a> newspaper that says the app was rolled out by the courts in North China&#8217;s Hebei province.
<h2>Ready Debt Go</h2>
The debt-detecting app runs inside WeChat, a popular messaging service in China <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/17/google-launches-its-first-wechat-mini-program/">that supports</a> &#8220;mini programs.&#8221;
The idea, according to China Daily, is that WeChat users will locate &#8220;debtors capable of paying their debts&#8221; and &#8220;whistle-blow&#8221; on them.
<h2>Social Credit</h2>
<div id="Content">
The Chinese app fits into the nation&#8217;s broader trend toward tracking &#8220;social credit.&#8221; Social credit is an all-encompassing score that judges citizens&#8217; &#8220;behavior and trustworthiness&#8221; by examining everything from whether they jaywalk to whether they play music too loudly in public, <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit-system-explained">according to Wired</a>. If a citizen&#8217;s social credit score is too low, they can lose privileges, such as the ability to book flights.
&#8220;It&#8217;s a part of our measures to enforce our rulings and create a socially credible environment,&#8221; a spokesman of China&#8217;s court system said of the debt-detecting app.
</div>
READ MORE: <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201901/16/WS5c3edfb8a3106c65c34e4d75.html">Hebei Court Unveils Program to Expose Deadbeat Debtors</a> [China Daily]
More on social credit: <a href="https://futurism.com/facial-recognition-china-social-credit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">If You Jaywalk in China, Facial Recognition Means You’ll Walk Away With a Fine</a>

The nosy app fits into a broader trend in China toward tracking "social credit."

Grindr-like Chinese app tells you if "deadbeat debtors" are nearby

Debt Tu, Brute?

A new Chinese app tells you if any "deadbeat debtors" are within 500 meters — like Grindr, essentially, but for insolvent borrowers.

Grindr-Like Chinese App Tells You If “Deadbeat Debtors” Are Nearby

It sounds like dystopian fiction.

<h2>Making Sense</h2>
Rare genetic disorders are, by definition, rare. That can make diagnosing them difficult for clinicians, and without a proper diagnosis, a patient might not receive the best possible treatment.
A new AI-powered smartphone app called Face2Gene could change that.
Its creators say it can outperform doctors at diagnosing rare genetic disorders in children by analyzing kids&#8217; faces. Eventually, the app could help children across the globe receive better treatment for their conditions — if it can overcome a few hurdles.
<h2>Face to Face</h2>
The Face2Gene app is the work of Boston-based digital-health company FDNA, which describes its work in a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-018-0279-0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">paper</a> published in the journal Nature Medicine on Monday.
According to the paper, the team trained Face2Gene&#8217;s deep-learning algorithm to identify rare genetic disorders by first feeding it more than 17,000 images of people diagnosed with one of 216 genetic syndromes. From that data, it learned to look for distinctive facial features associated with specific disorders.
When the researchers <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2189683-ai-can-identify-rare-genetic-disorders-by-the-shape-of-someones-face/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tested the app</a> on 502 images it hadn&#8217;t seen before, Face2Gene provided the correct diagnosis roughly 65 percent of the time. When given the option of providing 10 possible diagnoses, the correct one made Face2Gene&#8217;s list 91 percent of the time.
The team also tested Face2Gene&#8217;s disorder-identification abilities against those of 49 clinical geneticists attending a workshop on birth defects. For that unofficial trial, the researchers asked the participants to diagnose 10 children with “fairly recognizable” genetic syndromes based on a single photo of their face.
The results were striking. Only two of the clinical geneticists provided correct diagnoses for more than 50 percent of the photos. Face2Gene correctly diagnosed seven out of the 10 children.
<h2>New Look</h2>
Ideally, Face2Gene would be able to correctly identify a disorder every time. To get closer to that goal, the FDNA team needs more training data, which it hopes to generate by making the app available to healthcare professionals for free.
It also needs that training data to include more non-Caucasian faces — a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27925162?dopt=Abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2017 study</a> using Face2Gene to identify Down Syndrome found the <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-medicine-doctor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">healthcare app</a> was 80 accurate in its diagnosis if a photo featured a white Belgian child, but only 37 accurate if it featured a black Congolese child.
<h2>Better Guess</h2>
Even at its current rate of accuracy, though, the app has already impressed at least one rare disease specialist: the University of Oxford&#8217;s Christoffer Nellåker, who was not associated with the research.
&#8220;The real value here is that for some of these ultra-rare diseases, the process of diagnosis can be many, many years,&#8221; he <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2189683-ai-can-identify-rare-genetic-disorders-by-the-shape-of-someones-face/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told New Scientist</a>. &#8220;This kind of technology can help narrow down the search space and then be verified through checking genetic markers.&#8221;
&#8220;For some diseases, it will cut down the time to diagnosis drastically,&#8221; Nellåker continued. &#8220;For others, it could perhaps add a means of finding other people with the disease and, in turn, help find new treatments or cures.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2189683-ai-can-identify-rare-genetic-disorders-by-the-shape-of-someones-face/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AI Can Identify Rare Genetic Disorders by the Shape of Someone’s Face</a> [New Scientist]
More on AI: <a href="https://futurism.com/ai-medicine-doctor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Your Future Doctor May Not Be Human. This Is the Rise of AI in Medicine.</a>

"For some diseases, it will cut down the time to diagnosis drastically."

This AI identifies genetic disorders by looking at face shape

A Good Look

A new app called Face2Gene is more accurate than clinicians at identifying genetic disorders based on a photo of a person's face.

This AI Identifies Genetic Disorders by Looking at Face Shape

Face2Gene could help doctors find new treatments for rare diseases.

<h2>Homework Machine</h2>
Extracurricular education is big business in China.
One futuristic example: Yuanfudao, an online tutoring platform that includes an app that uses artificial intelligence to give students answers to their homework after they snap a photo of it.
Yuanfudao claims it now has 200 million users, and that interest from parents and students has translated into <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/26/yuanfudao-raises-300-million/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">major interest from investors</a>. If it lives up the hype, it could represent a new path forward for educational technology — not just in China but for students across the globe.
<h2>Fully Invested</h2>
On Tuesday, Yuanfudao announced another $300 million in funding, bringing its valuation to more than $3 billion. Chinese social networking and gaming giant Tencent led the round, with an international squad of investment firms including Warburg Pincus and IDG Capital also joining in.
Yuanfudao <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/26/yuanfudao-raises-300-million/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told TechCrunch</a> it plans to use these funds for AI research and development, and to improve the user experience of its homework app.
<h2>Practice Makes Perfect</h2>
While being able to snap a photo of your homework and instantly get answers to problems sounds like a lazy student&#8217;s dream come true, the homework app actually isn&#8217;t Yuanfudao&#8217;s main moneymaker — the company told TechCrunch most of its revenue comes from selling live courses.
Rather than using the app to get out of doing their homework in the first place, it&#8217;s more likely that Chinese students use the app to check that their homework answers are correct. After all, the ultimate goal of paying for Yuanfudao is to improve exam scores, so skipping out on doing the homework that prepares a student for those exams would be counterintuitive.
Chinese parents probably wouldn&#8217;t be too happy about that use of the app, either. All told, they <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2176377/chinese-parents-spend-us43500-year-after-school-classes-their">spend an average</a> of $17,400 every year on extracurricular tutoring for their children — and based on Yuanfudao&#8217;s latest round of funding, investors are as willing to pump money into tutoring companies as Chinese parents are.
READ MORE:  <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/12/26/yuanfudao-raises-300-million/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Tencent-Backed Homework App Jumps to $3B Valuation After Raising $300M</a> [TechCrunch]
More on Chinese education: <a href="https://futurism.com/smart-eye-china-facial-recognition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Not Paying Attention in Class? China’s “Smart Eye” Will Snitch on You</a>

Upload a pic of your homework, and the app gives you the answers.

App that does your homework for you is now worth $3 billion

Smart Money

The Chinese company that created a homework app that give students answers to problems they upload via a photo is now worth $3 billion.

An App That Does Your Homework for You Is Now Worth $3 Billion

Yuanfudao just raised another $300 million in funding.

<h2>We&#8217;ll Take That</h2>
What Google wants, Google gets — and right now, Google wants the Streams app.
Streams is a mobile healthcare app developed by <a href="https://futurism.com/google-officially-announces-launch-deepmind-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DeepMind Health</a>, a subsidiary of AI research company DeepMind, which, like Google, is a subsidiary of Alphabet.
As part of its efforts to snag a slice of the <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/google-hires-geisinger-ceo-david-feinberg-to-oversee-health.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$3 trillion healthcare pie</a>, Google is absorbing DeepMind Health, and according to a DeepMind <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/scaling-streams-google/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blog post</a>, the move could transform Streams into &#8220;an AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors everywhere.&#8221;
<h2>Streaming Lives</h2>
The Streams app is currently helping medical professionals in the U.K. address the problem of &#8220;failure to rescue,&#8221; a term for what happens when a patient dies from a preventable condition because they didn&#8217;t receive the right treatment in time.
The app does this by consolidating all of a patient&#8217;s medical data. Everyone treating the patient can enter information into their file directly from the app, and the app can then send alerts to healthcare workers as soon as signs of a potentially life-threatening problem arise.
<h2>The Majors</h2>
Streams is currently used under very narrow conditions: only by workers at specific U.K. facilities and only for the detection of acute kidney injury. With Google&#8217;s full support, though, the app could very well become the go-to medical tool of healthcare professional across the globe. And seemingly nothing would make the DeepMind team happier.
&#8220;This is a major milestone for DeepMind! One of the reasons for joining forces with Google in 2014 was the opportunity to use Google’s scale and experience in building billion-user products to bring our breakthroughs more rapidly to the wider world,&#8221; they wrote in the blog post. &#8220;It’s been amazing to put this into practice in <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/safety-first-ai-autonomous-data-centre-cooling-and-industrial-control/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data centre efficiency</a>, <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/deepmind-meet-android/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Android battery life</a>, <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-launches-google-assistant/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">text-to-speech applications</a>, and now the work of our Streams team.&#8221;
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/13/18091774/google-deepmind-health-absorbing-streams-team-ai-assistant-nurse-doctor" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Is Absorbing DeepMind’s Health Care Unit to Create an ‘AI Assistant for Nurses and Doctors’</a> [The Verge]
More on DeepMind Health: <a href="https://futurism.com/google-officially-announces-launch-deepmind-health" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Google Launches DeepMind Health, Bringing AI to Healthcare</a>

Doctors need a better way to know when a patient is in trouble. This app could be it.

Google is making an "AI-powered assistant for nurses and doctors”

App Power

Google is now in the position to transform DeepMind Health's Streams app into an AI-powered assistant to for the world's healthcare workers.

Google Is Making An “AI-Powered Assistant for Nurses and Doctors”

Google is diving deeper into the healthcare sector.

AN FDA FIRST. Don&#8217;t want to get pregnant? There&#8217;s an app for that.
On Friday, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved <a href="https://futurism.com/cern-physicists-fertility-algorithm-prevents-unwanted-pregnancy-with-99-5-efficacy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Natural Cycles</a>, a contraceptive app that helps women track when they are most likely to get pregnant so they can avoid having sex during that time. This is the first time the FDA has approved an app to prevent pregnancy, but now that Natural Cycles has broken down the wall, more could follow.
RHYTHM IS GONNA GET YOU. There are a number of birth control options for sexually active women looking to prevent pregnancy, but each has its drawbacks. Hormonal methods, such as the pill or IUDs, can cause <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health-news/for-some-women-the-side-effects-of-hormonal-birth-control-are-unbearable" target="_blank" rel="noopener">debilitating side effects</a>, while condoms can <a href="http://americanpregnancy.org/preventing-pregnancy/male-condom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">break or trigger allergic reactions</a>. A <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/tubal-ligation/about/pac-20388360" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tubal ligation</a> is effective, but it&#8217;s also permanent and requires surgery.
For some women, the &#8220;<a href="https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/fertility-awareness">rhythm method</a>&#8221; is a good, simple option, but really, it&#8217;s not all that great — <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/contraception/index.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)</a>, it has a typical-use failure rate of 24 percent.
When women in large-scale clinical trials tracked their fertility using the Natural Cycles contraceptive app, however, that typical-use failure rate dropped to 6.5 percent, <a href="https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/UCM616511.htm?utm_campaign=08102018_PR_FDA%20allows%20marketing%20of%20first%20direct-to-consumer%20contraception%20app&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=Eloqua" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to the FDA</a> — lower than <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/contraception/index.htm">the failure rate</a> for the pill (9 percent) and condoms (18 percent). When used perfectly, the failure rate dropped to 1.8 percent.
To use the app, a woman takes her temperature every morning using a basal body thermometer, which is more sensitive than typical thermometers. She then inputs that data into the app and notes when she&#8217;s on her menstrual cycle. From this information, the app can determine which days the woman is mostly likely to get pregnant, so she can avoid having unprotected sex on those days.
A FLOOD OF FERTILITY APPS. Some people believe the FDA made a mistake by approving Natural Cycles. Swedish authorities are investigating the app after 37 women who were using it became pregnant. It&#8217;s unclear how many women were using the app total, but these 37 cases were behind 5.5 percent of abortions at a particular clinic in Stockholm between September and December 2017, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jan/17/birth-control-app-natural-cycle-pregnancies">The Guardian </a>reports.
“What is this, the 1950s?” Lauren Streicher, a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University, <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/need-know-natural-cycles-first-fda-approved-pregnancy-prevention-app-155707296.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told Yahoo Lifestyle</a>. “Instead of using real contraception for women that is proven to be safe and effective, this is essentially advocating an anti-contraception approach. To have the FDA endorse an app as being safe is just kind of mind-boggling.”
Natural Cycles might not be the only FDA-approved contraceptive app on the market for long, either. Now that the FDA has approved one such app, others will face a different, simpler approval process. If Streicher is right and Natural Cycles is neither safe nor effective, it could be the first of several tech-enabled contraception methods that don&#8217;t actually protect women&#8217;s health.
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.statnews.com/2018/08/10/fda-clears-natural-cycles-app/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FDA Clears Controversial Fertility App to Prevent Pregnancy</a> [STAT]
More on Natural Cycles: <a href="https://futurism.com/cern-physicists-fertility-algorithm-prevents-unwanted-pregnancy-with-99-5-efficacy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">CERN Physicist’s Fertility Algorithm Prevents Unwanted Pregnancy With 99.5% Efficacy</a>

The "rhythm method" is getting a technological upgrade.

The FDA has approved a contraceptive app. Now more could flood the market.

Health & Medicine

The FDA just approved Natural Cycles, a contraceptive app that helps women track their fertility throughout the month, as a medical device.

The FDA Has Approved a Contraceptive App. Now More Could Flood the Market.

Critics argue that Natural Cycles is neither safe nor effective.

FITNESS, NO TRACKING. The Pentagon recently issued an order to all personnel working at sensitive military bases: for the love of god, stop logging your runs. In a memo <a href="https://wtop.com/national/2018/08/pentagon-restricts-use-of-fitness-trackers-other-devices/">acquired by The Associated Press</a>, the Pentagon laid out new rules for how soldiers can use fitness trackers while deployed in a war zone or other high-risk areas. Namely, they need to keep the GPS off.
“These geolocation capabilities can expose personal information, locations, routines, and numbers of DOD personnel, and potentially create unintended security consequences and increased risk to the joint force and mission,” the memo said.
NOT-SO-BLURRED LINES. Back in January, Nathan Ruser, who writes for The Australian Strategic Policy Institute, noticed that the <a href="https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/957326421684207616">global heatmap activity</a> on the fitness app Strava revealed the location of American military bases in Syria, where soldiers used the app on a regular basis.
Because soldiers relied on the app to track their progress as they trained and jogged the perimeter, the heatmap essentially provided a blueprint for the bases. It also gave anyone with a vague interest an idea of soldiers’ daily routines. It&#8217;s not hard to imagine that hostile forces could use that kind of information to their advantage. Oops.
The heatmap also revealed the activity of soldiers in other <a href="https://futurism.com/your-fitness-tracking-app-revealed-location-secret-army-bases/">sensitive locations like Area 51</a> and the British Air Force base in the Falkland Islands.
NOT A BAN. The Pentagon did not ban fitness apps or wearable fitness trackers outright — military personnel can still use them, as long as they stop the apps from collecting location data or otherwise compromising the military’s operations. Fitbit spokeswoman told the AP that the company’s devices couldn’t track anyone who turned off location services. So it seems like there’s no reason to prevent soldiers from using them altogether.
READ MORE: <a href="https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/08/pentagon-tells-troops-turn-off-the-fitness-trackers-when-you-head-to-warzones/">Pentagon tells troops: Turn off fitness tracker GPS when you head to warzones</a> [Ars Technica]
More about location tracking: <a href="https://futurism.com/google-admitted-tracking-location-when-settings-disabled/">Google Just Admitted to Tracking Your Location Even When You Have the Settings Disabled</a>

National security is more important than logging your runs.

The Pentagon orders soldiers to stop sharing their locations with apps

Enhanced Humans

Eight months after the fitness app Strava revealed the location of military bases in Syria, the Pentagon has banned GPS tracking on wearables.

The Pentagon Tells Soldiers To Stop Sharing Their Locations With Apps

A new memo comes eight months after fitness trackers revealed the layout of military bases all over the world. 

Apple debuted their first iPhone without a headphone jack in 2016 – ever since, no one has really found a good solution to the resulting earbud/headphone jack situation. Current options include:
<ul>
<li>AirPods: You&#8217;ll definitely never lose either of the inch-long disconnected buds. Oh, and they have to be charged, which means no tunes for you if you don’t remember to plug the pods in overnight.</li>
<li>Cordless Headphones: They&#8217;re harder to lose than AirPods, but they still need to be charged. Plus, they can be bulky.</li>
<li>An Adapter: You could plug an adapter into your new iPhone’s lightning jack and try to pretend the headphone plug never disappeared—an illusion that would fall apart the second you tried to charge your phone while listening to music. And we won&#8217;t even get into how easy that thing is to lose.</li>
</ul>
None of these seem particularly inviting. Recently though, <a href="http://9nl.es/futurism">Pioneer developed a fourth option:</a> Rayz. Rayz are smart earbuds that take away the frustration of juggling extra ports and accessories. They work with the Apple ecosystem using lightning-powered, USB-C capabilities – making them the world’s first smart headset designed for both iPhone and Mac.
Rayz replace the need to hunt for the right pair of headphones. Now, you have a single, seamless device equipped with the technology to make using your iPhone personal, reliable, and efficient. Which is really what sold so many of us on the iPhone in the first place.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xB9Xp2bSuoo?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Powered by the Rayz app, the earphones offer users the ability to craft their own personalized experience. For starters, the earphones ​calibrate to your ear, allowing the product to offer a noise-cancelling​ experience that is tuned ​just for you. After that, the power is all in your hands. Customize your “smart button” to do whatever you please: bring up your favorite app, mute/unmute calls, or launch controls all with one touch.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-133214" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/06/Futurism-Photo-1.png" alt="" width="1148" height="548" />
Meanwhile, your phone can be plugged into Rayz and your charger at the same time. These are the first headphones since the iPhone 7 debut that let you do both with the lightning port. And if you find yourself working on your phone all the time, this isn’t the only feature Rayz has to make your 9 to 5 easier. The Smart Mute feature recognizes when you’re on a call, and automatically mutes you when you stop talking. As soon as you start up again, the mute lifts and the other end of the line can hear you just fine. For anyone who has had to hop on a work call in the middle of an airport, you know the quality of the call drops significantly when your business partner or colleague can only hear the background shuffle on your end. Knowing that Smart Mute is there to shut out the extra noise without you having to remember to do it is a huge relief.
Even if your workday is over, Rayz has all kinds of other design details that make using your iPhone way easier. AutoPause, for example, immediately pauses your music or podcast the second you pull your earbuds out, eliminating the need to fumble for buttons when someone needs to talk to you. And when you are enjoying whatever you’re listening to, Rayz offer the perfect mix of two outside noise-controlling technologies. Smart Noise Cancelling knows to block out particular annoying ambient sounds, like the clacks of someone on their keyboard or office fans. HearThru Mode, on the other hand, lets you pick up on the key noises that clue you into your environment and where you are. No more frustrated taps on the shoulders from coworkers who couldn’t get through your noise-blocking headphones.
The headphones also have a Hands-Free “Hey Siri” response, which lets you reach out to Siri without stopping what you’re doing, pulling your phone out of your pocket and awkwardly posing a question to the device in the palm of your hand. And, besides the typical pause and skip buttons most headphones have, a Smart Button is built into the cord, a button you can program to respond to any assortment of commands. A single tap can open an app, a double tap can pause music, and so on—whatever mix of responses you think will serve you best, which you can always customize and change in the Rayz app.
Speaking of the app, it also lets Rayz users tweak more than just what the Smart Button does. Other features like Smart Mute, Hands-Free Siri, and AutoPause can be controlled via Pioneer’s app, as well as the quality of the sound coming from the earbuds with a fine-tuning equalizer. All of the features update through the app, too, just like how Tesla provides feature-driven software updates as soon as drivers connect to their WiFi.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-133216" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/06/Futurism-Photo-2.jpg" alt="" width="1148" height="536" />
Rayz makes using your iPhone feel luxurious again. Remember how that felt, to use such an streamlined, multitasking device when you got your first iPhone? Some of that shine has faded over the years, in part because the ease of listening to music on Apple’s device—one of the core qualities that set their phone apart from others—has gotten lost in the shuffle of strange accoutrements and extra charging gear the process now requires. Rayz brings that efficient glamour back, all with two discrete, sleek pods to plug into your ears.
<a href="http://9nl.es/futurism">Purchase yours here!</a>
Disclaimer: Futurism fans: To create this content, a non-editorial team worked with Pioneer Rayz, who sponsored this post. They help us keep the lights on, and Futurism may receive a commission from sales. This post does not reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.

[Affiliate] The earphones that make you feel like you're living in the future.

AirPods Meet Bose: The World's Smartest Earphones Let You Personalize Your Audio Experience [Affiliate]

Hard Science

Personalize your headphone experience with a smart headset that integrates seamlessly to your iPhone — and your life.

AirPods Meet Bose: The World’s Smartest Earphones Let You Personalize Your Audio Experience [Affiliate]

These futuristic earphones are designed specifically for the iPhone and Mac.

Readers of Futurism: Hi! If you&#8217;re here, that means you either swiped on our clever-ass push alert (HA! GOTCHA!) or you&#8217;re really, really interested in a media company&#8217;s inner-workings.
Either way, thank you, and congrats – because you got to this very special webpage, where we&#8217;re going to go over three important things with you, our dear, beloved readers:
1. Our new app is here. Download it, or update it. Because&#8230;
2. It&#8217;s great. It&#8217;s got some wonderful new features (including an offline mode), and contains a peek into what&#8217;s to come from us. Oh, and also&#8230;
3. There&#8217;s some good thought behind it. Rather than roll out another new app design (which, no matter how great, can be disruptive to readers&#8217; familiarity with a publication and user experience, generally), and do so absent context, we wanted to let you in, under the hood, to let you know why we did what we did, and what&#8217;s on the horizon for us.
We think it&#8217;s pretty decent. You might, too.
So, without further ado, we present the two stallions who made this thing happen:
<img class="wp-image-128964 alignright" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-09-at-5.14.00-PM-234x300.png" alt="" width="100" height="128" />Tag Hartman-Simkins, The Artsy One (&#8220;Director of Design&#8221;)
The app redesign is part of a much larger planned redesign for Futurism, and it&#8217;s mostly dialed in on the ways we&#8217;ll be punching up on the aesthetics of the site, to go with it&#8217;s new editorial tone [Ed. You&#8217;re welcome!] and changing aesthetics: color, space, and cleanliness. 
We made some fun changes. We introduced a new color palette for each of our &#8220;themes,&#8221; and they now have a fresher, brighter aesthetic. Colors! They&#8217;re colorful! We&#8217;re getting away from grayscale. No, but really: Futurism generally covers a pretty complex array of topics, even for people who consider themselves well-versed in tech publications and writing. We&#8217;re gonna be delving even further into these more obscure, complicated areas in the future, while also trying to give these stories appeal to a wider audience. It&#8217;s why I needed those concepts, visually, to code as attractively accessible to the curious, and the first step in doing that — in inviting more people to understand these topics — is by presenting them in a comfortable, visually-appealing space, as opposed to one that&#8217;s stuffy, tight, and compressed.
<img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-128992" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-10-at-10.20.01-AM.png" alt="" width="999" height="600" />
Even more: Our headers are bolder. And our articles are set in Palatino — a typeface based on humanist typefaces from the Italian renaissance – but way more legible, and set with a taller line height to make the text feel considered and valuable, rather than rushed and cheap. Instead of a drawer that pulls down from the top of the app, we drew up a left-rail drawer that can be pulled out by tapping that tab in the upper left hand corner of the screen, where users can navigate through different themes, videos and the latest news. And: Readers can now tag stories for later. In many ways, it&#8217;s just a fresh coat of paint. We&#8217;ve got plenty in mind for future iterations of the app, including further polishing and new features that enrich the user&#8217;s experience of reading and exploring Futurism, and understanding it all, too. It&#8217;s the first step, but it was still a fun step to take. We think you&#8217;ll agree.
<img class="wp-image-128965 alignright" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/04/Screen-Shot-2018-04-09-at-5.14.43-PM-231x300.png" alt="" width="100" height="130" />Dan Scanlon, Lead Nerd (&#8220;Head of Engineering&#8221;)
Under the hood, Futurism&#8217;s first app was generated using a service called <a href="https://appful.io/en/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Appful</a>, which integrated with our WordPress back-end, and basically loaded our content into a theme we customized with our colors. It worked as a temporary solve, but now, it&#8217;s been replaced with a new app I built from the ground up – one that suits our needs better than a plug-and-play solution.
The app was written using React Native (a cross-platform framework for writing mobile apps) and Expo (a React Native SDK that helps distribute our app, and use common platform features, like instruments and analytics).
The codebase for our new app actually builds four different apps: the iOS and Android apps for Futurism and Mostaqbal (our Arabic partner site), and the two variants share the same code. There&#8217;s no copy-pasted source code, so we don&#8217;t need to worry about keeping the variants in sync. This kind of thing&#8217;s not supported out of the box or documented anywhere on the web, so I wrote some custom tooling so we can make changes to the source, and run a single command to select the app variant we want to run to test it.
As far as user experience improvements go, again, we&#8217;re not at the mercy of Appful to change the appearance or features of the app, anymore. That means we can push important updates to the apps immediately, without submitting updates via the App Store. The &#8220;Read Later&#8221; feature has offline support, which is pretty fun, too.
And as for what&#8217;s coming down the pipeline? Like everyone else, we&#8217;re after a richer, more-polished UX — always. The challenge isn&#8217;t on the mobile end, though. It&#8217;s not that hard to build a tasty app. WordPress, really, (or an over-reliance on it) is the big dream-crusher we&#8217;d love to get out from under.
In other words: A new CMS supporting structured content. All of the things that don&#8217;t make for a perfect transfer to the app (i.e. post content rendering, video playback, infographics) are due to how the underlying information gets encoded. And: We can&#8217;t neatly lay out site posts on mobile, because it&#8217;s basically represented as HTML intended to be spit into a cup, at least as far as our WordPress theme is concerned. So instead of using native typography, image views, and so on, we have to load the HTML into a web view, and inject a bunch of CSS to make it readable on mobile. It blocks us from supporting basic features like image light-boxes (allowing users to zoom into images) and nice video playback (for videos in posts). And of course, there&#8217;s self-hosted video: If we want to have a video-heavy app, we should be serving that content ourselves, so that we can control the UX. Currently the best we can do is embed YouTube players inside of web views, which: &#8220;puke emoji.&#8221;
So, yeah, we&#8217;ve got some work ahead of us. That said, as perfectionists, we occasionally need to be reminded (and remind ourselves) that we do halfway decent work. So, fine: The new app is pretty swell. It&#8217;s, in all honesty, a huge jump over the last one. And you&#8217;re gonna love the way we look in it. I guarantee it.

Yes! Futurism's new app is here. Meet the geniuses behind It.

Sci-Fi Visions

Our design guru and code warrior just revamped the Futurism app. Hear from the horse's mouth what went into creating and executing on the new version.

Yes! Futurism’s New App Is Here. Meet the Geniuses Behind It.

Call me, app push me, if you want to reach me. 

If you&#8217;ve successfully avoided HQ Trivia up until now, congratulations on finding an incredibly secure rock to live under.
Let me catch you up real quick. HQ Trivia is an app-based trivia game that streams live twice per day (once a day on weekends). It&#8217;s free to play, and players that make it through all 12 questions or so earn a share of the prize money — at least $2,000.
Since its launch in August 2017, HQ has been steadily growing its audience. HQ is sometimes likened to Jeopardy! for millennials, though others think that&#8217;s <a href="http://digg.com/2017/hq-trivia-game-show-how-to-play">giving HQ a bit too much credit</a> while others are convinced that it&#8217;s <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/12/16767812/hq-trivia-app-prize-money-venture-capital" target="_blank" rel="noopener">already jumped the shark</a>. But the numbers say otherwise — on March 4, more than <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/business/hq-trivia/?utm_term=.cf37ece132df">2 million players</a> logged on in an effort to win a cut of $50,000 (only 6 players did).
Investment followed. On March 6, <a href="https://www.axios.com/hq-1520275052-e53572e2-07f4-4a37-b7c6-364e07dd9f38.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Axios reported</a> that the app secured an additional $15 million in funding, with venture capital firm Founders Fund leading the investment round (many players then <a href="http://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2018/02/people-deleting-hq-trivia-app-after-peter-thiel-investment">boycotted the app</a> to protest the funding, which came from Peter Thiel, the venture capitalist and founder of PayPal controversial for his support of Donald Trump, <a href="http://gawker.com/the-free-speech-peter-thiel-will-defend-faggot-faggo-1779486823">homophobia</a>, and <a href="https://www.inc.com/jeff-bercovici/peter-thiel-young-blood.html">possibly harvesting the blood of the young</a> for his own immortality).
Controversy aside, lots of people think HQ is onto something unique. Here&#8217;s why the game might be a sign of what&#8217;s to come in the world of entertainment.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Aichd794sD4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>It Makes the Familiar Feel New</h2>
In essence, HQ Trivia isn&#8217;t too far removed from a television show like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? or Jeopardy! What&#8217;s new is that just about anybody can participate — and potentially win. The only barrier to entry is access to <a href="https://futurism.com/giving-up-your-smartphone-could-actually-be-bad-for-your-health/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a smartphone</a>.
HQ Trivia takes advantage of that human instinct to scream at the television when someone gets an obvious question wrong, only now, you can test your wits against other competitors in a setting with stakes.
Even if you don&#8217;t win, though, the experience is still fun. HQ Trivia is more interactive that the average televised quiz show, and its usual host, Scott Rogowsky, seems like that know-it-all friend of yours, just trapped in your phone.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vp6kCeyQODY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>It Gets People to Tune in at a Set Time</h2>
The popularity of Netflix and its ilk mean you get to watch old reruns of Seinfeld whenever you want, not just when the networks decide. But the same is increasingly true for new shows — there isn&#8217;t as much incentive to watch fresh episodes when they first air. That&#8217;s why deals for live programming, such as sports events, are <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/features/tv-deals-boost-nfl-revenue-to-new-record" target="_blank" rel="noopener">more lucrative than ever</a> — because networks can be sure that people will actually tune in. So networks pay big money for these programs, because they can make big money from advertising.
Players have to show up at a certain time to participate in HQ Trivia, and the variability of the jackpots makes it easy for the show&#8217;s creators to encourage viewership on specific nights.
<iframe width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DX3QzaH21T4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<h2>It&#8217;s Already Popular</h2>
HQ Trivia&#8217;s 2.1 million players on March 4 might not seem impressive compared to the Oscars&#8217; <a href="http://time.com/4684709/oscars-2017-nielsen-ratings/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported viewership</a> of 32.9 million. Here&#8217;s the thing, though: the Oscars celebrated its 90th anniversary this year, whereas HQ Trivia just launched seven months ago.
Now, the question is how the company plans to make money from this popularity. The trivia game still has no ads, though that may soon change.
HQ CEO Rus Yusupov told Axios fans shouldn&#8217;t expect <a href="http://time.com/money/5088086/hq-trivia-money/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">typical ads</a>. Instead, advertising will take the form of &#8220;native content.&#8221; Perhaps they&#8217;ll add mentions of advertisers to the host&#8217;s script or incorporate branding into the set.
It&#8217;s easy to imagine that a major company could sponsor a special episode of the show, providing a huge jackpot in exchange for direct access to all these viewers at once. Perhaps networks could sponsor episodes as well, broadcasting them live on television as a lead-in to other programming in an effort to increase viewership.
Of course, there&#8217;s also the possibility of expanding HQ Trivia&#8217;s current 15-minute format into a 30- or 60-minute television show itself with a regular time slot. Cyan Banister, a partner at Founders Fund, told Axios that HQ has plans to expand beyond trivia into other kinds of interactive content (what kind is not yet clear). Maybe those programs could fill out the extra time.
Only time will tell if HQ can capitalize on its early success, or if its recent funding will end up doing more harm than good.

Its recent $15 million investment might do more harm than good.

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Is it “Jeopardy for millennials,” or just plain old Jeopardy?

<a href="https://www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/faqs.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">According to the USDA&#8217;s Economic Research Service</a>, up to 40 percent of the food produced in the United States is wasted. Sugam Sharma, a computer science expert and systems analyst in Iowa State University&#8217;s Center for Survey Statistics and Methodology and a group of collaborators are <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/03/180307130048.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">developing a software prototype</a> that turns the U.S. food waste problem into a way to reduce hunger.
&#8220;It is really heart wrenching to witness a mother in shabby and torn clothes, holding her baby, come to you and ask for help because her baby hasn&#8217;t had anything to eat,&#8221; Sharma told Science Daily, regarding his experiences growing up in India and the dire need to better prevent hunger.
Sharma&#8217;s prototype, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0736585317308468" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called eFeed-Hungers</a>, allows users to find locations nearby that have excess food. The software works on smart devices and allows restaurants, grocery stores, and even individuals to post when they have extra food available to donate. As places and people use the app to list available food, others can use the app to check food listings, which are globally searchable and easily accessible.
<figure style="width: 777px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-126409 size-large aligncenter" src="https://wp-assets.futurism.com/2018/03/hungryyyy.jpg" alt="This globally-accessible software encourages food donation. Image Credit: Christopher Gannon, Iowa State University" width="777" height="400" /><figcaption class="wp-caption-text">This globally-accessible software encourages food donation. Image Credit: Christopher Gannon, Iowa State University</figcaption></figure>
&#8220;We wanted to make it as simple as possible, so people will not hesitate to donate. There is no scarcity of food. We see this as a way to take some of the food we&#8217;re wasting and save it by providing a channel to get the extra food to the needy,&#8221; Sharma said to Science Daily. 
eFeed-Hungers isn&#8217;t the only program looking to cut down food waste and hunger.<a href="http://www.theloop.ca/new-app-brilliant-way-cut-food-waste/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> The Feedback app</a> lets people buy restaurant meals set aside to be thrown out at a massive discount. Another app called <a href="https://toogoodtogo.co.uk/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Too Good to Go </a>makes excess restaurant food available for free to users in an attempt to save both food and CO2 emissions. <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2013/07/29/206493794/a-new-app-will-let-you-share-your-leftovers-with-strangers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">LeftoverSwap</a> allows individuals to share their leftovers and food with those in need of a meal. These are just a few examples of apps looking to eliminate food waste. It seems that many are finding the mobile platform is an ideal way to connect those with too much with those who may have too little.
While there are several apps like the one Sharma&#8217;s software helped create, one thing that sets it apart is that, instead of focusing just on people&#8217;s personal leftovers or restaurant dishes, his efforts encompass a variety of different food waste sources. Additionally, by making this technology globally-accessible, it&#8217;s reaching more people. Food waste and hunger are deep-rooted, global issues. A single app might not solve them, but it&#8217;s a certainly a place to start.

Mobile platforms are proving to be an effective way to connect those with too much with those who may have too little.

Algorithm sends food that would be wasted to the hungry

Inspired by his childhood in India, Sugam Sharma created software that can help turn food waste into a solution to hunger around the world.

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Algorithm Sends Food That Would Be Wasted to the Hungry

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