Parag and Ayesha Khanna
Co-Founders, The Hybrid Reality Institute
Parag and Ayesha are Directors of the Hybrid Reality Institute, which explores the implications of our complex and irreversible tango with science and technology. Parag is the author of The Second World and How To Run the World. Ayesha has written Straight Through Processing.
Website: http://hybridreality.me
Twitter: @paragkhanna and @ayeshakhanna1
Hours wasted behind the wheel commuting to work, taking kids to school, hurrying for soccer practice and bar mitzvahs, and the frustration caused by traffic jams and road rage – […]
Last week, 85-year old obstretician Robert G. Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his breakthrough treatment of infertility commonly known as IVF (in-vitro fertilization). Edwards’s idea was […]
The fact that technological power comes in smaller, faster and cheaper objects is a very important observation that underlies many of the phenomena around us today.
Two insightful articles in the New York Times this past week highlighted the very nascent trend of using technology as a philosophical concept to educate children. Kevin Kelly wrote about […]
Nick Bilton‘s I Live in the Future & Here’s How it Works (Crown/Random House) has just been released. It’s a contemporary memoir of the New York Times tech correspondent and […]
Tod Machover, who has been called America’s most wired composer, is poised to transform your theater experience forever. His new opera “Death and the Powers,” will be unveiled on September […]
American politicians and lawmakers are deeply conflicted about human enhancement technologies (medical interventions that extend the capabilities of the human body). Stem cell research doesn’t qualify as enhancement; rather it is […]
A world free of disease and poverty. A dictatorial and all-powerful artificial intelligence. Picnics on sunny days with one’s grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. Genetically engineered dangerous mutants. Which one of […]
One orthodoxy has long dominated neuropsychology: the brain controls the mind, which has no independent existence outside of the chemical reactions and patterns which constantly fire inside our brains. Neuro-biologists have long held that the brain exclusively drives the mind, and that the mind serves only the individual self.
For those of you who don’t frequent Craigslist Adult Services section, life was perhaps pretty uneventful last weekend. However, if you live in the US and are a patron of […]
Everyone is mesmerized by Apple’s ability to revolutionize the way we think about IT products. With the iPhone, for example, Apple has morphed a mere communication device into a platform […]
“Politicians don’t know the difference between a server and a waiter,” declared Andew Rasiej, founder of the Personal Democracy Forum, at Hybrid Reality’s recent salon on the emerging revolution in […]
Most people do not come to Hollywood for deep conversation, but as we explained with respect to “serious games,” the entertainment universe is producing an impressive array of products that can […]
Our 10-day visit to Japan coincided with China surpassingJapan in the global economic rankings, a story which seemed to make a splash everywhere but in Japan. According to Waseda University […]
On the road from Korea’s world-class Incheon airport, across the spectacular eight-mile long humpback bridge to the landmark new Songdo International Business District development, we encountered a heavy fog that reminded […]
Hybrid Reality has just spent a week in one of our favorite places: Singapore. As the city-state celebrates its 45th birthday, it continues to enjoy a unique status as an […]
The U.S. military is investing in all kinds of augmentation – pills you ingest, body armor you can wear, and machine parts you can add to your body.
What does it mean to have our lives watched by an invited guest who never forgets anything he sees? Mr. Internet comes in many guises – Count Facebook, Mssr Twitter, Professor LinkedIn, […]
What does the future look like? We essentially rely on science fiction thrillers to give us a taste of what lies ahead for humanity: Avatar; Iron Man; I, Robot; Surrogates; […]
Fact: over half the world’s population lives in cities. Fact: all developed cities like New York, Tokyo, Singapore and London, are in a race to become “wired”. Fact: the most […]
Recently we wrote about emerging models for Research (the “R” in R&D) and how the US government can encourage and support them. But what about Development – the “D” in R&D? […]
Thanks to the Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s runaway hit, “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” we tend to think of undercover operative agents as not only being uncommonly good looking but […]
Football fever surrounds the Fortune Global Forum here in Cape Town, South Africa! Amidst the fascinating discussions about finding high-tech solutions to Africa’s problems, one can’t help but appreciate the […]
Economists have long touted the importance of research and development (R&D) – investment in science and technology — in driving economic growth and innovation. If you compare the top 20 […]
If your mother is elderly, requires 24-hour attention, and has Alzheimers, would you care for her yourself at home, hire a nurse, or put her in a nursing home? These […]
When Facebook’s privacy woes hit the webosphere, people quickly fell into two camps: those who believed that we now “live in public” and should accept it, and those who were […]
Many of us are addicted to Starbucks, but as any European will attest, it’s not because the coffee is delicious. We like the routine of the morning caffeine jolt, the […]
In November 2009, nine researchers from MIT’s prestigious Media Lab were among the eleven authors of a paper* that espoused the value of programming as an essential skill for all. […]
In the Matrix trilogy, God is portrayed as a software Architect. The fact that the first movie was released in 1999 is appropriate since software code had begun to exert […]
Last week our narcoleptic Lenovo laptop dozed off into permanent slumber. Not terribly saddened at its untimely demise, we nonchalantly recycled it (using Gazelle.com) and bought ourselves a shiny new […]