Ruben Alcaraz

About Culture, Technology, Strategy and the Future.

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It's official: Police are testing out Boston Dynamics' robot dog

They used Boston Dynamics' Spot during two "incidents" — but haven't elaborated on them.

The Massachusetts State Police leased a Spot robot dog from Boston Dynamics for 90 days ending on November 5, 2019 

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What we get wrong about time

Most of us tend to think of time as linear, absolute and constantly “running out” – but is that really true? And how can we change our perceptions to feel better about its passing?

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First-Ever Artificial Neuron Could Let Us Repair Brain Injuries with Silicon

It’s been hard to accurately replicate the behavior of neurons in silicon because the way they respond to stimuli is non-linear.

Imagine if a brain injury could be repaired with a computer chip. That may not be too far off.

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Giving in and reading #VALIS for the first time.

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First time at a #Tesla dealership

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Robotic Coffee Bars

The world’s most advanced system for artisanal coffee and tea, is now a robot working in the streets of San Francisco. Follow me on twitter @rdalcaraz or vis...

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— PROMETEUM

THE FUTURE OF ACTORS Marlon Brando, one of the finest actors of the 20th century, always had a love-hate relationship with his craft, often remarking that it was a silly profession for a grown adult. He was so frustrated by acting that, in the late 1980s, he embraced a new technology that promised

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THE HUMAN LIFESPAN — PROMETEUM

Exploring humanity’s obsession with extending the human lifespan.

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THE PRINCELING — PROMETEUM

In 2018, China's congress eliminated presidential term limits from the constitution, a move that sets up President Xi Jinping to rule indefinitely.

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DISRUPTIONS FROM THE FUTURE — PROMETEUM

How a family trip to the movies made me realize that the future is trying to tell us it wants something different. How the speed of change, technology, and new behaviors are creating havoc to bring about the next normal.

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Connecting the world is seen as a humanitarian mission for some technology evangelists – but ensuring a free and open web is a harder problem to solve.

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When The Future Was Now — PROMETEUM

From the perspective of the 21st century, it’s hard to imagine that our reality today was a vision created by the 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair.

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Beneath the Surface

In 2016, like a lot of people I made my first digital contactless payment using near-field communication technology. This technology keeps a digital version of my credit card information within my Apple Wallet and connects it to a vendor's payment system.

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OneWeb

There is so much going on today vying for attention that the path to least resistance is to separate what we believe to be noise from that which we find important in our lives, then to refocus our attention but only on those things that have an impact on our immediate state. For sanity's sake, thing

The U.S., China, Space Force, and the emerging technology that will decide who is first

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THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME (part one)

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT : a property of chaotic systems (such as the atmosphere) by which small changes in initial conditions can lead to large-scale and unpredictable variation in the future state of the system (Merriam-Webster). THE YEAR: 1988 Dr.

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A Cultural Interpretation of Time

If you've read any of my previous articles, by now you've probably realized that I have an obsession with Time. No one truly understands Time as partially evidenced by the though time some of the best minds behind quantum mechanics and general relativity have had harmonizing their theories.

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What happens when you can't trust your own brain? - BBC Reel

Matthew has a serious brain injury which affects his day-to-day memory. He now depends on a diary to understand his past.