Dances With Robots: How Pilobolus Is Advancing Technology

Seraph, the company’s piece for two dancers and robotic hovercraft, is more than just a high-tech lark. “Dodging the dancer, for example, is providing insights into how the quadrotors might best fly through forests when they are doing their day jobs. And the lights sported by the robots … are being adapted to give clues to human road users about a robot driver’s intentions in a project that might put a fleet of robot taxis on the streets of Singapore.”

Attention Must Be Paid (For)

Esther Dyson: “Many companies [in the Internet age] are looking for ways to automate the act of ‘paying attention’ to individual customers on a grand scale, even as many of them also confuse attention with intention (to buy). … But attention is neither a currency nor a commodity. It can, to some extent, be bought and sold. But it cannot be traded to third parties, and it is not entirely fungible.”