The Near Futurist

We keep hearing that we're too stressed because we're always on and we spend too much time in front of screens. No argument there but technology can also help. Dr. Emilia Molimpakis of Thymia explains to Guy Clapperton that monitoring of employees in an anonymised, non-intrusive manner can expose all sorts of behaviours that indicate someone is heading for a crash. But to what extent should employers be monitoring people in this way in the first place - and what should they do with the information? Listen to this episode to find out!

So many myths about selling electricity between neighbours and yet it never seems to happen - meanwhile the cost of living is set to continue skyrocketing this year. Near Futurist podcaster Guy Clapperton speaks to Jo-Jo Hubbard, CEO of Electron, about how the infrastructure and business models are coming around to enable people to trade electricity with each other at last.

Noise cancelling headphones work by adding noise. What's more, if you measure the annoyance of someone when a contact centre agent asks them to repeat their contact information more than once, it gets disproportionately high. This matters when it can all be a matter of fixing the audio engagement. In this edition of the Near Futurist, IRIS Technology CEO Jacobi Anstruther explains the issues to Guy Clapperton - and looks into why the music industry still hasn't quite taken it in. Find out more about IRIS at iris.audio

Shopping is changing - we're abandoning cash almost without realising it and you can walk out of an Amazon Go store feeling as if you haven't paid at all. In this edition of the Near Futurist Guy Clapperton speaks to Charlie Hope, retail principal at IT services company BJSS, about what his retail clients are asking - and therefore what we can espect next! Also Guy looks at the Logi Dock to tidy his desktop environment.   Find out more about BJSS at BJSS.com and the Logi Dock here.   And if you wanted to find out more about Guy's media training service you can find the website here.

We are all making too much rubbish and it's going to landfill. This is generally agreed to be a bad ikdea - so of course we still do it. Chris Williams of ISB Global thinks this is an extremely bad idea and he's prepared to talk about why. His company offers a software solution to managing the disposal of what would otherwise become landfill but he also has some ideas about the sort of things we could all be doing to reduce waste - as well as explanations as to why waste is a bad idea in the first place. He speaks to Guy Clapperton, near futurist podcaster - and Guy also has a look at some of the note taking devices he uses in the new gadget slot.

What's that? There's another social network out there? There certainly is and we don't mean Threads. Guy talks to Sue Fennessy, founder and chief executive of WeAre8, which aims to restore value to the participant (or "citizen" as it calls them), enable them to donate to charities and stop using hateful messages. Also Guy's thoughts on the Amazon Kindle Scribe - the e-reader that also works as a note taking gadget.

Your car isn't just your vehicle any more, says Yasmine King of ADI - it's your workplace in some cases and not in others. You also need a quieter environment for your mental health and the fact that electronic vehicles are silent makes this more difficult, not easier, because of the background noise. MeanwhileOlivier Bessi of Star Global has been grappling with in-car payments. Both speak to me, Guy Clapperton, in this latest episode of the Near Futurist podcast.

We've all heard of the metaverse by now - but is it a "thing" or a marketing construct? There are no holds barred in this Dividing Lines debate, the series in the Near Futurist sponsored (but never dictated) by Diffusion PR. Futurist.com supremo Nikolas Badminton takes on Based.AF head honcho Robin Schmidt as they consider whether it's more than immersive VR, whether Damien Hirst should have burned his pictures and whether host Guy Clapperton can afford to not buy the NFT of the original lyrics to "Hey Jude". If you enjoy the show please do leave a review on the iTunes store or wherever you came across it!

Received wisdom suggests that we're all going to work flexibly and it's going to be great. Winter is coming, however - so will we scurry back to the office to stay warm or do the figures still add up? And what if we suggest that home working is actually less productive than office working anyway? It's a polarising debate but in this episode of Dividing Lines, a series-within-a-series from the Near Futurist supported by Diffusion PR, the positions are nuanced. The University of Essex' Christoph Siemroth and BT's Nicola Millard debate, chaired by me, Guy Clapperton. The paper referred to by Christoph is here: https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/finding/work-from-home-productivity-evidence-from-personnel-analytics-data-on-it-professionals/