6XOŬ^V

PHOTOGRAPHY (COVER): PLATON. THIS PAGE: TIM FLACH

12-17 _ CONTENTS _ 0 0 5

128 FEATURE
Extreme vetting

Romain Pizzi has operated

on thousands of animals.
What he’s learned has
lessons for the whole planet
 12-17 _ CONTENTS _ 0 0 7

Right: Payal Kadakia, executive chairman

of gym-subscription service ClassPass

018 START
News and obsessions

Denmark’s techplomat; lessons from

Duolingo; the world’s largest atrium;
telemedicine; the body mapper;
X-ray visionary; Vitra’s design toolkit

043 GEAR OF THE YEAR

2017 product special

WIRED’s annual gear edit – from

glow-in-the-dark jackets to
designer bird-food dispensers and
micro video-game consoles

061 EVENT
WIRED Security

What we learned at our annual

PHOTOGRAPHY: RAMONA ROSALES

conference, from the power of the

dark web to closing the online trust
gap to tackling state cyber attacks

070 PLAY
WIRED culture

Andy Weir’s next mission; Thor finds

his funny bone; Marie Lu’s digital
dystopia; Grandbrothers’ variations
on a theme; Gorillaz’ live evolution

091 WORK SMARTER 118 FEATURE 146 FEATURE

Accelerated learning Burn rate Seeking facts in a post-fact world

Nico Rosberg’s new career Complex catastrophic fires are on When you take a closer look
goals; Payal Kadakia’s lessons in the rise. WIRED meets the elite team at Snopes, the internet’s favourite
entrepreneurship; workplace training the world’s firefighters myth-busting site, you see just
hacks; Reykjavik startup guide as they prepare for the next big one how hard it is to pin down the truth

106 FEATURE 138 FEATURE 156 WIRED INDEX

Science can save us X marks the box The month in numbers

WIRED asks Stephen Hawking and Microsoft has created the world’s Data cluttering WIRED’s inbox
the world’s sharpest minds how we most powerful console. Could this this month – from rail commuters
should tackle challenges such as next-generation machine lead and Game of Thrones tweets to
climate-change denial and AI panic to the rise of games as high art? Brexit posts and Europa fly-bys
0 0 8 _ MASTHEAD _ 12-17
Editor Greg Williams
Creative director Andrew Diprose
Managing editor Mike Dent
Senior commissioning editor João Medeiros
Commissioning editor Oliver Franklin-Wallis
Associate editor Rowland Manthorpe
Senior editor Victoria Turk
Acting commissioning editor Matt Burgess
Director of photography Steve Peck
Deputy director of photography Dalia Nassimi
Acting deputy director
of photography Cindy Parthonnaud
Deputy creative director Phill Fields
Art director Mary Lees
App designer Ciaran Christopher
Chief sub-editor Simon Ward
Deputy chief sub-editor Tola Onanuga
Managing director Albert Read
Chairman Nicholas Coleridge
Chairman and chief executive,
Condé Nast International Jonathan Newhouse
Directors Jonathan Newhouse
(chairman and chief executive),
Nicholas Coleridge (chairman),
Stephen Quinn, Pam Raynor,
Jean Faulkner, Shelagh Crofts,
Albert Read (managing director)
Director of editorial administration
and rights Harriet Wilson
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Stephanie Chrisostomou
Human resources director Hazel McIntyre
Finance director Pam Raynor
Financial control director Penny Scott-Bayfield
Chief operating officer Sabine Vandenbroucke
Please contact our editorial team via
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0 1 0 _ CONTRIBUTORS _ 12-17

Creating WIRED Beth Healey Jim Weeks

As a former European Space London-based writer Jim

Agency research MD
at the Concordia station in
Antarctica, Beth Healey is
optimistic about the impact
that telemedicine could have
here on Earth. “The most
exciting applications will be
in developing healthcare
systems, where access to
medical specialists
is limited,” she says. One of
her fondest memories
during her 14-month stay
at the Concordia Station
involved driving 1,200km
across the frozen
wilderness in a tractor to
Blaze of glory collect crucial supplies.
Weeks spoke to Formula
One champion Nico Rosberg
about his entrepreneurial
ambitions. “Nico has a lot
of experience working at
the top of a very demanding
organisation, so he’s well
prepared,” Weeks says.
“He’s also very well spoken
and clearly cares about
communication. He knows
how to get ideas across and
chooses his words carefully.
If Silicon Valley is where
he wants to be then I think
he can be a success.”

Photographer Benedict Redgrove was caught up in the heat of the

moment during a training session for elite firefighters. “One of the best
parts of what I do is getting to experience a situation that I never normally
would,” he says. “On this project I experienced severe heat. I don’t think
you truly know how hot a large fire is until you’ve encountered it for
yourself. They have a life of their own, which varies depending on the
material that’s burning. At one point, we were wearing full firefighting
kit in a test-facility room, when the ceiling caught fire. It was like
watching waves wash over you. Totally mesmerising and enchanting.”
Tim Flach Jill Tarter

Photographer Tim Flach In this issue, astronomer Jill

reflected on his experience
documenting the work of
renowned wildlife surgeon
Romain Pizzi. “In different
respects, we both
work with animals that
Tarter discusses the need
for better communication
about climate change.
“Part of the pushback is
that everything is doom
and gloom,” she says.
PHOTOGRAPHY: BENEDICT REDGROVE; DAMON CASAREZ

find themselves on the “People who very seldom

A brief history of WIRED’s cover shoot
WIRED’s creative director Andrew Diprose
was humbled to discover that Stephen
Hawking had chosen our previous cover to
adorn his office entrance at the University
of Cambridge. “Telling stories in WIRED
about clever, creative people is a pleasure,”
Diprose says. “Working with a genius such
as Hawking is something I’ll never forget.’
Inside the Xbox One X
WIRED’s digital editor James
Temperton was impressed
with Microsoft’s new focus
on hardware. “Using the
world’s quietest anechoic
chamber to test fan noise
shows that it’s obsessed
with the details,” he says.
edge of extinction,” he
says. “It’s a privilege to be
able to photograph such
an eminent veterinary
surgeon. My models
are usually on the wilder
side, so to have such a
co-operative one on this
occasion was a luxury.”
come up for air don’t want
to just hear negative
things.” What would she
say to Donald Trump, given
the chance? “The whole
planet faces challenges
that individual nations are
not going to be able to solve
on their own and he had
better back off on this ‘Make
America great again’ thing.”
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Responds Wireless adaptive Smart power with

naturally to you noise cancellation a 22-hour battery life bowers-wilkins.co.uk/PX
 WIRED AT 100 _   

CELEBRATING INNOVATORS, PIONEERS, INVENTORS AND DISRUPTORS SINCE 2009

FROM CYBERSECURITY TO ROBOT WORKFORCES FROM THE APP REVOLUTION TO CITIZEN PROTEST

FROM RIDE-HAILING STARTUPS TO SPACE TRAVEL. WHAT'S NEXT? READ ON…

   _ WIRED AT 100 _ FROM THE EDITOR
WIRED science
Earlier this year, the advent of the
notion that there are alternative
facts – courtesy of President
Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway
– was a bracing escalation of the
bird-brained proclamation by
then-justice secretary Michael
Gove during a televised debate a
few weeks before the EU refere-
ndum, that people in the UK “have
had enough of experts”.
The erosion of trust in institutions
and expertise will not be a surprise
to many scientists. Some national
media organisations in the UK still
run stories that actively promote
scepticism in climate science,
suggesting that researchers are
massaging data to promote some
nebulous agenda. These stories are
opaque when it comes to explaining
why anyone would want to exacerbate
the ever-more alarming data about
our oceans, forests and skies.
The insinuation is that they are
somehow doing so to get access to
grants is the height of mendacity;
no one enters the higher levels
of scientific research to get rich.
Perhaps, in the world of alter-
native facts, it’s possible that scien-
tists from across the world meet
weekly to advance the hoaxes and
fantasies that they are to endorse
in concert. In this illusory realm,
research papers are skewed and data
misinterpreted to advocate a set of
PPA Designer of the Year, Consumer 2017 • B SME Ar t Team of the Year 2017 • B SME Print Writer of the Year 2017 • DMA Magazine of the Year 2015 • DMA Cover of the
Year 2015 • DMA Technology Magazine of the Year 2015 • DMA Magazine of the Year 2014 • B SME Ar t Director of the Year, Consumer 2013 • PPA Media Brand of the Year,
Consumer 2013 • DMA Technology Magazine of the Year 2012 • DMA Editor of the Year 2012 • B SME Editor of the Year, Special Interest 2012 • D & AD Award: Covers 2012
• DMA Editor of the Year 2011 • DMA Magazine of the Year 2011 • DMA Technology Magazine of the Year 2011 • B SME Ar t Director of the Year, Consumer 2011 • D & AD
Award: Entire Magazine 2011 • D& AD Award: Covers 2010 • Maggies Technology Cover 2010 • PPA Designer of the Year, Consumer 2010 • B SME L aunch of the Year 2009
beliefs that even the most delirious
conspiracy theorist has yet to unravel.
Where is the leadership on these
issues? It doesn’t help that the UK
government is too consumed by its
own survival and the gargantuan
task of Brexit to advance progressive
policy, or that the institutions of the
US are fighting a rearguard action to
survive the witless administration
of a thin-skinned narcissist of epic,
wilful ignorance, to grapple with some
of mankind’s most urgent issues.
Thankfully, entrepreneurs,
public-sector workers, technolo-
gists, business leaders, investors,
academics, designers, mayors
– even corporates – are daring
to dream big, solving problems
related to sustainable energy,
breakthroughs in medicine and
making capital easier to access
for entrepreneurs. Across the
globe, dynamic individuals and
organisations, some state-sanc-
tioned, others scrappy and
self-organised, some passionate
amateurs, others renowned –
forgive me – experts, are tackling
the hard problems of security,
energy and healthcare inequality
to ensure a fairer, sustainable world.
In this issue, we are thrilled to
celebrate expertise and fact in the
form of some of the world’s most
respected scientists, from Neil
deGrasse Tyson to Sandra Magnus.
We asked what’s most exciting
them in science at the moment –
and how best to combat scepticism
about what they do. And who better
to grace our cover than scientist
Stephen Hawking who, despite
his condition, will not be silenced?
We will never lose
sight of the fact
that we’re living in
momentous times
with access to
digital tools that
enable us to make
a positive impact
This is the 100th issue of WIRED
in the UK. Since we launched
in 2009, the world has changed
dramatically. This transformation
will continue – it’s the defining
characteristic of our times –
sometimes at a pace that we can
barely comprehend. We’ll continue
to champion those who work
for positive change, including
the plucky amateurs turning
passion projects into dial-shifting
technologies; the entrepreneurs
building services to circumvent
incumbent intransigence; the
scientists partnering with those
in other disciplines to advance
new treatments; the technologists
designing platforms to make us
safer. We’ll celebrate the future,
but we’ll call bullshit when we
need to (sorry, 3DTV) because
the WIRED world is about how
we can change what’s around us
for the better. We’ll look to the
future and tell inspiring stories
in print, digital, podcasts, videos
and events – and we’ll never lose
sight of the fact that we’re living
in momentous times with access
to digital tools that enable all of
us to make a positive impact. We
very much hope to have you along
for the ride – and the facts.
Greg Williams
Editor
This isn’t Lex Luthor’s lair, but the Leeza Soho tower in Beijing, one of the last buildings Zaha Hadid
designed before her death in 2016. When it opens in 2018, the 207-metre skyscraper will have the tallest atrium
in the world – but that wasn’t always part of the plan. “This wasn’t our aim, it’s something that evolved,” says
Satoshi Ohashi, who managed the project. The problem was a tunnel running beneath the tower. Planned in
2007 to expand Beijing’s subway, it was being constructed at the same time, giving the architects a logis-
tical headache. “We had to integrate it into the design, but we also had to make sure we allowed access,”
says Ohashi. The solution? Turning the atrium 45°, so the building’s two halves sat either side of the tunnel.
The tweak left a 191-metre-tall conservatory, and a building with a real twist. Eleanor Peake zaha-hadid.com
 N E W S A N D O B S E S S I O N S _ E D I T E D B Y R O W L
A N D M A N T H O R P E _   
PHOTOGRAPHY: SATOSHI OHASHI

ARCHITECTURE
   _ START _ MISSION TO MARS

Allwood’s
life as a
rock star
2006 Signs of life
Allwood identifies the
oldest evidence of life
on Earth in Australia.

2007 Beta testing

As a postdoc at Nasa’s Jet
Propulsion Lab, Allwood
looks for traces of past life.

2008 Mars calling

Nasa’s Mars programme
recruits Allwood to join
its team of scientists.

2014 Breakout role

Allwood is tapped to be a
principal investigator on the
Mars 2020 Rover mission.

ASTROBIOLOGY

2021 The PIXL

Allwood’s invention will
scan Martian rocks for
microbial biosignatures.

the X-Ray bigail Allwood is a translator. But instead

A
WHO Abigail Allwood,
astrobiologist

IDOL Naturalist and

broadcaster David
Visionary of reading ancient texts, she reads ancient
rocks. For the past decade the Australian
astrobiologist has been searching Earth’s most
remote wilderness for microscopic finger-
Attenborough

PRODUCTIVITY
HACK Oil painting.
Looking prints of life. She uses a tool called the PIXL, which she invented.
It fires a hair’s-width X-ray beam at a rock. This stirs up the
atoms on the surface, which then shoot back their own distinct
X-rays. Combined, they create finely detailed maps of the

for LifE
PHOTOGRAPHY: BRIAN GUIDO. ILLUSTRATION: FURR

“It engages the other rock, potentially revealing the past presence of microbes.
half of my brain” Allwood used the method to study rocks in Australia’s Pilbara
region. “I stood on a seashore that was formed 3.4 billion years
UNLIKELY HOBBY ago,” she says. Now she’s gearing up to repeat her study – on
“My husband and I are Abigail Allwood is on a Mars. Allwood is a principal investigator on Nasa’s Mars 2020
growing a rainforest mission to find microbes Rover mission, the first woman to oversee a scientific instrument
in Queensland” on the Red Planet on such an expedition. “About bloody time!” she says. The
PIXL will be one of just seven instruments aboard. “This
LAST BOOK READ isn’t going to be a shiny-object hunt,” she says. “It’s not like
The Sixth Extinction uncovering a dinosaur bone.” Her spectral science is far more
by Elizabeth Kolbert subtle – but just as exciting. Laura Parker mars.nasa.gov
 For the past two decades, Google in areas where it had no expertise,

Don’t build and its parent company Alphabet

have spent billions of dollars on
purchasing new products and ideas
– as we map in our Google acquisition
but which still fitted with the
company’s core search business,
says Chandratillake. Its purchase of
Android is a perfect example. “Mobile-

it, buy it tracker below. And the company has operating-system development wasn’t

INFOGRAPHIC: VALERIO PELLEGRINI

its sights set on bigger  things.
“Alphabet will push into genomics,
healthcare and autonomous transport,”
When Google requires says Suranga Chandratillake, general
new expertise, WIRED finds, partner at Balderton Capital, a
talent comes with a London-based venture-capital firm.
corporate-sized price tag Google’s smartest gains have been
a strong point, but search provides the
content and application background
both on and off the phone,” he adds.
Google doesn’t always get it right.
Consider what it paid for Motorola
Mobility in 2011, only to sell it to Lenovo
for $9.5 billion less a couple of years

2005: Android acquired 2009: AdMob acquired

for $50 million for $750 million

Admeld
$400 million

Android
$50 million

YouTube
$1.65 billion
On2 Technologies eBook Technologies
$106 million Undisclosed

ZipDash Endoxon
Undisclosed $28 million

Omnisio Zetawire
$15 million Undisclosed

Applied Semantics
$102 million

Postini reMail Motorola Mobility

$625 million Undisclosed $12.5 billion

Neotonic Software
Undisclosed

Orion Jambool PittPatt

Undisclosed $70 million Undisclosed

AdMob
$750 million

Feedburner
$100 million

Kaltix Metaweb Technologies

Undisclosed Undisclosed

DoubleClick
$3.1 billion

BeatThatQuote.com
$61.5 million

Deja Zingku Slide

Undisclosed Undisclosed $182 million
2001

2004

2006

2008

2010
2003

2005

2007

2009

2011
 TALENT SEARCH _ START _   
later. The same goes for a splurge
on robotics companies, selling off
Boston Dynamics and Schaft to
telecoms firm SoftBank in 2017.
But acquisitions also bring in
talented new minds. “Tech giants like
Alphabet have created ‘acquihires’,
when small companies are bought
purely to have the employees on its CATEGORIES OF COMPANIES ACQUIRED
books,” says Chandratallike. In Silicon
Valley, it seems, if you can’t beat ‘em Advertising Analytics Blogging Cloud computing Email Maps
you may as well join ‘em – but only if Mobile Other Photos Search Shopping Social networking
they’re paying. Matthew Reynolds VR Wearables Website building Work tools Robotics Video streaming

2013: Waze acquired 2014: DeepMind acquired

for $1.3 billion for $500 million

Wildfire Autofuss Timeful Webpass

$350 million Undisclosed Undisclosed Undisclosed

Divide
$120 million

Sparrow Redwod Robotics Launchpad Toys BandPage

$25 million Undisclosed Undisclosed $8 million DATAVIZ

Bump Technologies Rangespan Odysee

Undisclosed Undisclosed Undisclosed

Digisfera FameBit
Undisclosed Undisclosed

Meebo Waze SlickLogin Jetpac

$100 million $1.3 billion Undisclosed Undisclosed

Red Hot Labs LaunchKit

Undisclosed Undisclosed

Incentive Targeting Nest Labs

Undisclosed $3.2 billion

Katango Talaria mDialog Softcard Orbitera

Undisclosed Undisclosed Undisclosed Undisclosed $100 million

Apture Wavii DeepMind Gecko Design Thrive Audio Apigee

Undisclosed $30 million $500 million No cost given Undisclosed $625 million

BufferBox Industrial Perception Skybox Imaging Skillman & Hackett Kaggle

$17 million Undisclosed $500 million Undisclosed Undisclosed

Channel Intelligence Boston Dynamics Vision Factory Bebop

$125 million Undisclosed Undisclosed $380 million
2012

2014

2016
2013

2015

2017
   _ START _ SIGHT SAVERS

OPHTHALMOLOGY

o see, you need more than eyes. “Even when someone is

T losing their sight, they still have a good brain that’s trying to
understand and pick up clues from objects, if given enough
input,” says Stephen Hicks, research fellow in neuroscience at OxSight, a spinout that launched
the University of Oxford. This mechanism means partially sighted in March 2016. The pair designed
people can be helped to see, even as their eyesight worsens. To make that augmented-reality glasses that let
possible, Hicks’s startup, OxSight, is building augmented-reality glasses that partially sighted people make sense
render the physical world visible, even to the visually impaired. of their surroundings by spotlighting
The sense we experience as vision is the outcome of a constant jigsaw- specific visual cues and overlaying
assembling process in our brain: the eyes only need to pick up specific visual them on the lenses in real time.
tidbits (colour, contrast, dimensions), and the occipital and parietal lobes will Using computer-vision algorithms
make sense of the overall picture. Having observed this through his research, and cameras, OxSight’s glasses
Hicks teamed up with fellow Oxford computer-vision scientist Philip Torr to create c a n i n c re a s e i m a ge c o n t ra s t ,
highlight specific visual features
or create cartoonish representa-
tions of reality, depending on the
eye condition they’re being used to
compensate for. “For instance, if you

COMPUTER VISIONARIES
OxSight is giving a little augmented clarity to the visually impaired
have tunnel vision and issues with
colour perception, they’d emphasise
colours,” explains Hicks, 43. “If you
have got glaucoma and your vision is
blurry, the glasses will enhance the
salience of certain objects.”
Hicks says OxSight’s biggest
technical challenge was tweaking the
computer-vision software so that it
could run on very little computing
power. “We’ve optimised the system
for particular use cases so that it could
work on a mobile phone’s graphics
processor,” he says. (The glasses run
on Android.) Aesthetics are harder to
crack. “They need to look like regular
sunglasses: visually impaired people
won’t tolerate something that makes
them stand out,” he adds.
OxSight won a £500,000 Google
Global Impact Award in 2015, and
raised £2 million from angel investor
Jiangong Zhang in 2016; its device is
scheduled for release in late 2017. The
company is still trialling the glasses
with several people across the UK.
Pilot users, who are suffering from
diseases such as glaucoma, retinitis
pigmentosa or diabetes, report that,
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID VINTINER

thanks to the glasses, they can avoid

obstacles, see blurry faces clearly
again and even read from slides
during presentations. Hicks is pleased
with the results: “Most of the pilot
users find them to be life-changing.”
Gian Volpicelli smartspecs.co

Left: Stephen Hicks and his team

developed algorithms that replicate our
natural visual-interpretation process
 L
A S E R Q U E S T _ S T A R T _ 0 2 

planetary
motion
tracker
This sensor-packed network
of laser-lit tunnels can detect
Earth’s tiniest movements
ROMY’s size means the
sensor can accurately
measure more than one
part per billion

GEOSCIENCE

uried three storeys beneath

B Bavaria, the most sophisti-

cated ring laser in the world
is measuring Earth’s tiny
twists and turns. Known as the
Rotational Motions in Seismology (ROMY),
the lasers are located in Fürstenfeldbruck,
20 kilometres from Munich. Four 12-metre
triangles made up of precision sensors,
concrete and steel pipes take the shape of
a tetrahedron. “It basically measures, at a
precision that is unprecedented, the rotation
motions of the ground,” says Heiner Igel, a
seismologist at Ludwig Maximilian University
of Munich and ROMY’s principal investigator.
Although the Earth might appear to spin
smoothly and constantly, in reality it’s
constantly wobbling – the earthquake that
struck Japan in 2011, for example, caused
what’s known as the Earth’s figure axis to shift
by as much as 17 centimetres. The Earth’s spin
rate and spin axis is currently measured by
ILLUSTRATION: MUTI
Mirrors inside each
corner help detect
rotations and move the
lasers around ROMY
a step further. As the seismic movements of
the Earth cause motions – or beats – in the
lasers as they travel around each triangle’s
36-metre circumference, scientists can
measure rotational shifts as well as horizontal
movement. Previous ring lasers have been able
to take measurements as minuscule as one
part per million – ROMY can measure more
than one part per billion. “We can now claim
The Earth’s rotation can be
measured using the time
difference between the two
paths the lasers take
constantly, where satellite dishes can only
record measurements every three days. This
has an impact on accuracy as the Earth’s spin
is vulnerable to the tugs of the Sun and Moon
or even the effects of a large hurricane.
The rotations that occur during tremors
could help scientists study the interior
structure of the Earth. Eventually, Igel says,
measuring the length of a day and position

a system of radio dishes known as Very Long that, at least on paper, that sensor should be of the poles will help with launching a rocket
Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). ROMY, which more accurate than previous ring lasers,” Igel or providing data to GPS systems. “It’s hard to
secured €2.5 million (£2.2m) in funding from says. The other benefit ROMY has over VLBI is believe that you can achieve this,” he explains.
the European Geosciences Union, takes things that, theoretically, it can measure movement “But it is possible.” BC uni-muenchen.de
design 1

classic?
vitra’s
got it
covered
The furniture company
reveals the secrets
behind Charles and Ray
Eames’ Aluminium Chair

TOOLKIT

or architecture and design nerds, this is

F as close as it gets to heaven. Just outside the

German town of Weil am Rhein, furniture
manufacturer Vitra puts together one of the
2 2

20th century’s enduring classics, Charles and

Ray Eames’ Aluminium Chair. Inside the Frank Gehry Factory
Building – part of a collection of specially created buildings and
follies by a galaxy of architectural stars – a team of six hand-
assembles 80 chairs a day, in much the same way as they did
when production started in 1958. After a quick turn on the
Vitra campus’s 30-metre-high Carsten Höller slide, WIRED
went inside to see how it’s done. Andrew Diprose vitra.com
 COMFORT ZONE _ START _   

1 2

Stabilising Tightening
The chair takes the screws
its form after the The seat cover
seat and back is fixed on to
spreading bars the aluminium
are attached. side frames.
The seat is At this point,
clamped into materials must
the spreading be perfectly
machine where aligned or the
the aluminium whole chair will
frames are be asymmetrical
pulled apart and out of shape.
with a force The clever part
of 1.5 tonnes. is how the seat
An engineer then cover flips and
attaches the twists inside
spreaders to the out – a 1958
back and seat of invention
the chair to hold by Charles and
this shape. Ray Eames.

3 4

High-frequency Base assembly

welding and The chair is now
stitching given a sticker
The upholstery with details of
is produced by the job number,
combining several the employee
fabrics with a who worked
high-frequency on it and the
welder. First, the production
layers are placed week. Finally,
in the machine the upholstery
and welded into is cleaned
shape under using a cloth
PHOTOGRAPHY: FLORIAN BÖHM

pressure, tension and pressure

and heat. Next, cleaner. Eighty
plastic strips are chairs leave the
stitched at each factory every
end of the cover day, all of which
to provide extra have a 30-year
strength. guarantee.

3 4
 BUSINESS
mbassadors are traditionally
A staid public officials, holed up in
grand embassies in the farthest-
flung corners of the world. Their
job? Schmoozing the powerful,
smoothing over tricky arguments and promoting
their country. “Diplomacy has always been about
putting people in outposts where there have been
new activities and events – be it in conflict areas, or
where innovation, creativity and new technology
is influencing our ways of life,” explains Casper
Klynge, who has just taken up the role as the first
ever ambassador to Silicon Valley.
Klynge, 44, knows exactly what diplomats
are supposed to do: his job before moving to the
US was to be Denmark’s man in Jakarta, acting
as his country’s ambassador to Indonesia, Papua
New Guinea, East Timor and the Association
of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). “A lot of the
core functions of my new job will be similar to
the one I’ve had in Indonesia for the past few
years,” he says. “I’m going to interact with a broad
range of actors, build up networks and discuss
views and policies where we don’t necessarily
agree with the host country or actors.”
What’s different is who he’s lobbying. From
the time the world’s first permanent ambassador
– the Spanish representative to England, who
took up his post in 1487 – established residence
in another country until today, they have spent
most of their working days brokering relation-
ships with national governments (or supranational
bodies such as the United Nations). Now Klynge
is attending to a small corner of a country, and a
multi-trillion-dollar business sector.
“When I go to the Indonesian foreign ministry or
the ASEAN secretary general, they know what kind
of character I am, what my function is, and what
the embassy is about,” Klynge explains. “There’s
an understanding of the rules of the game. In my
new job, we’re breaking a lot of ground.” As well
as the tech giants – the Facebooks and Googles
– Klynge also plans to speak regularly to univer-
sities and research organisations based in the area;
people who aren’t necessarily used to interacting
with embassies and ambassadors. “There’ll be a
curiosity in getting to know each other and finding
out how we can help each other,” he says.
The job came about when Denmark’s Foreign
Office decided to create the post of what was then
‘Tech companies are assuming a role
they might not have had five years
ago. We need to engage with them’
DENMARK’S
SILICON VALLEY
techplomat
Casper Klynge is the first ever tech ambassador – and he’s
out to make nice with the world’s most powerful founders
called a “Google ambassador”, who
would interact with the tech giants.
The role was officially created in
February; Klynge was appointed a
few months later. In late August,
he moved to California and into his
Palo Alto embassy, where he plans
to build a team of more than a dozen
staff, supported by a back-office
secretary and a number of tech
attachés around the world – the first
of which will be based in Klynge’s old
stomping ground, Asia.
Klynge’s goal is four-fold. He’s
trying to encourage investment into
Denmark from the West Coast tech
companies, and to promote Danish
exports to Silicon Valley startups.
Along the way, he’s also hoping to
push brand Denmark on to the world,
convincing them there’s more to his
home country than bacon, LEGO and
Hans Christian Andersen.
But the most important role
he has as ambassador shows just
how much the world has changed
in recent years: he’s there to meet
Silicon Valley’s biggest companies
in exactly the same way he has previ-
ously met with prime ministers
and presidents. “We need to build
those relationships because of the
key influence these companies have
over our daily lives,” he says, “and, at
the end of the day, over foreign
policy and international affairs.”
Facebook’s user base of two
billion is more than twice as large
as the combined populations of
all the G7 nations. Google’s reach
extends far beyond simple search:
it powers mobile phones, our maps
and much more. The power that Mark
Zuckerberg and Larry Page wield
is enormous – and they know it.
“There have been a number of recent
examples where these companies
are assuming a policy-defining role,
becoming vocal in international
affairs,” says Klynge. From debates
about AI ethics, the impact of Donald
Trump’s travel ban on employment
in the tech sector or the US pulling
out of the Paris Agreement, big tech
companies are some of the loudest
and most distinctive voices in the
world. “The tech companies are
assuming a role they might not
have had five or ten years ago,”
Klynge says. “That’s why we need
to engage with them. They’ll be an
important partner in discussing the
challenges of the future.”
As the world’s first tech ambas-
sador settles down behind his desk in
Silicon Valley, he’s a little surprised
that – in 2017 – he’s able to lay claim
to the title of the first to take the job.
“I’ll be frank with you,” he says. “It’s
surprising to those of us involved
in this that nobody else has come
up with the initiative.” But though
Klynge is writing the rules of this new
role as he goes along, he’s certain
of one thing: “Our tech embassy
will not be the last tech embassy.”
Chris Stokel-Walker
 NETWORK EFFECTS _ START _   

Pictured:
Casper Klynge
in Denmark.
Tech diplomacy
is among the
country’s key
foreign policies
PHOTOGRAPHY: AORTA
0 3 2 _ START _ SPACE MEDICS
telemedicine’s big
leap for mankind
Astronauts have long benefited from remotely administered medical help.
Now it’s time to develop it for those stricken in Earth’s remote areas
elemedicine will always be a vital consid-
T eration for space travel, with astronauts
needing to access treatment from a doctor
thousands of kilometres away on Earth. In
2018, recent developments in telemedicine
for astronauts will also help people on terra firma.
The first widespread use of telemedicine was during the
1988 Armenian earthquake, in which expert consultations
were provided remotely by military and civilian medical
centres from the United States and the then-Soviet Union.
Since then, many more applications have emerged, many
of which are funded by investment from space agencies.
Telemedicine in space has a long history. The first
telemedicine link from space was set up as part of a
ten-day Spacelab mission in the 90s, when, for the first
time, doctors could study images of an astronaut’s heart
from Mission Control. Today, due to improvements in
satellite communications and connectivity, space agencies
have expanded its applications. The practice is now a
key component of astronaut medical care and offers
preventative, therapeutic and diagnostic help for humans
in space. Tele-diagnostics using ultrasound is a proven
tool for diagnosing and informing management plans
from Earth for patients in space.
Innovations in space medicine are also being augmented
by commercialisation via new space companies. In August
2017, SpaceX transported Techshot’s ADvanced Space
Experiment Processor, which houses regenerative medicine
experiments, to the International Space Station (ISS).
The ISS is an important test bed for experiments that can
enhance our understanding of telemedicine. Astronauts are
now undergoing longer missions aboard the space station,
which are providing important data on the physiological
effects of long periods in microgravity. But similar research
is also taking place on terrestrial analogue platforms,
which replicate space conditions. On Earth, crews at
the Concordia station in Antarctica are taking part in
OPINION
experiments that will help us manage
the healthcare of human settlements
on places such as Mars.
Due to its inaccessibility, altitude
and low light levels, Concordia is
often referred to as “White Mars”.
Crews there are completely isolated
due to the extreme environmental
conditions – temperatures there fall
to below -80°C, and 105 days of the
year have no daylight – and the fact
that no aeroplanes are able to land
there for nine months out of 12.
The base is used by the European
Space Agency (ESA) to develop
telemedicine technology for the
physical care of researchers living
there – the base doctor uses the
technology for specialist advice and
remote guidance. But it also provides
insights into the psychological effects
on crews who know they cannot
evacuate, even in an emergency.
This research will translate into
new technologies and procedures
for space. Today, if an astronaut
has a medical problem on the ISS
it is possible to evacuate them in a
matter of hours. However, as we look
at travelling further, this will not be
possible. As part of our preparation
for deep-space missions, scientists are
developing technologies and telemed-
icine techniques to manage potential
emergencies should they arise.
Telemedicine’s development is
an excellent example of a spinoff
technology that can also be used in
a wide range of terrestrial settings.
These include providing remote
healthcare to people in areas in
which they would not otherwise be
able to access treatment – during
natural disasters or conflicts, for
example, or to those who, because
of their condition, cannot travel to
receive specialist care.
Ultrasound telemedicine techno-
logy is already being made available
in parts of the world where access
to imaging and specialist advice
would otherwise be unavailable by
projects such as the World Interactive
Network Focused on Critical Ultra-
Sound (WINFOCUS), which has been
developed to improve access to care
in Earth’s remote regions.
Earlier in 2017, the United Nations,
the World Health Organization and
various space agencies held a summit
to agree further ways of working
together to meet global health
challenges. In 2018, we will see a
continuation of research in telemed-
icine over ever-greater distances. This
will allow us to continue our explo-
ration of space and improve the
ILLUSTRATION: JON HAN
healthcare of people here on Earth.
This story is one of more than 40
predictions for the year ahead
from The WIRED World in 2018,
available November 16
Beth Healey
is a former
European Space
Agency research
MD at Concordia
Station, Antarctica
   _ START _ ART OF NOISE _ APPS OF THE MONTH
D the name “generative adversarial networks”
ABUS is a new type of AI that paves the way
for smarter machines. Nothing new there –
but this machine-learning system is different.
DABUS, short for “device for the autonomous
bootstrapping of unified Sentience”, is deliber-
ately created to be mentally unstable.
Since the 90s, computer scientist Stephen
Thaler has been injecting noise into a special
neural network to generate novel ideas. Thaler,
CEO of Missouri-based Imagination Engines,
calls this module an Imagitron. The stream
of creativity is assessed by a second network
called a Perceptron, which provides feedback
to improve ideas. This AI approach of neural
networks playing off each other has been
adopted by Facebook, Google and others – under
the tortured
genius of ai
Machines’ creative brilliance will be
accompanied by bouts of mental illness
Clockwise from top left: DABUS’s output gets progressively more surreal as cognitive flow is reduced
apps
– as a method of creating images that look
authentic to human observers.
Now Thaler has introduced a technique to
of the
assess ideas according to how they resonate
with existing knowledge – the AI equivalent of
art or music that triggers happy or unhappy
month
associations. Another process recognises the
slow and tentative rhythm characteristic of
creative activity in a neural network, and boosts WIRED
it. The system swings between extremes of
unimaginative plodding and novel thinking. It _
can also exceed the bounds of sanity. Forest
“At one end, we see all the characteristic Need time away from your
symptoms of mental illness, hallucinations, phone? Plant a digital tree
attention deficit and mania,” Thaler says. “At and it will grow – if you stay
the other, we have reduced cognitive flow and off your device for an agreed
depression.” This process is illustrated by time. If not, the tree dies. iOS,
DABUS’s artistic output, which creates progres- Android, £1.99 forestapp.cc
sively more bizarre and surreal images.
Thaler is also using the technology for stock-
market prediction and to help autonomous
robots find creative ways of tackling obstacles.
He believes that with larger networks the
approach will offer human-like problem-solving
and genius-level ideas, impacting on scientific
_
TabBank
discovery, economics and more. But developers
will need to restrict creativity to sensible limits.
“The AI systems of the future will have their bouts
of mental illness,” Thaler says. “Especially if they
aspire to create more than what they know.”
This smart notepad lets
you scribble down lyrics
and chords, formatting
them automatically so you
can write songs on the go.
David Hambling imagination-engines.com iOS, free tabbankapp.com
_
SmartPhone Lock
This app will change your
phone’s PIN every minute
– your loved ones will never
hack your Facebook again.
Android, free play.google.
com/store/apps
WEIRD
IMAGING
_
ReplyASAP
Overbearing parents can
use this to contact kids by
sending a stressed alarm
tone with a message. Also
works for couples. Android,
free replyasap.co.uk EP
Designed in New York,
located in London’s Tech City
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Indicative CGI of the corner terrace
overlooking Waterson Street at L&W.
SHARE YOUR
STORY

VISIT FUJIFILM-X.COM/CAMERAS/X-E3/
SIMPLE SYNC TO SMARTPHONES USING BLUETOOTH | 3.0” TOUCHSCREEN
24.3-MEGAPIXEL X-TRANS CMOS III SENSOR | FUJIFILM UNIQUE FILM SIMULATION MODES
 OPERATION 2.0 _ START _   

Materials
Polymers on (and in)
the SynDaver range
in texture from
rigidly skeletal to
slimily liver-like.
Eyes Circulation
The fake corpse’s It contains 15 metres
eyes have tiny of veins and arteries;
screens, so the pupils valves restrict
can dilate in response the flow of “blood”
to light or trauma. during shock.

Lungs Heart
A compressor draws An electric pump
air in and out, so provides a realistic
doctors can practise pulse, while a heater
tracheotomies warms up the fluids
and intubations. to body temperature.

Limbs
To simulate a
seizure, pneumatic
actuators in the legs
and arms create
jerking motions.
Joints Add-ons
More than 600 SynDaver can
muscles are sutured afflict the body with
to the cadaver’s 206 specific pathologies
bones, and every – a pancreatic
joint is movable. tumour, for example.

MEDICINE

BODY
DOUBLE A
t the SynDaver factory in Tampa, Florida, scientists are bringing bodies to life. Not
Frankenstein-ing the dead, but using a library of polymers to craft synthetic cadavers
that twitch and bleed like real suffering humans. Hospitals and medical schools use
PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF BROWN

the fakes to teach anatomy and train surgeons, and the most lifelike model is the
$95,000 (£70,000) SynDaver Patient. This exquisite corpse can be controlled wirelessly
A disturbingly realistic so practitioners can rehearse elaborate medical scenarios in which the patient goes into shock and
fake cadaver is helping even “dies”. It’s less messy, and lasts a good deal longer than real flesh and blood: as long as you keep
medical students buying replacement viscera, these bodies won’t ever decay. But because they’re 85 per cent water,
to test their new skills they must be submerged in a watery grave between uses to keep from drying out. Jon Christian
0 3 8 _ START _ L ANGUAGE CL ASS
LESSON ONE:
lEARN from
YOUR students
By watching its users learn languages
– and make mistakes – in real time, Duolingo
is developing a unique view of education
fter months spent away from the
A language-learning app Duolingo,
my level-five French skills were in
decline. The “food” category was
particularly threatened, coded red
(for danger) with just one “strength bar” remaining.
I clicked it, and was asked to translate: Je mange
un repas. No problem. “I eat…” Wait, what was
repas? It wouldn’t come. My mind drifted to arepas,
the Colombian snack. Defeated, I Google Trans-
lated. A meal! I should have intuited this from the
English “repast”. But, in the moment, I forgot.
Learning is forgetting; or, more accurately, it’s
virtually forgetting that we know something, but
then being able to magically retrieve it when called
upon. As Ulrich Boser, author of Learn Better,
suggested to me, the human mind is not simply a
computer; we will forget things, at a fairly predictable
rate. So should I have simply drilled French food
vocabulary every morning over my petits déjenuers?
No, Boser says. The best thing “is to learn a word
right when you’re about to forget it”. With each
instance of effortful relearning, you remember longer.
Boser is referring to the “forgetting curve”,
pioneered by 19th-century psychologist Hermann
Ebbinghaus, and it’s precisely why Duolingo had
coded my food vocab red: there was a good chance
some of those words were going to slip into oblivion.
But as Burr Settles, chief researcher for the
Pittsburgh-based company, told me, Duolingo was
frustrated by how poorly its curves were working.
“Users in the forums were saying, ‘I don’t feel this
is capturing my understanding of the language,’”
he said. Then it dawned: Duolingo could create its
own curve. “We’re tracking the data for every single
user at every single point, and we
know the statistics about how many
times in the past they’ve gotten the
word right or wrong.” Rather than
use an ad-hoc heuristic, it could
create its own model.
With its omniscient big-data eye
cast upon millions of users toiling
away through hours of language
acquisition, Duolingo has a uniquely
incisive view on learning as it is
actually happening. It’s learned a
lot. It knows which countries tend to
learn which languages (typically
those of neighbouring countries,
except for English, which is universal).
It knows which users are least
likely to progress (English speakers
learning Turkish and Irish, it turns
out). But it is also learning about
learning. In the beginning, “We had
no idea how to teach a language,” says
founder Luis von Ahn (a Guatemalan
inspired to launch the company by
his struggles to learn English in his
native country). Now, they do.
One way the company learns is by
looking at people’s most common
mistakes. This often depends, says
von Ahn, on which language people
are coming from. Speakers of French,
for example, seem to struggle with
English contractions. “In English,
contractions are optional,” he says,
“whereas in French they’re not.”
Similarly, speakers of Chinese,
which lacks articles like “a” and “the”,
don’t need to face those concepts
OPINION
Tom Vanderbilt
is a journalist
and the author of
Traffic (Penguin)
and Taste (Simon
& Schuster)
in the first English lessons. “It’s
demotivating,” says Settles.
Motivation is a key, if sometimes
under-appreciated, factor in learning.
So, rather like video-game designers,
who often use devices such as “pity
timers” (which grant players some
breathing room after they have
suffered repeatedly) to keep users
from quitting, Duolingo sometimes
contravenes its own model of
learning in order to boost motivation.
One behavioural enticement is a
percentage figure showing fluency
in a particular language: the number,
drawn from a benchmarking system
devised by the European Union,
is, admits von Ahn, not so much a
precise diagnostic as a way to keep
people engaged – and around. It’s
the carrot and the stick; or, as they
say in German, “mit zuckerbrot und
peitsche” – sweet bread and the whip.
But what Duolingo also showed, via
its new algorithm, is that a learning
system that responds better to users’
own abilities is its own reward. The
company’s new model was better at
predicting which words users would
forget, which meant people weren’t
endlessly practising words they
already knew. While users were ILLUSTRATION: RIKI BLANCO
taking on more lessons, they were
practising less. They were brushing
up on foreign-language skills, but
Duolingo was building its strength
bars in a larger sense: learning how
we learn. Tom Vanderbilt
 MARCH 13-14, 2018
CRICK INSTITUTE, LONDON, UK
TICKETS: WIRED.UK/HEALTH-EVENT
 EDITED BY JEREMY WHITE _ GEAR _

The 7,541-piece
LEGO Millennium
Falcon comes
with two Porgs
and a Mynock
WORDS: CHRIS HASLAM; JEREMY WHITE; MIKE DENT. PHOTOGRAPHY: ROGER STILLMAN

of the
year 2017
From glow-in-the-dark jackets to elegant bird-food dispensers and micro
games consoles, welcome to WIRED’s annual edit of the year’s best products
 GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017

Filson Duffle
Pack

Filson is a heritage brand

best known for its heavy-
duty duffle bags and
briefcases, but its latest
collection shuns the bulk
of traditional tin cloth in
favour of 600-denier all-
weather tear-resistant
nylon. The resulting
lightweight packs have
reinforced zips and padded
laptop sleeves, while
this 40-litre duffle has
rucksack straps hidden in
the base. £240 filson.com

sport & leisure

Ruroc RG1-DX
Core helmet >

Ruroc created the world’s

first helmet system with
integrated goggles and
detachable face mask.
The 700g RG1-DX has
enhanced that design for
better protection from
wind, snow and rocks. It
has a silicone strip where
the goggle strap sits to
prevent irritating
movement, and the interior
liner has a silver-nano Ruroc’s magnetic-clip
coating to prevent bacteria system allows you to
build-up. £230 ruroc.com change lenses quickly
Adidas UltraBoost Tangram Smart
Laceless Rope >

The first-ever laceless Skipping can burn up to

runner from adidas
blends street style with
performance smarts.
Designed with the help of
Aramis motion-tracking
software, it combines the
energy-returning power
of its cushioned sole, the
flexible Primeknit upper
and the pinch-free (and
surprisingly supportive)
sock-like fit from the
elasticated support
ribs. £150 adidas.co.uk
1,300 calories per hour,
improving balance and
toning your muscles. This
slickly designed rope
connects via Bluetooth to
the iOS and Android
Smart Gym app and
measures the number of
skips, calories burned
and time elapsed. The
real work, however,
comes from its intense
interval training mode.
£70 tangramfactory.com

It takes just a few seconds The Smart Rope’s 23 LED

under artificial light to get lights display your data
the Vollebak jacket glowing in front of you as you train

Vollebak Solar Tudor Heritage Black Greentom Upp

Charged Jacket < Bay Chronograph Stroller

Weighing just 230g with a
2,500mm waterproof,
windproof and breathable
fully taped skin, Vollebak’s
latest shell is the ideal
companion for dark, wet
winter runs. Innovative use
of a phosphorescent mesh
membrane enables the
jacket to absorb light
during the day and release
energy when the Sun goes
down, turning it glow-in-
the-dark kryptonite green.
£270 vollebak.com
This is the first Tudor Your choice to further
Heritage Black Bay overpopulate the planet
timepiece to be powered might not be your
by the MT5813 automatic greenest decision, but at
movement, which is least your pushchair can
based on the Breitling now be eco-friendly. The
B01 chronograph 7.3kg folding Upp Stroller
movement. The 41mm frame is made using 5.6kg
stainless-steel case has of recycled plastic and
an impressive 70-hour bio-based plant resin,
power reserve and while the fabric seat
features a black dial and and cover are constructed
hollowed sub-counters from 62 recycled soft-
for improved contrast. drink bottles. £170
£3,390 tudorwatch.com greentom.com
 The PXW-FS7 maintains
optimum exposure without
changing shutter speed

Blackbird Farallon
Ekoa Tenor >

No ordinary ukulele, the

Farallon is made from a
new composite material,
Ekoa, a combination of
natural flax-linen fibre and
plant-based resin. The
resulting instrument is
lighter than traditional
timber, but the stiffness-
to-weight ratio
outperforms fibreglass
and its natural damping
properties help absorb
unwanted vibrations.
$1,492 blackbirdguitar.com

sound & vision

GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017

Dynaudio wireless Roland SH-101 Roland Aerophone AE-10

speakers PLUG-OUT Digital Wind Instrument >

The clean, geometric
design of these speakers
makes them ideal for
kitchen-island units and
side tables. There are four
sizes available: Music 1,
Music 3, Music 5 and Music
7. Each is capable of
streaming virtually any file
format from all sources,
and Room Adapt software
means if you move the
speaker, it readjusts its
sound accordingly. £300
to £1,000 dynaudio.com
The iconic SH-101 was
responsible for plenty of
classic synth sounds in
the 80s. With the SH-01A,
Roland has revived the
same analogue sonics in a
digital-friendly, portable
box of tricks. As well as the
Mono and Polyphonic
modes, one of the most
useful features retained
from the original is the
100-step sequencer, which
can save and recall 64
patterns. £339 roland.com
WIRED generally rebuffs
lazy Star Wars references,
but it’s hard to believe that
Figrin D’an and the Modal
Nodes didn’t inspire
Roland’s new instrument.
Looks aside, the AE-10
features a built-in
speaker, battery and a
breath sensor that reacts
precisely the same way as
an acoustic horn while you
play violin, trumpet, sax
and a heap of adjustable
sounds. £699 roland.com
 SENSORY OVERLOAD _ GEAR _ 0 4 7

Sony PXW-FS7 <

Possibly the world’s most

versatile Super 35mm
camcorder, Sony’s device
has been engineered with
documentary-makers in
mind. It features a
redesigned viewfinder,
grip and controls, so you
can adjust settings
without taking it off your
shoulder. Slow & Quick
motion, meanwhile, lets
you adjust speed in single
frame-per-second
increments from one to
180. £5,995 sony.co.uk

Joey Roth Ceramic

Tower Speakers <

Audiophile engineers
have long been fascinated
by ceramic, none more so
than Joey Roth. These
speakers combine
porcelain, solid maple
and aluminium alongside
a 165mm aluminium cone
woofer and a mass-
loaded transmission line
enclosure, which extends
frequency response down
A maple rod and a slot to 40hz without affecting
hold the speakers at the timing. $2,350 for
a slight upward angle two joeyroth.com
Plan
Toys
Plan Toys makes engaging
playthings for tots using
eco-friendly paints and
sustainable wood species.
WIRED loves the Jumping
Acrobat (above), which
uses a flipper and hidden
magnet to make the figure
appear to float above the
base. The toy, which has
won a Red Dot Design
award, was created to
enhance observational
and experimental skills.
£24 plantoys.com
toys & games
HEXA weighs 1.75kg
and measures 39cm
wide and 15cm tall
DesignLibero
Animaze
The majority of kid’s
furniture is just a shrunken
version of grown-up
designs. With Animaze,
however, DesignLibero has
created a multifunctional
collection that encourages
imaginative play. Each
animal consists of a
flexible wood frame with a
fabric-covered foam
cushion inside. The set
interlocks neatly for
smile-inducing storage.
£poa designlibero.com
Teebee the
Toy Pod
Think of the Teebee as a
non-screen-based
companion for your kids
on long car journeys. The
main section houses toys
while the sorting tray and
double lid fold out for play
space – there’s even a
brick plate for LEGO
building. And a leather
strap wraps around your
child’s seatbelt so their
Hatchimals won’t go flying
if you brake suddenly.
$37 teebeebox.com
LEGO Star Wars
Millennium Falcon
At 7,541 pieces, this is
the biggest LEGO set to
date. Lose days (weeks?)
building the Corellian
freighter (21cm x 84cm
x 56cm) with details
including upper and lower
quad laser cannons,
landing legs, lowering
Optical and spatial
sensors help HEXA learn
from its surroundings

Vincross
HEXA
boarding ramp and a HEXA is a six-legged
cockpit with detachable mechanical insect that’s
canopy. The set comes designed to be hacked.
with 11 figures – and you Would-be developers can
can even turn Princess teach the app-controlled,
Leia and Han Solo’s heads open-source droid new
to reveal their breathing tricks and then make
masks for Mynock-hunting them available online. It is
sessions. £650 lego.com hugely manoeuvrable and
can climb over obstacles
with ease. A 720p camera
with night vision and
infrared transmitter
helps it boost its skills.
$949 vincross.com
PHOTOGRAPHY ROGER STILLMAN
FUN HOUSE _ GEAR _ 0 4 9
Nerf N-Strike Elite
Accustrike RaptorStrike >
Indulge your inner ten-
year-old with the new
bolt-action Nerf blaster
gun. It comes with 18
AccuStrike Series darts
(which themselves were
two years in design
development) that hold
their trajectory for longer
than previous versions.
An extendible bipod and
pop-up sight enable you
to exact foam-based
revenge from a safe
distance. £60 nerf.com
The Vincross HEXA can
carry a 1.5kg payload on
its back while travelling
GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017
 Face recognition will
allow you to pay for items
using just your features

Apple
iPhone X <

The tenth-anniversary
edition of the iPhone (the
“X” is pronounced “ten”)
has infrared 3D face
recognition, an A11 Bionic
chip with neural engine for
machine learning and a
dual rear 12mp camera
with image stabilisation
on both lenses. But for
WIRED, it’s all about that
Super Retina HD display
and the lack of bezel
around its 5.8in screen.
From £999 apple.com

tech The new glass back

allows Qi-compatible
wireless charging

GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017

The iPhone X’s display

has an eye-popping 2436
x 1125-pixel resolution

Samsung Galaxy
Note8
The Note8 marks a return
to form for Samsung after
the Note 7’s problems in
2016. This curved-edge
6.3-inch phablet has
pixel-perfect 2,960 x 1,440
QHD+ resolution, 18.5:9
aspect ratio, dual 12mp
camera and an improved
S Pen. A 64GB expandable
memory, 6GB RAM and
octa-core Exynos 8895
CPU ensures fast,
smooth performance.
£869 samsung.com
Nintendo Classic
Mini SNES
Forget the Switch –
gamers old skool and new
have been snapping up
this dinky version of
Nintendo’s 1992 stalwart
as fast as they’re being
produced. The machine
comes with 20 preloaded
PHOTOGRAPHY: ROGER STILLMAN
classics such as Donkey
Kong Country, Super Mario
Kart, Street Fighter II
Turbo: Hyper Fighting and
Final Fantasy 3, as well as
the unreleased Star Fox 2.
£69.99 nintendo.co.uk
P O W E R P L AY _ G E A R _ 0 5 1
Acer Predator
21 X >
There’s no denying Acer’s
audacity in producing the
world’s most powerful
gaming laptop. From the
NVIDIA G-SYNC capable
of an 120Hz refresh rate
for to the infinite screen
Tobii eye-tracking, you
won’t be left wanting. Add
64GB RAM, a quad-core
2.9GHz processor and
Pelican case and you’ll be
prepared for everything in
the digital realm. $£9,000
uk-store.acer.com
The Xbox One X can Acer's Predator 21 X is the
play both retro titles and only laptop in the world to
the latest VR games feature a curved screen
Xbox PS4 Pro
One X Glacier White
Microsoft claims this Like its trailblazing noir
is the most powerful cousin, the new PS4 Pro
console ever made. With a Glacier White includes
six-teraflop GPU that runs 4K gaming and Blu-
at 1.17GHz, 12GB of RAM, ray playback, HDR and
full 4K/HDR support, a twice the GPU power
4K Blu-ray drive and a of the standard PS4.
liquid cooling system, It’s now available in an
it’s difficult to argue with exceptionally cool shade
the specs. The 42 games of white with a matching
in development include DualShock 4 wireless
Forza Motorsport 7, controller and comes
which runs – well, sprints bundled exclusively with
– at native 4K and 60fps. Destiny 2 on Blu-ray.
£450 xbox.com £349.99 game.co.uk

Audi A8
2018
The A8 2018 is the first
commercially available car
with Level 3 autonomous
technology, meaning it can
accelerate, steer and brake
on roads where there is a
central barrier. Twelve
ultrasonic sensors, four
360° cameras, a long-
range radar and laser
scanner at the nose, a
windscreen camera and a
radar at each corner help it
drive without human input.
From €90,600 audi.co.uk
NextEV’s carbon-fibre
chassis reduces its
weight by 70 per cent
NextEV
NIO EP9
An aerodynamic body and
active rear wing gives this
electric hypercar twice the
downforce of an F1 car.
Four separate gearboxes
assist in propelling it from
0-200kph in 7.1 seconds
and on to a top speed of
312kph. Add in custom
brakes and a configurable
digital cockpit and you
have a car that can, in
theory, best nearly all
combustion-engine rivals.
£tbc nio.io/ep9
Tesla
Model 3
Billed as an affordable
electric car, the Model 3
comes with all the tech on
board for autonomous
driving. In order to turn on
this ability, however, you will
have to pay up to $3,400
(£2,600) more. You can also
get a battery boost – for
another $9,000. And any
paint other than black will
cost an extra $1,000. Still,
it does go from 0-100kph in
under six seconds. From
$35,000 tesla.com
STRADA’s wider tyres
soak up rattles from
potholes and road debris
BMW
i3s
BMW’s i range is designed
to be electric, not just a
retrofitted combustion
design. Apart from a slight
facelift, the big news with
the i3s is the TurboCord EV
charger, which means you
can refill up to three times
faster. BMW is also rolling
out a wireless charging
pad, so you will soon be
able to drive your EV BMW
over the pad to charge
rather than plug it in. From
£36,975 bmw.co.uk

rides
Land Rover
Discovery SVX
Land Rover has handed
the Discovery 4x4 to its
Special Vehicle Operations
division to create the SVX.
It has a supercharged
525hp V8, increased
ground clearance, bigger
tyres and body and
suspension tweaks. After
all this pimping, the SVX
can go from 0-97kph in 5.3
seconds – and its pistol-
shifter gearstick will get
you up to 160kph with
ease. £tbc landrover.co.uk
HOT WHEELS _ GEAR _ 0 5 3
3T
STRADA <
3T has changed the
rules of the road with the
STRADA. Arcfoil aero
tube profiling runs with
insanely tight clearances
around 30mm (once
considered oversized)
road tyres. Its carbon
chassis also runs disc
brakes and is only
compatible with a single
front chain-ring, creating
space for unobstructed
airflow. €3,800 frame and
fork. 3tcycling.com
Honda Urban
EV Concept >
This minimally designed
all-electric four-seater has
a single display screen
running the entire length
of the dashboard. It’s not
coming to market until
2019, so details are thin,
but it will supposedly have
an Automated Network
Assistant concierge
service that “learns from
the driver by detecting
emotions behind their
judgments” (whatever that
means). £tbc honda.co.uk
S’well Grey (plus brush RØST Sample
and chalk pens) > Roaster

By keeping its contents With its minimalist

hot for 12 hours or chilled birchwood frame and
for 24, S’well’s bottles stainless-steel design,
are an attempt to update this coffee roaster is as
the trusty Thermos. They chic as it is sophisticated.
feature vacuum-sealed Capable of roasting 100g
18/8 stainless steel and of coffee beans at a time,
a layer of copper that it can automatically adjust
eliminates condensation. temperature and fan power,
Choose from more than 80 depending on what beans
designs and personalise are used. Obsessives
them with a chalk pen can take manual control
– just like WIRED’s art via cloud-based software
department has done and an iPad. €5,000
here. $25 swellbottle.com roestcoffee.com

Integrally moulded foam

helps to prolong the
Comma Stool’s lifespan

GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017

Bernotat & Co Radiolaria

These glow-in-the-dark sculptural lights are named

after holoplanktonic protozoan plankton. They
have been designed to represent living creatures
that naturally generate light. There are ten designs
including the Ovulus Coralli, Tentaculus Minimus and
Metamorphosus Lucidus. From €219 bernotat.eu

Alessi
Grind
Designed by architects
Will Alsop and Federico
Grazzini, these elegant
die-cast aluminium
salt, pepper and spice
grinders are inspired by
a sea urchin’s shell. Their
grinding mechanisms face
upwards to cleverly avoid a
messy tabletop. A ceramic
grinder means it’s a
match for the stubbornest
spice or peppercorn.
£69 (aluminium); £84
(black) alessi.com
design & interiors
HOME COMFORTS _ GEAR _
  
LANDHAUS Bird Edge of Belgravia Levantin Design
Feed Dispenser Kuroi Hana Japanese Fitments >
Knife Collection
The sparrows won’t Pared back, minimalist
care that this dispenser Edge of Belgravia makes and playful, Fitments,
received a Red Dot award effortlessly modern knives which is designed by
for its innovative design, for design-conscious Sergey Lvov for Ukrainian
but they will be delighted chefs. With Kuroi Hana, it design house Levantin,
by the impressive has upped its game with a is a range of geometric
capacity, shelter and range made from AUS-10 skeletal, steel-frame LED
weatherproof finish that Japanese steel. Each knife floor lights that embrace,
keeps seed dry. The is made up of 67 layers rather than hide, both the
Bauhaus-inspired of high-carbon steel with lamp’s inner workings and
dispenser can be hung a Vanadium core, which the unfiltered glow of an
from a tree or post and improves wear resistance, exposed bulb. Available
can also be disassembled toughness and ease of in a range of bright,
for easy cleaning. sharpening. From £99 powder-coated colours.
€20 emsa.com edgeofbelgravia.co.uk £tbc levantindesign.com
Pistacchi Comma Stool <
The Comma Stool, from
Taiwan-based Pistacchi
Design, is so named
because, “as a sentence
needs a comma for a
break, the Comma Stool
provides a break in our
daily life”. Made from
high-density plastic,
marble and oak, its flexible
interlocking design is
sculpturally interesting,
but can also easily switch
between a simple stool,
chair or high chair. £tbc
pistacchi-design.com
Supermarinovation Bik Nemo Special U-Boat Worx
x2 Sport Underwater underwater drone Ops 100M C-Researcher 3 – 1100 >
Jetpack
By swapping the tether This the world’s first With space for a pilot, two
Turn yourself into a for a nine-axle sensor, cordless submersible drill passengers and a suite
human torpedo with this GPS and 1.8kph fishtail- that can be used down of scientific equipment,
fun accessory. WIRED driven motor, the to depths of 100 metres. this submarine can reach
has seen plenty Biki app-controlled, Designed specifically for 5.5kph while diving to a
of personal propulsion underwater drone can deep-diving missions depth of 1,100 metres –
units before, but this is swim autonomously. It can rather than flat-pack and remain submerged
the first one promising reach a depth of 60 metres assembly, it has a for up to 18 hours. It also
10kph speeds (for 60 while shooting 4K video fully functional hammer has 130°-field-of-view
minutes) from two Iron using its 150° wide-angle action and two 18V sonar with a range of 100
Man-style, forearm- lens for up to 150 minutes, 6Ah long-lasting lithium- metres to keep an eye
mounted Hydra all so you can enjoy the ion batteries that out for obstacles while
thrusters. Don’t forget mysteries of the deep can also be charged you’re pretending to
your goggles. £tbc without leaving the beach. underwater. $900 be Jacques Cousteau.
supermarinovation.com $1,024 kickstarter.com nemopowertools.com £poa uboatworx.com

watersports The Gratis X1 app lets you

connect your smartphone
to the jet ski via Bluetooth
The C-Researcher 3 – 1100
can move laterally to help
optimise dive efficiency

Freeform Factory Scorkl Handheld

Gratis X1 < Scuba Tank >

Petrol-powered jet skis This is the closest we’ve

are about as welcome at
a beach resort as a wasp
in your beer, but with the
all-electric Gratis X1 you
can now mess about in
near-silence. A 6.5kWh
lithium-ion liquid-cooled
power pack ensures a
peaceful ride. Run time is
limited to 65 minutes, but
at a top speed of 72kph,
that should be more
than sufficient. $18,000
ridefreeform.com
got to James Bond’s
Scuba Pen. The tank
offers the chance to
breath underwater for
up to ten minutes using
nothing more than a
mouthpiece and 1.5 litre
bottle. Designed for
marine emergencies such
as untangling propellers,
rather for than leisure, the
tank can be refilled in 12
minutes using a bicycle
pump. $916 scorkl.com
 M A R I N E L I F E S T
Y L E _ G E A R _   

The 1100’s hull is at the

very front to provide
an unobstructed view

GEAR OF THE YEAR 2017

Otter
Surfboard >

Cornwall-based Otter
hand-builds hollow
skin and wooden-frame
surfboards. They are made
using the finest UK-grown
sustainable western red
cedar and hardwoods
rescued from the offcuts
bin at a local kitchen-
worktop company. The
result is a supremely light
and robust board that
is almost too beautiful
to get wet. From £1,800
ottersurfboards.co.uk
J . P. M O R G A N P R I V A T E B A N K _ W I R E D P A R T N E R S H I P
ybersecurity,
according to
C Gary Sorrentino,
is ever yone’s
problem now.
“It used to be a
technology issue, and it was specif-
ically down to technology teams
to fight it,” explains the managing
director and chief information
security officer of J.P. Morgan Asset
& Wealth Management. “Now, it’s a
whole business problem.”
Not just a problem, but increas-
ingly a whole business priority,
with the annual cost of cybercrime
forecast to hit $6 trillion (£4.4tn) by
2021, according to Cybersecurity
Ventures – double the figure for 2016.
That’s why J.P. Morgan Asset &
Wealth Management not only trains
its nearly 23,000 employees in cyber
defence, but also reaches out to offer
advice and tools to its clients. “It’s
not just about protecting ourselves
any more,” Sorrentino says. “We are
now involving everyone – employees,
clients and vendors – in the battle
against cyber threats.”
Sorrentino points to malicious
emails containing malware or
phishing attacks as a primary threat.
Last year, the global volume of spam
email more than quadrupled, with
malware detected in one in every 131
emails sent, according to a report by
IBM’s Managed Security Team. The
increased use of cloud services is also
a concern, particularly for financial
institutions. “Cloud is moving rapidly,”
he says, “so it’s important that cloud
security meets the confidentiality,
regulatory and legal requirements
that are imposed on banks today.”
Cybercriminals are increasingly
moving away from crude, front-door
approaches such as DDoS attacks
to more subtle methods. To better
FIGHTING BACK
AGAINST THE
CYBER THREAT
From brutal DDoS attacks to more subtle methods of infiltration,
cybercrime is growing at an alarming rate. But security experts are
starting to find ways of staying one step ahead of the attackers
anticipate attacks, J.P. Morgan relies
on teams of penetration testers
dedicated to finding weaknesses
in the company’s systems. “Reactive
defence is business as usual, but
companies themselves need to take
a proactive approach,” Sorrentino
says. “The days of guarding the front
door and running to a breach once
it’s happened are over.”
Here we break down four ways
cybersecurity innovators are staying
ahead of the evolving threat.
FUTURE ATTACK INTELLIGENCE
The decline of the private data
centre in favour of distributed cloud
storage has increasingly blurred the
boundaries between information
a company needs to protect and
information that it wants to share.
“The security industry has spent
20-plus years obsessing about the
network perimeter,” says CEO and
founder of Digital Shadows, Alastair
Paterson  “But thanks to cloud
services, bring-your-own device
policies and increased data sharing,
that perimeter has disappeared.”
Paterson’s London-based startup
offers advance-threat intelligence
by continuously monitoring more
than 100 million sources – across
both the open and the dark web –
to detect early signs of a potential
cyberattack before it manifests
Monitoring publicly available infor-
mation will not be enough, however,
unless companies take steps to
share data. “Time and time again we
see cybercriminals collaborating to
innovate around their malware,” says
Barmak Meftah, president and CEO of
California-based security company
AlienVault. “It’s only through collabo-
ration and the open sharing of infor-
mation that companies will be able to
keep up with these evolving threats.”
A 2017 IBM report revealed
that, globally, $3 billion has
been stolen via business-
email compromises
since 2014, and that one
in every 131 emails sent
were malicious – the
highest rate in five years
Cybersecurity companies
should openly share
threat information – in
much the same way as
cybercriminals collaborate
on malware – to keep up
with the evolving problem
To solve this problem, Alien-
Vault created the Open Threat
Exchange in 2012, which acts as an
open-source hub for nearly 70,000
members, who share an average of
14 million threat indicators every day.
AUTOMATING CYBERDEFENCE
Detecting potential attacks before
they take place is just one part of
the picture. Companies also need
ways to respond once an attacker
has gained access to their system,
explains Nicole Eagan, CEO of
Darktrace. The London-based
cybersecurity company’s machine-
learning algorithms monitor a
network’s internal behaviour to spot
abnormal activity patterns. “Unlike
other approaches that are predi-
cated on using yesterday’s attacks,
Darktrace spots and stops threats
that have never been seen before,”
Eagan says. “It’s detected nearly
50,000 new threats across our 3,000
customer deployments, ranging
from insider threats to brute-force
approaches such as DDoS attacks.”
The next step is going beyond
detection to automated response. In
2017, Darktrace launched Antigena,
a program modelled on the human
immune system that’s designed to
shut down cyberattacks, without
human intervention, once they’re
spreading through a network.
QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT
Imagine if cybercriminals were
able to gain access to a device that
could instantly break all standard
forms of encryption. That scenario
may not be as distant as we think,
according to Oxford professor
of quantum physics Artur Ekert.
“Once a quantum computer is
built, many popular ciphers will
become insecure,” he says. “Not
ILLUSTRATION: MARCUS MARRITT
 J . P. M O R G A N P R I V A T E B A N K _ W I R E D P A R T N E R S H I P

only future messages but also any

RSA-encrypted message that is
recorded today will become readable
moments after the first quantum
factorisation engine is switched on.
That day is probably decades away,
but can anyone prove that it is?”
Ekert has a potential solution, a
form of encryption he proposed in
1991 that takes advantage of quantum
entanglement to securely distribute
the same truly random encryption
key to two communicants in different
locations. Quantum entanglement is
a property of particles generated in
such a way that any change in state
of one particle instantly propagates
to the other. A measurement of either
particle thus tells you the state of
both, Ekert explains. “Given many
pairs of entangled photons, two
people can choose certain measure-
ments and follow a procedure to
generate a shared key.”

THE NATION-STATE ATTACK

The 2014 hacking of Sony Pictures,
alleged to be sponsored by North
Korea but denied by the state, was
not the first time an attacker turned
to cyberspace to achieve its objec-
tives. But, according to Microsoft
president Brad Smith, it marked
a turning point at which the IP of
private companies became fair game
for the playing out of political battles.
”In fundamental ways, this new
plane of battle is different from those
of the past,” Smith told the 2017 RSA
conference in San Francisco. “Cyber-
space in fact is produced, operated,
managed and secured by the private
sector. Governments play all sorts of
critical roles, but the reality is that
the targets in this new battle – from
submarine cables to data centres
and smartphones – in fact are private
J . P. M O R G A N
property owned by civilians.”

‘IT’S NOT JUST ABOUT

PROTECTING OURSELVES
ANY MORE. WE ARE NOW
INVOLVING EVERYONE –
EMPLOYEES, CLIENTS AND
VENDORS – IN THE BATTLE
AGAINST CYBER THREATS’
– Gary Sorrentino, J.P. Morgan
NOMINET _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

ne of the UK’s biggest “These are the minor things that we can do Name System and constantly using tools
health and safety success to tweak the culture of the organisation, as to track what is happening in real time to

O stories happened in May

2016, when Manchester
United’s Old Trafford
stadium was evacuated 15
minutes before the final game of the season
after a security scare. Seventy-five thousand
fans were safely ushered from the ground
in under 20 minutes. How? Because in the
months prior, emergency services and the
club’s staff had regular training exercises
to deal with this specific type of incident.
Similar levels of preparation and training
are needed to deal with the chaos a cyber-
security breach can bring. But first that
means creating a culture where habits can
form. At Nominet, CEO Russell Haworth
says this requires incrementally introducing
security measures. There are speed gates
in the buildings, and staff wear lanyards not
associated with the company, for instance.
well as its security,” he says.
Haworth knows that getting this right
comes from the top down. “The last thing you
want is a CEO trying to become an expert in
cyber in the heat of the battle,” he says. “What
you do want is a CEO, CTO or CISO empowered
to work with the team, to give clarity and space
to deal with what’s happening.”
Only two per cent of FTSE 350 companies
have a CTO, CIO, or CDO, according to Russam
GMS. So what about everyone else? Business
owners should think of themselves as
individuals first. The same steps to prevent
an account being hijacked or identity theft can
be applied by thinking in terms of an employee
of the customers and how their data is treated.
Maintaining the safety and integrity of the
country’s namespace means Nominet has
to keep pace with cybersecurity risks. This
requires running part of the global Domain
spot anomalies that could point to criminal
activity. What about protecting networks
from unauthorised access? This is where
two-factor authentication comes in - a
necessary cure for the long, unmemorable
passwords that are still used to protect
valuable information. These measures are so
important they are introduced as standard by
Nominet, including across the government’s
Public Services Network and the backbone
infrastructure for active cyberdefence via the
National Cyber Security Centre. Two-factor
authentication is not just for large scale-
infrastructure – it’s accessible to commercial
operators with limited resources.
The importance of security and the cloud
is crucial here too. Nominet CTO Simon
McCalla, who has identified a range of cyber
threats, says 24 per cent of queries are for the
addresses of Amazon AWSDNS domains –
services hosted by the Amazon Cloud.
Critical to ensuring the best all-round
security at Nominet and its wider network
is having in-depth discussions, according

Drilling down on to Haworth. “Where is our data stored, over

what platforms, where are the vulnerabilities,
what’s the disaster recovery plan, how is it

security threats formed on the risk register? Having these

expansive discussions is important,” he says.
The future of our cybersecurity relies on
Taking part in a fire drill or a first-aid course is a routine part of working how we manage it as individuals, within our
life – but one emergency often not considered is a cybersecurity breach. networks, through our companies and at

ILLUSTRATION: MICHAŁ BEDNARSKI

Nominet, which ensures the stability and resilience of .uk domains, government level. Much of what people already
explains why we should prepare for this type of event like any other do to protect themselves from other risks –
like taking out insurance for low-likelihood,
high-impact events – can be applied to our
daily lives. This creates a culture of security
that informs our habits and ensures the safety
of our valuable assets. nominet.uk/dns-cyber

‘ THE LAST THING

YOU WANT IS A
CEO TRYING TO
BECOME AN
EXPERT IN CYBER
IN THE HEAT
OF THE BATTLE’
Russell Haworth,
CEO, Nominet

NOMINET
 Event briefing

Terrorism researchers, AI developers, government scientists, threat-intelligence specialists, investors

and startups gathered at the second annual WIRED conference to discuss the changing face of online
ILLUSTRATION: NICK D BURTON

security. These are the people who are keeping you safe online. Their discussions included Daesh’s media
strategy, the rise of new forms of online attacks, how to protect national infrastructure, the threat of global
pandemics and the dangers of hiring a nanny based on her Salvation Army uniform. Stephen Armstrong >

12-17 _ WIRED _ 0 6 1
 Charlie Winter ENCRYPTION
is a senior
research
fellow at ICSR The power of much that they start using things
impossible to monitor”, he added.
The Kremlin is also wrestling with

the dark web the challenges of digital platforms,

Daesh may be losing the ground war
but the virtual caliphate’s online
branding and propaganda is still
MONITORING BOARD
winning converts, Charlie Winter,
senior research fellow at the Inter-
national Centre for the Study of
Radicalisation, told the room.
Winter spends hours monitoring
jihadist chat on encrypted
messaging app Telegram – the new
home of the virtual caliphate. Its
complex propaganda machine
involves “hundreds and hundreds
of unique media products, videos,
magazines and radio bulletins, in
lots of different languages coming
out every single day”, he explained.
“Daesh supporters are addicted to
its propaganda and the group tries
to propagate that interdependence.”
Winter suggested partially closing
the network to make it more difficult.
That could mean making parts of the
internet inhospitable, but “not so
Russian investigative journalist
Andrei Soldatov told the conference.
Russia initially denied invading
Ukraine, until Russian soldiers
started posting pictures of the
invasion online. Now Vladimir Putin
is regaining control, using methods
of intimidation from the Soviet era
with a modern outsourcing approach
to hacking groups such as Fancy Bear.
Echoing Winter’s views, anonymity
researcher Sarah Jamie Lewis told
the conference that monitoring illicit
traffic is getting harder. Lewis uses
OnionScan to map the dark web by
scanning links and encryption keys.
She explained that in 2016, large
hosting sites such as Freedom
Hosting II were taken down by the
hacking group Anonymous. “We are
s ta r t i n g to s e e p e e r - to - p e e r
technology taking over the dark
web - which is far harder to track,”
she said. “If there’s no central hub,
then there’s nowhere to start. The
dark web is changing underneath
us and it’s certainly not going
to stop any time soon.”

INTERNET ACCESS

Make the state accountable for shutdowns

In the cut-throat world of online just shutting off the internet, it’s which mitigates DDoS attacks.
florists, rival firms have resorted to becoming easy to close down the web, Cloudflare has also developed the
ILLUSTRATION: NICK D BURTON

crashing competitors’ websites on
key dates such as Valentine’s Day,
Cloudflare CTO John Graham-
John Graham- Cumming told a morning crowd.
Cumming is the With governments blocking
CTO of Cloudflare protest sites using court orders or
he explained – “so we need to help
people hurt by these kind of attacks”.
In a bid to keep the internet open,
Cloudflare, which supplies online
security to companies large and
small, has launched Project Galileo,
error code 451 for official government
takedowns. “If we’re forced to block
a site, we use code 451 to explain
why,” he said. “We help people
decide whether their government
is doing the right thing.”

0 6 2 _ WIRED _ 12-17
 BAE SYSTEMS _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

1/ Nigel Whitehead
Group MD, programmes and support
BAE Systems
“Our world feels more uncertain than ever,
with power struggles between and within
states and terrorist activity playing out. Our
perception of threats is exacerbated by not
being able to see or hear those who wish to
do us harm. My responsibilities as an industry
leader in defence and security are clear: I need
to work with governments to support and
understand what the military and security
agencies need. In the UK I need to maintain the
technical skills and capabilities of my 33,000
employees to deliver the most technologically
advanced military and security products and
services in the most efficient way.”

1 2
2/ Professor Sir David Omand 3 4
Visiting professor, Department of War Studies
King’s College London
“Build mutual trust and the rest will follow.
Think about UK government departments
and security and intelligence agencies, key
industries, commerce and academia as a set
of intersecting communities that represent
both the producers and the consumers of
security. Include academia because that
is where the research frontiers are. Include
commerce because they will have experience
of what needs protecting and what works
including for the SME sector. Establish trusted
networks of key individuals with common
ILLUSTRATION: JÖRN KASPUHL

sectoral interests so threat assessments

and emerging policy ideas can be shared
in confidence. Develop doctrine and proce-
dures for managing new classes of security
challenge. Be passionate about helping to
protect fellow citizens.”

3/ Dave Palmer measures against foreseeable threats, but 4/ Matthew Uttley

Director of technology
Darktrace
“Many governments, including the UK
government, do a good job at publishing
useful cybersecurity advice; however,
organisations and individuals ultimately
need to take responsibility for their own
security. Businesses should take protective
‘HOW CAN INDUSTRY AND
also be prepared to identify the early signs
of in-progress attacks that could not have
been predicted. AI technologies exist that can
detect and autonomously respond at the first
sign of threats within a network. Improved
practical international agreements from the
governments of the world could result in a
significantly less hostile internet for all.”
Professor of defence studies
King’s College London
“Firstly, there is a need for government to
communicate its potential future defence-
capability requirements and for industry to
communicate emerging technological oppor-
tunities and possibilities. Second, a degree
of predictability for industry in formulating
longer-term technology investment plans is
required. This points to the need for a degree of
stability in government defence and security
procurement policies, particularly sustained

GOVERNMENT WORK investment in current acquisition plans. Lastly,

there is the need to ensure the UK armed

TOGETHER TO TACKLE services have access to assured state-of-

the-art equipment, whether through the

THE SECURITY THREAT?’ development of mature or emerging technol-

ogies. This suggests an ongoing imperative
A recent WIRED breakfast event gathered key figures from the military for targeted and collaborative government
and defence industries to address the complex cybersecurity threat and industry investment in innovation.”
NATIONAL SECURITY

Critical infrastructure is at risk Beyza Unal

is a research
fellow at
Chatham House

The moment you think you’re most
secure is the moment you’re most
vulnerable to attack, Beyza Unal,
research fellow with the Interna-
tional Security Department at
Chatham House, told the conference.
This is potentially catastrophic for
critical infrastructure. Among others,
Unal has studied an attack on the UK
energy grid in July 2017 by govern-
ment-backed hackers.“We don’t see
terrorists in critical infrastructure
yet,” she said. “It’s mainly the US,
Russia, North Korea and China.” But
critical-infrastructure firms haven’t
grasped the scope of the risks.
Her recommendations included
raising awareness at board level by
persuading firms to set up a forensic
team to find vulnerabilities.
If critical-infrastructure attacks
damage the health service, Alaa
Murabit warned, then the world is
unprepared to deal with a pandemic.
Murabit, executive director of
health-security group Phase Minus
1, said that traditional responses,
such as deploying troops, made Alaa Murabit
things worse in high-risk areas. She is executive
called for training and support at director of
ground level: “We can’t have old, Phase Minus 1
imperialist structures telling devel-
oping nations what to do,” he added.

RANSOMWARE

We must stay
alert to new (£114,000) from ransomware.
Cryptowall, on the other hand, made
$325 million infecting the same
Raj Samani
is chief
scientist

types of attacks number of computers.”

McAfee believes WannaCry and
NotPetya were designed to disrupt,
and fellow
at McAfee

which irritates the real ransomware

There is a new kind of online attack
known as pseudo-ransomware – and
it has even outraged some hacker
groups, Raj Samani, chief scientist
at McAfee, warned the conference.
Samani classified WannaCry – the
May 2017 virus that crippled the NHS
– and NotPetya, which struck in June,
as pseudo-ransomware attacks since
neither collected vast amounts of
ransom. “If you want to make money,
surely the first thing to fix is your
criminals who are still after money.
When asked about their motives, one
operator said they’d been paid by an
unnamed Fortune 500 company to
disrupt the competition, Samani
explained. Such tactics often cost
less than a cup of coffee, he added.
The internet of things presents a
new threat – ransomware could lock
down connected cars. “My
11-year-old daughter could buy
stolen credit cards, medical data,
even hire a hitman,” he warned.
ILLUSTRATION: NICK D BURTON

payment mechanism,” he argued. “Unless we do something about it,

“ Wa n n a C r y m a d e $ 1 5 0,0 0 0 that’s our future…”

0 6 4 _ WIRED _ 12-17
 When Rachel Botsman’s parents
advertised for a nanny, they were
taken in by a woman called Doris’s
Salvation Army uniform, thick
glasses and Scottish accent, the
INFORMATION author and lecturer told the room.
Ten months later they discovered
claim to only connect people to
meet supply with demand.
“Platforms have to take respon-
sibility for what happens,” she
insisted. “They should be proactive
to reduce the risk of bad things
happening and reactive in taking

How to close the that she was a major London drug

dealer and had used the Botsman
family car in an armed robbery.
responsibility when things go
wrong.” She criticised Uber’s tactics
after TfL removed its licence in

online trust gap “My parents faced something

called the trust gap,” Botsman
explained. “They thought they had
enough information, but there was
a lot they didn’t know. The illusion
o f i n f o r m a t i o n c a n b e m o re
dangerous than ignorance.”
Our need for online trust, in
particular, has increased dramati-
cally, she argued, with the spread
Rachel of platforms such as Tinder and
Botsman Airbnb. “We’ve outsourced our
is an author capacity to trust to algorithms,”
and trust- she warned. Botsman said that the
economy Sun is setting on platforms that
expert
September. “Don’t point the finger,
don’t blame anyone – gut the organ-
isation and fix it,” she said. “It’s an
opportunity to redesign.”
Babysitting apps are getting this
right, she added. Urban Sitter runs
background checks via vetting
platform Checkr, which are so
thorough that 75 per cent of appli-
cants are rejected. “If my parents
could have used Checkr, they’d
have found Doris was a crook,” she
said. “Trust is a human process, but
when tech gets it right, the infor-
mation makes us smarter than ever.”

BUSINESS

WIRED Security: the Access Stage

From customised
data-protection
solutions for
businesses
to innovative
comparison- WINNER
shopping sites PROTECTBOX IMMERSIVE LABS INVIZBOX HOOK
for SMEs, these The winner of the Access Immersive Labs is an InvizBox was created in Hook combines
startups kept Stage pitch sessions online cybersecurity the wake of Ed Snowden’s co-founder Oliver Rees’
the audience launched in January 2017, academy that allows surveillance revelations. (above) training in
engaged and offering a comparison, companies to assess Invizbox plugs into psychology with CTO and
informed at filtering and shopping site their skills, spot talent devices to create personal fellow co-founder Alex
our conference for SMEs trying to choose and train them using Wi-Fi hotspots. Co- Walker’s cybersecurity
ILLUSTRATION: NICK D BURTON

security products. CEO a library of courses. founders Paul Canavan, expertise to allow any
Kiran Bhagotra explained CEO James Hadley Elizabeth Canavan company to mount their
that ProtectBox gives trained as a GCHQ (above) and Chris Monks own phishing penetration
firms a questionnaire to security researcher and came up with the idea in testing as regularly as
help them select hardware has also worked in roles 2014, when they saw the possible. As Rees says,
or software. It’s then spanning government, privacy market was “It’s a lot easier to fool a
installed immediately. defence and finance. getting off the ground. person than a computer.”

0 6 6 _ WIRED _ 12-17
Year ending 31st August 2017 2016 2015 Since inception

FEET Share Price +3.6 +21.5 -16.2 +15.5

GLENFIDDICH EXPERIMENTAL SERIES _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

n entrepreneur, activist
actress and model, Lily
A Cole (pictured) is no
stranger to new ideas. In
business as in art, experi-
mentation is a component
of success. Yet since 2013 Cole has been
working on a larger mechanism of distilled
experimentation; one which asks two potent
questions. First, what if people coming
together can bring meaningful change? And
second, what if collective skill sets could
help deliver experimental projects of global
significance? In identifying the potential
impact of the answers to these questions,
Cole created Impossible.
Beginning life as an open-source social
network for altruism, Impossible attracted
individuals wanting to offer time and expertise
to others simply because they were able to. “The
idea was to create a community of giving, based
on our optimism in human nature,” says Cole.
Impossible has since evolved and is no
longer just a social network; although in a
way it remains a more focused version of its
early form. To Cole, Impossible is “a group
of creative, multidisciplinary people around
the world, working on products that can
guide change towards a future we want”.
A shift has occurred, though, and through
her own openness to change, Cole has
morphed the company into an agent of exper-
imentation – one concerned with supporting
clients’, not individuals’, desire for progress.
“We have to be open-minded to alternative
and myriad ways of achieving our wider goals
– to be able to pivot,” she says.
This open-minded nature has enabled Cole
to tap into the potential of others’ experi-
Experimental series #2:
Achieving the
impossible
In our second profile in collaboration with Glenfiddich’s Experimental
Series, we meet Lily Cole – a model entrepreneur offering
agency to those seeking change and enabling innovative ideas
Impossible helps to bring new ideas to
fruition, with studios in San Francisco, London,
Lisbon and Brisbane powering work on client
projects with potentially far-reaching impacts.
Its clients are concerned with promoting fair
ownership, helping to align cancer treatment,
fighting back against fake news and ensuring
fair supply chains. What Impossible offers
each is problem solving based on rapid
iteration through “loops”, which allow projects
to remain on track in achieving their goals.
While the clients each have an ambitious idea,
Impossible uses collective skill and abundant
energy in its approach. Cole’s succinct and
naturalistic explanation of the process is
refreshing. Loops are small experiments,
she says. “Everything is an experiment until
it is confronted with the reality of natural
selection,” she says. “That’s when we know
if the experiment works.”
The loops, the experiments, clearly do
work. For ethical and open smartphone enter-
prise Fairphone, Impossible’s loops provided
design and engineering expertise to deliver
an Android experience representative of
Fairphone’s values. To help tackle fake news
– in partnership with Wikipedia co-founder
Jimmy Wales – Impossible launched crowd-
funding for WikiTribune, the community-based
news platform where professional journalists
meet crowd-sourced fact-checks. For “kind
insurance” app Kinsu, Impossible’s experi-
mental loops provided early strategy, ongoing
design, engineering and launch support.
That such support is being delivered to
these ambitious projects speaks volumes
about Impossible’s willingness to enable
new ideas. It speaks to the power of the new,
and of individual and collective experiments
activated by a willingness for change. Yet
perhaps primarily it speaks to the
inspiration and experimental vision
of Lily Cole herself. “Experimentation
is at the core of what we do”, she

PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN BURN-FORTI

mentation. She unearthed Wires, an eyewear ‘ WE HAVE TO BE says. “If we don’t experiment we
retailer that employs workers in Harare, aren’t able to explore possibilities,
OPEN-MINDED TO
Zimbabwe. Its experimentation dates back and that is what Impossible is about.
to the 14th century, when people first turned
ALTERNATIVE AND You don’t know unless you try: life
strings of metal into a pair of glasses using MYRIAD WAYS OF is arguably a series of experimenta-
their bare hands. This collaboration shows ACHIEVING OUR tions.” glenfiddich.com/uk/explore/
what is possible when great minds come WIDER GOALS – TO experimental #ESGlenfiddich
together to push the boundaries. There is a BE ABLE TO PIVOT’
willingness from Impossible to experiment, Lily Cole
but also to acknowledge when the experi-
menting phase has been completed by
GLENFIDDICH
another group of people.

Small risks often deliver big rewards. Glenfiddich’s

spirit of experimentation has made it the world’s most-
awarded single malt. Its Experimental Series showcases
trailblazers from beyond the world of whisky: combining
Glenfiddich’s passion for pioneering collaboration
with its rewriting of the rule book on single malts.
   _ WIRED CULTURE _ EDITED BY JAMES TEMPERTON
 Left: The ink and ferrofluid here were shot at 1/4,000th of a second
ART

Magnetic
attraction:
when science
goes abstract
Andrew Hall’s images reveal
the dynamics of fluids in flux

This image was created with

magnets. Photographer Andrew Hall
experiments with how liquids and
gases interact with each other,
using other influences such as
sound waves and magnetic fields
to produce abstract photographs.
To create the effect he pours ferro-
fluid, which has nanoparticles of
magnetic material suspended in it,
into a container three millimetres
deep. Then he applies a magnetic
field underneath while adding drops
of pigment, such as paint or ink,
which mixes with the fluid. “If the
magnet’s close, the fluid tends to
go into spikes, but as I move it away,
it morphs into the beautiful organic
pattern you see here,” Hall says.
In another series, Shooting
Music, he plays with the same idea
but the liquid, usually water, morphs
in response to sound waves played
through a speaker. Sometimes the
music will be melodic; other times
Hall will play a single, humming
tone, causing the liquid to vibrate.
“It kind of dances with the music.
It’s staggering stuff,” Hall says.
Hall has been experimenting with
liquid and movement for four years,
and he’s only scratched the surface.
Anything can change how the fluid
behaves, including the density of
the liquid or even the shape of the
container itself, but once the photo
has been shot, what you see is what
you get. “It can work with the spoken
word. There’s no limit to it – it’s like
making sound visible.” Bonnie
Christian andrewhallphoto.com
Left-right: Ross Duffer (“We have the same life, so we’re…”) and Matt Duffer: (“…as synced up as you can possibly be”)
 TAKE TWO _ PL AY _ 0 7 3

Coen. Wachowski. Duplass. There are a lot of famous siblings making movies and TV
together, but right now there’s only one name in the identical-twins category: Duffer.
That would be Matt and Ross, the 33-year-old North Carolina natives who pitched Netflix
the eight-hour Spielberg movie otherwise known as Stranger Things. One year and 18
Emmy nominations later, the writer-directors are heading into season two of the pulp-
culture hit with more on their minds than finding an 80s-shaped
stone they haven’t yet overturned. “We’re trying to introduce
concepts and ideas that can sustain us for at least a few more
seasons,” says Matt. (He’s the one with longer hair.) There’s
still plenty of Reagan-era nostalgia on deck, from Ghostbusters
to Dragon’s Lair, but the cast is deeper – and the Upside Down
upside-downier than ever. “We’re dealing with another

Twins dimension,” Matt says, “so anything is possible.” Anything, it

turns out, but delaying puberty in your teenage stars… Peter Rubin

speak:
the return It seems impossible for shows to
sneak up on people nowadays,
yet Stranger Things did just that.
we messed it up in the writing stage, and we
went back and redid it. But you really need to
not do that. [Laughs.]

of Stranger Did you have any anxiety going

in that it was going to sink?
Matt: There’s so much content out
So, how do you top season one?
Matt: Before this, we had never really

Things there, even good shows get lost.

Netflix isn’t spending movie-level
money – they want people to find
this stuff through word of mouth.
Ross: It’s even worse now. I’m glad we
came out last summer, because now
there’s something new every week.
WIRED: The internet loves Stranger Things How does Netflix’s all-at-once
ART DEPARTMENT; PROP STYLING BY WARD ROBINSON. ROSS DUFFER SWEATER AND JEANS BY A.P.C., SHOES BY NEW BALANCE, WATCH BY TUDOR.
done any thing that anybody seemed
to care about. So it’s like, OK, we can do
something that people like, and that gives
you confidence. But then it also gives you
a little bit of ammunition to push for things.
Ross: Not that we’re more difficult, but we
push harder for the things that we want.
Matt: We’re a big pain in the ass.

– and it has lots of suggestions. How do you release model affect the way the What kinds of things are you pushing for?
MATT DUFFER: SHIRT BY A.P.C., TROUSERS BY BILLY REID, WATCH BY TUDOR IN HERITAGE BLACK BAY S & G ON BROWN AGED LEATHER STRAP
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOE PUGLIESE. STYLING BY ANNA SU/ART DEPARTMENT; ASSISTING BY ANDREA MEHEFKO; GROOMING BY SIMON RIHANA/

shut out that chatter when it’s time to write?
Matt: I’m so tired of talking about Barb!
Ross: I don’t go on Reddit, because I know
that’ll be quicksand and I won’t be able to get
out. Thankfully, Netflix had green-lit a writer’s
room before we got renewed, so most of season
two’s beats were figured out ahead of time.
The show’s kids are growing up fast. Did
you have to work around that?
Ross: Sometimes I forget until I look back at
season one – they were so little and adorable.
Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin, looked
like a little muppet. But now, and even more so
into season three, these are full-on teenagers.
Matt: The scary thing is you’re shooting for half
a year, and season two takes place over the
course of a week, so you can’t have someone
have some major growth spurt. You’ll hear
changes in their voice, but you can’t do much
about puberty. Except maybe shift the pitch.
You’ve said you want the show to run for four
or five seasons. Where does that leave us?
storyline unfolds?
Matt: We’ve written for network TV,
where you have to worry about hitting
ad breaks, you have to worry about
42 minutes and ten seconds exactly.
Ross: With episode five in the first
season, when Nancy goes in the tree,
I remember being like, it’s not satis-
fying to have her saved at the end,
the way a network show would. We
were joking about leaving her there
– but then suddenly that cliffhanger
felt right to us.
Does you being twins have its
limits in the creative process?
Matt: The writing for us is the
hardest, but also the most important.
You want to get to the next part of
it, to production, but it doesn’t
matter how beautifully made it is if
something’s wrong with the story arc.
Ross: That’s the best thing about
having someone else – it’s like a
Matt: It’s been easier this year, but getting
profanity into the show was a big argument.
Ross: When Netflix saw the first two episodes,
they realised this is fine, it’s not going to
turn off families…
Matt: …but first, we gave in and took out
all of the bad language, and the kids got
really upset. Then I wrote to Netflix saying
I’ve got this army of 11- and 12-year-olds
and they’re pissed off that we cut all the
language. At least let us shoot alternate
takes. That was, like, the day before we
started shooting. And then Netflix said OK.
Ross: They’re much more foul-mouthed in
season two than in season one, but in real
life it’s far worse. I’m like, I cannot believe
that came out of your mouth.
WHO? Matt and Ross Duffer
HOME TOWN Durham, North Carolina
BEST KNOWN FOR Stranger Things
LESS KNOWN FOR 2015 horror flick Hidden
‘80S REF ERENCE S IN S T R A NGER T HING S

Matt: It’s getting dangerously close to constant bullshit filter. SEASON TWO Ghostbusters; Gremlins;
where Winona Ryder’s character will be able Matt: It helps you catch issues Escape from New York ; Indiana Jones and
to watch herself! We do have her watching before you start spending a tonne the Temple of Doom; Poltergeist
a Michael Keaton movie this year, so I’m of money making it. There was one SC A RIE S T HORROR CRE AT ION OF A L L T IME

happy about that. sequence in season two where I felt “Pinhead. Hellraiser scarred us.”
   _ P
L
A Y _ R E S I S T A N C E W R I T E R
MARIE LU’S WORK
2011: Legend
Lu publishes her first
YA novel. The trilogy
sells three million copies.
Game changer
Marie Lu takes us
to digital dystopia
The designer-turned-sci-fi-writer’s young-adult novels
are inspired by the insularity of Silicon Valley
Who
- the project was a chance to inhabit
Marie Lu, YA sci-fi writer
Favourite game
- lives in the shadows,” she says. “Now
Journey. “It’s this sweeping
ode to the vast unknown.
I played it through twice
and cried both times.”
Guilty pleasure
-
Assassin’s Creed:
Brotherhood. “It’s so
deliciously fun. I love
the Renaissance
Italy open world.”
Idol
-
Brian Jacques, the
Redwall writer.
“I worshipped his
work as a kid.”
Modern hero
-
Sabaa Tahir, from the
An Ember in the Ashes
series. “Everything good
fantasy should be:
cinematic and epic.”
2014:
The Young Elites
The series follows a Lu illustrates the YA fantasy,
pandemic survivor with set in a space station
godlike superpowers. at the edge of the galaxy.
2016: 2017:
Gemina Warcross
Hacker-heroine Emika Chen
battles dark forces
in a video-game realm.
sci-fi author marie lu sets her
trilogies in shadowy realms, from a
militarised police state (Legend) to
a hunted secret society (The Young
Elites). But as a former video-game
designer for Disney Interactive
Studios, Lu was conjuring up dark,
fantastical worlds long before
her books became bestsellers. In
Warcross, published in September,
Lu embraces her gamer roots.
The novel is set in a global video
game controlled by a secretive tech
CEO. Creating the immersive digital
realm was a dream job for Lu, who
2018:
Batman: Nightwalker
Lu unravels the superhero’s
psyche in this YA
spin on a DC Comics icon.
infuses the Warcross universe with all
the futuristic capabilities she longed
for as a player. “I approached the
writing process like a game studio
with an infinite budget,” she says.
Though the book takes inspiration
from the insularity of Silicon Valley,
Lu’s virtual world is low on bros – it
features a rainbow-haired, Chinese
American hacker-heroine, as well as
disabled and gay characters.
Next up, Lu is finishing a novel
exploring the life of teenage Batman,
scheduled to be published by Random
PHOTOGRAPHY: YVES PÈREZ. ILLUSTRATION: SAM MILLER
House in January 2018. For Lu, whose
belief in righteous resistance was
formed while growing up in China
(she was four years old at the time
of the Tiananmen Square protests),
the conflicted mind of the Dark
Knight. “I love that Bruce Wayne is
this nuanced character who literally
I can actually say, ‘I’m Batman.’”
Caitlin Harrington
SCI-FI
 Like a smartwatch, only

Smarter
Alongside traditional smartwatch features the new
Garmin Vivoactive 3 is crammed with tech to track
steps, distance, calories, floors climbed and sleep.
You can even download your favourite training
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Get hands on with the latest gadgets in your local

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   _ P
L
A Y _ A U R A L E N G I N E E R S _ D E S I G N S P A C E

Digital variations on a theme

To create their sound, German musicians Grandbrothers start with a grand
piano as the source material – and then their self-designed software takes over…

The software Fourteen of the

controls the connected hammers
hammers piano play the
and Arduino strings, the rest
microcontroller. play wooden
It defines when or metal parts
and how loud they
play, creating
sequences and
patterns

Erol Sarp (piano) and Lukas Vogel (standing)

 his duo makes electronic music using a grand
piano. Erol Sarp, 32, and Lukas Vogel, 31, form

T Bochum-based Grandbrothers, although they

wouldn’t necessarily describe their music in such
simple terms. “It’s more a mix of jazz, classical,
electronic, many different elements,” Sarp
says. The pair have contrasting roles: trained jazz musician Sarp
plays the piano while Vogel stands to one side, quietly shaping
PHOTOGRAPHY:
NICK WILSON

and sculpting the sound using software that he designed himself.

The partnership began when Sarp and Vogel met in 2007, in
a small class of 25 at Düsseldorf’s Institute of Music and Media.
“One side of the university was very technical, we
had to do exams in maths and engineering. The
other side was pure music,” Vogel says. He was the
Lukas Vogel engineer and Sarp the musician. Intrigued by the
records the music idea of manipulating piano sounds, Vogel started
played by the to experiment with synthesizers and digitising
hammers and music until he came up with his two-part software.
piano and plays it The first part of the software controls the
back in real time hammers which hit the piano strings to change A green
their sound. “It was a big moment when we first
heard those hammers. I programmed a pattern, vision for the
a repetitive pattern, and I just played it,” Vogel
says. The second part of the software controls Red Planet
the live sampling of piano music. “The idea
was to record a sound and play it back, again THE THREE-METRE
and again,” he says. The result was an experi- oak has a crown of
mental mixture of classical piano and modern rugged branches. Its
electronica. “It’s a totally unique sound,” Sarp says. large-lobed green leaves
That same year, Grandbrothers got their first look healthy. The tree
gig as part of a university exam. “We had to write is planted inside a thick
six songs and perform them,” Sarp says. “Our protective shell. Outside,
audience was going wild, they said we had to it’s -73°C. “This will
get this on a record.” A year later, the pair signed be the first generation of
for the FILM label and in 2012 they set to work trees to be planted
on their first album, Ezra Was Right, which on Martian soil,” says
was released in 2014. Now, Grandbrothers have Samer El Sayary, an
just released their second set, Open, and will architect from Beirut,
tour Germany, France and the UK in November. whose Tree of Life
And they’re not done experimenting just yet. concept is a finalist in
Vogel is working to make the piano sound deeper this year’s Mars City
and heavier using software. “I am sure that he Design challenge.
will come up with some crazy new schemes. Mars City Design is
There will definitely be a time in the future where an LA-based think tank.
there is nothing more to explore, but I think It runs the eponymous
we are very far away from that,” Sarp says. yearly competition, which
“In fact,” Vogel says, “I have a few new ideas speculates about
already.” Eleanor Peake grandbrothersmusic.com how Martian settlements
might look like at city-
scale. It also places
emphasis on the look and
feel of those settlements.
MUSIC “Our goal is to provide
the required shelter while
feeding the heart and
souls of the inhabitants,”
says Vera Mulyani, Mars
City Design’s founder and
CEO. The think tank plans
Grandbrothers’ to 3D print three full-
music software scale habitat prototypes
is written in a of Martian cities in
language created the Mojave Desert within
for building the next three years.
interactive Vas Panagiotopoulos
audio programs Programmable hammers play the piano marscitydesign.com
0 7 8 _ P L AY _ R E S O U R C E F U L W R I T I N G
ome science-fiction authors prefer
the term speculative fiction; but
for Andy Weir, a better term might
be calculated fiction. With his
debut novel The Martian, Weir built
an avid following by somehow
turning meticulous science
(Trajectories! Chemical reactions!
Potato farming!) into a thrilling
page-turner. That book – originally
published as a series of blog posts
– became a worldwide bestseller,
a Ridley Scott film, and put Weir
on first-name terms with real-life
astronauts. Now he’s back with
Artemis , a crime caper set in a
lunar city. He talks to WIRED about
research, sci-fi’s role in science
and real-world space mining.
Did current asteroid-mining
star tups such as Planetar y
Resources [WIRED 07.16] act as
an inspiration at all?
With asteroid mining, the science
i s p re t t y s o l i d , i t ’s j u s t t h e
economics that needs to be worked
out. That’s the only “conceit” in
Artemis: that the price to low-Earth
orbit is affordable so middle-class
westerners can go to the Moon. I
sat down and asked myself, “What
if the space industr y was as
efficient as the commercial airline
industry?” I worked out it would
cost about $7,000 [£5,210] to put
a human into low-Earth orbit, or
BOOKS
$35 per kilogram, in 2015 prices.
Dispatches from
the lunar frontier
His debut novel The Martian attracted
huge sales and movie A-listers. On his
return to space fiction, Andy Weir talks
to WIRED about the Artemis universe
Artemis is a city run by private
space corporations – it’s also
riddled with greed and crime.
Was that intentional?
I’m not trying to make any kind of
social, #occupymoon commentary.
I wanted my character to be shady,
a loveable rogue – but this is just
what a frontier is like. The social
aspects of Artemis, you find those
anywhere you have a new group
of people moving in: the early
1800s in America, and in Australia.
Fox has bought the film rights.
What about writing screenplays?
JK Rowling can go, “If you want to
make $800 million on a movie, you’ll
do things my way.” I haven’t proven
that I can regularly write books yet.
What’s next?
I have an idea for another Artemis
book. I would love it to be my (Terry
Pratchett’s) Discworld , but I’m
reluctant to start until I see how it’s
received. If everyone’s like, “Well, that
sucked”, I’ll be hesitant about writing
a sequel. Oliver Franklin-Wallis
Artemis (Del Rey) is out November 14.

WIRED: How does the research

process for your novels start?
Andy Weir: Normally I have some
sort of deliberate agenda. I want to
know how to mine metal on the
Moon. So, what are its local rocks
made of? Oh, mostly of aluminium.
OK, how do I turn that [mineral] into
aluminium? I look up the scientific
processes. Then I’m like, OK, they’d
need nuclear reactors, because
the solar panels would be larger
than is feasible to transport. So:
what are the lightest nuclear
reactors that exist? That is some
of the most fun for me.

Now you’re “The Martian author

Andy Weir” can you just call up
Nasa with any questions you have?
Well, you’re not far off, in terms of
access. There’s a Nasa campus
and research centre called Ames
which is a stone’s throw away from
where I live in northern California.
ILLUSTRATION: OWEN GENT

They often invite me out to speak

there, go to events and lecture.
Those guys are always really
happy to help, but what’s funny is
I hardly ended up using them at all.
Mostly it’s just me and Google. Weir’s lunar city features rogues similar to those from 19th-century US frontier towns
The Smart Speaker
for Music Lovers
The new Sonos One with Amazon Alexa
0 8 0 _ PL AY _ SINGUISTICS ne of eivør’s first live
performances was in

O complete darkness. She

sang a capella afloat a small
yacht in a mountain cave off
the Faroe Islands. “It has a

Eivør steps out huge cathedral sound,” Eivør, 34, says. “It’s
quite something to sit in a cave in complete
darkness and hear only the sound of the ocean

of the shadows and your voice.” The sounds of crashing waves

The Faroese singer may have performed her first gig in a cave, but she’s
targeting a wider audience with her intricate style of chamber pop
and its echoes are sampled in a song on her
latest album Slør, which has been released
in English, as she prepares for her UK tour.
Much of Eivør’s musical inspiration is drawn
from her home in the Faroe Islands, where the
performance of traditional folk songs differs
from village to village and children grow up
in musical families. “It’s such a big part of
the culture, telling stories and singing these
old songs. That really inspired me,” she says.
Eivør started out when she was 17 by mixing
jazz with traditional Faroese music to tell
stories of wanderlust. Now she’s returned
to her roots and swapped jazz for modern
electronica. Her single “Piece by Piece” is
stripped back to just her vocals, a ukelele
and sonorous male vocals – much like the
a capella folk traditions of The Faroes.
While writing Slør, Eivør was determined
to keep it in Faroese. But when she started
recording tracks in the UK for TV series such as
The Lost Kingdom and Downton Abbey, she felt
that translating a few songs to English could
work – and help a wider audience relate to her
music. “When I started listening to music, it
was all English [language] stuff like Radiohead,
Joni Mitchell, Massive Attack and Portishead…
English is the language of music, in many
ways,” she says. Still, Eivør enjoys switching
between the two languages on stage, depending
on the vibe from the crowd. “Some of the
songs almost feel like new, different ones.

PHOTOGRAPHY: SIGGA ELLA. SPOT ILLUSTRATION: CIARAN CHRISTOPHER

Eivør’s music has been featured in Hollywood films such
MUSIC
as Deepwater Horizon and Martin Scorsese’s Silence
Words are like an instrument. It’s like
swapping the piano with guitar,” she explains.
“When I am performing live, I like to mix it up
because they kind-of have two identities.”
Eivør, who is now based in Copenhagen,
travels back home a few times a year, often
to join the HEIMA Festival, where musicians
perform in people’s homes and anyone is
welcome to wander in. Would she go back
to the cave where it all began? Maybe not. “I
remember once it was rough, the water kept
rising and we almost hit the ceiling. I was in
this little boat and thought, ‘will I survive?’
I just closed my eyes and kept singing.” BC
Eivør tours the UK in November eivor.com

BACKSTAGE Eivør was born in At the age of 15, she Her early releases were
PASS Syðrugøta, Faroe joined the indie-rock recorded mostly in
Islands, in 1983 band Clickhaze Faroese and Icelandic
 From bored

To Bowie

The Home Sound System with Amazon Alexa.

Learn more at sonos.com

n 2015, taika waititi,
a successful but relatively
I o b s c u re i n d e p e n d e n t
f ilm-maker from New
Z e a l a n d , w a l k e d i n to
the offices of Marvel and
pitched himself as the director of Thor: Ragnarok,
a multi-million-dollar superhero movie. Marvel’s
top brass were intrigued by Waititi. Films such
as the 2010 coming-of-age comedy Boy, and
2014 vampire mockumentary What We Do in the
Shadows were small and strange, but big-hearted
– an elusive mix of absurd and sincere. It set
a tone for a style of film-making that defies
easy description, though Waititi settles for
“Taika-esque”. When presenting his vision to
a room of executives, he didn’t express himself
using words, but images – a pitch reel, clips from
other movies, music, “colour, tones, the general
sensibilities…” Waititi says. “I thought, ‘I’m just
going to put my voice 100 per cent up there on
screen and Marvel will have to try and keep me
in their lane.” The ploy worked.
Waititi, now 42, pitched Thor: Ragnarok as a
cross between Flash Gordon and Big Trouble in
Little China: “a lovable hero bumbling through
a crazy world, meeting crazy characters”. It
was ideal for what Marvel wanted, which,
according to Waititi, was a more “fun and
entertaining” Thor; a buddy movie in which
the god of thunder himself (played by
Chris Hemsworth) must work with Mark
Ruffalo’s Hulk, first to escape Sakaar, the planet
they’ve been marooned on, and then to stop the
coming of Ragnarok, the apocalypse threatened
by Hela (Cate Blanchett), the goddess of death.
“I really wanted to tap into Chris’s natural
talent, which is comedy,” Waititi says. “In
: Thor (played by Chris Helmsworth, left) and
Hulk in one of Thor: Ragnarok ’s quieter moments
Comic touch:
finding Thor’s
funny bone
Taika Waititi is an auteur better known for
making idiosyncratic indie movies.
So what’s his take on a Marvel superhero?
the story, it’s two years on [from Avengers:
FILM
Age of Ultron], so Thor, through hanging
out on Earth, should be a bit more colloquial
and contemporary. By the time Thor finds
Hulk, he and Bruce Banner are fighting for
control of their body. He’s volatile. It’s fun
seeing Thor having to deal with that.”
Speaking of control, it’s hard to look at
Waititi – maker of much-loved indie films;
an auteur of distinct style and tone – and not
think of Edgar Wright, who, in 2014, walked
away from Marvel’s Ant-Man, citing creative
differences. Wright would later clarify
his reason as: “I wanted to make a Marvel
movie, but I don’t think they really wanted
to make an Edgar Wright movie.”
So, is Thor: Ragnarok a Taika Waititi movie?
“I can’t speak to anyone else’s experience,”
he says. “I came in knowing I’d never experi-
enced this kind of thing before. So I was ready
to learn how they do things; to open myself
to having my ideas interpreted in different
ways and having to collaborate. But I’ll always
fight for an idea that I think is worth fighting
for, and if I feel like an experience is going to
be really bad, I’d probably pull out of the
project. I didn’t really think I needed to
compromise too much. In terms of tone,
I was actually given a lot of freedom.”
A prime example of this, he says, was his
CHRISTOPHER BEYER/
freedom to build a collaborative community
on set – a loose environment in which actors
PHOTOGRAPHY:
felt free to improvise Eric Pearson’s screenplay.
CONTOUR
One of the best lines from the trailer, in fact
(“I know him! He’s a friend from work!”) was
suggested to Hemsworth by a child visiting

Taika Waititi also wrote an episode of Flight of
the Conchords and the initial screenplay of Moana
M A R V E L M A N _ P
L
A Y _   
‘I didn’t really
think I needed
to compromise
too much with
Thor: Ragnarok.
In terms of
the film’s tone,
I was actually
given a lot
of freedom’
Taika Waititi
as part of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
“We did some crazy stuff,” Waititi says.
“We were throwing away lines all the time and
just trying to keep it interesting, so there’s
enough room for credible ideas to come
out. I was fully expecting that my way of
working might be a bit more restricted than
I’m used to. But it really wasn’t that different.”
Waititi says he used to be something of a film
snob, but he can now see the art in superhero
movies: “When you get older, and have kids,
you realise the world is full of art.” However,
he remains unsure if he would make another
one. He is, after all, a restless creative; a
polymath who’s done everything from painting
to stand-up to photography. He’s also used to
juggling several scripts at a time – the last of
which, the 2016 Sam Neill comedy-drama The
Hunt for the Wilderpeople, became the highest-
grossing film in New Zealand’s history. “I’ve
been really good on Thor,” he laughs. “I haven’t
been writing. I haven’t worked on other projects,
I’ve been concentrating.” But now? He’s co-di-
recting a stop-motion animated movie about
Michael Jackson’s pet chimpanzee Bubbles, of
course – a project that’s still in its early stages.
“I’d like to [make another Hollywood movie].
But I also have to do something different for my
own sanity,” he says. “I’m not sure if I’d want to
do many of these movies in a row. I want to keep
it interesting for myself and surprise myself.
That’s why I think Marvel’s done well. They
do something different every time. If I were to
work with these guys again it’d have to feel very
different. I don’t want to get too comfortable
or complacent.” Stephen Kelly marvel.com
   _ P
L
A Y _ V
I R T U A
L B E C O M E S R E A
L I T
Y

How Gorillaz meaningful presence in a live context, however,

has always been more complicated. Holograms
were ruled out early because the technology,
TREND DECODER

evolved for Albarn says, “doesn’t respond well to low

frequencies, so you have to play very quietly”.
Gorillaz are part of a broader trend of artists
video content; Hewlett will also
be drawing live, with the images

life on the road attempting to meld technology and art on the

stage. It’s been bubbling away for some time,
but only now is it beginning to reach maturity.
appearing on the screen above.
For Gorillaz, they’ve found the
perfect solution. “The only thing

PHOTOGRAPHY: JAMES RICHARDS IV

Damon Albarn is bringing his cartoon band alive
through innovation and collaboration
h e n v i r t ua l b a n d g o r i l l a z
released their debut single in 2000,
For more than a decade, Massive Attack have
been collaborating with tech-art studio United
Visual Artists (UVA). During their perfor-
mances they harvest politically loaded data
in real time before presenting it back to the
audience. Producer Flying Lotus worked with
LA-based artist David Wexler to construct a
cubic sculpture called Layer, which became
that I’m frustrated about is the
lack of progress with holographic
te c h n o l o g y,” l a u g h s A l b a r n .
“I gave it a good seven years since
the last time, in the hope that
this time it would be possible.”
Augustin Macellari gorillaz.com

W technology was not equipped to

cope with the scope of its founders’
ambition. “We were sort-of imagining
technology before it happened,” says
frontman Damon Albarn, who formed the group with
comic artist Jamie Hewlett. Now, with the 2017 release of
fifth album Humanz and a 40-date global tour underway,
it seems as though the world has finally caught up.
Placing a dual focus on the music and visual narra-
tives, Gorillaz captured fans’ imaginations through their
videos and interactive websites. Giving the characters a
a canvas for projection-mapped animations.
But for their show, Gorillaz wanted to
try something a little more radical, so they
turned to set designer Block9. “What we were GORILL A Z
trying to do was take all of those narratives Recent Gorillaz
and the way that Gorillaz exist and think, activity includes
how do we represent that as a live show?” an AR app and
says Steve Gallagher, Block9’s co-founder. a “band”
The result: two onstage LED screens, one interview
static and the other “floating” above the conducted by
performers’ heads. Both screens show new a real person

M A S S I V E AT TA C K
A 2013 concert
saw the band and
UVA collaborate
with film-maker
Adam Curtis

BLOCK9
The London-
based team is
best known for
its dystopian
dance area at
Glastonbury

UNDERSTANDING
GENERATION ALPHA
A new tribe has arrived – and it could spell the end of an era in marketing
hen Roger Daltrey
W first sung “My Gener-
ation” in 1965, he was
expressing a modern
idea. Before the 20th
century, the word “generation” was used
to describe the hereditary lineage of a
family. It was only with the onset of
modernity that people started to identify
themselves as members of the same
generation. Since then, these commonal-
ities have hardened into labels: Baby
Boomers, Generation X, Millennials,
Generation Y and Generation Z.
Now there is a new cohort in town. Those
born from 2010 onwards, branded Gener-
ation Alpha by social researcher Mark
McCrindle, are the latest – and they all have
something in common. They will all be
interacting within an unprecedented
environment of digital technologies as
they grow up. This environment will
feature new and unseen technologies and will change
at speeds that we have yet to experience. Human
brains, thought processes, attitudes and aspirations
are largely shaped by their surroundings, so this
generation will be different. But how different?
New research by WIRED Consulting and Hotwire
suggests that the Alpha brain is likely to be even more
specialised than previous generations. Digital
technologies have moved us away from the
operational generalists we used to be and drawn our
focus towards an increasingly narrow set of activ-
ities and problems. Professor Michael Merzenich,
one of the pioneering scientists behind neuroplas-
ILLUSTRATION: KENDRICK KIDD
ticity, suspects that this generation could even herald
the introduction of “a class of super-specialists”.
Whether this is a positive or negative development
is a contentious issue. Some evidence suggests that
younger generations will have improved hand-eye co-
ordination, visual attentional processing and higher
Tom Upchurch
is director
of WIRED
Consulting
INSIGHT _ WIRED CONSULTING _   
IQs; others say that dependence on
technology can ruin attention spans
and cause anxiety and depression.
Those on the negative side of the
debate point the finger at one of digital
technology’s most enduring features
– the screen. They insist that screen
time, among other factors, prevents
young people from learning basic
social, emotional and physical skills.
Yet this might change as the next
wave of digital technologies begin
to decouple from the screen. The
introduction of conversational and
gestural interfaces has begun and
is likely to accelerate. Generation
Alpha may indeed be the last group
to be anchored to the screen.
Alpha will also be the first gener-
ation to form emotional connections
with AI toys and devices. Our research
explores the growing internet-of-toys
industry and reveals how it will
introduce an intimacy that product
developers will cherish – and data-
privacy watchdogs will lament.
It is in communicating with Gener-
ation Alpha where implications for
organisations arise.
Companies will need to
double down on platforms
such as video and exper-
iment with new forms
such as augmented reality.
Social-media strategies
will need to consider the
multiple identities that
Generation Alpha create
online. And they will be
communicating with a
demanding audience. As
Birk Rawlings, head of US media
company AwesomenessTV told
WIRED Consulting: “They want
everything and they want it now.”
What Generation Alpha’s era may
introduce more than anything else,
however, is the eventual death of broad
demographic analysis in marketing.
Given the sheer quantity of infor-
mation that organisations have on
Alpha kids, we are entering an era of
personalised and targeted marketing.
Talking ‘bout my generation?
Maybe not for much longer.
This report, produced by WIRED
Consulting and supported by Hotwire,
explores the Alpha brain. We’ve aimed
to reveal the characteristics of this
fledgling demographic, as well as the
lessons organisations should bear in
mind when communicating with
them. If your organisation is inter-
ested in exploring the effects that
disruptive technology will have on
business, society and culture in the
future, please contact WIRED directly
at consulting@wired.co.uk
 WIRED
INSIDER’S
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Events, new every aspect of
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Compiled by founder Whitney
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November 2-3, 2017
wired.uk/live17

WIRED NEXT
GENERATION
Next Generation
is an inspirational
event dedicated
to, and curated for,
12- to 18-year-olds.
Expect a day of
compelling talks
and fun workshops
– speakers include
The Sky at Night’s
Maggie Aderin-
Pocock and Core
Research Labs’
Farah Ahmed.
November 4,
2017. wired.co.uk/
event/wired-next-
generation

1 2 WIRED HEALTH
March 2018 sees the
3 4 return of our annual
event dedicated
to innovation in
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WIRED brings
together leading
figures in the
pharmaceutical and
technology fields.
Gain an outlook on
the future of these
industries and learn
how you can play a
role in the sector’s
transformation.
March 13-14, 2018
wired.co.uk/event/
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your writing materials 320 of the world’s most support base to cater to all smartphone on to beyond. Out
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 E D I T E D B Y V I C T O R I A T U R K _  

ENTREPRENEURIAL CULT URE PRODUCTIVITY HACKS ACCELER ATED LEARNING

World F1 champion
Nico Rosberg
tells WIRED how
his success in
motorsport prepared
him for his next
career phase:
entrepreneurship
PHOTOGRAPHY: MADS PERCH
   _ WORK SMARTER _ INSIDER KNOWLEDGE
PRODUCTIVITY
Nico Rosberg
The F1 champion talks leadership,
dedication and his new career goals
Nico Rosberg describes himself as having
an addictive personality. For 21 years, that
trait manifested itself in motor racing,
leading him to Formula One in 2006 and the
World Championship title in 2016. Then,
in a move that shocked the sport, he quit
without warning. Aged just 31, Rosberg
walked away from F1 to embark on a new
life – one that promises to present very
different challenges from those encoun-
tered while racing Lewis Hamilton at 322kph.
Although he’s still considering his
next move, Rosberg is certain that his
F1 experience will set him up well for his
second career. His interest in innovation
and entrepreneurship recently led him to
visit Silicon Valley and meet staff from
companies including Tesla, Waymo and
ChargePoint. WIRED asked him what
lessons he’s learned from competing for
a championship-winning team, and how he
plans to carry those lessons into the next
chapter of his professional life. Jim Weeks
‘I’ve been at the top of a
Formula One team for
seven years and I was part
of the leadership that won
the World Championship.
I picked up so much
during those years, so I
understand what it takes’
The number of working days lost in 2015-2016 due to stress-related issues
was 11.7 million, according to the Labour Force Survey 2016. Stress
contributed to 45 per cent of all days being lost to ill health over this period
”Making your own mistakes is
the only way to learn. My dad [1982 F1 World
Champion Keke Rosberg] was very involved
with my early career. He provided a guiding
hand all the way and was my number-one
fan, but after my first year in F1 he completely
stepped back. He didn’t come to my races
any more. We had a discussion and decided
that would probably be the better way to go
about it – for me to make my own mistakes
and just get on with it. That freed me up; it
was very smart of him. It was very difficult for
him to let go, too – he was the expert, but now
he had to accept that his son would make
all the mistakes that he’d already made.”
“The F1 experience was better
than any university. It was hands-on, at the
pinnacle of an extremely competitive and
innovative sport, where so much money is
involved. It has been extremely valuable from
a personal-development perspective, too.
If I look at where I am now compared to ten
years ago, there’s been a phenomenal change.
I’ve learned how to behave, how to be among
people and how to work together. That’s all
going to be extremely valuable going forward.
If you want success, the art of delegation and
choosing the right people are both super-
important. That’s a huge challenge and I feel
I’ve made a lot of progress there.”
“Now, it’s a total change. I’d had
21 years of racing, of dedicating my life to it.
For me, this was the perfect thing to do – to
walk out on an absolute high, having achieved
everything I set out to. It just feels right.
Before, the F1 calendar was my boss, but now
I’m my own boss. That makes a big
difference. It’s a good feeling. It’s
exciting and I feel very much alive.
I’m looking at going to university and
recently visited Stanford. I’d like to
study short courses in the leadership
and entrepreneurship area. I’ve never
been a CEO, but I’ve been at the top of
an F1 team for seven years, and I was
part of the leadership that won the
World Championship. I picked up so
much during those years, so I have a
good understanding of what it takes.”
“F1 is energy-consuming.
The amount of focus and attention
you need to bring is out of this
world, so simplifying my life worked
really well for me. I got rid of all the
unnecessary stuff. That helped to
extract that little bit of extra energy
when needed and to cope better
with the massive stress.”
“I’m very lucky because
I have a lovely family and it gives
me a powerful base for my life. It
brings a lot of happiness. Family and
friends are super important. We work
our asses off and, although being
with family and friends is the best
thing in the world, we actually
spend very little time with them.”
Q&A
What time do you usually
get up?
Lately it’s been 6.40am,
because that’s when my
daughter starts crying.
What’s your worst habit?
The worst one is my
smartphone addiction.
I’m going to get rid of it
and buy myself an
old-school Nokia.
How do you maintain
your relationships away
from work?
WhatsApp with friends,
FaceTime with family.
 In Britain, the average worker takes just 34 minutes for
lunch, with 52 per cent skipping it entirely, according to
a poll by flexible-workspace company Workthere

“I’ve always been inter-

ested in innovation and technology,
and this is a fascinating time for
mobility. Silicon Valley has always
been on my bucket list, which I’m
working through at the moment, I
recently had the opportunity to see
some of the magic that happens
there. It’s the global centre of
innovation, with so much intelligence
in one place. It was very special.”
“Electric cars will revolu-
tionise our planet. Once we sort out
the infrastructure of how to feed
energy into them and we’re making
HOW TO
more use of solar and wind, it will
be a big benefit. It’s normal that car
manufacturers want to be involved,
and Formula E will be the showcase.
I’m watching with interest.”
“I love motorsports, so I
would love to be involved in some
way in the future. The important
thing is to remain open-minded.
Opportunities are arising all the
time, and I have a lot to offer with MAKE YOUR PRODUCT STAND OUT
ILLUSTRATION: YUKAI DU

my experience and what I have

achieved. But the racing chapter
is closed. I want to focus on the
intellectual side in the next phase,
rather than the physical.”
How do you handle stress?
I’ve worked on meditation
and all that kind of stuff.
In the end, I really believe
that it comes down
to simplifying your life
during stressful periods.
What time of the day is
the most productive
for you?
Late afternoons. I struggle
to get going in the morning.
Do you have a set
bedtime?
I have to, because I get
up at 6.40am. So I need to
be in bed by 10.30pm.
You’ve founded a
company and have
begun developing
your product. So
how do you start
attracting people’s
attention? It’s all
about finding your
niche, explains
marketing expert
Al Ries. Along with
Jack Trout, Ries was
credited with coining
the marketing
term “positioning”.
This is the idea that a
brand can succeed  Ivy League.” Only after
by emphasising the
features that make
it different from its
closest competitors.
WIRED asked Ries
for his best advice
for making a product
stand out from the
crowd. Gian Volpicelli
Start small
Try targeting a smaller,
defined user base at first.
Take the social networks
Friendster, MySpace
and Facebook. Although
Facebook was founded
after its competitors,
Ries says it had the
better strategy: “Instead
of aiming to become a
brand like the other two,
Facebook was initially
conceived as a product
for Harvard students.
Then it moved on to the
winning over that student
cohort did it become
available to everyone.
Don’t try to be better
“Who will believe a new
product developed by an
unknown entrepreneur is
better than, say, a global
brand created by a
world-famous company?
Virtually no one,” Ries
says. Rather than make
value judgments, focus
on objective differences.
The main reason Monster
rose to become the
second-most popular
energy drink in the US,
he says, is because its
can was bigger than that
of market leader Red Bull.
Subtract, don’t add
Adding new features to
an existing product is an
ineffectual way to catch
people’s eye. “A better
direction is to start by
subtracting something,”
Reis says. “BlackBerry
dominated the mobile-
phone market with
its physical keyboard.
Apple started its
iPhone design process
by eliminating the
keyboard.” We all know
how that story ended.
   _ WORK SMARTER _ LESSONS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP

KADAKIA’S 1983 2001 2005 2008

MILESTONES Born in Randolph, Graduated from Graduated from Joined Warner

New Jersey, to Randolph MIT; joined Music Group, gaining
Indian parents High School Bain & Company tech experience

STARTUP CLASS
Payal Kadakia, executive chairman of fast-growth fitness
subscription service ClassPass, gives a business workout

WHAT I’ VE LEARNED

ayal kadakia, 34, is the founder

and executive chairman of ClassPass,
a New York-based subscription
gym-class service that connects
its customers to over 8,000 fitness
studios around the world.
ClassPass bills itself as “the
leading membership to the world’s
largest fitness network”. More than
30 million reservations have been
made through Kadakia’s company,
which now covers 39 cities from
London to Las Vegas, San Francisco
to Sydney. Since launching in 2014,
the startup has won $154 million
(£120m) in funding from investors
including Google Ventures and Thrive
Capital, and has expanded into 39
cities across the globe.
Before ClassPass, Kadakia worked
at Bain & Company and Warner Music
Group, and founded The Sa Dance
Company, which increases awareness
of Indian dancing. Here, she shares
what she’s learned so far on her entre-
preneurial journey. Charlie Burton
 2009 2011
Founded the Started Classtivity,
Indian-themed Sa the precursor
Dance Company to ClassPass
QUALIFICATIONS
YOU DON’ T NEED AN MBA
TO LE ARN BUSINESS
“Working at Bain was amazing.
You’re trained to become smarter
than every other person in the room
about an industry you have maybe
never heard of – I worked in oral care,
reinsurance and shipping – and
you have only two days to do it. That
helps you to be more ‘big picture’.”
OPPORTUNITY
GO ALL IN
“I had that epiphany [to start the
company] and six months later
I quit my job. That was hard to do.
Then I almost took a job at Spotify.
I met with one of my advisers and
she said, ‘If you take the Spotify
job, I won’t invest in you. If you’re
not betting on yourself, why would
we?’ I have never looked back.”
FA MILY
R O L E M O D E L S A R E V I TA L
“My mum was the dominant figure
in my family and having a strong
female person around me
was super-influential in my life.
Nothing fazed my mum. If there
was a problem, she would be like,
‘Here’s what we’re doing to fix it.’
That’s the same perseverance and
determination that I know I have.”
INVESTMENT
GET THE RIGHT INTRODUCTION
“When building a business,
whoever’s introducing you to
PHOTOGRAPHY: RAMONA ROSALES
venture-capital firms is the most
important person. A valuable piece
of advice that someone once gave
me early on was to go via one of the
venture-capital firm’s successful
portfolio CEOs because
they will trust that person.”
< Payal Kadakia photographed by WIRED in Los Angeles, August 2017
2012 2014
Accepted into Rebranded
the Techstars Classtivity as
accelerator ClassPass
INSPIR ATION
C R E AT I V I T Y L I K E S A D E A D L I N E
“I went to San Francisco and met
a bunch of entrepreneurs who
inspired me, so I gave myself two
weeks to think of a business idea.
I came back to New York and had
my ballet clothes with me. I looked
for a dance class online and was
frustrated. My idea: What if I could
build an OpenTable for classes?”
ENTHUSIASM
NOT ALL PROBLEMS ARE
W O R T H S O LV I N G
“You need to do quick market
research on five to ten people and
see if they can feel that ‘pain point’
as well. Importantly, you have to be
passionate about it. You have to
know that if, seven years later, you
are still solving the same problem,
you still care about solving it.”
DIRECTION
LEARN TO STOMACH A PIVOT
“It was my purpose to make sure
people were going to class. One of
the data points we had was that
15 per cent of people would go back
to our studios after they used our
product, but we wanted it to be 75
per cent. We moved from a prepay
to a subscription model, rebranded
as ClassPass, and it took off.”
DISAPPOINTMENT
DE ALING WITH SE TBACKS
“The press will write good and bad
things, it will go through cycles.
When we increased our prices
we faced criticism, but what was
important was making sure
my customers knew what we were
going to be doing and building.
I personally spent a lot of
my time building that future.”
2015 2017
Raised $40 million in Series B funding led by General Swapped titles
Catalyst and Thrive Capital, followed by a $30 million from CEO to
Series C round led by Google Ventures executive chairman
THE MESSAGE
C O M M U N I C AT E Y O U R V I S I O N
“We grew really fast; we doubled in
size in six months. I came into work
and was talking to people. You think
people understand your vision but
often they don’t. I had to spend
months figuring out better ways
to communicate the vision to the
team. If we forget that, we will never
build the company we mean to.”
TIME MANAGEMENT
S E T G O A L S S Y S T E M AT I C A L LY
“I pick five areas that I want to
focus on over the next three
months. I’ve been doing that for
three years now. As part of that
process, I do diagnostics on how
I’m spending my time. I believe
that the number-one thing you can
change to achieve a goal
is how you spend your time.”
INFLUENCE
P L AY T O Y O U R S T R E N G T H S
“I knew I wasn’t going to let myself
focus on building the company
if I carried on the responsibility of
being a good CEO. I wasn’t creating;
a lot of it was about managing
people and that wasn’t what
I wanted to work on. My title isn’t
what brings me happiness, it’s the
impact we have on people’s lives.”
LIVING IT
P R A C T I S E W H AT Y O U P R E A C H
“My whole thing is living an active
and passionate life. It’s how
I’m centred. I hated feeling like
I couldn’t do anything until I left
work. It makes people crave
leaving. So we wear fitness clothes
to the office. A lot of people go to
[fitness] class together, it’s
very much a part of our ethos.”
0 9 6 _ WORK SMARTER _ STARTUP CIT Y
WHERE TO STAY WHERE TO EAT WHERE TO DRINK
KEX HOSTEL • 101 H ó T E L BE RG S S ON M AT H Ú S • T H E L AU N DROM AT C A F É BRYG GJA N BRUG GHú S
A SMALL POPULATION,
tight investment laws
and high living costs
pose potential obstacles
for would-be founders
in Reykjavik. But tough
conditions can spark
opportunity. The fallout of
Iceland’s banking collapse
led to unemployment
in the country hitting
nine per cent, but it also
kindled an entrepreneurial
spark. “Everybody was
employed in well-paying
jobs... until the collapse
happened,” says Bala
TECH HUB Kamallakharan, founder
of venture-capital
advisory firm Mira Capital
and the Startup Iceland
conference. “That opened
up a whole new world.”
Investment in Icelandic
startups reached a record
£150 million in 2015,
according to a funding
report by Northstack.
In 2016, the sums
invested were lower, but
the overall number of
REYKJAVIK investments increased.
Due to the success
of EVE Online developer
The Icelandic city boasts a progressive culture that values equality CCP Games, gaming
and virtual reality are
key sectors, alongside
energy, finance, tourism
MENIGA VISKA SÓLFAR STUDIOS ACTIVITY STREAM
Helps banks use customer AI-powered mobile app Virtual-reality AI platform designed
data to build better services for employee training games studio to improve business
Founded 2013 Founded 2017 Founded 2014 operations for its clients
Investment raised £18m Investment raised Investment raised £1.6m Founded 2013
Founders Asgeir Orn Undisclosed Founders Kjartan Pierre Investment raised £4m
Asgeirsson, Viggo Founders Stefanía Ólafsdóttir, Emilsson, Reynir Hardarson, Founders Einar Sævarsson
Asgeirsson, Georg Arni Hermann Reynisson, Thor Gunnarsson and Stefán Baxter
Ludviksson meniga.com Vala Halldorsdottir viska.com solfar.com activitystream.com
ACCELERATORS Startup Reykjavik — startupreykjavik.is; Startup Energy Reykjavik — startupenergyreykjavik.com; Startup Tourism — startuptourism.is
CO-WORKING SPACES Reykjavik Coworking Unit — reykjavikcoworking.is; Minor Coworking — minorcoworking.is
• R E Y K J AV I K R O A S T E R S
and biotech. However,
with only a handful of
local VC funds, seed
funding predominately
comes from government
grants, according to
Salóme Guðmundsdóttir,
CEO of the Icelandic
Startups accelerator. “It
can be very difficult for
startups to get their
initial funding,” she
says. But Iceland has
many cultural draws,
and its newest VC fund
highlights the Nordic
nation’s famously
progressive society.
Crowberry Capital is
led by three women –
a breath of fresh
Icelandic air in the face
of Silicon Valley’s bro
culture. “There was no
plan to be a female firm,”
explains Crowberry
Capital’s investment
manager Hekla
Arnardóttir. “Iceland
has a lot of interesting
female-led startups.
We have good equality
in Iceland; we never
think it’s a problem to be
female.” Nicole Kobie
PLATOME BIOTECHNOLOGY
Grows human cells for labs
Founded 2016
Investment raised
ILLUSTRATION: YUKAI DU
£900,000 in grants
Founders Sandra Mjöll
Jónsdóttir-Buch, Ólafur
Eysteinn Sigurjónsson
platome.com
 WIRED
INSIDER’S
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training sessions to live the
and briefings,
and speakers
WIRED life
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Compiled by
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and protecting
your business
operations. Dec
4-7, London
blackhat.com

AI TECH WORLD
Hear from 60
speakers from
companies such as
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Bird & Bird about
developments
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intelligence.
Discover the
visionaries breaking
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find out how AI
technology can be
applied to business
models, products
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Nov 29, London
aitechworld.net

DALÍ/ 1 2
DUCHAMP
Take a closer look at 3 4
the fascinating
relationship between
conceptual artist
Marcel Duchamp
and surrealist
Salvador Dalí.
The exhibition
showcases around
influential 80 pieces,
including artworks,
paintings and
photographs.
Showing until
January 3, 2018.
Royal Academy of
Arts, London
royalacademy.org.uk

SOFTER: JENNY
HOLZER AT
BLENHEIM
PALACE
Contemporary
artist Jenny Holzer
is not afraid of 1/ Valentino 2/ Tag Heuer 3/ Snap 4/ Stuart
using architecture Donna Autavia Calibre Spectacles courier
and scenery as Noir Absolu Heuer 02 service
an adjunct to
her work, and Sold exclusively through Tag Heuer has reissued Move over, Google Glass: Operating in London,
this show sees
Harrods, Donna Noir its classic Autavia Rindt Snap Spectacles allow Paris, Lyon, Madrid and
Blenheim Palace’s
stately grounds
Absolu is Valentino’s watch, incorporating new the wearer to take photos Barcelona, Stuart is an
transform into a addictive new-season technology and modern and record ten-second on-demand courier
huge light show. fragrance for women. It functions for today’s videos via their built-in service for the business-
Until December has top notes of black horophile. The distressed camera. At the push of a to-business sector.
pepper and saffron, middle brown-leather strap offers button, footage can be Customers can use its
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

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Palace, Oxfordshire notes of sambac jasmine, a vintage feel, while the transferred to Snapchat dashboard or mobile app
blenheimpalace.com plum liquor and narcotic black opalin dial, rotating via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi to order and track
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   _ WORK SMARTER _ OFFICE ENHANCEMENT _ DATA SCIENCE

‘Plants can fill a space, frame a

space or follow a space’
Freddie Blackett co-founder, Patch

Pachycereus Aspidistra Zamioculcas Sansevieria Monstera Dracaena Howea

- elatior zamiifolia trifasciata deliciosa fragrans forsteriana
Let’s start with - - - - - -
the easiest Nicknamed An African This plant is Also known A tropical This Australian
option: a cactus the “cast iron plant which practically as the Swiss species that flowering
that requires plant”, this tolerates shade indestructible cheese plant, it filters out plant will fill
almost no copes well with – ideal for a and also helps thrives at room nasty airborne whatever space
watering. little care. dark corner. to remove temperature. chemicals such you place it in.
pollutants. as benzene and
formaldehyde.
WORKPLACE HACKS

Parentesit wall panel This freestanding screen, designed for Arper by Lievore Altherr Molina, enables you to customise an office area
FROM ARPER, GOODHOOD, PULPO AND YIELD
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOHN SHORT. ACCESSORIES

DESIGN. ILLUSTRATION: YUKAI DU

GREEN
I NVEST MENT
Adding foliage to your office doesn’t just AIRBNB’S IN-HOUSE
look nice – it’s good for productivity D ATA A C A D E M Y

Plants can add more to an office than In Airbnb offices around the world,
a decorative touch: psychologists have graduates parade about with their
found that, as well as oxygenating the air, college logo splashed across
bringing some flora into the workplace shirts, hats and computers. But
can improve employee satisfaction and can they haven’t come from your
TRAINING
increase productivity by up to 15 per cent. typical school – each is a graduate
But the lack of natural light and variable of Data University, a programme
temperatures can make an office environment launched by Airbnb to increase
tough for many plants to thrive in. “The big the number of employees with
thing for offices is air conditioning,” says data skills. “It’s fun to walk around
Freddie Blackett, co-founder and CEO of and see people wearing Data U
online gardening startup Patch. “Plants aren’t T-shirts,” says Elena Grewal, the
used to very fast-varying environments.” company’s head of data science.
Blackett had the idea for Patch in 2014 after The Data University course is
struggling to grow plants on the balcony of split into three levels, starting with
his flat. Aimed at city dwellers, its web app the basics – such as how to ask a
curates collections by the conditions they’re good question of data – and moving
best suited to and gives buyers easy-to-follow through to more advanced skills
care instructions. The company was founded such as machine learning. These
at the end of 2015 and recently announced lessons are applied to the kind of
a $1.1 million (£850,000) seed investment. data Airbnb collects from its users.
To choose the right plant for your office. For example, employees could
Blackett says you should first assess how monitor how visitors interact with
much light the space gets. You can use a site redesigns, or analyse how many
compass on your smartphone to work out if of its hosts use the company’s
the windows are west-facing (which will get professional photography services
plenty of sunlight) or if you should be looking and in which location. The school
for varieties that cope well in the shade. has already toured Airbnb offices in
Next, decide what you want your plant to Portland, Dublin, Singapore, Beijing
bring to the workspace. Aesthetically, plants and Seoul, with 700 students
play three main roles, says Blackett: “They taking part in the first year.
can fill a space, they can frame a space or they So far, it’s been a success.
can follow a space.” This will help determine “We’ve seen an uptake in our data
the size, shape and density of foliage you tooling usage, which is a sign that
should go for. Read WIRED and Blackett’s guide people are engaging with data
on the opposite page for some suggestions. more,” says Grewal. The classes
Once you’ve greened up your space, Blackett will continue to be rolled out
advises setting up a staff rota to water and feed across Airbnb offices around the
your new team members as needed, so they world, and Grewal says that other
don’t get neglected. “Inevitably, plants will companies have been asking how
die; they are living organisms,” he says. “But similar projects could work for
if you have more plants survive than die, then them. “It’s about how you make
you’re on to something good.” Victoria Turk good decisions as a company and
how you understand your users,”
she says. Bonnie Christian
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10.17 BUMBLE’S WHITNEY WOLFE 09.17 AMAZON’S NEXT MOVE – 07/08.17 THE SCIENCE OF SUCCESS – BEN
TAKES ON TINDER THE JEFF BEZOS MASTER PLAN AINSLIE’S RULES FOR PEAK PERFORMANCE

06.17 HOW RUSSIA HACKED THE INTERNET… 05.17 WHO’S NEXT? – EUROPE’S £35 04.17 THE SMART LIST – TECH’S BIGGEST
AND WHAT THE WEST NEEDS TO DO NOW BILLION WAR ON SILICON VALLEY NAMES PICK THE STARS OF TOMORROW

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AND ROBOTS THAT WILL TAKE US TO MARS DESIGNING THE FUTURE WHO’S SHAPING THE DIGITAL WORLD?
AUDI _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

Created in partnership with Audi,

WIRED explores technology’s
growing influence in world football

FOOTBALL’S
DATA-DRIVEN
NARRATIVE
verybody has their views on
how to improve the beautiful

E game, but a combination of

cutting-edge technology
and a data is making this a
distinct possibility.
Technology is no longer just a means for
football to be broadcast on TV and the radio, or
as an operational tool. It is more than that – as
WIRED found out from its trips to the Audi Cup
and Audi Summer Tour 2017.
Data is now being used to make big decisions
– such as which player a football club should
buy, who should play in the next game, and
how specific players can avoid serious injuries.
All of these decisions are made possible
through new technologies such as drones,
wearables and analytics.
But it’s not just about player data: fans are
a crucial ingredient of the game, too. After
all, without them, the game wouldn’t exist as it
does today. For years, fans were limited in how
they could engage with the club, the players
and fellow fans. But now, thanks to social media
and fan park zones, they’re more engaged than
ever. Social media in particular has helped
to cultivate a whole new breed of supporter –
one that’s able to get involved wherever they are
in the world, at any time.
Giant steps are also being made to enhance
existing technologies, including the way
football matches are broadcast. Faster and
_ BE YOND _ BEHIND
more dynamic cameras are able to capture THE GAME THE NUMBERS
moments that have never been seen before,
Innovation closer together. The use of data but also informs
giving the game a more modern look and
in football Supporters can in football has broadcasters of
feel. Audi is not stopping there: referee- technology isn’t also immerse stepped up a the importance
side cameras showing television viewers the restricted to the themselves in gear. Tracking of a player’s
officials’ exact line of vision are next on the pitch. The game’s matches by using players using actions. This
agenda. This will provide more insight into the appeal has holographic the Audi Player data can then
grown globally technologies Index and Opta help clubs make
critical decisions made in-game.
thanks to the and virtual reality, provides the more informed
influence of social as shown during usual real- decisions
media, bringing The Audi Summer time stats on on player
clubs and fans Tour 2017. performance, purchases.
AUDI
 AUDI _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

DATA IS NOW BEING USED

TO MAKE BIG DECISIONS –
SUCH AS WHICH PLAYER A
CLUB SHOULD BUY, WHO
SHOULD PLAY IN THE NEXT
GAME AND HOW PLAYERS
CAN AVOID INJURIES

_ CALLING _ MILLION-
THE SHOTS MEGABIT KITS

Giving football way, teaming At Real Madrid’s Meanwhile,

broadcasting a a director with training ground, drones are used
fresh, modern high-speed wearables have to detect and
look and feel cameras and become a game- display motion
requires a a dynamic changer. Trackers graphics on
combination “spidergram” placed on shirts digital screens.
of innovative camera that can give the team The data helps
directors and dip low enough real-time data on the club to
game-changing to provide shots players’ fitness, structure training
technology. unseen using any speed, agility to suit players’
Audi has led the other production. and stamina. specific needs

The next step is for football clubs to consider

technology from the outset when they’re
designing their new stadiums. Adding inter-
active dashboards to give fans the ability to
see replays or statistics and gearing seats with
advanced augmented and virtual reality could
give them the opportunity to blend visuals on
to the live experience. A network of new trans-
portation methods will add to the ease in which
_ BREAKING _ AUDI:
fans can access stadiums, from self-driving car NEW GROUND DRIVEN TO WIN
lanes and drone-delivery systems. Meanwhile,
Next-generation Lightweight Automotive that can make
AI will help all of these technologies to coexist
stadia will be construction leader Audi is a football a better
and flow automatically, enabling supporters to more than just materials, partner of the experience.
get the best experience possible. aesthetically renewable best clubs in These clubs are
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHARLIE SURBEY

The stadia of the future will become part of the pleasing: they will energy from the world: FC among those
city’s ecosystem, and will incorporate advances be designed with fans’ movement Bayern Munich, using data
consideration and seats Real Madrid and from the Audi
in engineering with low-carbon footprints,
made to energy, equipped with FC Barcelona. Player Index to
renewable energy and green areas to offset CO2. smart tech AR and VR are It is constantly gain that all-
Technical innovation by companies such and the fan the future of exploring new important edge
as Audi is feeding football. In fact, it may have experience. smart stadia. innovations in the sport.
just become more beautiful.
 TEXTILE SCULPTURE : ANNA RAY, INSPIRED BY DIGITAL PIXELLATION, GOBELIN TAPESTRY WEAVING AND POINTILLIST PAINTING TECHNIQUES TO
CREATE 540 COTTON PROTRUSIONS. THE COLOURED TIPS ARE HAND-SEWN ON TO TUBES OF FABRIC WHICH ARE THEN STUFFED WITH WADDING

“You’ve got to push in all directions of human curiosity in order to make great advances.” Brian Cox, p110
12-17 _ LONG-FORM STORIES _   
 FA K E N E W S , C L I M AT E -

C H A N G E D E N I A L ,

A I P A N I C ... P L A N E T E A RT H

I S I N T U R M O I L .

AT T H I S Y E A R’ S S TA R M U S F E S T I VA L , W I R E D A S K E D

SOME OF THE WORLD’S SHARPEST MINDS HOW

W E TAC K L E M A N K I N D ’ S G R E AT E S T C H A L L E N G E S

S C I E N C E
B Y J O A O M E D E I R O S

A N D J A M E S T E M P E R T O N

C A N
P H O T O G R A P H Y :

P L A T O N

S A V E U S
Without science, it’s all fiction. And yet our world
increasingly resembles a fictional one, acceler-
ating towards a dystopian reality that few would
have predicted just a few years ago. Despite
science’s inexorable march of progress – from the
discovery of new cancer drugs to the development
of quantum computation – extremist political
movements and the wanton spread of falsehoods
frustrate its dissemination. This opposition to
scientific culture has real consequences: diseases
once eradicated re-emerge as anti-vaccination
beliefs spread; cataclysmic hurricanes batter entire
cities as climate-change denial prevents global
solutions; democratic elections are undermined
by shadowy adversaries using digital technology.
In March this year, the scientific community,
beleaguered by the anti-science sentiment stoked
by conservative populism, took to the streets,
marching for science across cities around the
world. But as science becomes politicised, should
scientists become political? In times when facts
are considered optional rather than essential,
should scientists defend their empirical view of
the world against demagogy and sensationalism?
Professor Stephen Hawking – theoretical
physicist, cosmologist, author and a key member
of the advisory board for the Starmus Festival –
talked to WIRED, and hand-picked a selection
of leading figures from this year’s celebration of
science and the arts, to give their views on today’s
issues. From Donald Trump to fake news, from
the digital duopoly of Facebook and Google to
the potential perils of AI, WIRED presents some
scientific perspective to cut through the noise.
On the anti-science movement
People distrust science because they
don’t understand how it works. It
seems as if we are now living in a time
in which science and scientists are in
danger of being held in low, and
decreasing, esteem. This could have
serious consequences. I am not sure
why this should be as our society is
increasingly governed by science and
technology, yet fewer young people
seem to want to take up science as a
career. One answer might be to
announce a new and ambitious space
programme to excite them, and
stimulate interest in other areas such
as astrophysics and cosmology.
‘ T H E G E N I E I S O U T O F T H E
I F E A R T H AT A I
R E P L AC E H U M A N S
 _ WIRED _ 12-17
S T E P H E N H AW K I N G
THEORETICAL PHYSICIST AND COSMOLOGIST
On what he’d say to Donald Trump
I would ask him why he thinks his
travel ban is a good idea. This brands
as Daesh terrorists all citizens of six
mainly Muslim countries, but doesn’t
include America’s allies such as Iraq,
Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which
allegedly help finance Daesh. This
blanket ban is inefficient and prevents
America from recruiting skilled
people from these countries. I would
also ask him to renounce his denial
of climate change. But again, I fear
neither will happen as Trump
continues to appease his electorate.
On the potential perils of AI
The genie is out of the bottle. We need
to move forward on artificial intelli-
gence development but we also need
to be mindful of its very real dangers.
I fear that AI may replace humans
altogether. If people design computer
viruses, someone will design AI that
improves and replicates itself. This
will be a new form of life that will
outperform humans.
On the digital duopoly of Facebook
and Google
I worry about the control that big
corporations increasingly have over
information. The danger is we get
into the situation that existed in
the Soviet Union with their two
M AY
A LT O G E T H E R’
newspapers, Pravda, which means
“truth” and Izvestia, which means
“news”. The joke was, there was no
truth in Pravda and no news in
Izvestia. Big corporations will always
promote stories that reflect well on
them and suppress those that don’t.
On what scientific research should
be pursued most urgently
My preference would be to pursue
rigorously a space-exploration
programme, with a view to
eventually colonising suitable
planets for human habitation.
I believe we have reached the point
of no return. Our Earth is becoming
too small for us, global population
is increasing at an alarming rate
and we are in danger of self-
destructing. Whether this would be
the result of damage to the
environment or a nuclear war of
devastating proportions, we need to
actively pursue an alternative
way of living if the human race is
to survive for another 1,000 years.
B O T T L E .
 On the importance

SCIENTISTS PHOTOGRAPHED AT STARMUS 2017. JIM AL-KHALILI INTERVIEW: BONNIE CHRISTIAN

of science
Politicians often make
the mistake of viewing
society as a series
of groups competing
for finite resources.
I think that’s the wrong
way to think about it.
A society needs to be
viewed as a single
organism. It seems
self-evident to me that
understanding more
about nature makes
your society better.
The opposite is
understanding less
about the natural
world and that can’t be
right. History tells us
that’s not correct. possibly come along humility, and humility enquiry lead to depth
On what he’d say to in quite short order. is the key to wisdom, at some level. And
Donald Trump So I would say to the road to wisdom.” I think it’s too
Science is about doing Donald: “You haven’t That’s what you learn complicated for
the best you can in learned yet and when you are a anyone, let alone
the knowledge that there’s still time. You professional scientist. a politician, to
something better will haven’t learned On funding for science understand which
Our universe, as far as bits of this enquiry
we can tell, operates into nature will lead
according to a very to profound
small set of laws of discoveries. You’ve

BR I A N COX nature, and they got to push in all the

underpin everything. directions of human
That means that curiosity in order to
PROFESSOR OF PARTICLE PHYSICS
virtually all lines of make great advances.

 _ WIRED _ 12-17

P H O T O G R A P H Y : On scientists reaching
out beyond academia
We need to be telling
S E B A S T I A N N E V O L S stories in a way the
public can relate to,
some of the positive
stories about meeting
challenges associated
with global climate
change. Part of the
pushback, I think, is
that everything is
doom and gloom.
People who very
seldom come up for
air don’t want to just
hear negative things.
On what she’d say
to Donald Trump
I’d say to him that the
whole planet faces
challenges that
individual nations are
not going to be able to
solve on their own and
he had better back off
on this “Make America
great again” thing.
Let’s think about
making life on this
planet great for as
many people as we can.
On the accountability
of algorithms
These are algorithms
that no one sees and
for which there is no
accountability. At the
same moment, we are
having great success in
deep learning, but when
you build these neural
networks they are
essentially a black box.
They’re very, very hard
to understand and it’s
equally hard to
understand what biases
you’ve built in. So I get
nervous when we rush
to adopt what we’ve
created and say, “This is
wonderful.” I’ve heard
about using machine
learning to make hiring
decisions. The idea was
that you build in the
rules and remove bias
from the process by
J I L L TA RT E R letting the machine do
it. But the problem is
that the biases have
EXPERT IN THE SEARCH FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE
been built in and you
can’t shine a light on
them. You get yourself
into more trouble.
 On scientists reaching
out beyond academia
I think scientists should
just be scientists. We
put this extra condition
on scientists that we
don’t put on, say,
people in the business
world, or lawyers.
People’s responsibility
is to do their job. If
people want to educate
people about science,
or if people want to hear
it, that’s fine. I certainly
don’t think everyone
should be forced to do
that. In fact, it probably
would be a mistake
because many people
wouldn’t be good at it
and would just backfire.
On Donald Trump
I had a debate on
Twitter with someone
who I respect a lot. I
 _ WIRED _ 12-17
L I SA R A N DA L L
PHYSICIST; RESEARCHER OF EXTRA DIMENSIONS IN SPACE
was complaining that On the digital showing it is not
the media will report duopoly of Facebook true. They have to
on some meaningless and Google take responsibility,
quote from Trump, but I’m worried about more which implies really
ignore the really big than the monopolies. changing their
issues. She replied: I’m worried that the business model.
“Well, you’re just not whole system has no The incentives are
reading the papers correction in it. I think not to do with what’s
carefully.” And that the pretence that the best for the people.
was exactly my point. companies are not The incentives are to
You have to read the influencing what we do with what’s best
papers carefully to see get, that they’re just for stockholders. If
all these other things distribution platforms, we don’t fix that,it
that are happening and was very convenient is going to become
really important news. for them. We’re now a real problem.
 BRIAN GREENE
STRING THEORIST; CO-FOUNDER, WORLD SCIENCE FESTIVAL
On the importance
of science
We all begin life as
scientists. We lose
kids at a certain stage
in the education system
and science seems
irrelevant and
intimidating. It feels like
it’s not something that
matters. If you can
catch kids before they
make that turn, then
science can become
something that’s not a
subject any longer but
rather a perspective
and a way of life. And if
science can become
that kind of profoundly
important part of
one’s world view,
starting at a young
age, then you have
made the difference.
On what he’d say to
Donald Trump
It would be hard for me
to hold back on trying to
perhaps convey some
scientific literacy. This
is the leader of the free
world who doesn’t
understand certain
very, very basic things
that a ten-year-old –
a five-year-old – can
understand. It just
hasn’t sunk in or he
never was exposed to
it. So one couldn’t help
but have an urge to
convey some real
information. Whether
that would be accepted
or not is another story.
‘ T H E L E A D E R O F T H E F R E E W O R L D
D O E S N ’ T U N D E R S T A N D B A S I C
T H I N G S T H A T A F I V E -Y E A R - O L D
On the endgame for AI
What if all undertakings
can ultimately be done
better by some fancy
computer? That may be
the next phase of
evolution. People recoil
at the thought, but it
could be that the
biological version of
intelligent life on planet
Earth is a stepping
stone. And if that
stepping stone is such
that in the far future we
don’t have biological
life as the predominate
intelligent species on
the planet, so be it.
On science reaching out
beyond academia
Until very recently,
I would never have a
conversation that had
anything in it that
wasn’t pure science.
But since the [2016 US]
election, I’ve started
to use social media,
which I never really
used that much before.
And on a semi-regular
basis, the things I say
have to do with policy or
politics or things of that
sort. And I see the
response. Many are
supportive of that,
many say, “Shut the
fuck up, I follow you for
science.” And I think
that’s perhaps a silver
lining of everything
that’s happening, that
scientists are taking a
more active role.
D O E S ’
 ‘ S A Y W E F I N D A L I E N L I F E A N D I T
E N C O D E S I D E N T I T Y I N W A Y S
O T H E R T H A N D N A – O H M Y G O S H ’

On the need for films either about

critical thinking scientists or with
I don’t know what it science as a
would take to convince fundamental part of
people to recognise the storytelling. I see
what is objectively that mattering in the
true. What I do know is battle for what is
that the educational objectively true and
system does not give what isn’t.
you any occasion to On the importance of
learn what science is discovering alien life
and how and why it Say we find life and it
works. And if you don’t encodes identity in
know that, then you’ll ways other than DNA.
think science is the Oh my gosh, that will
satchel of facts that transform biology
comes to you in your completely. Or to learn
textbook. And they just that Earth is a zoo,
unzip your head, pour established by
the facts in, zip your intelligent aliens. And
head back up and then they just observe us
give you a test. And so and sometimes we bore
that’s science. When, them, and so they stir
in fact, everything that the pot and do either
happens in your day is good or bad things,
science. Everything. just for their own
On science in amusement. Yes, there
popular culture are some religions that
If you go through the have an issue with it
history of the portrayal but those religions
of scientists in the would have issues
media, they’re denuded with plenty of other
of any personality that things that science
matters in the discovers. For the rest
storytelling of the film. of us it will be exciting.
They’d be some wire- But I don’t know how
haired, lab-coat- it would change us.
donning person behind Maybe that’s the good
the table. “Oh, is the thing about the
asteroid going to hit?” unknown future of
“Well, the latest discovery; we actually
calculation shows yes.” don’t know how we
“OK, doc,” and then you would change if we
just move on. Today, made a discovery or
major budgets with what discovery
major actors and awaits us that we
directors are making can’t even predict.

NEIL DEGR ASSE TYSON

ASTROPHYSICIST; AUTHOR; HOST OF STARTALK PODCAST
 K AT H A R I N E H AY H O E
ATMOSPHERIC SCIENTIST; CEO, ATMOS RESEARCH

On the next big countries such as Peru is not how to generate cooking oils or even
scientific breakthrough and India. Wind energy the energy at an urine. But this is what’s
In the area of clean is spreading across the affordable cost, but needed to break the
energy, the next frontier fossil-fuel bastions of how to provide it when fossil-fuel stranglehold
is low-cost, high- China and Texas. Teens and where it’s needed. on energy sources.
volume production, are winning science This type of research On what she’d say to
transmission and prizes for turning isn’t “cool”; people’s Donald Trump
storage. The cost of algae into biofuel in eyes tend to glaze over As scientists, we often
solar energy is already their garages. The when you start talking operate under the idea
breaking records in biggest need right now chemicals, recycled that if someone is
saying something
incorrect, all we need
to do is explain the
science to them and
they will change their
minds. When it comes
to politically polarised
topics such as climate
change, arguing facts
and data is perceived
as a direct attack on
people’s identity and
values. That’s why, if I
were asked to speak to
the president about
climate change, I would
simply say, “How do
you want to go down in
history – as Nero, who
fiddled while Rome
burned, or as the hero
who saved the world?”
On scientists reaching
out beyond academia
Climate scientists are
like the physicians of
the planet. Our planet
is running a fever and
we’ve run the tests,
analysed the data and
drawn conclusions.
Humans are responsible,
the impacts are serious
and the time to act is
now. Now, more than
ever, we need evidence-
based decision-making
to ensure we meet the
challenges posed by
hunger and disease,
political instability,
social inequality and
the many other issues
being exacerbated by
a changing climate.

12-17 _ WIRED _

 On the current anti-
science sentiment
I think what’s changed
now is simply that we
have the internet and
social media. Whereas
in the past maybe
these people were
more isolated voices,
they can now shout
loudly through social
media. They realise
there are other like-
minded people and
they gain confidence.
But we shouldn’t
think that because it
seems to be a bit more
in our faces these
days that it’s worse
than it was before.
I’m still optimistic,
I still think that the
voices of rationalism
who understand that
science can be for good
– provided we know how
to use it and discuss it
ethically and properly –
is actually winning over
these other voices.

On the future of AI
Where I do think there
are perils that we need
to talk about, there
are much more benign
and more immediate
issues – things like
autonomous killer
drones that are used
by the military now,
even simple things like
how do you program
safe decision-making
into driverless cars.
If the AI in the car
is programmed
to safeguard its On solving the as antimicrobial
passengers above world’s problems resistance, which I think
all else, then what? I It is true that some is an immediate threat
think these problems areas of scientific to the world. Climate
are solvable but I think research have a more change is another big
what’s important when immediate impact concern. There are
it comes to AI, because on society. There is issues that face the
the technology is an argument that world that are going to
changing so quickly, is scientists from lots need government policy,
that we really need to of disciplines maybe they’re going to need
have more of an open should devote some finances thrown at them
dialogue about the time to other issues. and they’re also going
issues that we are going There should be more to need scientists to get
JIM AL-KHALILI
to confront in just a of a concerted effort their heads together to
THEORETICAL PHYSICIST; SCIENCE COMMENTATOR
few years from now. to tackle things such try and tackle them.

 _ WIRED _ 12-17

 SA N DR A M AGN U S

NASA ASTRONAUT; ENGINEER

On the anti-science programme or go and

movement talk to your local
It’s driven by fear. The congressman and
world is changing so make sure they
fast now; we’re all understand that
connected. Before, science is important
we grew up in villages. so they’re going to
Back then, anything vote on the right bill.
new that came in On the importance
was looked at with of space tourism
suspicion because it’s We’re on the cusp of
different. That’s kind a very interesting
of what’s happening on sociological experiment.
a global scale. If your People are going to
level of security about do suborbital tourism
you and your place in and see this beautiful
the world is dependent planet. And that’s
upon having a closed going to be enough
mind like that, and you to change their
refuse to even believe perspectives. The
that amazing things people who pay to do
are possible, you’re this have millions of
limiting your potential Twitter followers. I
as a human being. only have 68,000.
On the March These people are
for Science famous. These are
I can go out and march people with means.
for science but that’s When the Apollo
not helping me get astronauts took a
some person next to picture of Earth from
me comfortable with space, it created the
science, which is really environmental
what the bubble is all movement. Are we
about. The protest is going to take our
good because it shows planet seriously when
there’s a critical mass conversations around
of people who care viewing Earth from
about this subject. space become more
Awesome! Let’s get of a popular culture
organised. You’ve conversation? 
got to start locally,
right? You people
from Chicago, go start
a programme in your
school system and
work with the students.
You people from The Starmus Festival
Kansas City, go start returns to Trondheim,
an after-school Norway, in June 2018

‘ I F Y O U R E F U S E T O B E L I E V E T H A T
A M A Z I N G T H I N G S A R E P O S S I B L E ,
Y O U ’ R E L I M I T I N G Y O U R P O T E N T I A L’
B U R N
R A T E

AS OUR BUILDINGS BECOME TALLER,
O U R V E H I C L E S E X PA N D A N D
OUR SMARTPHONES EXPLODE,
COMPLEX CATASTROPHIC FIRES ARE
ON THE RISE. WIRED MEETS THE
ELITE TEAM TRAINING THE WORLD’S
FIREFIGHTERS AS THEY
P R E PA R E F O R T H E N E X T B I G O N E
BY CHRIS STOKEL-WALKER
PHOTOGRAPHY: BENEDICT REDGROVE
AIN FOSTER-TODD’S VOICE IS
barely audible over the asthmatic
wheezing of his breathing apparatus
as he barks out safety instructions.
He motions for me to kneel down low
by the exit door of a cavernous metal
rig designed to simulate a nose fire
on a Boeing 747. Then he gestures for
me to look up and raises his arm to
signal his colleague to flip a switch.
In a split second, vast quantities of
liquefied petroleum gas flow through
the system and ignite, sending a
wave of orange flames rolling over
 _ WIRED _ 12-17
the ceiling and above our heads. It’s
like being trapped underwater as an
enormous wave breaks, a pulsating
orange jellyfish of flames undulating
along the ceiling, accompanied by
a roar of noise. It’s impossible not
to stare, forgetting the breathing
apparatus keeping you alive and
everything else happening around
you. All you can perceive are the
flames, searing 400°C, as they roll
and tumble just a metre above us.
Because we experience fires so
rarely and because their force is
so enormous, the event is impos-
sible to properly comprehend
until it has been experienced. “It’s
very high temperatures in there,”
explains Foster-Todd, after we step
out of the room. “Think about it:
you cook a chicken at 180 degrees.”
Foster-Todd is a tutor at the Inter-
national Fire Training Centre (IFTC),
a training facility near Durham Tees
Valley Airport. At 60, he’s a mountain
of a man, burly and tall, with a dry
sense of humour. He’s been a tutor
here for 17 years after a 22-year
career fighting fire, latterly with
Cleveland Fire Brigade. He removes
his fireproof jacket, revealing tattooed
arms, including a detailed etching
of Edvard Munch’s The Scream .
The nose of the 747 is one of 14
rusting, hulking rigs around the
eight-hectare site, first built on an
old Ministry of Defence base in 1981
by the Civil Aviation Authority and
run since 1996 by Serco, the British
outsourcing company. The rigs
include ditched planes, overturned oil
tankers and wrecked vans wrapped
around lamp posts. Converted
shipping containers, rusting into
a deep orange, create a complex
assault course that can be set alight
to mimic the living quarters of an
offshore oil rig. Scorched crash test
dummies sit lifeless in the hulls of
torched helicopters and light aircraft.
At the centre of this orgy of
dereliction stands an enormous
military green metal rig, a Franken-
stein’s monster of metal. Propped
up on squat supports, it looks like
the back end of a Boeing 767 and
the front end of an Airbus A380,
connected by a short gangway, fabri-
cated specially for the IFTC in 2007
at a cost of £1.6 million. The purpose
of this place: to learn how to battle
fires in their most extreme settings.
“It’s Disneyland for firefighters,”
explains Lee Goupillot, 47, a tutor at
the IFTC for the past two and a half
years. Before joining the training
team, he battled blazes with the
RAF. Goupillot served in some of
the world’s major war and disaster
zones including Iraq, Afghanistan,
Kosovo and the Falkland Islands.
Firefighters from 131 countries
have studied on this scrub of land.
“They keep coming back,” explains
Chris Brown, 58, technical services
manager at the IFTC, who spends
his days wandering the fireground
in a fluorescent vest and hard hat,
ensuring the day-to-day running
goes smoothly. When you dig into
the statistics, it’s easy to see why.
The burning engine of a dummy
aircraft is doused with foam at
the International Fire Training Centre
The IFTC has attracted crews from 131 countries. Here, representatives from the Swiss Air Force take part in a firefighting exercise

 _ WIRED _ 12-17


IRES ARE CHANGING . FROM A PEAK OF
473,563 fires in 2003/04, the number
of incidents fire and rescue services
in England have attended dropped to
just over 162,000 in 2015/16. In part,
this is thanks to better education.
People have become more aware
of the risks of leaving unattended
flames; the dreaded chip-pan fire
has become a thing of the past.
But it’s also down to small things
like smoke alarms. In 1988, just eight
per cent of homes had an alarm.
Now, only around eight per cent don’t.
The everyday fires of the past
that kept firefighters out on calls
have largely disappeared. “Firemen
are professional coffee drinkers,”
jokes Foster-Todd. What remains are
the near-impossible jobs, the type
that professional firefighters dread.
The risk of fire is changing,
dependent on the materials used
to build our homes and vehicles, and
the electronics we use. The risk of a
fire spreading can be mitigated by
a range of measures including fire
doors and sprinklers. Evacuation
procedures are constantly trialled
– particularly on planes – while the
principles for extinguishing fires
have remained largely the same
for decades. Water douses flames,
putting them out at their most
violent, while protein-rich foams
of the type used at the IFTC are
designed to blanket the fire, starving
it of oxygen. But when faced with
the worst blazes, best practices
sometimes go out the window.
I’m visiting the IFTC less than six
weeks after a fire ripped through
Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey block in
London, killing (at time of writing)
a predicted 80 people. Flames
burned for 60 hours before they
were tamped down by more than 250
firefighters from across the capital. It
was too big a fire to tackle using even
the most specialised equipment.
When Claire Benson turned on
her television on June 14 and saw
THE FIREFIGHTERS
SCRAMBLE INSIDE
THE PL ANE TO TACKLE
THE CABIN FIRE. THEY
Q U I C K LY R E - E M E R G E ,
PULLING THE FIVE
M I S S I N G PA S S E N G E R S
TO SAFETY
the images of Grenfell Tower, she
had an immediate, visceral reaction.
“I said, ‘There’s no way you’re fighting
that,’” says Benson, 35, a fire and
explosion scientist at London South
Bank University. “There’s a point of
no return, where you’re looking at it
and going, ‘That’s such a developed
fire, putting it out is going to take
many hours and many people.’”
Investigations are still ongoing
as to how the fire spread so quickly
and killed so many but initial assess-
ments lay the blame at a combination
of deadly factors. “In any fire, you
have to be looking at ignition risk,
spread risk, how you are going to try
and put out the fire, and how you are
evacuating people,” explains Benson.
At Grenfell, improper cladding
is believed to have fuelled the fire.
Modern fire safety measures such
as sprinkler systems and fire doors
were either missing or malfunc-
tioned. Both spread risks. No single
firefighting appliance was tall enough
to douse the upper floors. And evacu-
ation processes fell apart: many were
advised to stay put and succumbed
to the smoke and flames.
“It was British firefighting’s 9/11,”
says Neil Crosby, 54, another tutor at
the IFTC. “It’s moments like that when
you think: ‘How are those firefighters,
whether of huge experience or
new in the job, going to deal with it?’”
In a world where the risk from
low-level fires has been diminished,
firefighters instead face rarer but
more dangerous infernos in complex
buildings or downed planes. Grenfell
and a plane fire aren’t all that much
different: both are remote, inacces-
sible and cramped, with hundreds
of people in a space where fire
can spread easily. These factors
take specialist training far beyond
the type available to so-called
“structural” firefighting brigades.
For that, firefighters visit the IFTC.
I T ’ S J U LY 2 0 1 7 A N D 1 1 R E P R E S E N T A T I V E S
from the Swiss Air Force are going through
their training at IFTC. The first exercise of the
day comes via a call crackling over the radio:
the captain of a plane coming in to land has
reported an engine fire. Thirty people are on
board. A minute later, another message comes
through: “Aircraft accident, aircraft accident.
Crashed aircraft is alight, respond, respond.
Evacuation taking place, five passengers
are still to be accounted for. Five missing.”
There are wails of sirens and two teams of
firefighters quickly unload, rolling out hoses
the same way you send a bowling ball down a
lane. The rigid hoses are capable of spraying
up to 8,000 litres of protein-based foam per
minute, cooling the aircraft frame to prevent
the fire, now belching out large clouds of
black smoke, from spreading. The flames that
are roaring out of the right-hand aircraft
engine initially prove resistant to being doused.
Snow-white liquid is pouring from the
truck-top hoses, while the Swiss team use
handheld hoses. They aim at the heart of the
fire, trying to quell it by flooding the engine
with enough foam and water to cool the
temperature, which will also smother the
flames and remove any chance of reignition.
At first, they falter. The instructors step in,
physically repositioning the firefighters
into better locations, re-directing their aim.
Eventually, the flames are extinguished and
the firefighters scramble inside the plane to
tackle the cabin fire. They quickly emerge,
pulling the five missing passengers to safety.
The more severe the fire, the less chance that water or protein-rich foam will be able to extinguish the flames before the liquid evaporates

 _ WIRED _ 12-17


S THE NUMBER AND SEVERITY OF
fires has changed, so has the type
of training and equipment provided
to firefighters. When Foster-Todd
started firefighting in 1978, he
was given rudimentary kit to wear:
plastic leggings; no gloves; a normal
fire helmet; and, crucially, no flash
hood – the fire-retardant balaclava
that covers the upper shoulders,
neck and head from flames.
“Things have advanced and so have
equipment and tactics,” he says.
At lunch, tutor Andy Bennett, 49,
passes around his iPhone to show a
photo of a new fire engine the IFTC
has tested: the Rosenbauer Panther.
A hulking machine, its innovative
feature is an armour-piercing lance
that can puncture a fuselage and
pump in water and foam. It’s the talk
of the room, including contractors
who have travelled from the
Midlands to service the ground’s
fuel-pipe system. “It’s impressive,”
says Bennett, a former RAF
firefighter, “but you wouldn’t want
to be sitting on the other side of
the fuselage when that goes in.”
Even the best technology can’t
fight fires autonomously. Cool heads
and quick reactions are needed.
“Aircraft are made of plastic, they’ve
got electronics, they’re metal,”
explains tutor Neil Crosby, 54. “In
90 seconds, it’ll melt. A building will
burn all day. This won’t. You’ll turn up
to a pool of metal, which is why you’ve
got to be there in three minutes.”
Legislation and the certification
rules that govern aircraft manufac-
turers say that, in the event of a
crash, firefighters have to be battling
the blaze within three minutes. “You
have to be there, from your station
drinking coffee and talking about
Coronation Street, to chucking the
hose out and throwing water in 180
seconds. It’s all you’ve got. By law.”
Speed is of the essence because
of fire physics. “The hotter it is, the
less impact water or foam will have.
It’s going to evaporate and work less
well,” says Benson. “A hotter fire is
also more capable of spreading.”
There often isn’t time to think, which
is why firefighters are trained to the
point of exhaustion, so reactions
become instinctive. There are many
training grounds like this around the
world, though few are as good as the
IFTC because of the experience of
their instructors and the highly-
specialised training they offer.
In Oldbury, in the West Midlands, a
specially-built six-storey tower block
fabricated from 18 steel shipping
containers lets firefighters train
for high-rise blazes. One of the
instructors behind the training rig,
David Payton, 49, at West Midlands
Fire Service, says that “the current
training for firefighters on high-rises
is poor”, and that high-rise fires pose
a particular problem because the
incident commanders attempting
to assess the emergency are doing
so from several floors below the fire.
(Unsurprisingly, post-Grenfell, the
high-rise facility at Oldbury has seen
an increase in fire services enquiring
about training there.)
Firefighters flock to Teesside
because of the high standards, and
because the IFTC is one of the only
places where kerosene jet fuel rather
than liquefied petroleum gas can be
burned in training circumstances
and put out with protein-based
firefighting foam, rather than water.
“We normally do training with gas
fires and water,” says Lieutenant
Colonel Hans Schmid, 57, the head
of crash and fire rescue in the Swiss
Armed Forces. He’s leaning against
a low bar near the small Portakabin
city that has become their working
quarters while training. Around him,
the ten other men who have made
the trip sit in plastic garden chairs,
regaining their breath and strength
after tackling the first fire of the day.
“Being here makes it feel more
realistic,” Schmid continues. All
the Swiss at the IFTC today are
commanders for stations, gathered
from seven separate air bases,
testing techniques that they will
use in the event of a catastrophe.
It’s the differences in the materials
used to tackle the blazes that truly
make the IFTC unique. “We don’t
make it realistic,” says Foster-Todd.
“For firefighters, this is realistic.”
 haphazard in the way they tackled the blaze;
several times Bennett and Goupillot had to step
in and physically manhandle the firefighters
into better positions as they wielded the hose.
“If we can’t find something wrong, we’re
not doing our job,” explains Foster-Todd
as Bennett talks through the scenario that
the Swiss faced, his words being translated
sentence by sentence into French and German
by Schmid. Bennett picks up the firefighters
for focusing on one larger fire and ignoring a
smaller but potentially more dangerous one.
“This is a natural experience to feel,”
he shouts, speaking a split-second slower
than he ordinarily would – partly to allow the
Swiss time to comprehend what he’s saying,
partly for effect. “We get that tunnel vision.”
There’s a long pause as he leaves the
thought hanging in the air. “I see that orange
flame and I’m not looking at everything else.”
Firefighting is a skill that can be taught
in classrooms but only up to a point.
“There are certain events that happen, like
Grenfell, where you think, ‘This is really
bending the rules now,’” says Crosby. It’s a
career built on lived experience, on shared
knowledge and on learning from history.
HERE ARE A HANDFUL OF FIRES In August, the government launched
– fires as large in scale as Grenfell an inquiry into the blaze at Grenfell Tower,
Tower, that recalibrate the rules of examining the design of the structure, the
firefighting – that are so significant actions of the local council, central government
as to become lessons. They are the and the London Fire Brigade (which has five
times when fire response was found training centres, all around the capital). The
to be outmoded, seminal moments inquiry is expected to take months, if not years.
that permanently changed the When it’s over, what happened at
approach for emergency services. Grenfell will become one of those educa-
One of those moments is the 1985
Manchester Airport fire, where 55
people died after a fire broke out
onboard a Boeing 737 during takeoff.
‘A I R C R A F T A R E M A D E It’s an incident that occurred before
Bennett joined the RAF and before
OF PL ASTIC, THEY’VE he became a firefighter. But he’s
still able to race through the fine
GOT ELECTRONICS, details of the incident: how, in the
zone-two combustion area, the
THEY’RE METAL. IN No.9 combustor can fractured and
failed. How it torpedoed straight
9 0 S E C O N D S , I T ’ L L M E LT, through the engine, then through
the wing. How, within 21 seconds
WHICH IS WHY YOU’VE of that first fracture, people inside
the aircraft were already feeling
GOT TO BE THERE the effects of the flames. “We learn
case studies and have discussions
IN THREE MINUTES’ about it,” he says. “We look at what
they did on that day and the differ-
ences in how we would approach
exactly the same situation today.”
Bennett is leading a debrief for
the Swiss firefighters who battled
the crashed aircraft blaze – one of
multiple incidents the group will
train for during their five days at the
IFTC. It’s a chance to take stock of
what they did well and what they did
badly. The Swiss struggled to keep
Above: Iain Foster-Todd, a tutor at the IFTC for 17 years the flames at bay; they were relatively

tional moments, where reeling off
the minutiae becomes second
nature to firefighters and those
who train them. But what’s most
worrying is the men’s reaction to
the scale of events like Grenfell. “If
you have a Grenfell-style disaster
at an airport, they’re not going to
be able to deal with it,” Bennett
says. “You’ll have to rely on the
blue-light service off-airfield to
come on airfield to support.”
That knowledge helps you get
over the finish line, but Bennett
guarantees that the commanders
at Grenfell would have turned up
to the incident and thought to
themselves: “Shit, I have no idea
where to start.” He’s so sure of this
because he – a 30-year veteran
who has served in some of the most
inhospitable places on Earth, and
has seen the devastating effect of
intense fire on machines and people
– would have thought the same.
T H O U G H T R A I N I N G I S I M P O R TA N T ,
it’s impossible to fully prepare for
something the magnitude of a
massive plane crash or a high-rise
building fire. “You can train for a
high-rise, but only up to a certain
height,” explains Crosby in the
IFTC’s virtual-reality workspace.
Nearby, an incident commander
stands in front of a large screen
playing a computer simulation of
a plane crash, barking out orders
to rank-and-file firefighters who sit
at separate computers directing
their forces to tackling the fire.
The VR workspace allows
groups to test out communica-
tions protocols. Though it’s a shiny
piece of kit, with whirring gaming
PCs running training software that
can customise everything from
the movement of passengers to
Below: At IFTC, there are more than
25 simulators including fixed-wing
aircraft, helicopters and military jets
the type of weather, all the tutors
agree there’s nothing better than
practical training at IFTC. “Let’s pick
The Shard. How do you fight a fire in
a building that high?” asks Crosby.
The problem is exacerbated by
the changing face of aviation and
architecture. The number and size
of vertiginous buildings is increasing
as space runs out on the ground.
Last year, construction began on
48 skyscrapers in London. Another
407 are planned. Of the 455 towers,
420 will be residential. Planes, too,
are bulking up. The Airbus A380 can
carry 853 passengers, dwarfing the
Boeing 747, which previously held the
passenger record. The first 747-100s
to run off Boeing’s Everett production
line in the late 60s and early 70s
could carry 440 passengers.
“The 747 was a lovely looking
aircraft,” says Crosby. “Then they
sent it to McDonald’s.” Commercial
pressures determined the need to
squeeze more passengers in. The
747 became longer. Designers added
further upper-deck space to house
more travellers. “What are they
going to do with the A380?” Crosby
questions. “It’s not going to stay
the same size – it’s going to get
bigger, become colossal, and maybe
one day there will be an accident.”
Firefighters live with that fear
– of the big fire, the sheer inevi-
tability of the blaze they won’t be
able to tackle. It follows them into
work in the morning and is carried
home with them at night. When it
comes, the men and women who
have trained at firegrounds like this
one will rely on their training and
rush towards the flames.
At the end of two days following
the training on various rigs, playing
out unthinkably macabre scenarios –
crashed airliners, light-aircraft colli-
sions, helicopter fires, refuelling
tanker explosions – great swathes
of the airport are smothered in foam.
Smoke, dissipating as the flames are
quelled, drifts towards the horizon.
The engine bay of a burnt-out light
aircraft still smoulders, radiating heat
from a fire long since extinguished.
Chris Stokel-Walker is a freelance
writer for The Guardian,
The Economist and other titles
12-17 _ WIRED _ 
Some animals were saved in
the making of this stor y
Romain Pizzi has operated on thousands of wild animals, in the wildest conditions.
What he’s learned has lessons for innovation – and the planet

B y Ol i ver F r a n k l i n -Wa l l i s . P h o t o g r aphy : T i m F l a c h


I bears die from infection and open
n 2012, the conservation charity Free
The Bears approached Romain Pizzi
with an unusual patient. One of the
most innovative wildlife surgeons in
Europe and perhaps the world, Pizzi
is short, with a goatee, dark receding
hair and muscular forearms which,
when held out ready for surgery, give
him the look of an otter on hind legs.
A specialist in laparoscopic, or
keyhole, surgery – commonplace
in humans, but until recently rare
in veterinary medicine – he has
operated on giraffes and tarantulas,
p e n gu i n s a n d b a b o o n s, g i a n t
tortoises and at least one shark, and
maintains a reputation for taking
on cases others won’t. If you’re in
possession of a tiger with gallstones,
or a suspiciously sickly beaver, you
call Pizzi. As Matt Hunt, CEO of Free
The Bears, told me recently, “We
have other vets who are incredibly
talented. But Romain is one of a kind.”
The patient in question was a three-
year-old Asiatic black bear called
Champa. Known as moon bears for
the white, crescent-shaped markings
on their chests, Asiatic black bears
are threatened across Asia, where
Previous page:
“Chimpanzees
will open any
wounds. That’s
why keyhole
surgery is vital for
them,” explains
Pizzi (opposite)
Right: Pizzi
operating on
an adult tiger in
Edinburgh Zoo,
September 2011
their bile, paws and bones are used as
ingredients in traditional medicine.
Bears in bile farms are crammed
into tiny cages with catheters
surgically inserted into their gall
bladders to drain the fluid. Countless
wounds. As a result, moon bears
are classified as vulnerable by the
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species,
indicating a population decline of 30
per cent or more in the last ten years.
Free The Bears, established in 1993,
runs sanctuaries for rescued bile bears
– moon bears and also sun and sloth
bears, which are similarly at risk – in
Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. In 2010,
the charity had gifted two rescued
sun bears to Edinburgh Zoo, where
Pizzi works part-time as a veterinary
surgeon. In return, the charity received
financial support – and Pizzi. He
travelled to Vietnam, working to
train local vets, and performed the
world’s first laparoscopic gall-bladder
removals on rescued bears.
Champa was not your average
bear. Rescued as a cub and brought
to Free The Bears’ sanctuary in Laos,
the bear had a deformed, domed
skull and impaired vision. While
other bears would socialise, Champa
would mope around her enclosure,
head down, seemingly in agony. Pizzi
suspected she had hydrocephalus,
a rare condition in which excess
cerebrospinal fluid builds up in the
skull, causing brain damage.
“Anywhere else in the world, the
recommendation would have been to
euthanise her,” says Hunt. But Laos,
which has a Buddhist tradition and
strict conservation laws shaped in
part as a response to the bear bile
trade, forbids euthanasia even in
cases when it might reduce suffering.
So Hunt asked Pizzi for a solution.
Veterinary surgeons operate
under unique constraints. There’s
scale: it’s hard to fit an elephant in an
MRI machine. There’s temperament:
you don’t want a tiger to wake
up on the operating table. And of
course there are financial pressures.
A cutting-edge surgery on a domestic
cat or dog, such as those practiced by
Noel Fitzpatrick of TV’s The Supervet,
can cost the owner tens of thousands of
pounds. By contrast, wildlife charities
– even ones working with endangered
species – can have annual budgets less
than that. What’s more, surgeries
are often performed in the field, at
sanctuaries and wildlife reserves with
few of your average zoo luxuries like
sterile theatres and reliable electricity.
“There’s no money in Laos,”
Pizzi told me recently. “There’s no
MRI scanner in the whole country.
They don’t even do the operation
on humans; if they can find the money,
they’ll take them to Thailand.” No
vet had ever attempted to perform
brain surgery on a bear before. In
Champa’s case, even confirming the
diagnosis proved impossible. The
nearest human hospital refused to
admit a bear for an X-ray.
“We started talking with Romain
about the possibility of surgery,”
Hunt says. “Then we barely heard
from him for six months.”
Undeterred, Pizzi contacted the
National Museum Of Scotland,
which keeps an archive of mammal
skeletons for scientific study, and
borrowed the skull of a young female
moon bear. He X-rayed the skull,
then used photogrammetry, in which
photographs are stitched together
over a 3D model, to create a digital
replica. Next, he poured a layer of latex
into the brain cavity. When it set, he
removed it, and filled that with Plaster
of Paris, creating a mould of the space
where the bear’s brain would be. “Then
I just took photogrammetry again,
used some modelling software and put
one inside the other. And then I have a
model,” Pizzi said, as if it was obvious.
SURGERY PHOTOGRAPHY: SHARON HATTON
He showed me the digital model: “You
can see where you’d normally do the
surgery for the human is here, but with
a bear there’s this big gap because
they’ve got a hollow olfactory sinus
in the front of their head. This means
we have to go in the back way.”
Without an MRI, visualising
Champa’s brain in advance was

impossible. So Pizzi worked out a
way to use an ultrasound probe of
the kind used to check unborn babies.
“When we drill the little hole for the
surgery, you can put the ultrasound
gel on the scanner, and you can get
that little window,” he says. “Which
is not what humans would bother to
do, because you’ve got access to an
MRI scanner. So you find a different
way.” To practise, Pizzi sourced the
brains of a hydrocephalous red fox
and a European otter, suspended in
‘We have other
vets who are
incredibly
talented. But
Romain’s
one of a kind’
formalin, and he consulted with other
human neurosurgeons.
Pizzi turned to Jonathan Cracknell,
a veterinary anaesthetist and regular
collaborator – “I’m his gas man,”
Cracknell says – to assist. Pizzi
and Donna Brown, head veterinary
nurse at Edinburgh Zoo, set about
sourcing supplies for the six-hour
operation. Then, in February 2013,
having prepared as much as possible,
they packed up their equipment and
boarded a plane to Laos.
Romain Pizzi always had an
affinity for small and fragile things.
Growing up in Port Elizabeth,
South Africa, he wanted to be a
paediatrician. (“I think that’s a pretty
meaningful job,” he says.) Then,
when he was a teenage student at
Pretoria Boys High School – alumni
include Elon Musk – he came across
a dove that had fallen from its nest.
“I nursed it back to health and then
released it,” he says. “It would come
back to the garden and visit me for
weeks afterwards.”
He enrolled in the University of
Pretoria Veterinary College, and
after graduating came to the UK
to undertake a Masters at London
Zoo. He was stunned how far
veterinary-surgery techniques
were behind human medicine. He
quickly developed an interest in
laparoscopy, in which surgical tools
are passed into the body through
a small tube; the surgeon operates
with the use of a camera and light
source. “I think there were two of us
who started doing it in the UK around
the same time,” says Pizzi. Today,
he lectures veterinary students on
the technique. “He has an incredible
thirst for knowledge and an eye for
detail, and is always looking to apply
or pioneer new techniques in our
field,” says Nic Masters, head of
veterinary services at London Zoo.
“The challenges of my patients
are that with less money, the results
have to be – I wouldn’t say better
than human surgery, but they have
to be really robust,” he says. A smart
animal such as a bear will pull out its
stitches if it can reach them. Set an
ape’s broken arm and it’ll hang from
it immediately. Each species presents
its own set of unique challenges.
“You wouldn’t think about going
swimming for weeks if you’d had
surgery,” he says. “If we do surgery
on beavers, they go back in the water
the same or the next day.”
12-17 _ WIRED _ 1 3 1
“Ring-tailed lemurs such as these may look cute and friendly, but they are actually quite aggressive animals,” Pizzi tells WIRED.
“They’re really difficult because they’re always fighting with each other and getting wounds that we then have to repair.”
Pizzi explains how surgeons in China operated on a giant panda with a sore abdomen. “They took the gall bladder out – but it died three days
later. For humans, an acute sore abdomen is going to be the gall bladder. But pandas get intestinal problems, not gall bladder problems.”

T It saddens him that the
he National Wildlife Rescue Centre
in Fishcross is about an hour’s drive
north of Edinburgh. In June 2017,
I visited Pizzi at work in the facility,
which is run by the Scottish Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals (SSPCA). Pizzi splits his
time between running the veterinary
service here, working at Edinburgh
Zoo and travelling for surgeries.
Since he joined in 2010, the centre has
grown into one of the largest wildlife
rehabilitation hubs in the UK.
Every day, members of the public
call the SSPCA to report injured
wildlife, caused by accident, by each
other, but mostly by us. Drivers are
dispatched to collect them, and late in
the afternoon, the vans roll up to the
centre and unload their casualties.
Domestic vets might see hundreds
of cats and dogs, but little in the way
of diversity. Zoo vets get species
variety, but little turnover; not
counting invertebrates, the Royal
Zoological Society Of Scotland counts
around 730 animals on its books. The
Rescue Centre treated 9,300 animals
in 2016. This year, Pizzi expects that
number to surpass 10,000.
A series of low brick buildings and
enclosures, the Centre is divided into
four sections: Small Mammals; Large
Mammals; Seals and Waterfowl;
and Birds. The corridors are thick
with rasping shrieks and caws. The
odour is sharp, acrid, like something
you might produce by emptying a
pet shop on to a compost heap.
Whiteboards in each section list
the species currently being held
and which need Pizzi’s attention.
Today, Birds alone lists woodpeckers;
crossbills; jackdaw; crows; robin;
thrush; blue tits and great tits;
goldfinch; chaffinch; bullfinch; osprey;
lapwings; oystercatchers; kestrel; a
pheasant; and several varieties of owl.
That caseload has helped Pizzi
develop new approaches. When
he started working at the Centre
and his wife Yolanda – a veterinary
1 3 4 _ WIRED _ 12-17
cardiologist at Edinburgh University
– was away, Pizzi would stay late
at night, practising on cadavers,
familiarising himself with anatomies,
developing new techniques.
“His case load is unusual,” says
Claudia Hartley, a veterinary
ophthalmologist at the University
of Bristol Veterinary School. “Before
you take a case, you see who else has
done this, on any species, anywhere
in the world. Often the literature isn’t
massive for an individual species –
for endangered species, especially. ”
In Small Mammals, Pizzi diagnoses
a hedgehog the way you might check
He shows off
his endoscopy rig
that he has
pieced together.
‘I get a lot on
eBay,’ he says
a ripe avocado: deliberately, with his
fingertips. He cups it in two hands,
an old towel draped over its spines,
feeling the animal’s abdomen,
searching for tenderness. “You can
feel the thickness of their intestine,”
he says. “If the tissue is swollen, you
can feel it. If it’s not just a bit of poo –
it doesn’t compress – it’s a section of
the intestine that is swollen.”
He can do this, he explains,
“Because I’ve felt maybe 10,000
hedgehogs.” He’s seen every affliction:
bacteria, broken bones; even a rare
case of balloon syndrome, in which a
damaged glottis caused a hedgehog
to inflate to the size of a beach ball.
His South African lilt is soft, but
around patients gets even softer.
Wild animals are stressed by human
presence, so over time, he has
developed ways to reduce this stress.
He moves gracefully, telegraphing
intent like a dancer leading their
partner. He neither hesitates nor
hurries. He never holds an animal for
longer than necessary. (“To them,
being held is like being in the jaws of
a predator,” he says.)
endangered species, the Planet
Earth species – lions, rhino, bears
– get all the attention, when there
are those threatened here in the
UK. “I never want to just be doing
these big [operations] the media
likes,” he says. “I probably make
more of a difference here.”
The hedgehog has an infection,
so Pizzi prescribes Betamox, an
antibiotic, and an anti-fungal for
ringworm, which will be administered
by veterinary nurses. There’s plenty
more to do: a rabbit with a suspected
spinal fracture which needs an X-ray,
and an exploratory laparoscopy on
a beaver called Justin. (“It took me
a week to figure out why,” he says.
“Justin. Justin Beaver.”)
The SPCC’s budgets don’t stretch
very far. But over time, Pizzi has
accumulated the equipment he needs.
He shows off his endoscopy rig that
he has pieced together and topped
with a Samsung TV screen and an
Archos MP4 player, which serves to
record operations or act as a backup
display. “I get a lot on eBay,” he smiles
proudly. When American hospitals
are privatised or have their assets
sold, veterinary surgeons are one of
the few beneficiaries.
His desk is littered with GoPro
cameras – used for teaching – and
a Philips electric razor, to remove
fur. There’s a portable X-ray and an
ultrasound. “There are very cheap
veterinary ones now,” Pizzi says –
an unlikely side effect of China’s
one-child policy. “People used to
tell [the government] they were for
veterinary use – for cattle – but used
them for selective-sex abortion, so
that really drove the market.”
A l o n g o n e w a l l a re s h e l v e s
containing sutures, scrubs,
gauze, what Pizzi calls “hospital
skip-diving”. “All of this is expired
NHS stuff – they have expiry dates
for humans, but they’re still sterile
and usable for animals,” he explains.
“Not only that, but the NHS would
have to pay to have it incinerated.”
Instead, he talks to the hospitals and
the materials end up here.
He demonstrates his favourite toy:
a FreeHand surgical robot for holding
additional implements, which Pizzi
can control using a head-mounted
sensor. “When I’m travelling I may be
working with people whose English is
quite poor, so this works quite well.”
His collection, he says, is the
result of “being frustrated at not
being able to do things well”. But
it’s also reflective of the wider
field: there is little in the way of a
veterinary surgical market, instead
surgeons adapt and repurpose tools
from human medicine (paediatric
implements suit smaller mammals
and birds, which require particularly
delicate work). Pizzi holds four
patents – one is a surgical implement
of his own design – and he sits on
the advisory board of one device
manufacturer, which benefits from
his unique perspective.
Elephants are so mammoth that
performing an autopsy on one
can take 30 people a full day. “An
Below: Rockhopper penguins kept in captivity are fond of eating anything visitors might choose to drop into their enclosures. The array of items
Pizzi has had to surgically remove from their stomachs in the past have included socks, coins, a broken broom handle and a pair of batteries
elephant in captivity can’t walk
enough, so they sometimes develop
arthritis,” says Pizzi. Their legs
contain numerous bones which
can overlap in an X-ray. Pizzi came
across a technique for making simple
3D images that you can view using
cinema-type glasses. “We would
take an X-ray of an elephant’s leg,
move the plate slightly, and take a
second.” He can stitch the images
together using free software – voilà
– 3D X-rays. He tested the technique
with veterinary students and found it
improved the accuracy of diagnosis;
the findings will be presented at an
academic conference later this year.
“I like ideas,” he says. “There’s
always got to be an easier, simpler,
better way to do things. And instead
of sometimes going to such a massive
expense, sometimes a cheaper way.”
For example, before endoscopic
surgery the implements must be
warmed to body temperature, to
avoid the glass components misting
up inside the patient. “If you’re the
NHS you buy a machine for several
thousand pounds to do that for you.
Which I found quite ludicrous.” Pizzi’s
solution: hand warmers.
No sterilisation equipment?
Paraformaldehyde tablets inside
a hardware-shop rubble bag work
just as well. Photogrammetry can
also be done relatively cheaply with
a smartphone and laptop software,
and the 3D file embedded in a PDF to
send overseas for second opinions.
“People think you’re a kook,” he
says. “There’s that saying: All progress
relies on the unreasonable man.”

C Pizzi has operated on the Socorro
hampa’s surgery started poorly.
Keyhole surgery requires the use
of an insufflator, which uses carbon
dioxide to inflate the body cavity
enough for the surgical implements
to move and see. The problem: when
Pizzi and Cracknell arrived in the
rescue centre in Laos, they couldn’t
find a carbon dioxide cylinder
compatible with the machine.
The centre itself lies in a forested
national park about 32 kilometres
south of the city of Luang Prabang,
with few amenities. The answer
finally came from an unlikely source.
“There was one bar that does draft
beer. Once a week they had a keg
come up from Luang Prapang,” he
says. “They said, OK, we’ll have no
draft beer for the next five days.”
They donated their CO2, which Pizzi
managed to connect with some gas
piping and hose clamps.
Anaesthesia proved tricky. “She
went down on the sedative and
stopped breathing,” says Hunt. (“I
missed on the first try,” says Cracknell;
it was quickly readministered.) The
room was cramped and humid, and
made hotter by the presence of a BBC
documentary unit, which had come
to film the procedure. Sweat dripped
on to the floor tiles. As Pizzi prepared
to drill into the skull – using a Dremel
woodworking tool – the entire
room held their breath.
It was indeed hydrocephalus. The
3D model and ultrasound worked;
Pizzi was able to fit a ventricul-
operitoneal shunt, a tube which sits
in the brain cavity and funnels excess
fluid down into the abdomen, where
it is absorbed by the body.
However, when Pizzi started to
fit the tube, a minor disaster struck:
the sanctuary’s electricity supply –
already stretched by the film crew’s
studio lights – blew. “The electrics
arced and fused,” says Cracknell.
The insufflator was fried.
But Pizzi prepares for these kinds
of scenarios. “There’s so many things
 _ WIRED _ 12-17
that can go wrong or break, I try to
build in a redundancy for all the main
equipment,” he says. He produced his
favourite piece of frugal innovation:
an inflatable mattress pump. “You run
that into the abdomen in short bursts,
and it will puff up with air,” says Pizzi.
“It’s not filtered, so it’s not ideal, but
it’s OK. And if you suddenly have a
big bleed, then you run the pump in
reverse with a cola bottle for a water
trap and use it as suction.”
“He comes up with these amazing
things,” says Cracknell. “There are
some surgeries where, halfway
through, you might think, ‘I’ve
‘When people
visit the zoo,
they’re not saving
the orang-utans.
They just want
a good day out’
bitten off more than I can chew.’ With
Romain, I’ve never had one go wrong.”
The surgery took six hours. The
next morning, he and Hunt went to
Champa’s den, where she was starting
to rouse. “For many years she’d been
in pain, she’d been blind, she never
looked up,” says Hunt. “And we called
her, and she looked up and fixed us
with her eyes. It was quite amazing.”
Not every animal can be saved.
If it can’t be treated, Pizzi will wrap
it in a towel – it’s darker in there,
calmer – and inject the animal
with an overdose of the sedative
pentobarbital. “It goes to sleep
without being stressed by us being
around,” he says, administering a
dose to an injured gull. “Seagulls
are amazing birds; they can sleep in
the air and stay aloft for days. If they
were endangered, people would be
fascinated.” He places the corpse in a
cardboard box, which will be taken to
an animal crematorium for disposal.
When he does treat endangered
species, there’s always a greater
awareness of what its death means.
dove, a beautiful brown bird native
to the Revillagigedo Islands off the
west coast of Mexico, now extinct in
the wild. And he keeps a photograph
of himself with the last known
Partula Faba, or Captain Cook’s
bean snail, named because it was
first discovered on Cook’s expedition
in 1791. It died at Edinburgh Zoo in
2016, and its species with it.
When there’s an unusual case, Pizzi
will perform the autopsy himself, to
try and learn from it. As evening
approaches, I watch him cut open
Grey Worm, a harbour seal. (This
month, seals are Game of Thrones
characters.) “She’s been in six
months, never been well. We almost
put her down twice,” he says. Pizzi had
previously operated to remove plastic
from her stomach; a common and
growing complaint with sea life. Her
body is brown, wrinkled and skinny.
Autopsies are teachable procedures,
so the veterinary nurses at the centre
have gathered around to watch.
“She doesn’t have very big lymph
nodes, which she might if there
was an infection,” he says. There’s a
sawing sound and a crack as he opens
the sternum. “There’s the heart, the
lungs, the diaphragm.”
When Pizzi opens Grey Worm’s
stomach, there’s an audible intake of
breath. One of the nurses says, “Oh my
god.” The seal’s stomach is full, nearly
bursting, with bright green plastic.
“ B u gge r,” h e s i g h s, v i s i b l y
saddened. “This is why.” The plastic
is from the non-slip mats that line the
seals’ enclosures. With a stomach full
of this, Grey Worm had starved.
“Bugger,” Pizzi says again. “It’s my
fault.” He should have spotted that
the plastic was from the centre during
the first operation. But it has treated
hundreds of seals, and never had a case
like this. (The National Wildlife Centre
has since removed the plastic mats.)
For the rest of the day, Pizzi is
distant. “He’s very self-critical,”
says Colin Seddon, manager of the
National Wildlife Rescue Centre. “He
always wants to do better.”
“It’s my failures I remember the
most,” says Pizzi. “If it doesn’t hurt
when things don’t work – things
that you could have fixed – and
animals die,” he continues, “then you
shouldn’t be doing this.”
Pizzi uses hand warmers to heat up a surgical
telescope so it doesn’t fog up inside an animal.
A similar machine would cost the NHS thousands
L not taking them from the wild. I don’t
ater this year, Pizzi will fly back
to Laos to operate on Champa again.
It’s been four years, but recently her
health has started to deteriorate.
Shunts can become blocked, and the
pressure in the brain builds up. He’ll
operate, check, and replace if needed.
But maybe that’s not the answer.
Maybe it would be better if Champa
died. She has improved of late, but
remains brain damaged. Released to
the wild, she would die. “Things are
developing in Laos,” he says. “So we’re
not far off being able to put her down
if she does deteriorate.”
That’s the question veterinarians
have to deal with. How much suffering
is enough? If an animal is being kept
alive even when they’re suffering, who
are we keeping it alive for?
Then again, aren’t all animals we
keep alive for our benefit, rather
than theirs? If we wanted to save the
planet’s wildlife we’d be preserving
their habitats, not burning down
t h e i r f o re s ts, p o l l u t i n g t h e i r
environments and hunting them
These keyhole implements, repurposed from
paediatric surgery, are 3mm in diameter and used
to operate on animals up to the size of a tiger
into extinction. “Conservation –
it’s such a meaningless word,” Pizzi
says later over dinner in Edinburgh.
“Keeping animals and breeding them
in captivity, in some people’s minds
that’s conservation, because you’re
think that’s genuine. When people
come in [to the zoo], they’re not going
to save the orang-utans. They just
want a good day out.”
As more wildlife is driven to
extinction, the pressure on veterinary
surgeons to intervene will only grow.
“We’re in for a couple of decades where
we watch the loss of biodiversity on
a massive scale,” says Hunt. “There
almost isn’t a wild out there any more.”
When it’s the last rhino or tiger, no
expense will be spared. There will be
campaigns, documentaries, T-shirts.
But by then it’ll be too late.
Simon Girling, head of veterinary
services at the Royal Zoological
Society of Scotland, which runs
Edinburgh Zoo, disagrees. “I don’t
feel that because an animal was
endangered we would act any
differently,” he says. Still, several
vets I spoke to agreed that the
pressure to intervene was greater
with endangered species and those
that attract visitors.
“In the most threatened species
it can be the case where every
individual is vitally important to that
species’ survival. This is when people
may push the boundaries of welfare.”
says Martin Whiting, a lecturer in
With a paucity of equipment at hand, Pizzi has to
be inventive – here a mattress pump and soda
bottle doubles as an insufflator or suction pump
veterinary ethics and law at the Royal
Veterinary College, London.
“In veterinary medicine people say,
‘unnecessary suffering’,” says Pizzi.
“Which means that there is some
suffering we’re OK with.” We hate
to see zoo animals suffer, but care
little about the cattle slaughtered for
agriculture. (Pizzi is a vegetarian.) We
fret about mass extinction, but not
enough to change our habits.
Therein lies the tragedy at Pizzi’s
work: he can develop new ways to
save the wildlife, but even if he saves
10,000 animals this year, it’s just a
drop in the rapidly acidifying ocean.
How much suffering is enough?
He thinks about that a lot. But
then he also thinks about the case of
a white-tailed sea eagle he treated a
few years ago. It had a broken wing and
one leg. “It’s easier to kill the bird, and
maybe it’s the right thing,” Pizzi says.
The bone was protruding through the
skin. But the bird had spirit; even then,
it tried to fly. “Do I go in and chop a
bunch of the dead bone out? How
much is too much intervention?”
He ended up setting the bones and
released it after three months with
a tracking implant. Its flight always
looked a bit off; to this day he wonders
if he should have done more.
But the eagle lived, and it flew
– until it died, four years later, of
natural causes. 
Oliver Franklin-Wallis is WIRED’s
commissioning editor
Above: A head-and-torso simulator sits next to an Xbox One X prototype inside one of Microsoft’s anechoic chambers
 the former document archives of a Seattle- “Those three tones, between the second and third, we
based insurance firm lurks the quietest room shaved off about 25 milliseconds. You can ask: ‘What are
in the world. The human ear can hear down these guys doing?’ but 25 milliseconds is very significant
to zero decibels. Here, the sound of silence for the auditory system. You know something changes.
has been measured down to negative 20. You get the sense of, ‘Ah, it has speeded up’. It’s a teaser
“Welcome to the world of quiet,” whispers to say we have a faster, more powerful Xbox.”
_____________
Gopal Gopal, a diminutive, middle-aged
psychoacoustician working for Microsoft’s In February 2014, when Satya Nadella took over as CEO
Devices division. As he closes the door, Gopal’s of Microsoft, the Xbox was its only hardware success.
voice changes. I’m suddenly aware of the blood The Surface RT laptop-tablet hybrid had failed and
flow in my head. My ears ring and I swallow Microsoft’s disastrous $7 billion purchase of Nokia was
hard, as if rapidly descending from altitude. soon to be written off, resulting in more than 18,000 job
He’s standing beside me, but Gopal’s voice is losses. Microsoft promptly ditched its phone business
struggling to pass through the air. and refocused, putting industrial design at the centre of
To get this quiet, you’ve got to go to extreme a new strategy. The brief seemed deceptively simple: how
lengths. The entire room, which was designed by Gopal, is cut off from the could the company make its hardware unique? But in an
rest of Microsoft’s Building 87 and suspended on 63 giant springs. An air gap industry dominated by the sleek lines of Apple’s iPhone,
surrounds it and the walls are so thick that were a jumbo jet to take off outside iPad and MacBook, it was a tough task. In the intervening
the door, the sound inside the chamber would barely be louder than someone years, to the surprise of almost everyone, Microsoft has
speaking. “It’s a floating chamber,” Gopal says, bobbing on the spot and directing almost caught up. Its latest Surface laptop, released in
my gaze towards the floor. Beneath our feet is a see-through mesh of steel June 2017, is about as un-Microsoft as you can get. For the
cables, the same kind used to snare fighter jets landing on aircraft carriers. Xbox team, who had a tradition of producing unremarkable
I look down, peering at the cones of
sound-absorbing foam that continue
into the gloom. The lights and sprin-
klers are also designed to ensure as
little noise is reflected as possible. This
room alone – Microsoft’s Redmond
campus has more than 20 chambers
with varying degrees of quietness –
cost more than $1.5 million (£1.2m).
It’s here, in his temple of silence,
that Gopal measures the noise made by
computer fans. “There’s no such thing
as a fan sound. There are different
kinds of fan noises,” he says, smiling
and moving his hands through the
unpleasantly silent air for emphasis.
“Power supplies make humming
sounds. LEDs make humming sounds.
When you’re playing a game and the
fan heats up, it makes sounds. It is
when we get quieter that we begin to

Above: Prototypes for the Xbox One X. According
to head of Xbox Phil Spencer, the machine is
the smallest console the company has ever made
hear those things.” To measure sound, he continues, you need to take readings in
absolute silence. “A room like this offers an absolutely controlled environment.
Any time a sound is made, it’s reflected by the surfaces around you. This cuts
out the internal reflections, so our measurements are pure.” With an incredibly
accurate measurement, you can make incredibly small adjustments. “So, what
else do we do with this chamber? All kinds of measurements of sound – keyboard
sounds, power-on and -off sounds, audio quality, Skype quality,” Gopal explains.
In recent months, Gopal’s team has been tasked with obsessing over just
one noise: the sound of a games console switching on. “With the Xbox One,
we got good feedback that people liked the sound when you turned it on and
off.” He approaches Microsoft’s latest games console, the Xbox One X, which
is perched on a spindly table in the middle of the room. “I will turn it on and
tell you what we’ve done a bit differently,” he says, pressing the button and
rapping his knuckles in the air as the console lets out a rapid-fire beep...
beep-beep. “Do you get that?” he asks, excitedly. I stare back at him, bemused.
black boxes with hints of lurid green, the focus on indus-
trial design presented them with an exciting array of tools.
Fortuitously, the change of focus also came at a time when
the Xbox itself was undergoing a transformation.
A short walk through the labyrinthine corridors of
Building 87, perched atop a small hill on the outskirts of
Microsoft’s well-preened Redmond campus, is the Advanced
Prototyping Center. This is where Microsoft experiments
with new hardware designs. “My goal is to be able to do
everything,” says prototyping director Bill Maes, who
runs the facility. The 20,000-square-metre hall is packed
with laser cutters, water-jet machines, wire cutters and a
3D-printing lab that processes up to 300 jobs a day. Around
50 people work on the prototyping team, which moved
into its present location in 2014. Before then, it was hidden
away in a clutch of rooms next to a garage. “Everything
we do for industrial design gets painted and finished. It
has to look like the finished product,” Maes says. Here, an
idea can go from concept artwork to physical dummy in
45 minutes. On the table in front of us, a row of Xbox One
X prototypes shows the evolution of Microsoft’s latest console, each showing
a subtle refinement or compromise on the last. “We had this idea of a floating
monolith,” says senior industrial designer Bryan Sparks, who’s worked on the
Xbox team for five years. He was inspired by the monolith from 2001: A Space
Odyssey. But first, they looked to the Xbox One S, the console’s last iteration.
“We got a lot of great feedback on the One S about its minimalist design and
graphic details, so we wanted to keep that spirit. We knew we didn’t want a
large box. We had this vision.” That vision, for Sparks’ team, was all about the
small details: “No one takes apart their console, but we go into those internals
and clean them up. We add graphics,” he says, pointing at a glistening, disem-
bowelled console. “That’s something I take a lot of pride in.”
In another corner of Building 87, I’m in a room being blinded by a slim-built,
slightly stooped man called John Morris. “Environment is critical when
we’re making products,” says Morris, a senior human factors engineer, as
he squints through the glare. His lab is a cross between a biology classroom
and a photography studio, with models of skulls and skeletons flanked by an
object-mapping chamber and a DIY rig that captures scans of people holding
Xbox controllers. “We’re not making Gollum,” he says. “We’re capturing subtle
movements of hands and bodies when they’re interacting with products we’re
making.” Above us, the rig of LED lights continues to hum at a retina-aching
65,000 lux. Normal indoor conditions range from 400 to 1,000 lux. “These
are LEDs and you can feel the heat,” Morris says, seemingly impressed by the
unpleasantness of his creation. “This wouldn’t have been possible a few years
ago. It’s awesome in Seattle, we’ve got sunshine anytime we want.” After turning
down the lights, Morris points to a dim, white glow underneath a television.
“We put a lot of work into designing the nexus,” he says, referring to the soft
light on the front of the Xbox One X. “We don’t want it to be a blaring beacon
at night, but we want it to be bright enough to see in the daytime.”
In the game of one-upmanship with console rival Sony, Microsoft is betting
big on two things: small details and big numbers. First, the details: “People have
been punching holes in metal for more than 100 years,” says Xbox hardware
general manager Leo Del Castillo, running his finger along the intricate array
of venting holes on the side of the One X. “When we started, if you asked the
tooling engineer, ‘Can we punch these holes so close together that the webbing
between them is thinner than the thickness of the material?’ we were told it
couldn’t be done. When you get to that level of thinness, it’s going to start
bending. Our engineers took it as a challenge and decided to solve the problem.”
Then there are the numbers: the Xbox One X is powered by a custom eight-core
2.3GHz CPU, a six-teraflop graphics processor running at 1,172MHz, 12GB of
memory, and 326Gbps memory bandwidth. In short: it’s powerful. But so what?
For developers, the move to 4K is significant. “It allows us to use all the
animated pixels,” says Matthew Allen, director of technical art at Shadows of
War developer Monolith Productions. “The artwork is huge,
so you’re building massive textures and rendering them
out.” It’s a point I hear repeatedly: developers have been
designing characters and worlds with meticulous detail
for years, but until now individual nose hairs and tiny cuts
on skin and clothing could only be seen on the highest-end
PCs. Although 4K is adding the detail, high-dynamic range
(HDR) helps those details stand out. “I like the improve-
ments we have to foliage and trees,” says Mike Rayner,
technical director at Gears of War developer The Coalition
as he guides a glistening mechanoid along a hillside path,
casually demolishing buildings. “The metal, armour
and weapons… they really pop,” he says. “HDR is hard to
explain,” adds Frank O’Connor, franchise development
director for Halo. “It adds fidelity and detail, rather than
just contrast. It could be as meaningful to people as 4K.”
For Minecraft developer Mojang, the increase in
Below (clockwise from top left): Albert Penello, Chris
Tector, Kevin Gammill and Shannon Loftis
played a key role in the Xbox One X’s development
processing power was about making an already gigantic
world even more sprawling. “It allows us to do things you
couldn’t do if you were just chasing photorealism,” says
principal software engineer Cameron Egbert. “A lot of
games are fixed, but our world is dynamic. The extra power
allowed us to do all these fancy things without having to
worry,” adds art director Brad Shuber. Extras include anima-
tions on water and beautiful sunsets. “It lets our community
build stuff they couldn’t build before,” Egbert concludes.
To reap the benefits, loyal fans won’t just have to fork out
£429 on the One X, they will also need a 4K TV. “I’m guessing
that around half the people who buy a One X on day one
will already have a new TV,” says Albert Penello, senior
director of product management and planning at Microsoft.
That guess is based on Microsoft’s faith in a small, but
growing trend. In 2016, 50 per cent of new TVs sold in the US
supported 4K. That figure is predicted to rise to 60 per cent
in 2017 and 80 per cent in 2018. Unlike 3D TV, much-hyped
but a commercial failure, Microsoft is confident 4K is a
safe bet. But betting on a new technology that few can
afford carries inherent risks. That’s why Microsoft has the
Dream Killer. “It’s where we break designers’ hearts,” says
principal design manager John Snavely, one of the leads
on the redesign of the Xbox software interface. Hidden
away in a side room, the Dream Killer is a reminder to all
engineers and designers that many gamers don’t have the
latest technology, even if they’re happy to shell out on a
new console. “It’s a TV we should’ve thrown away a long
time ago. It’s awful. We put a lot of time into making sure
our content looks good on the Dream Killer,” Snavely says.
The launch of the Xbox One X on November 7 comes
after a difficult few years for the platform. When Microsoft
revealed the original Xbox One in May 2013, it was
positioned as an all-encompassing set-top box rather
than a games console. But Microsoft’s desire to own the
living room failed and it’s been playing catch-up ever since.
“I totally understand what you’re talking about in terms of
the launch of Xbox One and that TV stuff, and Kinect. It was
a vision that was different,” says Phil Spencer, who became
head of Xbox in March 2014. Normally erudite, Spencer
stops and starts before settling on a carefully worded
12-17 _ WIRED _ 1 4 1
 answer. “I understood the vision that the prior team had. Hopefully, our last
three years shows that a focus on the gaming customer is critically important
to us.” The One X – and its less powerful sibling the One S – are an attempt to
pick up where the Xbox 360 left off. Spencer attributes the change in attitude
to decisions made at the top of Microsoft: “It’s been nice to see what Satya
Nadella talks about now. The support we have for being in the games industry
and not being something else is incredibly high.” Not everything has gone to
plan, however. Launched in August 2016, the Xbox One S was overshadowed by
Sony’s more powerful PS4 Pro, the first home console to support 4K gaming.
The One X, which comfortably outperforms the PS4 Pro, brings closure to a
wearisome round of muscle flexing. Three major console launches in little
over four years will leave many unimpressed, but Penello makes no apologies
for it. “We wanted our fans to have the most powerful console,” he says. For
those not turned on by talk of transistors and teraflops, the 4K-gaming hype
will feel empty. But among developers, the significance of the One X is about
fundamentally changing the way games are created and played.
“The original Xbox was the DirectX Box,” Penello says, referring to the
DirectX software introduced with Windows 95. The idea behind DirectX was
to make PC gaming continuous: buy a game and, within reason, you should be
able to play it forever. Penello has worked at Microsoft for 17 years and in the
games industry for 23. A broad-shouldered man whose voice fills any space,
he is all firm handshakes and retro-gaming references. “I was Atari versus
Intellivision,” he jokes. Console gaming has always struggled with the burden of
its past. A vinyl record bought 30 years ago can be ripped to another format
and enjoyed today. On a PC, the copy of Worms 2 you bought in 1997 still
works on Windows 10 today. In console gaming? Not so much. “Consoles
were more bespoke than PCs,” Penello explains. “Why can’t I make Ms.
Pac-Man run on my Pac-Man arcade board? Well, they’re two different
boards. Atari was an arcade company. Nintendo was an arcade company.”
Caught between the technical difficulty of backwards compatibility and
financial necessity to launch new hardware every few years, console manufac-
turers have forced people to ditch old software in order to play the latest games.
“Console gaming is the only form of entertainment that doesn’t let you do that,”
says Kevin Gammill, group program manager at Xbox. Gammill, spiky haired
and wide eyed, often finishes Penello’s sentences, and vice versa. “Why can’t
you put your entire Atari 2600 catalogue into your ColecoVision?,” Gammill
asks. “The delivery mechanism has changed, people have moved to digital.
Knowing that digital thing you just purchased will carry forward with you
is important. That’s a new paradigm we didn’t have in 2001.”
Console gaming has been slow to learn from Netflix, Spotify and Steam. Freed
from the constraints of physical media, companies no longer have to hoover up
all their profits in alarmingly short launch windows. “Just like there are movies
1 4 2 _ WIRED _ 12-17
that don’t do well at the box office but then become cult hits,
the same thing happens with games,” says Shannon Loftis,
general manager of publishing at Xbox. The end result is
that developers can take more risks. “Before the current
console generation, it felt like everybody was hesitant to
try something different,” she says. “Suddenly you have
these small developers making games that are surprise
hits and that has revitalised the ecosystem.”
It’s a shot in the arm that’s long overdue for an industry
with a penchant for sequels and safe bets. “I’ve been in this
industry for a long time,” Loftis says. “I was the moderator
for the post-mortem of the original Age of Empires. The
overwhelming sentiment was that we had something
special, but we weren’t done with it yet. Of course, we
made a sequel, but sequels won’t necessarily be what
needs to happen with games like that from now on.” The
concept of patching and updating games and releasing
downloadable content is nothing new, but Loftis sees
something more significant on the horizon. “What would
you do with a platformer if you knew your platformer
was going to live forever?” she says. “We’re still in proto-
typing mode but it’s something that’s changing the way
developers and designers think.”
Most games have a short window
when people play them. What would
it mean for creative output if it wasn’t
all about short-term profits?
That way of thinking also works in
reverse. When Spencer Perreault’s
colleagues said that getting first-
generation Xbox games to work on the
latest consoles was impossible, the
software developer set out to prove
them wrong. “He said, ‘I’m going
to figure it out,’” says Bill Stillwell,
Xbox platform lead and head of the
backwards-compatibility project.
“Sure enough, he dragged me to his
office one day and fired up a game.”
Perreault’s breakthrough was
significant. Since the dawn of the
home-console era, hardware manufac-
turers have consigned games to
Above: Microsoft team members select buttons for
the Xbox One X controller. Opposite: An employee
inside the photographic object-mapping chamber
premature deaths. In gaming’s tussle to be taken seriously,
embracing heritage without ripping off fans is crucial.
For Phil Spencer, the focus on backwards compatibility
is also an opportunity to recognise gaming’s true potential.
“I see games as an art form. Console games can get lost
when hardware generations go away. It can become more
challenging to play the games of our past,” he says. Spencer
was hired as a Microsoft intern in 1988. He was soon leading
the Encarta team before moving to Microsoft’s gaming
business in 2007. “There’s something to be learned from
experiencing what I played as a kid. There’s good business
there for the content owners, but as players, it’s nice to
be able to understand how our artform has progressed.”
Microsoft has supported backwards compatibility since the
launch of the Xbox 360 in 2005. Around half of all original
Xbox games were compatible with the new system. More than 400 Xbox 360
games are playable on the three Xbox One console variants. A selection of original
Xbox games will soon be added to that list. The concept of general compati-
bility, where games can work forever, is a new one for the console industry.
Having the One, One S and One X on sale at the same time might seem contrary,
but for Microsoft, it’s the latest twist in the DirectX Box road it started in 2001.
The aim now is the same as it was then: to make console-game development
more like PC development. The Xbox One, then, is the entry-level model; the One
S is mid-range; and the One X lets developers turn everything up to 11. Crucially,
any titles released for the One X must also work on the far less powerful Xbox
One. For developers, it allows them to keep working with familiar software
tools. “New hardware doesn’t have to invalidate the software work we’ve done,”
Spencer says. “In past console generations, there’s been manipulation to stop
compatibility so that everybody has to buy things new, sometimes even the same
versions of things they already own. Content should be the thing that drives
our industry. I want that content to be front and centre for as long as possible.”
The console industry has been slow to get the message into its corporate
skull. “I don’t think it’s taken so long because nobody wanted it,” says Chris
Tector, studio software architect at Forza developer Turn 10 Studios. Forza
Motorsport 7 is the fifth title Tector’s team has built on the Xbox One archi-
tecture. “It’s something developers were able to cultivate and grow.” So it’s a
maturity thing, I ask. “That’s what I’m getting at, yeah.”
Turn 10, along with other first-party Microsoft developers, is based in
Redmond Town Center, an eerily well-ordered, privately owned development.
When I arrive at noon, the streets are lifeless. The main boulevard’s cookie-
cutter shops are all open for business and all empty. Microsoft fills three sizeable
but squat office buildings on the east side, with Mojang buddied-up with 343
Industries, the studio working on the Halo franchise. Turn 10 has just moved in
across the road. For Tector’s team, the extra oomph of the One X has let them
have some fun. Each grain on the Tarmac has been recreated in perfect detail;
the visors worn by drivers have fingerprints on them. “We used to get irate
because you’d discover a dandelion, this was way back on Forza 2, and you’d
ask, ‘What are you doing putting that much detail on a flower on the side of
the track?’ Now we’re marvelling at how much we can get in.” Tector explains.
An ebullient man with caterpillar eyebrows, Tector is adamant that gaming’s
move into 4K and HDR is significant – both technically and artistically. “The
way we choose to balance a scene is the same as the art you find in any linear
media,” he says. “When people hear about power, they think that you’re going
to ram it down their throats and it’s going to be lots of pixels. I believe that
games haven’t got to the point where we are with movies. We’re reproducing
just about everything that you can see in films, but we’re not there yet with
games. I’m very excited about where we’re going.” It’s hard not to get caught
up in Tector’s belief that increasing processing power can
help gaming become more artistic, but looking at the games
being used to push the One X, it’s clear that the industry
still leans heavily on tried and tested formulas.
While Microsoft and Sony push pixel counts to the
limit, Nintendo’s innovative Switch console has caught
the industry by surprise. In July, the company announced
it had sold nearly five million units since it launched in
March 2017, beating even the most optimistic of analyst
predictions. The console’s standout launch title, The Legend
of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, is one of the most acclaimed
games of all time, despite suffering from occasionally
crawling frame rates and graphics that owe more to an
oil painting than 4K photorealism. “The Nintendo conver-
sation is always hard because they are so unique,” Penello
says. “We’re a technology company and our customers
like performance. They want high-end graphics. It’s in our
nature. So Sony and us play in that space. Nintendo plays
in a different space.” Earlier this year, Yoshiaki Koizumi,
one of the masterminds behind the Switch, discussed the
secret to Nintendo’s innovation: “It’s not necessarily about
technology.” For Microsoft, the opposite is true: innovation
and art are irrevocably linked to technology.
So why has the Xbox ignored virtual reality, seen by
many as the next logical step for immersive entertainment?
“There’s still a tonne of experimentation in VR,” Penello
says. “That’s not designed to be a backhanded statement.”
He makes the comparison with 3D TV. “There are obviously
consumer products. Moving the problem into the display of
your goggles versus the limits of the TV was a result of some
of the 3D TV challenges. But VR has so much potential. Is it
a viable consumer product? For a certain size of audience.”
At Microsoft, that size of audience is the focus of its £2,700
HoloLens augmented-reality headset. Sony’s PlayStation
VR, priced at £349 and launched in October 2016, has
sold more than one million units, surprising many in the
industry. For Penello, VR isn’t something to rush into.
“We learned with Kinect and the Wii that just translating
a typical game experience to VR is not a winning strategy.
It’s the oddball VR-specific stuff that makes it sing. It wasn’t
something we wanted to distract developers with this year.”
The extra power, Microsoft hopes, will not only provide
support for the predicted surge in 4K TV sales, it will also
Opposite page: An image of a person’s arm taken by
the motion-capture camera. Above: Housing
for the Xbox One X at various stages of development
make games hit you right in the feels. “Having that moment
when you race in the rain, on Nürburgring, in this purpose-
built car and you’re hearing the rain hitting the body, it
gives you that feeling of when a storm’s started while
you’re driving and you’re tensing up inside,” Tector
says, his voice quickening with excitement. “It’s all
these components: the graphics, audio and simulation
– you’re fighting the car to keep it on the road – it builds
up and turns into one of those moments.” Loftis puts it
more succinctly: “I know there’s animation smoothness.
I know there’s scene depth and scene richness,” she
says, pausing briefly and fixing me with her gaze. “But
it’s the emotional impact that I hadn’t anticipated.”
James Temperton is WIRED’s digital editor. He wrote about
Japanese design collective teamLab in issue 11.17
12-17 _ WIRED _ 
 When you
take a closer
look at
Snopes,
the
internet’s
favourite
myth-
busting site,
you
see just
how
hard it
is

1 4 6 _ WIRED _ 12-17
 Illustration:
Marijn
Hos

to pin
down the
truth

The
search
for
facts
in a
post-fact
world
By
Michelle
Dean
 IT WAS EARLY MARCH, NOT
YET TWO MONTHS INTO THE
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION,
tide of spin, memes and outright lies in the
AND THE NEW NOT-NORMAL American public sphere. Just that morning
Mikkelson and his staff had been digging
WAS SETTING IN: IT CONTINUED into a new presidential tweet of dubious
facticity: “122 vicious prisoners, released
TO BE THE ADMINISTRATION’S by the Obama Administration from Gitmo,
have returned to the battlefield. Just another
POSITION, AS ENUNCIATED terrible decision!” Trump had the correct
total, but the overwhelming number of
BY SEAN SPICER, THAT THE those detainees had been released during
the George W Bush administration. “There’s
INAUGURATION HAD a whole lot of missing context to just that
122 number,” Mikkelson said.
ATTRACTED THE “LARGEST There are other fact-checking outfits, such
as PolitiFact, which is operated by the Tampa
AUDIENCE EVER”; BARELY Bay Times, or FactCheck.org at the Annenberg
Public Policy Center at the University of
A MONTH HAD PASSED SINCE Pennsylvania. But Snopes has been kicking
around the internet since 1994 – which makes
KELLYANNE CONWAY BROUGHT it almost as old as what we once called the
World Wide Web. In this age of untruth, it has
THE FICTITIOUS “BOWLING become an indispensable resource. Should
your friend’s sister start a conspiracy trash
GREEN MASSACRE” TO fire in a Facebook comment thread, Snopes is
a reliable form of extinguisher. Because of this
NATIONAL ATTENTION; AND reputation, Snopes was listed as a partner in
a Facebook fact-checking effort announced in
JUST FOR KICKS, ON MARCH 4, autumn 2016 after the social-media company
acknowledged it had become a conduit for
THE PRESIDENT ALERTED fake news. The idea behind the fact-checking
plan was that potentially false stories could
THE NATION BY TWEET, be flagged by users and an algorithm, and
then organisations such as Snopes, ABC News
“OBAMA HAD MY ‘WIRES and the Associated Press would be tasked
with investigating them.
TAPPED’ IN TRUMP TOWER.” As almost everyone knows, the truth can be
slippery. Getting to the bottom of something
requires what you might generously call
a fussy personality. Mikkelson possesses
that trait. He spends hours writing a detailed
analysis of a claim and feels frustrated when
readers just want a “true” or “false” answer.
He’s got the world view of Eeyore, had
Eeyore been obsessed with cataloguing the
If the administration had tossed the customs and niceties of US politics to the wind, precise history, variety and growing seasons
there was one clearly identifiable constant: mendacity. “Fake news” accusations flew back of thistles in the Hundred Acre Wood. He
and forth every day, like so many spitballs in a year-four classroom. can even get pessimistic about whether
Feeling depressed about the conflation of fiction and fact in the first few months of 2017, I steered his work makes a difference. “Since a lot
a car towards Calabasas to meet one person whom many rely on to set things straight. This is an of this stuff is really complicated, nuanced
area near Los Angeles best known for its production of Kardashians, but there were no McMan- stuff with areas of grey, it requires lengthy
sions where I was heading, only gnarled trees and a few modest houses. I spotted the ramshackle and complex explanations,” he said.
bungalow I was looking for because of the car in the driveway. Its number plate read “SNOPES”. “But with a lot of the audience, their eyes
David Mikkelson, the publisher of the fact-checking site snopes.com, answered the just tend to glaze over, and it’s just, they
door himself. He was wearing khakis and a polo shirt, his hair at an awkward length, don’t want to have to follow all of that. So
somewhere between late-career Robert Redford and early-career Steve Carell. He had been they just fall back on their preconceptions.”
working alone at the kitchen table, with just a laptop, a mouse and the internet. The house,
which he was getting ready to sell, was sparsely furnished, the most prominent feature being
built-in bookcases filled with ancient hardbacks – “There’s a whole shelf devoted to the
Titanic and other maritime disasters,” Mikkelson told me – and board games, his primary hobby.
Since about 2010, this house has passed for a headquarters, as Snopes has no formal offices,
just 16 people sitting at their laptops in rooms across the US, trying to swim against the

1 4 8 _ WIRED _ 12-17
 Among those preconceptions is the
right-wing view that Snopes is anti-Trump
and its efforts to separate fact from fiction
are merely a cover for liberal bias. Mikkelson
disputes this, saying that if you look at the
totality of the posts Snopes has written on
the subject of the US president, “the vast
majority of them are debunking false claims
made about him, not affirming negative things
said about him or disproving positive things
said about him”. But nobody is looking at the
totality; if that sort of intellectual honesty
ever existed in the public sphere, it’s gone
now. And sure enough, the week before I went
to Calabasas, Fox News commenter Tucker
Carlson had been jeering at “those holy men at
Snopes, those gods of objectivity”.
“Do you ever get sick of the stupidity of
all this?” I asked Mikkelson in his kitchen, a
couple of days after Carlson’s rant.
“Yes,” he said. His eyes rolled heavenward,
and he gave a weary little laugh. But what I
didn’t know then was that more chaos was
coming, and it was chaos that threatened
the very existence of Snopes. Just days later,
Mikkelson would start a fight with the new
co-owners of the business, which led them
to freeze the distribution of the site’s ad
revenues, making Snopes so cash-poor that
by July it had to resort to a “Save Snopes”
GoFundMe campaign to keep operations
afloat. The appeal worked. It had raised, as of
late August, more than $690,000 (£523,500).
The groundswell of support was a satis-
fying, even humbling, ratification of the
work Mikkelson and his staff had put into
Snopes. But amid the good feelings were some
questions. Articles mentioned a messy divorce
and embezzling claims. And just as it’s hard
for Snopes to nail down, absolutely, defini-
tively, certain truths about the toxicity of a
copper mug or the meaning of the US presi-
dent’s words, it can be trickier than expected
to nail down the truth about Snopes.

Above: David Mikkelson has been debunking myths on Snopes.com

for more than 20 years. “It’s like the site is my baby,” he says

M
ikkelson first adopted his nom de net,
snopes – lowercase, at first – in the early
90s in a Usenet group called alt.folklore
.urban. The name comes from a lesser-
known William Faulkner trilogy, but
Mikkelson just shrugged when I asked if he

was a big Faulkner fan. The attraction was
the sound – “Short, catchy and distinctive.”
Alt.folklore.urban was a place for people
who enjoyed collecting, sorting and organ-
ising facts. These were people who might
spend hours trying to figure out if hot water
froze faster than cold water or whether “Puff
the Magic Dragon” was actually about drugs.
Barbara Hamel was in her 30s, married
and living in Ottawa, Canada, when she first
found alt.folklore.urban, via the Ottawa
FreeNet. She’d worked as a secretary and
a book-keeper, but it wasn’t really what
she’d imagined for herself. “Under different
circumstances, I would have gone on to
become a journalist,” she wrote in an
email to me recently, “but after applying to
Ryerson University in Toronto, I was felled by
Crohn’s disease and thus had to abandon
that plan and find another way in life.”
She posted several times a day, a funny,
wry and engaging presence.
David and Barbara began flirting in the
Usenet group, and by the autumn of 1994,
Barbara had moved to California to be with
David. They wed in 1996. It was in the early
days of their romance, David says, when he
had the idea that would become Snopes.
The graphical web had just been born, and
he saw an opportunity to rescue his careful
research from the relentless chronological
stream of the Usenet group.
The page grew. It was a joint effort,
though at first David kept his day job as a
computer technician and coder at a health
maintenance organisation. His income
paid for their expenses and the cost of
running the site. David and Barbara lived
frugally in a rented flat in Agoura Hills,
and their stories about these salad days
sound like tales from an endearingly dorky
public- access television show. Barbara
remembers the tests they would conduct
to prove a fact or a falsehood. “One had me
sitting for half an hour with my mouth full
of marshmallows,” she explained. “Another
had me sequestering plants in our glass -
enclosed fireplace lest the cats gnaw on
them before the conclusion of a multi-
week experiment on the effects of micro-
waved water on their growth.”
For the first seven years or so, the site
stayed firmly in the realm of what you
might call Weird America: was Walt Disney
cryogenically frozen after death? (No, he
wasn’t.) Google was not yet officially a verb,
and the internet was still in some ways the
domain of nerds whose web pages were read
by other nerds. The site got attention from
local media when reporters wrote up the
dangers of believing your email forwards
THE GOFUNDME
APPEAL SEEMED TO
DIMINISH BARBARA
MIKKELSON’S
ROLE IN BUILDING
SNOPES
Above: Snopes.com co-founder Barbara Mikkelson
– the closest thing to fake news the early
internet could come up with – but it remained,
mostly, a hobby for the Mikkelsons.
Then, on September 11, 2001, out of the
clear blue sky, everything changed. The
planes flew into the Twin Towers and crashed
at the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania, and
America turned, panicked, to the internet
to try to explain those events to itself.
“I posted the first of the September 11 articles
just after midnight on September 12,” Barbara
wrote to me. It was a post debunking the
rumour that the 16th-century astrologer
Nostradamus had predicted the attacks.
“I researched and wrote that first article
only because I needed to do something other
than just cry and feel helpless.” The tenor of
their site was about to change.
Where once they had been conducting tests
with marshmallows and houseplants, now
they were now debunking claims that there
were 4,000 Israelis who worked in the World
Trade Center who stayed home that fateful
day. Traffic spiked. Suddenly the press, which
had treated Snopes mostly as a curiosity,
took real interest. The Mikkelsons found
themselves doing newspaper interviews,
appearing on television, talking about the
lies Americans were telling themselves in the
aftermath of the catastrophe. When David’s
job disappeared in a round of redun-
dancies in 2002, it seemed natural
that he would work full-time on the
site. In 2003 the Mikkelsons incor-
porated, combining their names to
form Bardav Inc. They each took a
50 per cent interest in the business,
with Barbara doing the book-keeping
while David managed the technical
aspects of the site, and both of them
researching and writing posts. They
were both active in the user forums
they had set up too. Kim LaCapria,
a frequent poster who later became
one of Snopes’ first employees,
says she relied on Barbara in those
years. “She gave me lots of advice,
she was probably one of the most
influential adult women on me when
I was a young woman.”
The world kept churning out
bizarre rumours. Snopes let the
world know that sushi did not cause
maggots in a man’s brain and, at the
height of tensions over the war in
Iraq, debunked a claim that a South
Carolina restaurant was turning
away service members. And in
2008, as Barack Obama campaigned
for the US presidency and won,
Snopes explained that he was not,
in fact, the Antichrist and refuted a fake
Kenyan birth certificate circulated in 2009,
which, among other signals of inauthenticity,
was stamped “Republic of Kenya” long before
such a country even existed.
Finally, with a growing stream of falsehoods
to attend to, the site hired LaCapria as its first
writer in 2014. The next year, David brought on
a freelance journalist named Brooke Binkowski,
who quickly became indispensable, and hired
even more researchers. Binkowski now serves
as the managing editor of the site. These new
employees came just in time for the massive
challenge to accuracy that was the presidential
PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF BARBARA MIKKELSON
candidacy of Donald J Trump. The researchers
looked into the ever-multiplying rumours
popping up online: Did Trump fly troops home
from the first Gulf War on his own airline? (No.)
Were the black supporters in a photograph that
Trump retweeted actually Trump fans? (They
were not.) The site also confirmed that the
Trump campaign had sent supplies to hurricane
victims, and it debunked fake stories that Mike
Pence had called Michelle Obama vulgar and
that Ivanka Trump had disavowed her father.

Snopes had been hoping to vault itself out of partisanship by
sticking to the facts. But the times we are in don’t allow for any such
creature. For years – since Snopes started writing about politics – the
underbelly of the internet has been vomiting up conspiracy theories
suggesting that Snopes is a liberal front. Mikkelson, for his part,
claims to be neither Democrat nor Republican; he says that he is
essentially apolitical, with loosely libertarian views. His protests made no
headway with Fox News, however, and websites such as The Daily Caller
complained that Snopes has hired researchers of a liberal persuasion and
insist with regularity that Snopes is “fake news”.
None of the aspersions that were being cast hurt Snopes as an
enterprise, however. Traffic hit an all-time high of 3.7 million page views
shortly after the 2016 US presidential election, thanks to controversies
both large and small. Ad revenue was also growing. It should have
been a great time for everyone involved in Snopes. But for the
Mikkelsons, things were beginning to unravel.
O
n May 8, 2014, Barbara abruptly took her things out of the Calabasas house
and moved to Las Vegas while David was away on a trip. Then she filed for divorce.
Neither David nor Barbara would talk to me on the record about the divorce. But The
Daily Mail gave the Mikkelsons’ split the full tabloid treatment in December 2016,
and the divorce papers have been uploaded to the internet by some unknown person,
surfacing on fringe right-wing websites and providing the outlines of their dispute.
At some point before Barbara left him, David began seeing a woman named Elyssa
Young, whom he eventually married in late 2016. Today, Young works for Snopes as an
administrative assistant, but previously worked as a professional escort, something
which she’s been open about. In fact, in 2004, when Young ran for Congress in Hawaii
on the Libertarian Party ticket, she wrote on her campaign pitch: “My background is
in the adult entertainment and sex industry, so for once, you will get an honest person
in office.” (Young did not respond to numerous requests for comment.)
The Daily Mail played up the salacious details of this history, which included the
more serious claims that David used company funds to pay for Young’s personal
travel. For his part, David refuses to be bothered by this public airing. “It’s just
stupid personal stuff that doesn’t have to do with any aspect of the work I or my
staff does,” he says. “Also, know that the people interested in ferreting out this stuff
were probably really hoping to find something like undisclosed financial sources,
undisclosed political contributions, drug abuse, criminal records, something
like that, and nope, none of that is out there to be found.”
What the records do reveal, as any nasty marital dissolution would, are struggles
over money and control. For at least some months in 2016, the records show, Snopes
was pulling in more than $200,000 a month in advertising sales. And although
the site had employees to pay, much of that money was profit. Barbara and David
still each had equal shares in Bardav, which meant 50
per cent of that profit was Barbara’s. David seemed
to resent Barbara’s ownership stake. In his divorce
papers, he argued that “in the last several years prior
to the filing of the Petition, Petitioner did nothing other
than book-keeping for Snopes.com, while I oversaw all
other aspects of the site’s operations”.
The divorce became so acrimonious that David
and Barbara found it impossible to run the business
together. In early 2016, David asked that his salary
be raised to $360,000 from $208,000. Barbara said
she found this “not even in the galaxy of reasonable”.
Then, when David continued to ask for a retroactive
increase, Barbara told him she’d sent the matter to
their arbitrator, as was the procedure provided in the
divorce agreement. David subsequently claimed he’d
never signed the arbitrator’s engagement letter and
now suspected that the arbitrator was biased.
In other words: any business matters would result in
baroque disputes that lasted months. They squabbled
constantly about whether David was inappropriately
claiming personal expenses as business expenses,
with Barbara contending, for example, that David had
improperly claimed a trip to India as a business trip
when really it was a holiday. (David replied in the divorce
papers that he had gone to India as a “business-building”
effort.) Finally, in July 2016, about seven months after
the divorce was finalised, Barbara sold her stake in
Bardav to the five principal shareholders of a company
called Proper Media for $3.6 million.
Proper Media was already familiar with Snopes.
Since August 2015, in exchange for a commission, it
brokered advertising on the site, collecting revenues
and disbursing them to Bardav monthly. The agreement
could be terminated by either party on 60 days’ notice.
This meant that while Proper Media’s shareholders
had become owners of Bardav, their company also
independently contracted with Bardav to manage
Snopes’ cash flow from advertisers. For a while, this
arrangement seemed to work to the benefit of all
parties; though it was initially supposed to last a year,
it continued for almost 19 months. Then, on March 9,
2017, David terminated the agreement.
Why David did this, as reporters often say in stories
about unresolved lawsuits, is in dispute. Proper Media’s
two main shareholders, Drew Schoentrup and Chris-
topher Richmond, claim that David never wanted any
co- owners. “Mikkelson was unhappy that Barbara
maintained ownership of half of what he always
considered to be his company after the divorce,” they
wrote in the complaint they filed in May with the
superior court of San Diego. Together, Schoentrup and
Richmond now hold a 40 per cent interest in Bardav.
In the complaint, they say David was seeking to regain
control of Bardav by conspiring with one of Proper
Media’s other shareholders, Vincent Green, who left
12-17 _ WIRED _ 1 5 1
and began working directly with Bardav.
They filed suit against Green too.
David, in his court-filed response, says he
ended the agreement with Proper because its
disbursements were often late, and Snopes
could get the same services from other
companies “at significantly lower cost”.
Still, David must have anticipated that
ending the agreement would annoy his new
co-owners. After he did so, Proper stopped
sending Bardav the revenue from adver-
tisers on the site. It also claims that David
couldn’t cancel the contract without at
least one of the co-owners agreeing to the
decision. They also suggested that David
had improperly claimed personal expenses
as business ones, citing his honeymoon with
Young to Asia as an example. In late July,
with the money apparently running out,
David set up the GoFundMe account. The
fundraising appeal referred to Proper Media
as simply a vendor and made no reference
to the fact that its shareholders held a 50
per cent stake in Bardav too.
The GoFundMe campaign’s rousing success
suggested that the danger to Snopes had
passed. Moreover, after a court hearing in Above: Mikkelson and his current wife, Elyssa Young, married in 2016
August in San Diego, a judge ruled in David’s
favour and ordered Proper Media to disburse
advertising revenues to Bardav while the
case was pending. Through their lawyer Karl
Kronenberger, Schoentrup and Richmond
confirmed that they will comply with the
order, though they still intended to press
on with their claims against the business.
“The issue,” Kronenberger said, “is getting
David Mikkelson out of a leadership position
from Snopes, because he’s not fit to be there.”
“I don’t mean this as an expression of lack of lawsuit was concerned with questions about
confidence in the other editors; it could be corporate governance and contract inter-
interpreted that way, but it’s not how I mean pretation that are not exciting to describe.

O
verwrought claims that eventually come
around to a compromise are common in
business disputes, and for now, the judge
has ruled that David will stay in charge of
Snopes. I doubt that David will ever leave
Snopes willingly. It’s everything to him. I’d
asked him, once, if he’d ever seek venture
capital for Snopes. He shook his head. “I’m
not interested in giving up ownership, no.”
This was a theme. Snopes now has 12 people
on its editorial staff, but David told me he still
tries to read as many of the posts as he can.
it. It’s kind of like the site is my baby,” he
said. “It’s like having to leave your child in
the charge of a babysitter.”
When the GoFundMe campaign was
announced in late July, I thought about that
statement. The force of Snopes’ appeal was
emotional: Without giving his readers the
full story, David Mikkelson was essentially
pleading with them to help him keep his baby.
People responded to that call because Snopes
had made itself, as Alexis Madrigal, who wrote
a detailed account of the lawsuit for The
Atlantic, put it, “a vital part of internet infra-
structure in the #fakenews era.” NPR reported
that the site had paved the way for other
fact-checking sites. The story was largely
covered as a small guy trying to maintain his
integrity against the forces of business.
That was, surely, the most compelling way
to characterise what was happening. The
And most journalists rightfully admire what
Snopes does. They understand what it means
to feel under assault from both economic and
political forces. Defending Snopes felt like a
natural extension of the ongoing fight for truth
in what can sometimes feel like a post-truth
world. Whatever the circumstances, there
are a lot of people who don’t want to see an
enterprise such as Snopes fail right now.
The nobility of the cause was self-evident,
but I’d spent months trying to understand the
history of the site, and something about the
fundraiser stuck in my craw. It was six words
on the GoFundMe page: David had written
that Snopes had begun as a “small one-person
effort in 1994”. There was no mention of
Barbara. She only came up as journalists had
begun to look at the documents in the business
dispute, and then was usually mentioned as
the other party in an acrimonious divorce.

The GoFundMe appeal was not
the first time I’d seen David diminish
Barbara’s role in building Snopes’
reputation. There was the claim in the
divorce papers that she hadn’t been
involved “other than book-keeping” in
Snopes for years. And a curious thing
had happened as Snopes grew and
changed and switched web templates
over the past three years: increasingly,
it was hard to find Barbara’s name.
She wasn’t listed on the site’s About
page. Posts she wrote – such as the
one about 9/11 and the Nostradamus
predictions – now bear David’s byline
rather than hers. David told me this is
the result of a technical change made
after Barbara left – the site migrated to
a WordPress platform, which automat-
ically populated bylines with his name.
When I asked Barbara to comment
on the GoFundMe page, she noticed
her erasure. “Was surprised to see my
life’s work described as having been ‘a
small one-person effort,’” she wrote in
a Facebook message to me. She refused
to meet in person for an interview, but
her first response to my entreaties –
“Thank you for looking to include me”–
was telling, and she did agree to answer
some questions by email.
She still lives in the Las Vegas house
she moved into when she left David.
She hasn’t published a word anywhere
since she sold her interest in the business, but she
still plainly likes to write. She gave me long and
thorough replies to questions about her place in
Snopes’ history. When I asked how many articles
she’d written for the site, she came back with a
verified count of 1,905. She told me how she came
to that number: “By examining every Snopes.
com HTML file on my computer, re-reading
every email David and I exchanged from 1997
until now, and in cases where doubt still existed,
examining my research files. The task took a week,
but I am satisfied I now have a fair list and that all
lurking doubles (a result of David’s penchant for
renaming files) have been excised.”
I’d been communicating with David since
our March meeting, but hadn’t mentioned that
I also contacted Barbara. After the GoFundMe
request went up, I called him to ask about it.
I was sympathetic to his effort to keep his
life’s work alive, but as we talked, I kept thinking
about that “one-person” line in the fundraising
appeal. I hadn’t realised how annoyed I was
about it until I found myself asking if he had a
response to Barbara’s remark, about having what she described
as her “life’s work” described as a “one-person effort”.
David is a fairly unflappable guy, but he seemed surprised. “She
certainly contributed a great deal to making it a successful business
enterprise,” he said, stammering a bit. “We jointly founded Bardav.”
But he told me he felt there was a distinction between the claim he
alone made to the idea behind Snopes.com and the successful business
partnership he was willing to allow that Barbara had participated in.
I pointed out that until their divorce, Barbara’s name had often been
associated with the site in the press – searches in newspaper archives
reveal that until about 2010, she had given many interviews about
Snopes, more than David had, and that was true even before Bardav’s
founding in 2003 and the inauguration of Snopes as a business. David,
evidently frustrated with this question, said, “Well, she was giving
all the interviews because I was working a full-time job,” referring
to his position at the health maintenance organisation, “whereas she
never worked at all throughout the entirety of our marriage.” But
then he seemed to regret this outburst, and backtracked. “I would
not in any way try to slight her or say that she was not responsible
for a good deal of success of the site,” he said.
The problem is that David’s telling of the Snopes story does seem
to slight her. However meticulous he might be in fact-checking the
errors of others, there is always this slippage in his account of his own
success, this insistence that he did it by himself. It’s not a slippage that
has any bearing on his dispute with Proper Media or the contractual
matters. He went through a bad divorce and emerged from it with
a blind spot. It’s one we all have to one degree or another, to fail to
see the obvious when it comes to ourselves. It just stands out with
David because he’s spent his career being so scrupulous about facts.
Snopes posted an essay on this phenomenon in 2001. After having
trouble pinning down certain facts, Barbara and David had begun
thinking about how everyone was unreliable and scepticism was a
virtue. As a kind of demonstration, they wrote a few false Snopes
entries. And then they published a lead entry called “False Authority.”
No single truth purveyor, no matter how reliable, should be
considered an infallible font of accurate information. People make
mistakes. Or they get duped. Or they have a bad day at the fact-checking
bureau. Or some days they’re just being silly. To not allow for any of
this is to risk stepping into a pothole the size of Lake Superior.
I’d assumed Barbara wrote this piece, and she said she had. But
I wanted to be accurate, so I contacted David. He wrote back quickly.
“That was so long ago that I can’t say definitively from memory. Reading
through the article I would say it sounds like something that both of us
substantially contributed to and not something that one or the other
of us wrote entirely on our own,” he said. “It has a lot of Barbara’s voice
to it, so probably she wrote the initial draft, and both of us contributed
revisions to it.” But when WIRED’s fact-checker contacted Barbara,
she searched her files again and found that David had written the
first draft of “False Authority.” “Which means whatever I came
to later believe, he wrote the base article,” she wrote in an email.
“I’m utterly red-faced about this.” So those were the facts: David
wrote the first draft, Barbara contributed. The precise way their
powers combined? That remains a grey area.
Michelle Dean is an LA-based journalist. Her book, Sharp: The Women
Who Made an Art of Having an Opinion, will be published in 2018
12-17 _ WIRED _ 1 5 3
1 5 4 _ DETAILS _ 12-17
The Kessel Run this month
The managing editor got hands-on with the 7,541-piece LEGO
Millennium Falcon as featured in this issue’s Gear of the Year – but
tragically, didn’t get to build it. “I always aim to do my LEGO builds
in single sittings,” he says. “But I think I’d have done myself an
injury here. That said, the thought that some Star Wars collectors
will buy this and never even open the box makes me very sad…”
Overheard this month
“It’s called a Porg”
“Isn’t that a person of
restricted growth? What
was Lucasfilm thinking?”
“They’ve invented ruby
chocolate… that’s
good for the Millennials”
“Oh god, I don’t want a box
of vibrators on my desk”
“We want a lynx,
we want a macaw…”
“A macaw?”
“It’s like a parrot.”
“They may have a penguin.”
“I LOVE PENGUINS!”
WIRED issue 101 staff
“dream cover” ideas
Marie Curie’s
reanimated corpse
Kanye West
Plato
Michelle Obama
Leonardo da Vinci
Janelle Monáe
Usain Bolt
WIRED’s expenses
claim of the century
“Cash for baying mob.”
(claimant anonymised.)
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   _ I N F O R M A T I O N _ W E S O U R C E E V E R Y
T H I N G

The number of the top 1,000 most-shared Facebook posts about

Brexit that originated from tabloids. Two-hundred and seventy
came from major online publishers and 240 from broadsheets

The WIRED Index

The estimated number of social-network users in China, out
of a population of 1.4 billion. Despite Facebook’s ban, use of local
social-networking sites such as Tencent Weibo are rising fast

The number of train passengers who travelled into

central London during a typical weekday morning
peak in 2016. This compares with 42,000 travelling
into Birmingham, the second busiest city. Blackfriars
had London’s highest crowding levels but Fenchurch
Street had a higher percentage of standing commuters

The proportion of the UK population aged 13-84

who bought or listened to an audiobook in 2016 –

NIELSEN; TWITTER; INTERNETLIVESTATS; ENDERS ANALYSIS; STATISTA; BARCLAYS CORPORATE BANKING; NASA
a three per cent increase from 2014. Audiobooks

WORDS: ELEANOR PEAKE. ILLUSTRATION GIACOMO GAMBINERI. SOURCES: DEPARTMENT FOR TRANSPORT;
were most popular among men aged 25-44

The number of fly-bys that Europa Clipper will

complete around Jupiter’s moon Europa. The
The proportion of new product sales accounted for by ten to 20 per cent of spacecraft, to be launched in the 2020s, will
product launches in 2016, suggesting a big divide in the success of startups travel as low as 25km above Europa’s surface

The number of tweets about Game of Thrones‘

season-seven premiere on the night it aired, making
it the most-tweeted-about episode of the show.
Seven per cent of those tweets were driven by The amount The proportion
Ed Sheeran’s cameo as a singing Lannister soldier UK women are of people who
estimated to primarily play
spend on video video games
games and on their phone,
accessories in followed by
the coming year 37 per cent
– a third of the on a tablet. Just
projected spend three per cent
The estimated number of tweets posted per second around the world for UK adults stream from TV
Please turn the page to view Supplement
THE FINER THINGS
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DECEMBER
2017 ISSUE
E X P E R I E N C E T H E E X C E P T I O N A L®
P R I N C E S S YA C H T S . C O M
Princess 40M – M/Y ANKA
 Official fuel consumption figures in mpg (l/100km) for the Ford Mustang range: urban 14.1-28.0 (20.1-10.1),
extra urban 28.8-41.5 (9.8-6.8), combined 20.8-35.3 (13.6-8.0). Official CO 2 emissions 306-179g/km.
The mpg figures quoted are sourced from official EU-regulated test results (EU Directive and Regulation 692/2008),
are provided for comparability purposes and may not reflect your actual driving experience.
50
th

BOLLINGER R.D.
ANNIVERSARY
 Desired Contents 007

Published by The Condé Nast Publications Ltd, Vogue House, Hanover Square, London W1S 1JU (tel: 020 7499 9080). Colour EDITOR’S LETTER
origination by williamsleatag. Printed in the UK by Wyndeham Roche Ltd. WIRED is distributed by Frontline, Midgate House,
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This magazine is fully recyclable – please log on to www.recyclenow.com for your local recycling options for paper and board. dedicated to technology. products – as evidenced,
This is, thankfully, far from along with other examples,
true. However, if forced, we in these pages. In short, if it
must admit our readers do is the case that innovation
like their toys – new toys in can be found in all areas
particular. Coincidentally, of business, then it makes
when it comes to charting sense to, on occasion,
levels of innovation – sate this lust for the
10 Fetish automotive or horological, new by combining it with
26 Cabins for example – WIRED and some serious indulgence.
32 Fashion the world of luxury overlap Welcome, then, to another
36 Rides to a considerable degree. edition of WIRED Desired.
42 Champagne Indeed, the likes of Porsche, Jeremy White
48 Watches
56 Patek Philippe
62 Audio test An engineer at Patek Philippe’s Advanced Research
64 Drink facility in Neuchâtel, Switzerland ( p56)
PHOTOGRAPHY (COVER): SUN LEE. THIS PAGE: CHRISTOFFER RUDQUIST
Desired Masthead
The 3.8-litre, twin-turbo-engine Porsche 911
GT2 RS combines sports-car specifications
with stunning design know-how (p36)
Editor Greg Williams
Supplement editor Jeremy White
Creative director Andrew Diprose
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008
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Desired Fetish 

Sculpture
K EV I N GR E Y A N I M US

Founder of analytical object. Originally

psychology Carl Jung
used the word “animus”
to describe the woman’s
unconscious mind.
Continuous self-
examination is the idea
behind this mesmerising
sculpture from three-time
winner of Goldsmiths’
commissioned for the
Victoria & Albert
Museum exhibition Silver
Speaks: Idea to Object,
Animus will be available
to buy in limited numbers.
Estimate £58,000 to
£62,000 kevingrey.co.uk
1 3 0 0 m m

Company Award, Kevin

Grey. Without any prior
sketches or engineering
drawings, it was made by
hand-forming strips of
silver. They were then TIG
(tungsten inert gas) welded
together. The process of
combining traditional skills
and new technologies is
typical of Grey’s work. The
result is a sculpture that
appears to simultaneously
cleave apart and together,
creating an illusion of
motion in an inanimate
 F
B Y A LE X DO A K PH O TO G R A PH Y: S U N L EE

E
T
I
S
H
Desired Fetish 

2
Audio
K EF LS50 W IR ELESS
NOCTU R N E BY
M A RCEL WA N DERS

If a speaker brand is going

to approach a potential
partner for a profile-boosting
collaboration, it makes
sense for it to be someone
from the world of interior
design. Perhaps it should
not be a surprise, then, that
KEF has joined forces with
Marcel Wanders. The Dutch
designer and his studio of 50
staff have waved their neo-
baroque wands over many
award-winning hotel and
office spaces. KEF has been
making increasingly
adventurous speaker
systems since the 60s.
This spectacular joint effort
is inspired by ideas about
rhythm, with geometrical
shapes and subtly integrated
musical-notation symbols
(which also glow in the
dark). It’s based on the Kent
atelier’s renowned LS50
Wireless Digital Music
System, which, via a
comprehensive set of
Wi-Fi connectivity, uses a
192kHz/24-bit hi-res digital
signal path in combination
with KEF’s Uni-Q driver to
place the tweeter in the
acoustic centre of the bass/
midrange cone. Both then
act as a source to disperse
the sound evenly throughout
the room. Wanders’ design
further enhances the
son-et-lumière experience.
300mm £2,500 uk.kef.com
Desired Fetish 01

Glassware
TOM DI XON BU MP

If you never got that a heat-resistant material
Salter Science chemistry that has low coefficients
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range from Tom Dixon and is used to make
is ideal. It’s made from laboratory glassware. In
mouth-blown borosilicate, other words, it won’t break
if you pour in searingly
hot liquid. However, it’s
been transformed from
functional to decorative
due to the glass being
translucent pink or glossy
black. Although it’s initially
unclear which piece is used
for what, the company
is correct that all are “an
elegant approach to
the alchemical processes
of tea making, mixology
and floral arrangement”,
so experimentation is
key. However, while you
probably won’t use them to
find out what happens
when you add pure sodium
to water, this reinterpreted
glassware will add a dose
of intelligence to libations.

3 £45 for two tomdixon.net

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+44 (0)20 8877 1616

Audio
BA NG & OLU FSEN BEOL A B 50
You’d better make sure the
rest of your house is looking
smart before taking delivery,
as this speaker is a piece of
sculpture in its own right.
With its aluminium surfaces,
oak lamellae and tapered
profile, it could double as the
centre console of an Aston
Martin (no coincidence:
B&O supply Aston’s in-car
speakers). Switch things
on and start listening,
and you’ll discover that, like
most of B&O’s products, the
performance matches the
aesthetic. With an adjustable
acoustic lens that rises
ominously from the top,
BeoLab 50 can alter
its sound delivery and tailor
it to the position of the
audience. For classic, sweet-
spot listening, the moving
Desired Fetish 
cheeks of the acoustic lens
will contract and send a
direct, narrow sound beam
towards your preferred
listening location. With a
house full of party guests
or a crowd gathered in
front of the TV, directional
“chins” slide open for room-
filling sound performance,
compensating for
reflections from walls
and furniture. £22,930
bang-olufsen.com
 Desired Fetish
Kitchenware
ELINOR PORTNOY J U ICER
5 In keeping with all Portnoy’s
work (which could be
described as pedestrian
in purpose, but beautiful
in execution), the London-
based product designer
has taken as her starting

point the idea that, due
to increasingly open-plan
homes, kitchen tools on
display should also be
considered decorative
items. With a view to
blending looks with
functionality, Portnoy has
created a range of colourful,
abstract-shaped juicers.
They’re made from glass,
with the colours on the tips
revealed in layers by peeling
them through “cold-
working”; a process that
doesn’t generate the heat
associated with grinding,
carving and engraving. An
inner bubble helps to keep
the overall weight down and
the exterior has been sand-
blasted for extra grip. But if
you still don’t trust yourself
when it comes to extracting
that lemon juice, perhaps
stick to a fork: this juicer is
attractive enough to remain
unused on the shelf. £300
elinorportnoy.com
Desired Fetish  Audio
DCS V I VA LDI ON E

Founded in Cambridge companies and even upsampler and wireless

30 years ago, Data military agencies. It’s stuck network streamer, the
Conversion Systems doggedly to the notion that Vivaldi One can play PCM
originally manufactured modern-music reproduction input up to 24-bit/384kS/s

6 high-performance
analogue-to-digital
converters for telecom
is at its most critical upon
conversion of digital data
to audible analogue signal.
The swooping facets of
this 24-karat-gold-plated
and DSD files up to DSD128.
And the sound itself? It’s
sonorous, subtle and rich.
£66,000 dcsltd.co.uk

player beg to be stroked.

Combining a CD/SACD
transport, Ring DAC,
7
Audio
FER N & ROBY MON TROSE TU R N TA BLE
Primarily a design house,
Fern & Roby is based in
Richmond, Virginia. It makes
everything from small
machined hardware to
monumental tables, all the
while working obsessively
with its partners to source
materials and keep its
products “American made”.
This irresistibly utilitarian
turntable is made from
a combination of bronze
with Richlite, a paper-
fibre composite. It takes
everything Fern & Roby
learned from designing its
flagship deck, The Tredegar,
and ramps things up with
a new interface. This
includes features such as
the exposed bubble level
and a tonearm-overhang
adjustment that’s integrated
into the armboard for refined
calibration. The Montrose
pairs a synchronous AC
motor with digital speed
control, including
real-time measurements
of the platter speed,
with optical sensor feedback
to control the deck.
£3,850 fernandroby.com
Desired Fetish
Bike
K IDDIMOTO K A R BON BA L A NCE BIK E
If you think your progeny
could be the next Chris
Froome or Laura Trott, then
a £999 investment in their
future seems a wise idea.
Coincidentally, that’s what
this carbon-fibre bike,
with pneumatic tyres and
gel saddle, will set you back.

Apparently it’s time to ditch
the wooden balance bike so
beloved of leafier postcodes
and opt for something
that makes your child go
faster. Before you doubt the
benefits of a device that
encourages your child’s inner
speed demon, remember
the child-riding to adult-
carrying ratio of a journey
with a four-year-old. Under
those circumstances, the
350g frame weight makes
all the difference. Think of
that financial outlay as the Weight: 350g
cost of osteopathy fees
if you’d bought a wooden
version. In which case, the
bike almost pays for itself.
£999 kiddimoto.co.uk 30cm
 Desired Fetish 

Clock
JA EGER-LECOU LTR E ATMOS 568 BY M A RC N EWSON

Homer Simpson once we obey by the laws of At its heart is an aneroid winds the mainspring;
berated his daughter thermodynamics!” Which chamber containing ethyl just 1ºC warmer or cooler
Lisa for inventing a essentially disqualifies chloride gas. With tiny and it runs for a further two
perpetual-motion machine, Jaeger-LeCoultre’s changes in atmospheric days. The Atmos clock is
bellowing, “In this house, Atmos from the Springfield temperature, the aneroid’s a fascinating product,

9 mantelpiece, too. Created

in the 20s, the mechanism
is designed to run without
ever needing a rewind.
expansion and contraction expertly designed by
Apple Watch collaborator
Marc Newson. £23,300
jaeger-lecoultre.com
Desired Cabins 026

E S C A P E
From Scandinavian treehouses to wooden lakeside pods, these
remote boltholes are a stylish exercise in minimal design excellence

B Y J ON ATHA N BEL L
Desired Cabins 

Wo rking on a small scale also makes it the perfect

The humble cabin occupies a
unique place in the architectural
imagination. As a temporary
home, it allows for flights of
visual fancy that might pall if
experienced on a daily basis. A
light footprint makes it ideal for
integrating into wildernesses
and alongside spectacular views.
technology test bed, an experimental zone for ideas
such as prefabrication and miniaturisation. On the
other hand, cabins also have desirable dimensions for
working with traditional methods and materials, signalling
a return to craft and human scale. And, given architecture’s
often wayward economics, they offer a realistic choice
between indulgence and austerity. No one begrudges a
simple hut if the location is right, yet at the same time the BELOW
intimacy of cabin life gives craftspeople a showcase for The 7th Room has
the finest details and finishes. The examples in this a ten-metre-high netted
section are WIRED in style, yet range in construction “courtyard” with a pine
from wood and nails through to CNC-milled surfaces. tree growing through it
What they all have in common
is the desire to bring the
outside in, transcending four
walls in favour of the stars and
surrounding landscapes. Above
everything else, they provide a
direct injection of the twin pipe
dreams – escape and elegance –
that underpin modern life. These
are the retreats we run to in our
minds, accompanied by fantasies
o f do w n s i z i n g , d e c l u t t e r i n g
and decompressing.

<<
V IPP SHELTER,
DENMARK

Founded in 1939, Danish indus- PREVIOUS

trial design specialist Vipp began The Vipp
life making pedal bins. Today it has Shelter is fitted
a reputation for cabins as well as throughout with
products. In 2014, the company Vipp products:
launched the Shelter, 22 tonnes lamps, tables,
of prefabricated steel and wood baths – even
shaped into a two-person home. the key has
Intended as an off-the-shelf a Vipp flashlight
solution for the long-standing
tradition of Scandinavian weekend
retreats, the Shelter is a seamless,
tank-like structure evoking indus-
trial components. The aim here is
for relaxation, with all the heavy
lifting done by Vipp’s team of
in-house designers led by Morten
Bo Jensen. Eschewing the folksy
stylings of the red-boarded Danish
vernacular in favour of matt-black
walls, slender steel fittings and
huge sliding panes of glass, the
cabin is available to order, although
the company maintains its own
example to give a lucky few the
ultimate sleepover. vipp.com
 THE 7TH ROOM,
SW EDEN

Housed in an established architectural arboretum, The Treehotel is a crop of elegant

cabins slung between the pines in a resort near Harads in the far north of Sweden. Its
PHOTOGRAPHY (PREVIOUS PAGE):

latest addition, The 7th Room, is a five-person retreat supported by 12 slender columns.
The structure was designed by one of Norway’s best-known architecture firms, Snøhetta, in
ANDERS HVIID. THIS PAGE:

accordance with traditional local methods. That means timber framing with a pitched roof,
JOHAN JANSSON

a burnt-pine exterior and light birch ply throughout the airy interior, with custom-designed
lighting created in collaboration with Swedish company ateljé Lykta. Treehotel residents
can recline on a netting deck slung across the central space, allowing stargazers
and aurora borealis spotters to make the most of the nocturnal lightshow. treehotel.se

BELOW
The Micro House incorporates a bathroom with shower, a sleeping area, kitchen, clothing and household storage, dining table and living space
<
GROTTO SAUNA
CANADA
This solid chunk of Canadian craftsmanship conceals
its digital origins behind a charred cedar façade,
prepared using wood preserved using the Japanese
Shou Sugi Ban weathering process. Built almost
entirely off-site before being shipped and craned
to a private island retreat in Ontario’s Georgian Bay,
Partisan Projects’ Grotto Sauna was digitally crafted
PHOTOGRAPHY: JONATHAN FRIEDMAN; JIM WESTPHALEN
down to the millimetre. A laser-scanned site survey
determined the best way of fastening the building to
the rocky shore and securing the optimum sunset
view into the bargain. Inside is a riot of woody curves,
with windows, a skylight, benches, stove and storage
all part of a precisely machined surface of sinuous
flowing wooden panels. The design was inspired by the
faux natural stylings of an Italian grotto, yet is tough
enough to cope with Lake Huron’s climatic demands.
It’s a modern interpretation of a timeless geological
landscape: a warm, glowing space that appears to sit
right on the surface of the water. partisanprojects.com
LEFT
Grotto Sauna’s
interior is inspired
by the soft, ancient
rocks of Earth’s
Precambrian shield
Desired Cabins 
MICRO HOUSE
UNITED STATES
Vermont-based architecture firm Elizabeth Herrmann
usually specialises in large-scale rural houses that
flit effortlessly between shingle-sided elegance and
bold, boxy modernism. The studio’s recent Micro
House, however, devotes the same level of detail to a
structure a fraction of its usual scale. This is micro-
living, American style, with no loss of creature comforts
or amenities. Despite only taking up 40 square metres
above ground, the house – designed with artists in
mind – is a mono-pitched structure of simplicity, with
thoughtfully placed windows and openings giving the
interior the airiness of a larger space while framing the
distant Green Mountains with mathematical precision.
Splashes of colour are matched with birch, maple and
cedar. It helps, too, to have a basement level for storage,
so the project doesn’t so much sit lightly on its site as
become one with the verdant landscape. eharchitect.com
Desired Fashion
the polo custom shop dominates
the lower ground floor of the new
Polo Ralph Lauren store on Regent
Street in London. If you want to
embroider personalised patches or
monogrammed blazers, a few taps
on a tablet is all that’s required.
Similarly, at the Tommy Hilfiger
store down the street, shoppers
can pick any item in stock and
have it customised in store while
they wait. At Burberry, meanwhile,
you can monogram a scarf; at Gucci
it’s possible to appliqué designs
on jackets; and Louis Vuitton lets
its customers initial luggage under
its Mon Monogram programme.
According to Deloitte research,
one in three consumers surveyed
were interested in personalised
products, with 71 per cent of those
prepared to pay a premium for
such embellishments. Moreover,
focusing on the fashion sector,
15 per cent of those asked are
prepared to pay a substantial
markup – more than 40 per cent
over the asking price – for such items.
“Luxury consumers are increas-
ingly expecting products that feel
special and distinctive to them,
such as monogrammed iPhone cases
from Chaos Fashion,” says Tammy
Smulders, global managing director
of Havas LuxHub, the media group’s
division dedicated to fashion, luxury
and lifestyle business. “Equally,
brands are using technology and
data to segment their customers and
provide the right kinds of products,
services and brand communication.”
Technology will continue to drive
this trend, according to José Neves,
founder and CEO of online retailer
Farfetch. “Customisation will be the
next revolution in luxury,” he says.
“We wanted to find a way of offering
luxury and bespoke products to an
audience that’s increasingly knowl-
edgeable about style and quality.”
ABOVE:
Ministry of Supply personalises blazers for customers in 90 minutes
032
THE
PERSONAL
TOUCH
From bespoke footwear to
monogrammed scarves, fashion
brands are increasingly
offering custom-made luxury clothing
B Y R A C H E L A R TH UR farfetch launched its first
customisation initiative with
footwear brand Nicholas Kirkwood
in April 2017. Built in partnership
with software company Platforme –
which provides the 3D customisation
tools for brands such as Karl Lagerfeld
– customers are able to create and
visualise their own products online
based on thousands of combinations.
Farfetch has also offered its
customisation service to other brands
including Toga Pulla and Sergio Rossi.
This innovation remains confined to
digital customisation, however, not
production. For Nicholas Kirkwood,
for instance, its Beya shoes are still
handmade in Italy and delivered
to the customer six weeks later, so
customisation at scale is not possible.
London-based manufacturing
platform Unmade – which also works
with Farfetch – has a different model:
customised knitwear created within
hours. The team has hacked industrial
knitting machines so bespoke designs
can be produced at the same cost as
making thousands of identical pieces.
It has partnered with brands including
Opening Ceremony and Christopher
Ræburn to let its customers digitally
customise their purchases.
The Deloitte research indicates that
businesses not incorporating elements
of personalisation into their offering
risk losing revenue and customer
loyalty. “Brands are transforming
how they interact with current and
future customers to provide person-
alised brand experiences that make
people feel special,” says Smulders.
US-based designer Eileen Fisher
has been using $180,000 (£136,000)
Shima Seiki 3D-knitting machines
to save yarn wastage, but at New
York’s National Retail Federation
show in April, the women’s clothing
brand demonstrated a custom-
er-facing version, created with Intel,
designed to be used for customisation.
Using this machine, a bespoke
garment can be created in 45 minutes.
Michelle Tinsley, Intel’s director of
mobility and secure payments, says
that made-to-order can help retailers
track inventory, which will stop
them from discounting the “trillion-
dollar problem”: over-ordering.
Customisation is not confined
to luxury retailers. Performance
brand Ministry of Supply also uses
the Shima Seiki knitting machine in
its Boston store to offer personalised
blazers on demand. In March 2017,
adidas’s pop-up store in Berlin sold
customers bespoke knitwear items
that were printed within four hours.
The following month, Amazon won
a patent for an on-demand manufac-
turing system for apparel, designed
to quickly produce clothing, but only
after a customer order is placed. This
system would supposedly include
textile printers and cutters, and
cameras to take images of garments
to give feedback on alterations
needed in later pieces. Finally,
goods would be manufactured in
batches based on factors such as
the customer’s shipping address.
Luxury brands are being forced
to take note and explore on-demand
manufacturing and personalisation.
The ability to play with colour and
pattern is just the beginning – the
next step could be to use customer
data to provide tailored, on-demand
items. Apps such as MTailor, which
uses smartphone cameras to provide
clothing measurements in under 30
seconds, are already on the market.
Bespoke, customised, perfectly
fitting items made just for you
and only when you order them – it
sounds just like a Savile Row offering,
only this time its purchased from
your smartphone. What’s more,
this could potentially be offered
at scale and much lower cost – the
very opposite of luxury.
PHO TO GRA PHY:
A DRI A N SA M SO N
 THIS PAGE: FATIMA FROM SAPPHIRE MODELS WEARS HILFIGER COLLECTION WOOL BLEND MINI SKIRT (£190).
OPPOSITE PAGE: CIARAN WEARS 3D PRINT–KNIT BLAZER FROM MINISTRY OF SUPPLY ($285). GROOMING: SUSANA MOTA

ABOVE:
Shoppers at Tommy Hilfiger can customise their items at its Regent Street store. This WIRED design took 20 minutes to create on a Brother PR655 machine

T R A N S P
Altitude slickness
BELL 525 R ELEN TLESS
1 The Bell 525 Relentless
is the first and only
commercial helicopter
to incorporate fly-by-
wire technology, which
replaces conventional flight
controls with an electronic
interface. An intuitive
Garmin touch-screen
B Y A L EX DO A K
O R T
avionics suite deals with
environmental information
and Helicopter Synthetic
As for the cabin, the Bell
525 really does set a new
high standard for VIP
Vision Technology supplies chopper conveyance. Quite
3D depictions of terrain, apart from a distinctly
obstacles and air traffic. smooth and quiet ride,
the new MAGnificent
interior option from Mecaer
Aviation Group offers an

PHO T OG R A P H Y:
“Entertainment Enhanced
Lounge” with internal Wi-Fi,
electro-chromic window
controls that fade to
full tint with a swipe of
your phone and a Speech
Interference Level
Enhanced Noise system.
£poa bellhelicopter.com
Desired Rides
S U N LE E
Pure hybrid
LEX US LC 500H
The super SUVs, the video-
game-worthy LFA hypercar,
the Scrabble -worthy model
names, the “Mason’s
lodge” slights from Jeremy
Clarkson… all those Lexus
jibes fade away when
you see the LC 500h.
A proper driver’s car. A
front-engined, rear-driven,
two-plus-two-seater,
grand touring coupé, just
how it’s meant to be. Even
the new pinched-in front
grille finally makes sense,
in combination with the
bodywork’s lithe contours
and feline-esque haunches.
The LC 500h marks the
beginning of a new phase
for Toyota’s premium brand,
featuring the world’s first
multi-stage hybrid system
2 – essentially a mechanical

shift device that provides
incredible torque, power
and direct acceleration,
combined with the
smoothness and efficiency
of Lexus’s pioneering
hybrid technology. Power
comes from a 3.5-litre
V6 petrol-electric (the
alternative is a rather less
polar-bear-friendly 5.0-litre
V8), but don’t be fooled
by that ‘h’ – acceleration
to 100kph takes just 4.7
seconds, yet still claiming
15.6kpl and 145g/km CO 2
emissions. If the traditional
seat-of-your-pants
driving experience has
a future, this is it.
From £76,600 lexus.co.uk
Desired Rides
Power play
PORSCHE 911 GT2 RS
Approach with caution: this
is the most powerful 911
ever produced for the road.
Acceleration from 0-100kph
in 2.8 seconds and a
700hp-driven top speed
of 340kph, all underpinned
by the very distillation
of what constitutes
“Porsche”, makes the GT2
RS the ultimate in many
car lovers’ opinion. And
how is such performance
wrought from an engine
boasting no more than 3.8
litres of displacement?
A lightweight chassis
of course, with judicious
use of carbon fibre and
aerodynamics that’ll score
zero points for subtlety
038
on the school run. But
mostly it’s something called
variable turbine geometry
(VTG). Its twin water-
cooled turbochargers,
arranged in parallel, direct
the incoming exhaust
gas towards the turbine
wheel via electronically
controlled, moveable vanes
in a way that the ratios of
both a “small” and “large”
turbocharger can be
achieved. VTG therefore
largely eliminates the
target conflict of a normal
turbocharger – and enables
optimum aspect ratios
3
to be achieved in every
operational state.
The upshot? Suffice
to say, there are plenty of
tortured taglines in the
car world, but the version
for the GT2 RS is accurate
and simple: “Unyielding”.
From £207,500 porsche.com
4
Covetable coalition
NORTON V4 SS
BR EMON T

In one corner: Norton, one

of Britain’s most iconic
motorcycle manufacturers.
In the other: Bremont, the
pilot-watch brand based
in Henley, founded by
two aviator brothers with
petrol in their veins as
well as aviation fuel. Their
connection was forged in
2009 with a limited-edition
Norton chronograph; this
relationship now steps up a
gear with the watchmaker
becoming Team Norton’s
principal sponsor. Their
latest collaboration is a
road-going version of their
SG6 racing motorbike.
Wrapped in chrome, the
bling belies the level of
intricacy that comes
with a hand-built British
superbike. In fact, this is
arguably the fastest, most
technologically advanced
production superbike to
hail from these shores,
with a 1,200cc V4 engine
putting out more than
200bhp, controlled by
a full drive-by-wire
system, giving its (very
brave) rider ultimate
control and feel. £44,000
nortonmotorcycles.com

The Norton V4 SS has a

1,430mm wheelbase
Desired Rides
Rubber bullet
Pirelli 1900 by Tecnorib
This new 1900 flagship is
the latest rigid inflatable
boat (RIB) created as part
of Pirelli’s Design project,
and fittingly it doesn’t
look anything like your
usual utilitarian dinghy.
The concept was to build a
craft with the sleek design
features of yachts, but
with the characteristic
sportiness associated
with a RIB. Tecnorib, which
has been working with

The P5X features flat-
mounted disc brakes and
through-axles to improve
safety and boost stiffness
Pirelli since 2005, says
that the 18.5m craft will
have a 2,000-litre fuel tank
supplying the two 800hp
MAN i6 engines, giving
the 1900 an impressive
maximum speed of 45
knots (over 80kph), and
a (slightly) more sedate
cruising speed of 30 knots.
Despite being just
3.7 metres high and five
metres wide, Tecnorib has
attempted to make the 1900
as luxurious as possible,
with a wide sunbathing area
at the bow. It also sports a
new signature feature for
the Pirelli RIB range, with
CREDIT IN HERE LIGHT
the tread pattern of the
brand’s wet tyre it uses in
track races appearing on
the boat’s inflatable tubes.
£poa tecnorib.it

Bespoke racer
CERV ÉLO P5X
Billed as the fastest, most
technologically advanced
triathlon bike ever, it’s
difficult to argue with a
brand as well respected
PHOTOGRAPHY: WILSON HEENNESSY
and professionally
endorsed as Cervélo. As a
tri-bike, things go beyond
its extreme aerodynamism
6 and carbon everything. In
terms of customisation,
the P5X’s unprecedented
micro- and macro-
CREDIT IN HERE LIGHT
Desired Rides
adjustability allows any
athlete to find their perfect
position quickly and easily.
There is even integrated
storage. Your shopping list
will be: a bar, two packs of
chews, eight gels, six salt
tablets, three 25oz water
bottles, two tyre levers,
two C0 2 cartridges, C0 2
head, multitool, two tubes,
weather gear (light vest,
arm and leg warmer) and
phone – all stowed in the
P5X’s specially developed
Smartpac, Stealthbox and
000
Speedcase components.
Cervélo spent more than
180 hours testing the P5X in
their wind tunnel, yielding
analyses of 150-plus frame
iterations as engineering
teams photographed more
than 14,500 triathletes and
catalogued 2,800 bike set-
ups. It’s almost exhausting
reading about it before one
has even turned a pedal.
$15,000 cervelo.com
Desired Champagne 042

LIQUID

The discovery of a forgotten hoard of Bollinger reserve magnums has inspired the

Champagne house to embark on a mammoth project: to create a bottle archive

0 0 0 _ W I R E D _ X X- 1 7
ASSETS

BY TIM B A R B E R

PH O TO G R A PH Y: G R E G W H I T EX X - 1 7 _ W I R E D _ 0 0 0
Desired Champagne 044
French vineyards usually plant walls ensure things stay that way.
It belongs to Bollinger, the historic
vines in neat rows, Champagne house, which produces
its rarest and most exclusive fizz,
but, on the edge of the village of Aÿ, in France’s north- Vieilles Vignes Françaises, exclu-
eastern Champagne region, lies a tiny, walled-in field sively from Clos St-Jacques grapes.
full of ragged vines planted in a haphazard muddle. The clue is in the name: drink that
This random planting isn’t down to carelessness: this and you are tasting Champagne
is how vineyards used to exist, before the phylloxera produced the old way, right down to
bug, a US import that destroys the roots of grape vines, the grape itself. History in a glass.
ripped through Europe’s wine regions in the 19th century, History is an obsession at Bollinger.
necessitating new farming practices. Known as the Clos T h e c o m p a n y ’s C E O, J é r ô m e
St-Jacques, this field of a few acres somehow survived Philippon, proudly points out that
unscathed, one of just two such plots still remaining. The not a single archive record – logging
every release, cuvée by cuvée, year
by year, since the chateau’s founding
in 1829 – is missing. More impor-
tantly, the firm, still owned by the
B E L O W : Part of Bollinger’s R I G H T : The laser Bollinger family, maintains several
historic archive, aphrometer passes a practices that other houses have
these reserve magnums beam through the neck long since discarded, including
of Champagne from of the bottle to measure fermentation in old oak barrels, and
1921 are made with the amount of carbon keeping its reserve Champagnes –
grapes from the Grand dioxide inside. This gives a for blending into its recipes – in
Cru village of Bouzy – calculation of the pressure magnums. It also passes laser beams
hence the “BZ” title remaining in the Champagne through Champagne bottles to help
analyse the contents – but only,
naturally, for its oldest vintages.
And these can be very old indeed.
A few metres beneath the Clos
St-Jacques run several kilometres
of cold, dank cellars – arched tunnels
and chambers that long predate
Bollinger itself – populated with huge,
neat stacks of dust-caked bottles.
Wandering among these, it’s hardly
a surprise to learn that even with the
careful archiving, the odd stockpile
was missed or disregarded over the
decades. In 2010, an intern wandered
into a dark extremity of the cellar
complex and began moving a pile
of empty bottles. Behind these, he
made a discovery: 600 bottles of
old, forgotten Champagne, some
dating back to 1830 – as old as the
Champagne house itself. The newest
bottle dated to 1921. No Bollinger
employee had any recollection of the
storing of these special vintages, but
they were possibly hidden out of sight
from occupying Germans, or simply
left and forgotten between the wars.
The discovery of this remarkable
treasure trove engendered a new
and mammoth project: to gather
together all the old discarded
and ignored bottles throughout
the cellars, and to turn them into
something useful: a liquid archive of
Bollinger winemaking, with as many
bottles as possible painstakingly
analysed and restored. The result
amounts to a collection around 5,000
bottles, an unparalleled archive
of historic Champagne making.
“We don’t know exactly why many
of these wines were around,” says
Gilles Descôtes, Bollinger’s chief
winemaker, or chef de cave. “Nobody
really took notice of a lot of them –
these are huge cellars, and stockpiles
would get made and later forgotten.
We finally had to take action.”
The first task was to identify every
one of several thousand bottles,
magnums and even jeroboams,
decoding mysterious old inscrip-
tions and chalk markings – the bottle
from 1830, for instance, was simply
marked “CB 14” – and matching these
to the thankfully complete archives.
Rather more technical in nature
was the complex job of checking and
restoring as many of the Champagnes
as were found to be worth saving – an
analysis that necessitated the intro-
duction of a new laser technique
that was able to assess the pressure
inside a bottle without opening it.
The “restoration” of an antique
Champagne essentially means its
preservation as a sealed, drinkable
wine. In some ways it’s an extension
of its production process. The
pressure in a bottle of bubbly comes
from the carbon dioxide created
during the secondary fermentation
process, which occurs in the bottle
with the help of yeast that’s added to
the base wine. The by-product is the
lees, dead yeast cells that eventually
form a sediment in the bottle and
need to be removed, or disgorged,
before the Champagne is ready.
At that point, a final top-up of
sugar dissolved in wine – which is
known as the dosage – is added, and
the permanent cork inserted.
Anyone who’s ever kept a bottle
of Champagne in too warm a place
for a long period will know how a it
can lose its fizz. Over time, humidity
and moisture ensure a natural degra- Desired Wine 
dation and shrinking of the cork,
allowing leaks and the loss of carbon
dioxide – and eventually, a sparkling
wine with very little sparkle.
Descôtes and his team were aware
that, even in the perfect condi-
tions of the Bollinger cellars, the L E F T : In a process known B E L O W : Most bottles are
Champagnes would have suffered as jetting, residual oxygen disgorged by hand, but
from loss of pressure, while also is forced out of the bottle by sometimes the process is
continuing to age naturally. the injection of sulfite- automated, which involves an
Restoration would involve every added water, causing the ice cube forming around
bottle being newly disgorged, tasted, surface to bubble up yeast sediment in the neck.
potentially topped up with a dosage and eject air from the bottle The pressure allows it
and re-corked with a fresh cork; but before the cork is added to be expelled automatically
this introduced a problem. There are
two ways to disgorge a Champagne
bottle: by hand, which involves an
ancient and theatrical technique
whereby the lees explodes out of the
bottle’s neck while the degorgeur
quickly traps the Champagne with his
thumb, and prevents oxygen ingress
(a skill that only three Bollinger staff
have mastered, but which is still
used for its vintage cuvées). Alterna-
tively, the industrial method involves
bottle’s neck being frozen in a brine
solution, sealing the sediment into
an icy plug that’s expelled on opening,
while the freezing temperature also
subdues the internal pressure and
prevents the wine from fizzing out.
“We wanted to disgorge as many
bottles as possible the traditional
way,” says Descôtes. “We don’t want
to lose this savoir faire, so it was
a good time to train workers on a
very specific thing, to keep this
knowledge. But if you don’t have the
pressure any more, you can’t do this.”
On the other hand, using the ice
method – and for a lack of pressure,
extracting the cork and lees with a “It’s the instrument we always dreamed it’s really difficult to find good ones after 60 or
screw opener – came with its own about, because we wanted to know what happens 70 years, but with Champagne, even if the effer-
risks: the old bottles are thinner inside a bottle without opening it,” says Dennis vescence isn’t all there, the wine was really alive.
and liable to crack under freezing. Brunner, Descôtes’ deputy who introduced the You get such a different wine with complexity
Deciding how to open the device. “We found that, on average, after 50 and aromas that you don’t usually encounter.”
Champagne, therefore, first required years you’ve lost half of the pressure in the This introduces an intriguing prospect:
knowledge of the pressure inside a bottle, but there was also intense variation due the potential for interest specifically in old
bottle. Unable to risk using a tradi- to the corks’ quality. We know more about the Champagne, a wine that is traditionally held
tional aphrometer – a device that wine-ageing process thanks to this, and particu- to be at its best when brand new. To this end,
inserts a needle sensor through the larly the importance of the cork’s evolution.” Bollinger tested the water in 2016 by putting a
cork to give a reading – given the To be legally classed as Champagne, the small selection of wines from the 2010 discovery
potentially weak corks, the Bollinger region’s sparkling wines must contain a minimum on the auction block at Sotheby’s in New York
team turned to an appliance origi- of 3.5 bars of pressure, though most contain City. A 1914 vintage went for $12,250 (£9,275)
nally developed for the beer double this. Many of the wine library’s bottles – though, as Descôtes points out, it was the
industry, which replaced the needle have fallen below the threshold, and some of experience of visiting Bollinger and opening
with a laser. This laser aphrometer the 19th-century vintages are almost totally flat. and drinking the Champagne in situ that
passes a horizontal beam through Although they can’t be sold as Champagne, was sold, rather than simply the bottle itself.
the gap between the liquid and for Descôtes they hold no less fascination or “People are starting to see old Champagnes in
the cork in the neck of the bottle, pleasure. “One of the things this has really shown a new way. In the next ten years you will see a lot
and carbon dioxide in the gap me is that Champagne is one of the best wines more old Champagnes fetching very high prices.
absorbs the laser signal. The to age in the world,” he says. “With white wine, We’re entering another world in Champagne.”
strength of the signal delivers a
reading as to the quantity of C02 – and
therefore the pressure – in the neck.
Desired Horology 048 PHO TO GRA PHY: L EO N C HEW

B Y JOSH SIM S W A T C H E S

New movements
IWC DA VINCI PERPETUAL CALENDAR CHRONOGR APH

In 1985, IWC launched
its Da Vinci Perpetual
Calendar, and with it a new
Da Vinci line that offered a
dressier counterpart to the
company’s reputation for
graphic, tool-like timepieces.
Now it may pass for big
news in the watch industry
when a manufacturer
makes a move from the
rectangular barrel shape
back to the original round,
but the relaunched Da
Vinci Perpetual Calendar
represents more than
an aesthetic shift. The
timepiece is one of IWC’s
most mechanically
complicated, with an
in-house movement
specifically created to allow
a chronograph and
a perpetual Moon phase –
not to mention the date,
month, day and a four-digit
year display – all in one
watch. £25,000 iwc.com
The new series of watches from Glashütte: sitting smartly under the cuff, working with high precision—for men who are passionate
about what they do. The motor within is NOMOS’ sensational automatic caliber DUW 3001, made by hand in Germany, trimmed
for peak performance with high tech. Metro neomatik silvercut and other models are now available with selected retailers. More:
nomos-store.com, nomos-glashuette.com
DISCOVER THE CHANGING FACE OF HOROLOGY
TIME 2018 SUPPLEMENT. FREE WITH WIRED 07.18
 Desired Horology 051

Precision on display
HUBLOT MP-09 TOURBILLON BI-AXIS

The tourbillon has precision-giving device. more complicated bi-axial why it has also developed a
become a benchmark in Hublot’s latest watch tourbillon undergoes one three-sided sapphire glass
watchmaking excellence, design devotes itself to complete rotation per case, to give it a sense of
so it now falls on making it more visible than minute on one axis and a depth, too – and, at
watchmakers to come before. That may sound rotation every 30 seconds 49mm, it’s a beast of a
up with new ways to like a vanity, but when you on the other it’s easy to watch. £140,000 hublot.com
consider this excellent understand that the even appreciate why Hublot
gravity-countering, wants to display it. That’s
Desired Horology 

Smart design
LOUIS V UITTON
TAMBOUR HORIZON

High-end watchmakers
continue to tread tentatively
down the smartwatch
path. So it perhaps takes
a brand such as Louis
Vuitton – long on luxury
but only in the watch world
since 2002 – to embrace a
less-than-traditional model.
The Tambour Horizon offers
all the usual smartwatch
connectivity and alerts,
but adds some unique
features such as flight-
information mode
and in-built geolocated
city guides. More
impressive still, the Android
Wear-managed smartwatch
is the first to be usable
right around the world,
including in China. £2,140
uklouisvuitton.com

Oil-free innards
PANER AI LAB-ID
LUMINOR 1950
CARBOTECH 3 DAYS

In watchmaking, lubrication
is crucial. Even the
most basic movement has
60 points that need one or
another type of oil in a given
quantity. So while the Panerai
LAB-ID’s exterior looks the
part - it’s made of Carbotech,
a lightweight, corrosion-free
composite - the real action
is on the inside, where
it is free of liquid lubricant.
Instead, it keeps the cogs
and gears running smoothly
by covering them with
diamond-like carbon. And
with many watchmakers
proudly announcing
the high number of jewels
employed in their movement
design, this watch has
just four. £tbc panerai.com
Back in black
AUDEMARS PIGUET ROYAL OAK PERPETUAL CALENDAR
Gérald Genta was arguably
the 20th century’s master of
watch design – and
the Royal Oak was one of
his best. With its screws-on-
view aesthetic, it effectively
defined a new industrial
style in watchmaking. But
Audemars Piguet also
launched the first perpetual
calendar wristwatch with
leap-year indication back
in 1955. Combine these
two horophile high points
and you get the Royal Oak
Perpetual Calendar, now in
black ceramic, a material
created after Genta’s time.
Virtually unscratchable,
shock- and heat resistant, it
will look as good in another
half-century as it does new.
Add in a slate-grey dial
with a “Grande Tapisserie”
pattern, and this watch is
one dark horse. $85,000
audemarspiguet.com
Multiroom speakers that
complement your home
 Desired Horology 

The art of noise

H ER M ÈS SLI M D’H ER M ÈS L’H EU R E I M PAT I EN T E

It takes a touch of whimsy sounding when the time 2.2mm-thick movement

and imagination to is up. What is remarkable and a 1mm-thick dial, so
build an hourglass into is that Hermès has built that you can actually see
a mechanical watch. The this complication into it vibrate with the sound.
idea of the d’Hermès a case just 3.7mm thick – It’s frivolous, yes, but it’s
L’Heure Impatiente a noteworthy achievement also a reminder of what
is to give an added spark given that gongs need mechanical watchmaking
of anticipation to some space to resonate. should be in an electronic
coming event – with a gong It’s made possible by a age. $39,900 hermes.com
Patek Philippe’s
Advanced
Research facility
in Neuchâtel,
Switzerland

PH O T O G RAP HY:
CHR IST O FFER RUDQUI S T
Desired Watches 

B Y L A U R A
M C C R E D D I E - D O A K

FURTHER
ADVENTURES
IN SILICON
Patek Philippe’s

Aquanaut Travel Time

Ref. 5650G is packed

with innovation. WIRED

exclusively visits

the brand’s Advanced

Research facility

it could be any old drab-looking

office block, possibly a building
affiliated with the École Polytech-
nique Fédérale de Lausanne, the
leading micromechanical and
electronics research institute that
has its Neuchâtel outpost next door.
However, this building doesn’t look
as though it houses those working
at the bleeding edge of micro-
engineering; it looks administrative,
as if nothing really happens there
except the filing of papers. There is
little inside to dispel that notion,
until you see a door bearing a cross
formed from four fleurs-de-lis.
At this year’s Baselworld watch
and jewellery show, Patek Philippe
u nv e i l e d t h e Aq u a n a u t T i m e
Travel Ref. 5650G, the fifth watch
in its Advanced Research series – a
collection of watches designed to
showcase innovations in silicon.
Patek’s singular programme
actually has its roots in research
into silicon that took place at Centre
Suisse d’Electronique et de Micro-
technique, and which was supported
by Rolex and the Swatch Group, as
well as Patek Philippe. However,
Patek took over its laboratory,
integrating it into the family
 000
and using it to further its own
use of silicon components.
In 2005, it launched its first
component – an escape wheel – in
Silinvar (the brand’s proprietary
silicon dioxide formulation), which
it put in its Annual Calendar Ref. 5250.
A year later, the Spiromax balance
spring was unveiled in another
Annual Calendar, the 5350. Then
2008 saw the Pulsomax (lever and
escape wheel) in the Ref. 5450 Annual
‘The airflow circulates 200
times per hour. We’re dealing with
elements that are less than a
micron. We can’t have any dust’
Calendar converted to silicon, and
in 2011, it brought out its Perpetual
Calendar Ref. 5550 with a silicon
balance wheel, the GyromaxSi. It
was Patek’s first watch with the
entire complement of regulating
organs – escape wheel, lever, balance
spring and balance wheel – made
entirely from silicon; something the
brand referred to as the Oscillomax.
After this flurry of activity, the next
six years passed with nothing coming
from the Patek Philippe Advanced
Research arm except silence. Until
this year, when the latest addition
to the Aquanaut family was unveiled.
The first thing you cannot help but
notice is the cutaway at nine o’clock.
Dedicated Patek followers will know
what a leap this is for the brand; it
doesn’t even display tourbillons,
LEFT
A sheet of Patek Philippe’s
Spiromax balance springs
during production at the
Advance Research facility
RIGHT
Individual springs are
removed from the sheet.
Each is checked and
the frequency adjusted
choosing instead to observe tradition
and keep it hidden. But Patek had
good reason to expose this part of
the watch because it was one of two
major innovations contained in this
40.8mm case. The one you can see is a
time-zone correction with compliant
mechanism in steel, and the other,
which you cannot, is a Spiromax
balance spring with patented
terminal curve and an inner boss – a
groundbreaking idea that gives this
watch an accuracy (-1 to +2 seconds
per day) similar to a Patek Philippe
movement with a tourbillon. This is
made possible by the addition of an
inner boss, a bulge at the inner end
of the spring. The bulge corrects the
centre-of-mass imbalance that occurs
when a watch remains on its side for an
extended period of time and ensures
the evenness of each semi-oscillation.
And this particular modern
marvel of microengineering is made
behind those fleur-de-lis-embossed
doors in Neuchâtel.
“ t h e t e m p e r at u r e i n t h i s
laboratory is kept at 21°C and the
humidity at 45 per cent,” explains
Sylvain Jeanneret, the man who
heads up the eight-strong team at
the Patek Philippe lab in Neuchâtel,
from behind his white mask, which
is just one part of his head-to-toe
covering. “There is a continual
airflow from the ceiling into the wall.
It’s filtrated and then comes back
out again. It circulates 200 times
per hour and flows at three metres
per second.” The reason for all this
– the suits, the strict environmental
conditions – is because this is where
Patek makes the Spiromax balance,
now with two bosses, and, as
Jeanneret says, “we’re dealing with
elements that are less than a micron.
We can’t have any dust in here.”
Desired Watches 
 What goes on in these labora- Desired Watches 061
tories is known as deep reactive-ion
etching (DRIE). To start, a smooth
s i l i c o n w a f e r, re m i n i s c e n t o f
Terminator 2’s T-1000 in liquid
form and made from two layers of B E L O W A steel compliant flexible mechanism is an intricate and tiny element of the watch
mono-crystalline silicon with an
oxide layer in between, is covered
with a photoresist – a light-sensitive
material that forms a coating on the
surface of the wafer.
On top of this is placed a mask,
and the wafer is then exposed to a
mercury lamp. This allows a pattern
to show up on the silicon. A corrosive
gas called SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride)
then etches the silicon where the
photoresist is absent. The wafer is
then subjected to C 4F8 (octafluor-
ocyclobutane, an organofluorine
compound that can occur in liquid or
gas form), followed by SF6 again. This
leads to the silicon being cut through
in a striated way to reveal the
balances. The oxidised layer changes
colour to prevent the etching from
going through the wafer, and then
wet etching is used to separate the
silicon from the oxidised layer.
Each balance is checked and
an oxidisation process is used on
every individual spring to adjust
the frequency. One final oxidisation
process in a furnace at 1,000°C
stabilises the spring and, after this
three-week process, 600 miniscule
coils of silicon are ready to regulate.
“Our customers don’t need a more crab and works in a similar pincer-like been increased. Compliant mecha-
precise watch, but they do expect fashion. Instead of cogs and pinions, nisms aren’t new – the medical and
this level of attention to detail from the Aquanaut’s travel time function engineering worlds have been using
us,” explains Philip Barat, director of is now a compliant mechanism; a them for a while – but this is the first
watch development at Patek, back single piece of flexible steel that time they have been used in this way
at the company’s headquarters in has two claw-like structures at the in the watchmaking industry.
Plan-les-Ouates, just outside Geneva. end of a slim, steel cross move the “We’re already thinking about
It is here that the second of travel time wheel back and forwards. where to use this technology next,”
the Aquanaut’s innovations was The function is easily operated by explains Barat. “It won’t be used to
conceived. It looks like an animatronic two pushers at nine o’clock, and replace existing mechanisms, but we
there is even an in-built isolator so think it will allow us to find ways to
you can’t operate the two levers at reimagine complications.”
once; something the original 1950s If what is happening in Neuchâtel
two-time-zones mechanism version and Plan-les-Ouates is anything to go
didn’t have, which led wearers having by, Patek Philippe, one of the most
to be careful when setting their watch. traditional names in the business, is
Thanks to 51,000 hours of computer redefining what watchmaking looks
work, 37 parts have been reduced to like in a modern age. Which goes to
just 12, and the functional precision prove you should never judge a watch
and integrity of the component has brand by its back catalogue.

OPPOSITE PAGE LEFT

A compenent-testing Patek Philippe’s Aquanaut
machine at the Patek Travel Time Ref. 5650G
Philippe Advanced was unveiled at Baselworld
Research facility in Watch and Jewellery
Neuchâtel, Switzerland Show in March 2017
Desired Test  ON TEST

Linn Akudorik with between individual units.

HEAD TO HEAD:
ANALOGUE
VS DIGITAL
Premier digital audio takes
on remastered vinyl in a battle
for home hi-fi’s high ground
Katalyst architecture
Long an advocate of
bleeding-edge digital audio,
Linn’s Akudorik speakers
and the Akurate Exakt
DSM network streamer
is refreshed with the
fourth-generation DAC
architecture, Katalyst. This
controls an analogue signal
from any connected source.
The speaker stands contain
the Exakt Engine and
connect to the DSM using
an Ethernet cable. Exakt
is also used to correct any
manufacturing tolerances
BY STEV E M AY
PHO TO GRA PHY:
SUN L EE
Space-optimisation jiggery-
pokery gives it an edge
over the Technics. While
this setup is eye-wateringly
expensive, the sheer depth
and nuances apparent in
the music are irresistible.
CDs and TIDAL both exhibit
unfeasibly great fidelity,
while the 24-bit studio
masters sound exquisite.
9/10 £20,000 linn.co.uk
Specs
Inputs 4 x HDMI (v2.0);
2 x analogue phono; 3 x
coaxial, 3 x optical); 3.5
stereo mini jack Dimensions
380mm(w) x 90mm(h)
x 380mm(d) (streamer);
304mm(w) x 958mm(h) x
388mm(d) (speakers)
VS
Technics Grand
Class vinyl system
Technics’ twin-rotor, direct-
drive motor eliminates
rotation irregularity
and its JENO (Jitter
Elimination and Noise-
shaping Optimization)
engine combines precise
articulation with dynamics.
The impressive SB-G90
floorstanders, meanwhile,
feature Balanced Driver
Mounting architecture, in
which the speaker unit is
mounted to a sub-baffle
installed inside the cabinet
to defeat distortion. The
SU-G700 amp features
a high-rigidity metal
double chassis to reduce
vibration. The system
sounds gorgeous: this
is audio at its most
romantic, with rich, warm
tones and lifelike vocals.
High-end vinyl means high
maintenance, but those
wanting to keep music
real will find this Technics
system tangibly brilliant.
8/10 technics.com
Specs
SL-1200G turntable:
Price £2,999 Dimensions
453mm(w) x 173mm(h)
x 372mm(d) SU-G700
amplifier: Price £1,799
Dimensions 430mm(w)
x 148mm(h) x 428mm(d)
12.3kg SB-G90 speakers:
Price £1,799
Dimensions 302mm(w) x
1,114mm(h) x 375mm(d)
How we tested
For the Technics session,
we laboured over classic
albums remastered by
Abbey Road Studios. Many
were half-speed mastered,
which requires the source
and the mastering at low
lathe speeds. The result
is superior high-frequency
reproduction. For the
Linn system, WIRED played
remastered 24-bit high-
res audio 192/96 kHz FLAC
files, plus select CD rips
from a NAS, and streamed
CD-quality TIDAL
T
from the Linn app.
E
S
T
Desired Drink  B Y JER EMY WH ITE PH O TO G R A PH Y: S U N LE E

innovation within bartending. on the palette, a drink is a fleeting

REMIXING
THE
WHISKY SOUR
when shea campbell started
creating his own drinks, he naturally
relied on classic recipes. However, his
background, both in engineering (he
has a Masters in subsea engineering
with specific interest in chemical
erosion and interaction in Arctic
sub-zero temperatures) and as a chef
(you can taste his food from January
at Noma, Copenhagen), helped him
to think differently about how the
bar industry approaches mixology.
“I took time away from the kitchen
and the bar to focus on researching
the liquid format,” says Campbell.
“I got frustrated with the lack of
I wanted to remove these limitations
to look at how the parameters within
the drink can be manipulated.”
Campbell started to research
the mechanics of flavour and taste:
flavour being the combination of
aroma and taste; and taste being
the chemical reaction between the
body and the medium. “Take a whisky
sour, a combination of whisky (ABV),
lemon (acid), sugar (sucrose) and
bitters – one way of extrapolating
the boundaries of this drink would be
to twist it with additional flavours.
This adds additional taste-receptor
interactions, but primarily it adds
a different and complex aroma.”
Campbell decided to look at how he
could use taste-receptor analysis to
create a more complex drink. “Unlike
with a plate of food which has many
textures, colours and combinations
moment. It enters your mouth and,
with minimal mastication, leaves.
The time spent interacting with your
receptors is shorter,” he says. So he
set about working within this short
time window to create a beverage
experience that is more complex,
and hopefully more interesting.
With the whisky sour, Campbell
added taste complexity before
playing with the thickness, viscosity
and depth of the drink (see sidebar).
“My hope is that through education
and interaction we can change the
language of how we speak about
drinks,” he says. “Rather than
teaching classic recipes, it would
be better to explain the effects of
ingredients, so that alternate items
can be chopped and changed. What
we do right now is like teaching
someone how to spell words without
first giving them the knowledge
to understand the alphabet.”

INGREDIENTS:
Whisky
Glenfiddich Project XX
single-malt
Blend of acids
Acetic, malic, lactic,
tartaric and carbonic
acid to lighten
the drink and add
complexity.
Tannin extracts
Grape seed extract
and tea extract,
to ‘’dry’’ the mouth.
Saccharides
A blend of starches
from wheat, barley
and corn, using
polysaccharides to
offset sweetness.
Bitters
Wormwood extract.
Irritants
Cinnamic acid and
capsaicin.
Light carbonation
Adds extra interaction
with receptors.
Water
Salt
Glutamates
To amplify the sugar
element of the drink.