Talk Emoji to Me

09/23/15 • 24 min

When you think about the future of language, you might worry that we’ll all walk around speaking in weird code. Or perhaps that we won’t speak at all, instead just texting each other all day. But fear not! In this episode of Futuropolis, we discover that the spoken word (and words in general) aren’t going anywhere. They’re just morphing in cool and crazy ways. To figure out technology’s role in the future of language, we talk to Fred Benenson, the author of How to Speak Emoji and Emoji Dick, as well as Jerome Pesenti, who’s working with IBM Watson to improve the language abilities of artificial intelligence. And to discover how the past informs the future, we dug into some particularly entertaining archival musings about universal languages and whether slang can really ruin English as we know it. For a glimpse at which languages will survive the test of time, and what the world will be speaking in the future, we talk to renowned linguist and political commentator John McWhorter (who you may know from his discussion on the racially charged meaning of the word “thug” following the Baltimore riots). Plus: Don’t miss our conversation with David J. Peterson, the man who creates fictitious languages for Hollywood movies and shows like Game of Thrones. Futuropolis is a biweekly podcast on the Panoply network. This week's episode is sponsored by Braintree, code for easy online payments. If you're working on a mobile app and need a simple payments solution, check out Braintree. For your first $50,000 in transactions fee-free, go you braintreepayments.com/future.

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Previous Episode

Finding Mr. (Swipe) Right

In this episode of Futuropolis, we tackle the age old question: what is love? Okay, we don’t actually answer that question, but, we do talk to a sociologist at Tinder, the co-founder of OkCupid, and a sociologist who has studied how the ways through which we find mates has changed over time. Plus we take an entertaining look back at our archives to see why people were marrying young back in 1960. In the end, we think we have a pretty good handle of how technology is butting into our love lives. For better or for worse. (In sickness and in health.) And when all else fails, we ask Siri. Futuropolis is a biweekly podcast on the Panoply network. This week's episode is sponsored by Braintree, code for easy online payments. If you're working on a mobile app and need a simple payments solution. check out Braintree. For your first $50,000 in transactions fee-free, go you braintreepayments.com/future.

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Next Episode

Show me the digital money!

Money is one of those things you’re not supposed to talk about. It’s politically incorrect and often uncomfortable. But your favorite podcast hosts are bucking social conventions in this episode of Futuropolis to discuss how we’ll pay for things in the future. Futurist and IEEE member Heather Schlegel helps us understand why we have money in the first place,so we can see how that might change in our increasingly connected world. To take that threat further, Marla Blow, a partner at a finance investment company called Fenway Summer, envisions a world kids today might not even need to know how to swipe a credit card. And maybe paying for things will go away altogether. Virginia Heyburn, vice president of insights and advocacy at online banking tech company Fiserv gives us her predictions on that topic. Of course, in typical retro style, our archives describe new-fangled ways to pay—some that have come to pass, and some that we would rather not experience firsthand. And finally, as digital wallets and Apple Pay become mainstream, the good old fashioned dollar is seeming less and less relevant. But it’s not going to go away completely. At least not according to Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss. These investors/entrepreneurs say the dollar will go digital and start to look and act more like their cryptocurrency of choice: bitcoin. Futuropolis is a biweekly podcast on the Panoply network. Tune in every other Wednesday for more sneak peeks at the future. Futuropolis is a biweekly podcast on the Panoply network. This week's episode is sponsored by Braintree, code for easy online payments. If you're working on a mobile app and need a simple payments solution, check out Braintree. For your first $50,000 in transactions fee-free, go you braintreepayments.com/future. This episode is also sponsored by The Message, a new podcast from GE Podcast theater. Host Nicki Tomlin follows a team of elite cryptographers as they decode a highly classified radio transmission. To sum it up: extraterrestrials. Check out The Message, on iTunes.

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