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BL ADE RUNNER
2049: INSIDE
THE SCI-FI
SEQUEL
-----------
THE BATTLE
TO DEFUSE
MOSUL’S
DEADLY IEDS
-----------
BRYAN
CRANSTON
ON REBOOTING
PHILIP K DICK

O C T 20 1 7 ---- ------------ W I R E D . C O .U K

WHITNEY WOLFE
R E I N V E N T E D D AT I N G .
NOW SHE’S
TA R G E T I N G L I N K E D I N

REVEALED
-----------
EUROPE’S 100
H O T T E S T S TA R T U P S
I D E A S -------------------------------------- T E C H N O L O G Y -------------- D E S I G N ------------------------- B U S I N E S S
10-17 _ CONTENTS _   
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF WILSON. HAIR AND MAKE-UP: ANNA FUGATE-DOWNS.
STYLING: NATALIE OGURA. PHOTOGRAPHY (THIS PAGE): DAN BURN-FORTI

PLAY
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From Canelio to FitBark,


a new breed of startups
are aiming to make
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10-17 _ CONTENTS _ 0 0 7

018 START 043 GEAR 061 PLAY


News and obsessions Rated and reviewed WIRED culture

Shape-shifting architecture; Haynes jet-engine kit; BMW Concept When art and science collide; how to
cobots; the Cassini mission; ancient 8 Series; flat-pack products; multi- digitise six million sounds; Abbey
microbes; Crossrail’s tunnels; whale- room speakers; bike helmets; Omega Road’s accelerator; transhumanism;
heart preservation; language barriers watches; Ruark radiogram Philip K Dick’s sci-fi shorts; magnetic art

079 WORK SMARTER 094 FEATURE 102 FEATURE


Accelerated learning Swipe right for equality Defusing Mosul

Craig Venter’s productivity Whitney Wolfe’s dating app Bumble Iraq’s second city has been liberated
hacks; the Raspberry Pi success aimed to empower women. Now the from Daesh, but thousands of booby
story; Edinburgh startup guide; Tinder co-founder has set her sights traps litter its buildings and roads.
Debbie Wosskow’s life lessons on tackling tech’s sexism problem WIRED reports from the urban front line

112 FEATURE
Like the back of a hand

Professor Sue Black has devised a


way to track down paedophiles and
rapists – by matching hand markings
with incriminating evidence

122 FEATURE
The AI science machine

Romy Lorenz created an AI program


to design clinical tests in real-time
neuro feedback. Can it help us
understand the brain in new ways?

128 FEATURE
Back to the future

Ridley Scott hand-picked him


to make the long-awaited sequel to
Blade Runner. Now Denis Villeneuve
has become sci-fi ’s new hope

136 FEATURE
Viva el internet

In Cuba, where data trickles in via


overloaded, government-controlled
networks – if at all – the people
have staged a DIY revolution
PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF WILSON

Right: Caroline Ellis,


Bumble’s head of operations,
was the first employee
to be hired by Whitney Wolfe,
the company’s founder
0 0 8 _ MASTHEAD _ 10-17

Editor Greg Williams Group commercial director Nick Sargent

Creative director Andrew Diprose Group head of revenue Rachel Reidy

Managing editor Mike Dent Digital editor James Temperton Advertising manager Silvia Weindling
Senior commissioning editor João Medeiros Product editor Jeremy White Senior account manager Elaine Saunders
Commissioning editor Oliver Franklin-Wallis Commissioning editor Liat Clark Account manager Pavan Jhooti

WIRED LOGO: SEAN GERSTLEY. CREATED USING COIL-BUILT PORCELAIN SLABS, HAND-PINCHED INTO DIGITALLY COLOURED TILES AND STENCILED WITH THE WIRED LOGO
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Please contact our editorial team via Production director Sarah Jenson WIRED, 13 Hanover Square,
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General editorial enquiries and requests Production and digital co-ordinator Annie Franey Advertising enquiries:
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Press releases to this address only Commercial production
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   _ CONTRIBUTORS _ 10-17

Creating WIRED
Tales from the front line Stuart McGurk Amelia Tait

John Beck travelled to Mosul with GQ commissioning editor London-based writer Amelia
photographer Cengiz Yar ( left ) Stuart McGurk spoke to Tait met Bumble founder
to report on the city’s liberation Blade Runner 2049 director Whitney Wolfe in Texas and
from Daesh. In addition to booby- Denis Villeneuve about the found her to be classically
trapped roads and buildings, the inspiration behind the film. cool. “However,” Tait says,
pair also had to contend with the Does McGurk think it will “the Austin heat meant
stifling heat. “Iraqi summers are live up to comparisons with that I was the sweatiest I’ve
tough,” Beck explains. “Temper- the original? “I couldn’t be ever been.” Does she think
atures were already higher than more excited for the new Bumble will help women
40°C in Mosul when we began Blade Runner,” he says. regain confidence in dating
reporting this piece in early June. “It was always going to sink apps after the horror stories
It was Ramadan and the soldiers or swim on whether they many have experienced on
we followed continued to battle matched the distinct visual Tinder and others? “Hopefully
Daesh without eating or drinking feel of the original. You can it already has. But can it
from dawn until sunset. We fasted see just from the trailers change the way that men
too when we were with them, that they’ve managed it – treat women outside
sharing a huge meal at night. The and then some.” the app? We shall see.”
fighting was concentrated in the
city’s western bank, which was only
accessible via dirt roads, a pontoon
bridge and numerous checkpoints.
We wouldn’t have made it there at
all if it weren’t for the charm, skill
and endless hard work of our two
fixers, Mouhammad and Sangar.”

Emily Taylor Roger Highfield

Director of Oxford Director of external affairs at


Information Labs and the Science Museum Group
editor of the Journal of Roger Highfield, who once
PHOTOGRAPHY: CRISTOFFER RUDQUIST; MORGAN SILK; CENGIZ YAR

Cyber Policy Emily Taylor helped conduct an online


argues in this issue that mass-intelligence test on
cybersecurity should not be more than 100,000 people,
the state’s responsibility. So spent time with a team at
how can businesses protect Imperial College London
themselves from attacks as it prepares to run a new
Going deep The body shop such as WannaCry? “Patch experiment that will use AI
your software and back up to dissect human cognition.
Curiosity is building Photographer Morgan Silk says that your data,” she advises. “This is more than just using
about Crossrail, the vast shooting forensic anthropologist Sue “Be wary about clicking a machine to understand
railway being constructed Black at the University of Dundee links in emails or opening human intelligence,” he
beneath London’s streets. was an unforgettable experience. attachments. The trends says. “Using an AI to run
Photographer Christoffer “I’m not overly squeamish, but I was suggest that cyberattacks experiments could usher in
Rudquist (above, right) apprehensive,” he says. “Surprisingly, continue to increase in a better way to do science.”
sheds some light on the I didn’t find the rows of amputated severity. However, basic
heroic feats of subterranean limbs and human dissections anywhere cyber hygiene can defeat 80
engineering on page 18. near as disturbing as I had imagined.” per cent of cyberattacks.”
As a leader of adventures, Belinda Kirk believes exploration is an experience worth
sharing. For her, true wealth is found when taking groups of people to places they’ve
never been before.

San Miguel have been exploring the world since 1890. Throughout our journey we
have discovered more trailblazers like Belinda who share our thirst for discovery,
creativity and new experiences. This unique collection of inspirational people form
the San Miguel Rich List, coming 12th October.
10-17 _ FROM THE EDITOR _ 0 1 3

Pictured: Bumble
team members
( l-r) Whitney
Wolfe, Sam
Fulgham, Alex
Williamson and
Caroline Ellis

The WIRED perspective on the


world has become the norm
Someone who claims to have witnessed this culture

A
few months ago, we noticed a notable trend in
our web-traffic data: stories with a political is our cover subject, Whitney Wolfe, who in 2014 quit her
aspect were extremely popular with readers. job as co-founder at Tinder after allegedly being sexually
Perhaps this isn’t surprising; today’s news harassed by colleagues. She says she was sent abusive
cycle – from the chaos of Brexit to the shambles in the White messages and called derogatory names. Wolfe’s lawsuit
House, the tragedy of Grenfell to an iceberg twice the size of against the company was settled without admission of
Luxembourg breaking away from the Antarctic ice shelf – is wrongdoing. Her response has been to found Bumble,
relentlessly political and possesses an existential urgency. a dating app that empowers women by ensuring only
At one point, it seemed that liberal democracy was they can initiate contact. This month, the startup is
cruising towards comfortable middle age. The world order launching Bumble Bizz, a network akin to LinkedIn.
had been established and we were edging in the direction We are thrilled to announce that Wolfe, along with Sarah
of greater freedoms and equality, some of it driven by increased Lacy – the journalist whose piece on sexism at Uber
access to technology. Sometimes progress was dramatic prompted one of its executives, Emil Michael, to suggest
but, more often, it was simply the direction of travel, pulled it should hire a team to smear journalists who covered
inexorably in one direction by the tide of history. the company in an unflattering way – will be speaking at
Today, whether we are addressing issues of security or WIRED Live, our two-day festival, on November 2 and 3 in
the environment, employment law or corporate takeovers London (wired.co.uk/event/wired-live). Please join us for
of global organisations with vast amounts of data, the what will be an engaging and urgent occasion.
WIRED perspective of the world – one that is centred
on how technology, science and ideas are shaping every
aspect of society – is the norm, not an outlier.
As we were putting this issue together, two stories centred
in the tech industry emerged that shared thematic similar-
ities. Firstly, after conducting an investigation spurred by
PHOTOGRAPHY: EYEVINE

allegations of impropriety, Travis Kalanick stepped down as chief Greg Williams


executive of Uber. Secondly, The New York Times published an Editor
investigation into harassment of women in the tech industry, which
detailed accounts of how female entrepreneurs had been propo-
sitioned by VCs and CEOs were subject to sexist comments.
PPA Designer of the Year 2017 • BSME Art Team of the Year 2017 • BSME 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 • BSME Art 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 • BSME 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 • BSME Art 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 • BSME Launch of the Year 2009
   _ 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

ENGINEERING
crossrail
countdown
Below Tottenham Court
Road in central London,
engineers are adding
the final touches –
escalators, ticketing
booths and signalling
– to a station that will
accommodate 170,000
passengers a day.
This is part of Europe’s
largest infrastructure
project: the £14.8
billion Elizabeth
line, also known as
Crossrail. “The existing
infrastructure in
PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOFFER RUDQUIST

London was built 150


years ago and it was
never intended or
envisioned that it would >
cater for about ten
million people,” says
Camilla Barrow, deputy
project manager of rail
systems at Crossrail. >
   _ START _ TUNNEL VISION

To get to this point, the tunnel to stabilise it.


eight 150-metre-long When the project is
tunnel boring machines complete, the Elizabeth
(TBMs) carved a 21km rail line will have 40 stations
network at a rate of 100 and its trains will carry
ENGINEERING
metres a week, manned an estimated 200 million
24 hours a day by 20 passengers a year.
people. Six TBMs tunnel “Once we’ve run the
through city clay; another trains through tests and
two are slurry machines, made sure the systems

PHOTOGRAPHY: CHRISTOFFER RUDQUIST


which mix excess operate as they should,
earth with water to form we’ll be handing over in
a chalky liquid, so it anticipation of the central
can be sent through Crossrail stations opening
pipes to the surface. in December 2018,”
After the tunnels Barrow says. Victoria
are carved out, a TBM Woollaston and Amelia
uses a hydraulic arm to Heathman tfl.gov.uk
install seven layers of
reinforced concrete into

Above: Engineers on a road and rail vehicle install cable-management systems in a


tunnel near Stepney Green station. Below: A connecting walkway at Tottenham Court
Road has cladding made from glass-fibre reinforced concrete applied to its walls
F E AT U R I N G :

MARGRETHE VESTAGER
THE MOST POWERFUL
WOMAN IN EUROPEAN TECH
ILKKA PAANANEN
THE $10 BILLION CEO
CARRIE GOLDBERG
T H E AT T O R N E Y F I G H T I N G S E X U A L T E R R O R I S M
SUE BLACK
THE INVENTOR OF NEW FORENSICS
ROMY LORENZ
THE AI MASTERMIND

NOV 2-3, 2017


TOBACCO DOCK, LONDON
WIRED.CO.UK/EVENT/WIRED-LIVE
WORD COUNT _ START _ 0 2 3

WHO Jennifer WHAT “We’re looking at police body-cam NEXT Video


Eberhardt, social footage because we want to improve, not just analysis of police
psychologist tense encounters, but everyday interactions” body language

language
barriers
A study found that the vocabulary
used by police during traic stops
depends on the race of the driver

“Hey, man,” says the officer


sauntering up to your car. The
nonchalant greeting might seem
insignificant – but it’s not.
If you’re white, that police officer is
statistically more likely to lead with
“Hello, sir.” Jennifer Eberhardt, a
social psychologist at Stanford
University, heads a team of
computational linguists, engineers
and computer scientists, which is
developing speech-recognition and
transcript-analysis software for
policing. Using machine intelligence,
the system scans transcripts from
body-camera footage to recognise
patterns of racial disparity.
Eberhardt refined her computational
tools during a two-year study of
the Oakland Police Department,
scrutinising more than 36,000
statements from traffic stops. The
resulting data found that officers
were more likely to ask questions of
black drivers, less likely to state a
PHOTOGRAPHY: GRAHAM WALZER. GROOMING: ELIZABETH CHANG

reason for pulling them over and less


likely to use respectful language. In a
data set representing an equal number
of encounters with black people and
white people, the model could predict
the driver’s race 68 per cent of the time,
based solely on the officer’s language.
Such analysis on a wider scale
“could be industry-changing”,
Eberhardt says, giving police
supervisors the means to identify
patterns of slanted speech and conflict
escalation – before the interactions Jennifer Eberhardt’s research shows that police are more likely to use
make the headlines. Lauren Murrow abrupt and less respectful language with…
_ _
…African Americans …than with white people
Examples include: man, warrant, Examples include: sir, registration,
your ID, listen, ain’t, gonna, plate, your headlights, hello, actually, oh,
passenger, sticker, paperwork, have OK, try, help, sign, red light, citation,
insurance, driving without, probation, contest, the fine, I just, the reason,
LINGUISTICS
suspended, tow, you got, hold, hey questions about, safely, can go
  
0 0 0 _ START _ U
PARG
BEA NT I PT LL A
ENNER

% of the view covered in foliage

1% 1% 1% DATAVIZ

75% 25% 75% 25% 75% 25%

50%

AMSTERDAM
50%

BOSTON
Number of screen
captures covered in
foliage for each %
50%

FRANKFURT garden
cities
Green View Index Green View Index Green View Index

12,53 19,35 21,67

1% 1% 1%
Forget counting parks – a
database of urban greenery
ranks cities based on how
leafy they look to residents.
75% 25% 75% 25% 75% 25% Researchers are already
using satellite imagery to
estimate the number of
trees in cities, but Newsha
Ghaeli, a research associate
50% 50% 50%
at MIT’s Senseable City Lab,
GENEVA LOS ANGELES LONDON
wanted to analyse residents’
Green View Index Green View Index Green View Index perspectives. She called
22,30 16,32 14,73 her analysis Treepedia. “It’s
important to understand the
amount of trees and canopy
1% 1% 1%
cover from the street, as
that’s what we perceive to
be in cities,” Ghaeli says. To
create the greenery maps,
her team feeds images from
75% 25% 75% 25% 75% 25%
Google Street View into an
algorithm that estimates
what percentage of each
image consists of trees.
50% 50% 50% Plotting these scores on a
MIAMI PARIS SACRAMENTO map determines the leafiness
of each street. The results
Green View Index Green View Index Green View Index can be combined to give each
20,30 12,53 23,12 city a score. The data set
for London consisted
of two million images.
1% 1% 1% Lower amounts of city
greenery have been linked
with higher stress levels, so
analysing tree cover may offer
key health insights. “We’re
INFOGRAPHIC: VALERIO PELLEGRINI

75% 25% 75% 25% 75% 25%


working on cities in Asia and
Australia,” Ghaeli says – but
she can only analyse areas
with Street View images,
50% 50% 50% which rules out China and
SEATTLE SINGAPORE SYDNEY India. Matthew Reynolds
senseable.mit.edu/treepedia
Green View Index Green View Index Green View Index

20,62 29,41 24,89


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   _ START _ SELF-DRIVE

ustin Russell helps cars see. As before he was old enough to drive laser light, have been around for

A he drives past London’s Hyde


Park, he flicks between two
screens – one showing what a
himself. He describes his educational
background as “non-traditional”: by
age 12 he had been sponsored by Intel
decades, but most autonomous cars
are still using the same hardware
they were ten years ago. Russell
standard autonomous car can to build a supercomputer. At 13, he On a car that says that’s because developers have
see and the other showing what his car can see. settled on pursuing optics and uses Luminar been “throwing software engineers
Everything is visible, from the leaves on the photonics. “I wanted to see a product Technologies, at a hardware problem”, which is
trees and the people inside double-decker scale and be seriously deployed as only one laser why he decided to build everything
buses, to a man stamping out his cigarette on something useful.” At 18, he was is needed, from lasers to processors from
the side of the road. “For the first time, you can bankrolled by PayPal co-founder compared scratch. His system operates at a
see in really high resolution where objects Peter Thiel so he could drop out of to 64 on new wavelength of light – 1,150
are in the landscape,” Russell explains. Stanford and begin building Luminar. autonomous rather than 905 nanometres – so
Russell is the 22-year-old founder and CEO LiDAR systems, which measure cars that Russell says its range is ten times
of Luminar Technologies. He has recently distance to objects with a pulsing don’t use it farther and its resolution 50 times
pulled the Florida-based company out of higher than the most advanced
stealth mode after five years building a Light systems. This means it can see 200
Detecting and Ranging (LiDAR) system for metres ahead, giving the car seven
self-driving cars. Russell started building his
company, which now employs 200 people,

The laser-light image that Russell likens to viewing


an HD TV compared to a black-and-white TV
seconds to react to an obstacle when Companies such as Ford and Uber
travelling at standard speeds. Current have pledged to put autonomous cars
LiDARs have to use a separate laser for each on the road by 2021. Russell says that
line of resolution (“normally you’d need 64 if they’re going to be truly auton-

Early
different lasers and receivers”), whereas omous they’ll need to be using his
Luminar’s requires only one to create an technology. So confident is he in
almost 3D map. So, not only can it collect Luminar, he says it can accelerate

adopters
better data, but it’s also far cheaper to make. the arrival of fully automated cars
“We’re aiming to help firms get dramati- by as much as five to ten years. How
cally fewer critical failures or disengage- will those cars compare to today’s?
ments,” Russell says. “This is the first sensor “We’re possibly thousands of times
to meet the minimum specifications our better at seeing edge cases such as
customers have requested. You can’t send a a child chasing after a ball,” he adds.
car out and miss one in every 100 people.” “Overall, when are those scenarios
going to come up? Very rarely, SALLY
but when they do, we’ll be able to COLDHAM
see them.” BC luminartech.com founder,
Airloom

“As a designer, I have a clear

A clearer road ahead


Luminar Technologies aims to improve the safety of
idea of how I want my brand –
but I’m non-technical. Pixel
Together allowed me to build
Airloom’s site exactly the way
I envisioned it. The website
autonomous cars by changing the way they see obstacles builder is very simple to use and
provides unlimited freedom.”

MATT EAMES
chief
commercial
officer, Feefo

“Qkr is an app that lets me order


and pay for meals immediately,
and enables me to split the bill
with others. I love its simplicity
and how it lets me dine on my
own terms. It itemises the bill
and suggests tips based on
percentages of the overall cost.”

CHERRY
FREEMAN
co-founder,
LoveCrafts

“I’m six weeks into using my


Kegel tracker, Elvie. It’s a pod
that connects to an app and lets
you play games by tensing your
pelvic-floor muscles. It plays to
my competitive streak. I enjoy
combining an activity that’s good
for me with other tasks.” BC
fter 13 years of discovery, Nasa’s Cassini

A probe is scheduled to plunge into Saturn’s


atmosphere in a controlled burn-up on
September 15. Since it arrived at the Ringed
Planet in 2004, the probe has returned a
series of discoveries, including evidence that the small,
icy moon Enceladus harbours an ocean beneath its surface
– indications that it might possess the basic requirements
for life. WIRED spoke to Cassini imaging principal inves- subsurface ocean that might possibly What excites you most: discovering
tigator Carolyn Porco (right) about the historic mission. be home to life… what I regard as a second origin of life based on
David Warmflash saturn.jpl.nasa.gov Cassini’s most profound discovery. d i f f e re n t b i o m o l e c u l e s, f o r
instance, or extraterrestrial life
WIRED: What are the key discoveries made by Cassini? What is your proudest moment? that turns out to have a common
Carolyn Porco: It would be impossible in a few words to The imaging team’s body of work. It origin with terrestrial life?
describe all that we’ve found with Cassini. No mission has was our job to survey the system, The far greater scientific bounty
ever gone as deep for as long on a planetary system as rich uncover the unseen and produce would come from discovering a
as Saturn’s. We found seas of hydrocarbons and a surface Cassini’s travelogue – the visual genuine second genesis of life with
environment on [Saturn’s largest moon] Titan that rivals record of our wanderings through the diferent biochemistry. Then we’d be
the Earth’s. We observed the meteorology of Saturn’s Saturn system. The story that able to compare the two schemes and
atmosphere and witnessed the birth, evolution and demise we leave behind in our images is investigate why one system went in
of giant storms, giving us the chance to discern how the magnificent and won’t be duplicated one direction and the other developed
planet’s atmosphere difers from Earth’s. for a very long time. diferently. That’s what we’re sorely
We found new phenomena in Saturn’s rings that have Of course, after having worked with missing now in studies of origins of
given us deep insights into the processes ongoing in the [astronomer] Carl Sagan in taking the life. To find life that was identical to
early stages of the formation of solar systems, including Voyager 1’s “Pale Blue Dot” image of Earthly life at a place where it’s likely
our own. We mapped its moons and found new ones, Earth, a major moment of pride for me that there has been an interchange
including objects embedded within the rings themselves. on the personal level was The Day the with Earth – like Mars – would be
And we found the geysering turmoil [geyser-like activity] Earth Smiled: my idea to take another unconvincing of a second genesis.
at the south pole of Enceladus that pointed the way to a “Pale Blue Dot” image of Earth, only That’s another reason why Enceladus
this time invite the public to partic- is so compelling. The chances are
ipate. It was a tribute to Carl as well exceedingly remote that there has
as a way to let people all over the world been any interchange.
feel a sense of our place in the cosmos.

THE SPACE Should easy accessibility of Encela-


dus’s water-rich plumes raise its
status as a destination for probes
Is anybody today communicating
the cosmic perspective as well as
Carl Sagan did?
Carl was uniquely gifted, not only in

INVESTIGATOR with life-detection equipment?


Yes. The plumes’ accessibility, the
the way he melded ideas from diferent
scientific disciplines, but in his

PHOTOGRAPHY: SPENCER LOWELL


moon’s benign environment and our placement of scientific inquiry within
13 years of study make its extrater- the sweep of human history and
Planetary scientist Carolyn Porco tells WIRED restrial ocean the one we understand culture. There is no one out there like
about her time working on the Cassini mission the most. Enceladus is the most him, but there are people keeping the
promising target for investigation. spirit alive and making it clear that,
without a scientific enterprise, we are
Does “benign environment” mean doomed. They deserve our applause.
less radiation compared with
that on Jupiter’s Europa moon,
making it easier for instruments
to operate and for complex organic
molecules to survive?
Yes. We are ready to knowledgeably
design measurement strategies specif-
ically to seek evidence of life on the
next mission to Enceladus. Europa
aficionados argue that it stands a
greater chance of having a vigorous
biota, because, they suggest, being
larger, its ocean is probably longer
lived. But Enceladus’s ocean may be
just as old. Moreover, since we don’t
know how long it took life to evolve Left: Cassini is covered in lightweight
on Earth (it could have been quick) aluminised thermal blankets to protect
this is not a convincing argument. it from extreme temperatures in space
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED _ START _   

SPACE
   _ START _ AUTOMATION STATION

Emika’s cobots ( pictured )


mean they can safely
thinks not: “Franka’s
bots were designed to be THE NEW
Industrial robots get
lots done, but they’re
work in the same building
as humans, and will stop
automatically if they
are well-equipped to
perform tasks such
used alongside humans.
We call this human-
centred robotics.”
ARMS RACE
expensive, dangerous come into close contact as painting, screwing Founded in 2016,
and hard to program. with one. “It basically and packaging – even Franka Emika sold 200
That’s why roboticists means it has a sense of playing a board game. “I research versions of its
are turning to cobots – touch along the entire could have the ability to cobot in the first four
collaborative robots made structure,” Haddadin help my grandfather at weeks of 2017, for €16,500
to work alongside us and, says. Programming is home. Even though I’m (£14,000) each. “Recently, UNIVERSAL
perhaps one day, in our handled through an app, not physically there, the we showed it how to ROBOTS
homes. “We are trying to so even non-engineers cobot can copy my tasks, open and close plastic The Danish
make a support-service can ask the cobots to do whether that is playing bags and use cable company makes
robot for people who can’t complex actions, which a game of chess or ties,” he says, “This was three robo-arms
support themselves or can be replicated through making him some food,” previously considered to designed to
leave home,” explains the cloud to another of Haddadin explains. be impossible for robotic work alongside
Simon Haddadin, the firm’s cobots. With such a wide systems.” WIRED will humans. They
co-founder of Munich- With seven degrees range of skills at their place an immediate can perform
based Franka Emika. of freedom and a reach disposal, will this speed order for any model precise tasks
The lightweight, three- radius of 85cm and up the robot-worker that can take the bins such as icing a
kilogram frames of Franka 0.1mm accuracy, they revolution? Haddadin out… BC franka.de name on a cake.

These bots mean business


Collaborative robots won’t steal your job – they’ll help you do it more eiciently
ABB
The Swiss firm
has created
YuMi, a cobot
with two arms
that’s designed
for assembling
small parts. Its
algorithms
ensure it can
stop milliseconds
before a collision.

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0 3 2 _ START _ CAFFEINE RUSH

bike-café empire
Maria De La Croix didn’t
get the barista job at
Starbucks. “According
to its dress-code policy

has more in store


at the time,” she says, investors including
“my hair colour wasn’t Gmail creator Paul
acceptable.” So, instead, Buchheit and Justin
she set up a competitor. Waldron, co-founder of
Three years later, her Zynga. Now on their fifth
Wheelys co-founder Maria De La Croix wants Wheelys bicycle cafés, crowdfunding campaign,
their staf-less store to be bigger than Amazon Go which use kinetic energy Wheelys supplies its
and solar panels, serve bikes with an app and
coffee in 800 locations a variety of options,
across 78 countries – and including a crêperie
Stockholm-based and an ice-cream bar
De La Croix, 28, is already that costs between
eyeing the next target. $7,000 and $9,000.
Wheelys began rolling in The Wheelys brand is
2014, when De La Croix undergoing an expansion
built her first café cart out – with a twist. Inside
of a bicycle and a box. “It Wheelys 247, a store that
was basic,” she recalls. launched in May in
Still, coffee drinkers liked Shanghai, there are no
it and the low running staff – instead, shoppers
costs made the business download an app, which
profitable. So, along with they use to scan goods
her co-founders Per and pay by credit card.
Cromwell and Tomas (Cameras check that
Mazetti, De La Croix people aren’t stealing.)
launched a branded A rival to Amazon Go?
version on crowdfunding “Our ambition is to be
site Indiegogo. Sixteen bigger,” De La Croix
would-be café owners explains. She plans to
bought carts for a total of open applications to
COFFEE $59,532 (£46,429). The potential store owners
next year, they applied within a few months.
to the San Francisco “We want to make it
accelerator Y Combinator, super easy to start
and were accepted. your own café, and
Y Combinator gave that’s our wish for the
Wheelys support, shop as well,” she says.
contacts and a $2.5 million “The Amazon shops are
seed round from angel run by Amazon; our shops
are run by entrepreneurs.”
With whatever hair
colour they want. RM
wheelyscafe.com

WIRED TIRED EXPIRED

Lyrebird FaceApp Trusting anything

Apple-picking robots Apple robot car Apple Pro desktops

Facebook brain readers SubVocal Siri Chorded keyboards

Tax the robots Wall the gardens Eat the rich

It’s No Game Sunspring Robert McKee


BIG TICKER _ CASH CONVERTER _ START _ 0 3 5

Money
machine
Digital wallet Scrip could
let customers make payments
with a swipe of their thumb

For many people, cash


transactions still make
the world go round.
“The cashless society
excludes billions of
people who do not have
access to the banking
system,” says Gadi
Amit, principle designer
at NewDealDesign in
San Francisco. “And,
ultimately, economies
like cash.” That’s why
Amit, 54, has created
Scrip, a digital wallet.
Scrip features
a system of tiny scales
that rise and fall
to depict currency.
A thumb swipe makes
payments with the
motion of counting
out banknotes.
“I wanted to explore
the process of turning
virtual payments back
into a vital sensory
experience,” Amit says.
Scrip, which is still
at prototype stage,
PHOTOGRAPHY: THE ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM; SUN LEE. ILLUSTRATION: BROWN BIRD DESIGN

is designed to allow
direct transfers without
recording transactions. O Thumb over the
The device could rippled surface
develop as a supportive to physically
digital ledger, ordering connect with
MONEY
the “dark economy” digital cash
of non-traceable,
but necessary cash O Scrip deliberately
transactions. “Scrip slows down till
will be open to any transactions; pay
digital currency,” Amit £26 by swiping
says. “The possibility for £20, £5 and £1
of circumventing the
traditional banking
system becomes
real with blockchain.”
Lucy Johnson
newdealdesign.com
0 3 6 _ START _ WAITING GAME

n December 2016,

I Sarah Stewart Johnson


flew from McMurdo
Station, the US scien-
tific outpost on the
edge of Antarctica, to the shore of
Lake Vanda in the middle of the Dry
Valleys – the driest desert in the
world. Johnson, assistant professor
of planetary science at Georgetown
University in Washington, DC, was
looking for ancient microbes: simple
creatures that had once lived and
thrived in this remote region. But this
wasn’t just a collecting expedition.
Johnson and her team were searching
for the secret of life itself.
“Antarctica is the perfect place
to investigate some of the funda-
mental questions about the persis-
tence of life,” says Johnson. “For me,
that was really the big draw – to go to
one of the most marginal places on
Earth and find out, when microbes
are really pushed to their limit, how
they survive.” By answering that
question, she hoped to unlock a new
understanding of life, both on Earth
and perhaps elsewhere.
To call Lake Vanda remote is an
understatement. From the nearest

city, Christchurch in New Zealand, became covered in a centimetre of Above: Sarah Stewart

SEARCHING it is a seven-hour flight, one-hour


drive and 45-minute helicopter trip.
It sits surrounded by mountains,
which in turn block the encroaching
windblown gravel. Not a good place
to be, you’d think, for a microbe used
to being in a lake. And yet, when
Johnson’s team looked, the mat was,
Joþson (right) and
fellow Georgetown
researcher Dave
Goerlitz in Antarctica;

FOR THE glaciers from moving through the


valley. Winds, reaching a sprightly
320kph, are heated by friction from
the ground as they pass over, melting,
if not quite wriggling around, still
very much intact, as if it had been
healing itself over those thousands
of dry years. The cells had survived
Right: The McMurdo
Station research base is
on the tip of Ross Island

MICROBE evaporating and blowing away most


moisture. This leaves just gravel and
a lake so shrunken that it has ten
times the salinity of regular seawater.
over an enormous amount of time.
But the question was, how?
One theory suggested that the
cells entered a state of dormancy.

SURVIVORS
Is there life on Mars? These
Even so, it’s covered by ice that’s four
metres thick for much of the year.
It wasn’t always like this. Three
thousand years ago, the lake was
much deeper, reaching higher
As Johnson puts it, “They hunker
down and shut down all metabolic
activity, and basically just wait until
conditions return to a more clement
state.” But if that was the case, over
Antarctica-based scientists say up the valley and teeming with time the environment would have
there’s something in our soil… microbes. As it receded, the lakebed taken its toll and the cells would have
sediment containing those microbes been damaged, eventually beyond
was exposed to the air. The mat of repair. That hadn’t happened. So
microbes dried up and over time Johnson began to look at another
level of metabolic activity, at least
enough to repair your genome so it ‘Microbes are
doesn’t get damaged beyond repair?”
Johnson says. But to do that required the big story
an understanding of the genetics
behind this ability to stay “just alive”. in Antarctica.
What in the DNA of these microbes
made them so tough? Previously that It’s Earth’s most
would have been impossible.
GENETICS
For the first time, the researchers Mars-like place’
on the ice were equipped with pocket-
sized DNA sequencers, the MinION
MK 1B made by UK company Oxford
Nanopore, to sample and sequence
the microbes right there on the ice,
sending back not samples, but data. Antarctica,” she explains. “This is the
For something to survive in such most Mars-like place on Earth.”
a harsh environment means that the This is important because there’s
microbes have evolved to produce a chance that microbes that we
biochemicals within that are able to find on Earth might have once been
provide protection. These chemicals resident on Mars. At a time when the
are called secondary metabolites and Red Planet had running water, rocks
are very useful for humanity. One from both planets hit each other as
group forms the basis of modern a result of asteroid impacts. As we
antibiotics, for example. can be sure that the rock traic went
The DNA sequencing of organisms in both directions, it’s possible that
that can be found thriving in harsh microbial life went with it.
places allows scientists to not only On Mars, life will need to have
add to the great catalogue of living survived even after the planet’s water
things, but also to the catalogue evaporated or froze. It turns out, at
of genes known to produce useful least in Antarctica (and for a much
secondary metabolites. shorter time period), that might be
As well as this, sequencing species possible. So perhaps buried under-
in situ is important because, in many neath some Martian gravel, there’s
ways, it enables the re-emergence of something similar, waiting to be found.
old-school adventure biology. Where Ben Hammersley georgetown.edu
Victorian botanists would travel to,
say, the eastern Himalayas to bring
back rare orchids, today’s geneti-
cists are now travelling to extreme
locations to bring back genes.
But Johnson, as Georgetown’s
hypothesis, that the cells had stayed assistant professor of planetary
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANGEL A BAI;

metabolically alive at a very low level science, has another reason to study
and continued to repair themselves. microbes that can exist in harsh
“One of the questions we wanted to environments – something even
DAVID GOERLITZ

ask was: over what timescale should more adventurous than expeditions
we see dormancy as favoured, versus in search of extreme genetics: life on
something maintaining a very low Mars. “Microbes are the big story in

_ _ _ _

apps Alexi
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suggestions, add books
to your library and read
game, which asks you to
sell eggs, build henhouses
and commission farm
plant and it tells you what
it is. Connect with other
gardeners for tips. iOS
public conversations,
send relevant “smart
replies” to messages

month straight from your phone.


iOS, free alexibooks.com
research. iOS, Android,
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and Android, free identify.
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W I R E D S E C U R I T Y. S E P T E M B E R 2 8 , 2 0 1 7. K I N G S P L A C E , L O N D O N

WIRED SECURITY RETURNS TO LONDON TO DISCUSS THE LATEST INNOVATIONS, TRENDS AND THREATS IN
CYBERSECURITY, ENTERPRISE DEFENCE AND SECURITY INTELLIGENCE. CONFIRMED SPEAKERS INCLUDE:

ANDREI SOLDATOV CALEB BARLOW PAUL HOARE ALLISON MILLER DMITRI ALPEROVITCH BEYZA UNAL
INVESTIGATIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF SENIOR MANAGER, PRODUCT STRATEGY, CO-FOUNDER AND RESEARCH FELLOW,
JOURNALIST AND THREAT INTELLIGENCE, PROTECT & PREVENT, SECURITY, GOOGLE CTO, CROWDSTRIKE CHATHAM HOUSE
AUTHOR, THE RED WEB IBM SECURITY NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY
• • • • • •
Russian investigative Caleb Barlow leads Paul Hoare is the Allison Miller designs Alperovitch co-founded A specialist in nuclear
journalist Andrei several teams focused senior lead and and implements real- CrowdStrike in 2011. The weapons policy, Unal
Soldatov co-founded on threat intelligence, co-ordinator for all time risk prevention Washington DC-based leads projects on
Agentura.ru, a watchdog research and incident cybercrime work and detection systems cybersecurity company chemical, biological,
of the Russian secret response and related to the Prevent running at internet tracks 15,000 hacks a radiological and
services’ activities. He preparedness. He was and Protect strands scale. Her role at Google year. It uncovered the nuclear arms. She
is the author of The Red behind IBM’s X-Force of the National Crime is focused on mitigating suspected Russian conducts research
Web, which details the Command, the world’s Agency. He is the security risks and intelligence behind the on cybersecurity and
battle between Russia’s most sophisticated longest-serving cyber threats to platforms email breach suffered in critical infrastructure
digital dictators and cyber simulation senior investigating and consumers across 2016 by the Democratic protection, with a focus
online revolutionaries. security environment. officer in the UK. Google’s portfolio. National Committee. on civil nuclear plants.

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STATE SECRETS _ START _ 0  

it’s time to liberate


cybersecurity from gchq
Our online intelligence services need freedom from the government if they are to keep us safe

If security services could keep their


OPINION
secrets safe, perhaps none of this
would be a problem. But the NSA’s
leaks show that even the best intelli-
gence agencies are not invulnerable
to hacking. Eternal Blue was published
online by the mysterious group of
hackers known as the Shadow Brokers,
which began releasing secrets in 2015.
ntil 1994, GCHQ, the British signals Their drop followed a release by

U intelligence agency, didn’t oicially


exist. Now, it has emerged out of
the shadows to take a very public role
WikiLeaks of nearly 9,000 documents
exposing hacks developed by the CIA.
We do not know how these details
at the heart of British cybersecurity. were released, but it’s easy to see
Public accountability for intelligence services how leaks could develop. Security
is crucial to any democracy, but as the recent professionals such as those at the
WannaCry ransomware attack showed, there are NCSC believe strongly in their work
inevitable conflicts of interest between the role combating threats to the safety of
of intelligence services and network safety. the network, so the practice of
The past seven years have seen a dramatic change hoarding zero-day vulnerabilities
in profile for GCHQ. While the number of police oicers would be troubling to them.
has been cut by 14 per cent since 2010, according to Within intelligence agencies such
the Home Oice, GCHQ’s staf numbers have grown as GCHQ, it can be difficult to raise
by more than ten per cent in the same period. At leaked, along with a suite of hacking concerns internally, increasing the
the same time, it has been loaded with additional tools targeting Windows PCs. The potential security threat from insiders.
responsibilities, including the fight against distri- same leak contains powerful exploits If an employee’s legitimate worries
bution of child-abuse images on the dark web, money that could be weaponised by state aren’t being heard, it could lead to
laundering and financial fraud. This was made oicial adversaries, organised crime or by whistle-blowing – with a disastrous
when, in February 2017, it assumed responsibility for anyone possessing basic technical impact on national security.
making the UK “the safest place to do business online” knowledge – as we saw with the Petya Loading responsibility for public
through the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). ransomware attack in Eastern Europe. cyber-safety on to the intelligence
This rapid increase in power is the result of GCHQ’s Had the NSA chose to inform services is bad for both public safety
own competence. A dearth of expertise in government Microsoft of the vulnerability, there and national security. It also risks
has led to a reliance on the intelligence service to fill would have been no Eternal Blue, and diverting resources and energies away
gaps. However, one of the core roles of intelligence no WannaCry. But intelligence from national security and covert
agencies is covert operations. Weaving public-safety agencies have a diferent motivation: operations. The WannaCry attack
ILLUSTRATION: SONS OF IPANEMA

responsibility into a secret and secretive operation they want to keep such “zero-day” should provide an opportunity to
is always likely to cause conflicts of interest. vulnerabilities secret for potential separate two key roles: clandestine
WannaCry was an example of a state-developed cyber development into a cyber weapon. signals intelligence and the cyber
weapon turned against its creators. The core exploit, This is the challenge the National security of the UK’s critical national
Eternal Blue, is believed to have been created by the US Cyber Security Centre faces. infrastructure. The best way to start:
National Security Agency (NSA), who presumably By its own description, the NCSC make the National Cyber Security
intended to keep it secret. Then, in April 2017, it was was set up “to help protect our Centre independent from GCHQ.
critical services from cyber attacks,
managing major incidents and WIRED Security takes place on
improve the underlying security of September 28 at Kings Place,
Emily Taylor the UK internet”. Part of that would London. See wired.uk/security17
is CEO of Oxford include informing suppliers such
Information Labs as Microsoft of the discovery of
and editor of major vulnerabilities. But the NCSC
the Journal of cannot do that if it’s also hoarding
Cyber Policy vulnerabilities for its boss, GCHQ.
   _ START _ 3D VISION

here – which held the concrete in place as it was

PHOTOGRAPHY: ROSS FRASER MCLEAN.


poured in situ. Vertical walls mostly support
themselves, but 90 per cent of the 8,000m 2
very wall of the new V&A Museum of Design Dundee museum’s 21 separate wall sections lean out, so

ILLUSTRATION: PIP PELL


is curved: sometimes both horizontally and vertically. during the three to seven days that the concrete
This double curvature left architects Kengo Kuma & took to set, it was supported by a complex system
Associates with a problem. When a conventional of scafolding. The quantity, size and position
straight-walled building is constructed, there could of the scafolding was calculated from the 3D
be a diference of up to ten millimetres between the plan and the final model and could be adjusted as the concrete
result. For the £80 million V&A Dundee, which is due to be completed
in 2018, that gap could be no more than three millimetres.
“Normally, we would set up the shape of a building with a 2D plan,”
explains lead architect Maurizio Mucciola. “But the shape of the
building was too complex.” Instead, Tokyo-based Kengo Kuma and
structural engineers from Arup used advanced parametric modelling
to create a 3D model. “If we had tried to build this from 2D drawings,
there was a risk that the walls wouldn’t have met,” Mucciola says.
Using the 3D model as a guide, Arup carved a set of discrete
moulds – there are no standard moulds made of wooden panels

The shape-shifter
No two walls of the V&A Dundee museum are the same,
thanks to its advanced parametric modelling

O One pointed
corner projects
out over the
River Tay like the
prow of a boat

Three hundred
200m-deep bore
holes provide
800,000 kWh
of heating
sagged. Once it was completed, Mucciola relied concrete panels were hung from them,
on the internal floors and the roof to ensure each weighing up to 3,000 kilograms and
the three-storey building was rigid: “This inter- spanning up to four metres. The idea, explains
action between the parts forms the overall Mucciola, is to help the museum, which is set
structure of the building,” he explains. on the banks of the River Tay, blend into the
The work didn’t stop there, however. When rugged landscape by giving it the familiar
the walls of the building – which is Kuma’s first appearance of a Scottish cliff-face. “The
in Britain, as well as the first V&A museum building sits gently,” he explains. “Despite
outside London – were completed, 2,500 its solidity.” Clare Dowdy vandadundee.org

ARCHITECTURE
a new spin
on green
energy
Just off the west coast
of Britain, 32 wind
turbines spin.
Located at Burbo Bank,
seven kilometres from
Liverpool Bay, they
are the biggest
commercial turbines
in the world. Each is 195
metres tall – 53
metres taller than a
standard turbine –
with a diameter of 164
metres. Consequently,
the farm can supply
230,000 homes.
But the biggest
challenge is getting
the turbines out to sea.
“We use a vessel, called
a jack-up,” says Benj
Sykes, UK vice-
president of Dong
Energy, which operates
the wind farm. “It has
legs so that it can jack
itself out of the water.”
In 2012, the clean-
energy industry set a
goal of getting offshore
wind electricity down to
£100 per megawatt in
eight years. That
milestone was passed
in just five, and Sykes
says giant turbines will
help wind become one
of the cheapest energy
forms. “We are
confident that turbine
size will continue to
increase,” he says. BC
dongenergy.co.uk
EDITED BY JEREMY WHITE _ GEAR _043

AUDIO

Ruark R7
WORDS: KATHRYN NAVE. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

Ruark’s redesigned R7 retains the classic mid-century style of


the 60s radiogram, with a walnut veneer and aluminium
construction. It introduces all the audio tecþology required of
a modern home audio centre, including wireless music
streaming, high-fidelity Bluetooth aptX and DAB+ as well as an
old-fashioned slot-loading CD player. Sound quality is a world
away from the crackly gramophone, with dual concentric stereo
drives and a long-throw subwoofer offering a combined 160 Watt
power output. £2,000 ruarkaudio.com
Lock Furniture PESI
Electron Chair Lumber Table

This smart seat was PESI’s brightly coloured SELF-A SSEMBLY


inspired by Buckminster picnic bench-style tables
Fuller’s tensegrity are constructed from
structures of alternating laminated cardboard,
compression and tension. folded and riveted
Created by designer together with PVC to
Konstantin Achkov, it is create rigid lumber-like
cut from a single sheet pieces. The outdoor
of 18mm beech plywood, furniture collection is
then snapped together available in a range of
with specially designed sizes and colours
joints to form an including blue, red,
exceptionally robust yellow, green and
construction. €230 cardboard brown. £poa
lock-furniture.com designstudiopesi.com

Jónófón Record Player

Created by Icelandic designer Jón Helgi Hólmgeirsson, the Jónófón


Record Player is a tribute to the simplicity of gramophone technology.
It can be assembled with minimal prior expertise from nothing more
than plywood, paper, wire, needles and a simple electrical system. Using
paper for its horn contributes to its unique sound. £poa jonofon.com

Topo Designs X Oru


Beach LT Kayak

Offering a step up from


the schoolkid’s paper
Design_ flat-pack
Six smart products that are more than the sum of their many parts
sailing boat, the Beach LT
scales the art of origami
to a 72cm-wide foldable
kayak – fully collapsible
into a carry-on backpack
in a matter of minutes.
Custom blacked-out
bulkheads with Topo Bait Hive Sandwichbike
Designs’ neat graphics
offer plenty of rigidity, After his final-year project Arriving in a 94cm x 70cm
while the open-top unexpectedly generated x 24cm box, the 17kg
style and adjustable quite a buzz, University of Sandwichbike can be
backrest make for Brighton project design assembled in an hour from
WORDS: KATHRYN NAVE. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

a comfortable seating student Joshua Akhtar fewer than 50 parts. Both


position. $1,398 decided to put this frame and fork are built
topodesigns.com crowdfunded beehive into from sustainable beech
production. Constructed plywood and its two-speed
from weatherproof plastic gears are handled by an
board, the Bait Hive fits SRAM Automatix hub.
standard bee frames Schwalbe tyres and a Selle
and includes a queen- Royal saddle complete
excluding entrance with the (flat) package.
a pheromone lure as well €1,399 sandwichbikes.com
Visit wired.co.uk or as straps to fix the hive
download our digital at a bee-friendly height.
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MODELLING

Haynes Build Your


Own Jet Engine
Do you need heavy machinery and a workshop to experiment with
the principles of thermodynamics? No! This working jet engine
model measures just 30cm x 16cm x 21.5cm and can be assembled
in an afternoon on the kitchen table. The two-speed turbofan and
transparent case with illuminated combustion chamber allows
clear viewing of the high-pressure turbines and other moving
parts at work, making this kit a perfect present for cultivating a
lifelong love of aeronautical engineering. £40 smythstoys.com
F L I G H T P L A N _ G E A R _   

1 2 3

TR AVEL

4 5

7
WORDS: KATHRYN NAVE; MATT BURGESS. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

8 9 10

11 12

Gearhead_ Long-haul essentials


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and an ID that can be fabric make this outerwear, this flight high with a spray Works in 150 countries noise while bone
owner-registered in jacket 100 per cent attire is stylish and that’s rich in amino for 12W, 45W, 65W conduction allows
case it’s misplaced. travel-proof. $325 comfortable. £139 acids and B vitamins. and 85W MacBooks. sound to still be heard.
£90 knomobags.com ministryofsupply.com chintiandparker.com £18.50 kiehls.co.uk £25 oneadaptr.co.uk £50 flareaudio.com

7 iPad 10.5-inch Pro 8 Evolution cool 9 Sony MDR-1000X 10 White + Warren 11 2XU Flight 12 Away Travel
neck pillow cashmere eye mask Compression Socks Bigger carry-on
The resized device Noise-cancelling cans
has a new display A dual-density that offer high-quality Padded for comfort, Swapping tecþology This case has 38
and, when iOS 11 hits, memory-foam core wireless audio and a this mask offers a from runners to fliers, litres of storage and
a drag-and-drop and earplugs promise gesture-control touch of luxury in an these socks increase charges devices with
file system. a restful sleep. $60 panel to skip tracks. economy seat. £72 circulation to reduce a built-in battery.
£709 apple.com cabeau.com £360 sony.co.uk whiteandwarren.com swelling. £30 2xu.com £245 awaytravel.com
AUDIO

Bang & Olufsen’s


inspiration for
its speaker
design ranges
from artworks
to musical
instruments
LOUD AND CLEAR _ GEAR _ 0 4 9

Bang & Olufsen Naim Mu-so

From the beautifully Less visually exciting than Bang & Olufsen’s range, Naim’s
crafted BeoSound 1 and 2 Mu-so nonetheless ofers high-end audio heritage. Up to five
conical speakers to speakers can be wirelessly connected using AirPlay or through
the archery target- the app, which is fast, but less intuitive than the Sonos version.
impersonating BeoPlay The build quality of the Mu-so speakers is aircraft-grade and
A9, Bang & Olufsen has they have delightful design flourishes such as back-lit controls.
some of the finest- They pump out a powerful sound for their size, with passive
looking, well-built and bass radiators delivering a strong, tight bass that unpins the
exciting-sounding audio refined mids and trebles. A treat for the ears.
products across its 9/10 From £650 naimaudio.com
BeoPlay and BeoSound Speakers two to five
portfolios. Any of the File formats WMA, MP3, AAC, ALAC, FLAC, AIFF, WAV, OGG
speakers can be used in a Connectivity Ethernet, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, DLNA USB,
Wi-Fi-based multi-room 3.5mm aux in, headphone jack
setup as part of the newly Streaming Spotify, TIDAL, iRadio
launched Multiroom
Collection. Like most of
the systems tested here,
during the set-up
process you have to
instruct one of the
speakers to generate its
own wireless network, in
this instance, a
Test_ multi-room speakers
From streaming to surround sound, which set-up resonated the most with WIRED?
methodical app-led
process. But the app is a
challenge to use and
isn’t helped by an
occasional one-second
lag. There’s no desktop
control, but Mac users
can use AirPlay, although
this is hit and miss in a
multi-room scenario due
to transmission delays.
Performance-wise,
the BeoSound models
are more refined and
tonally balanced than
WORDS: ADRIAN JUSTINS. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE; ROGER STILLMAN

the BeoPlays.
8/10 From £450 Yamaha MusicCast
bang-olufsen.com
Speakers six to 32 A relatively recent build quality and finish Macs. EQ adjustment is
File formats MP3, entrant into the multi- are high, but the use of (like all others here)
WMA, AAC, ALAC, room scene, MusicCast built-in power supplies rudimentary but the
FLAC, WAV, AIFF has the backing of one suggests a higher sound quality, while
Connectivity of Japan’s oldest and engineering echelon. falling just short
Wi-Fi, AirPlay, most venerable hi-fi Set-up and operation on overall clarity, still
Bluetooth, Ethernet, companies. As such, it is are the most challenging impresses, thanks to its
Chromecast, DLNA as much of an ecosystem of the five speakers smoothness and control.
Streaming Deezer, as a multi-room platform, tested here, and the 7/10 From £400
TuneIn, Spotify, offering integration app is an aesthetic car uk.yamaha.com
Google Cast with more than 40 crash with no desktop Speakers four to ten
of Yamaha’s home- controller. At least hi-res File formats WMA,
cinema receivers, streaming is available, MP3, AAC, ALAC,
hi-fi systems and as is AirPlay, which allows FLAC, AIFF, WAV
soundbars. The range streaming outside of the Connectivity Wi-Fi,
of dedicated multi-room app, including from AirPlay, Ethernet,
speakers largely mirrors Bluetooth, DLNA
those of Denon, with Streaming
similar-looking designs TIDAL, Deezer,
throughout. Likewise, the Spotify, Napster
   _ GEAR _ LOUD AND CLEAR

Speakers four to 12
File formats
WMA, AAC, MP3,
WAV, ALAC, FLAC, DSD
Connectivity
Ethernet, Bluetooth,
Wi-Fi, DLNA
USB, 3.5mm aux in,
headphone jack (Heos 7)
Streaming TIDAL,
Denon Heos TuneIn, Mood Mix,
Deezer, Napster,
Denon rattled Sonos by reliable when it comes – from a DLNA-networked Spotify, SoundCloud
calling its multi-room to building a multi-room device. However, there’s
sub-brand Heos. It also setup across many no computer desktop-
used a similar sequence speakers. But Heos ups controller option and the
of alternate odd numbers the ante in terms of app itself is cumbersome
for the names (and sizes) features by offering to navigate in places. The
of its speakers and, most Bluetooth and USB speakers are sturdy, but

WORDS: ADRIAN JUSTINS. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE; ROGER STILLMAN


annoyingly, Sonos claims, playback, as well as aesthetically dull. Nor are
copied some of its Wi-Fi. It also permits the they the last word in
proprietary technology. streaming of hi-res audio acoustic refinement, but
If true, it may well explain files up to 24-bit/192KHz they pack a punch. 7/10
why Heos is equally – which can sound superb From £200 denon.co.uk

HOW WE TESTED

The wireless multi-room systems tested all use Wi-Fi as their main transmission platform. Each
was tested for its ease of installation, set-up, operation and sound quality by WIRED. We assessed
every system in a multi-room scenario, running them all in party mode and using speakers in
separate rooms for different sources. We also tested the ability to access streaming services such
as Spotify, TIDAL and Apple Music, plus other network-connected sources such as NAS drives.

AUDIO

Sonos

If Sonos was a cereal it would probably be Kellogg’s Corn


Flakes – the original and, in many people’s eyes, the best.
Despite a steadfast refusal to embrace hi-res streaming
and other features such as Bluetooth and USB inputs, the
California-based company has sold billions of dollars’
worth of wireless speakers, thanks to a simple proposition
that uses robust Wi-Fi complemented by Ethernet for
signal transmission. Its portfolio is stylish, acoustically
refined and easy to set up and operate. This is due to
touch-sensitive buttons, plus an almost flawless app and
desktop-controller option, which works well with
standard-resolution networked content and just about
every music streaming service, including Apple Music.
The iOS-only Trueplay room-calibration system delivers
amazing results from speakers placed in awkward recesses.
8/10 From £200 sonos.co.uk
Speakers three upwards
File formats WMA, MP3, AAC, ALAC,FLAC, OGG
Connectivity Wi-Fi, Ethernet
Streaming Apple Music, Amazon Prime Music,
Qobuz, TIDAL, Pandora, SoundCloud, TuneIn
Google Play Music, Spotify, Deezer
   _ GEAR _ HEAD HONCHOS

Coros LINX Smart Helmet

Unboxing the Coros


reveals an intimidating-
looking aero design
that’s clearly aimed at
sports riders. It takes
bike connectivity to the
next level, with bone-
conductive speakers
built into its front straps.
A windproof mic and
handlebar-mounted
controls enable the rider
CYCLING
to play music, receive calls
and take navigation advice
without the dangerous use

WORDS: ANDREW DIPROSE. PHOTOGRAPHY: ROGER STILLMAN


of headphones. There’s
further innovation with
a crash sensor that can
notify your next of kin via
a text message. On the
road, however, the helmet
HOW WE TESTED lacked comfort and the
speakers sounded tinny.
WIRED tested these helmets It’s also questionable
Lumos over a winter period on a whether being distracted
20km daily commute into in traffic by music and
WIRED first spotted the Lumos at the London Design Museum, London, and at weekends, calls is worth the risk.
where it was on display as a Beazley Transport Design of the riding both on- and off-road. 5/10 £153 coros.com
Year winner. It integrates 42 LEDs with a handlebar-mounted
Bluetooth switch for indicating. The Lumos comes into its own
in busy traic: lower-mounted lights are usually obscured by
other cars, but having helmet lights means you’re always visible.
WIRED has been commuting in the city for years, but we felt the
Lumos gave us extra confidence on the road at night. The only
downside to all the lights and functionality is weight. The helmet
tips the scales at 440g and it feels heavier than a regular lid
when held in the hand, but not so much while wearing it.
Test_ bike helmets
Today’s riding lids mix safety features with high-tech
7/10 £130 lumoshelmet.co functionality. WIRED donned three during its daily commute

Bell Zephyr MIPS Helmet

The Bell is a regular, non-smart road helmet with two clever safety features:
a new industry-standard MIPS technology that reduces rotational forces on
the head in a crash (with a “floating” cradle); and progressive layering that
consists of two polystyrene shells of diferent densities bonded together.
Eighteen vents keep the head cool and tri-guides consign pesky twisted straps
to history, making the Bell a joy to wear. In fact, WIRED completely forgot
that we had it on at times. It’s the most comfortable helmet on test by far –
if it was combined with Lumos technology, it could well be the perfect lid.
8/10 £199 zyrofisher.co.uk
W I R E D R E T A I L . O C T 1 1 , 2 0 1 7. K I N G S P L A C E , L O N D O N

WIRED RETAIL RETURNS IN OCTOBER TO GATHER THOSE AT THE FOREFRONT OF CHANGE IN THE
INDUSTRY – THE INDIVIDUALS, STARTUPS AND INCUMBENTS – TO EXPLORE THE SECTOR’S FUTURE.
THE ONE-DAY EVENT WILL COVER TOPICS AS DIVERSE AS FRICTIONLESS PAYMENTS,
VIRTUAL REALITY, 3D PRINTING, DRONE DELIVERY, BLOCKCHAIN AND PERSONALISATION.

ANNABEL KILNER DANIEL MURRAY JOHN VARY KIRA RADINSKY LEILA MARTINE MATTHEW
COMMERCIAL CO-FOUNDER, INNOVATION MANAGER, CHIEF SCIENTIST DIRECTOR, NEW DRINKWATER
DIRECTOR, MADE.COM GRABBLE JOHN LEWIS & DIRECTOR OF DATA DEVICE EXPERIENCES, HEAD OF FASHION
• • • SCIENCE, EBAY ISRAEL MICROSOFT UK INNOVATION, LONDON
Annabel Kilner heads Serial entrepreneur John Vary leads • • COLLEGE OF FASHION
up five markets for and angel investor Room Y, the UK Kira Radinsky is a Leila Martine is •
Made.com, the fast- Daniel Murray department store’s pioneer in predictive responsible for An award-winning
growing designer is co-founder of the in-house skunkworks. analytics. She founded introducing new and influencer in wearable
furniture brand UK’s fastest-growing He oversees and SalesPredict in 2012 innovative Microsoft technology, Matthew
known for its success fashion and lifestyle leads the creation and was installed as products to the UK. One Drinkwater creates
and continuity in app Grabble and is and development eBay Israel’s director of product, the HoloLens, beautiful wearables
seamlessly connecting the host of popular of special projects data science following enables new forms of which bring augmented
online customers with podcast The Secret geared around multi- SalesPredict’s interaction between and virtual reality into
in-store staff. Lives of Leaders. sensory experiences. acquisition in 2016. brand and customer. the real world.

KINGS PLACE, LONDON. OCTOBER 11, 2017 BOOK YOUR TICKET: WIRED.UK/RETAIL-TICKETS
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THE MASTERS _ GEAR _   

In a banner year for


Omega, 1957 saw the
dimensions. Each updated
watch also has the same
feature intended for
racing drivers. And finally, Omega
release of not one, but
three flagship models that
signature feature
as its namesake. The
the Seamaster retains
the Naïad symbol 1957 Trilogy
went on to become classic Railmaster, designed for on the crown to
Limited
WORDS: KATHRYN NAVE. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

timepieces: the Seamaster scientists, engineers and mark its exceptional


300, the Railmaster and
the Speedmaster. For its
60th anniversary, Omega
tecþicians, is powered by
the 8806 caliber Omega
Master Chronometer,
water resistance. £16,000
omegawatches.com Edition
has relauched all three which resists magnetic
as a trilogy set, with each fields of up to 15,000
watch faithfully reproduced gauss. Like the original
using a laser-scan of the Speedmaster, which was
1957 models to perfectly the first timepiece in the
recapture the original world to do so, the Limited
Edition version comes
with its Tachymeter
scale prominently etched
WATCHES
into the watch’s bezel – a

O The Trilogy set


comes in an
oak box with
extra NATO and
leather straps
   _ GEAR _ MOTORING

At the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa iridescent pigments to show off


d’Este motoring event on the the surfacing of the new vehicle.
shores of Lake Como in northern “This concept is clearly defining
Italy, BMW revealed its luxury, the production car that will hit the
range-topping Concept 8 Series. market in 2018,” Girard explains.

PHOTOGRAPHY: ALEX HOWE


The company says it will be a “I would describe it as having the
“study car”, which will serve as essence of the main production
a taster for the forthcoming 8 car; a demonstrator of key

Autopia Series Coupe when it launches


in 2018. “The Concept 8 Series
is our take on a full-blooded,
high-end driving machine,” said
Adrian van Hooydonk, senior vice
elements. The proportions of the
vehicle are going to be very similar.
But there are a couple of features

BMW president at BMW Group Design.


“The design provides a fresh inter-
pretation of iconic BMW styling
cues.” Here van Hooydonk could

Concept well be referring to motifs such


as the large “kidney” grille. Marc
Girard, head of concept car design
at BMW, went a step further.

8 Series “The first time you look at it,


it is unmistakably BMW, but if
you look closer you notice there
is a difference to the models that
came before,” Girard explains.
It has elegantly refined cabin “The kidneys were previously
materials, a reshaped grille always separated. On this car, for
and an athletic body – but the the first time, they are connected.
designers are tight-lipped about It makes the car stronger from
what lies beneath the surface a design point of view.”
Other features of note are the
super-slim laser headlights, bold
trapezoidal exhaust tailpipes and
the pronounced flaring above
the rear wheels. BMW has even
created an exclusive exterior
paint finish called “Barcelona
Grey Liquid”, which has highly

DESIGN
that are overdrawn in order to Other luxury additions include will not see these features on the
make a clear statement to the a faceted gearshift lever and surface. They will be hidden.” What
audience about what the key BMW’s iDrive Controller, which is about autonomous driving ability?
elements for this vehicle are.” constructed from Swarovski glass. “I can’t make any statements from
The interior is typically Talking about the technology on a technical point of view, but it will
indulgent for a concept, and the Concept 8 Series, and the forth- be cutting edge.” JW bmw.com
BMW has gone heavily for carbon- coming Coupe, Girard would only
fibre accents, both aesthetic confirm it would be the highest-end
and structural. For example, offering from BMW: “Of course it Visit wired.co.uk or
there are carbon-fibre shells will be cutting-edge technology, in download our digital
for the leather-covered seats. terms of driving assistance, but you edition for more

As well as the reshaped grille,


new features will include
a holographic touchscreen
and personalised audio zones
ACCENTURE _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

DIGITAL DISCUSSIONS
WIRED and Accenture gathered some of the UK’s most prominent women working
in digital to discuss the best ways to inspire the next generation of talent

ow should we encourage At the event it was noted that forums for According to research by Leeds University
and motivate the coming building confidence are key. Organisations Business School, having one woman on a
generations of innovative such as Code First: Girls, a not-for-profit firm’s board reduces a company’s risk
H female digital leaders and
celebrate the sector’s
social enterprise, run networking events and
offer training and services around coding
of bankruptcy by 20 per cent. Yet women
represent just between ten and 20 per cent
rising stars? That was and recruitment. According to CEO Amalide of boardrooms in the UK. This has to change
the question behind a networking dinner Alwis, the platform has helped more than 2,000 – and there are signs it will.
co-hosted by WIRED and Accenture in May. women access coding training since 2013. The UK government has set a target for
Taking on this complex issue was a diverse The civil service was also referenced as a all FTSE 350 boards to have 33 per cent
list of attendees, including Wendy Tan White, sector that actively supports its female staff. female representation by 2020 – an increase
general partner of Entrepreneur First, Blippar One guest – a founder who previously worked of some 350 more women in top business
co-founder Jess Butcher, Seedcamp partner in a government digital role – recounted how positions. Yet it was noted that company
Reshma Sohoni, and a host of digital leaders she was promoted following pregnancy. culture must be inclusive from top to bottom.
and rising entrepreneurs along with WIRED “That was a huge boost,” she said. “It gave “There is an informality to power that
and Accenture attendees. me the confidence to start my own business.” doesn’t get talked about much,” highlighted
one guest. “A lot of decisions are made in
upper management – not at board level.”
For a fully inclusive and inspirational
digital workplace to exist, everyone must
be part of the conversation. A female forum
is positive, one with progressive men
in attendance is better. But a true cultural
shift will be achieved when every side is
involved in the debate – including dissenting
voices. As one attendee put it: “Culture
trumps strategy every time.”
For more, see accenture.com/digital

PHOTOGRAPHY: LEON CSERNOHLAVEK

Left: Rebecca Skiles managing director,


Accenture UK. Above: Arabel Bailey,
head of Accenture Digital UK

IN THE TECH SALON:

OLLY BEATWOVEN NOVALIA


The personality of each The art service creates Novalia’s interactive print
Olly AI personal assistant visual works from any technology can trigger audio
evolves via user interaction. song or audio track. and connects to the internet.
WIRED CULTURE _ EDITED BY JAMES TEMPERTON _   

PUZZLES
PHOTOGRAPHY: SHINSUKE KOJIMA

Piece forever Nervous System’s Infinity Galaxy Puzzle has only 139
pieces – but, like the space scene it depicts, it never ends >
Piece forever (continued)

The Infinity
Galaxy Puzzle
( pictured
previous page)
Sound bytes:
has no beginning
and no end: like
the cosmos it
how to digitise history
represents, it just Will Prentice is in a race against time to save the British Library’s archive of 6.5
goes on and on. million sound recordings – before it’s lost forever to decay and dead hardware
Created by
Massachusetts-
based generative
design studio
Nervous System,
it’s based on
the Klein bottle,
an “impossible
structure” in
which the inside
and outside are
mathematically
indistinguishable.
Not only can the
pieces on the left
edge be flipped
over and
attached to the
right side, the
entire puzzle can
be completed in
any direction.
The 20.5cm
mind-bender is
adorned with a
high-resolution
image of the
centre of the
Milky Way and
comprises 139
double-sided
pieces, including
three “whimsy
pieces”: an
astronaut, a
space shuttle and
a satellite. And,
as the puzzle is
double-sided, you
can never see the
whole image at
once. Puzzled?
That’s the idea…
JT n-e-r-v-
o-u-s.com
O F F T H E R E C O R D _ P L A Y _   

across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and


Wales, with each focusing on digitising their
local collections. “We’re excited about digit-

A
ising things that are held in tiny pockets of
England,” Prentice says. “There’s dialect, folk
PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK WILSON

songs, cultural traditions – Britain’s really


diverse for that.” By 2019, Prentice hopes to
have digitised around 7.5 per cent of the archive.
A unique recording of a jazz performance – a
regional broadcast from 1950 – is the “most
seen, least heard” recording in the archive, he
says. The acetate disc has degraded beyond
repair, showing what happens when you don’t
get there in time. The format was invented
nazi radio archive with more than 4,000 discs in the 1930s with a metal core and an outer
that have never been played, a collection of Beijing street resin of cellulose nitrate. When exposed to
sounds from the 90s and the voice of Florence Nightingale moisture, the resin contracts and peels of the
are among the British Library’s six-and-a-half million metal, so rescuing the sound is impossible. Will Prentice:
sound recordings. The earliest are from the 1880s, Fortunately, much of the collection can still be “We use
recorded on wax cylinders that sit four storeys beneath saved. Among the archive there are more than Swiss-made
the bustling streets of London, fighting of mould and 10,000 minidiscs as well as digital compact reel-to-reel
decay. In a race against time before the most fragile cassettes, IBM tape drives and a range of dicta- machines
recordings vanish forever, the archive is being digitised. phone formats, many needing their own borrowed from
“Sound recordings are facing two ticking time-bombs specialist playback device. These machines old radio
– the formats are degrading and some are literally come from far and wide – with the help of eBay. stations and
falling apart on the shelf,” says Will Prentice, the softly The eclectic mix of formats also means that universities”
spoken head of technical services at the British each requires its own digitisation process.
Library, who’s leading the digitisation project. Another Gramophone discs, for example, were never
issue is redundancy: some of the equipment needed to standardised – their grooves can be wide or
play the recordings is disappearing – many formats, narrow, v-shaped or u-shaped, so to capture
Prentice believes, have only ten years left. While anyone their sound a unique stylus is often needed that
can access the archive and have the sounds digitised on can replicate the same side-to-side movement
request, the work undertaken by Prentice and his team of the disc’s lateral grooves. All the technical
will be showcased in an exhibition opening on processes and decisions made while the sound
October 6. Listen: 140 Years of Recorded Sound will is being digitised – such as what speed it was
include oral histories from both world wars and pirate played at or whether noise reduction was used
radio recordings. But there’s still a lot of work to do. – are documented on a spreadsheet. This then
In the mid-50s, the British Institute of Recorded Sound enters a searchable catalogue where, depending
began collecting this vast trove of recordings, before on copyright, it is made available to the public.
joining the British Library in 1983. Now, 1.5 million More than 90,000 recordings can already be
analogue discs, tapes and cylinders across 40 diferent heard online free of charge.
formats are stored in the labyrinthian archive. “If you can Listening to the sounds is almost a form of
think of something that you can hear, we’ve got something time travel, Prentice says, and the importance
like it,” Prentice says. Work is painstaking. In 2014 a team of the material changes as the years pass. “You
of five engineers started digitising the collection at a rate could’ve interviewed someone in the 70s about
of 20 tapes per person per day. At that rate it was estimated being unemployed and then 30 years later
the project would take 47 years to complete. To speed realise that the accent has died out.” This
things up, the team launched Unlocking Our Sound impacts the way they are digitised – even the
Heritage, a project with the aim of raising £40 million. scratchy clicks and crackles are recorded rather
More than £18.8 million has been raised so far, which is than cleaned, so they can be heard exactly as
being put towards saving the most at-risk recordings. An they would have been heard at the time. “It’s
additional ten digitisation centres are being created like a lens we’re looking through. If you pretend
the lens isn’t there then you have no idea how
it is distorting the truth,” he says.
Prentice, who has been with the library for
‘You could have interviewed 17 years, doesn’t have a favourite sound from
someone in the 70s about the archive, but when pushed, one does come
being unemployed and then to mind. “Before the Russian Revolution they
30 years later realise that sent an engineer around the Caucasus, travelling
the accent has died out’ partly on trains, partly on donkeys to make
recordings of local music and local culture,”
he says. “Some of those are wonderful.”
Bonnie Christian sounds.bl.uk
   _ P L A Y _ G R A P H I C W A R N I N G S

Stamps of
authority:
when design
speaks louder
than words
A new London exhibition charts the
effect graphics can have on crises

IMAGES COURTESY OF THE WELLCOME COLLECTION

C an graphic design save your


life? Lucienne Roberts and Rebecca
Wright think so. For evidence, just
look at the evolution of cigarette
packaging over the past 120 years – and the
dramatic fall in the number of smokers. From
the Great Plague of London to Ebola, a new
exhibition at London’s Wellcome Collection
explores how design decisions can have a
major impact on how we live our lives.
The Can Graphic Design Save Your Life?
exhibition curated by Roberts and Wright,
co-founders of London-based publishing house
GraphicDesign&, brings together 200 examples
of design spanning hundreds of years. First up
is the theme of persuasion. “Obviously, we have
to hold our hands up and say that graphic
designers had a role in promoting smoking –
very efectively,” Roberts says. It begins with Ash Wednesday), the message was seen on
Raymond Loewy’s Lucky Strike packets – a stamps around the globe. “It’s a subtle
switch from green to white packets, with the thing if you see a letter with this anti-smoking
logo placed on the front and back of the pack, stamp landing on your doorstep, but that’s
drove up sales in the US by 38 per cent. Next part of the power of a stamp,” Roberts says.
up is Pentagram Design’s tongue-in-cheek “It’s a great contrast to a massive billboard.”
cartoon depictions of death – a skeleton in a The need to communicate information
top hat – on the side of Marlboro packets from during major health crises will never go away,
2009. Finally, the exhibition shows the stark but the messaging has changed dramatically
warnings on cigarette packaging required in through history. During the Plague, warnings
the UK today. The design was first used in were extremely wordy, designed only for
Australia and contributed to smoking rates literate members of an illiterate society. When
dropping at the fastest rate for two decades. cholera became an epidemic in the 19th century,
“Even though they’ve tried to take it away, messages were more graphic, using stylised
it’s still design in a sense – there are still fonts to make warnings stand out. Then came
choices being made,” Roberts says. “The brand the visual techniques pioneered by Florence
itself can’t appear bigger than a certain size, Nightingale. “She started telling the story of
the text has to be upper and lower case and it disease in what we would now call information
has to be grey so it recedes.” The anti-smoking graphics – in diagrams and charts,” Roberts
message was also conveyed in other ways. says. Using more recent campaigns such as
When the World Health Organization intro- those for Zika and Ebola, the exhibition shows
duced an annual No Smoking Day in 1984 (on the importance of graphic design in both
frontline response and long-term strategies.
At the start of the outbreaks, bold colours and
images were splashed across public spaces.
“We’re displaying a mural of a warning for
Ebola; it’s bright red across a brick wall
with illustrations. Then we move on to look at
what Unicef is doing now – you still have to
warn people, but you also give them more
information. It’s less shouting,” Roberts says.
But the digital age has its own challenges.
While it’s interactive and ofers a wide reach,
health issues – such as those around sex – are
particularly susceptible to censorship. The
exhibition shows how the Swedish Cancer
Society responded to Facebook’s censorship
of its breast cancer awareness video. The clip
featured two light pink circles, each with an
inner, darker pink circle, sitting side by side.
The World Health Facebook banned the video because it said
Organization the illustration looked like a pair of breasts.
used a series of In response, the circles in the video were
stamps to get the changed to squares. Facebook approved it.
anti-smoking Roberts hopes visitors will realise that
message across graphic design isn’t as ephemeral as it
sometimes seems. “It’s misunderstood quite
often as a layer of decoration,” she says.
But, as this exhibition shows, it could be
the difference between life and death.
Bonnie Christian wellcomecollection.org/
graphicdesign Can Graphic Design Save Your
Life? is at the Wellcome Collection in London
from September 7 to January 14

Digital extra!
Download the WIRED
app to see more images
from the exhibition
H I T F A C T O R Y _ P L A Y _   

MUSIC

etween 1962 and 1970, the From left: Vochlea’s founder George Philip Wright, AI Music CEO Siavash
Beatles recorded nearly all Mahdavi and Jon Eades, innovation manager at Abbey Road Red
their singles and albums at
B London’s Abbey Road Studios
using one of EMI’s innovative AI-powered guitar-learning app, now period,” adds QRATES co-founder Taishi
REDD mixing consoles. Five has licensing deals with Sony and Fukuyama. The platform has already hosted
decades later, the studio is turning to startups Universal, including a collection of more than 3,500 vinyl crowdfunding projects
to keep up with the pace of technological change. Beatles songs; another graduate, and completed more than 300.
“We are aware of the studio’s heritage of Tokyo-based QRATES, is the first Abbey Road Red’s latest intake includes
continually tracking technology as it changed online crowdfunding platform for AI Music, which has created an app called
over the years,” says Jon Eades, innovation artists and labels to collect pre-orders Ripple that personalises tracks for each
manager at Abbey Road Red, the studio’s from fans to fund vinyl pressing. listener. “We’re going to use artificial intelli-
technology incubator, which launched in “Without the right introductions, gence to help unsigned grassroots artists
2015. “It’s all about pushing that forward.” some of the most important players collaborate with each other, then connect with
Abbey Road Red runs six-month mentoring within the music industry can be very a fanbase and a distribution network,” says
programmes, giving music-technology startups hard to reach,” says Simon Barkow- CEO Siavash Mahdavi. Vocals can be recorded
PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK WILSON

access to the famous studio’s experts and facil- Oesterreicher, one of the co-founders straight into a smartphone, and a studio-style
ities, not to mention a foot in the door with of Uberchord. “The criteria for backing track is applied automatically.
Universal Music, which has owned the complex choosing which incubator to be a part “When you sing on one track, your vocal can
since buying out EMI in 2012. The third wave of came down to three things: fit on any other track in the system,” he adds.
of startups graduate in October and their resources, geography and whether Also new to the incubator this year is software
track record is impressive. Uberchord, an the value extends past the incubation firm Vochlea Music. “The idea is to use your
voice as a controller to trigger diferent software
instruments, a bit like speech recognition, but
non-verbal and completely real-time,” founder

Songs in George Philip Wright explains. The idea was


partly inspired by a video of Michael Jackson’s
remarkable beatboxing performance during a

the key of AI plagiarism court case to demonstrate how he


wrote “Billie Jean”. “The music-tech industry
is not a very big group of people,” Wright says.
“Everybody knows everybody else and at the
Technology incubator Abbey Road Red is helping startups to centre of that is Abbey Road. And that’s been
introduce algorithms and online services to the music industry really helpful.” Libby Plummer abbeyroad.com
very transhuman has an origin
ART
story. For Rob Spence, 45, a shotgun
accident at the age of nine left his right
E eye severely damaged. At 34, under his
doctor’s orders, the eye was removed.

Magnetic skin? It was then Spence set out on a mission


to become Earth’s first “eyeborg”. “I would never have
been into body hacking if I didn’t lose my eye,” he says.

You’re only “I loved The Six Million Dollar Man when I was a kid,
so the minute I learned that I was losing my eye, I began
researching how I could turn it into a camera.”

transhuman Spence’s bionic eye is one of the many stories being


explored by photographer David Vintiner and creative
director Gem Fletcher in the ongoing Transhuman series.
Since 2015, the pair have been capturing the biohackers,
A photo series featuring biohackers and DIY scientists is body modifiers, DIY scientists and academics enhancing
the inspiration behind a new book and documentary human capability beyond our biological limits. “These
people are expanding their sphere B O D Y H A C K E R S _ R E M O T E G A M I N G _ P L A Y _   
of how they experience the world,”
Vintiner says. “They’re going off on
a completely different tangent and
embracing those possibilities. They
are doing it and living with it, so
Transhuman looks at the human stories
and the psychologies behind them.”
The work is being turned into a book
and a documentary (a film teaser is
imminent), which will feature around
60 people and their stories. “We want to
capture people in a domestic setting to
draw attention to the normality of it all
in today’s world,” Fletcher says. “We’re
so disconnected as people and to our own
senses that the initial reaction to those
we photographed may be of confusion,
but it’s not about these people distancing
themselves from being a human or
humanity itself. It’s about becoming
more connected with the world.”
While access to technology is making
body hacking more democratised by
the day, it’s also raising important
ethical questions. “I replaced my eye
with a camera, which seems innocent Nunavut at a
enough, but what does that mean for glance
other people’s privacy?” Spence says.
For others, it remains a fun way It was founded in
to experience the world differently. 1999, as part of the Out of the
“I wanted to feel electromagnetic fields, Nunavut Land
wilderness
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAVID VINTINER. ILLUSTRATION: BILLY CLARK

so when I move my hand near a running Claims Agreement


microwave the magnets in my hands
vibrate slightly,” says Rin Räuber, 33, The capital, Iqaluit, Four years ago, computer and hatched a plan: what
who has magnetic implants in her hands has a population science wasn’t on the if he could design an
(one under a fingertip on her right hand of 7,740 curriculum in Nunavut, offline computer-science
and another on the edge of her left hand). a Canadian territory curriculum? In Nunavut,
“I can pick up bottle caps, screws and There are no with a population of where communities don’t
spoons. That’s not too useful in everyday motorways, so air 36,000 and a land mass have reliable internet
life, but what I do is not rooted in a grand travel is the main equivalent to western connections, holding
vision for the future of humanity. It’s form of Europe. For games classes offline is a
like a child playing around, saying: transportation designer Ryan Oliver, then necessity. “We’d spend
‘Hey, look at what we can do, isn’t this between living on Baffin Island, the first hour trying to find
cool?’” Jack Needham gemfletcher.com communities it was an opportunity. an internet connection
In 2012, he founded strong enough to get
a firm focused on software,” says Oliver.
bringing Inuit culture Pinnguaq is taking its
and technology show on the road with
to Canada’s most USB sticks loaded with
isolated communities. open-source software.
Pinnguaq, meaning Participants are asked
“play” in Inuktitut, made to design a game that
games steeped in Inuit incorporates Inuit culture.
mythology, apps that “In Nunavut, there
teach Inuktitut and was no system set up
Gwich’in songs, and to say that computer
a syllabics translator. science is also a career,”
He also started says Oliver. “Now it’s just
Nunavut Code Club, a another door opened.”
workshop where he taught Katherine Laidlaw
programming language pinnguaq.com
Scratch to students.
The first meeting was
so popular, he had to turn
Left: Magnetic “cyborg hippy ” Rin Räuber. people away. Oliver knew
Above: Gunshot victim Rob Spence and his eye-camera he was on to something
   _ P L A Y _ O N E - P I E C E S U I T E

Software 32. “This is only the prototype and it


was printed in a day. There are many
ways we can optimise that process.”

furnishings The challenge of air printing is


ensuring the design is perfect so the
robot doesn’t collide with what it’s
This robot-built tribute to the 60s modernist Panton already printed. This is resolved by
chair could point to a future of faster 3D printing designing a particular curve within
voxels – the 3D version of pixels – that
can be rotated in any direction, rather
than slicing an object to be printed
this chair was built by a robot layer by layer. Like 2D images, objects
from a 2.4km line of PDA plastic. The can be built in high or low resolution.
Voxelchair v1.0 is modelled on the “People can take into account more
S-shaped Panton from 1967, which detail, more data and more control,
was the first moulded plastic chair. and that allows them more freedom
The London-based designers, Manuel to experiment with complexity and
Jiménez Garcia and Gilles Retsin, say special forms,” Retsin adds.
their process, known as “air printing”, Fifty years after the Panton’s launch,
shortens the amount of time it takes Retsin and Garcia are developing
to 3D print an object of this size and further, more durable versions of the
complexity from one week to one day. chair. The pair, alongside a research
“Large-scale printing is usually slow team at University College London,
and costs a lot of money,” says Retsin, now want to scale up production
and create 3D-printed building parts
using concrete and insulation foam.
Their next piece, said to fill an entire
room, will be revealed at the MIT
Arcadia conference in November.
3D PRINTING
BC designcomputationlab.org

The Voxel Chair


v1.0’s designers
say the intricate
level of detail
achieved by
air printing
will have big
implications for
car design and
architecture
   _ P L A Y _ D R E A M T V

Bryan Cranston is sweating. Beside him,


a rocket ship stands in the courtyard of a
disused razor-blade factory in suburban
southwest London. Surrounded by dirt
and rocks, the ship is illuminated by
spotlights that pierce the predawn air. It’s
the hottest day of the year so far and Cranston
Dystopia, sliced:
is crammed into a spacesuit, with a cooling
vest to keep him comfortable. On the set of
Philip K. Dick’s Electric Dreams , it seems
sci-fi shorts hit
that even the weather is out to get you.
When Channel 4 lost Charlie Brooker’s
Black Mirror to Netflix, Electric Dreams was
the small screen
its secret weapon. The ten-episode anthology Bryan Cranston’s TV series based on Philip K Dick’s
series, which Cranston executive-produced, short stories will probe the limits of human nature
is based on Dick’s lesser-known short stories.
Cranston also appears in the episode Human
Is, originally published in 1955 as part of pulp
sci-fi magazine Startling Stories. The plot is
typical of Dick’s work: the strains of human
nature pushed to the limit by sci-fi dystopias.
enlisted the help of science-fiction this work on The Night Manager , recalls
demigod Ronald D Moore (Star Trek, reading nine of the ten short stories selected
Battlestar Galactica), to bring Dick’s for Electric Dreams and thinking: “This
bite-size visions to the small screen. isn’t quite my thing.” Then he encountered
“Five or six years ago, if you The Impossible Planet , a tale of a cynical
‘I like the ambiguit y of it. went into a network or studio and space-tour guide’s search for the mythical
Art is so subjective that mentioned the ‘a’ word – anthology planet Earth. “It’s a story that just kept
nobody is wrong. We – they would say: ‘No thank you, coming back into my head,” he says. One
could all watch a film exit now,’” Dinner says. But for of the characters in particular – an appar-
together and have nine someone who grew up watching ently bumbling, steampunk-style robot –
different reactions’ The Twilight Zone, the sci-fi stars really got his attention. “I find him deeply
had aligned. Streaming services intimidating and rather interesting,” he says.
have made anthology productions “A profoundly moral being in a piece where the
Bryan Cranston de rigueur, and although Channel humans are morally compromised.”
4 holds the UK broadcasting rights, While the anthology format allowed writers
Electric Dreams will be shown on to focus on individual stories and eased
Amazon Prime Video in the US. The schedules for actors, it made for a gruelling
format also makes it easier to obtain production, with ten unique casts, crews and
the best on-screen talent without sets split across the US and UK. “Everything is
Cranston and co-star Essie Davis live in a future where taking up too much of their time. multiplied, it’s the diference between having
Earth’s air has become unbreathable. They inhabit That allowed the Electric Dreams one child and triplets,” Cranston jokes.
separate bedrooms in circular, concrete bunkers made producers to enlist, among others, Black Mirror may have tapped into unease
PHOTOGRAPHY: MIKE MCGREGOR/CONTOUR

liveable by art-deco accents. Inside, succulent gardens Greg Kinnear (Little Miss Sunshine), about humanity’s near-future – the “pig sex”
hover in glass globes; outside the window lies an unfor- Janelle Monáe (Moonlight), Richard storyline from the show’s first episode was,
giving desert landscape. The planet’s air is so dangerous Madden (Game of Thrones) , Anna according to Cranston, “indelible” – but
that Davis’s character, Vera, runs inside on a treadmill, Paquin ( True Blood) and Steve Dick’s stories hone right in on what’s really
surrounded by VR projections of long-lost woodland. Buscemi (Boardwalk Empire). at stake. The core of Electric Dreams and Dick’s
It’s a clever bit of visual trickery, but also somewhat The same went for writers and original stories is not an elaborate vision of the
prescient. Of camera, production staf are cooling down directors, with each able to choose future, but the humanity at the centre of those
by standing in paddling pools amid warnings from London the story that excited them most. allegories. On the face of it, Human Is examines
oicials against outdoor exercise, due to poor air quality. Writer David Farr, best known for a single marriage, but the questions it poses
Dick is best-known for adaptations of his work – are far more wide-ranging and slippery.
apocalyptic films such as Blade Runner, Total Recall and So what’s the message behind the dystopia?
Minority Report – but the author’s Cold War-era stories “I like the ambiguity of it,” Cranston says,
are where he really gets to grips with human nature. Five pausing. “I didn’t answer that question.
years ago, his estate approached director Michael Dinner Art is so subjective that nobody is wrong in
and asked him to read through the author’s 125 short whatever you are feeling. We could all watch a
stories to see if any could be developed for television. Pictured: Bryan Cranston executive- film together and have nine diferent reactions
“After a week or two, I called them and said: ‘How about produced Electric Dreams, his first to it, and neither one of us is right or wrong.
all of them?’” says Dinner. As well as Cranston, Dinner also major TV project since Breaking Bad Fill in your own answer.” Nicole Kobie
Switzerland, South Korea and Croatia.
Among them are Haroon Mirza and Jack Jelfs
of London-based studio hrm199. Jelfs is an
artist and musician who studied theoretical
physics at Imperial College London, and
When has worked with Mirza on installations at
the Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery in
art and London. Mirza and Jelfs met in 2015; Mirza’s
conversations with the physicist-turned-
science artist sparked his interest in theoretical
physics, and how it relates to art. “There
collide are some parallels, when you think about
electromagnetism, light, electricity, electro-
magnetic spectrum and sound,” Mirza says.
CERN scientists hope that inviting “The physics of all these things are another
creatives into their labs will spark new conceptual framework to help think about
conversations about our Universe your existing work and to realise new works.” 102.4 MILLION
The artists will visit CERN several times over the amount of
the coming months, during which time they will global wearables
watch scientists as they operate. “I’m inter- in 2016, says
t cern, the european ested in the way they work, the relationship research firm IDC
Organisation for Nuclear to what I do and how all these diferent disci-
A Research, art and science
are colliding. Experiments to
plines seem to be coalescing,” Mirza says.
“Scientists at CERN are beginning to talk Canelio This
further our knowledge of the about this idea of science heading towards training device
Universe might not sound like the ideal candidate a brick wall. They’re starting to accept there can help to
for art, but understanding complex scientific are some things we just aren’t able to under- propel a pooch to
questions requires unusual ways of thinking. stand – something that artists encounter every a level 73 “Puppy
Since 2011, artists have taken up residencies at day.” Mirza and Jelfs will be carrying out inter- Sergeant” with 12
CERN, on the outskirts of Geneva, to watch scien- views with the particle physicists working at achievements
tists carry out experiments. The Arts @ CERN CERN, as well as documenting life inside the under his collar
project seeks to make this inscrutably complex laboratory and the experiments that take place through the app’s
work more comprehensible by interrogating there. They are also keen to explore the Large social network
the fringes of our scientific understanding in Hadron Collider – following in the footsteps
diferent ways. “Artists come to CERN looking for of sound artist Bill Fontana, who captured the
the fundamental questions about the Universe,” sounds of the 27km tunnel as part of the Arts BorrowMyDoggy
says Mónica Bello, head of Arts @ CERN. @ CERN residencies in 2013. The dogsitting
“The goal is to bring artists into conversation “I can’t wait,” Mirza says. “To be there and service has more
with scientists and see what happens.” among these people who are doing something than 600,000
Art and science may initially seem like polar so precise and specific is going to be incredible.” registered users
opposites, but they do share some common Chris Stokel-Walker arts.cern in the UK
ground, Bello says. “The way the two proceed is
very similar – through creativity and curiosity.”
Put an artist and a scientist in the same room
and, CERN hopes, something magical will ART
happen. Cross-disciplinary
conversations can help people
rethink their approach and
perhaps shed some new light
on the work at CERN.
“It’s a way to understand the
purpose of everything we do,
to try to understand the world
through science and art,” Bello
says. “When science is giving us
answers about the Universe we
live in, it’s about looking at things
that are not obvious. Artists do
that in a diferent way.” In 2015,
two British artists, Ruth Jarman
and Joe Gerhardt – known as
Semiconductor – spent two
months at CERN, delving into the archives and
conducting interviews. In doing so, they opened
up what can often be an impenetrably dense lab. Adam, Eve, Others and a UFO,
This year’s intake of artists travelling to an installation by Haroon Mirza, who is among
the Franco-Swiss border hail from the UK, CERN’s 2017 intake of resident artists
STUDYING CREATION _ LEAD INVESTMENTS _ PL AY _ 0 7 5

illions of us have already bought into the idea of the quantified self, strapping
Fitbits on to our wrists and counting our daily steps. Man’s best friend is next, with
a series of startups aimed at making dogs’ lives – and their owners’ – a little easier.
M Teaching Rover to do things on command can be diicult. The professional trainer who
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN BURN-FORTI; HAROON MIRZA/LISSON GALLERY

helped Vjeran Fistric with his dog used a clicker to reinforce good behaviour. Fistric liked
the idea, but didn’t like the fact that it wasn’t
digital – so he founded Canelio, a startup that combines a digital
clicker with a smartphone app. “Our solution gamifies the whole
experience,” explains Fistric. The pet’s progress is tracked through
the app, and the owner gets statistical support and training advice.
The yap economy
There are plenty of other dog-focused services out there. At last: the age of the quantified dog is upon us
BorrowMyDoggy connects busy owners with those who want
to spend some time with a dog but are unable to keep one as
a pet. Potential adopters needn’t visit kennels to find their next best friend – BarkBuddy is a Tinder FitBark
for dogs, where you can swipe right to express an interest. FitBark – a small device that fits on to a dog’s Switzerland has the
collar – is equipped with a 3D accelerometer. Then there’s Whistle, which uses GPS and a SIM card to track world’s most active
your dog – handy if they decide to channel their inner Fenton. Meanwhile, we’ll have to wait for the ultimate dogs – and puppies
breakthrough: a bot that can clear up after our hound has done their business… Chris Stokel-Walker need less sleep
than babies,
according to
FitBark’s database

TREND DECODER Whistle


Dog gone
walkies? Whistle
claims that its
GPS system can
locate your lost
pet up to
4,800km away
from you and
your mobile
GLENFIDDICH EXPERIMENTAL SERIES _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

The essence
of whisky
Glenfiddich’s ongoing search for the World’s Most
Experimental Bartender unveiled a London duo who
perfectly captured the olfactory wonders of whisky

he taste of success was Olfactory senses account for around 80


with the UK winners of per cent of human taste, and judges Mark
Glenfiddich’s World’s Thomson and Gwilym Cooke of Glenfiddich,
T Most Experimental
Bartender compe-
Hannah Sharman-Cox of DrinkUp.London
and WIRED product editor Jeremy White,
tition, held in London in were impressed. The perfume, which could
August. The renowned Scotch whisky brand introduce Glenfiddich’s single-malts via a
is seeking collaborations which reach spritz spray or magazine-mounted perfume
beyond the drinks world, shaking up tradi- sample, elicited a similarly enthusiastic
tional entry points and experiences for response from Glenfiddich UK brand ambas-
present and potential whisky lovers alike. sador Thomson. “Charles and William’s entry
The winning proposal was presented by really got to grips with combating the nerves
Charles Roche and William Hetzel of east some people can experience when it comes
London’s Scout cocktail bar. to trying whisky,” he said. “By reimagining the
The pair tantalised the judging panel with process of tasting, selecting and enjoying the
a Glenfiddich-inspired perfume capable of drink, they have opened up the potential to
enlivening senses before even a glass is reach a new group of would-be whisky lovers.”
raised. Paying homage to the tasting notes The pair will now compete in the final, to be
of the company’s 21-year single malt, Roche held at the Glenfiddich Experimental Bartender
and Hetzel concocted an aroma blended from Academy in Scotland this November. Jeremy
bespoke scents, faithfully representing the White can see them going further still: “It’s
whisky’s elements of wood, fig, caramel and not just something that makes you go ‘that’s
leather. The perfume is intended to engage a good idea’, you can see there are endless
consumers’ olfactory senses, simultane- possibilities.” Possibilities, and also proof
ously opening up what is the essence of that, in whisky, the spirit of experimentation
whisky-tasting to a wider audience. is alive and well. glenfiddich.com

Pictured: Charles
Roche, Scout
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

mixologist and owner


SOPHIE MUTEVELIAN

of Liquid Intellect
consultancy (left)
and William Hetzel,
Scout assistant
manager and perfumer
GLENFIDDICH EXPERIMENTAL SERIES _ WIRED PARTNERSHIP

ROCHE AND HETZEL’S


HARMONY OF SCENTS

WOOD
A key woody note was
represented in the
perfume by a blend
of scents mixed from
vetiver, labdanum,
olibanum and patchouli.

FIG
The perfume’s fruity
note was created
through a combination
of Stemone, gamma-
octalactone and Iso
E Super scents.

CARAMEL
The sweet element
was conjured from
a carefully selected
mix of ingredients:
labdanum, vanillin,
benzoin and fenugreek.

LEATHER
Cade, vetiver, oakmoss,
Iso E Super, myrtle and
Suederal provided the
required bold freshness
for the perfume’s most
complex element.

Above: Bespoke scents


blended to stimulate
tasters’ olfactory
receptors. Forming 80
per cent of a human’s
sense of taste, these
are critical to enjoying
an aged whisky
WIRED
INSIDER’S
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EVENTS
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SECURITY
WIRED Security
Events, new returns to London
in September
products to explore the
and promotions latest innovations,
trends and threats
to live the in enterprise cyber
defence, security
WIRED life intelligence and
cybersecurity.
Compiled by Speakers include
Amira Arasteh DeepMind’s Andrew
Eland and Beyza
Unal of Chatham
House. Book now.
September 28, 2017
wired.uk/security17

WIRED
RETAIL
Our annual
celeration of
the future of
retail brings
representatives
from brands,
payments firms,
supply-chain
networks and
logistics together
to discuss the
innovations and
trends impacting
virtual – and bricks
and mortar –
commerce.
October 11, 2017
wired.uk/retail17

1 2 WIRED
ENERGY
3 4 Meet influencers
and leaders, from
energy suppliers,
government and
ftse 500 companies
to energy startups,
at the first WIRED
Energy event.
Expect connected-
home innovator
Nina Bhatia, tidal-
energy pioneer
Inna Braverman
and micro-grid
entreprenuer
Lawrence Orsini.
October 12, 2017
wired.uk/energy17

WIRED
LIVE
WIRED’s flagship
event reboots
as WIRED Live –
celebrating every
1/ Lindex 2/ Christopher 3/ Marcin 4/ Fjallraven aspect of our
sustainable Raeburn Blanket Rusak RE-KÅNKEN world, with ideas,
jeans in black Camo Duffle Bangles rucksack technology, design
and more. Already
An ethical choice of Pioneer of recycled From his Botanic jewellery This special edition confirmed: Google’s
Matt Brittin, former
clothing, these jeans are materials Christopher collection, these backpack is made entirely
Formula One driver
made of denim produced Raeburn’s new collection limited-edition Marcin from polyester recycled Nico Rosberg,
using 45 per cent less features designs made Rusak bangles are from plastic bottles. Dyed Improbable founder
water and 27 per cent less from reused military brass-based and layered with SpinDye technology Herman Narula
energy than most. High fabrics. This camo duffle with resin made from – reducing water, energy and space doctor
quality and fitted to the coat is made of army dried waste flowers. and chemicals used in Beth Healey.
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE

current relaxed-style blankets. Its black and grey Detailed with fossilised manufacturing – these November 2-3, 2017
trend, these washed black, colouring makes it a staple stone and marble-like bright bags feature a large wired.uk/live17
fringed hem, holographic- for the colder months, and blooms, the gothic look main compartment and
striped jeans will make a fluorescent patches swap breathes new life into secret seat pad for extra Follow us on Twitter
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£49.99 lindex.com/uk christopherraeburn.co.uk Ace Hotel, Shoreditch snowandrock.com @WIREDUKINSIDER
EDITED BY VICTORIA TURK _   

ENTREPRENEURIAL CULT URE PRODUCTIVITY HACKS ACCELER ATED LEARNING


PHOTOGRAPHY: JOE PUGLIESE

Productive genes
Craig Venter took on the US government in the race to sequence the human genome, created the first synthetic
cell and founded the J Craig Venter Institute. Here, he tells WIRED the secret to his success
   _ WORK SMARTER _ INSIDER KNOWLEDGE

PRODUCTIVITY “I’m not a micro-manager. I have a


philosophy of hiring the best people
and giving them complete licence to
do their job. That’s how we sequenced
the human genome in three years
when the government said it would
Craig Venter take ten. I said at the start it would
either be the most spectacular
Geneticist and businessman; success story or the biggest flame-
out. But I had no trouble sleeping
Chairman, J Craig Venter Institute because we had five teams of the
world’s top scientists who knew that
if they failed the whole operation was
in trouble – and each of those teams
exceeded their expectations.”

CRAIG VENTER IS THE ULTIMATE Q&A “The Vietnam war changed me. “I never have any doubt that things
late bloomer. As a child, he I was shipped out to the Da Nang are going to work. Creating the first
preferred going surfing to doing Hospital during the Tet Offensive. synthetic cell is the kind of research
schoolwork, performed badly in I dealt with thousands of young the government wouldn’t have
academic subjects and spent his men who didn’t make it back and funded because I doubt we could
formative years on Californian learned at an early age that the have convinced a grant committee
beaches. Despite this, he would worst thing you can lose is your life the problems were solvable. But
go on to make his name as a How do you motivate – taking risks and suffering I was certain we could.”
pioneer in synthetic biology. your team? setbacks is part of moving forward.
In 2000, Venter led the private Most people are happiest I came out of it highly motivated “My English teacher in community
team that raced against the when they’re working hard and I try to put that to use every college said most people are at their
government-sponsored Human on a large team, dealing with single day. What people miss today most creative when their pleasure
Genome Project to sequence the a big idea. It doesn’t matter is how 99 per cent of success is tanks are full. I have adrenaline-
complete human genome. They if it’s Nobel laureates or what they call ‘sweat equity’.” junkie hobbies: sailing, riding motor-
succeeded – years before the kids just out of school. cycles and racing cars at high speed.
expected end of the programme. “My mentor at the University of Knowing that if you don’t give
In 2010, he announced that he had What time do you get up California, San Diego, was the late something your full attention you
created the first synthetic cell. in the morning? Nate Kaplan, the co-discoverer might die clears out the baggage of
Venter is now chairman and No two days are the same. of coenzyme A. I studied under him the daily grind. After that, ideas just
C E O o f t h e J C r a i g Ve n t e r My genome is a fast when I left the Navy. He always used come to me. Not from sitting down
Institute, a not-for-profit genomic metaboliser of caffeine, to say that ideas were a dime a trying to have an idea.”
research organisation. He is also so the one thing that’s dozen. He probably had ten brilliant
executive chairman and co-chief always there is the two ideas every day, but he didn’t have “I’m not known for being a patient
scientist of synthetic biology to four cups of coffee the means to make them real. I think person – though I’m getting better.
company Synthetic Genomics, as I have when I wake up. the same thing. I get good ideas There are people in both business
well as executive chairman and every day – the secret is learning and science who can’t bring a project
head of scientific strategy at What is your email hack? how to execute them.” to completion; they’re not closers.
AS TOLD TO STEPHEN ARMSTRONG. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GALLETLY

genomics-based health firm I either answer them But usually they self-select out
Human Longevity. Not bad for a instantly or not at all. I’m “I am competitive, but some races of our organisations.”
slow starter. WIRED asked him how getting close to a strategy are not worth winning. When hierar-
he manages to achieve so much. where I don’t read most chies don’t allow you to make “We can detect diseases up to
emails, because it progress, I’ll leave the track they’ve 20 years before you have the
encourages people to find set and find a new way to do it. That’s symptoms, and that’s only going
other ways to tell me. threatening to some people’s social to improve. Age is the number-one
order. I’ve come in for a lot of criticism risk for most diseases, so avoid
What’s your mantra? in the past for that reason, but hypertension and diabetes. Don’t eat
That you’ll always get I’ve learned to deal with it. It’s one too much and exercise a lot. I have
a second chance. thing when people shoot criticisms a personal trainer three mornings a
at you. It’s very different when week and, yesterday, I rode 500
Worst habit? somebody is shooting rockets at you. laps of a track on my motorcycle. If
Not suffering fools gladly. It sort of puts things in perspective.” you do that you’ll sleep pretty well.”
WHERE TO STAY

THE GLASSHOUSE • THE BONHAM HOTEL

UK STARTUP HUB

EDINBURGH
The Scottish capital is home to a
growing community of angel investors

“Edinburgh saw an influx of intellectuals


in the 18th century,” says Kenny Kemp
from investment service The City
Partnership UK. “This helped establish
the city’s universities, which form the
basis for so many of our startups. It
means innovation is in everything we do.”
The city is also home to several angel
investors. The largest, Archangels, has
invested more than £100 million in 80
Scottish companies in the past 25 years.
More recently, two of the city’s early
startups, Skyscanner and FanDuel, have
gained unicorn status. “Now, when I visit
a client, they understand why we’re in
Edinburgh,” says Mike Mason, CCO at
ad-tech startup TVSquared. “It’s because
there’s a pool of talent.” Victoria Woollaston

PureLiFi Appointedd Mallzee TVSquared Topolytics


LiFi, or light fidelity, Appointedd is an online This shopping app for iOS TVSquared uses algorithms Topolytics’ real-time
is an alternative to booking tool that acts as and Android lets almost one to track TV ads so environmental monitoring
Wi-Fi, offering wireless a digital PA, handling diary million customers buy from companies can better and reporting platform
connections through management and letting 200 brands. target their audience.  tracks waste management
visible light. people book meetings via Founded 2012 Founded 2012 and identifies gas leaks and
Founded 2012 a company’s website or Investment raised Investment raised hazardous material. 
Investment raised social media account. £4 million £7.4 million Founded 2013
£20.25 million Founded 2011 Founder Cally Russell Founders Calum Smeaton, Investment raised
Founders Mostafa Afgani, Investment raised Hew Bruce-Gardyne Undisclosed amount from
Harald Haas £820,000 one funding round
Founder Leah Hutcheon Founders Will Egerton-
King, Michael Groves,
Gordon Cowtan

Where to eat and drink


Contini, 103 George St; Brasserie Les Amis, 83 Morrison St; Le Di-Vin, 9 Randolph Place; Thistle Street Bar, 39 Thistle Street
0 8 2 _ WORK SMARTER _ PRODUCTIVIT Y _ STARTUP HUB

IN A CAVERNOUS FORMER RAILWAY


d e p o t i n Pa r i s’s 1 3 t h a r ro n -
dissement, Roxanne Varza is
celebrating the opening of Europe’s
biggest startup project. Varza, 32,
is director of Station F, a 34,000m2

PHOTOGRAPHY: SEBASTIAN NEVOLS. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GALLETLY


HOW DO space that, since the end of June,
has played host to 1,000 small
YOU SPEND technology companies from around
the world. Backed by a €250 million
THE FIRST (£220m) investment from French
telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel,
HOUR Mo Gawdat Valentin Stalf Station F – which takes its name
Chief business officer, Co-founder and CEO, N26 from engineer Eugène Freyssinet,
OF YOUR Google [X] “The first thing I do in who built the original freight station
“For the past 30 years the morning is check my in 1929 – aims to turn Paris into a
WORKING I’ve spent the first hour calendar to see what’s global startup centre. As the project
of every day reading. I coming up that day; kicks off, is Varza feeling nervous?
DAY? invest in the fitness of my identifying the most “Not at all!” she laughs. “This is
brain before going to the important emails is where the fun begins.”
gym. I don’t read news or the second thing I do. The idea for Station F dates back
fiction; I choose a focus I mentally prepare for to 2013, when Niel – who also funds
and read about it until the first couple of 42, a coding school without teachers,
I feel I’ve mastered it. For meetings while getting syllabus or fees – bought the site
12 years, I’ve dedicated ready at home and from the Parisian government. He
my reading time to the grab something to eat wanted to give the diffuse Paris
BIG QUESTION
topic of happiness; the on my way to work. Each startup scene a point of focus, and,
result was the ‘happiness office day starts with as part of his research, he got in
algorithm’ that is a quick C-level update t o u c h w i t h Va r z a , a f o r m e r
shared in [Gawdat’s to align the team on TechCrunch journalist and Micro-
book] Solve for Happy.” priorities for the day.” soft’s lead for startup investments
in France. “He asked me to visit
various international ecosystems
and share my ideas,” she recalls.
That included Silicon Valley, where
Varza had an advantage: she’d grown
up in Palo Alto, not far from the
headquarters of Google, Facebook
and Apple. So how did she end up in
Abdigani Diriye Nighat Dad Jen Rubio France, where, as George W Bush
Research manager, Founder, Digital Co-founder, Away famously commented, they don’t
IBM; co-founder, Rights Foundation “I’m always travelling or even have a word for entrepreneur?
Innovate Ventures “The first thing I do surrounded by people, “Somehow I just feel more at home
“I begin every morning is read dozens of so I try to own the first on this side of the pond,” she says.
with meditation and emails and draft hour of every day. “I moved here in 2009 to do a
prayers, which enables me responses in my head. Sometimes that means master’s and discovered a budding
to focus, be grateful and Then I prepare my meditating and working ecosystem. It was a lot more
derive strength for the mind for a day full of out and sometimes it’s exciting than Silicon Valley, where
day. Then when I meetings. I’m not a just getting caught up on everything already kind-of existed.”
leave the house I use my morning person, emails without any Inside, Station F is split into three
commute to inspire new but I don’t let this work distractions. Whatever it areas. The startup zone, which has
ideas by observing what against me. Instead, is, I’m alone and at my own 3,000 desks, will be run by 20
is happening on every I fully take advantage pace, free of meetings independent partners covering
street corner and of the time by being and push notifications, fields from medicine to food to
speaking with as many responsive to emails which energises me fashion. Global software firm
people as possible to learn coming from the for a day full of face-to- Zendesk and e-commerce company
about their challenges.” western side of world.” face interactions.” BC Vente-privee have signed up to
Task switching can increase creativity by reducing cognitive fixation,
according to studies published on ScienceDirect. Participants asked to
continuously switch between two projects outperformed those who did not.

run programmes, as have business Not every plan proceeds smoothly,


INTERVIEW
schools HEC Paris and EDHEC. In as Varza discovered when Station
April, the project received a boost F’s opening was delayed for three
when Sheryl Sandberg announced months after a flood on the site.
that Facebook would be taking 80 But, even if the elements can’t
desks for its first startup incubator. be relied on, events could be turning
Station F also runs its own in their favour, as political uncer- The one-stop
programme for 200 early-stage tainty in Britain and the US makes
startups, which pay a monthly fee France look more attractive to shop for Parisian
of €195 per desk. “We take no entrepreneurs. “A lot of startups
equity,” Varza says. “We’re not here mentioned factors like Brexit in their startup culture
to make money with this project and applications,” says Varza. “We also
we are just expecting to break even had startups mentioning Donald WIRED visits Station F, the French hub
within the first few years.” Trump or expensive prices in Silicon that aims to become a global force
The other zones offer space for Valley.” In France, by contrast, newly
meetings, events and relaxation, elected President Macron is making
and Station F also plans to launch all the right noises. Aux armes ,
housing for entrepreneurs in 2018. entrepreneurs. Rowland Manthorpe

Below: Station F director Roxanne Varza at the star tup hub’s headquar ters
0 8 4 _ WORK SMARTER _ ILLUSTRATED BRIEFING

HOW WE MADE IT

The Raspberry Pi Story


The tiny but versatile machine was conceived in the mid-2000s to boost interest
in computer science. Its Welsh creator Eben Upton recalls how the Pi
launched in 2012 and went on to become the bestselling British computer in history

But interest had boomed.

ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GALLETY


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WOSSKOW’S 1974 1989 1995 1995 1999 2008

MILESTONES Born in Sheffield, Won a Young Graduated from Joined management Co-founded Co-founded
South Yorkshire Enterprise the University consultants Mantra PR investment firm
award of Oxford Oliver Wyman Maidthorn Partners

Debbie Wosskow
CEO, Love Home Swap

“The most
successful
entrepreneurs
have the Three
Gs – Graft,
Grace and Grit”

WHAT I’VE LEARNED

DEBBIE WOSSKOW IS THE FOUNDER AND CEO OF HOME-EXCHANGE SERVICE LOVE HOME SWAP. Since its launch in 2011, it has
secured £7.5m from Wyndham Worldwide and acquired rival outfits 1stHomeExchange and Home for Exchange. It was
itself acquired by Wyndham in July. Wosskow also runs AllBright, a female-focused investment fund, and LifeStyler,
an app for booking lifestyle experts. She previously co-founded PR company Mantra and investment firm Maidthorn
Partners, and was the founding chair of Sharing Economy UK. Here she shares her learnings. As told to Charlie Burton
LESSONS IN ENTREPRENEURSHIP _ WORK SMARTER _ 0 8 7

2011 2015  2016 2017

Founded Love Became chair Launched female- Co-founded personal styling app LifeStyler;
Home Swap of Sharing founder VC Love Home Swap acquired by hotel giant RCI,
Economy UK fund AllBright part of Wyndham Worldwide

Draw on lessons from childhood Good ideas tick three boxes


“Coming from a Jewish immigrant culture, “With potential business opportunities, the
I grew up around people who started their three tests for me are: if it keeps you awake
WORKPLACE HACKS
own businesses. The talk around the dinner at night; if you can see from a business
table as a kid was about business. In that perspective that it would work on Excel; and
sense, I’ve always been business-minded.” if you feel you can understand the customer.”
H O W T O M O T I VAT E
Non-business degrees add value too Use your own experience A YOUTHFUL TEAM
“I did philosophy and theology at Oxford. The “The inspiration for Love Home Swap came
things I took from that were not necessarily during a disastrous holiday when my children When the average age of
the content – I don’t spend an awful lot of were young. On the flight back I watched the your workforce is 21, how
time these days thinking about Hegel’s movie The Holiday, which is the ultimate do you keep them
dialectic – but the practical skills it teaches home-swap movie. It resonated because my productive? Social-media
you. First is how to read very quickly and home in London was empty while we were marketing firm Social
digest relevant information. Second is the away, and we spent lots of money on the Chain has all the hallmarks
tutorial system, which teaches you how holiday but I just wanted to be home.” of a trendy office at its
to argue a case and to be a self-starter. I got Manchester warehouse –
a lot out of being there.” Connect with other founders sleeping pods, pets, a bar
“It’s a lonely life as an entrepreneur, especially – but CEO and co-founder
It’s easier to start young when you’re young. When I was 25, I was Steven Bartlett, 25, says
“Startups are really hard for the founder employing people, winning business and how its 120 employees talk
because you don’t earn any money for years. dealing with property, and not many of my to each other is crucial.
It’s not for the faint-hearted. So my whole friends were doing the same thing. I have a When the company was
mantra of ‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ close-knit network of other female founders, in its infancy, WhatsApp
is very applicable at 25 years old, but it’s and to me that feels like a safe space.” was the primary tool for
harder to do that at age 40 when you’ve got communication. “As we
a mortgage and two children.” The best partners have different skills grew we wanted to
“Anna [Jones, co-founder of AllBright and promote better work-life
The most successful entrepreneurs have executive chairman of LifeStyler] has a very balance and allow all of
particular qualities different background. She went from being us to have separation
“I call them the Three Gs. Graft – there’s no a graduate trainee at magazine publisher between our personal and
magic to this, you have to work really hard. Hearst to being the boss by the time she was work channels,” Bartlett
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW WOFFINDEN. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID GALLETLY

Grace – things happen and tempers flare, 37, so she’s a fantastic operator. But I have says. So he switched to
and you’ve got to look for people who are had these small businesses that go from Facebook-run Workplace,
gracious enough to inspire teams but also being an idea to a thing and then I sell them. which lets teams create
able to get shit done. And Grit – because you In a sense, we’re able to divide and conquer.” a group for each client in
can have days and weeks and months when which they can drop in
things aren’t going right. When investments Don’t shy away from the spotlight industry news or
I’ve made haven’t worked out, it’s generally “If you are a platform entrepreneur where information that could be
because the entrepreneur hasn’t had one of you’re selling a product, then, of course, relevant to their social-
those, grit being the main thing.” it’s helpful for people to know who you are.” media marketing strategy
as they come across it.
Hiring takes time You need a thick skin “It’s enabled us to be more
“Hiring people is really hard. Even when you ”If I’ve achieved anything over the past 20 productive and more
have experience it’s still very easy to years, it’s that I’ve developed the hide of a effective in our work, he
make big and expensive mistakes from a rhino. If somebody writes something you don’t says.” Bonnie Christian
hiring perspective, so my advice would be love about you or your business, or when you’re
to always take your time. Whenever you’re pitching for investment and you get a ‘no’,
rushing a hire and you think, ‘That’s fine, which is often, no matter how successful you
they’re good enough,’ they’re generally not are – I took that personally when I was in my
the right hire for your company.” twenties. Now, I don’t take it personally at all.”

Find an investor who believes in you Exercise is vital time to yourself


“As an entrepreneur, I’m looking for an “I do something every day of the week apart
investor who has my back. That doesn’t mean from Sunday. If I’m travelling, I fire up [training
that they’re endlessly patient, but it does app] Insanity on my iPad and do it in the hotel
mean they want me to win.” room with bottles of wine as weights.”
S H E L L _ W I R E D C O N S U LT I N G

nergy is, and will continue


to be, one of the defining
#makethefuture
E challenges of our times.
The dilemma can be
easily summarised thus: HELPING IDEAS
TAKE FLIGHT
globally, to cope with
growing demand, we need to generate more,
and cleaner, energy. The risk coming from
climate change, on the other hand, means
that energy must be produced in a way that The Shell #makethefuture Accelerator in
minimises CO2 emissions. London was designed to help the ideas
As an energy company, Shell is aware of the of young energy entrepreneurs thrive
magnitude of that challenge. Energy is crucial
to enhance quality of life for people worldwide
and drive prosperity in developing areas – and
in the future, we are likely to need much more
of it in order to power a more connected planet,
transformed by emerging technologies such of clean-energy solutions through the
as robotics, energy storage, autonomous nurturing and support of bright ideas.
vehicles and AI. Still, those very benefits At the core of the Shell #makethefuture
might be jeopardised if novel, low-carbon Accelerator is the idea that financial backing
energy solutions are not found. is not the only thing startups need to thrive
To help solve that, Shell has been and succeed in this sector. Guidance, inspi-
promoting a number of programmes that ration, the support of a wider network and
support and encourage young entrepreneurs assistance in dealing with things such as
and innovative businesses at the forefront of marketing, human-resources management
energy transition. Among these programmes and business planning are all critical factors.
are Shell LiveWIRE, a monthly grant for 16- to The #makethefuture Accelerator is one way
30-year-old founders, and Shell Springboard, Shell strives to provide young entrepre-
designed to help small- and medium-sized neurs crucial support. Ultimately, though, to
enterprises (SMEs) implement and scale up tackle our world’s current energy challenges,
their visions; in 2017 alone, Shell awarded companies need to fashion themselves into
£440,000 in no-strings-attached capital to mission-driven organisations.
low-carbon pioneers. What that means is that companies
Launched in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2015, must embrace a strategy that goes beyond
the #makethefuture Accelerator has toured a convincing business plan, and which is
the world, from Bangalore to Singapore. It instead driven by a purpose able to resonate
returned to London’s inspiring Olympic Park with investors, staff and customers alike.
for Shell’s fifth Accelerator event, held on How to do that? Many of the event’s
May 25 as part of Shell’s #makethefuture attendees had pretty good insights on the
festival, which celebrates the development matter. Shell LiveWIRE 2016 winner Carlton

HOW TO SOLVE GLOBAL PROBLEMS WITH LOCAL ACTIONS

The need for cleaner challenges is to put them in those cities, you can make
energy might look like perspective. “I look at the a difference.” Kay realised
too huge a problem for energy challenge through that there’s another thing
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN DENNISON

a startup to tackle, but the lens of urbanisation: megalopolises produce,


Arthur Kay says we should 70 per cent of global apart from emissions:
look at this differently. emissions come from cities; tonnes of organic waste.
The founder of bio-bean, actually, the vast majority “I thought: ‘If you can
a company transforming of them comes from just use that waste as a
waste coffee grounds ten global megacities,” he resource, you might offset
into sustainable biofuel, says. “That means that if the impact of those cities’
explains that the best way you focus on solving the emissions.’ That is how
to tackle overwhelming problem of emissions in bio-bean was born.”
S H E L L _ W I R E D C O N S U LT I N G

AT THE CORE OF THE SHELL


#MAKETHEFUTURE ACCELERATOR
IS THE IDEA THAT FINANCIAL
BACKING IS NOT THE ONLY THING
STARTUPS NEED TO THRIVE
AND SUCCEED IN THIS SECTOR

SHELL
S H E L L _ W I R E D C O N S U LT I N G

HOW TO TEST YOUR PRODUCT FOR FREE

You have a product but a company producing Grand Ideas Award in the community through It worked well, and
no budget to test it? tiles transforming 2011; with Shell’s support sport and clean-energy gave us a leg-up when
Laurence Kemball-Cook people’s footsteps into he then installed 200 tech. “To test the tiles, we presented our idea
has some advice. He is energy. Kemball-Cook tiles on a football pitch we installed them in a to investors and the
the founder of Pavegen, won a Shell LiveWIRE in a Rio favela to inspire building site in London. public,” he says.

Cummins recounted how his startup Aceleron and leading by example in order to engage
was born to be a clean-tech company. the general public about clean tech.
Cummins had initially been working on an Kemball-Cook, who won the Shell LiveWIRE
electric bicycle powered by used battery Grand Ideas Award in June 2011, started putting
packs. The idea didn’t fly with investors, but together the technology in his university lab.
one of them suggested that he focus on the “I was working all night long, every night,” he
battery pack, because the idea had potential. said. After he had a prototype, he trialled it by
Today, Aceleron transforms used lithium- secretly installing it on building sites.
ion batteries from vehicles and appliances Fast forward to 2014, and Pavegen was
into battery packs for bicycles or home-energy reaching out to places much farther than
systems. “What we do is reuse an existing building plots in London: thanks to a collab-
resource to produce a novel and more acces- oration with Shell, Cook brought his tiles to Rio
sible product,” Cummins explained. de Janeiro. “We flew to Rio and visited a favela
Furthermore, Aceleron aims to inspire with a huge soccer pitch. Kids there didn’t
other companies in different regions of the have anything to live on apart from soccer,
world to follow its lead – and create battery- but the lights didn’t work,” he recalled. “As
processing facilities that would both part of the Shell #makethefuture campaign,
encourage local entrepreneurs and provide we installed 200 tiles in the pitch. They stored which have become deeply entrenched.
the public with cheaper batteries. up energy as the kids played and the lights Tom Robinson, who launched the award-
Laurence Kemball-Cook, whose company turned on. It’s a cool energy solution, and a winning company Adaptavate to manufacture
Pavegen manufactures special tiles able to way of inspiring new energy entrepreneurs.” low-impact construction materials, got the
convert pedestrians’ footsteps into electricity, Sometimes the real challenge for purpose- idea for his business while working on a
also believes in the importance of inspiring driven companies is changing mindsets building site. “I was on this site and I thought:

WIRED SPEAKERS

Pictured: Some of the


energy entrepreneurs
Thomas Keen Emma Fromberg
with inspiring advice for Founder and Informal education
attendees of London’s Shell partner, manager, Ellen
#makethefuture Accelerator Sabotage Design MacArthur foundation
S H E L L _ W I R E D C O N S U LT I N G

HOW TO USE PERSONAS TO ENGAGE YOUR CUSTOMERS

Purpose-driven Carlton Cummins and personas. Companies At what stage of their simplifying our customers
businesses need to Desolenator’s Louise should create a mental lives are they? What is the to the essentials,”
appeal to customers Bleach suggest thinking image of the people they best way to strike a chord Cummins says. “It
and inspire them. But about customers not want to cater to: what are with them? “We make a helps because it brings
how to do it? Aceleron’s only as persons, but as their motivations? customer blueprint by customers to life.”

alumnus Arthur Kay – whose company


bio-bean transforms old coffee grounds
into biofuel – explained that waste is a
mentality: whether something is labelled
a waste or a resource all depends on the
eyes with which one looks at it.
During the event, Shell UK Country Chair
Sinead Lynch underlined how Shell LiveWIRE
has been key in fostering ideas to meet
the needs of a fast-growing population.
Over the past 35 years, Shell LiveWIRE has
helped more than 880,000 young people
grow businesses, providing £5m of funding.
The LiveWIRE programme, which is one of
Shell’s many initiatives supporting science,
education and innovation – alongside Shell
Springboard, Shell Bright Ideas Challenge
and other Social Investment activities –
has been an invaluable way to build an
online community of more than 230,000
members, who give advice and access
opportunities to their peers. It doesn’t
stop there. Through Shell #makethefuture,
the company has supported many other
inspiring projects such as the Pavegen
installations in Rio and the GravityLight 50-
night tour in Kenya– which brought a light
powered by gravity to areas where kerosene
lamps are ubiquitous. Shell’s #makethe-
future Accelerator event reaffirmed Shell’s
core beliefs. The company has shown its
faith in how collaboration and network
‘What are we going to do with this waste ‘WHEN I FIRST MADE MY support can bring about progress and
material going to landfills?’” he said. transform lives by bringing more and
For everybody else, it seemed normal that
PROTOTYPE, I WAS IN MY cleaner energy to those communities in
tonnes of building material would pollute UNIVERSITY LAB WORKING need. Such leadership is decisive at a
the ground. Robinson decided to prove AT NIGHT: ALL NIGHT time when our planet faces a monumental
that things could be better. Similarly, Shell LONG, EVERY NIGHT’ energy challenge. #makethefuture
Laurence Kemball-Cook,
founder, Pavegen

Ilian Iliev Mark Chapman


Founder, Chris Pett Chief engineer,
EcoMachines Director, Bloodhound
Ventures Inmost SSC
.1 7 i s s ue
1
The 1 October 5
on sale
RENDER: JOEY CAMACHO. CREATED USING CINEMA 4D / OCTANE RENDER. THE CONCEPT IS BASED ON THE IDEA OF PIXEL-CITY LANDSCAPES AND ALTERING THE PERCEPTION OF SCALE
10-17 _ LONG-FORM STORIES _ 0 9 3

“I have always been a feminist... I have always in my soul wanted equality.” Whitney Wolfe, p94
BY AMELIA TAIT

PHOTOGRAPHY: JEFF WILSON


WHITNEY WOLFE’S DATING APP BUMBLE

SET OUT TO EMPOWER WOMEN.

N O W, A S T H E C O - F O U N D E R O F T I N D E R

L A U N C H E S A R I VA L T O L I N K E D I N , W O L F E

HAS HER SIGHTS SET ON A BIGGER

ISSUE: TACKLING TECH’S SEXISM PROBLEM


later filed against the company In March 2016, Bumble launched
was settled without admission BFF, a way for the app’s users to
of wrongdoing, and she is not find platonic female friends in their
permitted to discuss its terms. area. “I had created something great
During our day together, she and I couldn’t use it,” says Wolfe,
mentions Tinder only four times – explaining her motivation to build
each to clarify that she is not, in fact, BFF. (Wolfe has subsequently hired
talking about the company at all. Bumble employees after meeting
“It sent me into such a deep them on the platform.)
depression,” explains Wolfe – not “Someone asked me the other day:
because of the Tinder lawsuit, ‘What is Bumble, what is the core
but due to the press coverage and of Bumble, where is it going?’” she
internet comments that followed
it. She couldn’t sleep, focus or take
care of herself, and says that she
was “probably drinking too much”
just to make herself feel better. “The
fact that strangers on the internet
could drive me to do that to myself
was really scary. It made me realise
if I had been 13 and going through
that I might not have come out of it.”
The news of Wolfe’s lawsuit broke
a social network where there were no just three days before her 25th
men, one where there would only be birthday. The hatred and vitriol she
compliments. The CEO of the dating experienced sparked, she says, an
app Bumble sits under fairy lights at “internalised epiphany” about what
the deliberately distressed picnic to do next: that “this pervasive dark
table of an Austin café, chewing on culture exists on social media and
deep-fried oysters. Nat King Cole it is going to destroy the mental
plays from a speaker, the air faint well-being and self-esteem of all
with the scent of Texas bluebonnets of these women across the world.
blooming nearby. “I had been bullied I wanted to fix that.”
and pretty much attacked on the The positive, women-only app she
internet,” the 27-year-old says, envisioned was going to be called
her eyes hidden behind jewelled, Merci. After building a pitch deck,
mirrored sunglasses, enormous Wolfe was approached by Russian
geometric gold earrings glinting entrepreneur Andrey Andreev (see
in the Texas sun. She jiggles the ice WIRED 05.11), the founder of Badoo,
in her hibiscus mint tea as she says a dating app with 330 million users.
“bullied”. “I was really depressed, Andreev’s response was withering:
really sad and had horrible anxiety.” “‘What are you doing?’” Whitney
In 2014, Wolfe quit her job at recalls, imitating his urgency by
the world’s most-downloaded knocking three times on the table.
dating app, Tinder. A co-founder “‘You need to do this in dating.
of the company, she resigned after This is the answer to dating.’”
allegedly being sexually harassed She shakes her head. “I was like:
by her colleague Justin Mateen, I am not going back into that water.
who sent her a series of abusive I am out. I have done my time.”
text messages after she ended their Eventually, Wolfe acquiesced.
romantic relationship. Mateen Three years later, 17.5 million people
allegedly called her a “whore” have registered with Bumble, and says, “And I told them that I want to
at a work event, while another the app has been responsible for end abusive relationships, that’s it.
co-founder, Sean Rad, purportedly more than 1.2 billion matches. “And if you think for one second
said that having a female co-founder Though its design will be familiar that an abusive relationship is
made Tinder “seem like a joke”. The to anyone used to the swipe-left- mutually exclusive to a man and a
sexual harassment lawsuit Wolfe for-no, swipe-right-for-yes mechanic woman, you are wrong.” Her speech
as popularised by Tinder, Bumble takes on the air of a sermon. “I have
is singular in that after a man and had abusive friendships, where I
a woman match, only the woman felt they were toxic, I have seen abuse
is able to initiate a conversation. in almost every form of connecting,
“Make the first move,” instructs the and I want to reconfigure the way
app (and Wolfe, who uses the catch- that we treat each other. That’s it.
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 phrase nine times during our lunch). That’s the core of Bumble.”
In September 2015, LinkedIn hit the headlines Fowler is by no means alone. years ago, she arranged a meeting
after a barrister, Charlotte Proudman, According to research by the Trade with an investor. “[He] made it clear
complained that a man had used the service Unions Congress and the Everyday from the start he had no intention of
to proposition her. After she tweeted Sexism project, more than half of discussing my business,” says Marie,
the exchange, Proudman went on to receive women in the UK have been sexually He said so outright: “I just took
death and rape threats from strangers. “I’ve harassed at work. The figure rises to the meeting because you’re hot.”
been approached on LinkedIn for dating, and 63 per cent for women aged 16 to 24. Her story is depressingly common-
it is a problem,” explains Wolfe. Heather Marie is the CEO of place. Catherine Ashcraft, a senior
In February 2017, the author and engineer Shoppable, a universal checkout that scientist at the National Center for
Susan Fowler wrote a 3,000-word blog post allows people to buy products from Women and Information Technology,
about her time working at Uber. On her first multiple retailers across the web. who co-authors the annual Women in
day, she says that her new manager sent While attending a conference a few Tech report, has found that women
in the technology sector leave their
jobs at twice the rate of men – and
not to start families, as is commonly
assumed. “We know why they leave,”
Ashcraft explains. “There is a lack of
access to core creative roles, biases
in everyday interactions – [women
being] more frequently interrupted
or having ideas ignored in meetings,
and biases in employee development,
task management, performance
evaluation and promotion.”
“And then there the more overt
factors such as sexual harassment.”
After her experiences at Tinder,
Wolfe’s next move is, perhaps,
inevitable; to challenge sexism
in the workplace. This autumn,
her company will launch Bumble
Bizz, which Wolfe refers to as an
“empowered LinkedIn”.
“When it comes to networking,
there is still an underlying tension
that men feel exists: Can this woman
become more than a networking
contact to me?” Wolfe says. She
believes women can’t speak or act
openly in business meetings for
fear of sending the wrong message.
When users open the Bumble
app, they can select Honey (the new
name for its dating service, to avoid
confusion), BFF, or Bizz. If you choose
Bizz, you can create a profile listing
your current job, experience and
skills. Honey, BFF, and Bizz matches
are colour-coded to avoid sending
a potential employer a drunken,
4am “Hey baby, you up?”.
her “a string of messages” about his open ACCORDING TO THE TRADE Like Bumble, Bizz will only let
relationship, relaying that he was having women initiate the conversation.
trouble finding new partners. “It was clear that UNIONS CONGRESS, MORE “Making the first move is a very
he was trying to get me to have sex with him,” powerful tool, and it will set the
Fowler wrote. During her year as a site relia- THAN HALF OF WOMEN IN tone for the entire relationship.”
bility engineer (SRE) for the company, she says She queries me with a searching
she went on to face further sexual harassment, T H E U K H A V E B E E N S E X U A L LY “you know?” that resembles a teacher
an unresponsive HR team and gender discrim- checking I’ve learned the lesson.
ination. (Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, once HARASSED AT WORK Wolfe believes Bumble will also
nicknamed his company “Boober” because it have a long-term effect on gender
helped him to attract women.) In June, Kalanick roles by giving women confidence
resigned amid allegations of discrimination and making men “calm down”.
and sexual harassment at the company. Think: fewer dick pics.
Originally, Wolfe planned to
make Bizz cost more for men than
women to reflect the gender pay ALEX
gap – in America, women currently
make 78 cents to a man’s dollar – WILLIAMSON,
but her lawyers advised against it.
The user experience of Bizz is BUMBLE’S
essentially the same as Bumble
Honey’s. Users are asked to verify HEAD
their identity by striking a series of
poses in selfie mode. “Anything I’m OF BRAND
doing is not particularly amazing
and magical,” says John Kneeland,
Bumble’s product manager, as he
flicks through a Bizz prototype in
Badoo’s London offices. Kneeland,
in fact, is insistent that the software
is just one pillar of the Bumble brand.
“What makes it amazing and magical
is when it’s put into the company and
the culture that Whitney has made.”

very day, Wolfe goes around the


Bumble “oice”, which is currently
based in a converted flat on the 31st
floor of a residential building in
downtown Austin, 2,700 kilometres
from Silicon Valley, and asks her
staf to rate their mood out of ten.
“Ten,” says one. “Eleven,” follows
another. There is one “9.5”.
Wolfe views anything under a nine
as a problem and tries to solve any
issues that person might be facing
on that day. When I joke that on most
days I would be a four, instead of the
expected (some might say, obligatory)
laugh, I am met with horrified faces.
“She really encourages everyone
to feel like an entrepreneur,” says
Lauren Taylor, Bumble’s director of
brand development. Wolfe doesn’t
like to be called a “boss”. A box in the
corner contains copies of Originals:
How Non-Conformists Move the
World by Adam Grant, and Wolfe
tells everyone to take one home so
they can have a group discussion.
“The Hive” – as Bumble’s oice is
nicknamed – is a bright-yellow space
filled with bee-and-Bumble-related
merchandise. Coke bottles featuring
seven staff members’ names line
the window, while wine bottles sit
in honeycomb-shaped racks. In the
corner of one meeting room, sits a
candle featuring Beyoncé dressed
as a saint. In the same room, I also
count 23 giant plastic containers full
of merchandise – lemon and honey-
scented candles, lighters, water
bottles, tote bags, keyrings, straw hats,
foam balls and miniature jars of honey. Wolfe and Lauren Taylor, Bumble’s “I had... you know, I’ve always
In these ways, Bumble’s HQ director of communications and struggled with healthy relation-
resembles many Silicon Valley brand development, explain this as ships,” Wolfe explains. “Time and
workplaces, yet there are also ways it we drive through downtown Austin again, I have always found myself
does not: one of the conference rooms in an SUV with Mariah Carey on the in bad male relationships and I think
is a bathroom; yellow paper flowers stereo. A car cuts in front and Wolfe’s that has really been my driving
hang from the shower rail, casting zero-tolerance attitude to abuse is force.” Clarifying – again – that she
shadows over the bath where many tested: she doesn’t visibly succumb isn’t talking about Tinder, she says
Bumble team members take calls. to road rage. In practice, this means that abusive relationships have
Wolfe has also been known to receive Bumble’s employees are discouraged caused her so much pain that she
important calls in a storage closet. from complaining about each other no longer wanted to live. “You know
The entire thing is spectacularly and instead must go straight to it’s dark, dark, dark. Bad.”
cute, a description Wolfe would baulk the person who is bothering them. It is this attitude to abuse –
at. More than anything, she loves Inevitably, Wolfe and Bumble have designing an environment that puts
sitting down with businessmen who faced criticism from all sides. Can an women in control – that means Bizz,
have underestimated her “feminine” app really empower women? Bizz in Wolfe’s eyes, can and will surpass
brand. She imitates how they splutter will be met with the same response. LinkedIn. “Call me overzealous, but
when she tells them Bumble’s figures A reliance on profile pictures could I truly believe that we have a real
(around ten per cent of its user base enforce, rather than challenge, sexism chance at taking them on,” she says.
in the jobs market. A 2013 study from
the University of Messina revealed that
when photos are included on appli-
cations, it increased discrimination
based on race and physical attrac-
WHILE IT CAN BE HARD tiveness. Though Bumble considered
blind applications for Bizz, this would
TO PROVE BUMBLE’S provide too many challenges when it
came to user verification.
I M P A C T, 4 4 P E R C E N T Wolfe believes that the combination
of Bumble empowering women to
O F I T S PAY I N G control the conversation, and a focus
on removing abuse on the platform,
USERS ARE FEMALE will overcome any drawbacks of
relying on profile pictures. On Bizz,
women will be able to “dislike” a
conversation, as Bumble believes
many women feel shame about
is paying). “‘What? Wait a second. What’s your blocking and reporting men on social
name again?” she says with mock surprise, media. If a man gets a single “dislike”,
miming a businessman sitting up in his seat. the Bumble team will review the
After three years, businessmen might now interaction and – if disrespectful –
take Bumble more seriously. Wolfe’s team are issue a warning. Some will be kicked
moving to new headquarters – which are still off the app for good, much like the
being built when I visit – complete with a bar, boy known only as “Connor” who
beauty room and (for the first time) actual desks. was publicly shamed on Bumble’s
Wolfe shows me around the new open-plan, blog after he called a user an “entitled,
two-storey building. She points out to the gold-digging whore” for asking where
genderless bathrooms, where she says a sign he worked. Block and report buttons
will read: “Be whoever you want, do whatever you will still be available too.
want, just wash your hands.” Nearly everything
– chairs, light fixtures, bathroom tiles and
mirrors – will be honeycomb-shaped. Despite
this display of its success, it almost feels a shame
for the company to move into a real, proper oice.
More than anything else, the Hive embodies
how unique Wolfe’s company is. 10-17 _ WIRED _   
Bumble’s impact, 44 per cent of its paying
customers are female. “That is actually unheard
of,” she says, “No, truly, you can research
that.” (In 2016, only 19 per cent of Tinder’s
revenue came from female customers.)
Yet originally, Wolfe didn’t consider herself
a feminist. “No, no, no, no!” she says, shaking
her head dramatically, “We don’t hate men,
no, no!” She is re-enacting her response to
olfe is slurring her words. “I feel the first article that called Bumble a feminist
like I’ve had two cocktails,” she says. app. “I’m actually quite embarrassed by this.
“I feel a little woozy.” Wolfe hasn’t I’m a little ashamed. I had to educate myself
been drinking; rather, she’s feeling on what feminism even means. I had to have
the effects of allergy medication, this eye-awakening, opening…” she stumbles
after eating some avocado toast at slightly because of the Benadryl, “experience
breakfast that may have contained like holy… I have always been a feminist, I have
nuts. Even with the occasional always in my soul wanted equality.
fumble, Wolfe speaks with a TED “It was like I was building a feminist
Talk eloquence that seems almost company all along and I didn’t know it.”
rehearsed. It’s something she readily
admits relates to her post-Tinder
media coverage. Once, in order
to clear the air, she arranged for
the team to go skydiving after
a negative TechCrunch article that
questioned many of her claims
about her departure from Tinder.
She speaks uninterrupted for
minutes at a time, her story a clean
and clear-cut narrative of motiva-
tions and actions. Although candid
about her abusive relationships and,
later, mental health, she still seems for dinner at Jeffrey’s, an upmarket
to carefully construct her story. I ask restaurant, where we’re joined by
her about politics, raising US vice Taylor, Caroline Ellis, Bumble’s head
president Mike Pence’s assertion of operations, and Alex Williamson,
that he never dines alone with a the company ’s head of brand.
woman. “That’s so… I mean,” she Wolfe sits down but doesn’t pick
sighs, then pauses and begins up her menu until she has adjusted
to speak more carefully. “Politi- Bumble’s social-media bios. (“Should
cally speaking, this is not an issue it be ‘empowered connections’ or
of 2017 – this is an issue of the ‘empowering connections?’”)
beginning of time to now.” When I suggest that read receipts
Wolfe’s cautiousness at times should work in reverse – so the
leaves me questioning her authen- receiver of a message gets a nudge
ticity. Is feminism still feminism to reply, rather than the sender
when it’s profit-driven? Is Bumble’s notified that their message has been
feminism, as some critics say, a ignored – Wolfe asks Ellis to arrange Even now, Wolfe doesn’t always
marketing gimmick? “There’s no a meeting on the topic. follow her own rules: she tells me,
sin in being a business,” she says, Wolfe seldom switches of. After beaming, how she hired her mother,
frustration audible in her rising voice. her fiancé had a car accident that left Kelly, to help market Bumble to older
“I think that’s the big misconception him in intensive care, she remained women. After her youngest daughter
with so many people, they feel like by his bedside and answered emails left for college, Wolfe says her mother
you have to choose one or the other, when he fell asleep. Yet when struggled with an empty nest and
and I say do both in the same place.” Williamson and Ellis start talking complained that no one wanted to
Besides, she says, money talks. about looking at emails on their hire her. “I said, ‘Mum, you’re going
While it can be difficult to prove honeymoons (Williamson says to work for me. You’re going to market
she will dedicate two hours a day [Bizz] to women that think like you and
to replying to them), Wolfe inter- you’re going to change their mind.”
jects in shock. She wouldn’t check Many of Bumble’s earliest employees
them at all, she says, reiterating a were friends from university, and
sentiment expressed earlier, that the company began operating from
“You have to, you have to” keep your Ellis’s mother’s home. For her,
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 work and personal life separate. Bumble has always been personal.
2017 AND TECH’S
CAROLINE GENDER-BIAS PROBLEM:

ELLIS, In February, Susan


Fowler wrote a blog
BUMBLE’S post detailing sexist
discrimination she
HEAD OF experienced while
working at Uber. The
OPERATIONS ensuing scandal ended
in CEO Travis Kalanick
stepping down in June.

Also in February,
Tesla engineer AJ
Vandermeyden sued
the company, alleging
that it ignored sexual
harassment. Tesla denied
the allegations and fired
Vandermeyden in June
after an investigation.

In April, the US
Department Of Labor
accused Google of
extreme gender pay
discrimination, following
a workplace audit (Google
denies the allegation).

In a NYT piece in June,


female entrepreneurs
accused investors
of harassment and
discrimination. Among
those named were
Dave McClure of 500
Startups and Chris
Sacca of Lowercase
Capital. Both apologised;
McClure resigned.

Bumble is just an app: but it’s scraped back from her face, with Her bracelets clink noisily as she gestures
changing the discussion. It’s changed not a single strand out of place. emphatically. “I don’t know what someone’s
the lives of Wolfe’s team, her family, Throughout our day together she’s perception of me from the outside is, I mean,
the women who work at the Hive. This mentioned the idea that all this is for I don’t Google myself,” she says. “It scares
is just the start, but it’s a start. her teenage self. For the first time, me… I think the most important thing to
“I’m permanently anxious, my she seems to go properly of-script. know is that you can be a CEO and still have
doctor is gonna block my cellphone “I know that I probably shouldn’t be problems and normal stuf going on.
number soon,” Wolfe says, as she telling a reporter this stuf, but I don’t “Just because you find success in one area
drives me back to my hotel. She really care because it’s real, like… if a of your life doesn’t mean that all of a sudden
removes her right hand from the 21-year-old girl picks up a magazine everything’s perfect,” she pauses to find the
steering wheel and touches her and is reading about how ‘every- right words, “no matter how many of your goals
thumb and fingertips together. thing’s perfect!’ and ‘everything’s you achieve, it doesn’t make you whole, right?
“Sometimes my fingers go numb great!’ then what is that gonna do? “It’s like a work in progress. Always.”
when I’m really nervous, it’s weird.” That’s not going to do anything.”
Sometimes she experiences heart Amelia Tait is the technology and digital
palpitations. Outwardly, Wolfe is culture correspondent for The New Statesman.
polished and perfect. Her hair is This is her first feature for WIRED
DEFUSING
Iraq’s second
city has been
liberated from
Daesh, but
thousands of
booby traps litter
its buildings and
roads. WIRED
reports from the
urban front line

BY John Beck

PHOTOGRAPHY:

Cengiz Yar Jr
LIEUTENANT AHMED ABBAS ALI

BURNS HIS FINGER

AS HE LIGHTS THE FUSE ON

HIS CHUNK OF

A momentary flash of pain pushes aside all three-storey houses sprawled behind cap, produces a brown stick of pliable
thoughts of the car bomb. He’s bent over a concrete walls. Iraqi forces had retaken it C-4 from his trouser pocket, then takes a
battered white Chevrolet saloon containing several from Daesh a fortnight previously there was multitool and slices of a piece the size of
canisters of explosives wired to an incredibly still fighting nearby. Some local residents a child’s fist. He cuts a short test length of
sensitive pressure trigger. Ali had defused two had already returned to their homes. white fuse, lights it to check it’s not damp
nearby improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Others never left at all. and tosses it to the pavement, where it
the past half hour, cutting the wires of bombs The dozen or so soldiers acting as fizzes for a few seconds. Satisfied, he
half buried by the roadside. This one, though, is an escort to Ali’s four-strong explosive takes a 30-centimetre section – enough
too dangerous to tamper with. It is one of Daesh’s ordinance disposal (EOD) unit hammer to burn for around a minute – and
newest and most dangerous IEDs, the same design on metal gates along the street, shouting attaches it to a detonating cap pushed
that had killed several of his comrades over the past orders to clear the block as men, women and into the plastic explosive. Last come
few months. So he decides to blow it up. children emerge squinting into the fierce three bottles of drinking water, which
The car is parked on a quiet street in west Mosul’s June sunshine. An oicer radioes in the co- he and a comrade position around it with
Islah al-Zarai, a middle-class district of two- and ordinates to a command post and, in brisk a large roll of sticky tape.
Arabic, requests permission to detonate. With the area cleared, Ali walks
“Are there civilians?” comes the response. towards the Chevrolet and attaches
“Yes but we’ve warned them all and the package to its boot, where the
secured the roads.” expanding water will activate the
“OK. Begin.” trigger. A team-mate pulls their Ford
Ali, a 23-year-old with a neat moustache, pickup close and keeps it running as
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 thick eyebrows and customary camouflage he sparks a plastic cigarette lighter and
holds it to the fuse. He was careful not bangs, so they back of, shrug, return to their improvised, learning new techniques and modifying
to swear when it flared up and scorched vehicles and drive back towards their base. equipment to counter their adversaries.
his middle finger; it’s the holy month of “That,” Ali said later, “was a quiet day.” EOD teams are at the forefront of this new arms
Ramadan, when cursing is forbidden. race. IEDs are one of Daesh’s most devastating
His mind snaps back to the job and he weapons and, as government forces fight to expel
runs for the pickup, the fuse burning the militant group from Iraq – most recently in the
faster than he anticipated. They accel- IN Iraq and Syria, Daesh exists successful Mosul ofensive, eight months long at the
erate hard towards a breeze-block and somewhere between a standing army and an time of our visit – its bomb makers have produced
corrugated-iron fruit shop, where the insurgent force. When the group swept across ever more complex and lethal creations. In Mosul,
other men have already retreated. northern Iraq in a shock ofensive midway the attacking troops found booby-trapped explo-
Suddenly, a youth on a scooter appears, through 2014, its men captured military sives at every stage, from wide approach roads and
driving blithely towards them. Ali and his vehicles as well as vast stores of arms and rural villages to built up urban areas. Iraqi Prime
men scream at him to stop. He comes to munitions. But as the war has raged on, they Minister Haider al-Abadi declared victory in the
an abrupt halt as the IED explodes with have also become adept at fielding adapted or city on July 10 after almost nine months of devas-
a thud that rattles the shop’s roof. self-made weapons thanks to nimble research
The soldiers wait for any stray pieces teams with a genius for terrible new forms
of shrapnel to land, then walk back to of death and the mass-production capabil- [PREVIOUS PAGE] Sergeant Sajad Nabil from
what’s left of the wrecked Chevrolet. ities to realise them. Iraqi security forces, the Iraqi 16th Division surveys a ruined house for
Flames and thick black smoke pour out. underfunded and undertrained, have not explosive devices. [ABOVE] Ahmed Abbas
The street is cracked and blackened. The had the resources to adapt at an institutional Ali and his explosive ordinance unit detonate
car lets out a series of small pops and level. Instead, troops and police units have a suspect abandoned Chevrolet in west Mosul
DAESH BEGAN TO

D I S C O V E R THE
tating fighting, but Daesh remains dangerous even in the federal police in 2012 and, once in
defeat. Every door, window, side street and vehicle HUMVEES’ WEAK uniform, his skills were quickly needed.
will have to be checked and cleared. Meanwhile, Iraqi government forces tend to fight
the jihadists still cling on elsewhere in the country, mounted, staying in or close to their
where they are expected to employ the same tactics. POINTS, T H R O W I N G vehicles where possible. The vast
Ali begins his morning by inspecting a recently majority rely on armoured Humvees,
captured Daesh explosives factory in a house with a which are ubiquitous on the roads, check-
bullet-pocked green façade. It faces a central inter- GRENADES INTO points and frontlines of Mosul, painted
section that coalition warplanes had bombed into according to their owners: sand for the
mounds of earth and mangled vehicles. Ragged army; black for special forces; blotchy
white flags hanging from nearby buildings indicate THEIR OPEN TURRETS blue for federal police; and dark green
the presence of civilians, but the only signs of life for their ailiated rapid response units.
are two soldiers surveying the scene from wooden American troops first brought the
chairs wedged under the shade of a ruined truck. vehicles here during the 2003 Iraq
The unit searches the surrounding area first they walk. A massive cloud of smoke plumes invasion and quickly discovered that
and, after a short time, find an IED next door to into the air from an apparent airstrike, but they were vulnerable to both insurgent
the factory, its detonator linked to a mobile phone. nobody looks up to check. IEDs and RPGs. Faced with spiralling
They are not surprised. “Most of the houses here The second workshop is set up in a former casualties, the US Army replaced
are booby-trapped now,” Ali says. rotisserie chicken restaurant, opposite a them with hulking, mine-resistant,
Debris litters the front garden, where a warped crudely spray-painted Daesh flag and ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs).
gate and awning frame lay among the paraphernalia containing the same tangle of ingredients, For the considerably less well-funded
of explosive manufacturing. There are mixing bowls components and tools. Plastic purple flowers Iraqi forces, this was not an option.
for the ingredients and piles of components next hang in one of the corners, overlooking Iraq’s Humvees are fitted at the
to protective gloves and work boots. The ground dozens upon dozens of suicide belts, mine point of manufacture with an armour
shines silver with powdered aluminium added to casings, screws to be used as shrapnel and package that will stop most small-arms
the explosive blend to enhance its blast. more sacks of explosives. fire. Initially this seemed suicient, but
Inside, it is dim, with sandbags piled into The team carries out as much as it Daesh began to discover the vehicle’s
exposed windows and floral curtains drawn over can, stacking the truck until the creaking weak points, targeting wheels or engine
the others. Daesh had manufactured rockets here suspension can take no more. blocks and sometimes throwing grenades
and completed versions encased in launch tubes into their open turrets.
are piled on to metal racks in the front room. Natik and others like him tried to help.
They, too, are a recent innovation, designed He explained the modifications made to
to be mounted on a long-time favourite weapon: IN the sometimes low-tech struggle for the vehicle in front of him as one of his
suicide car bombs. Vehicle-based IEDs have claimed superiority on Iraq’s battlefields, Daesh men welded damaged sections. “First,
hundreds of Iraqi lives, but soldiers became more are not the only ones who have been forced we armoured the tyres to avoid snipers,
adept at dealing with them. to modify their vehicles. The following then we put an armoured plate on the
At first, Iraqis targeted the driver and engine, afternoon, I visit a huge walled compound on radiator and a hole to make sure that
so Daesh applied armour plating thick enough to the southern approach road to western Mosul. the hot air still escapes.” More plating
stop small-arms fire. More recently, troops began The guards outside sport the distinctive blue now encloses the turret, leaving only a
to rely on tanks, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) naval-style camouflage of Iraq’s federal police small opening for the gunner. The modifi-
or heavily armoured bulldozers to destroy or block – the heavily armed force more akin to the cations are now fairly standard for the
the attackers. Within the past month, the EOD military than law enforcement – that has unit and carried out using sheet metal
team tells me, Daesh had started using mounted played a major role in the fight for the city. bought from local merchants.
rockets on its vehicles’ roofs to help drivers blast Inside are portable buildings for the They had done bigger jobs, too, such
their way through to a target. “We see many car 60-strong force who work there and a series as refurbishing vehicles captured from
bombs with these now,” Ali says. “If one of these of bays made from rusted supports strung Daesh or armouring bulldozers and
hits a bulldozer it will split it in two.” with camouflage netting, which ofer little frontloaders with tonnes of metal. Natik
He and his team begin to clear the factory, respite from the 42°C heat. At one of these takes particular pride in a Humvee that
loading the weapons and explosives on to the bed workstations, labelled “Gearing” with a he turned into a hardened repair-and-
of a flatbed truck for disposal later. hand-painted sign, Sergeant Major Qayis recovery truck, with a huge steel box on
There is another workshop across the wrecked Natik, 32, oversees a group of engineers the back and a cable on the bonnet thick
intersection, so they head there afterwards, passing tinkering with a Humvee. enough to haul anything the engine can
an unexploded suicide car bomb with its front Natik wears blue overalls with a black move. He added silhouettes of eagles cut
half encased in sheet metal. The heavy thud of a skullcap. Sweat and dust cake his brow. from a skid plate and the words “Victory
large explosion sounds a couple of blocks away as He had been a blacksmith before joining comes from God” to its rear doors.

[FROM TOP] Lieutenant Ahmed


Abbas Ali with a mobile-phone IED
trigger; one of the Iraqi Federal
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 Police’s modified blue Humvees
Syrian border. Here, patrolling British and
American soldiers encountered regular
ambushes from extremist militants in the
post-invasion years, and the area was often
described as a hotbed of insurgent support.
As he talks, a small Kurdish army captain in a Much of it is now deserted, the population day. Operating like their western allies
spotless uniform and wearing mirrored aviators having fled before the arrival of troops would have taken far longer, with the
looks on patiently, occasionally glancing at a and allied coalition of mainly Shia militias efect of hindering the army’s advance.
gold watch that is so large it swamps his wrist. known as the Popular Mobilization Units. This bravery costs them dearly.
His Humvee had been badly damaged as he tried So the anti-mine group have re-purposed Almost 20 men have been killed since
to rescue civilians at a frontline position the a couple of rubbish-strewn houses close to the start of the Mosul ofensive alone,
previous day, he explains, so he was waiting for a marshy ofshoot of the Tigris. and others maimed, losing legs or
the workshop team to repair it. There are two units there, each around sufering severe spinal injuries. Most
The captain explains how Daesh deliberately 30 strong and working under the command of the unit estimate that there was not
and accurately fired at a joint on the armoured
windscreen. “My Humvee was made in 2015 and
the weak point is around there,” he says.
“Yesterday, Daesh just targeted that.”
The group retire for lunch soon afterwards. In
deference to Ramadan, they explain, it would be a
light meal, sitting down to bowls of beans and meat
with huge plates of rice as well as yoghurt and salad.
Relaxing with a smoke afterwards, one of the
workshop’s senior officers, 38-year-old Major
Ali Mohammed Madawi, describes the intel-
lectual conflict that his unit wage with the enemy.
“As Daesh discovered our weak points, the men
brought them here and we fixed them,” he says.
“The process is gradual and step by step. We armour
[one], then they target a new weak point.”
He suggests hopefully that they had now
covered all of the Humvee’s major vulnerabilities
and so “Daesh would now be defeated”. It seems
optimistic to me, given the group’s relentless
search for new ways to take Iraqi lives.

of the Iraq 9th Armoured Division’s a man among them who had not been
engineering corps. They are not locals and wounded at some point. They are all
‘I STARTED ACTING many, including the moustachioed Captain intimately familiar with explosives and
Ali, are from Baghdad, rotating in for 15 days spend some of their downtime studying
before taking a week of back home. the newest iterations of Daesh’s bombs,
CRAZY AND WALKED The unit has worked through almost every examples of which they store near their
stage of the battle against Daesh, including quarters in a desolate house with a
the recent brutal combat in Baiji and Ramadi. wrecked yellow taxi that had ploughed
OUT INTO THE IEDs. In Mosul, they often moved out ahead of the through its garden wall.
frontline, clearing a way for the advance so The house holds a number of explo-
close to Daesh that “If they throw a stone, it sively formed penetrators, paint
I CUT WIRE AFTER would be on our heads,” as one man put it. pot-sized devices with a thick metal lid
They carried guns and grenades in case they that transform into armour-piercing
were ambushed. They often were. warheads. Next to them sit lines of bombs
WIRE U N T I L I C O U L D But much of the duties consisted of stufed into water pipes which had been
clearing the vast amount of booby-trapped buried next to pressure plates. There
IEDs left behind by the militants. The unit’s are also the dissembled components of
GET TO MY TEAM’ unoicial motto is “From sunrise to sunset”. a suicide belt: a cloth and metal casing;
They often arrive to inspect a house first a pile of yellow ammonium nitrate-
thing in the morning and go on to defuse based explosive; and some wire and ball
device after device until the light fails them. bearings. A squad member appears from
THE EOD team’s base lies west of the They do not work with the stringent the house wearing boxer shorts and a vest,
city amid the dust storms, barely-there roads safety constraints, protective gear and then begins to reassemble it for my
and mud-brick villages that stretch out to the remote-control vehicles employed by the benefit, smoking casually. He scoops the
American and Australian militaries that
trained them. This is partly because most
possess “specialised equipment” that begins
and ends with a cheap, humble multitool
(Leathermans are rare and sought-after [ABOVE, FROM LEFT] A federal police
here) but also because of the sheer number drone; recovered munitions are disposed
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 of devices they have to deal with every of in a desert crater west of Mosul
long. Between my first and second visits,
they’d lost one man and several others
had been injured. Of the men who made
up the unit when Ibrahim started, there
were now just five left. The rest had been
explosives into the belt with his hands, killed, wounded, or, in some cases, quit in “When I see that the way is very complicated,
tapes it up and slots in the detonation an attempt to avoid the same fate. that is when I blow it up with C-4.”
cap with a length of fuse before slicing Five years ago, Daesh was yet to appear That may be one of the reasons why he is still
of a separate section and lighting it to in its current incarnation, but its precursor alive. But he has nonetheless narrowly avoided
demonstrate how fast it burns. organisations were well established in Iraq death on many occasions. He reels off a list of
“Don’t worry,” he says, noticing me and had perfected horrifyingly effective stories. Once he tried to shift a jerrycan full of
glancing with some alarm at the glowing IEDs. Ibrahim usually encountered three explosives with a rope, causing it to detonate and
cigarette that was dangling from his different types, activated by either blow a hole in the ground as deep as his waist.
mouth. “It won’t set them of.” tripwires, pressure plates or mobile phones. Another time he trod on a pressure switch while

A L I enrolled in the unit a year ago, “Most of them were easy to deal with,” he making his way up a hill and set of a device just
part of a steady intake of new recruits remembers. But as he and his colleagues three metres away. The deafening, blinding blast
required to keep numbers up. He tried became better and faster at neutralising threw him back but he avoided the worst of the
not to dwell on the shockingly high the bombs, the insurgents simply surged explosion. In shock, he rushed down towards his
attrition rates. “If you think about this forward, making them more complex. colleagues. “I didn’t know if I was alive or dead,
and make yourself scared, you won’t be The process accelerated when Daesh so to make sure I ran and shouted, ‘Am I dead?
able to do anything,” he tells me quietly. s e i ze d M o s u l a n d f o r m e d i ts s e l f - Am I dead?’” he says, flashing a still, quick smile.
“The most important thing is morale.” declared caliphate in 2014. EOD teams One day, Ibrahim was working in the Christian
Ali’s commander is Captain Hasham began to encounter increasingly advanced town of Qaraqosh, which was taken by Iraqi forces
Ali Ibrahim, who, at 27, is one of the explosive devices, triggered by movement early in the Mosul ofensive and saturated with
oldest in his unit, and, according to his or a shadow cast across them. IEDs. By mid afternoon he was exhausted, so took
superiors, one of the best. Relaxing in an Daesh hid them better, too, under a brief rest while two of his men walked further
AC/DC “Hells Bells” T-shirt when I meet entrance-hall tiles, inside generators, up the road to deal with more devices. They were
him, he looks like a teenager. fridges or cupboards, usually rigged to blow engulfed in a huge explosion a few seconds later.
Ibrahim joined in 2012 after up if they were touched or lifted. They began “When it happened, I saw a head blown away from
requesting a position with an EOD to encounter the new pressure sensors the rest and I realised my team had died,” he says.
squad. The pull was partly, he says, found in the Islah al-Zarai car bomb around The smoke and debris cleared to reveal the other
the opportunity to save people’s lives, a year ago. Five of the unit had since been man sheared in half at the chest.
but also because he had heard there killed attempting to defuse them. He does not remember exactly what happened
were relatively few officers and, as Ibrahim moves deliberately now. “I’m next but he headed out into the heavily mined
a result, more opportunities for job not in a rush. When I find an IED, I check area. “I started acting crazy and walked out into
advancement. It was soon clear that it, I look at how it works and then, when the IEDs,” he says. “I cut wire after wire until
this was because few of them lasted I understand, I start to work,” he says. I could get to my team and dragged them back.”
 _ WIRED _ 10-17
The display shows a grey, ruined street
leading to a roundabout. It is diicult to make
out detail clearly, as there is no zoom facility
on the drone camera and they have to keep
above 200 metres when over Daesh territory
to avoid small-arms fire.
AS well as new types of IEDs and Tiny figures clutching assault rifles AFTER Ali’s team detonates the car
triggers for them, Daesh has also suddenly appear on the screen, darting bomb, they start out towards their base, trucks
developed new delivery methods. In across the street from building to building. still laden from the explosives factories. Once
October 2016, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters “We have movement,” Talib murmured. they pass the outskirts, they detour of into the
working alongside French special forces More gunmen follow, then a motorbike desert on a grey gravel track through the open
soldiers spotted and shot down a drone races towards the roundabout. sands. After a few minutes, they arrive at a pit
near the town of Dohuk, north of Mosul. “They’re moving to attack our units,” he worn deep by a series of explosions. They come
This was not an unusual occurrence: the says, grabbing a nearby Samsung tablet here every few days to dispose of captured Daesh
militants had long used them for obser- displaying the drone’s location on a map of munitions and deactivated bombs.
vation purposes, so the Kurds scooped the area. He writes down the co-ordinates They unload the trucks – IED canisters, mortars,
it up to take to their base. As they did so, on a red Post-it Note, then radios the details rocket tubes, magnetised bombs, sacks of explo-
explosives inside the craft detonated, to the nearest frontline unit. sives – then pile them into the hole. Again, they
killing two of them and injuring two “I see many things in my days here,” he rig C-4 to a fuse, this time one that would burn
Frenchmen. They were the first known says, piloting the drone back to its base. far longer than a few seconds. They then drive
casualties of Daesh’s drone war. “There are always Daesh fighters passing off, not stopping until a huge plume of smoke
When the ofensive began in earnest, from place to place, car bombs and snipers. begins to rise into the air. The blast can be felt
Iraqi forces quickly began to report I always pass the co-ordinates on.” from more than a kilometre away.
weaponised drones, many of which were The drone unit added grenades to their Finally, back at the base, they rest. The EOD unit
commercially available, Chinese-made craft in early 2017, closely following the observes the Ramadan fast strictly and a day of
quadcopters modified to drop explosives. pattern established by Daesh. Instead of heat and exertion with no water or food has left
The usual load was a grenade fitted with plastic fins, they aixed shuttlecock feathers them exhausted. Most lie down and sleep, others
custom plastic fins. Daesh made and to the grenades to improve accuracy. “We chat about work, families or fallen comrades.
dropped grenades in large quantities, Some of the men get by on faith, others on
sometimes with lethal accuracy. Propa- gallows humour, joking over who took the biggest
ganda videos show them landing directly risks and would die first or noting that explosives
inside Humvee turrets and, on one THE UNIT ADDED have little respect for ranks. “At least death by IED
occasion, killing a tank commander. is quick,” one tells me, even though their many
Other armed groups, for example gravely wounded comrades testified that it was not.
in Ukraine, have deployed consumer, G R E N A D E S I N 2 0 1 7, Ali sits on a mattress next to Ibrahim, his boyish
unmanned aerial vehicles in warfare (see boss, as a battered air-conditioning unit in one
WIRED 03.17), but Daesh was the first to do of the windows struggles against the heat. The
so at scale – and weaponised. At first, Iraqi AFFIXING SHUTTLE- room is a mess, its red carpet almost completely
forces struggled to respond, relying on obscured by clutter. Clothing, bomb components
rifles and machine guns to shoot down the and watermelons are piled in the corner.
tiny mobile targets. But the federal police C O C K F E AT H E R S They talk of home. Ibrahim has two wives in
copied the technology as best as they were Baghdad and a child by each of them. “When I
able, using Daesh’s tactics against them. die,” he says with a laugh, “I will leave lots of
They developed a specialised unit T O T H E M T O I M P ROV E children behind me.” He shows me a video of his
equipped with the kind of craft available 18-month-old daughter running to the door after
on Amazon or eBay for as little as £1,500. hearing that her father was coming back from duty.
It consisted of four-man squads with their AC C U R AC Y Ali sits cross-legged and sucks his singed finger
own control truck and assigned to work reflectively. He had put off marriage for now,
alongside a specific ground unit. They declining to think of a future beyond the unit.
moved around depending on deployment “This job is dangerous,” he says when I asked him
but by June, Daesh territory had shrunk adjusted the drones ourselves,” Talib says. why. “I don’t want to bring a woman into my life
so much that most stayed parked outside “Then we killed Daesh with them.” then be killed and leave her without a man.”
a forward base in the city’s west bank Inside the forward base, senior oicers He lays still for a moment, then turns to sleep,
reinforced with green sandbags. monitor the teams from a control room lined waiting until sunset, when they would finally be
The drones are in the air constantly, with green floral-print sofas along three able to break their fast. Tomorrow, they would have
returning only to swap batteries. Inside walls and a bank of five televisions streaming to work again. And perhaps this time, it would not
the wood-laminate interior of one of the drone camera feeds. A sixth screen is tuned be quiet. In July, Daesh was pushed out of Mosul
vans sits First Lieutenant Ali Talib, 35. His into the local Iraqiya channel’s news report but for the Iraqis, for now, the fight goes on. 
eyes are fixed on one of two large flatscreen and alternates between footage of frontline
TVs mounted each side of a digital clock. clashes and pieces on Donald Trump. John Beck is a freelance journalist and photographer
The technology is basic but effective,
saving the lives of civilians and soldiers alike,
according to a friendly major reclined on a
sofa. “From here,” he says, “we can identify
[ABOVE LEFT] Captain Hasham Ali the target and tell if it’s military or civilian.
Ibrahim with his multitool – the sum total These are our eyes. If Daesh wants to sneak
of many Iraqi soldiers’ field equipment into our units, we can see them from here.”
By

RICHARD BENSON Photography: Morgan Silk

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FIG.1
EACH HAND IN THE DATABASE AT PROFESSOR SUE BLACK HAS DEVISED A WAY TO TRACK DOWN
THE CENTRE FOR ANATOMY AND
HUMAN IDENTIFICATION IS PAEDOPHILES AND RAPISTS – BY MATCHING THE UNIQUE MARKINGS
PHOTOGRAPHED, DIVIDED INTO 24
PARTS AND CHECKED FOR 27 MARKS ON HUMAN HANDS WITH INCRIMINATING VIDEO EVIDENCE
CREDIT IN HERE LIGHT

X X- 1 7 _ W I R E D _ 0 0 0
I
one day in 2006, sue black, a professor at the university
of Dundee’s department of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology,
received a phone call from a man called Nick Marsh. He was a forensic
photographer who had worked with Black 17 years earlier as part including several public figures such as
of a team sent by the Foreign Oice to examine the bodies of victims The Who guitarist Pete Townshend and The
of war crimes in Kosovo. Marsh knew that Black had a special talent Thick of It actor and writer Chris Langham.
for identifying people from scraps of flesh and bone. Now he Black was again asked if she could identify
had evidence of a different kind and wondered if she could help. people in the images. “Operation Ore was
The piece of evidence was an eight-second-long digital video the first time I realised these kind of cases
clip. Marsh had been working on a case involving a teenage could have such a volume,” She says. “I was
girl who had alleged that her father had been coming into her naive. I thought it was all about isolated people
bedroom at night to molest her. When her mother refused to
believe her, the girl left her webcam running all night, pointed at
her bed. The camera captured a person’s hand and forearm
touching her. Her father denied that he was the person in the
video. “It was one of the spookiest and scariest things that I
have ever seen,” explains Black. “A real sort of horror movie.”
Marsh asked Black if there was a way to identify the perpetrator.
She didn’t have clue. “I’d never done anything like that before. I’d
never identified anyone using a hand,” she says. But after studying
the footage, Black noticed something that had escaped her before:
the veins on the back of the man’s hand were visible. In the dark, the
camera had reverted to infrared mode, and in those conditions the
deoxygenated blood in veins shows up as black lines. Black, an expert
in anatomy, knew that hand-vein patterns are unique from person
to person, even in identical twins. She asked the police to take photo-
graphs of the father’s hand and forearm. The vein patterns matched.
Black appeared in court as an expert witness for the prosecution,
presenting her vein-pattern analysis. It was the first time in British
legal history that evidence of this kind was presented in court
proceedings. When she was introduced, the judge had to stop the
trial for 90 minutes to ask her to explain the principles behind her
analysis. Black explained her rationale, but conceded that she didn’t
have statistics showing the likelihood of the hands matching. “That
research had never been done. I could say no more than everything
matched, and we couldn’t say it definitely wasn’t him,” she says.
Still, it was strong evidence and the prosecuting barrister expected
the jury to find the father guilty. However, he was acquitted.
“I asked the barrister if there was something we had done wrong
or something in the science that I had not been able to convey,”
Black recalls. “She said, ‘No, there was no problem with the
science. The jury had just not believed the girl. They thought
she didn’t seem upset enough.’” Black was dumbfounded.
Shortly after the trial of the girl’s father, the Serious Organised
Crime Agency (SOCA) asked Black if she could help with an ongoing
police investigation called Operation Ore. It was a long-running
investigation of more than 7,000 British people suspected
of downloading indecent images, after the FBI had found their
details on the database of a child-porn distributor in Texas.
The operation became the UK’s largest-ever computer crime
investigation, involving the arrest of more than 3,700 people,
in isolated cases.” According to Black, about a million
images of child abuse are uploaded to the dark web every
day. When police seize mobile phones and find indecent
images, they discover, on average, about 100,000
individual images. “It is a huge problem, and the
police can’t get near looking at them all, nor arresting
their way out of the problem,” Black explains.
In the end, she worked only briefly as a consultant on
Operation Ore, which soon became mired in controversy
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 when journalists revealed flaws in police methods.
Nevertheless, it was a turning point themselves abusing a child, they are reliving the
for Black. During Operation Ore, she T W enactment. If there’s a part of them present in the image,
became fully aware of a problem H E it gives them an extra feeling of involvement.”
that she didn’t realise existed and E R The problem was that, in most cases, the only visible
that she might be the person who E parts of the abusers’ bodies were their hands and
could do something about it. O genitalia. Previously it had been widely assumed that
But in the months after the trial, it N H such evidence was not enough to incriminate someone.
occurred to her that she might have L P A But Black was unconvinced. “There was a research route
stumbled across a new idea. Marsh Y A N that had never been fully explored,” she says. “I
had mentioned that the police were R D had been involved in crimes where the victim was dead
seeing an ever-increasing number of V T S but these cases had live victims and perpetrators.
indecent images and videos of I S I thought there might be something we could extract
children. Abusers often appeared S A from those images and use in a meaningful way.
themselves: “Sexual abuse of children I O N I thought, ‘We should be researching it.’”
is often about power, and the touching B F D
is a part of that,” says Black. “When L
a perpetrator views an image of E T G
H E
E N
I
A T II
B A
U L sitting in her 70s office with its
S I high windows to let in light, Black
E A looks very much the academic in a
R loose cardigan, her strawberry-blonde
S hair pulled back in a plait. Her manner
is no-nonsense but affable.
Black grew up the youngest of two
daughters in a blue-collar Inverness
household, and was the first of her
family to attend university – she
studied biology then human anatomy
at Aberdeen. She began her career
teaching at St Thomas’ Hospital in
London. Stints of body-identification
work for the police, then the Foreign
Oice, led to her working in Kosovo,
for which she was awarded an OBE
in 2001. She has since worked in
conflict zones in countries such as
Iraq and Sierra Leone, and in
Thailand after the tsunami in 2004.
In 2003, Black took over the
University of Dundee’s Centre for
Anatomy and Human Identification
and began developing the links
between anatomy and forensic
science. In 2016, in recognition of
her services to forensic anthro-
pology, she was made a Dame.
The teams that work on forensic
cases are, Black says, “very close
knit. At the end [of a case] we will
sit and talk it through. Counselling
is always available, though we
haven’t needed it yet. We are very
tuned in to each other, and if someone is uncomfortable we deal
FIG.2 with it there and then. When a team is exposed to this sort of thing,
PROFESSOR SUE BLACK which is as bad as it gets, each of you has to know that the people
PICTURED AT THE UNIVERSITY you’re working with are not sufering themselves.”
OF DUNDEE’S CENTRE FOR After Operation Ore, Black realised that hand analysis would be
ANATOMY AND HUMAN taken seriously only if it had a genuinely scientific foundation, rather
IDENTIFICATION, JULY 2017 than being based on ad hoc comparisons. It was fine to show the
vein patterns of an abuser and the accused matched, but if the
accused contended that many people had matching veins, Black
wouldn’t be able to back up her argument with any scientifically
TABLE 1 She was aided by an unwitting mistake on
THE HAND ANALYSIS CONDUCTED BY SUE BLACK’S TEAM FOCUSES MAINLY ON Strachan’s part. His defence team ordered that
THE DORSUM, WHICH IS INDICATED IN BLACK ON THE DIAGRAMS BELOW photographs be taken of his thighs, their
intention presumably to show that body parts
‘THE INCIDENCE OF SCARRING ON THE DORSUM OF THE HAND’, A STUDY OF 238 SAMPLES AGED BETWEEN 21 AND could not be used to identify someone.
62 YEARS OLD (61 FEMALE, 177 MALE). BY SUE BLACK, BRIONY MACDONALD-MCMILLAN AND XANTHE MALLETT, 2013 However, when the photographer was taking
the picture, he asked his subject to hold the
photographic scale, which, says Black, “gave
us a beautiful view of the accused’s thumbs”.
Black compared the left thumb in the
picture with the Hogmanay image and found
matching details, including an unusually
shaped lunule, the white area at the base of
the nail. “This time, I was able to go back to
my database and put statistics to the data.”
In October 2009, Strachan was sentenced to
life imprisonment with a minimum term of 16
years, cut on appeal to nine years.

FIG.1 - MALE, LEFT HAND FIG.2 - MALE, RIGHT HAND


THE MOST SCARS ON 40 PER CENT OF MALE RIGHT
A MALE LEFT HAND IS 16 HANDS DON’T SHOW SCARS III
hands can be used to verify a person’s
identity in two ways. First, they pick up marks
and injuries – more than 20 per cent of people
attending A&E in the UK have hand injuries.
Second, it has in-built morphological features
which are unique to the individual – fingertip
whorls, palm prints and vein patterns. When a
body is growing inside the womb, cells assemble
spontaneously, rather than following a pre-
established blueprint. This means your vein
patterns are one-offs. Veins also have the
advantage of being enclosed by our skin and,
unlike fingerprints, can’t be altered or corrupted.
Black analyses mainly the backs, or the
dorsum, of hands, as these tend to be predomi-
FIG.3 - FEMALE, LEFT HAND FIG.4 - FEMALE, RIGHT HAND nantly visible in the footage she works with in
57 PER CENT OF FEMALES HAD SCARS THE MOST SCARS ON A criminal cases. She first maps a grid of 24 cells
ON THEIR LEFT HAND FEMALE RIGHT HAND IS TEN on to the hand, covering everything from finger-
nails to wrist. Then she analyses each cell, looking
for identifying marks and studying vein patterns,
drawing dark lines over them on-screen to make
them more visible. The features she most
commonly checks are veins, scars, freckles, birth-
validated evidence. In other words, she would images of the abuse. The details were so marks, moles, nails and skin creases on knuckles.
need a substantial database of hundreds of harrowing that during the hearing, the public Each one is scrutinised. For example, scars will
people, compiled with a minuscule budget. and media were barred from seeing the images, be classified according to whether they are linear
In April 2007, Black’s department won a and counsellors were made available. At one or non-linear, or appear to be surgical or
contract to teach more than 550 police oicers, point, the jury heard that one of the accused accidental, and then by the direction in which
coroners and legal officials about disaster- had circulated a request for “porn with young they run. When she compares the accused’s hand
victim identification. Black asked course Down’s syndrome or learning-diiculty kids”. with the database, she can use geometrical
attendees to have photos taken of their hands, Many images featured men abusing the formulae to work out the chances of anyone else
forearms, feet and legs. Most agreed. children of friends. A key photo – which would having the same markings and vein patterns.
By 2008, she’d published a study confirming later be known as “the Hogmanay image” – Black’s database – she has now analysed 1,000
the validity of vein-pattern analysis. Shortly showed one of the two ringleaders, 41-year-old hands – throws up fascinating insights. For
after, she was asked to help in another case. The Neil Strachan, attempting to rape an instance, you are most likely to get a linear scar
defendants were eight men belonging to 18-month-old boy whom he was babysitting on the tip of your second finger, or the middle of
Scotland’s largest-known paedophile network. on New Year’s Eve in 2005. The only parts of the back of your hand. No one seems to get moles
For years, they’d colluded to rape and sexually Strachan’s body visible were his penis and left on their little fingers, and if you have moles in
abuse children, and shared at least 125,000 hand. It was this image that Black analysed. the same places on both hands, it will be
somewhere in the lower half of a triangle drawn
between the knobs of your wrists and second
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 knuckle. On average, men have 50 per cent
FIG.3
BLACK’S OFFICE IS LITTERED
WITH PARAPHERNALIA
COLLECTED DURING HER
TIME RESEARCHING LINKS
BETWEEN ANATOMY
AND FORENSIC SCIENCE

more scars than women, but right-handed men are more “Lateral deviation”. Each feature is marked to show whether it’s the
likely to scar their left hands, while right-handed women same on the rapist and the suspect. They all are. “And as I learned,
tend to scar their right – no one knows why. Black is that can be a challenge, because it makes you ask yourself if you’re
fascinated by the stories that are locked into the hands really seeing everything. Part of this work is knowing how to look;
in her database. One of her papers quotes the lines from asking yourself what you might not be noticing,” Black says.
Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet: In the end, the match appeared strong. When presented with
“By a man’s finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, Black’s report, Oketch changed his plea from not guilty to guilty; he
by his trouser-knees,” declares Sherlock Holmes, “by got 15 years. That plea change was important, Black says. It meant
the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his money that would otherwise have been spent on trials was saved. It
expression, by his shirt-cuf – by each of these things a also meant the child was spared from having to give evidence in court.
man’s calling is plainly revealed.”
Sometimes a case challenges
Black’s methodology. In 2014,
the Greater Manchester Police
asked her to work on the case of
paedophile Jeremy Oketch, a
30-year-old pharmacist who had
twice raped a two-year-old girl and
filmed the assaults. Although it was
impossible to prove, the child’s
silent compliance suggested that
s h e h a d b e e n d r u gge d . A n d
although the police had 55 minutes
of footage to examine, the only
visible parts of the rapist were a
hand and his penis.
The video was so distressing,
recalls Black, that when judge Hilary
Manley left the courtroom to view
it, she returned visibly shaken. Was
Black afected herself? “Images of
child abuse affect everyone who
views them,” she says. “I feel
anxious watching video because you
don’t know what’s coming next. But
you have to stay objective. I tell
myself that it’s not my place to go
back to analyse the incident, it’s
my job to find something that might
be of value to the investigation.” IV
The Oketch case presented her
with two technical problems. First, he was black, “and all black’s team helps police forces but the client pays the university; any
the people we had looked at previously had been white. I around the world – including the FBI, payment to Black’s team could be seen
didn’t know if all the features would be as visible on black Interpol and Europol – and works on to compromise its objectivity. Images
skin, but they were.” Second, a lot of the footage was clear, 30 to 50 cases a year. In the cases Black or video material are delivered on
the matches were numerous and potential divergences has worked on since 2006, the encrypted drives and handed to her in
almost totally absent. That sounds ideal, but such apparent percentage in which the accused have person. Black works in a team of three
certainty brings its own risks. Black takes a file from a cabinet changed their plea to guilty in but she first views all video evidence
and slips out her report on Oketch to show me (it is in the response to her analysis stands at 82. herself, absorbing the initial shock on
ILLUSTRATION: PIP PELL

public domain, having been used in a Crown prosecution). Black also takes on cases related to behalf of her colleagues. “You have to
Information is tabulated. Under “Hand” appears a long list circumstances such as those in which view it through the first time to know
of features: “Hand morphology”, “Thumb nail groove from the perpetrator has disguised their what’s coming,” she explains. “Then
asymmetrical lunule”, “Vein pattern” and so on. Under face. Grants have helped expand the you can narrow it down and look at
“Penis”, a similar list: “Penile morphology”, “Vein pattern”, database and her team have reduced the parts that are more important
the time it takes to compile a report. for the job you have to do.”
When a case comes in from the After that, she shares material she
police, Black administrates the project, thinks is important with Lucina
E
V
E
H N
A
N F I
D A R D
R O E
V E M N
E T
I U P I
N N E C
I R A
P Q S L
A U O
T E N T
T W
E T I
R O N
N S
S P
E
R
S
O
N,
FIG.4
BLACK’S OFFICE IS DECORATED
WITH A HUMAN SKELETON,
ANATOMICAL ART PRINTS,
FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHS
AND A LETTER FROM THE
QUEEN (“MY ASSISTANT
MADE ME PUT THEM UP”)
Hackman, a senior lecturer in human identifi-
cation at the department, and both women
independently single out the pictures that best
highlight key anatomical features. Then they
agree about the ofender’s important features
and a photographic specialist on the team, Chris
Rynn, will enhance the images digitally. Once
they have established the ofender’s features,
they study images of the suspect, trying to
establish or discount a match.
Roughly speaking, the degree of certainty on Often this is enough for the accused to change their plea as there is
any biometric is dictated by the size of a data normally additional evidence to implicate the person. If you’re wondering
set. Black’s is not yet big enough to justify stating why no one is investing billions to create million-strong data sets, Black
a statistical probability, so instead she follows says it’s because there’s no money for research into catching child abusers.
the system used by the judiciary, which objec- In the forensic field, most research funding goes into DNA, because it’s what
tively grades the possibility of a match. they know and trust and there’s a drive to do things quicker and cheaper.
Even with clear images of a suspect’s and “We’ve looked at vein patterns on the right and left hands of all individuals
perpetrator’s hands, it is impossible to scientif- on the database and we haven’t been able to find any two that match,” Black
ically guarantee a match, as that depends on all says. “We have expanded the database many times since we began, but we need
the anatomical features present. A suspect can much bigger databases to establish greater degrees of certainty. We think we
be excluded with 100 per cent certainty, but a might get to something that’s as good as fingerprinting.” Black is attempting
match can only carry a grade of “strong support” to automate the process of searching for repeated patterns, creating algorithms
that the suspect and the ofender are the same that are able to extract the features from millions of stills or video images.
person. This equates to between a 1-in-1,000 to
1-in-10,000 chance that it could be someone else.

FIG.5
WHEN BLACK ANALYSES
THE BACKS OF HANDS IN FOOTAGE
SHE MAPS A GRID OF 24 CELLS,
THEN LOOKS FOR IDENTIFYING
MARKS AND HIGHLIGHTS IN THE
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 VEIN PATTERNS
“We’ve done the pilot project, which
shows that we can extract vein
patterns and pigment patterns.
We’re now looking at whether we
can do skin-crease patterns on
knuckles,” Black says. “When you CASE STUDY
layer all these features and patterns, DEAN LEWIS HARDY
you increase the probability of
identifying the right individual to
the fingerprint level, or even perhaps
the DNA level of certainty. It could
allow us to identify and look for the
first-generation producers. It would
also mean reducing the strain that
looking at these images places on
oicers. They take a terrible toll.”
When asked about the possibility
that, as forensic hand analysis THE LEFT INDEX THE INDEX FINGER BOTH IMAGES During a trip to Thailand in 2004,
becomes more common, paedophiles FINGER OF THE OF HARDY IS ON FEATURE THE Kent-based Dean Lewis Hardy took
will start wearing gloves, Black is OFFENDER IS ON THE RIGHT AND THUMBS OF THE indecent photos of four girls aged eight
adamant: “They won’t. Most people THE RIGHT, AND THE OFFENDER ON SUSPECT. THE to ten years old, including images
who commit crimes aren’t very bright. THAT OF THE THE LEFT. A FILTER CREASES OF THE of his hand touching them. Five years
They think they’ll never get caught.” SUSPECT (DEAN HAS BEEN USED TO SKIN, NAILS AND later, he was found guilty of indecent
LEWIS HARDY) ON MAKE THE LUNULE – THE assault after being identified through
THE LEFT. IT FRECKLES MORE CRESCENT- an analysis of the images of his
HIGHLIGHTS THE OBVIOUS, THEN SHAPED MARKING hands. He received a six-year
FRECKLES AND A GROUPED INTO – HAVE BEEN sentence. Prosecutors said it was the
FOUR-POINT PATTERNS THAT OUTLINED first case to use hand analysis. Black
PUNCTUATED CAN BE COMPARED TO ASSIST found Hardy’s scars matched that
V SCAR. BETWEEN THE THE COMPARISON of the suspect, along with his freckle
SUSPECT AND WITH THE IMAGES pattern and thumb skin creases.
in june 2016, black was asked THE OFFENDER. OF THE OFFENDER. “Scars and creases are accidental,”
by Kent Police to work on the case Black explains. “Freckle patterns are
against Richard Huckle, one of the random, but their presence indicates a
worst predatory paedophiles in genetic predisposition to freckle
British history. Between 2006 and formation. Therefore, we had
2014, Huckle had groomed and features of different aetiology.”
abused up to 200 Malaysian children,
including babies, in Kuala Lumpur,
while masquerading as an English
teacher and philanthropist. Images
and videos of his rapes and assaults
had been shared with other paedo-
philes across the dark web. awarded himself “pedopoints” for 15 levels of abuse rated from dwell on the horrors of individual
In December 2014, National Crime “basic” to “hardcore”. He had also compiled a 60-page manual, cases but prefers to talk about what
Agency oicers arrested him when “Paedophiles and Poverty: Child Love Guide”, which focused on can be done to stem the sharing of
he arrived at Gatwick Airport to selecting deprived victims without being caught, and was found on child-abuse images online. “Can’t
spend Christmas with his parents, his laptop. He’d planned to publish it online and wanted to create our phones recognise parts of a body
and found 20,000 indecent pictures a paedophile wiki guide. “I’d hit the jackpot,” he wrote, “in a three- and stop the image being taken?”
and videos on his laptop. Officers year-old girl as loyal to me as my dog, and nobody seemed to care.” she asks. “That’s the challenge I
from the NCA’s Child Exploitation CEOP oicers selected material they felt was clearest and passed want companies such as Apple to
and Online Protection (CEOP) it to Black. “Some of it was quite old, so it was degraded, but take up, to stop technology being a
division viewed every picture and we didn’t need to study that,” she says. “Advances in camera mechanism by which our children’s
film clip. The material was deeply technology mean that paedophiles are taking clearer pictures these innocence is being stolen. Because,
disturbing: although 23 children days. It can make them easier to identify.” Even looking at this you know, the statistics say that one
would be identified in the charges, the selection took her team a long time. “It took us about four days to in six people have had unwanted
number of victims was believed to be view it all, seeing what we could use, isolating the parts to be used.” sexual attention as a child. One in six.
far higher because detectives found In the end, Black’s team were able to present evidence to I cannot think of a crime that is more
on his computer a ledger on which he show that Huckle was likely to be the perpetrator, and as the important. Can you?” 
evidence mounted against him, as with Oketch, he changed his
plea to guilty. This resulted in the conviction of a man who judge Richard Benson is a journalist and
Peter Rook QC said had almost certainly blighted the lives of his author based in London. He wrote
victims and caused them severe psychological harm. about Asem Hasna’s 3D-printed
“The significant thing about that case was the scale of the prosthetics in issue 07.17
sentencing, Black explains. He was given 22 life sentences for 71
ofences, which was a way of the courts saying, ‘We are serious
about this, we are not going to take it lying down.’” Black doesn’t
THE AI
SCIENCE
MACHINE

Neuroscientist
Romy Lorenz
created an AI
program to help
design clinical tests
in real-time neuro
feedback.
Can artificial
intelligence help
us understand
the brain in
entirely new ways?

 _ WIRED _ 10-17


By ROGER
HIGHFIELD
Illustration:
MIKE M C QUADE

Lorenz’s Automatic Neuroscientist can dissect the brain’s workings,


design clinical tests of its own and work out how to stimulate the brain
the real-time fMRI, we had an epiphany.”
What if they turned the experiment on
its head? What if, instead of trying to
create a feedback loop with one
parameter – light – they automatically
ex p l o re d c o m b i n a t i o n s o f m a n y
diferent parameters to drive the brain
to any state they wanted? Such an
In January 2015, Romy Lorenz met up with her two supervisors for coffee to discuss her experiment, however, would be far too
research. She was almost halfway through her PhD programme, complex for humans to control in
but wasn’t having any success with her experiments. She needed real time. The corollary was inevitable:
to figure out how to get her research back on track. they had to use artificial intelligence
When Lorenz, a softly spoken 29-year-old with blue eyes and to run the experiment. AI, of course,
straight blonde hair, joined Imperial College London’s Computa- has found many uses in robotics, online
tional, Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Laboratory in June recommender systems and honing
2013, she and her main supervisor, neuroscientist Rob Leech, agreed web pages for political campaigns. The
on an ambitious PhD topic. “It involved creating real-time neuro- question now was: could artificial
feedback,” Lorenz recalls. “We could have patients inside brain intelligence tackle neuroscience?
scanners and tell them how to change the activity in diferent parts “With the Minecraft experiment we
of their brain based on what we saw in the brain scans.” tried to tackle too many different
To accomplish this, Leech and Lorenz settled on reprogramming new things,” Lorenz says. “We tried a
Minecraft to adapt to the player’s brain activity. “It was my daugh- highly complex gaming environment
ter’s favourite game at the time,” Leech says. In October 2014, and we tried to decode how different
Lorenz asked volunteers to roam around the game’s pixelated networks in the brain interact in
worlds while confined inside an MRI scanner on the Hammersmith real time. Basically, we took too
campus in west London. The game was shown on a screen hanging many steps at once.”
before them and they controlled their avatars by pushing buttons The lesson for her next experiment
on two circular handsets. was clear: start simple. What Lorenz
The neurofeedback experiment involved a basic program that needed now was a well-understood
was intended to decode the brain scans and brighten or dim the problem to test her new idea. She decided
lighting in the game, depending on the player’s brain state. If to tackle the most studied regions in the
the player wasn’t paying attention, the software was supposed to brain: the visual and the auditory
dim the light, forcing them to concentrate. Conversely, when the cortices. These are tuned to natural
player was focused, the software would revert to a bright setting. sights and sounds, from the proud gait
Lorenz’s experiment attempted to dial up and down the activity of a swagger to the meaningful cadences
of a particular region in the brain called the default mode network, of the human voice.
which links part of the cerebral cortex to deeper areas, such as the It’s trivial for humans to figure out
hippocampus, and is most active when we are not concentrating. the combinations of sight and sounds
The experiment, however, failed. “I was not expecting my first needed to activate the auditory cortex
experiment to work,” Lorenz says.“ But now I was halfway into and not the visual cortex, and vice versa
my PhD and my original topic didn’t seem promising. I realised – the latter can be done by pairing a
that I needed to be creative.” blank screen with the vocal acrobatics
When Lorenz and Leech met her second supervisor, neurosci- of an opera singer, the latter by pairing
entist Aldo Faisal, in January, they needed to discuss how best video of the hurly burly of Tokyo’s
to proceed. “Aldo is not from the field of fMRI [functional magnetic Shibuya crossing with the drone of a
resonance imaging],” Lorenz recalls. “So while trying to explain test tone. The AI machine however had
to him something about how the experiments are conducted to work this out for itself. “This exper-
in fMRI scanners and what techniques were available to control iment sounds boring,” Lorenz says. “But
the implications if it worked were huge.”
An AI algorithm had to be able to play
with these two levers to turn those two
parts of the brain on and of: altering
the complexity of visual stimuli, for
instance, by varying the speed of a video
clip of a teeming street scene; and
altering auditory stimuli by making a
man’s voice more robotic with a vocoder.
Lorenz and Leech experimented with diferent AI algorithms – deep learning, neural networks
– but none worked. In March 2015, with the help of a statistician from King’s College
London, Giovanni Montana, and aided by his PhD student Ricardo Pio Monti, Lorenz and
Leech created an AI algorithm based on Bayesian Optimisation, a method named after
the 18th-century Presbyterian minister Thomas Bayes. Bayes devised a systematic
way of calculating, from an assumption about the way the world works, how the likelihood
of something happening changes as new facts come to light. It is a way of calculating
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 the validity of hypotheses based on prior knowledge. Bayes’ approach was ideal
Although science strives for objectivity, it’s not immune to human bias. Our ability
to spot patterns might be extraordinary but we also often
see correlations that are illusory. In 2005, Stanford University
professor John Ioannidis stunned his peers with a study
bluntly entitled, “Why Most Published Research Findings
Are False.” It concluded that most of the results of most
publications in science could not be reproduced independently.
A decade later, it was reported that more than half of psychology
studies could not be reproduced. This year, Ioannidis
published a study which concluded that cognitive neuroscience
was in an even worse state.
Of course, the brain’s intertwined workings are not a straight-
forward subject to untangle. Neuroscientists have spent the past
few decades scanning brains to find which circuits are turned
on by specific human tasks. But progress has been uncertain.
For instance, the pain circuit, the part of the brain that activates
when we’re hurt, is incredibly similar to the salience circuit, the
area in the brain that reacts to objects or persons that stand out
in a given context. Another region, the superior temporal
sulcus, does all kinds of disparate jobs, from handling
motion, processing speech and recognising faces.
That is, of course, if you believe these studies. Many such
discoveries are made on small populations, weak statistics and
flawed analysis. Some have not been reproduced, even with
the same methods. Even if they have, many correlations wash
away when scrutinised by bigger studies. A notorious example
came to light in 2009 when the scan of a lifeless salmon showed
enough brain activity to suggest that it was thinking. This
was named the “dead salmon efect”.
And even scientists, alas, are all too human. “Ultimately, we
as humans are not unbiased enough,” Lorenz remarks. After all,
our brains were optimised for survival, not to do experiments.
When Lorenz first suggested using artificial intelligence
to study the human brain, Leech was immediately struck by
its implications for dealing with this looming crisis. Unlike
human scientists, artificial intelligence is relatively unbiased –
and it can replicate findings.
“I had never thought about anything to do with that,” Leech
to build artificial intelligences, which can actively search for recalls. “But if Romy had only done whatever I said, we wouldn’t
the best answer or experiment. have done it.” Leech had studied philosophy as an undergraduate
In May, Lorenz asked a dozen of her colleagues to take a short at the University of Cambridge and is an admirer of Paul Feyer-
stroll to her fMRI scanner once again. “The nice thing abend, an Austrian philosopher who argued that if science is
about real-time fMRI is that while the subject lies in the scanner to make progress, “anything goes”. And this – using artificial
you see immediately if the experiment works or not,” Lorenz intelligence as a tool to understand human intelligence – was
explains. “Rob and I just sat there and watched, holding our the ultimate example of “anything goes”.
breath. We were super nervous.”
When the first subject lay down
inside the scanner, the machine, after
a few somewhat scattershot attempts,
suddenly picked up just the right
combination of video and sound.
“We thought that maybe we were
lucky,” Lorenz says. “But for each new
subject, it worked again and again.” ‘We could have patients inside scanners and tell
On average, the AI was finding the
optimal stimuli after six minutes.
Leech was ecstatic. “We realised how them how to change the activity in different parts
powerful the technique was,” he says.
They had created the first artificially
intelligent scientist. They decided to of their brain based on what we saw in the scans’
call it the Automatic Neuroscientist.
“We could turn the whole way we normally do science on its head,” Leech says. After the success
of the Automatic Neuroscientist, Leech mulled the possi-
bilities for neuroscience and was bullish: “Let’s Bayesian
optimise everything!” In the months following their first
successful experiment, Lorenz and Leech quickly realised
that machines could potentially do more than dissect Over four months, 110,000 people from around the world took the test.
the brain’s workings. They could be put to work in other Once they sifted through more than a million data points, they came to a definite
ways, for example, designing clinical tests or figuring conclusion: intelligence could not be boiled down to a single factor. “We found
out how to stimulate the brain to tweak behaviour. that when a wide range of cognitive tasks are measured, the variations in
They knew that their Automatic Neuroscientist worked. performance can only be explained with at least three distinct components:
Now they needed to challenge it, realise its potential. “After short-term memory; reasoning; and a verbal component,” Hampshire says.
the first study, we wanted to do something that would excite Hampshire and Owen wondered if these three factors corresponded to three
the field and answer new questions,” Lorenz says. completely diferent circuits in the brain, so they did a follow-up study, getting
That challenge emerged serendipitously from a casual 16 people to take the pillar of wisdom tests on an fMRI scanner. They were right.
conversation in autumn 2015, between Lorenz, Leech and “Tasks that tend to correlate weakly with each other in terms of performance
their colleague, Adam Hampshire. also tend to activate diferent networks in the brain,” Hampshire says. Deductive
Hampshire had completed a doctorate with Adrian reasoning seemed to be related to lateral parts of the brain, in the frontal and
Owen, a pioneering neuroscientist who had caused a parietal lobes. On the other hand, spatial working memory activated diferent
sensation in the late 90s when he used brain scanners to areas, buried deep under the most posterior fold of the frontal lobe. “Based on
help unresponsive vegetative patients communicate, and this, we suggested that each brain network supported a different ability,”
with John Duncan, an IQ expert. During his PhD, Hampshire Hampshire says. “This seemed like a obvious conclusion, given the results.”
and Owen developed online cognitive tests to monitor When Owen and Hampshire published their results in the journal Neuron
rehabilitation after brain injury and to evaluate the efects in 2012, they began by declaring: “Few topics in psychology are as old or as
of smart drugs. At the time, I was the science editor of controversial as the study of human intelligence.” That was an understatement.
The Daily Telegraph and gave them the idea to do an online Though some cognitive neuroscientists were convinced, many psychometric
test for readers to explore the efects on intelligence of researchers were furious. A broadside published in the journal Intelligence
age, gender, lifestyle and other factors. grumbled that their results “depend on a number of assumptions and subjective
Owen and Hampshire picked 12 cognitive tests that decisions that, at best, allow for diferent interpretations”. A researcher
evaluated everything from memory to reasoning. Owen
grandiosely dubbed them pillars of wisdom. The test that
evaluates deductive reasoning, for instance, is called Odd
One Out: to complete it, the testee needs to identify
a shape that is logically diferent from a larger set. Below: Romy Lorenz, cognitive neuroscientist, Imperial College London
As a whole, the pillars of wisdom
were designed to test whether human
intelligence can be measured by one
parameter or several. “This idea dates
to 1904, when psychologist Charles
Spearman suggested that there was
a general mental faculty, one under-
pinning all cognitive performance,
now known as Spearman’s hypothesis
or ‘g’,” Hampshire says. If “g” is all we
need to evaluate human intelligence,
then tests such as Odd One Out are
really just diferent ways to measure
the same parameter: if you do well on
one, you will do well on the other.
By the time the online test went
live in 2010, Owen and Hampshire
had moved to the University of
Western Ontario in Canada. “The
website broke, as thousands went on
it immediately,” Hampshire recalls.

Tasks that correlate weakly


with each other activate
different networks in the brain
In June 2016, Lorenz applied the Automatic Neuroscientist to a pilot version of Hampshire’s 2012 brain
imaging study. She dragooned 21 volunteers to explore 16 cognitive tests. The
machine was then asked to find which brain circuits were activated by each
task, including some from the 2012 Neuron paper. Within a few minutes, the
AI picked tasks based on the diference in activation of the two brain networks
tweeted that it was “one of the worst identified by Hampshire’s previous experiment, namely, deductive reasoning
papers of the past decade”. and spatial working memory. “It just zoomed in on the solution,” says Leech.
Their mass experiment’s design was Hampshire was not only “reassured” with these results, but he was surprised
flawed, their critics complained: yes, too. Many of the tasks they picked should have activated diferent circuits,
tens of thousands of people took part according to reviews of earlier studies. Confirmation of two of the three
but were they truly representative? circuits identified by the 2012 paper was “sheer, blind, luck”.
Why didn’t they look for efects in the One morning in May, the team repeated the experiment. Their Portuguese
brain already shown to correlate with colleague Ines Violante gamely lay inside the maw of the scanner’s great
“g”? Why did they use circular logic, doughnut-shaped magnet. Minutes later, Lorenz shows me a graph of Violante’s
selecting tasks most likely to trigger activity across diferent brain networks for each of the tests. It looks like one
diferent brain areas? of Mark Rothko’s colourful paintings. Red signifies when activity in one circuit
A few months after the backlash, is out of kilter with activity in another, and blue when they’re linked.
Hampshire felt the urge to return to There’s a red lozenge at the bottom right. The lozenge means that two tests
the UK. He was feeling stifled working harnessed two independent circuits, deductive reasoning and spatial working
under Owen, a neuroscientist who now memory. This replicates the results of the pilot “really nicely”, smiles Leech.
boasted funding and a big reputation. Hampshire, Leech and Lorenz are now preparing to replicate the 2012
Hampshire set up his own lab in the intelligence online study. “We want to develop an AI machine that can work
same building as Rob Leech in June out the major components of human intelligence, that is unbiased, with
2013, around the time that Romy large amounts of data and by harnessing the ability to learn in an iterative
Lorenz began her PhD. However, they manner,” Hampshire says. Instead of the 12 tests used in the previous study,
only met that day in autumn 2015. he is readying a battery of 60 tests. The test will be online and anyone can
Hampshire was still obsessed with participate (see sidebar below).
understanding how the brain supports Their machine-learning algorithm will harvest information on around
different aspects of intelligence. 100 people at a time as, hopefully, thousands take part to chart performance
Although he hadn’t agreed with the across all 60 tasks. Then it will tinker with the tasks to hone a set where
criticisms of the study, he wanted to a good performance on one is no guide to performance on another. The
run an improved version. “That study Automatic Neuroscientist will then be able to modify the tests themselves,
was limited in scope with respect to in a way, designing its own experiments.
the number and variability of cognitive To convey the gist of what AI means for the quest to understand the brain,
tasks that were used,” Hampshire says. Leech likens it to playing Hangman, in which one person selects a secret word,
When Hampshire heard Lorenz and and the other tries to identify the word by guessing it letter by letter.
Leech describe the Automatic Neuro- Traditional brain scanning is akin to guessing the whole word at once:
scientist, he realised it could be a game researchers decide on what to measure with a scanner in advance, record
changer. Leech suggested that they those data during a cognitive task, then “torture” the results with statistical
could test one subject at the time, while packages until they confess with a correlation that fits their pet theory.
the AI ran the experiment. Hampshire, The AI approach is more like the real game, similar to testing a letter, seeing
however, misheard Leech and thought how it fits, then tweaking the hypothesis to home in on the answer.
he was suggesting something more The ramifications are broader. Leech believes AI can erase subjectivity
ambitious, involving thousands of from research, ranging from exploration, where hypotheses are poorly defined,
subjects, many experiments in parallel to exploitation, where well-established hypotheses are refined. Of course,
and multiple parameters. “He turned you still need people to devise prior hypotheses, write code, make assump-
it into a higher conceptual thing, tions, define the freedom to experiment, write up research papers and so on.
optimised to lots of people and with But machines are faster than people, and more reliable. “Replication is built
robust statistics,” Lorenz says. into the DNA of the method,” says Leech. “It has very broad potential and
“There is an elegance to this crazy could revolutionise the field. The Automatic Neuroscientist could blaze a
idea,” says Hampshire. Human trail for the automatic radiologist, the automatic psychologist and more.”
cognition “is an inhumanly hard On June 13 2017, Lorenz finished her doctorate, notching up 12 papers in
problem to solve so we let a machine journals. Lorenz remembers when, working on brain-computer interfaces to
tackle it instead?” help paraplegics as a researcher at the Technical University of Berlin, she realised
at a conference that her area of research hadn’t made much progress. “All these
labs were getting funding to help patient’s lives, but the focus was on making
small improvements in the algorithms,” she says. “I felt frustrated. I can only
TAKE PART IN AN AI HUMAN-INTELLIGENCE TEST be passionate if I see that something can bring real improvement.” Four years
The Imperial College London team has created Cognitron, later, she might have finally found something that will make a diference. 
the first artificial intelligence designed to survey human
mental skills. Visit cognitron.co.uk and, after you have Roger Highfield is the director of external afairs at the Science Museum Group.
supplied a few personal details, it will design a series of He wrote about raising human IQ in WIRED 02.13
brain-twisting tests lasting about 30 minutes an hour
and tell you how well you did.
10-17 _ WIRED _
He directed Arrival, the most
profound and original sci-fi film
in years. Ridley Scott hand-picked
him to make the long-awaited
sequel to Blade Runner.
Now Denis Villeneuve has become
science fiction’s new hope
By STUART MCGURK
Photography: BENEDICT EVANS
Mostly, he remembers the sky-high act. Set in a steampunk neo-noir future LA, it
expectations he had going in. It couldn’t was a simple detective story with a deceptively
possibly match the stills he’d seen, could it? complex sci-fi core. Harrison Ford is a police
When, after he came out of the cinema, he Blade Runner, whose job it was to retire (ie
decided that, actually, it was the only film kill) human replicants, which are mostly
he’d ever seen that pretty much matched what used as slaves, who had gone rogue.
he’d already played in his head (Blade Runner: Some replicants, we learn, don’t know they
The Teenage Villeneuve Imagination Cut). are replicants: they’ve been implanted with
He remembers that it became the first film false memories. Others are all-too-aware
he bought on a new format called VHS. And they are, and want to extend their four-year
he remembers that he watched it a serious lifespan. It was stylised, it was slick, it was a
amount. But, he explains, he is way past light-touch take on some fairly weighty issues.
remembering just how many times. Aren’t they still your memories, even if they’re
false? If you think you’re human, aren’t you?
I meet Denis Villeneuve in Barcelona, And most of all: if you desire more life, doesn’t
on the balcony of a hotel, on the kind of that, in essence, mean you are alive?
sweltering day where even a breeze is just In the way of all studio juggernauts now,
tossing around the heat. He is semi-scrufy Villeneuve can’t say too much about the sequel.
and almost permanently excited.
That Villeneuve would go on to be the director
who’s almost single-handedly reviving that
here were two events that were to change the all-too-rare and seemingly extinct sub-genre
life of 49-year-old French-Canadian film-maker – sci-fi for smart people – is perhaps, given his
Denis Villeneuve. The first was the arrival of background, apt. But to follow 2016’s Arrival
three boxes, given to him before he reached – which featured Amy Adams as a linguistics
his teens, by an aunt who strongly believed professor attempting to communicate with
in extraterrestrials. The boxes – battered, aliens, was nominated for eight Oscars and
overspilling – were full of sci-fi comic books managed to be equal parts Steven Spielberg
by French artists from the 60s and 70s, the and Charlie Kaufman – with the long-awaited
likes of Philippe Druillet and Jean “Moebius” sequel to Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, some 35
Giraud, Enki Bilal and Raymond Poïvet. They years after the original he saw at 14, borders
were often baroque and bizarre, a little bit on deus ex machina. Or, put another way, it’s
funny, a little bit nightmarish. Stories in Métal almost bad scriptwriting. What were the odds?
Hurlant depicted a sci-fi warrior who rose on a Still, I say, there was a collective sigh of relief
pterodactyl-like creature – and featured when it was announced he would be helming
no words. In Pilote, a Victorian adventurer this entirely screw-up-able follow-up.
guarded his own pocket universe, situated on “Haha, everyone but me!” he says. “When
an asteroid, from invaders (think Doctor Who I heard my name, I was like: Oh fuck!” He is
with a much bigger Tardis). beyond excited now, with Blade Runner 2049
He didn’t know, he says now, what these almost in the can, “but there was a phase at
artists were taking – but he wanted some. “It the beginning where I heard they were about
was just something I didn’t have any contact to do a sequel, I said they are insane. It’s such
with. Still today, I think the best sci-fi has a fantastically bad idea.” He fretted when he
been designed by those guys.” It was, he took it on. But, he adds, that once he made
says, a “storm of ideas” that hit him. peace with the idea it simply wouldn’t be as
The second was a ticket he bought when he good as Scott’s original, he relaxed. “That no
was 14, in a theatre near the small Canadian matter what I do, it will always be compared
village where he grew up, for Blade Runner. to the first one.” And, “my chances of success
At that point, pre-internet, his only link with are very narrow.” And, for good measure,
the wider cultural world was magazines such “that it was an impossible task”, with “the
as Starlog or Fantastic Films – “magazines chance of failure is huge”. After that, he
made by maniacs”, which he means in the best allowed himself to finally get excited.
possible way – and it was on the cover of one of When I later speak to Scott on the phone, he
these that he’d seen the first Blade Runner still. says they were “circling the wagons” on two
“I remember the emotion,” he says, “of directors, but that Villeneuve “really showed
seeing my favourite actor at the time [Harrison his hand” with his 2015 crime drama Sicario.
Ford] doing a new character.” But, crucially, “I went for good film-making. It’s tone, it’s
it was an adult character; a sci-fi film, like subtlety. Some people understand the process
the comics he’d come to love, that wasn’t of dynamics, and he really does. Visual or
pitching down. “Yes! An adult world. A sci-fi film verbal, or both, there’s an engine to a good
for adults. Which for me, when you’re a teenager, movie, and those engines are hard to achieve.”
was a big thing. Like, it’s serious. It’s not Which leads us to what he can tell us about
a comedy. It felt like an existential sci-fi. this sequel. Blade Runner was not, as Villeneuve
It had a strong aesthetic. It felt new.” points out, a film screaming out for a second
We know this much: Ford’s old Blade Runner, “Ha! Um, for Ridley, it’s obvious, no? But
Deckard, has been missing for 30 years, and is
tracked down by Ryan Gosling’s new one. We
Harrison, no! Not at all!” Wait. He still insists
he’s not a replicant? “Yes. He doesn’t want! And
HE’S ALMOST
know Jared Leto plays a blind, ultra-powerful
geneticist. And we know that the climate
I love that. They’re both totally at odds. They
are still arguing about it. In total disagreement.
SINGLE-
has gone berserk – the rain and snow is
toxic – and Gosling has discovered a secret
It’s beautiful. I love that they still don’t agree.”
But your take is? “I like the ambiguity.” Or, HANDEDLY
that might end all humanity. It will, again, like
the first, “be an existential detective story
with a film noir approach”, Villeneuve says.
rather, as he later says: “That’s the way I wanted
to survive between Harrison and Ridley.”
(Scott, when I later speak to him on the
REVIVING
That’s all well and good, but what, of the
three-decades-not-out question of whether
phone, says: “I made the fucking movie! Excuse
me, he’s a fucking replicant! It’s astonishing
THAT EXTINCT
Ford’s character is, himself, a replicant?
Scott’s director’s cut makes it plain: he is.
how people get hold of something you’ve done
and think it’s theirs. Like, fuck of, you know?”)
SUBGENRE
For years, Ford insisted he wasn’t, before
Scott – an executive producer on Blade
Villeneuve insists that there weren’t
many similarities between Arrival and Blade – SCI-FI FOR
Runner 2049 – suggested in recent years that
Ford had finally relented. So, is he, or isn’t he?
Runner 2049, but does he allow one: “For
me, both films are about memories.” SMART PEOPLE

Above: Ryan Gosling plays Officer K in Blade Runner 2049, which is set 30 years after Ridley Scott’s original version 10-17 _ WIRED _ 
making waves. Polytechnique, in 2009, was a leave at the end were blueprints for an ark,
clinical, clear-eyed study of a real-life mass an interstellar ship to save a future mankind.
shooting in a Canadian college, as seen through Villeneuve insisted their language itself
the eyes of two students. It was nominated for should be the thing they bestow.
11 Genie Awards – the Canadian equivalent
of the Oscars – and won nine, including Best From a distance, the post-Polytechnique
Picture and Best Direction. That, in turn, led films of Villeneuve – the ones he made in the
to what Villeneuve describes as the “water- seven years between those LA water-bottle
bottle tour” of Hollywood producers (“You meetings and Arrival – don’t seem to have much
meet people for 20 minutes. They always in common. One, Incendies (2010), tells the
give you a water bottle”). And it was at these story of two Canadian twins who travel to their
meetings – because there wasn’t the budget in mother’s (unnamed) Middle Eastern homeland,
Canada – that he told anyone who would listen which is in the middle of civil war, to track
that it was his lifelong dream to direct a down a brother they never knew and a father
sci-fi film. But not any sci-fi film. they thought was dead. Another, Prisoners
He had been ofered some sci-fi screenplays, (2013), his first English-language film, saw
but often, “it’s just about how fast a car can go Hugh Jackman unlawfully capture and torture
and about the weapons. It’s not about explo- a man (Paul Dano) he suspected had abducted
ration of the human condition or things like his daughter. In Enemy (2013), an unfaithful
that.” To Villeneuve, who grew up awestruck history lecturer, played by Jake Gyllenhaal,
watching Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space uncovers his own doppelgänger. In Sicario,
illeneuve grew up in a small village, in the Odyssey and Spielberg’s Close Encounters of which was nominated for three Oscars, we
Trois-Rivières region of Quebec, in a family the Third Kind, it seemed like such a waste. dive into the dangerous and murky world of
that had two certainties: duck-hunting, and “I wanted to do a sci-fi film even before a government task force trying to take down
the law. “It was a very boring little village, my aunt gave me those boxes of comics,” he Mexican drug lords across the border. And
but there were some great characters. I was says, which suggests true forward planning. then, of course, there is Arrival itself, in which
raised in a Fellini movie, basically.” “I think what is beautiful about sci-fi is we learn that squid-like aliens communicate
Almost everyone in his family was a duck there’s a freedom in how you can approach
hunter – he was not, but remembers hearing
the guns at dawn as the hunters went out on
more intellectual subject matter, or more
abrasive subjects, or those that are a bit more
‘WITH SCI-FI,
the St Lawrence River – and almost everyone,
he says, worked as a legal professional. This,
diicult, or tougher or darker – things that
would be unbearable in a drama. But with YOU CAN
I soon learn, is no exaggeration.
What did his father do? “My father
was a notary,” he says, meaning, essen-
sci-fi it gives you a poetic distance, and you can
approach the subjects and explore them and
express them in a very dynamic way.”
APPROACH
tially, a solicitor. His uncles? “They were
notaries.” His grandfather, then? “My grand-
And so, when he met Dan Levine and Daniel
Cohen of 21 Laps – a production company,
INTELLECTUAL
father was a notary”. His grandfather’s
brothers then? “Oh, they were notaries.”
incidentally, that was in the middle of
developing a Spielberg-esque throwback sci-fi
SUBJECT
All his family were notaries apart from
his brother, he explains. “And he’s a judge.
series for Netflix which would later be called
Stranger Things – he said what he always
said: that he would like to do the kind of sci-fi
MATTER AND
So everyone was in law.” He was, unsurpris-
ingly, “supposed to become a notary.”
As a child, he says, he didn’t need much in the
that they don’t do any more. One more about
ideas than technology, more about people than
EXPLORE IT
way of bedtime stories, as he often told himself
his own, lying in bed, eyes closed, changing
guns. One, more simply, for adults.
Levine and Cohen, in turn, asked if Ville-
IN A VERY
camera and editing as he went, until sleep
finally took hold. It was a project in which,
neuve had read a short story called The Story
of Your Life. It was about aliens who came DYNAMIC WAY’
you imagine, he no longer had the final cut. to Earth, yet the meat of the story wasn’t not in sentences as we know them – ones that
He excelled in science at school, and would conflict, but the struggle to understand. necessarily begin with uncertain ends – but in
have studied it at university, but made an abrupt He said he hadn’t read it. They sent it over, complex ink-like circles, complete thoughts
gear change and chose to study arts instead. and it was love at first read. “At last! A story expressed instantly, without start or finish
“Everyone was like…” – he opens his mouth that had depth and was exploring something (or, as Jeremy Renner’s character puts it at one
as wide as it will go – “but of course, at about humanity and language, too!” point: “Imagine you wanted to write a sentence
the same time, it changed my life.” Tellingly, when he began working on it using two hands, starting from either side…”).
Success did not come instantly. His first with the screenwriter 21 Laps had provided, Yet look closer, and all the films are, like the
two films, both in French, were quirky, a the main change Villeneuve made from the alien language itself, circular. In Incendies, the
little of-beat, but slight, and garnered little first draft was that of the ending. In giving it twins discover their father and half-brother
attention. It was only after a career break – and a dramatic structure, the writer, Eric Heisserer, are the same person. In Prisoners, Jackman
a determination to only do work in which he had changed it to something more typically realises he’s got the wrong man, before finding
felt he was saying something – that he started Hollywood. The mysterious gift the aliens himself falsely imprisoned by the real culprit. In

 _ WIRED _ 10-17 Right: Denis Villeneuve, photographed in Barcelona, June 2017
VILLENEUVE’S
MAGIC Enemy, we end with a clear sign that Gyllenhaal
is still cheating on his partner, and perhaps
years of movie story, of flashbacks. To reverse-
engineer that was insanely diicult.”

FORMULA always will (we know this as his girlfriend turns


into a spider, but it’s best not to get bogged
It’s also for this reason, he says, that he takes
great pride in delivering films that can endlessly
Denis Villeneuve uses mathematics to solve down in details). In Sicario, the penultimate be rewatched, where the twists aren’t simply
problems during the screenwriting process. shot sees Blunt train her gun on one of her twists, but hardwired conclusions of everything
WIRED calculates the formulas behind his own, played by Benicio del Toro, a man she that has gone before. Another viewing becomes
thought-provoking, visually arresting films knows has murdered a kingpin and his family a way to hold it up to the light and appreciate
in cold blood, and we understand this final the symmetry from other angles. Arrival’s
bullet would not end the cycle of violence, but ending, I can confirm, still lands like a gut punch
complete it. In Arrival, it’s not just the alien the second time of asking. “That’s one of the
language that is circular, but their notion of reasons it took so long, ensuring if someone was
time. By the film’s end, we come to realise the watching for a second or third time, they would
young daughter we’ve seen Adams lose to not be cheated. Adams’ performance would
illness is actually yet to be born. It, too, asks a still make sense.” (It’s also for this reason he’s
deceptively simple question: if you knew your still shocked, despite Arrival’s eight Oscar
Political plot with a twist fate, would you live it anyway? Is it worth the nominations, Adams was overlooked for Best
+ Family mystery sorrow, in order to experience the joy? Actress: “The movie owes everything to Amy”.)
- Maternal figure “It’s true, it’s a topic I’m very interested by,” More simply, he’s just not afraid of taking
= INCENDIES 2010 says Villeneuve when I put it to him. “But for risks with his films’ endings. Because, after
me it’s about how to break the cycles. Are we all, what’s the use of all the possibilities of
bound to repeat ourselves as societies and as sci-fi if you can’t have a little fun?
individuals? How can we evolve and become And yes, he admits, when he chose to
free? How can you break those patterns?” conclude Enemy with Gyllenhaal’s girlfriend
Especially, he adds, when you consider “the having turned into a gigantic spider, one that
power of conscious” and how we’re all “under was cowering in the corner of the room, and
the dictator of the subconscious”. In short, Gyllenhaal looking perplexed, but not exactly
Male vigilante he says: “How can you get free from those shocked at this turn of events, that he did rule
÷ Presumed villain ghosts? It’s a subject that deeply inspires me.” some feathers. “I know, I’m sorry! A lot of people
x Child abduction and misconceptions Is he optimistic about it? “Oh me, yes, hate me because of that spider! Because it had
= PRISONERS 2013 I’m an optimist! I love to think it’s possible. Jake and Mélanie Laurent in it, the distributors
That’s where I find hope.” But, he adds, thought it was going to be a romcom.” Wrong.
still smiling, “It’s a long journey.” “Yeah, they were a bit traumatised,” he laughs.
It should not be a shock that, when But, he says, in the film’s logic, it made sense.
Villeneuve is thinking about the structure of “The movie was,” he says, “designed like that.”
his films, he thinks mostly in terms of maths.
This is not to say, he adds, that he starts
drawing equations on the walls. (“I can’t show
Male protagonist 2 you the formula for Arrival.”) But, more simply, Villeneuve still watches films as he did all
+ Otherworldly he says, uses maths to solve problems. those years before, when he first saw Blade
aracþid imagery “In the screenwriting process, or in the edit, Runner: rating them by the movie that he’s
= ENEMY 2013 I like to use mathematics to move forward already spooled in his head, and comparing
if there’s a problem.” And so, if he’s having the two, more or less, side by side. Peter
problems with “the trajectory of a character”, Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is one, he
or “how to express the rhythm”, he will think notes, in recent years, that fared particularly
in terms of an equation to solve, and as with well (“Yes, that was close to what I had in my
all equations, how each side must balance mind”). But others, he says, less so.
perfectly, the first matching the last, every When he watched Dune, David Lynch’s
single piece mattering, no matter the direction 1984 adaptation of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi
Moral, idealist, female protagonist you take; a circle that is already complete. classic, set in a world of sand, spice and
+ Sentimental, familial plot themes This approach has had its problems. For royal galactic feuding, it did not match the
x Film noir Arrival, he says, he found himself fighting picture he’d already played in his head.
= SICARIO 2015 against “100 years of movie story” in getting “I remember,” he says, “when I first saw it,
an audience to understand what they first I was very excited to know he was doing it,
assumed were flashbacks were actually the because I’m a huge fan of his work. But I thought
film’s end. Yet, to hear him describe it, you the tone of the movie… some screenplay
suspect he quite enjoyed the fight. He kept choices… it was not the Dune I dreamed.”
getting audiences back for test screenings, But now, after Blade Runner 2049 is
who would watch the ending perplexed, before finally finished (“Ridley loved it!” he says),
making another cut with more clues, only for he will do what he did with Arrival: he’ll
Familiar first-contact meme the next audience still not to understand. “In go back to “the root of the text”, and it’s a
+ Linguistics the end, it was crazy, I thought, it’s obvious! prospect that he’s deeply excited by.
x non-linear narrative I was saying, here are the keys! But that’s It would, he says, be the culmination of
= ARRIVAL 2016 what I realised we were fighting against: 100 a lifelong dream, or at least, the latest one.
Below: Villeneuve on the set of Blade Runner 2049, which will continue his auteur-ish themes of the dreamy, unnerving and unfamiliar

really strange. I can express an idea and he can It’s that moment, he says, beyond the
‘IT’S THE draw it”), and who has already begun drawing
desert mounds, freshly inputted from the
planning that comes later, and the maths that
makes it perfect, which he’s always looking for.
ELEGANCE OF Villeneuve brainscape. “My feeling,” he
says, “is that it’s going to happen.”
He describes it as the sensation of vertigo. Not
in the traditional sense, but more that nothing is

HIS VISUALS. Beyond that, he says, he’d quite like to


make a film without words at all. This stems
what it seemed, so everything is now possible.
“It’s when,” he says, “you are intellectually

HE’S A not from an anti-intellectualism, but just


the belief that “dialogue is for theatre or
television”, something smart or funny or
challenged by something, and that creates a
strange fear of the unknown. You are in front
of an enigma. It’s deep anxiety. It’s a dream.”
CINEMATIC sad. Film, however, should strive for awe;
a moment where you hold your breath.
He remembers feeling this when he first
saw Blade Runner, in the very first scene,

MAESTRO “I think that’s what sets him apart,” says


Shawn Levy, founder of 21 Laps, the production
as the camera glides over a future Los Angeles
with flames spitting into the sky.

AND THAT’S company that made Arrival. “It’s the elegance of


his visuals. He’s a cinematic maestro, and little
“To create something that will have
this sort of impact. That,” he emphasises,

WHAT SETS by little, the world is catching on.” He compares


him not just to Kubrick, but also to Terrence
Malick: “It’s the lyricism in Denis’ eye.”
“is what you’re looking for.”

Stuart McGurk is senior commissioning


HIM APART’ When Villeneuve thinks of film, he says, he editor for British GQ. This is his first feature
PHOTOGRAPHY: REX; ALCON

recalls images, not words. The cow, in Apoca- for WIRED. Blade Runner 2049 is released
There’s a joke among his friends, he says, that lypse Now, being lifted by helicopter. The boots in cinemas on Friday October 6
he speaks three languages: English, French and of a policeman, in No Country for Old Men,
Samhudecki. The latter relates to Sam Hudecki, scratching on the floor as he’s killed.
the storyboard artist with whom he shares a “That’s strong cinema. So I wish to be able
special bond (“I have a direct connection. It’s to make a movie without dialogue.” 10-17 _ WIRED _ 
VIVA
EL INTERNET

Photography: Lisette Poole

 _ WIRED _ 10-17


By Antonio García Martínez

In Cuba, where data trickles in via


overloaded, government-controlled
networks – if at all – the people
have staged a DIY revolution
You’ll be sitting in the magnificently
beautiful ruin of Havana, surrounded by
decaying stonework and pastel-coloured
Detroit rolling iron, and you’ll be ignoring
it all to swipe down on your Facebook feed
like a cocaine addict licking his mirror –
which you are, of course: a depraved
cokehead trying to get a hit. And you will
scroll over the same content you swiped
more than 15 minutes ago, pretending that
it might have refreshed and that it might

provide the dopamine rush your need, the dose you thought you
brain is demanding. Yet it does not could never go without. And then …
refresh. It will not refresh. failure. The website freezes, the app
Your fix will come in the form of a crashes. The shaky ETECSA network
small green scratch-card, almost like can’t handle the up-to-date versions
a lottery ticket and usually costing of FaceGoogleInstaSnapTwitter, and
a quarter of the average weekly so you’ll have to restart the app and
Cuban wage. Some quick work with pull down on your feed frantically,
a coin will reveal two horribly long again and again and again.
strings of numbers, and along with In Cuba, where Wi-Fi is both slow
a hunched-over clutch of other and terrible, you will be an emissary
addicts, you’ll enter the digits into from the future, a hint of the degen-
the password page of ETECSA, Cuba’s eracy to come. You’re a full-on
government-run telecommunications mainlining internet junkie with the
monopoly, whose design aesthetics world’s uproar piped into your head
are solidly 1997. And then… nothing. 24/7, your emotional landscape terra-
Your phone will fail to connect, or its formed and bufeted by whatever some
signal will quickly fade, since your narcissist just posted on Instagram
chosen hotspot, like most of the city’s or some windbag on Twitter. But like Havana residents been sitting around sipping mojitos
hotspots, is overwhelmed by demand. the “not even once” warnings around use Ethernet cables as the digital revolución passed them
(The government claims there are 60 drugs such as meth, you know that and antennas to by. They have workarounds. Oh,
hotspots in Havana, up from a handful after the internet is in Cubans’ pockets, connect to an ad hoc do they have workarounds.
a few years ago. That’s one for every it’s over. Even backward, bitter-ender Cuba-only intranet
35,000 Habaneros.) You’ll try again communist Cuba will become part of
for a secure connection.
Then again.
Then again, going on five minutes.
the vast data Borg, tied via arterial
fibre-optic cables and Wi-Fi to the
same pandemonium that gave us cat
B efore my visit earlier
Then ten minutes. videos, livestreamed murders and this year, I’d never been to Cuba,
Sweet Holy Jesus. President Donald J Trump. The real though Cuba had certainly been to
YES! irony is that if the internet does topple me. The Miami of my 80s childhood
The joy when your phone startles the government and bring democracy was a suburban reboot of pre-revo-
awake with a burst of delayed notifi- to this democracy-starved island, it’ll lutionary Cuba, filled with people
cations will be obscene and quasi- happen just as democracy itself is who still toasted El año próximo en
sexual. The screenful of bubbles from being undone by Facebook and other La Habana (“next year in Havana”)
every app you use – Facebook, Twitter, filter-bubble- creating, political- at important occasions. Everything
Instagram, email – will seem like an polarisation-amplifying, algorithm- from family letters to fresh-off-
orgiastic feast on the order of George optimised feeds. But we’re getting the-raft waiters kept us apprised of
Costanza’s sex-pastrami-baseball ahead of ourselves, and also oversim- the increasingly desperate condi-
trifecta. Madly, you’ll swipe, swipe, plifying, because the Cubans – the very tions. In Miami, even the dogcatcher
swipe, trying to get the pixel hit you resourceful Cubans – haven’t exactly had to have a foreign policy towards
the island, and Cuba seemed to be It seemed like only a matter of government professionals, nobody
all anyone ever really talked about. time. Yet other than a few rumoured can check their email or surf the web,
In Silicon Valley, where I worked experiments beginning in the 90s, legally, at home without permission
at companies such as Facebook and the Cuban government had a highly from the government.) There are
Twitter for the earlier part of this restrictive internet policy until 2015, even some startups capitalising on
decade, Cuba was generally regarded, when ETECSA’s first Wi-Fi hotspots the rarity, shoddiness and expense
when it was regarded at all, as a started popping up throughout of Cuban internet: Knales, a mobile-
technological curiosity. This socialist the capital. Walk down a street in messaging platform co-founded
worker’s paradise was a time capsule Old Havana and you’ll note a flock by Diana Elianne Benitez Perera,
where techno-capitalism’s “Make the of smartphone-clutching loiterers packages online weather reports,
world more open and connected” either standing or squatting in a park horoscopes, sports scores, foreign
idealism hadn’t yet delivered its as they try to get on ETECSA Wi-Fi. exchange rates, and other basic
liberal-democratic fruit. The under- This is Cuban internet, where access news into text messages that Cubans
lying assumption held that, whether to non-state-sanctioned websites is can read on their phones.
it was Facebook pages for Cuban blocked, the government snoops Given the rickety and expensive
businesses or Airbnb tourists from on anything unencrypted and the nature of Cuban connectivity, nobody
Texas, the internet’s arrival would service is grindingly slow, when it wastes time or bandwidth trying to
lead to a near-instantaneous trans- exists at all. (I’m told that fast internet stream an episode of Game of Thrones
formation of Cuban society from access is the exclusive domain of state or a YouTube video. ETECSA Wi-Fi,
Soviet-era holdout to just another institutions such as universities and
part of the globe requiring a very large, mostly foreign corpora-
dedicated user-support team. tions such as hotels. Short of a few 10-17 _ WIRED _ 
Cubans can be as conversant as any
Netflix-and-chill American about shows like
House of Cards, and they drop allusions
to the Lannisters and Omar Little constantly

when you can get it, is purely social transmits data via shoe rubber, bus, patios so you can siphon a nearby
and communicative: chatting with horseback or any other measure. ETECSA park’s Wi-Fi signal and
the uncle in Miami who sends you Oddly, it works. Cubans can be maybe check your email slowly (and
$200 (£153) every month via a as conversant as any Netflix-and illegally) from home? Resolver.
remittance company, the nephew -chill American about popular shows Cubans are the kings and queens
who moved to Spain, the cousin such as House of Cards or Black of resolver, the virtuosi of resolver.
outside the capital – that is what Mirror , and they drop allusions It’s the only thing that’s kept them
the ETECSA hotspot is for. to the Lannisters and Omar Little afloat since the “Special Period”
Which brings us to the first constantly. It’s been reported that as in the early 90s, when the Soviet
workaround. Every week, more many as three million Cubans access Union and its subsidy disappeared,
than a terabyte of data is packaged content via the paquete. And to leaving Cuba’s economy stranded
into external hard drives known as understand the paquete – as well as and Cubans themselves hungry.
el paquete semanal (“the weekly the other epic acts of Cuban hackery But arrayed against the forces of
p a c k a ge ” ) . I t i s t h e i n te r n et I’m going to describe – you need a resourceful resolver lies another
distilled down to its purest, most Spanish lesson you didn’t get at important word: complicado.
consumable and least interactive school. An important word to know Want to talk to the dissident
form: its content. This collection in Cuba is resolver. While literally journalists who scoff at Cuban
of video, song, photo and text files meaning “to resolve”, in practice it’s c e n s o r s h i p a n d a re ro u t i n e l y
from the outside world is cobbled closer to Silicon Valley’s notion of harassed and jailed? Es complicado.
together by various media smugglers lifehacking, but without the humble- Want to get a passport and visa to
known as paqueteros, and it travels braggy lifestyle posturing. travel abroad? Es complicado.
around the island from person to Need to navigate the endless My last Spanish lesson: No es
person, percolating quickly from hurdles involved in obtaining a fácil. It’s not easy. This is the closing
Havana to the furthest reaches in small-business licence? Resolver. refrain to almost every practical
less than a day and constituting Need to bribe a doorman at the Cuban conversation, usually uttered
what would be known in techie weekend to get into a popular bar or with a resigned shrug. The island
lingo as a sneakernet: a network that nightclub such as the ever-teeming is one immense battlefield of resolver
Fabrica de Arte Cubano? Resolver. vs complicado, with a decaying
Need to string 200 metres of cable colonial ruin for a stage and no
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 and an antenna through neighbours’ es fácil as the Greek chorus.
C entro Habana is the likes of which only hardcore western
arse-end of a Potemkin village the gamers maintain. The cover is off,
government has renovated for cables snake out to racks bristling with
tourist consumption. Just west of external hard drives, and two monitors
picturesque Old Havana, and east display what appears to be sophisti-
of modern Vedado, gutted shells of cated file-management software. It’s
colonial-era buildings stand among the source for one of Cuba’s paquetes,
the odd pile of collapsed rubble or a vital connection to the outside world.
uncollected garbage. Squint, and What Yuri and his competitors and
on some blocks you’d be in a post- conspirators do isn’t strictly illegal –
apocalyptic city instead of Cuba. alegal is the preferred Cuban word
Even the taxi driver gets lost in this for this: un- legal – but it’s not so
overlooked part of the city and drops un-legal that I couldn’t track down
me blocks from my destination, Yuri through a few discreet inquiries
forcing me to walk the hot streets with to acquaintances in Havana’s small
my oline mapping app open. tech community. My sources tell me
Trying to tease out the numbering, there are half a dozen paqueteros
I note a hand-painted sign over one with nationwide distribution, most
ramshackle door announcing itself as of whom typically avoid reporters
the seat of the local Comité de Defensa and self-promotion. (The paquetes
de la Revolución (CDR) chapter. sell themselves.) But Yuri, who says
The organisation’s logo features he recently fell out with his partners
a Cuban-flag-clad patriot raising in a major paquete operation and
a machete to strike, emblazoned decided to strike out on his own, was
Above: Yuri, a media smuggler who decided with the motto Con la guardia en open to talking. After a few phone calls
to strike out on his own, holds a alto (“With one’s guard up”). and a quick get-to-know-you, Yuri
hard drive containing digital content... This unique product of the Cuban is taking me through his workflow,
revolution is worth a detour. The CDR ably and quickly hopping around the
is Robespierre-ian in both name and file structure of this week’s media
function and serves as a nationwide shipment. With a few keystrokes and
network of informants and agents clicks on various pop-up windows,
monitoring the population from he copies a new file into the going
every balcony and porch. Convening paquete, arranging content in a
a group of intellectuals to discuss standard and orderly directory
dissident politics, or even hackers structure. Películas clásicas (classic
to discuss an open-source project? films), interesantes y variados
You’ll have a uniformed agent (mostly ripped YouTube videos),
from Minísterio del Interior de deportes semanales (weekly sports,
la República de Cuba (MININT, everything from NHL to Formula One
charged with law enforcement) and even e-sports), and the ever-
knocking at your door, courtesy of important telenovelas (soap operas).
your snooping neighbour. Incredibly, I ask him if any of the content
the government has actually erected is physically smuggled from Miami
a museum to the CDR in Old Havana and he denies it, claiming it would
to commemorate the network of local be too expensive; in any case,
rats that has helped keep it in power. customs would catch much of it.
I finally figure out where the hell “But how do you download this
I am and realise my destination is much data, then?” I ask, somewhat
an incongruously tidy, well-painted aghast at the week’s worth of global
two-storey building that doesn’t look internet output he’s accumulated
like it just got hit with an artillery shell. in this dark back room. He points
I knock, and my contact, Yuri, opens to a pile of green ETECSA scratch
the door and lets me into an ample cards next to his monitor and claims
front room, empty save for a fatigued- he pays people, including a family
looking, sweat-covered man in a tank member, to sit in public parks
top seated on a lone chair. Unusually with Wi-Fi and download content
for the ever-sociable Cubans, Yuri for five hours a day. That’s who
doesn’t introduce me and continues the sweaty man in the front room
to the back of the house. The bare walls was, evidently, back from a long,
and almost total lack of furniture give hot day of downloading.
the place the feel of a safe house. I do the mental maths. One estimate
… which eventually makes its way to Cubans Arriving in a windowless back found that ETECSA Wi-Fi hotspots
on the street, allowing them to watch room, I see the raison d’être for this have a bandwidth of one megabit
everything from Formula One to YouTube videos operation: a large tower computer, the per second. Even assuming this
is true, and assuming Yuri and
his employees manage to suck up
all that bandwidth by sitting in
public parks at odd times, it would
still take more than 2,400 person-
hours of constant downloading to
capture the terabyte of data that
goes into a single week’s paquete. This
seems at the very least improbable. With no real money, the gamers have
It’s more likely that Yuri is lying,
in the way that so many Cubans lie cobbled together a faster network
about how they survive. Perhaps he’s
paying someone with fast internet than anything this socialist worker’s
– a network administrator in some
ministry, a hotel worker with access paradise has managed to produce
to expensive commercial internet
– to download large swathes of the
paquete for him. But he denies it.
The business end of paquete distri- runs the somewhat cheesily
bution is relatively simple, and a named Highvista Promotions, one
drug-trafficking comparison might of Cuba’s pioneering internet ad
be helpful. Yuri sells his master copy networks. In a landscape largely
to a distributor in every province, devoid of advertising (other than
who then resells to regional distrib- for the government), Cuba’s jerry-
utors in Cienfuegos, Santiago de Cuba, rigged media world has digital
Pinar del Río and wherever else, and inducements to consume.
eventually to the guy on the street. As a demo, Juaristi “browses”
Thus does data-on-wheels radiate the paquete for me, navigating a
out from that room to every corner Taiwanese-made external hard drive
of Cuba, and a river of money trickles loaded with that week’s content as
back, forming an eventual torrent, if it were some interactive browser.
the usual bits-for-money internet Inside every file directory is a selection
alchemy becoming a physical one. of image and video ads alongside the
And the government’s take on actual content; the typical Cuban user
all this? While initially hostile, the might open the ads accidentally as
paqueteros and the authorities have they browse, and they’ll soon no doubt
reached a liveable détente, with one develop a blindness to them. Highvista
side agreeing to ban all political can also superimpose pre-roll banners
and religious content and the other on the videos themselves, messaging
monitoring the output but mostly that is that harder to avoid.
taking an uncharacteristic laissez- Without knowing it, Juaristi has
faire attitude. Cubans are on their reproduced the business model of
third generation raised under the internet advertising circa 2007, before
sufocating weight of an all-seeing, Google’s DoubleClick and program-
all-knowing government, and many matic advertising technology crushed
of them reflexively avoid any topic of it. Namely, you have a “rate card”
conversation or media consumption that is just that: a list of prices for a
that smacks of political dissent. The list of ad placements, based on some
paqueteros just channel that subcon- vague, mythological notion of the
scious urge and conform to the value of each: Run of Network (the
government’s control of the media. entire paquete); Premium (the reality
Resolver beats complicado this round. show folder); the low-rent Remnant
It almost always does. Especially (cat videos), and so on. This model
when there is real money to be made. was the bread and butter of online
advertising in the jackass, low-tech
pre-Facebook/Google days. I mention

W ith his angular features


as much to Juaristi, and he looks at me
blankly, as if he has no idea what I’m
talking about – which makes it only
and slicked hair streaked with blond, more impressive. Highvista clients
Roger Juaristi Guede reminds me also receive a weekly report detailing
visually of a young Vanilla Ice. His where in the labyrinthine directory
demeanour, however, is completely structure of the paquete their ad
un-rapper-like, and he works in the appears. Lack of network connectivity
recently renovated front room and makes ad attribution impossible, and
hallway of what appears to be his my internal ad technology man winced
parents’ home in Vedado. Juaristi at the untrackability of it all.
This is the fascinating thing
about Cuba’s emerging digital class,
especially coming from Silicon Valley:
Their major issues mimic our own,
albeit in cruder and more improvised
form. Like some weird species in an
isolated redoubt such as Australia,
Cuba has been evolving conver-
Below: Diana gently (if mostly independently) to CUBA
Elianne Benitez Perera the outside world, even if several
co-founded Knales, a technical generations later. Turns out
startup that delivers if you connect narcissistic, boredom-
news via text message. prone humans via digital media, no
Bottom: A computer matter how makeshift the plumbing,
cluster at an SNET pilar they behave in exactly the same way.

I
Havana

Habana del Este

f the logistical effort


of transporting a physical piece of
hardware to millions of people so they
can keep up with Silicon Valley sounds Santa Fe

ambitious, it pales in comparison


to the makeshift technical marvel
that makes up Cuba’s other internet
workaround. Named SNET, short for
street network, it is a homebrewed
intranet stretching across the capital
and parts of the provinces that
reproduces much of the consumer
internet we know in the free world.
With no fast, affordable access to
Facebook, Instagram, or online
audio streaming, the Cubans have
simply created their own versions Pilar
of these sites and services inter-
nally in a wholly separate network, Coverage
area
and they are quickly rushing into 8km
the same minefield of acceptable-
use policies, cyberbullying, porno-
graphy filtering, memes and general
online mayhem that the Americans H AVA N A’ S S T REE T NE T W O R K
have been sufering for years.
I set out to meet two of SNET’s Reaching from Habana del Este in DINNER TALK ONLY:
administrators in the epicentre of the far eastern parts of the To keep government censors
Havana, the corner of L Street and municipality to Santa Fe in the at bay, the network’s admins
23rd Avenue, right in the heart of west, SNET is composed of nine filter out political, religious
Vedado. My contact, Ian, appears main hubs, or pilares , and a and sexual content.
from out of the crowds milling in the tangled mess of 100-metre COPY AND SHARE:
street. Thin and bespectacled, he is an Ether net cables and wireless Cubans use SNET to browse
economics student at the University access points. The area of reproductions of Facebook,
of Havana, and when not talking about coverage, outlined above ( pilar Twitter and Reddit, but also to
SNET he likes expounding on Cuba’s locations are approximate), has stream entertainment and share
economy. His companion is more out grown over the past few years to content from the paquetes .
of nerd central casting. With a pasty become an important source of MAKE CONNECTIONS:
complexion – the “monitor tan” connectivity. Here’s how it works. Other SNET-like networks exist
stood out in a sunny climate – and a in the island nation and could
corpulent physique accompanied by someday join the Havana-based
a trollish laugh, this is the subreddit network. In the meantime, paquete
inhabitant known the world over. deliveries allow Cubans from all
We pile into an overpriced yellow over to keep up with The Tonight
taxi and Ian instructs the driver west Show Starring Jimmy Fallon .
to the outskirts of the city. An hour
later we arrive at the dilapidated far
end of Havana. A number of clustered, 10-17 _ WIRED _ 
low-slung buildings with metal Strike. The nine original wireless which are the final access points,
roofs serve as family compounds. gaming networks started spreading almost like the internet setup in a
We converge on one that features an like a moss over all of Havana, and typical western household. This entire
immense antenna tower on the roof. It they joined forces in 2015 to create SNET edifice we’re describing lives in
bristles with what seem like dozens of a city-spanning whole that could isolation from the internet we know,
antennas pointed in all directions. This be loosely administered in a sort an island literally and metaphorically
structure is known as a pilar. of controlled chaos. They would from the buzzing internet continent
Strolling into the house, Ian intro- eventually start communicating we take for granted. Enter google.
duces me to a group of a dozen or so with smaller and smaller antennas. com in a browser on SNET and you’ll
men who scrutinise the American It’s a semi-improvised but functional go nowhere. But enter the URL of a
visitor whose presence they collec- hierarchy, completely analogous to our file and your subnode will route your
tively approved. The assembled SNET internet, with the pilares uniting the request to a parent node and then
dignitaries begin a patchwork account various far-flung regions of the city. a pilar, then to the regional pilar
of how this beast came into being. Below the pilar in this hierarchy is a whose nodes and subnodes have the
The whole thing started back in the node, which is a miniature version of requested file or service.
early aughts with handmade antennas a pilar in that it features servers and What speed do users get? Ian
so that gamers wouldn’t have to carry antennas pointed in multiple direc- pings his own pilar in Habana del
their desktop machines to each other’s tions. (A node most closely resembles Este, clear on the other side of the
houses to play StarCraft or Counter- an ISP that serves one local neigh- capital. It returns with a latency of 11
bourhood within a larger region.) A milliseconds. Faster, probably, than
node in turn provides short-range pinging Google on an average UK
 _ WIRED _ 10-17 connectivity to a set of subnodes, home broadband connection.
emptively self- censor, banning very fuzzy reasons for Cuba travel an
political or religious content. American uses as tourism cover. Guests
Accounts vary, but the SNET admins will then remit payment to Airbnb,
insist that the network never veers which then transmits the money to
into illegality, and the final vindi- a remittance payment firm in Miami,
cation was a post in CubaDebate, a which then sends bagmen to deliver
government-ailiated blog, in 2016. cash payments to Airbnb hosts on the
Complete with names and photos, island. It’s an impressive workaround.
the same blog that once published But most of the American entrepre-
Fidel’s speeches praised the gamers. neurship machine made a few visits
With no money, and working in a and disappeared without trace.
dictatorship’s grey zone, the gamers I didn’t meet a single Cuban who felt
have created a faster network than the Obama policy had changed much.
anything this socialist worker’s The only event they were eagerly
paradise has produced. I sit in awaiting was the planned resignation
admiration as Ian shows me clones of Raúl Castro as president of Cuba in
of US internet entities. All existing in 2018. Even the most optimistic startup
near-isolation from the outside world. founders estimate that Cuba will be
By God, what could they accomplish stuck in offline mode (ie, no home
if they didn’t have the government internet) until at least 2020. And that
gorilla sitting on their faces? was before Trump’s move to roll back
Obama’s concessions, which only puts
better internet that much further of.

T he unsolicited guidance
The most surprising thing about
Cuba was the lived-in-the-moment
nature of totalitarianism. In Orwell’s
on how to bring home a visi tante fiction, political dictatorship remains
nocturno from my Airbnb hostess is an abstraction, some moral fable
worth recording for posterity: cloaked in binary judgments and
I should call the hostess once I know populated by villains and heroes. But
I’m coming home with someone, so the reality in Cuba is more mundane.
she can be there to oicially register There really is a banality of tyranny.
them and send their identification People realise they’re being ruled by
details to the state. Should my new autocrats, and do whatever necessary
friend rob me in my sleep, the señora to get by. They reframe “freedom” to
will report them to the police, and mean the little square of movement the
the full machinery of Cuban state government grants them, and consider
suppression will be engaged to hunt themselves free as a result.
them down. And hunt them they will: Here’s the tragic reality that
The señora reported that a guest of Silicon Valley optimists don’t realise:
hers had a bottle of expensive cologne technology won’t save or ruin Cuba
stolen, and the police found the thief any more than tourism. If the world
and returned the cologne. Totalitari- has learned anything from Cuban
anism has certain advantages. economic liberalisation, it’s that
One big disadvantage is dictator- what happens inside Cuba is almost
And what’s actually on SNET, other Left: A group of SNET ship’s inability to create a propitious unafected by anything the interna-
than gaming servers? There is an admins near a pilar situated business environment, which helps tional community does. My impression
Instagram clone called Foro Wifinet; on the outskirts of Havana explain why Cuba’s startup culture from the interviews I conducted is that
a Reddit clone called Netlab with remains half-hidden. When President change will come at a glacial pace, if at
themed subreddits and trolls. There is Obama was making noises about Cuba all. The centuries-old colonial façades
the Facebook clone, Sígueme (“follow in early 2016, a conga line of tech heavy- will crumble while people stagnate in a
me”), as well as forums powered by weights mustered to help “open” Cuba. sufocating political repression.
phpBB, that ancient code project Most of that amounted to nothing more In the meantime there’ll be ads,
that runs every forum from knitting than angling for a photo op with a memes and cyberbullying too. The
to Jeep repair. To conform to SNET’s popular president. Since then, only a busy minds behind el paquete and
aggressively enforced terms of service, handful of US companies have made SNET won’t stop and will spring
none of these service providers or site headway, most notably Google and forth with whatever technology they
administrators can display consumer Airbnb, the former investing in servers contrive. The aces of resolver will
advertising or charge users to access and the latter really going the distance. triumph over complicado, and one
their sites. Their creators launch these Airbnb drafted off an existing day maybe they’ll even win out over
services just for the sake of creating cottage industry in casas particulares the source of all the complicado, the
and gaining status points on SNET (“private homes”) and conspired to government itself.
– like the bygone internet pioneers, hack a payment scheme in a country No es fácil.
before Silicon Valley became about without accessible payment systems.
6,000-word Medium think pieces Airbnb complies with the Treasury Antonio García Martínez is the author
and $50 million funding rounds. As Department’s formerly pro forma of autobiography Chaos Monkeys.
with the paqueteros, the admins pre- travel restrictions, asking which of 12 This is his first article for WIRED
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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 . S E E R I G H T

The amount of active global instant-


messaging accounts in 2017, according

The WIRED Index to Radicati. This number is expected


to rise to 8.3 billion by the end of 2021

The size of a wave of hot gas discovered in


the nearby Perseus galaxy cluster by an
international team of scientists. The wave
was formed billions of years ago and is
about twice the size of our Milky Way galaxy

The in-game time, in years, it would take to complete


a ride on Kairos – The Slow, an ultra-slow roller
coaster designed by a Rollercoaster Tycoon player.
In real life, it would take 210 days. The game’s
previous longest ride would have taken 60 hours

The day-side temperature of KELT-9b, a Jupiter-like


planet recently discovered by the Kilodegree Extremely
Little Telescope observation system. It is hotter than
most stars and only slightly cooler (927°C) than the Sun

WORDS: BONNIE CHRISTIAN. ILLUSTRATION: GIACOMO GAMBINERI. SOURCES: THE GUARDIAN; SMARTINSIGHTS.COM; NASA.GOV;
RADICATI.COM; GAMING.YOUTUBE.COM; OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY; EDELMAN.CO.UK; FORBES.COM; MEDIA.UZH.CH

The fee a top Instagram influencer charges for one sponsored post.
Seventy-five per cent of brands are expected to use such
The number of digital particles used by researchers at the University influencers by the end of 2017, despite rates trebling since 2015
of Zurich to make 25 billion virtual galaxies. The astrophysicists

44% .05%
built a simulation of the formation of the Universe on a supercomputer
to help investigate dark matter and dark energy

The proportion The proportion


of HotWired.com of web users
visitors to click who click on a
on the first banner ad in
banner ad in 2017, according
1994, according to digital
The predicted increase in sales of digital voice assistants such as the to its creator marketing firm
Amazon Echo between 2016 and 2020, according to Strategy Analytics Joe McCambley Smart Insights
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MEDICAL DOCTOR AND HEAD OF IMAGING, FOUNDER, THE LEAD SOCIAL POCOCK CO-FOUNDER AND
POLAR SCIENTIST CORE RESEARCH TWENTY MINUTE VC ACTIVIST, WRITER AND SPACE SCIENTIST CEO, REACH ROBOTICS
• LABS, NATURAL • PSYCHOTHERAPIST, • •
Beth Healey HISTORY MUSEUM Harry Stebbings is DAHLIA PROJECT Maggie Aderin- Adekunle blends
researches human • probably the world’s • Pocock MBE is a space biology, video games
health in the world’s Farah Ahmed and her youngest venture Hussein helped found scientist who has and robotics through
most extreme team at the Natural capitalist, having Dahlia Project, the worked on many out- Reach Robotics. His
and unforgiving History Museum use joined Atomico last UK’s first specialist of-this-world projects. MekaMon gaming
environments. Her the latest imaging year at the age of 20. therapeutic service She is also a popular platform combines
work is helping to technologies to reveal He started his podcast, for FGM survivors, and science communicator advanced robots
prepare us for a the previously unseen The Twenty Minute VC, Daughters of Eve, a and is perhaps best- with video games, via
future of space travel – from identifying when he was 18 and charity dedicated to known for presenting augmented-reality
and interplanetary parasites to digitising is part of the team at ending gender-based astronomy show The gameplay controlled
colonisation. dinosaurs. SaaS site SaaStr. violence. Sky at Night. by smartphones.

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Six years ago, we decided to produce an
annual briefing on the startups in the
European ecosystem that were getting
find ways to be successful – the
announcement in February by
venture-capital firm Atomico
Europe’s
people in the WIRED network excited.
We dispatched reporters across the
continent to meet entrepreneurs, technol-
that it had raised a $765 million
(£597m) fund to invest solely
within Europe to help startups
100
COVER PHOTOGRAPHY: VICTORIA LING. SET DESIGN: VICKY LEES

ogists, designers and investors in order


to identify the businesses that would
prove meaningful in the long run. Back
scale shows that institutional
investors still believe in the
continent’s talent. Most of all
Hottest
in 2011, we found a payments company
called Klarna in Stockholm, Tel Aviv had
a facial-recognition business called Face.
though, we’re excited about
this year’s crop of innovative
businesses – we look forward
Startups
com, there was a music platform called
SoundCloud in Berlin and, in Helsinki, a
nascent gaming startup, Rovio.
to reporting on their future
successes. Greg Williams, editor 2017
Despite fears that Brexit will have a
negative efect on innovation and entre-
preneurship across Europe, WIRED
remains optimistic. Founders tend to
 BY VICTORIA TURK

52°31 N 13°23 E

Once dominated by online retail giant Rocket


Internet, Berlin’s growing tech scene is now making a
name for itself in a broad range of sectors. “Our roots
are in e-commerce, but we are very strong in fintech,
software and media,” says Stefan Franzke, CEO of Berlin
Partner, which connects companies and investors.

BERLIN Low costs and high living standards have long drawn
entrepreneurs to Berlin, and while rents may be rising,
the city’s maturing startup scene continues to attract
international talent and investment. Although the
amount of VC funding raised in 2016 by German startups
decreased – primarily due to a large number of high-figure
rounds in 2015 – the volume of deals increased. At 43
per cent, Berlin has the second-highest number of
immigrant founders after Silicon Valley, and Franzke
expects its international appeal to grow post-Brexit, as
entrepreneurs see the German capital as an appealing
alternative to London. “Berlin is on the map,” he says.

Careship
Siblings Antonia and
Nikolaus Albert founded
Careship in 2015 after
struggling to find a carer
for their grandmother.
The digital marketplace
matches families
with at-home helpers of
various levels, from
companions to qualified
carers. “The number of
care-dependent people
will double by 2050, but
we don’t know who will
look after them,” says
Antonia. Careship closed
a €4 million (£3.3m)
funding round led by
Spark Capital at the start
of 2017. careship.de


Mimi Clue
Mimi Hearing Technologies WHERE TO E AT & DRINK Period-tracking and
has developed a Holzmarkt fertility app Clue raised
smartphone-based Holzmarktstraße 25, 10243 Berlin $20 million (£15.6m) in a
hearing test which uses Set up this year by the co-founders of Bar25, the Holzmarkt Series B funding round
algorithms to adjust the co-operative project hosts a variety of food at the end of 2016, led by
sound across devices to and drink outlets and a lively events schedule. Nokia Growth Partners.
suit the listener’s personal Since launching in 2013, it
“hearing profile”. Co- has attracted five million
founder and CEO Philipp customers and has
Skribanowitz says the introduced features such
aim is for Mimi to become WHERE TO VISIT as the Smart Pill Tracking
the standard for personal Teufelsberg tool. The company says
sound. “Nobody would Take the S-Bahn to Grunewald for one of Berlin’s more it plans to apply machine
buy an ultra HD television unusual historical sites. On a hill formed from the rubble of a learning to get more
and then not put on their planned Nazi college is a Cold War-era NSA listening station, insights out of the data it
glasses,” he says. mimi.io its radar domes now decked out with street art. collects. helloclue.com

VOJD Studios Babbel N26


Launched with the idea of Now a market leader with In the past 12 months,
using 3D printing to more than a million paying mobile-focused bank
make consumer fashion subscribers, Babbel’s N26 got its banking
and homeware goods, language-learning licence, expanded to
VOJD Studios founders platform is growing on the 17 European countries
Christian Hartung and other side of the pond, and tripled its user base
Hristiyana Vucheva soon hiring former Business to more than 300,000
realised their technology Insider president Julie customers - not bad
would be better suited Hansen as US CEO for a company that
to high-end fashion in January 2017. But the only launched its first
accessories. In the past founders haven’t lost their product in 2015 in an
year, it has made pieces roots: “An investor offered industry dominated by
for brands including us a lot of money on the established competitors.
Alexander McQueen condition that we move to It recently partnered
and Loewe. “That’s big Silicon Valley,” says with German insurance
< leverage – we’ve seen co-founder Markus Witte. startup Clark to let
Careship founders more big brands coming “It was an easy decision customers manage
Nikolaus Albert ( left) to us,” says Hartung. to stay in Berlin. We their insurance policies
and Antonia Albert vojdstudios.com love it here.” babbel.com through its app. n26.com

WHERE TO WORK
Agora Mit telweg
Mittelweg 50, 12053 Berlin
Located in a 1920s factory building in Neukölln, Agora offers
professionals everything from day passes to fixed desk space.

BERLIN


WHERE TO STAY
Michelberger Hotel
Warschauerstraße 39-40,
Berlin 10243
Each room in this
converted factory
is designed differently,
and the shared space
includes a popular bar.

Lemoncat CEO
and founder
Doreen Huber

PEAT solarisBank MoBerries Lemoncat


Agricultural tech startup SolarisBank calls itself MoBerries takes a data Whenever Doreen Huber
PEAT aims to tackle a a “tech company with approach to recruitment. spent time in Silicon
problem faced by farmers a banking licence”. Its hiring platform Valley, she was
across the globe: crop Rather than marketing uses an automated impressed with the ease
damage. Take a picture banking services directly ranking system to at which companies
of a damaged plant using to end users, it offers match applicants with brought in catering for
your smartphone and infrastructure that other companies looking to their employees. At the
its Plantix app determines companies can use to hire talent. It closed a time she was COO of
the cause and gives create financial products. €1.8 million seed round in Delivery Hero – a former
advice on treatment and Founded in 2016, the May 2017, and co-founder WIRED Hottest Startup –
prevention. Founded company finalised a Terence Hielscher says and she’d noticed there
in Hanover in 2015, the Series A funding round the platform now receives was no strong online
company closed a seven- of €26.3 million this year 10,000 applications a ‘A N IN V ESTOR portal in Germany to
figure seed funding round and has grown to 100 week. Next, MoBerries OFFER ED US A source food for large
at the end of 2016 before employees. The company plans to build a bot that LOT OF MONEY events. So in March 2016
relocating to Berlin. Pierre has a full German banking can screen applicants TO MOV E TO she launched Lemoncat,
Munzel, one of PEAT’s licence, so other fintech before the interview SILICON VALLEY. an online marketplace
seven co-founders, says startups can partner process. “I’m 100 IT WAS A N EASY for business catering.
the app recently passed with it to work in regulated per cent convinced DECISION TO It’s now live in more
the 100,000 user mark areas. solarisbank.de that pre-filtering of STAY IN BER LIN’ than 80 cities across
and receives between candidates can be Germany and has raised
2,000 and 5,000 images automated,” he says. – MARK US W ITTE, €9 million in two funding
every day. peat.technology moberries.com BABBEL rounds. lemoncat.de

BERLIN
BY LIAT CL ARK 

41.3902° N, 24.7380° E

Glovo TravelPerk 21Buttons


Since making our 2016 Launched in 2015, The 21Buttons app – which
list, Glovo’s 60-minute TravelPerk allows anyone lets its users buy what
delivery service has to book and manage they see in tastemakers’
launched in four more business travel. “If you’re social-media photos
cities, raised €5 million
(£4.2m) and partnered
with McDonald’s. “Any
BARCELONA stuck in Berlin with all
flights cancelled, we’ll find
a flight to bring you back
– has attracted two
million customers
since launching in 2016.
online store can be a home,” says co-founder 21Buttons’ founders
partner or competitor,” Avi Meir. It has 150 clients say features such as
says co-founder Sacha and is planning a Series shareable wish lists and
Michaud. Next up: B round later this year, a simple user interface
expansion in Spain, Italy having raised $7 million give it the edge over
and France. glovoapp.com in 2016. travelperk.com Instagram. 21buttons.com

Lodgify Ulabox Typeform Coverfy


Lodgify is a site builder Ulabox bills itself as This online survey tool This mobile broker WHAT TO SEE
for the holiday industry an online grocer with wants to bring empathy to combines all types of Approximately 30
that allows anyone with a a purely technological the way large firms ask for insurance policies in minutes’ drive out of the
home to let start their own approach. It picks up information at scale. Since a free app. Customers city stands the
business. “It’s as easy as more than €1 million in launching in 2012, it has can access their options elBulli Foundation centre,
creating and managing monthly revenue and expanded to include free for cover around the designed by
an Airbnb listing,” says claims that customer tailor-made order forms world with the help of an former WIRED cover star
co-founder Dennis Klett, satisfaction is above for firms and educational adviser. The company Ferran Adrià.
“but here you can set 95 per cent. Once it has quizzes for teachers. claims its centralised
your own rules.” The firm conquered Spain, Ulabox Advanced options incur a approach can save
now plans to invest in plans to expand into charge. It plans to open its customers up to 40
VR tools and a messenger other major European API and launch a new form per cent on insurance
bot. lodgify.com cities. ulabox.com builder. typeform.com premiums. coverfy.com

Hutoma Datumize Badi


Hutoma is a “botstore” Barcelona might still be playing Datumize discovers Carlos Pierre Trias de Bas
that sells AIs which can catch-up with some of Europe’s bigger and captures “dark founded Badi in 2015 after
connect to each other like players, but in the first quarter of 2017 data” that is difficult to reading about a woman
LEGO pieces. “My idea it completed the highest number of deals identify and collect for who found a flatmate on
was to create a neural since 2014, with 72 startups raising companies to turn into Tinder. “It highlights the
network I could train with funding. The city now fosters global usable information. It importance of seeing
Disney movies so my four- interest in newcomers through events charges a monthly or candidate profiles and
year-old son could talk such as 4YFN and Mobile World Congress. annual licence fee to connecting with them,” he
about them,” says founder New Spanish funds such as K Fund and access its proprietary says. Badi uses machine
Maurizio Cibelli. Hutoma Samaipata Ventures are also injecting technology. Customers learning to match people
has signed a deal with a resources. “There have been promising include Accenture and with empty rooms. It’s
large multinational and local startups that have challenged inter- Confidential Airlines, and raised €4 million and plans
plans to offer pay-as-you- national players,” says Seth Pierrepont, it has plans to expand to expand to Rome
go chatbots. hutoma.com an investor at Accel. “A key advantage has into Europe, Malaysia and Milan. badiapp.com
been leveraging their Spanish-speaking and North America.
background to expand into Latin America.” datumize.com

BARCELONA
 WORDS BY JOÃO MEDEIROS

WHERE TO E AT WHERE TO VISIT


Ober Mamma 107 Boulevard Richard Lenoir, 75011 Paris Station F 55 Boulevard Vincent-Auriol, 75013 Paris
An Italian in Paris? It’s worth it for the authentic ingredients and buzzy atmosphere. The world’s biggest startup campus is home to 1,000+ companies.

PARIS
BY JOÃO MEDEIROS 

48.8567° N, 2.3508° E

DAMAE Medical Zenly Algolia


Founded by 24-year- Zenly is the first French In June, real-time search
old Anaïs Barut in 2014, startup to raise startup Algolia raised
medtech startup DAMAE investment – €28 million, $53 million (£41m) in a
Medical has developed to be precise – from Series B round led by
a handheld probe Peter Fenton, one of Accel Partners, taking
that allows doctors to Silicon Valley’s top VCs. their investment fund to
instantly diagnose if skin Members of Zenly’s social $74.2 million. The Y
moles are cancerous or network can share their Combinator alumnus
benign. The device is location with family and counts Medium, Stripe,
able to obtain in-depth friends. “This may sound Twitch, Periscope,

PARIS images of the skin cell


patterns and distinguish
between normal skin-cell
totally 2010 but they
have managed incredible
growth,” says Roxanne
Crunchbase and
Vevo among its 3,000
customers, and handles
patterns and abnormal Varza, director of Station 25 billion searches a
ones. In May 2017, it F. Zenly founder Antoine month. Its new Algolia
announced the closing Martin, who developed Offline feature allows
of a €2 million (£1.67m) the product with former them to use the search
Emmanuel Macron’s victory in the investment round Google and Apple engine without a web
French presidential election on May with private investors engineers, says it has the connection. It plans to
7 was also a victory for the thriving and several VC firms. ambition to become open an office in London
Parisian tech community. “No one was damaemedical.fr the next Snapchat. zen.ly in 2017. algolia.com
expecting him to beat the old giants of
politics,” says Cedric Giorgi, director of
special projects at internet-of-things
startup SIGFOX. “But he did it, with a
young team and by leveraging digital.”
Macron is expected to announce Doctolib Stanley Robotics
reduced taxes on investment and to
launch a special visa scheme to attract Doctolib allows patients Developed by robotics
foreign tech workers. Meanwhile, the to book an appointment €350m experts Clément
city stands to gain further as Brexit with one of 17,000-plus November 2016 was a record Boussard and Stéphane
becomes a reality in the UK. “Macron medical doctors via month for investment in Evann, Stanley Robotics’
should continue to boost the digital its app. The service, French tech talent, Stan is a valet robot
section,” says Roxanne Varza, director launched by Stanislas with around €350 million that can park cars. Its
of incubator Station F. “Innovation is Niox-Chateau, Franck raised by startups electric platform moves
at the heart of his political project.” Tetzlaff, Ivan Schneider, and stores vehicles in
Jessy Bernal, Thomas reserved bays in private
Landais and Steve car parks, maximising
Abou Rjeily, costs €109 use of space by
per month. It recently increasing the number of
expanded to Berlin and vehicles in an area by 50
raised €26 million in a per cent. The company
Series C round. “They raised €3.6 million in
TECH INCUBATOR just signed with the 2017 from Elaia Partners,
The Family 25 Rue du Petit Musc, 75004 Paris Hôpitaux de Paris,” says Bpifrance and Idinvest
The Family’s mission is to support and educate Alice Zagury, CEO of Partners, and is already
entrepreneurs, taking five per cent equity in exchange for incubator The Family. < operating at the city’s
long-term support. With offices in London and Berlin, its “They are the market DAMAE Medical CEO and Charles de Gaulle Airport.
alumni include Algolia and Agricool. leader.” doctolib.com co-founder Anaïs Barut stanley-robotics.com

PARIS


Dataiku Sea Bubbles Agricool


Dataiku helps data In 2009, surfer Anders Agricool converts
scientists write their own Bringal and sailor Alain shipping containers
algorithms and manage Thébault broke a speed into greenhouses.
datasets. The company, record on board the The company’s 30m2
founded in 2013 by Florian Hydroptère, a trimaran “cooltainers” can grow
Douetteau, Marc Batty, that can “fly” over water. vegetables hydroponically;
Thomas Cabrol and Eight years later, their polluted air is filtered and
Clément Stenac, has startup uses battery- temperature, air, light, PayFit
been profitable since 2014 powered “Bubbles” to and hydration levels
and raised $14 million in shuttle passengers over regulated. The company PayFit’s software-as-
a Series A round in 2016. the River Seine. This claims this creates the a-service web interface
Clients include L’Oréal, zero-emission mode of conditions to produce helps more than 600
Hostelworld and Bechtel. transportation can hold 100 times more food companies manage their
“They are the best five passengers and has a than traditional farming payrolls and deal with
team I know in big data 100km range. Production methods. Founded in HR tasks from booking
and are rapidly expanding of the first fleet of Bubbles 2015 by Gonzague Gru holidays to managing
in the US,” says started in February and and Guillaume Fourdinier, recruitment. “If you
Nicolas Dessaigne, CEO it began its rollout this it plans to make 75 look at a French payslip
of Algolia. dataiku.com summer. seabubbles.fr containers. agricool.co you’ll understand why
we’re so needed,” Firmin
Zocchetto, PayFit’s CEO,
says. “There are around
40 lines of technical
details that most of us
don’t understand at all.”
The startup, founded
Payfit co-founders ( l-r) Florian Fournier, Ghislain de Fontenay and Firmin Zocchetto in 2016, has raised €5.6
million from Otium
Cityscoot Ventures and Station F
founder Xavier Niel.
Using the Cityscoot app, “We plan to expand
Parisians can reserve to Spain, Italy, the UK
and ride one of 1,000+ and Germany in 2018,”
50cc electric scooters says Zocchetto. “We’ve
in the city centre for already started to adapt
20 cents an hour. The our product to local
vehicles have a top speed labour rules.” payfit.com
of 45kph and a battery
range of 105km. CEO
Bertrand Fleurose, who
founded Cityscoot in 2014,
developed the idea over
the course of a decade
and now counts Mayor WHERE TO DRINK
of Paris Anne Hidalgo Le Barav
among its supporters. 6 Rue Charles-François
Fleurose is now planning Dupuis, 75003 Paris
to expand to other This bistro is great for “endless
European cities, including debates over wine”, says
London. cityscoot.eu The Family’s Fanny Lou-Benoit.

PARIS
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | PICTET

FOUNDERS’
GUIDE
/
This section, produced in
partnership with Pictet,
showcases some of the
best aspects of three
European tech hubs –
informed by the startup
founders who live in them
Illustration: Michele Marconi

LISBON_ Portugal’s vibrant capital is ISTANBUL_ Once a global trade capital, STOCKHOLM_ Comprising 14 islands,
a buzzing, historic city that balances Turkey’s largest city is now the the Baltic archipelago punches well
a laid-back vibe with a hunger to grow centre of the country’s thriving tech scene above its weight in the startup stakes
PICTET | WIRED PARTNERSHIP

Pictet’s chief strategist Christophe


Donay offers his take on the paradoxes
of the digital economy – and explains
the concept of the “innovation shock”

THE ROAD
AHEAD
We are in the midst of a radical technological

The telephone took In the first five months of 2017, the top ten
innovation shock, driven by progress in seven 66 years to reach stocks on the S&P – the large, innovation-
areas: the internet, IT and data processing, 50 per cent of US oriented companies such as Apple and
transport, automation, new energy, life sciences households. The Alphabet – contributed 45 per cent of per-
and smart materials. The shock has three key internet took just six formance, despite representing 17 per cent
characteristics from an economic perspective: ” of the index’s total capitalisation. Whether all
Christophe it is disruptive, deflationary and exponential. this adds to economic growth is a moot point.
Donay, chief At Pictet, we think the innovation shock helps Whole Foods might benefit from Amazon’s
strategist explain the paradoxes that are puzzling econo- online and distribution know-how to capture
at Pictet mists looking at the state of the world economy. business, but this does not mean additional
Private Bank By disruptive, we mean that the innovation economic activity is being generated.
shock is creating major upheaval within the
economy, with new, innovative companies cap-
turing business from traditional rivals. When
Amazon announced that it was buying Whole
Foods, both brands’ share prices rose, but other
food retailers traded down in the anticipation Above: The
that Amazon would capture market share and innovation shock
put pricing pressure on rivals. New-economy will speed up as
firms are increasingly dominating corporate AI impacts global
profit growth and leading the performance workforces and
of equity markets, putting the traditional drones take to
players under pressure. the airways
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | PICTET

IN THIS SECTION

/
LISBON
Portugal’s capital is a
thriving city and the
core of the country’s
startup ecosystem. In
the following pages, we
ask successful founders
from startups Codacy and
Unbabel to recommend
their best sites and bites
in the startup city.

//
STOCKHOLM
2016 was a strong year for
the Swedish capital, with
$1.2 billion in startup
investment seen in
the first six months.
Stockholm remains an
obvious draw for European
startups. We speak to
Aifloo and Dooer about
their favourite spots.

///
By deflationary, we mean that the more than 400 researchers. A small team ISTANBUL
innovation shock is, on average, pressing can now complete genome sequencing In the last two years, the
down on wages, adding to the pressures in about 24 hours, and sequencing costs reputation of Istanbul’s
that have prevailed since the financial are falling faster than Moore’s law. As a startup scene has grown
crisis of 2007–08. Job creation is sharply result, although the innovation shock is steadily. As Turkey’s
split between low value-added, low-wage still in its early stages with the effects economic, commercial and
and highly value-added innovation-led mostly concentrated in specific sectors, tech powerhouse, it’s little
activities – especially in the US. Automation it is accelerating sharply and set to have a surprise that companies
tilts remuneration further in favour of the revolutionary impact across the economy. such as shopping and
highly skilled – particularly those working The characteristics of this innovation delivery app Getir and
in sectors that provide the technical know- shock – disruptive, deflationary and expo- payments platform Iyzico
how for innovation. By contrast, the bulk of nential – help explain some key paradoxes are thriving.
the labour force are not benefiting from the of current economic conditions. First, why
innovation shock in terms of remuneration. wage growth and inflation remain low even
By exponential, we mean that the innova- though economic growth has been cycli-
tion shock is emerging at an exponentially cally picking up. Second, why, despite high
increasing pace. In general, the speed of profits and corporate margins at record lev-
technology adoption has increased over els, investment remains sluggish. Profits of political populism in developed economies
time. The telephone took 66 years to reach are concentrated, and since consumption – primarily a reaction to economic insecurity.
50 per cent of US households, the internet growth remains disappointing due to low With the innovation shock set to emerge
took six years. Mapping the first genome wage growth, firms are reluctant to invest at an exponential rate, this suggests
under the Human Genome Project took 13 in new capacity. In addition, the innovation that populism may well not have peaked.
years cost $3 billion (£2.34bn) and involved shock’s properties are contributing to the rise For more, see group.pictet
PICTET | WIRED PARTNERSHIP

LAUNCHING IN LISBON

/
Global city
The Startup Europe
Partnership, established
by the European
Commission, estimates
that 62 per cent of
investment into Portugal
comes from abroad. Lisbon LISBON Portugal’s vibrant
is by far the biggest draw capital is a buzzing, historic
for these funds, taking two city that balances its laid-back
thirds of that total. vibe with a hunger to grow

//
Skilled workforce
Portugal has a
multilingual population
rated as highly proficient
in English. Forty-two per
cent of its inhabitants
speak two languages
and 23 per cent speak
three. A quarter of the
population has a higher-
education qualification.

///
Cheap office space Codacy is proving invaluable for coders vide flexibility to adjust the code analysis
Operating costs in Lisbon who want to save time. The startup reck- experience” for each client. This enables it
are some of the lowest ons engineers spend 28 per cent of their to help companies implement its platform
in Europe. Cheap office time reviewing code, so its pitch is sim- based on specific needs. Once in place,
space is abundant, with ple: it enables workers to deploy better the platform reviews code, tracks issues
low corporation tax helping code, and to do so faster by automating – categorised based on severity – and
fledgling firms to get a Jaime Jorge, the review process. provides support through customisable
footing. Salaries are also Co-founder Founded in 2012 by CEO Jaime Jorge and static analysis and metrics.
competitive compared to & CEO, CTO João Caxaria, the startup received The community growing around the
northern Europe. Codacy $500,000 of seed funding in November Portuguese firm is testament to the trust
2013. In 2014 it claimed Web Summit’s BETA it’s earned. Codacy’s platform supports
Award, and gained further backing in 2015 13 languages, including Java, Python,
with $1.1 million of investment. PHP and XML. Yet 11 languages have been
Codacy’s success appears to stem added by the community, and each can
from a simple idea comprehensively de- be made the subject of their own static
livered. By automating code review, the analysis. The user community is a feath-
company currently reduces technical er in the cap for the startup, proving that
debt for more than 25,000 developers. At the coding community identifies with the
the core of this is its automated review issues the startup addresses.
tool. Yet around the core offering of add- For Codacy’s team, work goes on in Lis-
ed project oversight, Codacy has built a bon, where the startup launched. Proof that
flexible service standing it in good stead. the Portuguese capital can deliver highly
In the startup’s own words, it can “pro- technical, stable and scalable startups.
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | PICTET

Unbabel’s success is built on


AI-powered human translation
at scale. It’s a combination
which seems a perfect fit for
Lisbon’s tech-focused scene
and the international attention
Vasco Pedro, it is attracting. The startup’s
Co-founder & leveraging of machine learning
CEO, Unbabel and expert human editors is
providing companies such
as Pinterest, Trello and
Skyscanner, with trusted
and scalable multilingual
capabilities. Unbabel has been
through four rounds of funding
since its founding in 2013.
The latest, a Series A round
provided $5 million from
four investors. That figure
symbolises the strength
of service provided by the
Unbabel Language Engine – a
natural-language-processing
platform that Unbabel
claims reduces the cost of
translation by a factor of ten.

JAIME JORGE’S LISBON VASCO PEDRO’S LISBON

/ // /// /
A pitch over dinner Local networking Serendipitous meetings A pitch over dinner
“I really enjoy taking people “Many startups are found “There’s a great coffee “A favourite for Unbabel is
to experience some great downtown. Besides the shop in the Startup Pistola y Corazon in Cais
Portuguese food. For meetups organised by Lisboa building. Also, if do Sodre. With amazing,
a fantastic meal, I the likes of Uniplaces you grab a bifana [pork tiny tacos, it ranks highly
would take a client to and Codacy, there are sandwich] at As Bifanas for producing the best
Cervejaria Ramiro or spots where founders Do Afonso, you’ll probably margaritas in Lisbon. For
Solar dos Presuntos like to meet, like Startup find people from Codacy fine dining, the Avillez
[both central Lisbon].” Lisboa and Betal.” enjoying them.” restaurants are a delight.”

//// ///// //
Why choose Lisbon? What makes it so vibrant? Serendipitous meetings
“There’s opportunity in “A thriving ecosystem is “Bairro Alto is the original
being in Lisbon as we have empowering more people centre of Lisbon’s
great talent moving here, a to create new products. A nightlife, with dozens
newly found sense of being Portuguese founder thinks of options. For something
European – more people globally from day one, as a little more laid back
are visiting than ever – and our market is not large and classy, you can’t
VCs that welcome the enough to create a scalable go wrong with Bar Foxtrot
opportunity to invest.” VC-backed business.” in Principe Real.”
PICTET | WIRED PARTNERSHIP

ISTANBUL Once a global trade


capital, Turkey’s largest city is now
the centre of its thriving tech scene

Founded in July 2015, Getir’s USP is


on-demand purchase and deli ver y.
Like a blend of Amazon, Deliveroo and
Ocado, Getir combines urban logistics
with an app-based interface to provide
the delivery of products and items to
customers in Istanbul, in an average of
ten minutes. By March 2017, the compa-
ny had completed more than one million
deliveries in Istanbul alone, using its own
urban delivery network.
Getir lets its users order from a range
of 600-plus products – including food
and drink, home products and toiletries
– and pay for them via credit card. Once MERT SALUR’S ISTANBUL
purchased, the goods are delivered with
live tracking that helps customers keep / //
up with the progress of their order. The pitch over dinner Serendipitous meetings
In March 2017, Getir teamed up with “I would suggest Lucca “There aren’t any go-to
Mastercard’s Masterpass to introduce on Cevdet Pasa Cd, spots for founders in
a new payment method for its mobile Mert Salur, Papermoon, Nusr-Et Istanbul. But co-working
users. Now, consumers can shop 24/7 on Founder, [owned by Saltbae chef places such as Kolektif
any device using the Facebook Messenger Getir Nusret Gökçe], Zuma, House and Atölye have
chat screen and ordering through Getir’s or Balıkçı Abdullah. It all events where founders are
automated sales assistant. depends on the mood.” likely to congregate.”

LAUNCHING HERE

/ //
Why choose Istanbul? What makes it so vibrant?
“Istanbul chose me: I was “Startups all over the city
born here and grew up try to address the needs
here. Apart from the emo- and make life just a bit
tional side, this is a city of easier. Turkish business
15 million people. Istanbul people are likely to want
basically has cities within to run their own business
it – it’s incredibly vibrant rather than work for
and ever-changing.” established corporations.”
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | PICTET

STOCKHOLM Comprising 14 islands,


the Baltic archipelago punches well
above its weight on the global stage

Founded by Sam Nurmi, Dooer is making


Çagdas Önen, the most of Stockholm’s recent growth.
Marketing The city’s startups attracted more than
manager, $890 million of investment in 2015, a fig-
iyzico ure dwarfed by the $1.2 billion invested in
startups in the first six months of 2016.
Payments platform iyzico was Some of that year’s record investment
launched by Barbaros Özbug- landed with Dooer.
utu and Tahsin Isın in 2012. Founded in 2015, the cloud-based
With backgrounds in software accountancy service uses AI and visual
development in Germany, the recognition to automate tasks, delivering
co-founders sought to provide a a real-time simulated annual statement. In
secure payment-management 2016, it secured $4.6 million in investment.
platform to serve companies The Dooer platform integrates with
of any size, operating in any Sweden’s tax authorities and customers’
industry. The Istanbul startup bank accounts, providing notifications
has since raised $24 million via its mobile app of any tasks required
from five rounds of investment. to keep accounts up to date. Built into
Often dubbed the Stripe of the platform are comprehensive payroll,
Turkey, iyzico’s strength lies tax and monthly and annual statement
in its flexibility for its clients services, meaning all requirements for
– customers can choose from account overviews are all available for
more than 22 payment options businesses of all sizes.
through the platform. Dooer offers its service for a set price,
It also enables sales through with fees based on businesses’ annual
instalment payment. In April turnover. Costs start at £27 per month
2017, iyzico was providing its for revenues of up to £46,000.
services for more than 200,000 The company wants to revolutionise
CAGDAS ÖNEN’S ISTANBUL
vendor accounts. Current accountancy, and refers to itself as a
clients include Zara, Samsung future accounting firm. By providing
/ and Onedio. The platform services for payroll, financial reports,
Networking with locals also acts as a launchpad for annual reports and tax functions across
“My favourite spot is Kolektif foreign firms looking to break a mobile app and web portal – all of which
House – a great community into the Turkish market. is backed by the suppor t of real ac-
of startups, investors and By incorporating the iyzico counting professionals – its claim is fast
accelerators, along with platform, end users receive becoming a reality. 
corporates and freelancers. the same seamless shopping
I spend a minimum of two experience as they would with
days a week there.” local merchants.

//
Why choose Istanbul?
“Istanbul is at the
crossroads of Europe and
Asia, with influences from
both continents. There are
many challenges in this
city waiting to be solved, so
it acts as a good launchpad
for entrepreneurs.”
PICTET | WIRED PARTNERSHIP

Michael Collaros,
CEO &
co-founder,
Aifloo

Aifloo seeks to revolutionise


care of the elderly, by
leveraging the cloud, AI and
smart sensors. Founded by
Felix Etzler, Anders Widgren
and Michael Collaros, the
company’s products include
Aifloo Mind and Aifloo Alert.
Mind is a self-learning
system for nursing and
residential homes. It provides
information relating to
activity levels, sleep and
eating habits, as well as
behavioural patterns to care
givers. Data is gathered by
a smart band worn by the
person in care, allowing Mind
to learn their habits and
behaviours, notifying
care-givers in the event of
any unexpected changes.
SAM NURMI’S STOCKHOLM M. COLLAROS’S STOCKHOLM Aifloo Alert is for day-to-
day use in regular home
/ // / environments, providing
Pitch over dinner Serendipity Chilled meeting medication alarms and
“One of my favourite “You can bump into “There is a certain charm in night-supervision, as well as
restaurants is Mathias founders on Stureplan taking a business partner alerts for friends or relatives.
Sam Nurmi, Dahlgren’s bistro and Vasastan, and from a meeting directly to Built with user integrity,
Founder, Matbaren. Away from you could probably the unmarked entrances of privacy and security in
Dooer the centre, Oaxen (Krog meet entrepreneurs the city’s hidden venues. mind, a recent £1.5 million
and Slip editions) on by hanging around Check out The Burgundy or investment shows the faith in
Djurgården is a highlight.” Spårvagnshallarna.” The Flying Elk.” Aifloo’s tactile approach.

LAUNCHING IN STOCKHOLM

/ // //
Why Stockholm? Vibrancy factor Serendipity
“I launched my previous “Because Stockholm “You might want to steer
startup in my home town of is considered to be to Östermalm or Stureplan
Västerås and that worked Sweden’s tech startup for finance, legal, fashion
out pretty well. For Dooer, capital, it makes it easier or music. Gamla stan
it made sense to launch in to find the right people is up-and-coming for
Stockholm since it’s the and connect with programmers, social tech
hub of the accounting and the right partners if you and government, or hipster
bookkeeping industry.” are located here.” Södermalm for creatives.”
BY LIAT CL ARK 019

41.0082 ° N, 28.9 78 4° E

Sinemia Apsiyon
VISIT Rıfat Oùuz wants to get Launched in 2011 by
In May, Bo aziçi University more people into theatres Meric Akdamar, Erkan
launched the Startup with Sinemia, a cinema- Dogan and Kudret Turk,
Carnival, inviting founders subscription service. Apsiyon helps landlords
and angel investors Premium members can see and property managers
to share their stories. one film a day for the price streamline accounting,
of two tickets a month billing and communication
and get access to special with tenants. It recently
events and discounts. It raised $2.5 million and
raised $1.5 million (£1.17m) its mobile app, launched
from Revo Capital for US in January 2017, was
expansion and plans downloaded 50,000

ISTANBUL to launch in 20 countries


in 2017. sinemia.com
times in its first five
months. apsiyon.com

Iyzico Kolay IK Getir


Just months after 2016’s attempted Aggregate payment Beyo ùlu-based Kolay “In my first startup,
coup and the subsequent political platform Iyzico was IK wants to streamline BiTaksi, we sent
crackdowns, Turkish startups received founded in 2012; in that the human-resource customers taxis within
43 funding rounds, investments from time it has gone from departments of Turkey’s three minutes,” says
Middle East-based VCs and big-money IP- three to 94 employees, three million SMEs by co-founder Nazım Salur.
focused seed funds. Raising capital gained more than 200,000 integrating employee meal “I thought, ‘What else can
to grow beyond seed stage, however, seller accounts and, in the cards, insurance providers we send?’” Getir delivers
remains a key obstacle for local past year, raised $15m. and banking details for 700 items to customers in
companies. “Most international investors It’s aiming to become the a monthly fee. It raised an average of ten minutes,
are more cautious about investing in “payment champion” of $450,000 in July 2016 and through its franchise
Turkish startups, which makes later- any location within three plans to expand into at network. It’s on track to
stage rounds harder to raise,” says Firat hours’ flight time from least one more country hit two million orders by
Ileri, partner at Hummingbird Ventures. Istanbul. iyzico.com in 2018. kolayik.com autumn 2017. getir.com

Teleporter Scorp Monument Insider Modacruz


Virtual-reality platform Social-media site Scorp This small device and its Insider’s algorithms help Launched in 2014 by Melis
Teleporter specialises launched in 2015; since accompanying app uses tailor marketing for every Guctas, Modacruz is
in the live entertainment then, more than 23 million machine learning to website or app visit, with an online marketplace in
industry. It launched short videos have been sort and store photos by clients including Toyota which visitors can buy
a service, available on created on the platform. face or content. Since and UNIQLO. Following and sell pre-owned luxury
VR devices, that uses Aimed at 18- to 24-year- making our 2016 list, it has a $2.2 million funding womenswear and other
augmented reality to olds, it has ten million generated $900,000 in round in September 2016, fashion items. The site
make sports, eSports registered users and revenue from 94 countries, it raised an undisclosed has 1.5 million members
and music events revenue has grown by 100 shipped 7,500 units to amount from 500 and hosts more than five
more social. The startup per cent. It’s also popular early backers and raised Startups in January. million products. It recently
opened a San Francisco in Mexico after shaky $400,000. Its next move: It also plans to be in 25 launched a sister site
office in June 2017. launches in Germany and bringing its AI support to countries by the end aimed at parents, called
teleporter.tv the US. scorpapp.com video. getmonument.com of 2018. useinsider.com Bebecruz. modacruz.com

ISTANBUL
 BY OLIVER FRANKLIN-WALLIS

32.0853° N, 34.7818° E

Silicon Wadi – as the tech hub in Tel


Aviv is known – remains the exit capital.
Intel, Apple, Snapchat and Huawei have
all made big-money Israeli acquisitions
in the last year; most notably, Intel’s
$15.3 billion (£12bn) acquisition of
autonomous-driving startup Mobileye.
However, the trend towards large IPOs
has fallen in recent times, with the start-
up-and-exit mentality being replaced

TEL AVIV by a trend for scaling companies.


World-class technical universities,
plus expertise developed by Israel’s
defence industry and deep links with
the US market, has led to a wealth of
startups in security and computer
vision. But there’s breadth, too: “Tel
Aviv has never been so cosmopolitan
and open,” says Adam Fisher from
WHERE TO STAY Bessemer Venture Partners. “This means
P o l i H o u s e Nahalat Binyamin St 1, Tel Aviv that Israelis are becoming more worldly
This new 40-room boutique hotel is housed to compete at an international level.”
in a Bauhaus building that dates back to the 1930s.

Dapulse JFrog Airobotics


As remote working JFrog builds open-source The industrial market
becomes more software distribution for drones is taking off.
commonplace, tools tools including Bintray, Founded in 2014 by Meir
for online collaboration which automates Kliner and Ran Krauss,
are having a moment software distribution, Airobotics has built
– see the rapid growth and Artifactory, which an early lead, building
of Slack and Trello. manages binary autonomous quadcopters
Launched in 2012 by Roy code. This is huge for industrial inspection,
Man and Eran Zinman, for developers, which mapping and security.
Dapulse’s project- explains why JFrog’s Its drones launch and
management software clients include Google, land from a toolshed-
lets teams centralise Amazon, Netflix and sized box for charging
WHERE TO WORK emails, documents Adobe. In 2016, the and maintenance, and
Mindspace and presentations. Its company raised $50 its clients pay a monthly
Rothschild Blvd 45, Tel Aviv simplicity has led to million for rapid expansion fee for their use. The
The Israeli-founded word-of-mouth growth: – including acquiring company has raised $28
co-working chain has two clients include adidas, complimentary startups million to date, has former
spaces in the heart of the city Uber and the WeWork in order to own the Waze co-founder Noam
on Rothschild. It benefits co-working community. In exploding DevOps market. Bardin on its board and
from a thriving community April, it raised $25 million The company says its already has industrial
and has now expanded to expand further into the revenues grew eightfold clients in the chemicals
to six international locations. US. dapulse.com in 2016. jfrog.com industry. airobotics.co.il

TEL AVIV


WHERE TO DRINK
Twiggle ‘TEL AV I V H AS N EV ER Bell Boy
BEEN SO COSMOPOLITA N, Berdyczewski St 14, Tel Aviv-Yafo, 64258
Twiggle wants to make MEA N ING ISR AELIS This speakeasy-style bar serves some of the finest cocktails in
online shopping easier ARE BECOMING the city, presented with 50s flair – come for the sculptural
with smarter search. MOR E WOR LDLY TO creations, stay for the next pass through of the shot trolley.
Founded in 2014 by former COMPETE AT A N
Google employees Amir INTER NATIONAL LEV EL’
Konigsberg and Avi Avidor, ( Left-right) Taranis co-founder Eli Bukchin,
the company’s natural- – ADAM FISHER, BESSEMER co-founder Ofir Schlam, senior software
language search lets V ENTURE PARTNERS engineer Asaf Horvitz and co-founder Ayal Karmi
e-commerce sites search
with granular detail. For
instance, rather than
saying “chair”, a customer
could type “red art deco
chair with wooden legs”.
Crucially, the company
says it works within
existing search engines.
It has raised $33 million
from investors to date.
twiggle.com

Taranis
Farmers worldwide lose
up to 23 per cent of their
annual yield – worth
$300 billion – to crop
disease. Taranis, founded
in 2015, uses an array
of farm data – including
aerial imagery, sensors,
weather stations and a
smartphone app, to map
farms and predict crops
at risk of blight. The
company is now working
with industrial farms in
Russia, Brazil, Argentina
and the US. “To farmers
who have small margins,
a two per cent yield
increase is a 20 per
cent profit increase,”
says co-founder
Ofir Schlam. taranis.ag

TEL AVIV


OrCam
Bringg Deep Instinct Technologies
Logistics startup Bringg Deep learning enables Ziv Aviram and Amnon
promises to let any machines to recognise Shashua – who in March
business compete with cats on YouTube and sold Mobileye to Intel
Amazon when it comes hear the word “Alexa” in for $15 billion – founded

$15 billion
to last-mile delivery. a crowded bar – so why OrCam in 2010 to provide
Founded in 2013 by not spot cyberattacks? computer-assisted vision
Raanan Cohen and former Founded in 2014 by Eli for the blind. Using a Mobileye’s sale to Intel in March 2017
Gett CTO Lior Sion, the Tel David and Guy Caspi, frame-mounted camera was the startup nation’s biggest ever,
Aviv- and Chicago-based Deep Instinct has trained that is connected to a exceeding the $10 billion
firm lets companies a neural network with pocket-sized base unit, the total for all tech exits in 2016 alone.
interact online with hundreds of millions of $3,500 glasses can read
delivery drivers equipped malicious files. The result text aloud and recognise
with an Uber-style app is an AI that Deep Instinct faces and common
to manage routes and claims can detect zero- objects. In February, the
keep abreast of orders. day exploits. The company company raised $41
It’s raised $21 million has won several industry million, at a $600 million
from investors including awards, and plans to valuation, from investors
Aleph Venture Capital and expand into the US market including Intel. An IPO
Coca-Cola. bringg.com in 2018. deepinstinct.com is next. orcam.com Nexar Beyond Verbal
Nexar is a car dashcam “Research shows
with a difference. Its that about 40 per cent
smartphone app analyses of a conversation’s
video in real time to detect meaning is taken from
potential dangers that the tone of voice,” says
could lead to collisions, Yuval Mor, CEO of Beyond
automatically recording Verbal. Launched
dangerous incidents in 2012, the startup’s
and, crucially, issuing voice-recognition
real-time alerts to nearby software can sense
cars. Founded in 2015, emotional content. It’s
the company has already so accurate, the firm
raised $14.5 million claims, that it could be
from investors such as able to detect conditions
Mosaic Ventures and has including Parkinson’s
partnered with companies and heart problems, just
including navigation app from long-term changes
Waze. getnexar.com in “vocal biomarkers”.
“With Parkinson’s and
autism, you can hear that
something is wrong,”
says Mor. The company
has raised more than $12
million to fund further
research in collaboration
with the Mayo Clinic.
Early results, Mor
says, look promising.
beyondverbal.com
Beyond Verbal
CEO Yuval Mor

TEL AVIV
BY JOÃO MEDEIROS 

38.7223° N, 9.1393° W

Attentive Unbabel Feedzai


Founded by Pedro Araújo, Y Combinator alumnus Feedzai can detect
Luís Braga and former Unbabel translates online commercial-transaction
Google engineer Daniel content for Pinterest, fraud in real time by
Araújo, Attentive is an Skyscanner, Under examining payments
information-assistant tool Armour, Trello and Oculus. and flagging unusual
for sales teams. Its app The startup, founded in behaviour. Founded by
integrates with CRM tools 2013 by Vasco Pedro, João Nuno Sebastião, Paulo
such as Salesforce and Graça, Sofia Pessanha, Marques and Pedro
Hubspot and sends alerts Bruno Silva and Hugo Bizarro in 2009 (“Before
about their clients and Silva, uses machine everyone else was talking
competitors. It has been learning and 50,000 about AI,” says Talkdesk
selected to take part in the humans to translate text. co-founder Cristina
2017 Techstars Boulder
programme. attentive.us LISBON It has raised $8 million
(£6.3m). unbabel.com
Fonseca), it has raised
$26 million. feedzai.com

Zaask Misk Landing.jobs Uniplaces


Launched in 2012, Zaask Google alumnus Landing.jobs matches WHERE TO VISIT Founded by Miguel Amaro,
helps companies to Madalena Rugeroni, Sofia tech professionals with Beta-i, Av Casal Ribeiro 28. Ben Grech, Leo Lara and
hire and rate service Pitta and Daniel Rosa companies looking for This organisation runs Mariano Kostelec in 2012,
professionals, from interior launched Misk, an invite- talent. Founded by José events and acceleration this online platform for
designers to language only social network for Paiva and Pedro Oliveira, programmes like the Lisbon student accommodation
teachers. It operates in foodies, in 2016. The it vets job offers and Challenge, which has lists more than 40,000
Portugal, Spain, Germany, Instagram -style app evaluates talent. Also invested more than €53 properties in 15 cities
the UK and Brazil and has lets its community based in London, Landing. million (£44m) in 80 startups. across Europe. It has
raised $2.66 million from share recommendations jobs has raised $820,000 raised $28.94 million
Shilling Capital Partners, for more than 3,500 from Portugal Ventures from investors including
Portugal Ventures, restaurants and bars, and its customers include Atomico, and its
Faber Ventures and Busy from Mexico to Indonesia. Spotify, Typeform and revenues quadrupled in
Angels. zaask.com miskapp.com Farfetch. landing.jobs 2016. uniplaces.com

SWORD Health Chic by Choice Mellow


Medtech startup SWORD Founded in 2012 by Filipa Launched by Catarina Boosted by the arrival of the annual
Health uses AI and Neto and Lara Vidreiro, Violante and Jose Web Summit conference (previously held
tracking to digitise human dress-rental startup Chic Pedro Ferreira, Mellow in Dublin), Lisbon’s startup community
motion and give real-time by Choice applies the has created a $400 is thriving – with healthy support from
feedback to patients during sharing economy model to sous-vide machine the Portuguese government. In June
physical rehabilitation. high fashion. “We believe that’s controllable by 2016, it created a national network of
It can be used at home the future will be all about smartphone; users tech hubs and the StartUP Voucher
without supervision, rotating closets,” Neto can program it to cook initiative that gives more than 400
with doctors providing said at WIRED Retail 2016. remotely at a specific time entrepreneurs a one-year fellowship to
feedback remotely. The “You’ll still have your and temperature. As well pursue their ventures. “The economic
startup has partnerships basics, but you will be able as Lisbon, the company crisis served as a catalyst to entrepre-
with hospitals in the to have a lot more fun has offices in San neurship,” says Pedro Costa, venture
US, China, Sweden and with fashion experiments.” Francisco and Shenzhen. partner at Faber Ventures. “The scarcity
Portugal. swordhealth.com chic-by-choice.com cookmellow.com of capital made projects more resilient.”

LISBON
 BY JAMES TEMPERTON

59.3293° N, 18.0686° E

Detectify Greta
Security firm Detectify The internet is scaling
scans websites to provide fast: Cisco predicts
in-depth analysis of that a million minutes
potential malware risks. of video content will
It raised $1.07 million cross the network every
(£836,000) in January second by 2020. Greta’s
2017 from Helsinki-based AI aims to optimise this
Inventure Oy. Founded infrastructure and work
by 27-year-old Fredrik out the best route
Nordberg Almroth in 2012, for traffic – such as

STOCKHOLM the firm recently launched


a bug-bounty programme
with white-hat hackers.
video and images –
to take, using an
analytics dashboard.
“We’re working to increase Its allows peer-to-
the number of modules peer networking where
from this group of connectivity is poor,
freelance hackers,” says meaning faster content
When it comes to hosting billion- CEO Rickard Carlsson. download times,
dollar startups, the Swedish capital Customers include Trello, particularly in markets
is second only to Silicon Valley. Its King, TrustPilot and Le such as Asia, the Middle
secret? An international outlook and Monde. detectify.com East and Africa where
a thriving ecosystem that’s now home web demand outpaces
to a growing number of serial entrepre- the development of web
neurs. “Sweden is such a small country, infrastructure. Founded
we have to learn about the rest of the in 2015 by Dennis
world fairly early on,” says Ted Persson, Martensson and Anna
design partner at Stockholm-based Watty Ottosson, the company
investor EQT Ventures. raised €1.03 million
And with success comes investment. The Watty is a small (£804,500) in seed
EQT, Northzone and Creandum have device that connects to funding from BlueYard
all launched major new funds in recent a fusebox and monitors Capital the following
years, with a lot of that money pouring household electricity year. greta.io
into Stockholm’s startups. Co-working use. Its companion
spaces are also becoming more common- smartphone app uses
place, with openings focusing on verticals algorithms to detect
such as healthcare or hardware startups. and identify appliances
“Stockholm has lagged behind and in the home based on >
we’ve always had to go to London or the energy usage patterns. Greta CEO and co-founder
US for money, but now more companies This information can then Anna Ottosson
stay where they are,” Persson says. be used to save money
on bills and cut down on
carbon emissions. The
FACT company raised $3.32
IKEA Kungens Kurva is the million in funding from
retailer’s second-largest store Cleantech Invest and EQT
in the world. Its 55,200m2 of Ventures in July 2016.
floor space is only bettered by Watty employs 22 people
South Korea’s Gwangmyeong at its offices in Stockholm
store, at 59,000m 2. and Palo Alto. watty.io

STOCKHOLM
KRY
Healthcare startup KRY
connects patients with
doctors and therapists
anytime and anywhere,
using its smartphone
app. The company,
which has more than
100,000 patients, works
with over 100 doctors in
Sweden, who split their
time between face-to-
face appointments at
GP clinics and online
consultations. Founded in
2014, the company raised
a $6.8 million seed round
in August 2016. The
service provides more
than one per cent
of Sweden’s GP visits in
primary care. kry.se

Natural Cycles
Natural Cycles uses
algorithms to monitor
female fertility. Founded in
2013 by Elina Berglund and
husband Raoul Scherwitzl,
the app has more than
200,000 users in 161
countries. It uses body
temperature to measure
fertility and can determine
if it is safe to have
unprotected sex based
on statistical methods
developed by Berglund
during her time at CERN.
In February 2017 it became
WHERE TO STAY WHERE TO E AT the first app to be approved
Hotel Skeppsholmen Te a t e r n a t R i n g e n for use as a contraceptive
Gröna Gången 1, 111 49 Stockholm Götgatan 100, 118 62 Stockholm by a major European
Located on a tiny island slap-bang in the middle of the city, These market stalls are run by a selection of top chefs who testing organisation.
this hotel has great views and stylish rooms. serve fast, delicious food from brunch until sundown. naturalcycles.com

STOCKHOLM
 BY JAMES TEMPERTON

Epidemic Sound Karma


With half a million Karma partners with WHERE TO WORK
subscribers and a businesses with the aim SUP46
catalogue of more than to reduce edible food Regeringsgatan 65, 111 56 Stockholm
30,000 broadcast-quality waste. Kitchens sell their Founded in 2013, the SUP46 hub and
tracks, Epidemic Sound surplus food through co-working space is now home to more than 60
aims to simplify the Karma at a discounted startups. Have some fika and find out
licensing of music for price and people can buy who’s who in Stockholm’s bustling scene.
online use. The company it directly through its app.
was founded back in Launched in November
2009 and raised $1 million 2016, it has 100,000 users
in April 2017 to grow its and has raised €1 million
staff to 130 by the end of Lifesum from investors. As well Karma co-founders ( l-r) Elsa Bernadotte, Mattis Larsson,
the year. Co-founder and as handling edible waste Ludvig Berling and Hjalmar Stahlberg Nordegren
CEO Oscar Höglund has a Health and fitness for Scandic and Choice
background in television startup Lifesum has 20 Hotels, the startup works
production; co-founder million registered users, with more than 400
Peer Åström is a music five million of whom restaurants, cafés and
producer whose CV have joined in the past 12 grocery stores and says
includes Madonna and months. Its smartphone it has saved an estimated
TV sing-a-long Glee. app combines health 15,000kg of food to
epidemicsound.com data with fitness targets date. karmafoods.de
to create customised
exercise and diet plans.
“We are spending more
and more time trying to
understand what keeps
us from establishing
Soundtrap and maintaining healthy Instabridge
habits,” says CEO Henrik
GarageBand competitor Torstensson. Lifesum has Instabridge lets people
Soundtrap raised a €5.5 59 employees and raised share their Wi-Fi and
million Series A round $10 million in a July 2016 access other hotspots
from Stockholm-based Series B funding round around the world. The
Industrifonden in October led by Nokia. lifesum.com smartphone app is used
2016. The browser-based by more than two million
software lets people people to access upwards
collaborate on music and of a million password-
podcast projects on any protected Wi-Fi networks.
device. Founded in 2012 by Details are stored in a
a team with backgrounds ‘SWEDEN IS crowdsourced database,
in music and business SUCH A SMALL allowing anyone with the WHERE TO VISIT
development, Soundtrap COUNTRY, WE Instabridge app to log in Storkyrkobadet
is now used in more HAVE TO LEARN and get online. Popular in Svartmangatan 20, 111 29 Stockholm
than 190 countries. It is ABOUT THE REST developing markets such This traditional and little-known bathhouse is hidden
also part of the Google OF THE WORLD as Brazil, India and Mexico, beneath the tourist-packed streets of Gamla Stan.
Education programme FAIRLY EARLY ON’ the company has raised It’s open for men on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays
and is used in schools $4 million from investors and women on Mondays and Thursdays.
across Europe and North – TED PERSSON, including Balderton
America. soundtrap.com EQT V ENTURES Capital. instabridge.com

STOCKHOLM
BY MAT T BURGESS 

52.3702° N, 4.8952° E

EclecticIQ Picnic Revue


Most companies don’t Picnic delivers food using Founded by Martijn de
know the extent of the a fleet of 200 electric Kuijper and Mohamed El
cyberthreats that are vehicles. The shopless Maslouhi, Revue lets its
targeting their systems, firm has its own fulfilment customers curate content
says Joep Gommers. His centres and only orders from across the web in
startup, EclecticIQ helps food from suppliers once email digests. A Chrome
its customers conduct customers have paid. extension clips articles
cybercrime investigations “We’re reducing the time into a template and
by providing threat people waste on shopping, social-media integration
intelligence for specific so they can do more fun allows rich content to be
industries, as well as or useful things,” says embedded. The price that
warning them of potential co-founder Michiel Muller. customers pay depends on

AMSTERDAM security dangers.


eclecticiq.com
It operates in 24
Dutch cities. picnic.nl
the number of newsletter
recipients. getrevue.co

Vandebron Bomberbot Bynder


Aart van Veller’s startup Bomberbot uses puzzle This marketing firm, run Amsterdam’s English-speaking
believes energy production games to teach 12- to by CEO and founder community and convenient location
can be local. Customers 14-year-olds coding skills. Chris Hall, lets brands makes it an ideal place for startups to
select producers such as In the past year, the bring their assets flourish. “The city is seen as a gateway to
farmers with wind turbines nine-person firm reached together by creating Europe and used as a launching pad for
on their land, and agree 100,000 users, raised pre-approved templates, EU test markets,” says Keadyn investor
to have their electricity £638,000 and launched images and branded and partner Ton van ’t Noordende. An
supplied by them. More a pilot in Hong Kong with content. A $22.2 million increase in specialised tech events – from
than 100,000 people have 3,000 children testing its (£17m) Series A round AI to VR – has drawn more investors to
signed up, and in February platform. If successful, raised by Insight Venture the city. “There’s been notable attention
2016 Vandebron raised more than 900 schools Partners in August 2016 from top-tier venture capitalists scouting
€2 million (£1.8m) to boost will adopt its technology. is helping expansion for startups in Amsterdam from the
growth. vandebron.nl bomberbot.com plans. bynder.com US, Germany, the UK and the Nordics.”

Bloomon Tiqets PastBook Blendle


WHERE TO EAT Bloomon offers regular Covering more than 20 PastBook lets you create Journalism micropayment
Prins Bernhardplein 175, 1097 flower deliveries to cities, 75-person firm photobooks from pictures company Blendle allows
Sleek dining until 1am in a homes and businesses. Tiqets lets its customers posted to social media. subscribers (it claims it
converted Renault garage. Launched in 2014 by buy smartphone passes to Facebook and Instagram has one million) to pay for
Patrick Hurenkamp, tourist attractions without integrations allow for single articles from news
the subscription-based having to print them out. photos, captions and outlets – typically around
firm aims to deliver As well as its Amsterdam dates to be added to a €0.35 a pop, but there’s
fresh bunches 36 hours HQ, it has offices in book and printed. Founded also a “Premium” model
after they have been New York, Rome, Paris, by Stefano Cutello, of 20 articles per day for
picked. In February 2017 Barcelona and Vienna. A PastBook says it takes €9.99 a month. Nikkei,
it raised $23 million in customer-facing approach less than a minute to the owner of the Financial
a Series B funding round helped it to secure a £13 create an album on which Times and Amsterdam-
led by Fortino Capital. million funding round social-media friends can based INKEF Capital are
bloomon.co.uk in April 2017. tiqets.com collaborate. pastbook.com investors. blendle.com

AMSTERDAM
 BY OLIVER FRANKLIN-WALLIS

Starship
Monzo Digital shadows Technologies WHERE
TO EAT
Monzo wants to make The Sony hack; Ashley In the future, your pizza Borough Market
banking smarter. Founded Madison; Yahoo!; the may be delivered by a Standing defiant
in 2015 by Tom Blomfield, DNC – large-scale machine – and Starship after June’s terror
Jonas Huckestein, Jason hacking and leaks are Technologies wants to attack, London’s
Bates, Paul Rippon and now a regular occurrence. build it. Founded in 2014 by oldest food market
Gary Dolman, it offers Digital Shadows wants to Skype co-founders Janus is booming again.
pre-paid cards connected protect companies from Friis and Ahti Heinla, the
to an app that tracks such events. Founded in London- and Tallinn-
spending and lets its 2011 by Alastair Paterson based startup has built an
customers analyse their and James Chappell, autonomous, six-wheeled
financial activity. But the startup’s technology delivery robot. Sounds
that’s only the start: in monitors more than 100 crazy? While drones need
April 2017, the company million data sources in to fight new regulations
was granted a full banking real time to detect leaks, (and gravity), Starship
licence, and raised £19.5 breaches and attacks has already run tests in
million in a Series C being planned. It counts 16 countries, partnering
funding round to launch several of the largest with the likes of Just
a full set of banking banks as clients, and in Eat and Domino’s Pizza,
products, starting with a 2016 raised £10.8 million and raised £13.4 million
smarter current account. to expand further into the in funding. Advantage
monzo.com US. digitalshadows.com groundbots. starship.xyz

Nested 51.5074° N, 0.1278° E

One of a growing number


of UK property – or
proptech – startups,
Nested guarantees that
it will sell your house
within 90 days, or buy it
LONDON
themselves. Launched
in 2016 by Phil Cowans,
James Turford and As London’s startup community awaits the result of
GoCardless founder Matt Brexit negotiations – and its impact on single-market
Robinson, the company access – one might think tech would have ground to
guarantees house owners a halt. But growth continues: the last 18 months have
95 per cent of market seen billion-dollar valuations for TransferWise, Funding
value; in return, they take Circle and Improbable, and a near-unicorn valuation for
20 per cent of commission Deliveroo. Property tech is a hot sector and banking
on sales above valuation. remains vital, but, like the capital’s citizens, its strength
Although it has only is in diversity. “The energy and excitement is fantastic
closed a handful of sales, – new money is flowing in and businesses created every
to date, the startup day,” says Martha Lane Fox, founder of doteveryone.
raised £8 million in March “Recent endorsements of the UK by Apple, Google,
2017 from investors Facebook and Snapchat demonstrate that London is
including Passion Capital still attractive for global businesses,” says Gerard
and a number of angel Grech, CEO of Tech City UK. “We do not fear competition
investors. nested.com from the continent. Indeed, it can only be a good thing.”

LONDON


WHERE TO NETWORK WHERE TO STAY


London’s thriving startup scene is leading an explosion in The Ned, 27 Poultry, EC2R 8AJ
networking events, from the ever-popular Founders Forum Soho House’s new £200m hotel and club complex has
to VRLO and London.AI. And, of course, our own WIRED LIVE, nine restaurants, 252 rooms and a member’s club – and
coming to Tobacco Dock on November 2-4… is the capital’s best night out for celebrity spotting.

Mush
“A huge amount of new
mothers feel incredibly
isolated when they have
a baby,” says Sarah
Hesz. Launched by Hesz
and Katie Massie-Taylor
in 2016, mush’s “ Tinder
for mums” app lets
new parents connect
with others locally, chat,
swap and sell items.
After raising £650,000
on Crowdcube, the app
has reached more than
40,000 UK downloads
and is growing in the US,
Canada and Australia.
Parent-tech is a growing
field: a rival app,
Peanut , launched in
February 2017,
with sites like Mumsnet
slow to transition to
mobile. “Millennials
are becoming parents,
and they have different
expectations,” says
Hesz. letsmush.com

Mush founders (l-r) Sarah Hesz


and Katie Massie-Taylor

LONDON


Seenit
Need a film crew?
Seenit will find you one Habito founder
in the crowd. Emily Daniel Hegarty
Forbes’ content startup,
launched in 2014, was
founded on a simple
observation: with almost
everything being filmed
on smartphones, why
isn’t that footage used
more? Seenit’s invite-
only app, Forbes says,
ensures it can offer
high-quality footage from
uploaders, while users
can commission footage
and edit in the cloud. The

45%
company says it already
has more than 100 clients Habito hibob
– including big names
such as Unilever and Another UK startup in The proportion of UK tech jobs filled by foreign- Human-resource
adidas – and brings the growing proptech born workers, according to TechUK. Translation: departments are often
in over £2.3 million in scene, Habito wants to London’s startup success hangs on the opaque and outdated.
subscriptions. seenit.io make it easier to apply Government dealing with the EU on free movement. Hibob wants to change
for a mortgage. “I had a that. Founded in 2015,
really terrible experience the London- and Tel
Smarkets with a broker,” says Ravelin ‘W E DO NOT Aviv-based startup’s
founder Daniel Hegarty. FEAR online human-resource
Jason Trost knows Launched in 2016, Habito Founded in 2014, Ravelin COMPETITION hub, bob, unifies
the value of patience. is a digital mortgage analyses online behaviour FROM THE everything from benefits
Smarkets, the betting adviser; customers speak in real time to reduce CONTIN ENT. and pensions to work
exchange he co-founded with an online chatbot, payment-related fraud. IN DEED, IT documents, as well as
with Hunter Morris in inserting information like According to its clients CA N ONLY BE A providing companies with
2008, has flown under amount requested and – including Deliveroo, GOOD THING’ granular data about its
the radar for years – but employment information. Karhoo, and Easy Taxi, its employees and corporate
it’s now soaring. Like its “It means we complete technology reduces fraud – GER ARD GRECH, culture. The company
rival Betfair, Smarkets applications much faster incidence by more than 50 TECH CITY UK has raised £19.5 million
lets users bet against than traditional brokers.” per cent. The company has in Series A funding led
each other (as opposed Habito scours more raised £4.3 million to date by Battery Ventures
to the house) and than 15,000 mortgage from backers including to expand into foreign
charges what it says is an products to suggest Passion Capital and Errol markets, starting
industry-low two per cent the best option, and Damelin. ravelin.com WHERE TO VISIT with the US. hibob.com
commission. The platform takes a commission from The V&A
is expanding: it processed the eventual lender. Cromwell Rd, SW7 2RL
more than £1.1 billion in In January 2017, The evergreen arts and design
2015, and trebled its user the startup raised £5.5 museum’s new Exhibition
numbers; one long-term million in a Series Road Quarter encompasses
bet that is finally paying A round led by Ribbit a stunning courtyard and
off. smarkets.com Capital. habito.com underground gallery.

LONDON
BY ROWLAND MANTHORPE 

Naava 60.169 9 ° N, 24 .938 4° E After a lean few years following Nokia’s


decline and economic recession, Finland’s capital
Aki Soudunsaari, Niko is feeling confident. “The maturity of the scene
Järvinen and Mika has developed,” says Miki Kuusi, co-founder
Tyrväinen’s connected and CEO of food-delivery startup Wolt.
green walls circulate and Signs of growth are everywhere, from IPOs
purify indoor air for more for game firms Remedy and Next Games to a
than 300 companies. 2016 increase in early-stage investment of 42
It was founded in 2011, per cent in 2016, taking the total amount raised
and crowdfunded €2.2 to €383 million (£337m). Add to that several
million (£1.9m) in April notable acquisitions – including the sale of
2016 through equity sleep-tracking startup Beddit to Apple for
crowdfunder Pepins. It’s an undisclosed sum in May 2017 – and the
since raised €3.2 million positive vibes seem justified. “It’s still very
in a round led by Delos in
January 2017. naava.io HELSINKI early for Helsinki,” says Kuusi, “but the overall
direction seems very promising.”

Yousician Smartly Blok Singa Nosto


Since they last appeared Kristo Ovaska and Tuomo Founded in 2017 by former With a library of 20,000+ Juha Valvanne, Antti
on this list in 2015, Riekki’s ad-optimisation Slushers Rudi Skogman, songs, Singa is trying Pöyhönen and Jani
Yousician founders Chris platform continues to go Juha Jokela, Samu to do for karaoke what Luostarinen’s e-commerce
Thür and Mikko Kaipainen from strength to strength, Hautala and Olli Gunst, Spotify did for artists, startup personalises
have grown revenue from growing annual revenues Blok speeds up house by streaming music to online shopping for more
their music-teaching from €4.3 million in 2015 sales by automating businesses and bedroom than 25,000 retailers in
software by 200 per to €14 million in 2016. The time-consuming and singers for £9.99 a month. 100 countries. “We are able
cent to €10 million. A service, which facilitates repetitive tasks such The 13-person firm raised to leverage vast amounts
key moment came when more than £1 billion in as the collection and a €1.75 million seed round of data to uncover
the 70-person firm ad spend on Facebook digitisation of documents. led by London’s Initial insights into what drives
opened its platform to let and Instagram annually, The six-person firm has Capital in 2017, to fund successful shopping
subscribers add their own opened its fifth office, in 20 apartments for sale expansion into Germany experiences,” says CMO
exercises. yousician.com Buenos Aires. smartly.io through its service. blok.ai and the UK. sin.ga Isaac Moshe. nosto.com

Vainu Shipyard Games Varjo Norsepower


Launched in 2014, Vainu Founders Teemu Tuulari, Finland’s latest top-end MARIA 0-1 Tuomas Riski’s clean-
scrapes the web to Teemu Harju and Andreas graphics company has Lapinlahdenkatu 16, tech startup builds sails
generate sales leads, Wedenberg were part of an impressive pedigree: Helsinki, 00180 for freight ships to help
feeding everything from the team that created founders Urho Konttori, Based in a 19th-century them save fuel and reduce
social profiles to recruiting Shadow Cities, the first Klaus Melakari and Roope hospital, startup emissions. Its technology
news into its software-as- location-based multiplayer Rainisto all held senior campus Maria 0-1 – a spinning cylinder that
a-service integration. game. When they saw positions at Microsoft and hosts co-working and harnesses wind power to
The 100-person firm, which the success of Pokémon Nokia before founding events for its members, create forward propulsion
has offices in Helsinki, Go, they joined up with Varjo. The VR startup says including – we’re reliably – attracted €2.6 million of
Oslo, Amsterdam, New York Alex Pushilin and Emma its “bionic” display mimics informed – secret raves EC funding in August 2016.
and Stockholm, has more Houvinen to try again. the human eye: “It runs at in the old tunnels. Riski says it can reduce
than 1,200 subscribers Supercell were impressed: 100 times the resolution shippers’ fuel costs
paying, on average, €400 a it’s invested $2.9 million. of Oculus’ CV1,” Konttori by 20 per cent a year.
month. vainu.io shipyard.games claims. varjo.com norsepower.com

HELSINKI


Berlin Tel Aviv


Elektrocouture team;
Michael Ronen, Splash
Yahal Zilka, Magma VC;
Yariv Bash; Flytrex; Gigi
OUR THANKS
Verena Hubertz &
Mengting Gao, Kitchen
Levy-Weiss, UK-Israel Tech
Hub; Ran Natanzon, Israel
FOR LOCAL
Stories; Fabian Siegel,
Marley Spoon; Blinkist
Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
Adam Fisher, Bessemer
INTELLIGENCE TO:
team; Finn Age Hänsel, Venture Partners; Blonde
Movinga; N26 team; 2.0; Eyal Gura, Zebra
Delivery Hero team; Medical Vision; Storedot;
Outfittery (team); Appsflyer; Aleph VC
Clue team; EyeEm
team; Blacklane team;
Johannes Reck, Tao Tao, London Lisbon Paris Barcelona
GetYourGuide; Schuyler Mustard Seed Ventures; Madalena Rugeroni & Fanny-Lou Benoit, Albert Armengol,
Deerman, Silicon Allee; Accel Ventures; Sofia Pitta, Misk; Pedro The Family; Samantha Doctoralia; Marc Antoni
Atomico Germany Seedcamp; Balderton Carmo Costa & Alexandre Jerusalmy, Elaia Macià, NoviCap; Aleix
team; Edita Lobaciute, Capital; Octopus Ventures Barbosa, Faber Ventures; Partners; Jean-David Marcó, Corner Job; Aldo
Mindspace; Eugen Rohan Silva, Second João Vasconcelos, Canal Chamboredon, France de Jong, Claro Partners;
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Kneepkens, VNT.RE; Hammarberg, SUP46; Linda Aström, Supercell; Insider; Naz Ozertugrul,
Sandra Schillemans, Johannes Schildt, KRY; Miki Kuusi, Wolt; Mikko Delin Ventures; Emre
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Gons, NEXT; Startup Carlsson, Detectify; Molly Murray, TheNordicWeb; Cem Sertoglu, Earlybird;
Amsterdam; Micha Graizzaro, Tictail; Ola Oskari Häkkinen, Futurefly Sean Yu, Parasut; Mehmet
Hernandez van Leuffen, Sars, Soundtrack Your Akalin, BIC Angels;
Wercker Brand; Martin Garbarczyk, Ba ̄ ak Ta ̄ pınar De ˘im,
Relatable.me; Johan Armut; Onur CANDAN,
Attby, FishBrain; Ted Vision Interactive;
Persson, EQT Ventures Ali Karabey, 212 Ltd

THANKS
F E AT U R I N G :

MARGRETHE VESTAGER
THE MOST POWERFUL
WOMAN IN EUROPEAN TECH
ILKKA PAANANEN
THE $10 BILLION CEO
CARRIE GOLDBERG
T H E AT T O R N E Y F I G H T I N G S E X U A L T E R R O R I S M
SUE BLACK
THE INVENTOR OF NEW FORENSICS
ROMY LORENZ
THE AI MASTERMIND

NOV 2-3, 2017


TOBACCO DOCK, LONDON
WIRED.CO.UK/EVENT/WIRED-LIVE
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