Whether you’re sprucing up a kitchen or gutting a house, home renovations can be stressful, complicated and expensive. But new tools using artificial intelligence are trying to take some of the struggle out of the process by helping homeowners envision their dream home and communicate with architects and contractors. WSJ real estate, architecture and design reporter Nancy Keates joins host Danny Lewis to talk about how AI is making inroads into home renovations. What do you think about the show?...
Sep 20, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast What if you had a robot that could take care of your household chores, from doing laundry to making dinner? When the Roomba came out over 20 years ago, it seemed like other autonomous robots for the home were not far off. But no other home robot has yet become a household name. WSJ’s Charlotte Gartenberg speaks with Charlie Kemp, co-founder and chief technology officer of Hello Robot, about his company's dexterous robot called Stretch 3.They also talk about the technological hurdles we’ll have t...
Sep 13, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast The amount of electricity generated by solar panels has surged over the last decade. But while rooftop solar panels are more common than ever, the balance of solar-power generation has shifted from power systems on individual homes to large-scale commercial arrays used by utilities. WSJ’s Danny Lewis sits down with energy and climate reporter Phred Dvorak and Pvilion CEO Colin Touhey to talk about the future of home solar, and the new role it might play in the power grid. What do you think about...
Sep 06, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Seaweed has lots of practical applications. We use it as fertilizer, incorporate it into face creams and packaging as a plastic alternative, and we eat it. Very little of the seaweed used worldwide is grown in the U.S., which some proponents and regulators are looking to change because seaweed has been shown to have some positive effects on ecosystems. Maine-based Atlantic Sea Farms is one company looking to increase the amount of seaweed grown in U.S. waters. WSJ’s Alex Ossola speaks with Atlan...
Aug 30, 2024•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast It seems like every airline has a different way of boarding a plane. But which way works best? Astrophysicist Jason Steffen has spent his career trying to crack the deepest mysteries of the universe, and 15 years ago he discovered and published what he says is the optimal boarding strategy. So why aren’t all commercial airlines using it? On the Science of Success, WSJ’s Ben Cohen looks at what goes into planning the most efficient boarding process and what airlines are doing to help customers ha...
Aug 23, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Pokémon videogame series has always been about traveling the world. But eight years after the launch of the mobile-phone game Pokémon Go, some players are taking that to extremes by using the game as a tool to plan their real-life travels. Salvador Rodriguez joins host Danny Lewis to talk about the people circling the globe in order to catch and trade the digital monsters. What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or email us: FOEPodcast@wsj.com Sign up for ...
Aug 16, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Concorde has long been retired, but future skies may be filled with aircraft that can go even faster, criss-crossing the world in a matter of hours. Hypersonic engines that are being developed for military and government applications, like defense, drones and missiles, could one day propel future planes much faster than conventional engines for less money. Host Danny Lewis looks at the technical and business obstacles, and finds out what it would take to make hypersonic air travel a reality....
Aug 09, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast From flights to hotels to entire itineraries, AI tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini Advanced can help you plan your next vacation. In fact, more than 30% of “active leisure travelers” have used artificial intelligence for travel planning, according to MMGY global, a travel marketing agency. But how soon might these bots go from travel planning tool to travel planning agent? WSJ’s Charlotte Gartenberg speaks with Google’s Amar Subramanya, vice president of engineering for Gemini expe...
Aug 02, 2024•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast What makes for a luxury strawberry? Is it the taste? Texture? Color? Around five years ago, berry company Driscoll’s released a new, premium line of berries with a higher price tag. Some consumers are shelling out almost 70% more to get their hands on this fancy fruit. But what are the qualities of a premium berry? On this Science of Success, we delve into the food science behind breeding and selling Driscoll’s Sweetest Batch, from creating more objective benchmarks for the highly subjective exp...
Jul 26, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Restaurants are a tough business with tight margins, from the cost of food to paying for staff. Kernel, the new venture by Steve Ells, the founder and former CEO of Chipotle Mexican Grill, is trying to fix that by introducing food-making robots and a "digital-first" approach to restaurants. In this conversation from the WSJ Global Food Forum in June, reporter Heather Haddon talks with Ells about his new bet on consumers’ desire to eat less meat, and on a business model that could solve some of t...
Jul 19, 2024•14 min•Transcript available on Metacast To hear proponents talk about it, seaweed could solve a whole lot of problems. It could feed people, restore polluted habitats and be an economic boost for fishermen. Though seaweed aquaculture has grown in the U.S. in recent years, the country produced less than 1% of the global seaweed crop in 2019. Now, some companies are trying to get seaweed aquaculture to scale in the U.S. But there are regulatory hurdles to overcome, and researchers have questions about how a scaled industry would affect ...
Jul 12, 2024•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast No more mealy apples and flavorless oranges. There’s a growing category of produce available in your local grocery store: fruits and vegetables that have been carefully bred with flavor in mind. But these more delicious varieties tend to come in premium packaging—with a premium price to boot. WSJ contributor Elizabeth G. Dunn tells host Alex Ossola how this produce is bred and whether we can expect to see more of it in the future. What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple Podcasts o...
Jul 05, 2024•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast They’re ugly. They’re clunky. They’re loud. And, worst of all, they spike your energy bills every summer. The window air conditioner is a dreaded summer staple in many homes. But one company is redefining how an AC functions by thinking outside the typical window box. For Science of Success, WSJ’s Ben Cohen tells the story of Midea’s U-shaped window AC that captured the collective consciousness for its noise reduction and energy efficiency. What do you think about the show? Let us know on Apple ...
Jun 28, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast Our climate is changing. In the last 100 years, the planet has warmed about 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to NASA. But how can we learn more about our planet’s climate and what we can do to slow the changes? Gavin A. Schmidt, a top NASA climate scientist and director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, spoke with WSJ reporter Emily Glazer at the Future of Everything Festival on May 22, 2024 about the future of climate science and the data NASA is collecting on the Earth by looking at...
Jun 21, 2024•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast 2023 was the world’s hottest year on record, and temperatures are expected to continue heating up. Cities, where more than half of the world lives, are contending with this extreme heat. But some places, such as Singapore, are looking for ways to modify aspects of their cities to make them more comfortable for people to live. The Cooling Singapore project is creating a hyper detailed digital twin of the city-state to be able to test the effectiveness of new methods the city would want to impleme...
Jun 14, 2024•19 min•Transcript available on Metacast What good is a future without ketchup or pasta sauce? These are just two potential casualties of a changing climate, as tomato growers face shrinking harvests due to hotter and drier weather. WSJ reporter Patrick Thomas takes us behind the scenes of how seed breeders are trying to make a tomato that can thrive with less water, and how that highlights the efforts going into protecting crops against the effects of climate change. Sign up for the WSJ's free The Future of Everything newsletter. What...
Jun 07, 2024•17 min•Transcript available on Metacast How did a sandal that originally entered the U.S. market as a health product become a fashion staple and the crowning shoe of a multibillion dollar company? Margot Fraser originally brought Birkenstocks to the U.S. thinking that the comfort of the German sandal would appeal to women. But she couldn’t get shoe stores to sell them. They finally made it into the U.S. market through health food stores. Now, the seductively ugly shoe is a cultural icon and was valued at about $8.6 billion when the co...
May 24, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast How does your doctor know that a drug or procedure will work to treat a condition before they try it? Often, they don’t. Researchers are looking to create “digital twins,” digital versions of individual organs, to see how a patient will respond. Eventually there could be digital twins of entire bodies that are updated in real time with patient data. WSJ’s Alex Ossola speaks with WSJ senior special writer Stephanie Armour about how that might change the way we treat diseases in the future. What d...
May 17, 2024•10 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ultrasound is known for its use in imaging during pregnancy. But new advancements in the technology suggest that in the future, ultrasound could be used to disrupt the blood-brain barrier. This would allow doctors to more easily diagnose and directly treat illnesses like brain cancer without major surgery. WSJ’s Danny Lewis and Charlotte Gartenberg examine the new ways that ultrasound could be used more specifically and subtly to deliver accurate diagnoses and precise treatments. What do you thi...
May 10, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast A day when people can interact directly with computers using their thoughts could be on the horizon. Several companies, including Elon Musk’s Neuralink, have begun preliminary human trials of brain-computer interfaces - devices that decode the electrical signals in their brain and translate them into digital bits. Neurosurgeon Benjamin Rapoport is a co-founder and chief science officer of Precision Neuroscience, a company working on brain-computer interfaces. He spoke with WSJ’s Danny Lewis abou...
May 03, 2024•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast What does the brick and mortar bookstore of the future look like? For Barnes & Noble, it looks more like the indie bookstores they once threatened to put out of business 20 years ago. The company recently redesigned their national chain of over 500 bookstores, shedding the big box personality in favor of a look reminiscent of local bookshops. On this week’s Science of Success, WSJ columnist Ben Cohen speaks to Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt about the look, feel and idea behind Barnes & Noble’s n...
Apr 26, 2024•11 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
