The Flying Little Prince
Can you briefly tell the story of a man who fit everything into 112 small pages? Messages that have stirred children and adults for 70 years now, and that lose none of their power no matter how the years pass, how technology advances, how the world changes. Messages written in wartime that are worth rereading right now, when war is once again frightening and crushing us…
382Optimus for Optimists: What Can Musk's Robot Do?
“Very soon, physical work will be a matter of choice,” Musk insists. The first version of Optimus is expected to be unveiled in September—a robot that, according to its creator, has the potential to become a bigger business than even Tesla. The promise is that within two years it will go mainstream and “free” people from a whole range of chores. What else is worth knowing about Optimus?
383Will the Robot Believe in Fairies?
Every person needs miracles. A little superstition, dreams, and living contact with other people. How do we cope today with the shortage of all these things? Can we teach them to artificial intelligence? Does folklore hold the magic key? Assoc. Prof. Dr. Vihra Baeva of the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences is a scholar of wide-ranging experience with many fascinating answers on these subjects.
384“The Wheel Has Turned. The Future of Mobility Is Electric”
“The startup world is a roller coaster,” says our guest today. He has spent 15 years working with software startups, and his latest venture has achieved impressive success in just three years. Orlin Radev is the CEO of AMPECO, a company that has proven itself on a global scale in building the software that owners and operators of electric vehicle charging stations need. How do you build such a large venture so quickly? Will electric cars soon go mainstream? What unconventional decisions do startups make in order to succeed?
385The McAfee Who Refused to Go Quietly
He claimed to have 47 children and twice tried to become president of the United States. He said he would never kill himself, and that if such news ever appeared, it would mean the authorities had murdered him. Then that news appeared, and it turned out to be true. The creator of McAfee, the first mass-market antivirus program, John McAfee is a favorite figure for connoisseurs of powerful stories, and for conspiracy lovers too. His life was an endless party, more strangely bohemian than anyone else's in the world of Silicon Valley. A little Steve Jobs, a little Donald Trump and a little Mityo Pishtova, the swaggering braggart of Bulgarian popular lore, fused into an explosive alloy.
386Start…Up! What on Earth Is That?
How does an investment with a return of… 200,000 percent sound to you?! One that is perfectly legal and has nothing to do with mythical figures like pyramids and pharaohs. Only with fairy-tale heroes. Modern technology is like a fairy tale. It has created a huge new economic sector where miracles happen. Yes, quite literally: unicorns fly, angel investors stroll about, and millions of dollars are the smallest unit of measurement. We are talking, of course, about the world of startups. Let's sum up the most important things worth knowing about it.
387Sundar Pichai, the Millionaire Who Grew Up Poor
Do you know the name of Google's boss? And if you happen to have heard it, do you know his story? Sundar Pichai was born in India exactly 50 years ago, grew up far from luxury and first got access to a computer only after leaving to study in the United States, then boldly climbed the ladder to the top of one of today's biggest companies while staying out of the spotlight his peers enjoy. What else is worth knowing about him?
388“The False Sense That Our Opinion Matters…”
Maestro Nayden Todorov is a world-class musician, but also an erudite man with a broad outlook and a distinctive view of technology and the way it changes us. Why does he believe our constant rush is a disease we must fight? How is the digital world pulling us away from our humanity, and why is art the only salvation? How did the maestro go 12 years without setting foot in an opera house, horrified by his first encounter with one? And why does he often run an experiment, going to an online forum to defend two opposite points of view in an attempt to escape the filter bubble?
389Brandon Sanderson: The Writer as a Startup
The most successful Kickstarter project in history turned out to be… four novels?! Brandon Sanderson set out to raise $1 million and got… $41 million! Then he gave part of it away to other literary projects. How did one writer set off such a financial tsunami? What is the secret behind one of the most popular fantasy authors of our time? And what does the magical story of a man who wrote tens of thousands of pages before publishers trusted him look like?
390A Prestigious Award and a Record for Digital Stories
Digital Stories won the Technology and Innovation category at the Web Report 2022 awards. This is perhaps the most respected journalism prize in the country, because it is awarded through a transparent process by an impressive jury. The awards were presented for the fifth time. This year we also set a record of sorts, winning this distinguished honor for the third time!
391“AI Is Bringing a Revolution to Photography”
“Photography works with a high level of abstraction and metaphor. I didn’t expect software like this to exist any time soon, but it turns out I was very wrong,” says Ivaylo Petrov. The experienced photographer is among the first enthusiasts to get access to a new artificial intelligence which, he believes, has the power to revolutionize photography and the way we perceive the world. See the wonders the AI painted from the prompts Ivaylo gave it, and read why the photographer is so impressed by what it can do.
392DALL·E, Draw Me a Sheep!
This picture was created by an algorithm. “A tiger anxiously waiting for its dentist appointment,” read the instructions it was given. DALL·E certainly deserves serious attention. It may lack the waxed mustache and the eccentricity of its namesake Salvador, but it does thrilling things. With the help of artificial intelligence it turns a description into an image, and with such precision and creativity! The rest of the examples will leave you amazed…
393From the Microphone at Bulgarian National Radio to the Blackboard in Fakulteta
One day you are an established host on national radio, interviewing politicians, the powerful of the day and any guest you like, and the next… you choose a new path and become a first-grade teacher in Fakulteta, a Roma neighborhood in Sofia. For years Tanya Velichkova's voice was familiar to every listener of Bulgarian National Radio, where she hosted shows like Predi vsichki (Before Everyone) and Nedelya 150 (Sunday 150), until she decided it was time for something different and went back to learning so she could teach children. What is it like to find yourself in that role in such an unusual setting, and what does a seasoned journalist turned teacher dream about?
394Raya's Forest
What would you buy if you had some savings? A home, a car, or… a plot of land on which to grow a forest? What does paradise look like for Raya Ubenova? Probably like a forest. After years of caring about the environment and looking for a way to help, she decided it was time for something more serious. Today she is the creator of 20 decares of… baby forest!
395Where Did All the Hate Come From? Is There a Way Out?
I've read the headline, and I already hold an extreme opinion. Time for a nasty comment—let the hating begin! But where did all this aggression come from, why must we answer rudely even when we merely disagree with the person behind the other profile, and is there any way to save ourselves from the exhausting hate of online conversation?
396The World's Most Intelligent Woman and the Miracles in Her Life
The most intelligent woman in the world is Bulgarian. Daniela Simidchieva achieved her record IQ score of 192 while she was unemployed and raising her three daughters alone in a 12-square-meter apartment. What remarkable twists (and miracles!) has her path taken? Is there room for intelligent people at the head of the state? How heavy is the title “the smartest woman”? Does it open more doors than it closes?
397When the Orchestra, the Band and the DJ Start Playing…
Would you like to hear a song with a catchy melody, performed at the same time by a symphony orchestra, a rock band, a DJ and three singers, one for each of these styles? And what if you could add or mute every performer and every group of instruments? Wouldn’t the result be remarkably interesting? A thought-provoking metaphor for how easy it is to find the shared melody and build on it, even when at first glance we seem impossibly different. It is a fascinating digital experiment created by the composer Alexander Kostov, and it is worth hearing and seeing…
398“Today, Heroism Means Keeping Our Humanity Online”
We are supposedly celebrating heroism today, but what does it mean here and now, is there courage on social media, and is it worth honoring people who lived centuries ago? Mihail Kunchev founded Adopt a Hero to care for the graves of great Bulgarians of the past, and as he searches for their final resting places, he gathers their stories. We talk about heroism, why it matters to preserve the memory of the past, and how our future depends on it.
399The Incubator Baby
Could the moment be approaching when babies are born from artificial wombs? More and more research teams promise a breakthrough in a field that may turn out to be the answer to low birth rates in the Western world. But are we ready for a time when parents can watch together as their baby grows in a high-tech incubator? Not just technologically, but emotionally…
400Atanas from Viber: The Bulgarian Connection
How does a communication system work when it is determined to grow without exploiting people's data? Atanas Raykov is a senior manager at Viber, and he is also the reason one of the platform's key offices in the region is located in Bulgaria. What does responsibility look like when you have more than a billion users, for some of whom the next conversation may be a matter of life and death? How can the business model of a modern communications giant leave users' personal data untouched? And what should we expect from online communication in the years ahead?
