Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Tech Trends
For Journalism and Media
The Future Today Institute’s 2018 Tech Trends For Journalism Report is our first industry-specific
analysis of emerging technology trends. It follows the same approach as our popular annual trends
report, now in its 10th year of publication with more than 6 million cumulative views.
• In 2018, a critical mass of emerging technologies will converge, There is also a push by some democratic governments around
finding advanced uses beyond initial testing and applied re- the world to divide internet access and to restrict certain con-
search. That’s a signal worth paying attention to. News organi- tent, effectively creating dozens of “splinternets.”
zations should devote attention to emerging trends in block-
chain, voice interfaces, the decentralization of content, mixed • Consolidation is also a key theme for 2018. News brands,
reality, new types of search, and hardware (such as CubeSats broadcast spectrum, and artificial intelligence startups will
and smart cameras). continue to be merged with and acquired by relatively few
corporations. Pending legislation and policy in the U.S., E.U.
• Journalists need to understand what artificial intelligence is, and parts of Asia could further concentrate the power among
what it is not, and what it means for the future of news. AI re- a small cadre of information and technology organizations in
search has advanced enough that it is now a core component the year ahead.
of our work at FTI. You will see the AI ecosystem represented
in many of the trends in this report, and it is vitally important • To understand the future of news, you must pay attention to
that all decision-makers within news organizations familiarize the future of many industries and research areas in the com-
themselves with the current and emerging AI landscapes. We ing year. When journalists think about the future, they should
have included an AI Primer For Journalists in our Trend Report broaden the usual scope to consider developments from myr-
this year to aid in that effort. iad other fields also participating in the knowledge economy.
Technology begets technology. We are witnessing an explo-
• Decentralization emerged as a key theme for 2018. Among the sion in slow motion.
companies and organizations FTI covers, we discovered a new
emphasis on restricted peer-to-peer networks that detect ha-
rassment, share resources and connect reporters with sources.
and recommendations.
5 Scenarios inform the strategy you
will create to take the necessary
Write scenarios action on a trend.
05
01
03
04
01 Key Insight
Short, easy explanation of this trend so that you
can internalize it and discuss with your colleagues.
As you think about the trends in this report, ask your team and yourself the following questions:
01 How might this trend impact the news industry 06 How are our competitors/ related agencies
and all of its parts? harnessing this trend (or failing to do so?)
02 What are the second, third, fourth, and fifth-order 07 How will the wants, needs and expectations of
implications of this trend, both on my newsroom our customers change as a result of this trend?
and on our industry?
08 How does this trend inspire me to think about
03 Does this trend signal greater disruption to our the future of news and my role within the news
traditional business practices and subscription ecosystem?
models?
09 How does this trend inspire my team/
04 Does this trend indicate a future disruption to organization?
established roles and responsibilities within our
organization? If so, how can we reverse-engineer
10 How does this trend help me/ my team/
that disruption and deal with it in the present day? my organization think about innovation?
“Can we do it”
causes companies to fall behind and
miss opportunities. Can we develop a new
product or service that
leverages the technology,
The Future Today Institute uses a sim-
even as it is still evolving? Watching The Horizon
ple framework to continually monitor
technology as it moves from fringe to Emerging but bona-fide
Capability Building Stage technology and trends;
mainstream. Incremental actions po-
How can we work to uncertain trajectory and
sition a business unit to make smart-
more fully understand the timeline; ecosystem
er strategic decisions when the time forming; market forming
emerging technology and
is right. develop the expertise to act?
Low
Below is our framework, and we en-
Low Uncertainty About Technology in the Market High
courage your organization to use it
for creating incremental action on “Does the market want it”
tech trends.
01 02 03 04 05
Wealth
Education Government Politics Public health
distribution
Media
(our individual and
collective use of social
Demography Economy Environment Journalism networks, chat services,
digital video channels,
photo sharing services
and so on)
06 07 08 09 10
Technological advancement influences future changes and disruption across fields and industries. If
you hope to understand the future of news, you can’t just look at trends within a silo. To forecast the
future of the news ecosystem, you need to plot out the intersecting vectors of technological change
looking through these ten modern sources of change.
Artificial Intelligence
Eighth year on the list
AI, Automation and Augmented Journalism tistically important. That’s because the mayoral election
tends to get decided during the primary. Democrats always
Early experiments at the LA Times and at startups such as win, and by a massive margin.
Narrative Science and Arria NLG have proven that AI sys-
tems can transform raw data into narratives, crafting sto- In our present-day machine learning models, these excep-
ries that seem as though they’ve been written by a human. tions must be thought out in advance by humans and taught
Earthquakes, sports recaps, financial summaries and crime to machines. That’s not an easy task at the moment.
reports have now been written by automated systems and
published by news organizations. For now, these systems Automating Journalism
are only capable of telling the story of “what” autonomous- Unfortunately in journalism, AI has become a popular short-
ly. Other AI systems can be used to augment the analytical hand for “automation.” AI will not solve all of the problems
thinking of journalists—working alongside these systems, with the news media business, and it cannot—at least, not
journalists have a supercharged ability to uncover and un- right now—take the place of trained journalists in a news-
derstand the “why.” However in the not-too-distant future, room. The challenge with declaring AI in newsrooms a fait
new generations of these systems will be able to do that accompli is that we are only at the very beginning of the
autonomously, too. artificial intelligence era.
Subjective Interpretation In the next 24-36 months, computer vision, natural lan-
One of the challenges to pushing the limits of automation is guage algorithms, generative content algorithms, deep
in subjective interpretation: what makes a number “big” or learning—along with increased compute power, lots of
“small” certainly depends on circumstances. For example, in data and more ubiquitous accessibility to tools—will coa-
the 2016 presidential election, there were times when poll- lesce and allow journalists to do richer, deeper reporting,
sters reported that Hillary Clinton held a 6-point lead over fact checking and editing. Many of the trends that follow,
Donald Trump. In that particular case, a 3-point lead would from machine reading comprehension to predictive ma-
have seemed low—a significant detail. On the other hand, if chine vision to computational photography will give jour-
that had been a Baltimore city mayoral election, a 3-point nalists superpowers, if they have the training to use these
lead separating the two frontrunners would have been sta- emerging systems and tools.
Voice Is Journalism’s Next Big Challenge While some news organizations have started to experi-
ment with chat apps and voice skills on Alexa and Goog-
Also looming on the horizon: voice interfaces, which is a
le Home, journalism itself is not actively participating in
key component of the future of AI and content. By 2023,
building the AI ecosystem. News organizations are cus-
50% of the interactions consumers have with all computers
tomers, not significant contributors. We recommend
will be using their voices.1 Think about the implications of
cross-industry collaboration and experimentation on a
people having conversations with machines. If a consumer
grand scale, and we encourage leaders within journalism
wanted to know the latest information about an election,
to organize quickly. AI does pose an existential threat to
she’d ideally just ask: “What’s happening with the elec-
the future of journalism.
tion? Who’s in the lead?” At that point, the system she’s
talking to would have two options: either choose just one
news source and start a response with “according to the
[news source],” or otherwise pull information from many
sources and have a more robust conversation. However in
that case, how do news organizations get cited for their
reporting? Does the system continually interrupt itself to
say where the news is coming from? That’s now how two
humans would interact with each other.
1
This number is based on Future Today Institute modeling and applies only to North America.
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Artificial Intelligence cont.
Later
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07 Predictive Machine Vision marketplace for predictive agriculture algos. A number of other
networks, such as Nara Logics, MetaMind, Clarifai offer tools
Researchers at MIT’s CSAIL have trained computers to not only for developers to build deep learning into any application. Look
recognize what’s in a video, but to predict what humans will do for even more niche marketplaces in 2018.
next. Trained on YouTube videos and TV shows such as “The Of-
fice” and “Desperate Housewives,” a computer system can now 09 Consolidation in AI
predict whether two people are likely to hug, kiss, shake hands
or slap a high five. This research will someday enable robots to Some in the AI ecosystem now worry that the future of AI is
more easily navigate human environments—and to interact with already under the direction of too few companies. Just a hand-
us humans by taking cues from our own body language. It will ful of companies dominate the AI landscape: Google, Amazon,
also help with personalized recommendations—it could usher in Tencent, Baidu, IBM, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft. On
an era of aggressively versioned distribution, where news con- the investment side, Intel Capital, Google Ventures, GE Ven-
sumers would see a news experience customized specifically for tures, Samsung Ventures, Tencent and In-Q-Tel lead. As with
them using predictive modeling. any technology, when just a few companies dominate the field,
they tend to monopolize both talent and intellectual property.
08 Algorithm Marketplaces They’re also partnering to build on each others’ work. When it
comes to the future of AI, we should ask whether consolidation
Most news organizations can’t staff a team of developers who makes sense for the greater good, and whether competition—
have unlimited time to create, test and refine algorithms. As a and therefore access—will eventually be hindered as we’ve seen
result, communities of developers are offering up their algo- in other fields such as telecommunications and cable.
rithms in emerging algorithm marketplaces. Algorithmia is
like Amazon but for algorithms, where developers can upload
their work to the cloud and receive payment when others pay
to access it. DataXu offers a marketplace for its proprietary
algorithms. Quantiacs allows developers to build algorithmic
trading systems, and it matches their algorithms up with capi-
tal from institutional investors. PrecisionHawk has launched a
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Uncovering Hidden Bias in AI Later
Watch
From ProPublica’s investigative report on “risk assess-
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ment” software.
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Computational Journalism Later
Watch
IBM’s News Explorer is an example of a computational
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system for reporting.
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I-Teams For Algorithms and Data Later
Watch
AI systems rely on our trust.
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Key Insight Washington Post have been applying the core practices and
skills of reporting to investigating algorithms.
News organizations need a new kind of special-ops team:
investigative reporters who specialize in investigating the
algorithms and data itself. What’s Next
We will soon reach a point when we will no longer be able
Examples to tell if a data set has been tampered with, either intention-
ally or accidentally. AI systems rely on our trust. If we no
Algorithms, data sets and AI systems reflect the worldviews
longer trust the outcome, decades of research and techno-
of their architects and trainers. This information is used to
logical advancement will be for naught. Building trust and
help make decisions, to predict behavior, and to generate
accountability is a matter of showing the work performed.
answers to questions. More of these systems now govern
This is a complicated process, as understandably news or-
everyday life and are used by law enforcement, universities,
ganizations would want to keep certain data and reporting
financial institutions and government agencies. Journalists
methods private.
must begin to investigate how the data and algorithms in-
tersect with daily life. And, to prevent bias in reporting, jour-
nalists must gain a better understanding of who created the Watchlist
algorithms and data sets, and what their processes were. For Brown Institute at Columbia University; Macromedia Uni-
example, the PredPol predictive policing system, which is versity of Applied Sciences; Tow Center for Digital Journal-
used by police departments around the U.S., recommended ism at Columbia University; AlgorithmWatch.org; ProPubli-
time and time again that departments concentrate their ef- ca; Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of
forts on neighborhoods that were overwhelmingly poor and Maryland; Media Change and Innovation Division at the Uni-
black. The problem has to do with how arrest data is gath- versity of Zurich; Annenberg School of Communication &
ered, and how individual police departments have historically Journalism and the University of Southern California; Wash-
monitored their local communities. The model didn’t include ington Post; New York Times; Wall Street Journal; National
a rigorous check on bias in the initial data sets. Reporters at Public Radio; Investigative Reporters & Editors; National In-
the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ProPublica and stitute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.
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Crowdlearning Later
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Searches for “what is the eu” and “what is brexit”
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surged after the U.K. election.
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Adversarial Machine Learning Later
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Extra information can be added to an image to fool
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algorithms.
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Computational Photography Later
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The Computational Zoom system makes it possible
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to automatically combine wide-angle and telephoto
perspectives into a single multi-perspective image.
Key Insight and reflections, and the like. Meanwhile, MIT’s CSAIL and
Google developed a technique that now automatically re-
Computational photography is the convergence of comput-
touches and enhances the photos we take with our mobile
er vision, computer graphics, the internet and photography.
phones. Clearly there are ethical implications here for jour-
Rather than relying on optical processes alone, it uses digi-
nalists—how much editing should be allowed and under
tal capturing and processing techniques to capture real life.
what circumstances? Likewise, journalists should develop
techniques to reveal how much editing has been done to
Examples a photo—either intentionally or automatically—before using
Everyone with a smartphone now has access to compu- them for reporting or in stories.
tational photography tools. In its iPhone 8 and iPhone X,
Apple uses computation photography to achieve a shallow Watchlist
depth of field, while Facebook will soon automatically cor-
MIT’s CSAIL; MIT’s Media Lab; Nvidia; University of Cali-
rect any 360-degree photos you upload.
fornia-Santa Barbara; Google; Apple; Samsung; Facebook;
Synopsys; Industrial Light and Magic; LG; Huawei; Morpho;
What’s Next Qualcomm; Stanford University Computational Imaging
New research from Nvidia and the University of Califor- Lab; the Gcam team at Google Research.
nia-Santa Barbara reveal a computational zoom technique,
which allows photographers to change the composition of
their photographs in real time. Photos are taken in a stack,
and then rendered with multiple views. This would allow
photographers to change perspective and the relative size
of objects within a photo after it has been taken. Other use
cases of computational photography include seamlessly
removing or adding objects to scenes, changing shadows
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Bots Later
Watch
The XiaoBing chatbot learned to hate the Communist
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
Party.
Key Insight guage bot, Xiaoice. Both were capable of intimate conversations
with users, because the program is able to remember details
You’ve no doubt heard of a bot: a software application that’s
from previous conversations and because it mined the Internet
been designed to automate certain tasks, such as scheduling or
for human conversations in order to synthesize chat sessions. In
managing basic customer service requests. In the past year, bots
the summer of 2017, two of China-based Tencent’s bots—BabyQ,
have emerged from the fringe and have started to enter our main-
co-developed with Turing Robot, and XiaoBing, co-developed
stream vocabulary. There are now more than 30,000 Facebook
by Microsoft—went rogue the summer of 2017. During the recent
Messenger. Beyond Facebook, Slack offers a number of produc-
campaign cycle, we witnessed the rise of botnets—networks of
tivity bots, while services such as Pandorabots allows developers
computers designed to send out spam. Fake social media ac-
to deploy a chatbot across many platforms.
counts, many of which originated in Russia, artfully tricked people
into having arguments about everything from Donald Trump to
Examples immigration to taxes.
In the 1960s, Joseph Weizenbaum wrote a computer program
As we transition from text-based chatbots to voice interfaces,
called Eliza that was capable of simulating a conversation be-
newsrooms will need to determine how to interact with news con-
tween a psychiatrist and patient. It offered up plausible responses
sumers. Some of the most interesting experimentation is coming
to common questions. Today, newsrooms are now offering the
from China, which has hundreds of millions of users—their data is
same basic system: offering plausible responses to questions
helping to refine and recalibrate machine learning systems. Even if
about the recent news events. Many newsrooms have experiment-
a newsroom doesn’t deploy a chatbot, now is a good time to learn
ed with chatbots, including BuzzFeed, TexasTribune, Quartz, Mic,
and to develop strategies for audience engagement and revenue.
Los Angeles Times and elsewhere.
The groundwork for voice interfaces is being created from our
typed conversations today.
What’s Next
In March 2016, the world watched as @Tai.ai, a Microsoft exper- Watchlist
imental Twitterbot, went on an anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist
Chatfuel; Pandorabots; Twilio; Amazon; Facebook; iFlytek; Slack;
rampage within 24 hours after its first tweet. Tai.ai was built on
WeChat; Tencent; Baidu; Weibo; Alibaba; IBM; Alphabet; Micro-
the same platform as Microsoft’s experimental Mandarin-lan-
soft; Snapchat; Coral Project.
01 Does your bot reflect the values of your news- 06 Does your bot help people learn something new,
room? How do you know for sure? or does it effectively reinforce something that
people already know?
05 Does your bot clearly explain where its answers 09 Does your bot respond to gendered or sexist re-
are coming from? Are you able to include any marks? Does it respond to racial epithets or reli-
evidence of your reporting, quotes and data? gious slurs? If it does respond, are the responses
appropriate to people of the group targeted?
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Voice Interfaces Later
Watch
Amazon’s Echo is an voice interface found in many
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American homes.
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Ambient Interfaces Later
Watch
The Samsung Gear watch is an example of a wearable,
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
ambient interface.
Watchlist
Alphabet; GE; Intel; Nvidia; Bosch Group; Samsung; Ama-
zon; Apple; Microsoft; Spotify; IBM; Tencent; Baidu; Alibaba;
We are moving quickly towards a post-
Sony; NTT.
screen future.
2
According to researchers at Cornell University (Wansink and Sobal, 2007)
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Deep Linking Later
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Branch uses deep links to direct consumers from
Fourth year on the list (non-consecutive) Low Degree of Certainty
social media feeds to products.
Examples Watchlist
There are three kinds of deep links: traditional, deferred and Apple; Android; Facebook; Google; Bing; Appsfire; Branch;
contextual. Traditional deep links reroute you from one app Nielsen; Deeplink; MobileDeepLinking.org; Tencent; Alibaba;
or site (such as a link posted in Twitter) directly to the app, AppsFlyer; Kochava; Tune; Adjust; Pinterest; Button; Yozio;
as long as you have that app installed. Deferred deep links Baidu; AdRoll; Tapstream
either link straight to content if the app is installed, or to
an app store for you to download the app first. Contextual
deep links offer much more robust information—they take
you from site to app, app to site, or app to app, and they
can also offer personalized information. For example, when
you land at the airport, you might find that your airline app
sends you a link to Uber. (You’ll find similar offerings with-
in Google Maps.) Many of the new improvements to Ap-
ple’s iOS11 are built on deep linking: it allows users to easily
search through files and content, toggle between messag-
ing and apps, and get to content delivered by Siri.
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Productivity Bots Later
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The Ryver platform includes bot assistants for pro-
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ductivity.
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Adaptive Learning Later
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Adaptive learning software is being used to enhance
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training and digital classroom instruction.
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Nanodegrees Later
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Udacity offers nanodegree programs to help employ-
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ees or job-seekers develop new skills to improve their
careers.
Key Insight ample, suspended its partnership after more than half of the
students failed their final exams. In 2016, Udacity revealed a
As the pace of technology adoption in the workplace contin-
new program called Nanodegree Plus, which guarantees stu-
ues to increase, the need for modern professionals to constant-
dents a job within 6 months of graduation or it will refund tui-
ly adapt to new platforms and learn new skills is becoming
tion. This is likely in response to several offline coding schools
paramount to their career development. Journalism is no ex-
like Flatiron School and Galvanize, which have offered similar
ception. To help facilitate the goal of creating lifelong learners,
money-back guarantees to their graduates.
platforms like Udacity are developing nanodegree courses in
specific niche subjects to help individuals learn new skills and,
perhaps more importantly, to confer legitimacy in the eyes of What’s Next
their prospective employers. News organizations, journalism associations and professional
training groups should consider offering technical nanode-
Examples grees as well as nanodegrees in newsroom leadership and var-
ious business skills. We expect to see continued consolidation
One theory emerging from Silicon Valley is that our traditional,
and scale in the maturing online and offline nanodegree mar-
four-year post-secondary degree system alone cannot serve
ket, which should lead to some of the larger corporate and
our future workforce in the years to come. Human resources
university players coalescing around the winners. As some of
directors and senior management are starting to see educa-
the players in the crowded coding bootcamp market have ei-
tion as a product, and they’re trying to maximize the ROE: Re-
ther been consolidated or downsized, the money-back guar-
turn-on-Education.
antee model has begun to come under fire. Is it sustainable to
With the advent of automation and AI, journalists will need guarantee employment to all your graduates within a certain
highly-specialized skills, the sort that aren’t yet offered within timeframe? For how long, and for which degrees?
universities. Nanodegree provider Udacity has partnered with
universities such as San Jose State University and corpora- Watchlist
tions like Alphabet, Facebook and AT&T to create programs Stanford University; MIT; Alphabet; Facebook; EdX; Coursera;
for employees, to varying degrees of success. SJSU, for ex- Udacity; Flatiron School; Galvanize.
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Proximity News Later
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Proximity networks are being built for content distri-
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bution.
Key Insight imity-based news via WiFi, which can now identify you just
by bouncing signals around—your unique shape and pos-
New technologies can be programmed to push or receive
ture are used to reveal who you are, even in a crowded room
information to/ from our mobile devices—and also our bod-
of people. Emerging research has shown that WiFi can be
ies—tethering us to an always-on ubiquitous information
used to recognize what a person is saying or writing with
network.
a pen—simply by analyzing the WiFi signals altered by our
bodies. In a confined space, like a conference center, sport-
Examples ing arena or airport, this would allow a news organization
You’ve no doubt heard about beacons, which are tiny devic- to recognize one of its news consumers and deliver stories
es that can be programmed to push (or receive) information just for her.
to/from mobile phones using Bluetooth. We are located on
nearby networks, as sensors use our personal information Watchlist
and collect data about our experiences. Beacons become
Google’s Eddystone platform; Apple’s iBeacon platform; In-
aware once you’re near them. They’re used frequently for
doorAtlas; Unacast; Facebook; Blis; Snapchat; Polytechni-
marketing, however they can also be used during planned
cal University (China); MIT; University of New South Wales
news/ culture/ arts/ sports events and throughout cities to
(Australia); Oxford University; BLIP Systems; Bluedot; Gim-
share news content with nearby people. Think of it as prox-
bal; Qualcomm; Intel; Amazon.
imity news.
What’s Next
Apple’s Fall Safari Technology Preview release (#38) ena-
bled the Beacon API by default and turned on beacon fea-
tures for iOS devices. Soon, we will be able to deliver prox-
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Personality Recognition Later
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Personality recognition can also be used, along with
and Analytics Low Degree of Certainty
natural language generation algorithms, to person-
alize parts of stories to make them more relatable to
Third year on the list individual readers.
Key Insight (“keep the message under 200 words, otherwise this recip-
ient might ignore it”) so that the message resonates better
Emerging predictive analytics tools wrangle your data, be-
with your intended recipient.
havior and preferences in order to map your personality—
and predict how you’re likely to react in just about any situ-
ation. These tools can be used in journalism, to personalize What’s Next
customer interactions and even to personalize the news These tools can be used to provide better customer inter-
itself. actions for news consumers: content could be personalized
and targeted to specific individuals. Personality recognition
Examples can also be used, along with natural language generation
algorithms, to personalize parts of stories to make them
IBM Watson and Twitter offer a tool that mines Twitter
more relatable to individual readers.
feeds and weather data to identify consumers who are like-
ly to fire off angry tweets if their cable service is disrupted. Also on the horizon is facial and tonal recognition. Facial
Those complaints aren’t empty threats: IBM’s data shows a and voice recognition analytics will help machine learning
correlation between disgruntled tweets and customer loss. systems to detect consumers’ emotional state in real-time.
IBM’s technology can scan individuals’ social media data Mattersight Corporation is using personality and behavior
and analyze their personalities to predict responses to an to route calls through call centers, and its latest “Predictive
email or an ad. Recruiting startups, dating sites and school Video” system promises to analyze your speech and facial
application platforms are all starting to experiment with expressions from any video where you’ve appeared.
personality recognition software. Nashville-based startup
Crystal culls thousands of public data sources to help you Watchlist
learn about someone’s personality before calling or email-
Mattersight Corporation; MIT; IBM; Twitter; Crystal; Stanford
ing them. It even offers a kind of spell check for sentiment,
University; Salesforce; Autodesk; Symantec; Mobileye; Intu-
autocorrecting phrases and making recommendations
it; Adobe.
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Attention Later
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Key Insight
The Future Today Institute’s Attention Matrix is a tool
In this modern digital age, attention is currency. As tech- to help measure whether your strategy will command
nology has evolved, news organizations have adapted their the attention of your desired audience.
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Digital Frailty Later
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A screenshot of the U.S. Environmental Protection
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Agency’s website taken on September 6, 2017.
Key Insight went out of business. The Tampa Tribune, whose motto was
“Life. Printed Daily,” kept its rival, the Tribune, hunting for
In the past three years, we’ve seen the first widespread
important stories in the public interest, covering investiga-
cases of important journalism being erased from the web
tions into Tampa’s judges, legislators and law enforcement.
because of media consolidation or because sites were no
longer being maintained. Digital Frailty is the phenomenon Humanity operates on a continuum. After devastating
in which those digital assets published to a news organiza- Texas, Hurricane Harvey made landfall near New Orleans
tion’s website are impermanent or easily broken. on the 12th anniversary of Katrina. Rising From Ruin, an
award-winning project by MSNBC, told the Katrina’s after-
Examples math through the lenses of two small communities in Mis-
Perhaps not every Facebook post should be saved in per- sissippi that weren’t covered by any other media outlet. It
petuity, but might we need to look back on this moment in included a series of videos, maps, interactive elements, a
time and reflect on how our language—how the very way forum for residents—and since it only existed as a website,
we communicate—was shaped by our Instas, our Snaps, there was no other way to see the stories. When Microsoft
and our tweets? Will our future historians look back, marve- pulled out of its joint venture with NBC, the project went
ling at the amount of anthropological data we were simul- offline.
taneously creating—and destroying? If this past election
Digital Frailty in Government and Public Information
season taught us anything, it’s that Twitter helped to shape
public opinion and the outcome of the election, even as American journalists watched as U.S. government agencies
many controversial tweets posted by candidates running removed studies, data and reports throughout 2016 and
for office, were deleted by their campaigns. 2017. Most notably, the Environmental Protection Agency
scrubbed its website of climate change information. This
A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative series about a col- was an effort to support the Trump Administration’s ideas
lision that killed 20 children and devastated a Colorado and policies. A government website built to educate chil-
community went offline when the Rocky Mountain News dren, called “Energy Kids,” also scrubbed mentions of cli-
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Radical Transparency Later
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In this age of technology, we need a nutritional label
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for news.
Watchlist
News organizations everywhere.
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Limited-Edition News Products Later
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Keep
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Vigilant
One-To-Few Publishing Later
Watch
Nautil.us is a new breed of website with a highly en-
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
gaged niche audience that pays for content.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Notification Layer Later
Watch
Key Insight
Notifications show bits of information, including updates, Notification screens are prized real estate.
reminders and messages from friends. They appear on the
lock screens of mobile phones, wearables and connected
devices.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Journalism as a Service (JaaS) Later
Watch
News organizations will find new ways to generate
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
revenue through Journalism as a Service.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Transparency in Metrics Later
Watch
Key Insight
Historically, news organizations have kept audience
Social networks are under pressure to offer more transpar- data hidden from staff, while third-party services
ency in the numbers they report back to news organiza- haven’t always been transparent about what numbers
they’re counting.
tions While most companies that publish content on the
web are obsessed with metrics, historically they’ve kept au- Photo Credit: http://www.adoraattack.com/
fuzzy-numbers/
dience data hidden from staff.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Real-Time Fact Checking Later
Watch
The Washington Post has been experimenting with
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
faster fact-checking.
Watchlist
IBM Watson; Tencent; Baidu; Google; Amazon; Facebook;
Twitter; news organizations everywhere.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Offline Is The New Online Later
Watch
New techniques allow consumers to access news con-
Second year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
tent, even when they’re not on a strong network.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Audio Search Engines Later
Watch
Audioburst uses artificial intelligence to index audio
First year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
broadcasts and make them easier for consumers to
find.
Key Insight ample, if a consumer wants an update on how close the U.S.
is to a conflict with North Korea, she can ask a voice-acti-
As news organizations venture into podcasts, new search
vated app (Amazon’s Alexa, Google Home), which will sift
tools allow the newsroom—as well as news consumers—to
through audio information and deliver a set of clips.
find exactly what information they’re looking for within au-
dio-only content.
What’s Next
Examples With so much funding and development into voice inter-
faces, audio search will quickly become one of the most
While developers have learned how to quickly index and
important tech trends in the years to come.
display web content, digital audio has always remained an
unsolved challenge. Now, rather than searching for a top-
ic and getting a bunch of hyperlinks to click through and Watchlist
listen to, consumers will instead receive a series of buttons Audioburst; Amazon; Google; Apple; Advanced Media; Vi-
that play the exact snippet of audio that’s related to their acom.
search. Better than buttons, consumers can also speak their
searches to a voice assistant and immediately get to the
podcast they were trying to remember, to replay a news
report they’d heard in the car, or to get a series of clips re-
lated to a subject they’re interested in.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
CubeSats Later
Watch
CubeSats can be used alone or stacked to suit the
Second year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
needs of a specific mission.
Key Insight can survey a swath of land to see who’s started drilling and
whether they’ve struck oil. Satellites monitor traffic, polar
Entrepreneurs are building and preparing to launch thou-
ice caps, and even us. Unlike a traditional, large satellite,
sands of low-cost, high-value satellites in the next three
when one CubeSats goes offline or gets damaged, the rest
years. These satellites are small, capable of communicating
of the fleet still works.
with each other, and will photograph every inch of Earth’s
surface every day of the year. Near-real time images, coupled with machine learning and
analysis tools, is big business. Governments, big agricultur-
Examples al corporations, intelligence agencies, shipping companies
Miniature satellites, otherwise known as CubeSats, aren’t and logistics firms all want access, so they’re willing to pay
new technology. They’ve actually been in use by space tens of millions of dollars a year for access. The combined
agencies for years. What’s changing is the launch technol- valuation of companies such as Planet, Airbus D&S, MDA
ogy that lifts CubeSats into orbit. Heavy investment into and DigitalGlobe is well into the tens of billions.
propulsion systems—not to mention significant advance-
ments in technology and cheaper components—are mak- What’s Next
ing it easier to mass-produce tiny satellites in a factory and The Federal Aviation Administration is projecting “an un-
launch them for a variety of purposes. Fleets of CubeSats precedented number” of satellite launches between 2018-
now take photos of farmland and beam them back down 2020. News organizations could gain access to the images
to earth to help farmers assess their crops. Image analysis and tools for data-driven reporting projects and to under-
software can tell big box retailers, such as Best Buy, how stand the world as it’s happening, in real time. CubeSats
many cars are parked in their lots and look for trends over and image analysis will help reporters take the pulse of their
time. They can then do the same with a competitor’s park- cities, gain a deeper view into weather events and dive into
ing lots to gather strategic intelligence. Mining companies criminal activity.
CubeSats cont.
Watchlist
Space Systems Loral; MDA; Planet; Planetary Resources;
Airbus D&S; DigitalGlobe; National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency; 3 Gimbals; Space Exploration Technologies Corp;
Orbital Insight; Google; SpaceKnow; Capella Space Inc;
OneWeb; SpacePharma; Santa Clara University; Technis-
che Universitat Berlin; Tokyo Institute of Technology; Uni-
versity of Tokyo; California Polytechnic University; Cornell
University; Boeing; Delft University of Technology; NASA
Ames Research Center; Transcelestial; NSLComm; Earth-
cube; Aerial & Maritime; Fleet Space; Astrocast; Kepler
Communications; GeoOptics; Hera Systems; Sky and Space
Global; Astro Digital; Kanagawa University; The Aerospace
Corporation; Los Alamos National Lab; NRL Naval Center
for Space; Space and Missile Defense Command; Satellog-
ic; Spire; US Air Force; Lawrence Livermore National Labra-
tory; MIT; Shenzhen Aerospace Donganghong; National
University of Defense Technology (China); Shanghai Engi-
neering Center for Microsatellites (China); SRI International;
Naval Postgraduate School.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Video Later
Watch
The digital video ecosystem will continue to grow in
Seventh year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
2018.
3
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/06/younger-adults-more-likely-than-their-elders-to-prefer-reading-news/
Video cont.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
New Video and Audio Story Later
Watch
Hardcore Henry is a science fiction movie experienced
Formats Low Degree of Certainty
through the main character’s point of view.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Splinternets Later
Watch
Europe’s “right to be forgotten” laws could mean
First year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
widespread splinternets if they aren’t accepted as a
global standard.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Media Consolidation Later
Watch
News and media organizations are consolidating in
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
the U.S., due in part to regulatory changes.
Key Insight venture, while Thrillist, NowThis and The Dodo merged
with Seeker, a division of Discovery Communications, and
We are starting to see a handover of sorts: the shrinking of
formed Group Nine Media. Tech startups Newsy and Sto-
traditional media companies just as newer media organiza-
ryful were both acquired by E.W. Scripps and News Corp
tions are consolidated under single owners.
respectively.
Examples It would be difficult to overstate just how much movement
In the past two years, Sinclair, one of America’s largest lo- and consolidation is underway.
cal television station owners, agreed to purchase Tribune
Consolidation efforts have been helped by the Federal
Media for $3.9 billion plus debt, while AT&T agreed to buy
Communications Commission, which under new commis-
Time Warner at a staggering $85 billion. Chicago-based
sioner Ajit Pai has been in the process of changing key
Tronc, which was spun off from Tribune in advance of the
rules. The FCC reinstated what’s called the “UHF discount”
sale to Sinclair, acquired the New York Daily News for $1—
and has made it easier for broadcasters to consolidate
along with the tabloid’s pension liabilities and operational
ownership. It also passed a media ownership order that
debts.
now allows newspaper-broadcast and radio-TV cross-own-
Univision won the bankruptcy auction for Gawker Media ership. It also removes a prohibition against two stations in
Group (and killed Gawker.com after the sale). AT&T, which a market being owned by one entity.
owns DirecTV, considered bids for Starz, Paramount Pic-
tures, and in the end, won Time Warner. Re/code became
part of Vox, which became part of NBC, which a while
back became part of Comcast. Verizon acquired AOL. The
Financial Times was acquired by Nikkei (for a staggering
$1.3 billion). The New York Times acquired The Wirecut-
ter, Complex was acquired by Hearst and Verizon in a joint
What’s Next
The next 24 months will be about rapid product creation
and monetization in a rush for investment and exits. By the
year 2021, it’s possible that AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Char-
ter and Amazon will have replaced CBS, Viacom, the New
York Times, Hearst and Conde Nast as the biggest news
and entertainment media brands in the U.S.
Watchlist
The FCC; Comcast NBC Universal; Amazon; Axel Spring-
er; Viacom; Baidu; Bertelsmann; Time Warner; News Corp;
Discovery; Disney; SoftBank Capital; AT&T; Vox; Vice; Net-
flix; Hearst Ventures; Facebook; Twitter; Alphabet; Yomiuri
Shimbun Holdings; Tronc; Sinclair Broadcast Group; CBS
Television; Nextar Broadcasting Group; Raycom Media;
E.W. Scripps; Univision; Cox Media Group; Meredith Corp;
Hubert Burda Media; Asahi Shimbun Company; Microsoft;
Grupo Globo; News Corp; Univision; news organizations
everywhere.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Blocking the Ad Blockers Later
Watch
Many publishers are now deploying their own ad
Second year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
blocker-blocking tools.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Natural Language Generation for Later
Watch
NLG can be used to help readers of all levels engage
Reading Levels Low Degree of Certainty
with a story.
Watchlist
Arria NLG; Narrative Science; Expect Labs; Automated In-
sights; Department of Computing Science, University of
Aberdeen; School of Science and Engineering, University
of Dundee; Research Center on Information Technologies
(CiTIUS), University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain;
School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Leaking Later
Watch
Expect more coordinated leaking efforts in the year
Second year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
ahead.
Key Insight more. The records, known as a the “Panama Papers,” were
sent from a little-known law firm in Panama. In the sum-
2017 was the year of leaks. Presidents accused staff of leak-
mer of 2017, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security
ing confidential information to the press. WikiLeaks contin-
and Governmental Affairs issued a report entitled “State
ued dumping information on the internet. Political activists
Secrets: How an Avalanche of Media Leaks Is Harming Na-
prevented leaks from other political activists from enter-
tional Security” and cited 125 stories with leaked informa-
ing the public. While many people seem eager to find and
tion that the committee considered damaging to national
share information—not everyone agrees on what should be
security.
published, and by whom.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
The First Amendment Later
Watch
Legal scholars don’t all agree on how to protect free
in a Digital Age Low Degree of Certainty
speech in a digital age.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Personal Networks Later
Watch
Key Insight
Signal is an encrypted network.
In reaction to trolls, leaking and security breaches, su-
per-private networks are launching.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Mixed Reality Later
Watch
Microsoft’s Hololens is an example of a mixed reality
Fourth year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
headset.
Hologram VR 360-degree AR
Mixed Reality cont. The least opportunity for news The biggest opportunity for news
Fourth year on the list
Bottom Line
AR offers the greatest market potential for news organizations in
the near-future.
Room scale
This is the tethered version of VR that offers users the capa-
bility of walking around a room and interacting with virtual
items, as they walk around in the physical world. So if you
take a step in the real world, you’re also taking a step in
the virtual simulation. For this to work, rooms need to be
mapped in advance.
Social VR
When two or more people are wired in to a VR simulation
and able to share the experience by observing each other,
interacting or participating in joint activities.
Stitching
The process of combining video from different cameras into
one, spherical video suitable for VR. This typically requires a
tremendous amount of editing to fill in gaps, reorient scenes
and seamlessly meld video streams so that the simulation
looks authentic.
VR face
When a user has been in a simulation, a few things happen:
the head mounted display tends to leave a temporary im-
print on the skin, not unlike a pair of swimming goggles.
Users also tend to relax into a slack-jawed look, with their
mouths slightly agape.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Security and Privacy Later
Watch
DARPA’s new Cyber Grand Challenge asks hackers to
Fourth year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
build systems that can hack faster than humans.
Security and Privacy cont. Apple uses differential privacy to protect data.
54 Authenticity 56 Backdoors
In the wake of the fake news epidemic—and the recent phenom- While they sound malicious, backdoors aren’t necessarily bad.
enon of discrediting legitimate news sources—authenticity will be Often, developers intentionally install them into firmware so that
paramount in the digital information ecosystem. Expect to see manufacturers can safely upgrade our devices and operating
new networks and third party services offering verification and systems. The challenge is that backdoors can also be used sur-
authenticity, proving that the content and sources are reliable and reptitiously to harness everything from our webcams to our per-
accurate, even if they are anonymous. sonal data. In 2018, government officials will continue advocating
for a set of “golden keys,” which would allow law enforcement to
55 Data Retention Policies break through the security using backdoors. Opponents argue
that the simple act of creating a backdoor would leave ordinary
Many organizations—from financial institutions to universities, people vulnerable to everyday attacks by even unskilled hackers.
hospitals, veterinarians, churches, Fortune 500 companies and More journalists are using encryption tools for reporting, and
beyond—store data for compliance, business or customer con- news organizations now offer secure drops for whistleblowers to
venience. News organizations store customer data, internet traffic upload documents and files. Newsrooms will likely be drawn into
and mobile metrics as well as employee performance reports and the battle for backdoors in the future.
archives of content. In the year 2018, every news organization—
and every third party service provider they work with—will need
to address best practices in data retention, with an eye toward
security. You would be surprised to know how few organizations
have responsive data retention policies that are updated accord-
ing to security issues—and for that matter, how many news organ-
izations don’t even have policies at all.
57 Prize Hacks The Guardian, Le Monde, El Pais and Der Spiegel. The Guard-
ian subsequently shared the documents with The New York
The past three years have been dramatically successful for hack- Times. The five news organizations reported on the trove and
ers, motivated by geopolitical forces and corporate scandals. made parts of if available on their websites. In the years since
To date, attacks that have made big headlines have been about publication, Wikileaks appears to have pivoted away from its
hackers taking our data—but exploits can also mean infiltrating original mission to target political action. In July 2016, Wikileaks
the computer systems in our newsrooms. Security expert Brian published 20,000 emails from the Democratic National Com-
Krebs says that the “market for finding, stockpiling and hoard- mittee. By fall 2017, the Obama Administration named Russia as
ing (keeping secret) software flaws is expanding rapidly” and the source of the hacked data, citing Russian President Vladimir
went so far as to advocate for a compulsory bounty program. Putin’s desire to influence the U.S. presidential election. What
In response, a number of white hat (read: good hacker) bug happens when a government leaks a cache of sensitive informa-
bounty programs are becoming popular. HackerOne is being tion on Wikileaks, with the intent of destabilizing another nation?
used by Airbnb, Nintendo, WordPress, Snap, Starbucks, Uber, Wikileaks becomes weaponized.
Spotify and the Department of Defense, among others. News
organizations might consider partnering with friendly hackers to 59 Glitches
hunt down potential vulnerabilities in their networks, apps and
systems. Glitches are problems that don’t have an immediate, obvious
cause but nonetheless can cause frustrating problems. In the
58 Weaponizing Wikileaks past year, glitches have caused a three-hour stop at the Nasdaq,
they’ve grounded entire Southwest Airlines and Delta fleets, and
When it launched in 2006, Wikileaks described itself as a “not- they’ve halted trading at the New York Stock Exchange. In many
for-profit media organization” with the sole purpose of distrib- cases, glitches have to do with degraded network connectivity
uting primary source documents from anonymous sources. In or a miscalculation of the bandwidth needed. But a lot of times,
2010, Wikileaks started releasing a trove of 750,000 diplomatic glitches have to do with newer technologies, which we are learn-
cables, videos and documents, many of which were classified. ing break in unexpected ways. News organizations and tech-
Wikileaks partnered with journalists in four news organizations: nology companies servicing the journalism ecosystem should
prepare for glitches in the coming years.
60 Ownership
Who owns all those videos you’re uploading to YouTube, Twitch,
Instagram and Facebook? Through its advertising program, a lot
of individual people and organizations make substantial money
from the videos they upload, but there is nothing preventing
someone from copying that video and uploading it to another
platform. Because of the inherent sociability of outside plat-
forms, videos may garner millions of views—without any renu-
meration going back to the original content creator. As news
organizations upload troves of videos to social networks—and as
they rebroadcast videos from consumers—legal experts world-
wide will question who owns the rights to all that data.
Adware Bot
Software that automatically generates online ads; it can Bots are automated programs that performs a simple task.
also include spyware that tracks your browsing habits. It’s Some—simple chatbots, for example—are completely harm-
because of adware that many people are turning to ad less. Other bots can be programmed to repeatedly guess
blocking software. (see the earlier “Blocking the Ad Block- passwords so that a hacker can break into a website.
ers” trend.)
Botnet
Anonymous A botnet is a group of computers that are being controlled
A collective of hackers, best known for its use of the Guy by a third party, and are being used for any number of nefar-
Fawkes mask and distributed denial of service (DDoS) at- ious purposes. For example, malware installed on your com-
tacks. Anonymous typically uses the hashtag #Ops when puter can run, undetected, in the background while hackers
announcing a new campaign. Past ops included a takedown use your machine as part of a large spamming network.
of the Church of Scientology and the Westboro Baptist
Church. Brute force attack
This type of attack is a laborious, methodical process where
Attribution a hacker uses software to automatically guess every pass-
Researching and tracking back the origins of an attack. word it can to gain unauthorized entry into a network or
computer.
Backdoor
Developers intentionally install backdoors into firmware so Bug
that manufacturers can safely upgrade our devices and op- A flaw or problem in a program that can be harmless or
erating systems. The challenge is that backdoors can also might allow hackers to exploit a system.
be used surreptitiously to harness everything from our web-
cams to our personal data. Compiler
A program that translates source code into executable ma-
Black hat chine language. Compilers are used to surreptitiously allow
A malicious hacker; someone who hacks for personal gain. hackers into various systems without changing the source
code, making it easier for them to get into a computer or
network without being noticed.
Verification
Ensuring that data, and its originators, are authentic.
VPN – Virtual Private Networks, or “VPNs,” use encryption
to create a private channel for accessing the internet. VPNs
are necessary when connecting to public networks—even
those at airports, hotels and coffee shops.
Virus
Malware intended to steal, delete or ransom your files. Mim-
icking the flu, this type of malware spreads like a virus.
White hat
Not all hackers are bad. White hats work on highlighting
vulnerabilities and bugs in order to fix them and protect us.
Worm
Worms are a certain kind of invasive malware that spreads
like a virus.
Zero-day exploits
In the hacking community, zero days (also written as
“0day”) are prized tools because they are undisclosed vul-
nerabilities that can be exploited. Once the flaw is revealed,
programmers have zero days to do anything about it.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Organizational Doxing Later
Watch
Journalists should prepare for hackers posting their
Second year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
personal information online.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Blockchain For Journalism Later
Watch
Blockchain technology could make it easier for news-
Fourth year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
rooms to solicit and receive sensitive information from
whistleblowers.
Key Insight the need for an intermediary between buyers and sellers.
But it potentially eliminates the need for all intermediaries
Blockchain is the transaction database that’s shared by
in most transactions.
everyone participating in bitcoin’s digital system. The
blockchain is a public ledger of transactions.
What’s Next
Examples We’re entering the beginning of the decentralized inter-
net—as well as an era of interoperability problems. While
Bitcoins are mined using powerful computers and scripts.
you most often hear about blockchains in relation to cur-
In this digital currency system, bitcoin is the protocol partic-
rency and financial markets, this technology has poten-
ipating on the blockchain public ledger. Virtually everyone
tial uses for journalism, too. One possible promise for
agrees that bitcoins probably aren’t the blockchain’s killer
blockchain could be verification and encryption, to make
app. The blockchain is a sort of distributed consensus sys-
it easier for newsrooms to solicit and receive sensitive in-
tem, where no one person controls all the data. Some say
formation from whistleblowers. It could also be used to
that the blockchain will soon herald a new kind of Internet.
guarantee the authenticity of sources, images and videos.
The cryptography team at Blockstream recently launched
In the future, there could be a public ledger for news — a
its first prototype “sidechain,” which functions as a separate
network system that would exchange authentic news and
ledger with its own code. Sidechains allow for easier au-
parse out fake news5.
thentication, they enhance privacy, and add functions like
contracts and confidential transactions. Blockstream and
the sidechain projects that follow will turn the blockchain Watchlist
into a universal platform that can be used for anything re- Blockstream; Factom; Tierion; Bitcoin; Ethereum; Block-
quiring signatures or authentication. It will therefore enable stack; Omni Layer; CoinSpark; BlockApps; Monetas; Neuro-
people to participate in “trustless” transactions, eliminating ware; Bitcore; Coinbase; MultiChain; Cosmos.
5
This summary is excerpted from an interview Amy Webb gave to the Global Editors Network.
https://medium.com/global-editors-network/what-will-make-the-futures-of-journalism-gen-supports-amy-webb-in-finding-out-d2f85949de6d
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Drones Later
Watch
The 2016 Super Bowl halftime show featured a drone
Sixth year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
swarm.
Drones cont.
68 Microdrones
Microdrones will autonomously navigate through tiny spaces to
investigate collapsed buildings or areas with hazardous materials.
In the U.S., there are no-fly zones, In October 2016, the U.S. Army asked for bids to supply short-
but legally there aren’t yet no-fly range microdrones, capable of reconnaissance and still small
enough to fit in a soldier’s uniform pocket. These same drones—
circumstances which can crawl, swim and fly—will one day be used by journalists
for reporting in conflict zones and natural disasters.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Wearables Later
Watch
The Bragi Dash earables double as a personal assistant.
Sixth year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
Wearables cont.
72 Earables
In-ear computers, otherwise known as earables, will be here
soon. Future versions of Apple’s EarPods will monitor tempera-
ture, perspiration and heart rate during exercise or sports—and News organizations should begin
those earbuds will be used to control electronic devices (like our
phones) using head gestures. The Bragi Dash earbuds double as
experimenting with news applications
a personal assistant, responding to gesture as well as voice. For built for earable interfaces.
example, an incoming phone call can be accepted by shaking
your head yes, or declined by shaking your head no. News or-
ganizations should begin experimenting with news applications
built for earable interfaces.
73 Thinkables
Thinkables will soon allow more adventurous gamers to control
games using only their thoughts. The Neuralink is a brain-machine
interface company founded by Elon Musk, and while it hasn’t built
any products yet, in the fall of 2017 it was actively hiring engi-
neers and designers. Boston-based startup Neurable created a
brain-controlled VR game. It isn’t a gaming company—rather,
it’s researching how to build next-generation thinkable interfac-
es. The 4D Force platform detects brain waves, capturing EEG/
EOG/ EMG signals and converting them into signals a computer
can understand.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
Internet of X Later
Watch
The SCiO scanner from Consumer Physics allows
Third year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
consumers to search physical objects using a digital
interface.
Keep
Revisit
Vigilant
5G Later
Watch
5G trials are already underway worldwide.
Second year on the list Low Degree of Certainty
Credit: Shutterstock
Thanks...
To Emily Caufield for her design and production work and to
Cheryl Cooney for editing. Thanks to Kara Lipsky, Ryo Hashimoto
and Ryan Schwartz who assisted with research.
European Union Hera Systems Investigative Reports & Editors Meredith Corp.