Sam Talks Technology

Ben Hammersley is a British internet technologist, journalist, author and one of the world's leading futurists, based in New York, USA. Ben is also known for being the inventor of the word "podcast", recalling that he made it up to pad out an article he was writing that was a little too short. Coincidently Ben and I went to the same school - Loughborough Grammar School - but our paths never crossed, Ben is 10 years younger than me. Ben talked about what he does as a futurist and hint it doesn’t involve a crystal ball. We also talked about a number of topics ranging from the future of technology through to the failure of politics and economics. Unsurprisingly these topics are intertwined and symbiotic, resulting in Brexit, Trump and the rise of the populist movement aka the far-right. We also talked about the trends Ben see’s coming down the track. For example the incessant cesspool of fakenews has caused a flight to paid quality content and the move away from the free ad-supported web. Paywalls,