ingrid
'Care bots': a dream for carers or a dangerous fantasy?
He cannot leave the house by himself because he does not know that cars may kill him and, in winter, he forgets to wear enough clothes to stay warm. He was born with Down's syndrome and Ingrid says that "he's calm and shy and really polite, but he needs help with everything". Ingrid is one of millions of people caring for a loved one at home today. In the UK, "family caregivers" constitute about 9% of the population and they outstrip paid care workers by more than three to one. This is because most care continues to be carried out in people's homes, rather than in residential facilities or by paid workers in the community. According to an annual survey of family caregivers in the UK, 45% had been providing support for 90 hours or more each week, and a similar proportion had not taken a break from caring in the past year.
- Europe > United Kingdom (0.56)
- Asia > Japan (0.15)
Amazon's 'Upload' explores the digital afterlife in a world gone to hell
Take Black Mirror's dystopian tech commentary, The Good Place's philosophical exploration of the after-life, and the workplace antics of The Office, mash them together, and you have Amazon's Upload. It takes place in a world that could easily be 10 years from now -- self driving cars are commonplace, the Earth is polluted and over-crowded, and, oh yeah, you can also achieve digital immortality by uploading your consciousness to the cloud. Upload, which premieres today, is an entirely new territory for Greg Daniels, the genius writer behind The Office, and Parks and Rec (not to mention a long run on The Simpsons). But it's a world that's clearly been percolating in his mind for years. It's bold and raunchy in a way a network sitcom never could be, and it defies being classified into a single genre.
- Information Technology (0.51)
- Leisure & Entertainment (0.31)
em Upload /em Is Like em The Good Place /em if It Were More Interested in Class Struggle
What if the next life were no better than this one? Not a heaven or a hell, or even a purgatorial waiting room, but a world that operates according to the same rules as the one that came before it, only tweaked enough that we don't just accept them as the way things have to be. In the near future of Upload, whose first season begins streaming on Amazon Prime on Friday, death is not the end, at least for those with the resources to survive it. But the hereafter in Greg Daniels' series isn't spiritual, it's digital, and everything, including entry and your continued existence, comes at a cost. It's less like heaven than a cruise ship on an infinite voyage, one where everything is marked up because the dead aren't in much of a position to comparison-shop. Nathan Brown (Robbie Amell) finds his way to Lakeview, as his particularly plush digital forever is called, after his self-driving car rear-ends a garbage truck.
- Transportation > Passenger (0.70)
- Transportation > Ground > Road (0.55)