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A bold blue train zooms by at more than 200 miles per hour. Passengers on board are typing away at their laptops or sitting down for a coffee in the cafe. The train is on its way from Paris to Madrid, or perhaps from Amsterdam to Warsaw, or maybe even on a long haul from Naples to Helsinki. As it zips through international borders and across cultures, the train doesn’t slow down, and the people aboard hardly notice. This is the vision for Starline, a proposal to reinvent the European high-speed rail network into a single seamless system. The idea comes from 21st Europe, a new think tank focused on large-scale ideas for the future of Europe. Founded by Kaave Pour, who previously ran Ikea’s global innovation lab Space10, this new venture is using design as the lens to view the biggest challenges and opportunities for the European continent in the 21st century. “If a continent like Europe should become stronger we need to be more connected,” says Pour. [Image: 21st Europe] There’s a narrative to be changed with trains, that they are back and they are amazing and they can do quite remarkable things, Pour adds. But design has been missing from that equation. The Starline concept is a comprehensive reimagining of a rail system that has linked the continent for centuries, complete with train and station design concepts, unified ticketing systems, cross-border security protocols, and a framework for EU-wide governance. Starline proposes five main routes, with 39 stations and at least one in every European country, and connecting hubs in major cities like Paris, Berlin, and Milan. [Image: 21st Europe] It’s long been possible to make the kinds of end-to-end journeys Starline maps out in this new European high-speed rail network, but as of now travelers have to complete their journey on a mix of regional and high-speed trains. The journey is slower than what the proposed Starline would offer, and is often bogged down in cross-border complications, including misaligned schedules, differing levels of rail infrastructure, and varying labor laws determining how long train conductors can work a shift. “Networks are good within nations. France has a great transportation network, and we do in Denmark as well,” says Pour, who’s based in Copenhagen. “But as soon as trains cross borders things start to crack.” “If we can’t travel freely from country to country, the whole idea of a single market and a more unified continent is impossible,” Pour says. [Image: 21st Europe] A unified Europe is suddenly a more pressing concern. Within the first few weeks of the second Trump administration, alliances between the U.S. and European countries have faltered to the point where many European leaders are looking inward for strength. The Starline project was in development before this geopolitical turmoil, but Pour says the idea for better connections between European nations and cities has been bubbling up in policy circles for years. With the rise of low-cost airlines, train travel has fallen out of favor with many European travelers. But the environmental toll of air travel is high, especially for short-haul flights, which have a much higher carbon footprint than high-speed rail. Some countries have explored banning flights for routes that can be traveled by train within a few hours. Starline’s proposed connections and speed suggest a more proactive effort, focused on improving rail service to the point where it outcompetes those short-haul flights. [Image: 21st Europe] Developed in partnership with design and technology studio Bakken & Bck, and in consultation with experts in mobility, infrastructure, and European policy, the concept uses current transportation policy and planning as a springboard. The European Commission has developed a framework called the Trans-European Transport Network, or TEN-T, which envisions a continent-wide approach to transportation planning, from roads to rails to waterways. For the rail portions, it’s a more modest plan than Starline’s European high-speed rail network, with a goal of having trains in its core network traveling at 100 miles per hour or faster by 2040. [Image: 21st Europe] “The TEN-T network is already laying a foundation for policy and for which routes are essential for Europe’s connectivity. 21st Europe’s approach is that we build on existing studies and existing policy frameworks,” Pour says. “We have then expanded the ambition of that network.” [Image: 21st Europe] Starline’s approach combines Europe’s high-speed rail with an emphasis on logistics. It proposes building new transportation hubs just outside of crowded or historic city centers that can accommodate airport-scale passenger loads while also serving as processing points for freight. “I think it’s quite simple that if we’re able to move better we’re also able to trade better, and for Europe to have that ability is quite essential to our economies,” Pour says. These hubs also create the potential for ambitious design, which Pour says would be critical for ensuring the system becomes a new kind of essential infrastructure. “We do hope that these stations, when designed, are seen as an attempt for Europe to build new landmarks for the next century rather than always being teased as being the museum of the past,” Pour says. Part of that design-centric approach is the train itself. Pour says 21st Europe chose a bold blue for the train as a way of making it an iconic object, like New York’s yellow cabs or London’s red buses. “Europe has been bad at building the brand around transportation as much as the infrastructure itself,” Pour says. “This train needs to be a landmark for Europe’s next chapter.”
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E-Commerce
Technology workers in Kenya have held a vigil for a colleague who died in unclear circumstances after she was unable to travel to her home in Nigeria for two years. Ladi Anzaki Olubunmi, a content moderator for TikTok employed by the subcontractor Teleperformance Kenya, died last week and her decomposing body was discovered in her house after three days. It was unclear what caused her death, but colleagues say she had complained of fatigue and was desperate to go back home. Teleperformance Kenya told the Associated Press on Wednesday that they didn’t deny Olubunmi her leave to go home. Her family in Nigeria says she only traveled once since coming to Kenya three years ago. Content moderators working for subcontracted firms based in Kenya have in the past described working conditions that they say include lower than average pay, lack of mental health support, long working hours and intimidation. More than 100 former Facebook content moderators have sued the social media company over what they say is poor pay, horrible working conditions and unfair termination of employment by Facebooks subcontracted Kenya-based firm, Samasource. Dozens of content moderators and data labelers working for various global tech companies met during Tuesdays vigil and said that poor working conditions may have contributed to their colleagues death. There are more than 100 Nigerians working under Teleperformance company who havent had work permits for the last two years and so they have not been able to travel home despite having an annual return ticket benefit, said Kauna Malgwi, a friend of the deceased. Olubunmis family was informed of her death a day after her body was discovered by a neighbor. Teleperformance emailed Olubunmis brother notifying him of her death and gave him contacts of Kenyan investigating officers who he could call for information, autopsy and burial arrangements. The family cannot afford to take her body home, so they are considering asking her church in Nairobi to bury her, Malgwi said. Evelyne Musambi, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
D-Wave is about to make waves. The quantum computing firm announced on Wednesday that, for the first time, it was able to successfully simulate the properties of magnetic materials using its Advantage2 annealing quantum computer, which allows us to invent and evaluate new materials without needing to build them in the lab, D-Wave CEO Dr. Alan Baratz tells Fast Company. In effect, this means that D-Wave has achieved quantum supremacy on a useful problem, something it says nobody else has yet been able to accomplish, and which is detailed in a paper published on Wednesday in the journal Science. This is a really important moment in time for the entire quantum computing industry, says Dr. Baratz. For the first time ever, weve demonstrated a quantum computer being able to solve a difficult, real-world problem that classical computers cant solve. Its what everybody aspired to achieve, and were quite excited about it.” ’25 years of hardware development’ Quantum computing has largely remained theoretical until recently, but D-Waves achievement is a notable breakthrough as its demonstrated that its quantum computer can, in fact, outperform classical computers in materials simulations. To simulate the property of magnetic materials on a classical computeras the D-Wave team recently did using its quantum computerwould require nearly one million years, and more energy than the entire world utilizes over the course of a year. D-Waves team did it in 20 minutes. But there was a lot of work that went into it. These are results that could not be done in a couple of months or years, says Mohammad Amin, chief scientist at D-Wave. He added, the results “are really the results of 25 years of hardware development,” and this specific achievement also took two years of collaboration among 11 institutions worldwide. What this means going forward Dr. Seth Lloyd, professor of quantum mechanical engineering at MIT, said in a statement with D-Wave’s announcement that large-scale, “fully error corrected” quantum computers are still years away. But quantum annealers, a type of quantum computer designed to efficiently solve optimization problems, are useful in the here and now. “The D-Wave result shows the promise of quantum annealers for exploring exotic quantum effects in a wide variety of systems,” Lloyd said. According to D-Wave, scientists could use quantum computing to test out and simulate new materialsspecifically, those used in all sorts of technologies from pacemakers to cellphones. Many of these materials need to be synthesized in a lab, which takes considerable amounts of time and money. But the ability to simulate the materials before theyre actually created? That can allow for significant resource savings, and potentially speed up technology development and make numerous products more efficient. Theres no shortage of potential applications, says Amin.
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