Battery Powered Homes • 2017 • episode "3/3" • Catalyst: Season 2

78:00

Science fiction has long anticipated the rise of machine intelligence. Today, a new generation of self-learning computers is reshaping every aspect of our lives. Incomprehensible amounts of data are being collected, interpreted, and fed back to us in a tsunami of apps, smart devices, and targeted advertisements. Virtually every industry on earth is feeling this transformation, from job automation to medical diagnostics, from elections to battlefield weapons. Do You Trust This Computer? explores the promises and perils of this developing era. Will A.I. usher in an age of unprecedented potential, or prove to be our final invention?

2018 • Technology

44:28

Costing $150 billion, the International Space Station is the most expensive structure humans have ever built. In this episode, using the series' signature photo-real computer graphics, we take it apart to uncover the extraordinary innovations that enable it to support life in the deadly vacuum of space.

1/6 • Superstructures Engineering Marvels • 2019 • Technology

58:32

Ada Lovelace was a most unlikely computer pioneer. In this film, Dr Hannah Fry tells the story of Ada's remarkable life. Born in the early 19th century Ada was a countess of the realm, a scandalous socialite and an 'enchantress of numbers'. The film is an enthralling tale of how a life infused with brilliance, but blighted by illness and gambling addiction, helped give rise to the modern era of computing. Hannah traces Ada's unlikely union with the father of computers, Charles Babbage. Babbage designed the world's first steam-powered computers - most famously the analytical engine - but it was Ada who realised the full potential of these new machines. During her own lifetime Ada was most famous for being the daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron ('mad, bad and dangerous to know'). It was only with the advent of modern computing that Ada's understanding of their flexibility and power (that they could be far more than mere number crunchers) was recognised as truly visionary. Hannah explores how Ada's unique inheritance - poetic imagination and rational logic - made her the ideal prophet of the digital age. This moving, intelligent and beautiful film makes you realise we nearly had a Victorian computer revolution.

2015 • Technology

58:57

Nothing has shrunk the globe more than our extraordinary ability to talk to one another across the oceans and continents. Episode three of The Genius of Invention reveals the fascinating chain of events that made such every-day miracles possible. It tells the story of the handful of extraordinary inventors and inventions who helped build the modern world by harnessing electricity and electromagnetism to enable us to send instant messages across vast distances. Michael Mosley and academics, Prof Mark Miodownik and Dr Cassie Newland tell the amazing story of three more of the greatest and most transformative inventions of all time; the electric telegraph, the telephone and wireless communication. Our experts explain how these inventions came about by sparks of inventive genius and steady incremental improvements. They separate myth from reality in the lives of the great inventors and celebrate some of the most remarkable stories in British history.

Part 3 • The Genius of Invention • 2013 • Technology

12:17

A.I. is a primal force, like fire. The same fire that warms us can incinerate our homes; A.I. could enslave mankind -- or, join us in a grand alliance to reach the stars.

2017 • Technology

47:14

Cuisine meets a vital need, but it is also a way of expressing pleasure, emotions, and sharing. With an hour on average spent everyday cooking, it is also at the heart of our daily lives. How will cooking respond to environmental challenges in the future?

S1E7 • Dream the Future • 2017 • Technology