Table of contents for Nov/Dec 2020 in WIRED UK

ADAMA JALLOH Jalloh photographed Gift Ajimokun, a diversity and inclusion consultant, to open the Work Smarter section. “Gift is passionate and confident, and I wanted to convey all that with just a look,” she says. “I like to bounce between showing aspects like power and playfulness.” SHAMIL TANNA Tanna photographs Richard Browning this issue – the real-life Iron Man who flies using a jet suit. “I tried to make him look like a super hero,” he says. “The tech on the suit still looks kind of home made, so while I’d like to try it one day, I’m not quite ready to strap a jet engine to my arm.” JUMI AKINFENWA Akinfenwa writes about the burden being placed on Black employees to “fix” their workplaces. “There are definitely those who…

A tima Lui was in primary school when she first learned that “nude” is not universal. Now 30, she still recalls playing with a white friend’s makeup and struggling to find colours that complemented her rich skin tone. “I would try to put [her makeup] on and it would just make me look like a clown,” says Lui, who is of Sudanese and African-American descent. “I think back to how my mother barely wore makeup. Now I know it’s because makeup just wasn’t made for her.” The cosmetics landscape has long been unfriendly terrain for anyone on the wrong side of beige. Before Rihanna introduced her ground breaking Fenty Beauty line with 40 shades of foundation in 2017, pushing competing brands to diversify their palettes, people with darker skin had…

Oris Limited Edition Roberto Clemente 40mm watch £1,350 oris.ch A special edition commemorating baseball Hall of Famer Roberto Clemente, this watch is limited to 3,000 units, representing Clemente’s career hits. It features a stainless steel case and the Oris 754 movement. Tudor Store Opening, Westfield, London tudorwatch.com Watches of Switzerland has teamed up with Tudor to open Tudor’s first standalone store in Europe, at London’s Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush, showcasing its extensive range of unisex timepieces. Fujifilm X100V camera £1,299 fujifilm-houseofphotography.com With plenty of features for both pros and amateur photographers alike, the X100V packs in a 23mm F2.0 lens, X-Trans CMOS 4 sensor, and an advanced hybrid viewfinder – all wrapped in a cool retro-style aluminium body. FOREO LUNA 3 facial cleansing device £169 foreo.com Delivering up…

INVESTING IN EQUALITY Faced with the BLM movement, company leaders have passed the buck THE DEATH OF GEORGE FLOYD, a Black American man killed by police during an arrest in May 2020, sparked a global anti-racist movement. As companies scrambled to show their support, they found themselves in an awkward position. They realised they could no longer avoid addressing racial inequality and institutional problems within their own organisations, so they quickly issued a plethora of statements and pledges outlining grand plans to finally solve the issue. But businesses don’t have structures in place to ensure accountability. Rather than senior leadership doing the legwork, the responsibility has fallen to non-white hires, who are not remunerated for additional labour, or to diversity and inclusion officers, some newly contracted in the wake of…

HOW TO GET AHEAD IN SECURITY Catherine Hyland got as up close and personal as one can to a world-famous whistleblower in exile, when she photographed this model of Edward Snowden’s head, which stops your digital home assistant from spying on you. “The world seems to be getting smaller and smaller through technology and our incessant need to stay constantly connected, so maybe we need something tangible and literal (however deadpan) to help make us more aware of how much of our personal data we give away so freely. I think that’s why I found it quite a soothing thing to photograph – it became about telling a story through the aesthetics, and it was nice to have a physical object I could hold on to, that summarises this idea…

“From time to time we show new products, but this is wild.” So said a grainy, black-and-white Johnny Carson on NBC’s Tonight Show on May 5, 1970, beamed across the US on the eve of Hamilton Watch Company’s biggest ever launch back in 1970: the world’s first digital electronic wristwatch. “It will sell, I’m told, for $1,500,” said Carson to his millions of viewers. “So this watch can tell you the exact moment you went bankrupt.” In fact, the “Pulsar Time Computer” that came to market two years later cost even more than that – a cool $2,100 in gold, exclusively from Tiffany’s, which amounts to over $13,000 adjusting for inflation. Even taking into account the bulk of precious metal, the net cost for what it contained – technology less…

It has been five years since the big Swiss watch brands first responded to the emergence of the now ubiquitous Apple Watch. What was once seen as a slightly anaemic, possibly begrudging offering from the traditionalists has been significantly improved since: TAG Heuer and Montblanc have released updated versions of their Connected and Summit watches, and Tissot has turned its long-standing T-Touch platform from curiosity into a genuine smartwatch. The latest to enter the fray is Hublot, with the launch of the Big Bang e. With other super-premium players including Louis Vuitton and Frederique Constant also well established in this sector, it is clear that, despite the Apple Watch outselling the entire Swiss watch industry in 2019, luxury watch brands are still unwilling to let the executives in Cupertino take…

3 DIVE WATCHES Developed in the 1950s as a means to track elapsed time underwater, the design brief of the dive watch was very simple: be accurate, be legible and don’t leak. This led to a fairly standard form factor for their first two decades: white hands on a black dial, with a rotating timing ring. Given this straightforward spec, watch brands have been left with either a very easy, or a very difficult task when they set out to create a new dive watch: hew close to the archetype, or get creative and stand out from the crowd. By the late 1960s and into the 70s, dive watches got funky, with colourful dials and bulbous cases – but still, they had to perform their primary task. Digital dive computers…

01 ROLEX GMT-MASTER II This 40mm Oystersteel and “Everose” gold watch with a black dial and a brown and black Cerachrom bezel simultaneously shows the time in two different time zones during intercontinental flights – but its the use of Chromalight that really shines out. Rather than green, Rolex’s proprietary compound glows a vivid blue in the dark. Rolex claims that Chromalight can last up to eight hours, more than double the time of other luminescent materials. Using photoluminescent material to show the time in low-light conditions is a practice that has been employed since the development of the earliest wristwatches. Originally, riskily radioactive radium and then tritium were the substances of choice, but thankfully we now have safer options such as H3 tritium gas and strontium aluminate. The most…

Thierry Breton’s career could not be more different from a typical Eurocrat’s. The French commissioner responsible for the European Union’s internal market and shaping its digital policy describes himself as an engineer, a scientist, an economist, an entrepreneur, a professor, a CEO – and a politician. Over the course of his career, he has launched a software-engineering startup, led major tech and telecom companies such as Thomson, Atos, and France Telecom, acted as France’s economy and finance minister, and taught global governance at Harvard. In the 1980s, Breton also had some success as a writer of science-fiction novels – in which he (rather presciently) envisioned a world run by technology billionaires where computer viruses and fake news threatened the global world order. As a young entrepreneur selling software in New…

Hype tends to be denounced as the fuel of the substandard, the fraudulent and the disappointing. It’s what we blame when companies, technologies or ideas dominate the public consciousness, only to let us down; the invisible force that tricks us into believing the con; the eye-roll-inducing words that tell us to over-invest our time, money and faith into unique “solutions” that within a few months will turn out to be useless. In short, hype is seen as the domain of hucksters and snake oil salesmen peddling the ordinary as exceptional. And hype has another, pernicious role – that of current-day distraction. In science and technology, it often amounts to a distraction of the public gaze away from underrated innovation, and towards that which more easily captures attention. Away from the…

1 Companies with more diverse management are 25 per cent more likely to make more revenue, according to a study by McKinsey. Researchers found that the greater the diverse representation, the higher the likelihood of out-performance. 2 Shares in companies with more women performed better than their competitors during the coronavirus crisis, according to an analysis of FTSE 250 companies by New Street Group. Shares in the top 25 FTSE 250 companies with diverse boards fell in value by an average of 24 per cent since the start of 2020; their competitors’ share prices fell 29 per cent. 3 Research by job site Glassdoor shows that 67 per cent of job seekers look at workforce diversity when they are offered a job. Top female candidates in the US and Europe…

In 2024, a female astronaut will for the first time walk on the surface of the Moon. For that to happen, Nasa’s Artemis mission will require new space suits, a new spacecraft and a launch with the world’s most powerful rocket. Artemis I, planned for 2021, will complete a flyby of the Moon with no crew; in 2023, Artemis II will send a crew on a flyby; Artemis III, in 2024, will send one woman and one man to the lunar surface. Ensuring the spacecraft is ready involves months of testing, much of which was completed in late 2019 and early 2020 at Nasa’s Plum Brook Station in Ohio. “We ensure all systems on the spacecraft will work in the extreme environments of space,” says Nicole Smith, chief of Exploration…

A GREAN NEW DEAL! UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME! RE-IMAGINING CAPITALIAM! BUSINESS MUST DRIVE POLITICAL CHANGE CAPITALISM IS BROKEN. INEQUALITY has reached levels not seen since the Gilded Age. Social mobility is falling. The novel coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the fact that far too many “essential” workers have no sick leave, no health care and no savings. Climate change remains a clear and present danger. All too often these are seen as problems for government. But my research suggests that the private sector can – and must – play a central role in driving the systemic change that is the only lasting answer. Many firms believe that their only responsibility is to maximise profits. But the bedrock values of modern capitalism are prosperity and freedom, not profitability for its own sake. Genuinely…

Anyone with a passing interest in classic cars will have noticed an emergent trend in recent years, in which long-discontinued favourites are raised up, Lazarus-like, from the dead, and put back into production. A few million pounds will net you a brand new Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato, last made in 1963, a freshly minted 1957 Jaguar XKS, or even a supercharged 4.5-litre Bentley “Blower”, 12 of which are being made to match – down to the last engine rivet – the original quartet built for the racing driver Sir Tim Birkin in 1929. A similar phenomenon has been occurring in the watch world, though the investment levels aren’t quite so eye-watering. Those demanding vintage kudos in a brand new watch can take their pick from examples as varied as…

Since teaming up with Florentine jewellery designer Carolina Bucci in 2016, Audemars Piguet has left barely any surface unfrosted. Bucci’s micro-hammering technique has been used to add shimmer to many of the brand’s watches, and now brings perceptible handcraft to its most ground-breaking watch collection. Audemars Piguet, founded in 1875, originally introduced its Concept range back in 2002. “This was the beginning of 21st century watchmaking as we know it today, before all the experimental indies like Greubel Forsey and Richard Mille came along,” says Michael Friedman, head of complications at the watchmaker. “The Concept created a new pathway that said high horology can enter the field of experimentation and avant-garde design.” Through the collection, Audemars Piguet has explored materials with 2008’s Royal Oak Concept Carbon, worked out how to…

There’s a deeply held desire in the hearts of both watchmakers and buyers to categorise. This watch is for wearing with a tuxedo; this one for playing sports; this one for astronauting, and so on. In many cases – think professional-grade dive watches or military pilot’s watches – these objects were born out of a particular need at a specific moment. However, modern lifestyles require greater flexibility from watchmakers, and a new generation of watches has been emerging in which technical supremacy, deluxe styling and robust construction ensure the boundaries betweens use cases are well and truly blurred. A. Lange & Söhne, a brand admired for its patrician, black-tie timekeepers, has recently embraced a more diverse approach than usual with the launch of the Odysseus. It packs Lange’s customary horological…

Despite Covid-19’s disruption, global watch releases have had many highlights…

The hardest thing about creating a scale model of Edward Snowden’s head is getting the glasses right. This is Echo Chamber – a copper-lined life-size replica of the NSA whistleblower’s head. It sits over a home voice assistant, such as an Amazon Echo, and blocks it from hearing you and connecting to the internet. May Safwat – an artist and filmmaker, and a lecturer at the Kingston School of Art – came up with the idea after having conversations with friends and family members who were convinced their smart speakers were listening to them, even if they hadn’t said one of the wake words (like “Alexa” or “OK, Google”). She had the idea of creating a physical object that could give a sense of control: Edward Snowden was the obvious…

Clifford Johnson spends his days dissecting some of science’s most inscrutable mysteries. How does quantum physics apply to our understanding of space and time? What is the true nature of black holes? What are the origins of the universe? But, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) ventures further into quantum realms, time travel and space exploration, Johnson has added to his daily musings. He’s become the MCU’s go-to guy when its producers need to sprinkle a little scientific realism into their superhero stories. With credits on television shows and films from Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Endgame to the forthcoming Ms. Marvel, Johnson has helped shape some of the MCU’s most memorable depictions of science and scientists in action. With The Falcon and The Winter Soldier due for release on Disney+…

Mohamed Taha’s ambition to disrupt the fertility industry began after his first sperm test. According to the World Health Organisation, a normal sperm count is around 15 million sperm per millilitre (m/ml) of semen. Taha’s sperm count was 15 times lower. Concerned, he chose to do a second analysis at a different clinic: the result a more positive 20 m/ml. A third analysis gave a sperm count of 3 m/ml. “It was frustrating,” he says. “Every time I did a test I would get a different result.” The reasons for the discrepancy: most fertility clinics don’t employ andrologists – specialists in male reproductive systems; sperm analysis often doesn’t follow the gold standard WHO protocol; and tests are often done manually, using antiquated equipment. Doctors told me that, as a man,…

Glen Keane spent almost 40 years as an animator at Disney, but his feature length directorial debut is launching on Netflix – now a major competitor to Big Mouse in the streaming wars. Over the Moon is an animated musical based on the Chinese legend of the lunar goddess Chang’e, and follows Fei Fei, a young girl who builds a rocket to the Moon to try and meet her. Keane cut his teeth in hand-drawn animation, but says he worked hard to retain a human element to the CGI. Rather than using an actor as a model for the animators to use in each scene, he asked them to film themselves acting out different expressions. Computer graphics have given animators more powerful tools to create the subtle micro-expressions that we…

THE LUXURY PERFUME MARKET HAS blossomed into a $12 billion industry, but it’s facing a fresh challenge: technology advances have meant that counterfeiters have taken to copying their famous scents in the form of “smell-alike” perfumes. Smell-alikes are booming. Between 2017 and 2018, more than 2.2 million fake items, including perfumes, were seized in the UK, while the OECD estimates fake goods imported to the UK were worth £13.6bn in 2016, equivalent to three per cent of real imports, up from £9.3bn in 2013. Phil Lewis, director general of the Anti-Counterfeiting Group explains that “the UK is one of Europe’s most targeted countries for these insidious fakes, many of which contain dangerous toxins and stabilisers. Moreover, we lose over £400 million in revenue, which instead falls into the hands of…

Swedish lifestyle brand Byredo is upping its genderless ante with a new makeup line that’s multi-purpose and multi-person. Offering a core of ultra-reliables, from versatile colour sticks to eye shadows and liner, the aim is to inspire, not impose, and create a palette that works for all, in any setting. A concept by Byredo founder Ben Gorham and makeup maverick Isamaya Ffrench, it’s sure to turn heads. The Colour Stick The hero of the collection, the multi-purpose Colour Stick epitomises the aspiration to depart from prescriptive beauty. Offering two finishes (creamy and dewy) in 16 shades, Colour Sticks can be applied anywhere – from eyelids and forehead to cheek and lips. Wearable tones such as Flower Play (dusky pink) and Vienna (warm sand) team up with bold tones like Kinda…

As December 31, 2019 crossed into January 1, 2020, few had much concern for the virus creeping through Asia. However, as the weeks progressed and Covid-19 began to spread across the world, everything changed, including for the watch industry. Shows were cancelled, new launches were put on hold, and bricks-and-mortar retail ceased as countries locked down. With watches that had been in development for many years, the notoriously staid watch industry had limited choices: get onboard with digital, or go into indefinite shutdown. Watches were launched in hastily organised online “events” including Breitling’s Summit Webcast and Geneva’s Watches & Wonders show. While some brands, led by Rolex, refused to sell online, others, including Patek Philippe, did allow retail partners to sell via e-commerce channels. (Amazingly, these brands had no capability…

1 CHAIN GANG Watch bracelets were, until recently, somewhat ignored: while varied, interchangeable straps have flourished, the simple steel bracelet is seen as an item of hefty practicality rather than refinement. However, the increasing popularity of luxury steel sports timepieces, led by a surging market for examples descended from the 70s heyday of prestige bracelet watches, has made them a focus for increasingly innovative design. Earlier this year, Hublot introduced a new bracelet-bound version of its 15-year-old Big Bang. As with those 70s models, the central concept involves integrating the case and bracelet seamlessly, rather than attaching a bracelet to a case designed for a strap – an objective that required subtly redesigning the case itself for the Big Bang Integral. Breitling also made the bracelet a prime feature of…

A visit to Tudor’s headquarters in Geneva is a visit to the heart of a paradox. For starters, there really is no such thing as “Tudor HQ”. What there is, in a light industrial district to the south-east of central Geneva known as Les Acacias, is Rolex HQ: a number of glass buildings laid out over two city blocks. The ten-storey factory buildings stretch out forbiddingly, clad in darkly tinted glass with taller blue-green tower blocks at the entrance. The whole site is surrounded by neatly maintained lawns and planted with trees of completely uniform height and size; flagpoles line the driveway and atop each of the main buildings is a large yellow crown logo, with Rolex in green letters ten feet tall beneath them. The rooftops are either covered…

For a global business worth a reported $17 billion and driven by increasingly sophisticated online platforms, the secondary – or “pre-owned” – watch market is constrained by a particularly analogue factor: when it comes to authentication of timepieces, dealers still rely on the warranty cards and paper certificates issued by manufacturers. Given that counterfeiters can now clone “super fake” watches with such sophistication that even experts can be duped, trusting mere paperwork for the authenticity of items is an increasingly dubious proposition. But blockchain technology may offer a solution. The idea of using blockchain’s distributed ledger system to ensure fail-safe authentication and accountability is already being trialled everywhere from the art market and auction houses to financial services and music-rights management. In the watch market, it offers the opportunity to…