WIRED UK

WIRED is the Magazine for smart, intellectually curious people who need and want to know what’s next. WIRED will always deliver stimulating and compelling content and stunning design and photography. If you want an inside track to the future, then WIRED is your magazine.

Wired UK

Creating WIRED

EDITOR’S ESSAY • Cryptocurrencies have gone mainstream – but we must ensure the rewards, as well as the risks, are available to all

SHAKING THINGS UP

Early adopters • From meditations on the natural world to using carbon-neutral laundry services, three entrepreneurs reveal what’s exciting them

DARK KITCHENS GET A LIGHT-BULB MOMENT • After developing a reputation for being the poorly paid catering sweatshops powering the fooddelivery boom during lockdown, these hidden meal-prep sites needed a rethink. Drawing on their own unsavoury experiences of cheffing, two sisters have changed the recipe for success

PERSONAL CARE NEEDS TO CLEAN UP ITS ACT • A Swedish startup has a solution to the millions of plastic bottles that go from bathrooms to landfill – just add water

Grease is the word: putting lab-grown fat on the menu

WE CAN’T ALLOW BIG TECH TO RULE OUR NEW VIRTUAL WORLDS • The Metaverse, a global, interconnected world of avatars, mixed-reality experiences and community, is coming. We have an opportunity to avoid the mistakes of past platforms – opaque algorithms, disinformation, privacy breaches and corporate interests – but we must act now

GARDENS ARE POWER STATIONS • Lurking just beneath your lawn is a reservoir of steady geothermal heat that doesn’t care what time of year it is. Tapping into this clean energy has just been made easier – and a lot cheaper

PRINT OUT A POP-UP PALACE FROM DIRT • For a while, it looked like architectural-scale 3D printing was falling flat, but an Italian project has combined an ancient building method with robotic precision to create homes that can be built anywhere – just add mud

LET’S TEACH OUR TECH BAD MANNERS • WIRED’s executive editor Jeremy White is sick of AI voice assistants being so nice all the time – truly personalised technology ought to know how to be as rude as a human

OLYMPIC GLORY: IT’S ALL IN THE THE TIMING • When an athlete’s whole training cycle is geared towards peaking at one specific starting line, how do they deal with it being pushed back a year? World heptathlon champion and Team GB star Katarina Johnson-Thompson explains

GET NEW DRUGS FROM OLD TESTS • Before it conquered the world, Viagra was a failing angina drug, and its potential was almost missed. Healx wants to ensure we don’t similarly overlook therapies that might treat rare diseases

RECREATE NATURE’S TRUE COLOURS – NO PAINT REQUIRED • From the flash of a hummingbird’s feathers to the dazzle of a butterfly, the secret to high-impact hues has been cracked

OPEN UP SECURITY FOR SAFE MESSAGES • Open-standard, decentralised, end-to-end encrypted messaging is keeping governments safe from snooping by, well, other governments. But it could work for us, too

NO SUNSHINE? CATCH GAMMA RAYS INSTEAD • We need more clean, cheap power sources. But if the wind doesn’t blow and you’re coming up short on daylight, what are your electricity options? A UK startup thinks radioisotope cells are about to have their place in the Sun

CLICK TO INITIATE INTIMACY • An app aims to support Denmark’s new sexual consent legislation – but does it lack the sex appeal for everyday use?

Retail gets a whole new look • BUSINESSES ARE MAKING BOLD CHANGES TO THE HIGH STREET AND ONLINE

Rental rises to the top of the retail pile

SHOPPING’S NEW BLEND • Brands will need to combine the best of offline and online if they want to lure in more customers

The high street will survive, but only if it...