The word “metadata” has been popping up in the news a lot lately, thanks to the revelation that the U.S. National Security Agency has been collecting it from millions of Americans for years. And this is no flash-in-the-pan political scandal that will be forgotten next year; as our ultra-connected, electronic future continues to emerge, we’ll … Continue reading
Last week, we looked at several crazy – but plausible! – paradigms of the world to come. But there are way more futurist visions than I can fit in a single post, so here are 5 more futures that YOU might end up living in. Which one would you pick, if it was up to … Continue reading
What will the future be like? If you’ve spent any time reading this blog, you’ll know a few details: massive cities, robot drivers, and computers that connect directly to your brain. But what about the big picture? What’s the whole world going to be like in 1,000 years? As the saying goes, ask 10 different … Continue reading
Picture this: it’s the near future, and you’re on a first date. You’re at an average restaurant in the suburbs, somewhere in the US. Your date, like half the people in the restaurant, is wearing a flat pin the size of a postage stamp on one lapel. As if you didn’t have enough reasons to … Continue reading
Imagine you could build the city of the future, from scratch, right now. What would it look like? What would it do? It’s not a hypothetical question. According to this Salon article, software developer Plan IT intends to do exactly that: “Plan IT Valley” will be a new city located in northern Portugal, and is … Continue reading
Last week, I skeptically dissected a book preview from futurist Douglas Rushkoff, whose forthcoming book Present Shock will tackle issues like sustainability, sufficiency and corporate dominance of the economy. The preview he wrote was quite short, and while intriguing, it brought up many more questions than it answered. Now, Co.exist (who featured the article originally) … Continue reading
Which location do you think is better prepared for the transition to clean energy: the wealthy, green-minded city of San Francisco, or the poor, rural villages of East Africa? If you picked the African villages, believe it or not, you’re on to something. An incredibly innovative startup called Off.grid:Electric has spent two years working to … Continue reading
It’s no surprise that this preview for the book Present Shock, called “Why Futurists Suck,” would catch my eye when someone passed along the link: It’s hard not to take it personally when someone goes so far out of their way to denigrate futurists! But a quick read through the article on Good.is suggests the … Continue reading
Just came across this bizarre story on Nextnature.net: Tired of spending time, money and energy on preparing meals, [Rob Rhinehart] decided to find a new way to survive without actual food. He created a unique mixture called “Soylent”, which contains nothing but the elements the body needs: iron, vitamins, fat, calcium and dozens of other … Continue reading
Okay, so you’re a smart, responsible citizen of the world and you want to know what’s going on around you. Are you more likely to flip open a newspaper – or flip open the laptop? Well, a new survey suggests people are now putting as much trust in social media, like Facebook, for news, as … Continue reading
Cosmic Revolutions 