MP3 Paul Zak tells us about oxytocin, a chemical messenger that accounts for why some people are generous, trustworthy, and faithful and others aren’t. His book The Moral Molecule: The Source of Love and Prosperity …
Read the full story »YouTube said it has acquired RightsFlow, a New York-based company which manages music rights for songwriters, recording artists, record labels and online music services. “As new ways of consuming music have emerged, RightsFlow has been …
Violins made of wood treated with fungus need not hide their lights when compared to a Stradivarius, as a blind test has already demonstrated. However, these tonal masterpieces are only available as individually-made instruments. In …
In 2009, the U.S. led a global drive to increase the International Monetary Fund’s firepower to help pull the world out of recession, pitching in $100 billion. This time, it’s a bystander in a similar …
It is an irony of history — on this very day 20 years ago, the Maastricht Treaty was signed, bringing the European Union into existence. On Dec. 9 and 10, 1991, the 12 leaders of …
Aldebaran Robotics, the world leader in humanoid robotics, has released its latest version of the NAO robot — NAO Next Gen. The power of NAO Next Gen, the new fully programmable humanoid robot that has …
Nao, from young French firm Aldebaran Robotics, is one of the better known small humanoid education and research robots–but he’s about to be replaced: By Nao Next Gen. The new robot is an evolution of …
In a jungle-covered state as big as France, Germany, and Spain combined, life at the remotest schools is tough. Qualified teachers are hard to find and just getting kids to class along some of the …
Researchers have developed one of the smallest electronic circuits, which could pave the way for smaller and more powerful mobile devices. Scientific teams from McGill University and Sandia National Laboratories said they’ve built a circuit …
The Philippines emerging as the most-preferred destination for voice-based BPO destination is a wake-up call for the larger Indian BPO sector, says Mr V. K. Mathews, Executive Chairman, IBS Group. The Business Processing Association of …
Tim Brown, president and CEO of IDEO and the author of Change By Design talks about design thinking at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. (5m 18s)
The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, which coordinates regulations for 27 nations around the world, approved preliminary guidelines, known as Basel III, in 2010. The rules govern, among other things, how much cash and other …
Many mobile phones boast of their ‘haptics’ – the advanced vibration effects that let you ‘feel’ when you’ve typed a letter on screen. But a new technology from Senseg uses electrical current to ‘pull’ the …
The chapter, “In Praise of Technology,” is excerpted with permission from Peter Ladner’s The Urban Food Revolution: Changing the Way We Feed Cities. The book is an essential resource for anyone who has lost confidence …
The battle for the future of the global financial system has commenced. The two opposing forces: global liquidity and debt deleveraging, are on the battlefield. The supporting cast: QE3, ECB rate cuts, Chinese stimulus on …
Even as the U.S. military budget declines in the face of ballooning deficits and the wind-down of two wars, spending on unmanned systems has grown from near nothing two decades ago to a projected $6.2 …
Sixty years ago, there were about 350 000 switchboard operators working for AT&T. Today, there are fewer than 20 000. Nowadays automation is moving up the skills ladder in just about every profession. It’s not …
Moscow was uncommonly tense Wednesday, with tens of thousands of riot police patrolling the streets and helicopters buzzing overhead, while opposition leaders promised more flash-mob-type demonstrations to protest alleged official vote-rigging in last weekend’s bitterly …
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates confirmed he is in discussions with China to jointly develop a new and safer kind of nuclear reactor. “The idea is to be very low cost, very safe and generate very …
Eyeglasses need never again to be cleaned, and dirty windscreens are a thing of the past! Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz and the Technical University Darmstadt are now much …
China sees an increase in domestic costs and a slowdown in overseas demand putting “severe” pressure on its exports next year, a sign that policy makers may have little appetite to allow faster gains in …
When city services can autonomously go online and digest information from the cloud, they can reach a level of performance never before seen. First up, water systems that automatically know when it will rain and …
The new car-sharing service is called Autolib’ (short for “automobile” and “liberté”). It has been in the works since 2009 and, as Co.Exist reported earlier, was in a small-scale “trial phase” this past fall. Yesterday’s …
Plans to save the eurozone were dealt a heavy blow by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s on Monday with the threat of a mass downgrade. Now Europe has retaliated, pointing to the agencies’ own role …
America’s electricity grid is a big, juicy target for cyberattacks – and it’s getting more vulnerable as interactive “smart grid” features and other Internet-based connections are grafted onto an old, insecure system, a major new …
The era of widely available next generation personal genomic testing has arrived and with it the ability to quickly and relatively affordably learn the sequence of your entire genome. This would include what is referred …
They clutter up pockets and fill up purses, yet can never be found when you need to get a refund. Now experts predict the paper receipt has almost reached the end of the roll – …
The goal of strategy is to choose the course of action that ensures success and survival. In a world of rapidly accelerating change, today's strategy quickly becomes obsolete. We must be ever more aware of the future we are planning for, since that future will quickly be upon us. Strategic foresight has a serious intent: to improve our understanding of the range of possible futures, and to use that understanding to inform action.
Innovation Watch offers a continuous scan of trends and emerging futures, and explores the question, "What's next?" Results are shared here, and are provided as RSS feeds.
David Forrest helps businesses, governments, and other organizations develop strategies for a radically different future. You can reach him by email here
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