Blogs

THE FUTURIST Magazine Releases Its Top 10 Forecasts for 2013 and Beyond (With Video)

Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. The forecasts are meant as conversation starters, not absolute predictions about the future. We hope that this report--covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology--inspires you to tackle the challenges, and seize the opportunities, of the coming decade. Here are our top ten.

Why the Future Will Almost Certainly Be Better than the Present

Five hundred years ago there was no telephone. No telegraph, for that matter. There was only a postal system that took weeks to deliver a letter. Communication was only possible in any fluent manner between people living in the same neighborhood. And neighborhoods were smaller, too. There were no cars allowing us to travel great distances in the blink of an eye. So the world was a bunch of disjointed groups of individuals who evolved pretty much oblivious to what happened around them.

Headlines at 21st Century Tech for January 11, 2013

Welcome to our second weekly headlines for 2013. This week's stories include:

  • A Science Rendezvous to Inspire the Next Generation
  • Next Steps for the Mars One Project
  • Feeding the Planet Would Be Easier if We Didn't Waste Half of What We Produce

Where is the future?

Like the road you can see ahead of you as you drive on a journey, I suggest the future is embedded in emerging, continuous space-time. Although you’re not there yet, you can see the road in front of you. In the rear-view mirror stretches the landscape of the past, the world you have been through and still remember.

Transparency 2013: Good and bad news about banking, guns, freedom and all that

“Bank secrecy is essentially eroding before our eyes,” says a recent NPR article. ”I think the combination of the fear factor that has kicked in for not only Americans with money offshore, countries that don’t want to be on the wrong side of this issue and the legislative weight of FATCA means that within three to five years it will be exceptionally difficult for any American to hide money in any financial institution.”

The Internet of Things and Smartphones are Breaking the Internet

I have written several articles on network communications on this blog site as well as on other sites, describing its e

BiFi, Biology, Engineering and Artifical Life

BiFi is to biology as WiFi is to computers. It's a technology being pioneered by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions, looking at bioengineering techniques for creating complex biological communities working together to accomplish specific tasks. In a sense every organ and every system of coordinated activity within our bodies runs as a BiFi network.

more WFS blogs

Futurist Update

In the Current Issue:

  • Nature Preserves May Be Too Diverse
  • Brain Pacemakers to Stop Memory Loss?
  • Arts Organizations Learn to Juggle Digital Technology’s Pros and Cons
  • What's Hot in THE FUTURIST Magazine

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The Futurist

In the January-February 2013 (Vol. 47, No. 1) Issue:

  • Food, Fuel, and the Global Land Grab
  • Building the Global Innovation Economy
  • Crime in the Year 2030
  • Eldering: Aging with Resilience
  • The Coming of Intelligent Green Vehicles: A Report from the TechCast Project
  • Visionaries: Science and a New Kind of Prediction

Interviews

The Futurist Magazine Interviews Stephen Wolfram

Subject(s):

Better living through data? When a pioneer of data collection and organization turned his analytical tools on himself, he revealed the complexity of automating human judgment and the difficulty of predicting just what is predictable.

Mini Matters--an Interview with John Vanston of Technology Futures on Looking for "Minitrends"

Subject(s):

Futurists, wisely, study the big picture. But John H. Vanston, futurist and chairman of the Austin, Texas, consulting firm Technology Futures, Inc., reminds us that sometimes the most important developments begin at a very small scale.

Leonardo Curzio Discusses U.S.-Mexico Relations with WFS President Timothy Mack

Subject(s):

In an interview with esteemed Mexican journalist Leonardo Curzio last week, Society President Tim Mack discussed Mexico's promise for becoming an economic powerhouse. The 24-minute interview took place on November 14 and was broadcast on the popular Enfoque Noticias Primera Emisión program. Mack predicted that Mexico's growing economic strength will also change the nature of Mexico-U.S.

World Future Review

In the Current Issue:

  • China’s Effort to Redefine Corporate Governance by Joergen Oerstroem Moeller
  • Infoglut Management: Essential Change for the Global MegaCrisis by Michael Marien
  • Political Science in a New Era by Paul R. Ehrlich and Dennis C. Pirages
  • MegaCrisis? Overpopulation Is the Problem by Gioietta Kuo
  • Hybrid Futures Intelligence: Circular, Cyclical, and Convergent by Irving H. Buchen
  • Many Too Many Are Born: State Manipulation of Sex Drive Resulting in Infertility by Victor Grech, Clare Vassallo, and Ivan Callus
  • Management by Apps by James M. Higgins
  • An Evolving, Worldwide Digital-Technology Leviathan an interview with Ramesh Subramanian
  • Latin America’s Left-Leaning Future an interview with Steven Levitsky
  • New and Forthcoming Books prepared by Michael Marien
  • Recent Futures-Related Writing Abstracts of Books, Articles, Blogs, and Reports Concerning Forecasts, Trends, and Ideas about the Future

Purchase a print copy by mail $25

Reviews of New Books

Mobilizing for a More Peaceful Twenty-First Century

Posted on December 3, 2012
Cultivating Peace: Becoming a 21st-Century Peace Ambassador
Image of Cultivating Peace: Becoming a 21st-Century Peace Ambassador
Author(s): James O'Dea
Publisher: Shift Books (2012)
Binding: Paperback, 242 pages
List Price: $15.95

The world’s peace movements are undergoing a transition, according to James O’Dea, retired Amnesty International director. Whereas they once focused on simply opposing wars, peace organizations are now striving to actively build new social systems that embody justice and nonviolence.

Tourism 3.0

Posted on December 3, 2012
2050 - Tomorrow's Tourism (Aspects of Tourism)
Image of 2050 - Tomorrow's Tourism (Aspects of Tourism)
Author(s): Ian Yeoman
Publisher: Channel View Publications (2012)
Binding: Paperback, 256 pages
List Price: $49.95

Vacationing in a climate-changed and AI-driven world will be very different, writes Victoria University futurologist Ian Yeoman.

Networking for Progress

Posted on December 3, 2012
Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age
Image of Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age
Author(s): Steven Johnson
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover (2012)
Binding: Hardcover, 272 pages
List Price: $26.95

In Future Perfect, bestselling author Steven Johnson (Everything Bad Is Good for You) declares himself a member of the new revolutionary party, the peer progressives.

Challenges and Opportunities for Professional Futurists

Posted on December 3, 2012
Subject(s):

The Future of Futures

Futures work is on the verge of a “profound transition,” according to Andrew Curry, futurist with the London-based Futures Company, and 14 contributors from consulting firms and research institutes based across the planet.

Learn about the future of ...

Commerce

TFI Communications Technology Asset Valuation Conference

Technology Futures Inc. is holding its eighth annual conference on Communications Technology Asset Valuation on January 24-25 in Austin, Texas.

Earth

Food, Fuel, and the Global Land Grab

By Lester R. Brown

Growing demand for food and fuel has put pressure on the world’s agricultural lands to produce more. Now, a...

Futuring

The Futurist Magazine Interviews Stephen Wolfram

Better living through data? When a pioneer of data collection and organization turned his analytical tools on himself, he revealed the complexity...

Humanity

Liberal Arts Colleges Are Disappearing

The number of liberal arts colleges in the United States has dropped 39% since 1990, from 212 to 139, reports Michigan State University scholar...

Sci/Tech

The Symbiosis of Man and Machine

This fourth in a series of six events focusing on The Next Golden Age of Technology will be led by noted UK technology futurist Peter Cochrane.

Governance

Lessons from Singapore

Dr. Sheila Ronis, president of The University Group Inc. and chair of the Management and Communications Department at Walsh College, will discuss...