David H. Rosen's blog
I See "The Last Myth" in Your Future
"The Last Myth" has earned its place alongside Philip Zimbardo's "The Time Paradox" and I.F. Clarke's "The Pattern of Expectation" as one of the best books on humanity's concept of "the future."
With 2012 Over, Is the Apocalypse Dead?
Say what you will about 2012 apocalypse predictions, they've been a cultural touchstone for five decades. Whenever Hollywood needed a bogeyman, 2012 was there. If conspiracy theorists were pressed for specifics, they could point to 2012. Doomsday prophesies have even provided some welcome chuckles during the fiscal cliff negotiations.
32-Year-Old Speaks with 12-Year-Old Version of Himself -- and All of Us
Don't leave 2012 without watching "A Conversation with my 12-Year-Old Self," a viral video that has struck a chord with nine million people so far.
Google Searches Expose Our Hunger for Predictions
What can Google's search data reveal about our hunger to know today what will happen tomorrow?
Using Google Trends and Google’s Keyword Tool, I examined the top 350 future-oriented keywords. Combined, they represent 152,620,240 searches a month. Here are four of the major trends uncovered.
WikiLeaks Reignites Debate on a Transparent Tomorrow
WikiLeaks' data dump of diplomatic cables this week sparked a furious debate about transparency -- a key component of many idealized and vilified visions of the future.
Great Recession Shrinks Time Horizons -- And Pantries
With 17.3 percent underemployment, the only thing shrinking faster than wallets are time horizons.
Prehistoric Needs Driving Tomorrow's Mobile Homes
Mobile homes usually aren't a part of futuristic images, but the Choices blog offers up seven this week and they're pretty. Some are real, others are concepts, but all offer the promise of womb-like protection coupled with high adventure.
Michigan Regulates Psychics. Want to Predict if Futurists are Next?
I don't think futurists could ever be compared to psychics, but anytime a government starts regulating people who base their livelihoods on the future, it's worth taking a look. Exhibit A, the government of Warren, Michigan just passed a law that requires fortune tellers to register, get fingerprinted and submit to a background check to run their businesses.
Deconstructing the Future-Heavy Rhetoric in Obama's Iraq Speech
Speeches by government leaders offer some of the most vivid applications of the future “frame” (see this excellent definition of frames for more info). Punctuated with references to history and destiny, they appeal to both the head and heart.
Smitten by SciFi, Scientists Discard Warnings to Build the Future
Check out this segment from NPR on how scifi has inspired younglings to pursue careers in science and turn fiction into fact. Amit Singhal of Google talks about how he's helping to make search into something as easy as talking to the Enterprise's computer.
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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.