Patrick Tucker's blog

Yesterday, the official CES Press day saw a lot of activity as hundreds of reporters shuttled between press conferences for various product announcements. It looks like 2012 will indeed be the year of the interface.

The future has descended on the Venetian in Las Vegas for the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES). I was unable to pass up the chance to join a small handful of my fellow reporters (by which I mean thousands of bloggers) for CES unveiled, the official pre-conference press event on Sunday night. The preview offered a sampling of the thousands of new products, apps, and startups that will be launching here over the next few days. Everything on display in the ballroom last night was shiny, but not everything was of relevance to the average futurist. Of those products that most impressed me were the ones that epitomize the biggest technology trend of the next ten years, devices that make use of the data you provide, even when you don’t know you’re providing data:

In the next decade, the United States will use increasingly capable artificial intelligence (AI) to greatly reduce the cost of health care, accelerate research and development into new medicines, improve cars and roads to reduce gridlock, and even regain much of the manufacturing base we lost to countries like China, say researchers in computer science, robotics, and management.

Our interaction with the future—as individuals, groups, and nations—is an expression of both personal and national identity. Regardless of what may or may not happen, the future as idea continues to shape buying, voting, and social behavior. We interact with the future in a myriad of ways, but none is more conspicuous than the prediction.

Today (December 18th, 2011) saw the passing of a wonderful artist, a courageous dissident, a great statesmen, and a member of the World Future Society, Vaclav Havel. On 1995, Havel contributed the following piece to THE FUTURIST magazine.

Sometimes an idea comes along that is so startling, well executed, complex and yet intuitive that it serves as both a perfect reflection of--and fitting compliment to--nature. And an idea like that can eat up your whole morning. If you never believed that design was an act of futurism then allow me to introduce you to Autonomo 2030, an integrated self-driving car system from Australian designer Charles Rattray.

A space-based solar power (SSP) system capable of meeting the energy needs of millions of people could be "deployed within a decade using technologies that are today in the laboratory," says John C. Mankins, a former manager of the Advanced Concepts Studies Office of Space Flight for NASA and widely considered one of the world’s leading experts on space-based solar power.

The spectacular rise of China’s current economic system presents huge questions for the existing global economic order, long dominated by Western free-market models that have lately been badly shaken by the ongoing economic strife in the U.S. and Europe-a guest blog by Christopher A. McNally of the East-West Center.

The American political elite are obsessed with jobs and how to make them, whether through direct government investment (stimulus), which is the cornerstone of the Obama Administration's recently released "American Jobs Act," or through indirect government investment (tax cuts to the supply side) which is the Republican response... and also a big part of the Jobs Act.

As a futurist, I always prefer the long view. But I’m often asked, what are the practical applications of futuring and foresight practice in navigating day to day life, making the sort of fast but high impact decisions that people are often called upon to make?