Sci/Tech

Historically, the Internet was always about connecting people – through e-mail, picture- and video-sharing, online dating sites, and the like. But as we move into a more interoperable, multidimensional and connected world, the Internet is increasingly about connecting things.

In the twentieth century, the United States won the race to the Moon. In this century, though, don’t be surprised if Russia is the first to land a human on Mars. Roscosmos (Russia’s official space agency) is not only making bold promises about sending human explorers to Earth’s red neighbor; it’s making concrete progress in the here and now toward delivering on them.

The idea of brain-controlled prosthetics popped up in the news recently when a paralyzed man and a monkey were able to move robotic arms using their minds.

originally posted at The Trends and Foresight blog by Mike Vidikan and Elizabeth Cook

In our Technology Foresight series, we recently wrote about the status and prospects of Facial Recognition as more powerful computers and the advent of increasingly sophisticated algorithms for facial analysis have driven the technology forward.

Mobile phone technology has revolutionized the African continent in so many ways. The mobile phone has been for many an African the first real (or at the very least, most sophisticated) computing device they have encountered that has connected them in a significant manner to other people across borders and across time, hence becoming a significant game changer in the dynamics of this continent - socially, economically and politically.

originally posted at The Trends and Foresight Blog by Mike Vidikan and Chris Carbone

To some people, this is still just a ketchup bottle. But it struck us as a good example of how businesses can use new technology to engage consumers and differentiate commodity products...after all ketchup is catsup no matter how you spell it.

Do you use Apple gestures, have you even heard of them?

I was first introduced to them in January of 2008, when I became hipster #1 and bought the first MacBook Air. Now, three years and eight months later I am still barely using them.