Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Americans are increasingly doubtful about the future and the tenets of the “American dream,” polling finds. The first major poll of American Jews in more than 10 years shows rapid assimilation into the larger culture for every denomination except the Orthodox. Agribusiness giant…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. The Serval project offers free software to enable cellular phones to exchange calls and text messages without a cellular network. Serval is seeking crowdfunding for its “Mesh Extender,” a device that would extend the ad hoc mesh networks created by…
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Back from a summer break, here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. The head of the Federal Trade Commission has called for an investigation of the impact of “patent trolling” activities because there is little hard data about the costs and benefits of such activities, including their impact…
DetailsHere are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Using “big data” to evaluate the productivity of individual scientists may have unintended consequences. A recent editorial in Science argues that any automated scoring of an individual’s publication output discourages “risky and potentially groundbreaking work” and tends to steer scientists towards highly populated fields…
DetailsHere are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Association of Professional Futurists member Andrew Curry pointed out a 2011 paper from Microsoft and the University of New South Wales, “Six Provocations for Big Data,” that offers “critical questions about what all this data means, who gets access to it,…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. An opinion piece for MIT Technology Review notes that while “big data” has the potential to enable economic and social progress, we must be careful not to become so enamored of data that we “fail to appreciate its inherent ability to mislead,” e.g., by drawing…
DetailsHere are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Intel is talking about making personal data economically valuable to individual consumers. The New York Times reports that the High Plains Aquifer that stretches from Wyoming and South Dakota to Texas is drying up as the contents are tapped for irrigated agriculture. Farmers are…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Mining mobile phone data enabled researchers to draw more efficient bus routes in Abidjan, the largest city of Ivory Coast. When maternal rats are fed a high fat, high sugar diet during pregnancy and lactation their offspring have a higher preference…
DetailsHere are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Highlighting different ways to look at information and organization, San Francisco artist Chris Cobb created an installation at a book store in which he cataloged 20,000 books by color. (Click the link, it is a wonder to behold.) Ford is…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. Fifty-nine percent of Americans are afraid of falling out of their current economic class, a poll finds. In this video interview, Dr. Susan Katz, a retired pediatrician and biochemist, discusses new research on “obesogens”–chemicals that may promote weight gain in humans and…
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