Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. A scholar at Brookings Institution discusses how the emerging markets of Asia might avoid the “middle-income trap” that could keep them from becoming wealthy. A new study found that “Facebook Use Predicts Declines in Subjective Well-Being in Young Adults.” Direct interactions with…
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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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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. In 2011, federal health officials and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended cholesterol screening for children between 9 and 11 years of age, concerned about development of heart disease risk factors early in life. Now a new study has identified…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. A slew of new “Big Mother” apps and devices are coming online to nudge people into better behavior. These include cameras that watch posture, forks that alert a user if she is eating too quickly, and fitness devices that remind consumers…
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Here are five indicators, observations or articles that caught the eye of FA futurists today. In the wake of the Boston bombings, the website Reddit is providing a new example of the potential power — and perhaps potential abuses — of crowdsourced intelligence gathering, as users track down multiple views of people carrying specific backpacks in the…
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I am by no stretch of the imagination an economist. But a recent paper and a recent book on the long-term prospects for sustained US economic growth—and the discussion they generated—captured my attention, perhaps because it makes a forecast that builds on centuries of history. I’ll do my best to briefly describe the paper’s thesis…
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