The
Automation of Invention By Robert Plotkin Yesterday’s inventors toiled away in workshops, painstakingly
designing, building, testing, and refining their creations. In contrast,
tomorrow’s inventors will spend their days writing descriptions of the
problems they want to solve, and then hand those descriptions over to
computers to work out the solutions.
PDF Available. Plus Stephen
Thaler’s Imagination Machines
Inventor
Stephen Thaler discusses his revolutionary form of AI — a highly proficient synthetic
consciousness that has quietly existed for more than 30 years.
Assessing Global Trends for 2025 In
November 2008, the National Intelligence Council released a landmark
study, Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World. The report lays
out the possibility of a future very different from the reality to which
most of the world is accustomed. THE
FUTURIST asked four experts — Newt Gingrich,Elaine C. Kamarck,
Peter Schiff, and Dennis Kucinich — for their views on
the report’s key forecasts and what the future of the United States,
Asia, and the global economy looks like now, in the wake of the global
financial crisis.
PDF Version Available.
Mining Information
from the Data Clouds
By Erica Orange This cloud of data that
we daily contribute to may yield a wealth of new, vital information. “Cloud
mining” may soon allow us to predict behaviors of the masses and even offer
advice, according to a business futurist.
PDF Available.
Ten Forces Driving
Business Futures
By Michael Richarme In a struggling economy, the forces of
change are putting more pressures on businesses and from more directions.
Success requires both staying on top of current trends and spotting new ones
over the horizon.
PDF Available.
A
Rendezvous with Austerity: How American Consumers Will Learn New Habits By David Pearce Snyder
The forces of global economic retraction and technological evolution are
altering the outlook for American consumers. If they can tighten their belts
awhile, they may yet see a new form of prosperity—one whose well-being is
more sustainable.
PDF Available.
Visions By Cynthia G. Wagner
They may not be Picasso or Van Gogh, but supercomputres are bringing out the
stunning beauty of science via data visualization and simulations. Order the
July-August Issue for access.
BOOKS Big
Ideas for Saving the Earth
Some
of the most thoughtful work on the topic of climate change appears in
Jamais Cascio’s new e-book, Hacking the Earth. Cascio is a Bay
Area futurist who worked with Global Business Network during the 1990s
and is currently a research affiliate at the Institute for the Future, a
global futures strategist at the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology,
and a fellow at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies.
Review by Bob Olson
How
Evolution Is Evolving
Mainstream science maintains that humans stopped evolving about 50,000
years ago. Civilization put an end to process. Therefore, the human of
the pre-modern era is the human of today and will be the human tomorrow,
right? Not so fast, say scientists Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending.
In The 10,000 Year Explosion, they argue that humankind is
evolving even faster in the modern age. We developed new genetic traits
as recently as the Middle Ages. The Ashkenazi (or European) Jews, for
instance, don’t just seem smarter; they demonstrate a genetic
predisposition toward higher intelligence.By Patrick Tucker
From May-June
Increasing Mental Fitness
In Spark: The
Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain,
HarvardMedical
School psychiatrist JohnRatey
gives the majority of Americansand
the 60% of the world’s
people who do not exercise enoughfor
good health even more reason toget
off their duffs and start moving.Ratey
effectively summarizes recent
research and case histories to showthat
exercise is good for you mentallyas
well as physically — a regular
exercise program can literally heal a
troubled mind. Review by Kenneth W. Harris
From March-April 2009
Too Free for Our Own Good?
In a free market, it’s much too easy to make choices that endanger our
health and wealth, observes Peter A. Ubel, a primary-care physician, in
Free Market Madness. In a free market, we are free to overeat, smoke,
drink excessively, ruin our credit, and not save enough for retirement, and
it’s much to easy for us to make choices that endanger both our health and
wealth.
Review by Rick Docksai.
Imagining an American Utopiaa
If ever a book warranted a place by the bedside of the next president of the
United States (and his Cabinet appointees), Herbert J. Gans’s “utopian
narrative” Imagining America in 2033 is it. Likewise, any futurist
eager to learn how the American presidents from now through 2033 might craft
a remarkably finer country (and thereby, a much better world) have an
indispensable primer here. Written in the form of an engaging novel, rather
than a stuffy academic treatise, the book lightly instructs in policy
studies, pragmatic reforms, and the gritty give-and-take of tomorrow's White
House realities.
Review by Arthur Shostak
From January-February
Hope in the State of the Future The Millennium
Project of the World Federation of United Nations Associations has
released a State of the Future report every year since 1996. This latest
edition draws upon all 12 predecessors and incorporates findings from
229 new contributing futurists, business planners, and scientists.
Review by Rick Docksai.
The
Emergence of a Global Generation Maverick
pollster John Zogby explains why the new American Dream is better than the old one.
Review by Aaron Cohen.
From November-December
Troubled Times Ahead?
Rick Docksai reviewsA Vision for 2012:
Planning for Extraordinary Change by
John L. Petersen.
Will Technology Create A Wiser World?
A book review by Rick DocksaiTechnology will
transform human life and force us to transform the way we think and live,
says William E. Halal, author of Technology’s Promise:
ExpertKnowledge on the
Transformation ofBusiness and
Society.
From September-October When
Avatars Come Out to Play As a young boy, Philip
Rosedale wanted to change the world. In 2003, he would do just that by
launching Second Life, recounts tech journalist Wagner James Au. In
The Making of Second Life, Au takes readers on a tour of the online
world that he calls “the best candidate to be a key feature in the
Internet’s next generation.” Review by Rick
Docksai
Three
Forces Shaping Our Future Three
powerful global forces are currently reshaping humanity’s near-term
future, writes former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce Robert J. Shapiro
in his new book Futurecast. Review by
Aaron M. Cohen
From July-August
An Economic Approach to Saving the
Environment (and Ourselves)
July 2009 Futurist Update Making Disasters Less
Disastrous
Earth Science Literacy
Rapid Virus Detection
Click of the Month: Engineer Your Life
News for the Futurist Community
What's Hot @WFS.ORG
June 2009 Futurist Update Top 10 Long-Term
Challenges
Avatars That Look Like Us
Bright Prospects for Blue-Collar Careers
Living Life with Purpose
Click of the Month: Chicago 2016
What’s Hot @WFS.ORG
May Futurist Update
How we can become more secure through cooperation…. How we can better
predict freight traffic (and why it matters)…. How you can prepare for a
sudden medical emergency—yours or that of a loved one. These stories and
more in the May 2009 Futurist Update.
Preparing
for Pandemic What does flu pandemic
look like? In 2006 planers and strategists were asking this same question,
but the strain in question was H5N1, and the initial carriers were birds
rather than pigs. The guidelines proposed by the World Health Organization
at that time still provide a reliable picture of what government response to
a pandemic might entail.
APRIL 2009 Futurist Update Putting Professors
Back in the Classroom
Top Cities with Energy-Efficient Buildings
Reining in Local Government
Click of the Month: Economic Turning Point
News for the Futurist Community
What’s Hot @WFS.ORG
MARCH 2009 FUTURIST UPDATE Economic Rebound Forecast for 2010
Long-Term Benefits of Recession-Proofing Strategies
Alaska Youth Success Stories
Antarctica's Accelerated Warming
Click of the Month: TeacherTube
News for the Futurist Community
FEBRUARY 2009 FUTURIST UPDATE Half of Planet May Face
Food Crisis
Yardstick for Measuring Health
Darwin and Lincoln Bicentennials
Click of the Month: International Year of Astronomy 2009
News for the Futurist Community
JANUARY 2009 FUTURIST UPDATE Decarbonizing
Energy
Workplace Trend Watcher’s Advice
Oceanic “Lab on a Chip”
Cracking Down on Scientific Fraud
Click of the Month: eHow
Editor's Query: Wild Cards
FUTURE TV
World Future Society
board member Jay McIntosh shares why he's excited about attending the 2009
annual meeting, to be held July 17-19 in Chicago, and what you can expect
once you're there.
THE
FUTURIST magazine's Top Ten Forecasts for 2009 and
Beyond.
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. Over the years, Outlook has spotlighted the
emergence of such epochal developments as the Internet,
virtual reality, and the end of the Cold War. Here are
the editors' top 10 forecasts from
Outlook 2009.
TOP TEN
FORECASTS for 2008 and Beyond
Each year since 1985, the editors of
THE
FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts
appearing in the magazineto go into our annual Outlook report.
Watch
the video on Youtube. Attn: Teachers and
instructors:
WMV or MOV Quicktime versions available for presentations upon
request.
The World Is Not Flat In the opening plenary
session of the World Future Society's 2008 annual meeting,
Edie Weiner, president of Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.,
takes on the
idea that "the world is flat".
Information Vs. Hate
Nate Garvis (VP, Target) describes the
impact of the Technology Effect on the rise of uncivil discourse and the
"outrage industry" as well as its more positive influence in creating
communities of disparate people around the globe. Excerpted from the
World Future Society's 2007 conference. Note, Mr. Garvis's comments were
made as an individual and not as a representative of Target.
Watch the Video on YouTube.
TOP TEN FORECASTS for 2008 and Beyond
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.Watch
the video on Youtube. . Blind Insight - Nat Irvin II at
WorldFuture 2007
In this WFS exclusive, business professor Nat Irvin II (University of
Louisville) tells a personal story about his partial blindness and his
insights as a futurist at the World Future Society's 2007 conference.
Watch here. Irvin will chair the
Society's 2008 conference in
Washington, D.C.
Personalized Medicine: Gregory
Stock at WorldFuture2007: UCLA researcher Gregory Stock looks at
the future of genomics and the cures of tomorrow.
Watch here.
"Drugs or Love? Helen Fisher at
WorldFuture 2007":
Helen Fisher discusses the future of sex,
love, and relationships at the World Future Society's conference in
Minneapolis.
Watch now.
The Top Ten Forecasts from
Outlook 2007-- a short film by C. Wagner. Watch the video now on
YouTube.
Attn: Teachers and instructors:
WMV or MOV Quicktime versions available for presentations upon
request.
The
Automation of Invention
