Drawing on a combination of natural instinct and modern technology, the earthquake bureau in Nanning, the capital of South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, has developed a snake-based earthquake-detection system.

Dean Takahashi: Most of us know that Thomas Watson Sr., the founder of IBM, predicted a worldwide market for five computers. Yet we beat on, boats against the current, trying to predict the future. This year, we brainstormed and argued endlessly — for about an hour. Here are the results.

Survey finds half of all Britons regularly use the telephone naked. There, try and get that pasty-white image out of your head. You’re welcome.

Much like the battle between AC & DC current a century ago, the battle between plasma and LCD televisions will determine which becomes the industry standard, and billions of dollars are at stake.

With reference materials easily accessible online, modern public libraries are now more like coffeehouse meeting places with Internet access than book lenders. But libraries and librarians still serve a purpose, say officials from the Library of Congress, academia and the Web search industry, and they have formed an advisory group on cyber-age bibliography.

A survey conducted by the Institute for the Future (IFTF) and IEEE Spectrum magazine focuses on the key science and technology trends, advances, and innovations that are more (or less) likely to surface over the next 10-50 years.

Five percent of Internet users went online yesterday to find a place to live, according to Pew Research.

Just as the number of Americans sporting tattoos has soared in the past decade, so has membership in another group: people who want their bodywork removed. Only then do they come to know the truth — that laser tattoo removal is painful, expensive and may not do the job completely.