Robot arms weld a vehicle on the assembly line at a General Motors plant.
Since the Great Recession ended four years ago, American workers’ productivity has risen. But, in the U.S. there are two million fewer jobs than before the downturn. The unemployment rate is stuck at levels not seen since the early 1990s and the proportion of adults who are working is four percentage points off its peak in 2000.
Continue reading… “How technology hurts the middle class”
Synthetic biology is about making DNA from scratch.
What if you could turn a bread machine into your personal pharmacy? Or fill your gas tank with fuel made from grass clippings? Or light your home with glowing houseplants? While radical in concept, these ideas are startlingly practical and already in the works.
Continue reading… “Synthetic biology holds global promise and perils”
Moore’s Law — the ability to pack twice as many transistors on the same sliver of silicon every two years — will come to an end as soon as 2020 at the 7nm node says Robert Colwell who now works for DARPA (trying to pick after CMOS technology) and was Intel’s chief chip architect from 1990 to 2001.
Continue reading… “End of Moore’s Law by early 2020’s: It’s not just about physics”
“Mab” flying robots.
“Mab” is Adrain Perez Zapata’s futurist concept where he envisions a swarm of tiny flying robots zipping around your house to clean surfaces, before returning to a spherical home base. Here’s the summary: (Pics)
Continue reading… “Tiny flying robots may clean your house in the future”
Buildings in the U.S. consume a lot of energy.
The United States has a massive energy inefficiency problem. The amount of energy wasted by the US economy in 2012, could power the United Kingdom for 7 years.
Continue reading… “America uses 11 times more energy than the UK but only has 5 times more people”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWGTFcxAr7g[/youtube]
JetSurf takes watersports to a whole new level. This gas-powered mini-surfboard is about the size of a wakeboard, and its carbon-fiber-and-kevlar body is powered by a two-stroke internal combustion engine. You don’t need waves (or paddling) to move. You just hold on to the handle, press the hand-operated control unit, and you’re off and surfing.
Continue reading… “JetSurf – a high-tech motorized surfboard”
Tube transportation is the future of transportation.
You shouldn’t give up on flying cars or hoverboards just yet. As technology continues to march on, everything will go into development sooner or later—as demonstrated by the existence of these things, which we’ll almost certainly see within our lifetimes.
Continue reading… “Top 10 cutting-edge technologies in development”
Dashboards have played an integral role in how we interact with our cars, at least since the 1980’s. The switches, knobs and dedicated displays housed below (and sometimes on) our windshields keep us tuned in to the world around us. (Pics)
Continue reading… “World’s first car with voice-activated LED projection dashboard”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoiAewo5K7s[/youtube]
The new RoboCoin ATM machine to buy and sell bitcoin has launched this week. The new ATM will allow anyone to buy the virtual currency BitCoin with actual dollar bills, right on the street corner.
Continue reading… “New RoboCoin ATM lets you buy Bitcoin with cash”
A child born in 2012 is estimated to cost $241,080 to raise.
It’s becoming increasingly expensive to have kids. But it has never been cheaper to clothe and feed them, as well. The total cost of raising a child born in 2012 is estimated at $241,080 – and double that if your child attends college. That’s a 23% increase from 1960. So what is getting more expensive?
Continue reading… “What’s behind the increasing cost of raising a child in the U.S.”
How Texas and North Dakota won the recovery.
If you want to understand how to create hundreds of thousands jobs at once you just need look to Texas and North Dakota. Together, these two states account for a little more than 8 percent of the country’s population — about one in 12 people. But they’re also responsible for 20 percent of net new jobs since the end of the recession. And, crucially, they account for “more than 100 percent of the increase in U.S. [oil] production since 2009,” James Hamilton writes.
Continue reading… “Smart policies are good, but oil is better”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgMYjSMBOmM[/youtube]
Fast-food employees across the country are clocking out and rising up. The low-wage workers plan a day of nationwide strikes today to demand higher pay in the largest of a series of industry protests that have rippled across the USA since last fall.
Continue reading… “Fast food workers are marching for equality”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.