People are shopping on their phones more so than ever before.
You won’t need to carry a wallet in the not-so-distant future. Smartphones are transforming the way we pay for things online and offline, but mobile payments still have a long way to go before they’re ubiquitous.
Continue reading… “The mobile payment ‘tsunami’ is coming”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Fifteen years ago I found myself stranded in the small town of Faith, South Dakota. It was 3:00 am in the morning and my car was out of gas. To give you a better idea of my predicament, this tiny town of 400 people was located 100 miles away from any significant cities.
Continue reading… “Introducing the Fully-Automated 24-Hour City”
Job fair in China for college graduates.
College students in the U.S. facing the misery of an anemic post-graduation job market have company in an unlikely-seeming place: China. Despite entering a robust economy that seemed to weather the financial crisis as if were it a middling squall, China’s college graduates on average make only 300 yuan, or roughly $44, more per month than the average Chinese migrant worker, according to statistics cited over the weekend by a top Chinese labor researcher and reported today by the Beijing Times (in Chinese).
Continue reading… “Value of a college degree in China – $44”
Millennials engage in nearly every online shopping activity.
Millennials have grown up embracing the deep discounts and convenience offered by online shopping. A January 2013 survey from ad agency DDB Worldwide of US web users’ attitudes toward ecommerce found that both males and females ages 18 to 34 were more likely than their 35- to 64-year-old counterparts to engage in nearly every online shopping activity, with 40% of males and 33% of females in the younger age group reporting that ideally they would buy everything online.
Continue reading… “How the Millennial generation shops online”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Htkm6cw94x8[/youtube]
University of Maryland engineers are currently working on a battery made of wood, an innovative, low-cost, environmentally friendly idea. The research team used tiny wood fibers from yellow pine trees to make test batteries — and we mean seriously tiny, the tree fibers are a thousand times thinner than a piece of paper. They use sodium rather than lithium, so the team imagines this battery working best in a large-scale environment, like for storing solar energy at a power plant.
Continue reading… “Scientists create battery using wood”
The mega rich are getting richer.
Last year, there were a record-breaking 12 million people around the world who were millionaires, with the US experiencing the biggest jump in super-rich residents.
“Where grown-ups go to unplug, getaway [sic] and be kids again.”
How much would you pay for a technology-free weekend? This past June, Digital Detox held its first three-day camp, the purpose of which is offering a technology-free weekend. It costs $350 and sold out.
Continue reading… “Digital Detox: A tech-free summer camp for adults”
You may soon breathe underwater by injecting oxygen into your bloodstream.
Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital have designed microparticles that can be injected into your bloodstream to quickly oxygenate your body. Even if you can’t/aren’t breathing. And it can keep people alive for 15 to 30 minutes. It’s one of the best medical breakthroughs in recent years, and one that could save millions of lives every year.
Continue reading… “Scientists invent injectable oxygen that will let you live without breathing”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd3TFB0wOI0[/youtube]
There has already been success by researchers in growing tracheas, bladders, and body parts like noses on scaffolds using stem cells. Why not try to develop something more complex, like a heart or lungs? Dr. Harald Ott is a surgeon and researcher at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital who has been working on this very question.
Continue reading… “Scientists trying to build human hearts for organ transplants”
The research effort will attempt to design a vaccine conferring immunity to nicotine, using nanotechnology.
At Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, Yung Chang and her colleagues have launched an ambitious new project designed to attack nicotine dependence in a radically new way.
Continue reading… “A nanotechnology fix for nicotine dependence”
Apple’s release of its multi-colored iMacs in 1998, made consumers realize they wanted beautiful computers, not ugly ones.
Ross Dawson, futurist, keynote speaker, and author, recently traveled to Provence in the hills above Nice to give the keynote at the annual EuroCIO conference. He used his framework for the future of the CIO to point to the macro drivers of change in technology and society, and how these are shaping the technology function in organizations, and in turn the role of the CIO.
Continue reading… “How rising expectations of beauty are shaping technology and society”
Forty-eight percent of Americans say the growing number of “people who are not religious” is bad for American society. But a similar share say either that this trend is good or that it does not make much difference, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center.
Continue reading… “Almost half of U.S. adults say growth of nonreligious bad for American society”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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