Libraries and librarians need to exist and help foster a love of reading and places in which reading can occur.
Neil Gaiman gives The Reading Agency annual lecture on the future of reading and libraries. He explains why using our imaginations, and providing for others to use theirs, is an obligation for all citizens.
Continue reading… “Our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreaming: Neil Gaiman”
Help Wanted: Cocktail waitresses in Iceland. Must adapt well to extreme temperatures!
Quote of the Day: “I have six locks on my door all in a row. When I go out, I lock every other one. I figure no matter how long somebody stands there picking the locks, they are always locking three.” – Elayne Boosler
Industry analysts say humans are disappearing from retail establishments, replaced by kiosks.
It all started in a chain of supermarkets when one section of the check-out aisles suddenly had self-service scanners. Consumers were encouraged to check themselves out, paying with cash or plastic.
Continue reading… “Automated future – get used to being served by machines”
D-Wave quantum computer.
Google launched the Quantum Artificial Intelligence Lab last May, with hardware from the Canadian quantum computing company D-Wave and technical expertise from NASA. It was an ambitious open research project aimed at exploring both the capabilities of quantum computer architecture and the mysteries of space exploration — but in the months since, they’ve stayed quiet about exactly what kind of work they’ve been doing there.
Continue reading… “A look inside Google’s futuristic quantum lab”
Futurist Thomas Frey: What has been the hardest problem you’ve had to solve in your life? As I step you through this question, just focus on the ones where you actually found a solution.
Continue reading… “Introducing Synaptical Currency Theory – Assigning Value to Brain Capital”
An American Columbus for the space age should generate space colonies with a population of 300,000 people within about 25 years of the start of space colonization.
Columbus Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October in the U.S. Many countries in the New World and elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, which happened on October 12, 1492, as an official holiday. The landing is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Día de la Raza in many countries in Latin America, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional in Spain, as Día del Respeto a la Diversidad Cultural (Day of Respect for Cultural Diversity) in Argentina, and as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Belize and Uruguay.
Continue reading… “What will it take to be an American Columbus for the space age?”
Scot Osterweil
The creative director of the Education Arcade and a professor at the MIT Media Lab, Scot Osterweil spoke at MIT Technology Review’s EmTech conference about why educators need to encourage more creativity—and how that could help us build a better, more leisurely future.
Continue reading… “Tech education pioneer Scot Osterweil on games, education, and a better future”
The motor industry’s fortunes are increasingly divided, but in the right markets and with the right technologies, they look surprisingly bright.
Henry Ford and his engineers perfected the moving assembly line a hundred years ago. They cut the time taken to assemble a Ford Model T from 12 hours and 30 minutes in 1913 to just one hour and 33 minutes the following year. That made the car a lot cheaper to build and opened up a mass market for it. By 1918 its list price was down to $450, or just over 5 months’ pay for the average American worker, against the equivalent of about a year and a half’s pay when the car was launched a decade earlier. Cars became a personal badge of status, and in time carmaking became a badge of national virility.
Continue reading… “Future of the car industry looks surprisingly bright”
It was all fun and games with the yellow tape until the truck came!
Quote of the Day: “Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.” – Erica Jong
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPjatYDHJKo[/youtube]
The U.S. Army has just commissioned an Iron Man-like suit, called the Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit (TALOS) that will be strong enough to withstand a barrage of bullets.
Continue reading… “U.S. Army envisions Iron Man-like suit to protect troops”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Yesterday my wife Deb and I took a tour of the amazing Queensland Library in Brisbane, Australia and were thoroughly impressed with both the size and scope of their facility.
Continue reading… “Libraries That Create Their Own Economy: Opening the Door to Premium Services”
People will adapt to smart machines in their lives.
Coming to the business world: smart machines. But don’t tell that to the CEO’s. Sixty-percent of CEOs surveyed by Gartner Research say the emergence of smart machines capable of absorbing millions of middle-class jobs within 15 years is a “futurist fantasy.”
Continue reading… “Smart machines will replace millions of jobs within 15 years”