Institute For The Future

RFID taken up by artists

"WIRED News has a short roundup of artists that are using RFID in their work. Many of the examples are fairly straightforward: an otherwise dumb...

Survey of teenagers' views on tech and innovation

"The 2006 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, a survey about American attitudes toward invention and innovation, has gathered some interesting data about...

NEW Memo--RFID: Implications and Recommendations

This memo (SR-926E) is the final in our series on RFID and it outlines implications and recommendations. In the next decade, RFID will move from the...

The Winter 2006 Wilson Quarterly is devoted to "reading the future," and has some very good pieces on a variety of subjects-- attitudes toward the...

My institute colleague David Pescovitz and I have a very short article in Wired arguing that "'Cyberspace' is Dead." Of course it's available online,...

Martha Stewart for geeks

"In his latest Newsweek column, veteran tech reporter Steven Levy looks at the emerging DIY technology movement, as embodied by MAKE: Magazine. (Full...

411 in Vietnam = Mobile Human-Powered Google

NPR had a story the other day about Vietnam's main mobile carrier called "1080". It's like 411 directory assistance here in the United States but they...

Tax implications of virtual goods trade

"In this month's Legal Affairs magazine, tech/culture critic Julian Dibbell examines the possible real-world tax implications of the trade in virtual...

Drawing interface for Flickr

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Handheld Radar Scope senses people through concrete walls

"The US Military is showing off a handheld Radar Scope that they claim detects motions as subtle as someone breathing inside a building. Developed by...

RFID-blocking wallet

"More from the frontlines of the RFID backlash: the RFID-blocking wallet. Apparently aluminum foil is all it takes to bring down this promising new...

All Your Distributed Computing Are Belong to Us

"Looks like Berkeley is bringing together all of the amateur distributed computing platforms into a single architecture to leverage...

NEW Memo: RFID: Smart Homes & Sociable Devices

This memo (SR-926D) describes how RFID will become of part of daily live for consumers, first in health and security applications, and then as they...

Add to Watchlist: IPTV Battles in South Korea

South Korea broadband providers are getting set to launch IPTV early next year, with strong support from the government. However, incumbent...

Stretchable silicon for rubbery electronics

"Researchers have developed a form of single-crystal silicon that can be stretched so that electronic circuits could be fabricated on...

Context-Awareness: the New York Times' "Year in ideas"

We're wrapping up our research in context-awareness, but the New York Times is jumping on the bandwagon. I'm happy... it's a sign we're still well...

"Tiny, self-assembling drug-delivery cubes"

"Researchers at Johns Hopkins University created tiny perforated cubes the size of dust specks that self-assemble. The idea is to load the metallic...

HDTV Placebo

Scientific Atlanta, the maker of a lot of those set-top boxes, which was recently acquired by Cisco, released a study on consumer perceptions of HDTV...

"The New York Times has done an interesting story on migration in India. The story points out that people are migrating from rural to urban areas in...

The Return of Sails on Commercial Freighters?

I spent much of the weekend tearing apart the outboard motor on my new sailboat. It was really frustrating and I kept looking up at the sails and the...

First Face Transplant Performed

This is an interesting tangent to the X-people we talked about at this Fall's Technology Horizons Exchange. You mall recall the sci-fi thriller...

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"I have been working on a perspective piece on migration. There are lots of trends in migration these days. Although I decided to analyze in-depth...