Institute For The Future

There Are Problems. And There Are Biological Problems

What's the difference between conduct disorder and biplor disorder? A recent NPR story by Alix Spiegel highlights that, even though these terms have...

The secret of encouraging girls to be geeks

Carlos McEvilly is a self-confessed "geek dad" of a tween. He wanted give girls an opportunity to learn that being a geek can be cool, so he created...

Interview with Persuasive Designer Andrew Chak

In the heady Web 1.0 days, usability and "stickiness" were the metrics of success on the Web. That's still true, but in the current always-on age of...

Eating healthy helps others

Author Jonah Lehrer always seems to have something interesting to say these days—whether in his book, How We Decide, or on his blog, the Frontal...

Resilience 101

...

Screening the Genes of Embryos

At the beginning of the year, Duke professor David Goldstein offered what he described as a "confident but uncomfortable prediction" that by 2020, if...

Microsoft: Not Lightweight Innovator

From today's Good Morning Silicon Valley:

Reflections on the SharpBrains Virtual Summit

On January 18-20, 2010 Alvaro Fernandez and his team at SharpBrains put together a splendid line-up of speakers on a wide range of topics related to...

the neuroscience of information obesity

I recently heard a podcast of a lecture given by Dr. David Kessler, Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF and author of...

FutureCast: MAKE-ing the Future with Phillip Torrone

Institute for the Future is very proud to announce Phillip Torrone, senior editor of MAKE magazine, as our guest for the 3rd installment of our...

Persuasive Objects Help Users Develop Healthy Habits

The UBICOMP lab at the National Taiwan University is investigating, designing and creating working systems that demonstrate how future computing...

Marketers playing head games

London-based firm Mindmetic's Web site reads like the description of an imaginary evil company in a Philip K. Dick science fiction novel: "Mind...

Do Your Best Job Ever!?

Job satisfaction is at a two-decade low, so I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise that employers have begun enlisting the help happiness coaches...

Transparency informs smarter food choices. Or does it?

Business Week reports that when nutritional information is available on fast-food menus, parents choose about 100 fewer calories per meal for their...

Biological Previews

Looking for a way to see if a drug might give you side effects--without having to deal with the whole pesky process of experiencing those effects?...

Keiichi Matsuda's Augmented (hyper)Reality: Domestic Robocop

The possibilities afforded by a world with pervasive Augmented Reality has been a topic of great interest to IFTF for many years now (go here to read...

China uses Internet policy to shape "mainstream public opinion"

The current public pronouncements from the China government regarding Google's assertions of government penetration into Google services has been...

Intelligent Bike Design in Copenhagen

The city as a persuasive technology is a theme I plan to return to throughout the Future of Persuasion's research process. By raising or lowering the...

Spaces of Lightweight Innovation: What Can Companies Learn From Coworking?

Last night, I had the opportunity to participate in an informal workshop on "What Can Companies Learn From Coworking?" held at New Work City, one of...

Investigating future of persuasion with Fogg Behavior Grid

Stanford professor BJ Fogg has recently developed a framework for classifying types of behavior change called, appropriately enough, the Fogg Behavior...

Smart dinner plate urges you to slow down

The best kind of feedback occurs in the context of the activity that you're seeking feedback about. That's how a control system works -- real-time...

God Bless You, Mr. Corporation?

The recent Supreme Court decision in Citizens United vs. FEC has received more attention and soul-searching commentary about the nature of our...