futurism

I always believed the future to be a wonderful place filled with lots of flying things and robots who enjoyed working for humanity. While much of that hasn't happened, at least our food hasn't turned into bland tasteless pellets that we consume once a day for all of our nutritional needs. That would be a very bleak future indeed. While we may not be flying around in jet packs just yet, we still have a rich and diverse food culture that seems to have no end. If there were a future in which we all had to eat … Read more

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past few months, you might have heard that "Battlestar Galactica" is airing its final episode Friday night. Along with the "Stargate" TV series, the show brought the Sci Fi channel (soon to be simply SyFy) back from the brink of playing back old "Twilight Zone" re-runs and in-house B-movies, and into the go-to place to see the latest special effects and watch an epic story that unfolded over four seasons.

As an homage to all the joy it's brought us over the years, … Read more

In what's portrayed as a new approach, the U.S. Army is including soldiers in the early stages of equipment development, and in the case of the Future Weapons Systems, it's having them pitch it as well.

Last January, defense contractors employed nearly 400 computers, dozens of vehicle mockups, and more than 100 soldiers and engineers in a preliminary test of the Future Combat Systems (FCS), a technological enterprise billed as the "cornerstone of Army modernization."

The Army followed up with a complete line of videos and slick multimedia touting the involvement and input from recently … Read more

I'm allergic to tomatoes. Also black olives and mushrooms. That means I'm about the worst guy in the world to order a pizza with. But tomatoes are in about everything. Tacos, spaghetti--you name it, it's got tomatoes.

That is why I can't fully get behind these robotic, automated tomato-farming machines being developed by MIT. Clearly, they're Terminators sent from the future to try to kill me. Or Sarah Connor, though I'm not sure what she's allergic to.

I mean where else would something so high-tech come from? The robots are just part of … Read more

I've been conference-hopping through Europe for the past two weeks. In Berlin, I discussed new "quality of life" concepts for Germany, and in Geneva I listened to speakers who held Utopian visions from an earlier era accountable for what could have been but wasn't. My own personal well-being was more mundane. I schlepped two big suitcases with me and saw the sun shine only twice. When you travel so much, you start to feel like Tyler Brule: quality of life is defined by the quality of the airports you pass through, the quality of the Wi-Fi … Read more

Good: double amputee gets prosthetic legs so she can walk. Better: double amputee gets realistic-looking mermaid tail so she can swim. Awesome: it's developed and built by Weta, the special-effects company that did work for the "Lord of the Rings" movies, as well as "King Kong" and "The Chronicles of Narnia" series.

Nadya Vessey's legs were amputated below the knee when she was a child due to illness. At one point, reports Stuff, a child asked her what happened to her legs and she told him she was a mermaid. The idea … Read more

Now here's a concept timepiece that could literally stand the test of time.

The brainchild of designers Christophe Koch and Lea Kobeli, Time-aid is a custom-made wristwatch that relies on the imaginary Timex clock network. In short, it's capable of displaying clock faces around the world via a live satellite feed. If you are in London, you could be looking at the Big Ben on your wrist, or the tower clock at the Star Ferry terminal if you are in Hong Kong.

The solar-powered concept is waterproof up to more than 16,000 feet and makes use of … Read more

Editor's note: This is a transcript of a segment of 60 Minutes that aired Sunday. You can also view the video directly using the embedded player.

How often have you wondered what your spouse is really thinking? Or your boss? Or the guy sitting across from you on the bus? We all take as a given that we'll never really know for sure. The content of our thoughts is our own--private, secret, and unknowable by anyone else. Until now, that is.

As correspondent Lesley Stahl reports, neuroscience research into how we think and what we're thinking is … Read more

These days, you don't need to launch portal sites that vie for new audiences. You're better served leveraging existing applications to provide new functionality for venues that already attract a fair share of eyeballs or that even cultivate their own communities.

Internet activist Lawrence Lessig points out a feature of Apture, a rich media content compilation platform, that promotes government transparency by allowing bloggers and other publishers to embed links to rich media background info on politicians and their records (i.e., key moments of testimony in videos, historical source materials, government documents, and even bills and resolutions). … Read more