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There is no turning back. We live in a connected world and we are better because of it. We know more than ever before and we are more social than ever before. But we have to learn to take care of our brains to avoid an iDisorder. Don’t blame Steve Jobs for your compulsions. Take control and do something good for your brain. 

A British company has announced it will release a small gene sequencing device the size of a USB stick which plugs into a laptop computer to deliver its sequencing results.

A new point-and-shoot camera captures light rays instead of pixels which allows you to focus the image after you have taken it, changing which part of the photo you want to emphasize. 

Neuroscientists have taken the first step toward decoding our thoughts into language by observing which parts of our brain respond to different sounds. Potential benefits are endless.

The real world has never been more real, with the latest proof being the release of the much-hyped Retina Display on the new iPad from Apple. This new tablet screen, […]

In our increasingly complex world we can’t afford to silo ourselves off in little online and offline subcultures.

3D printers have moved quickly from the industrial scale to home use but, despite futurists’ claims to the contrary, they are not quite ready to make you a tea, earl gray, hot. 

When signing up for a new service on the Internet, may people use Facebook Connect to establish their identity on the new site. Could we use physical Facebook ID cards as well?

The stateless media organization has released five million emails taken from the private security firm Stratfor, which carries out its own assignments and those of the Pentagon.

Everyone has secrets. Some have personal secrets of infidelity, lies and embarrassing tidbits that they hope will never see the light of day. Powerful institutions like businesses and governments also have […]

The concept of privacy is undergoing a radical transformation, thanks to our continuing willingness to provide companies like Facebook and Google our data for free. If, before, we largely lived […]

Intervening on the great  Crooked Timber vs. Bleeding Hearts Libertarians debate on freedom in the workplace, Matthew Yglesias says: My standard approach to this is that in almost all political contexts, including this one, both […]

Businesses are increasingly turning to social networking sites to filter job applicants and get a more transparent assessment of prospective employees’ strengths and weaknesses.

In today’s excerpt – the accelerating pace of change. I began my career in financial services in the late 1970s. In my first decade in that industry, there were only […]

Today’s high-end computer chips typically hold 16 processors, or cores, but MIT engineer and entrepreneur Anant Agarwal has created one with for 100. He is aiming for a 1,000 core chip.

Entrepreneurs in the biotech industry say innovation is budding, just like the personal computer 30 years ago. They’ve set up shop in Silicon Valley so can history repeat itself?

What do algae blooms have to do with South American genocides? Computer companies searching for patterns amongst unfathomable amounts of data are changing how we do science.

Chip Conley’s “emotional equations,” simple formulas like anxiety = uncertainty x powerlessness, are designed to help individuals and businesses achieve real fulfillment, not just material success. 

Watch an extended version of our interview with Lynda Weinman, co-founder of Lynda.com: What’s the Big Idea? Lynda Weinman quite literally wrote the book on web design. She was 28 […]

How do we develop the aptitude to separate spam from knowledge? James Lawrence Powell tells Big Think you need to be “your own spam filter.” 

BY ABHIJNAN REJ A Jurassic Park in the Canary Wharf? On the 6th of May, 2010, at around 2:45 pm, the Dow fell unusually  rapidly losing over 9% of its […]

The 100-year company is the rarest of all organizations in Corporate America – a company that has somehow managed to survive the ebbs and flows of multiple business cycles, the […]

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg takes an unflinching look at the science of habit, and offers concrete strategies for transforming harmful habits into beneficial ones.

Photonic chips, which use lightbeams to do computering instead of electrons, have advanced greatly in recent years. Now rearchers at MIT want to put them in your personal devices.

The speed with which KONY 2012 went viral around the world has been stunning. Even if you don’t love the politics of Invisible Children’s “Stop Kony” campaign, it’s hard to […]

What is the Big Idea? Tacked on to the end of the lengthy Dodd-Frank Act, which imposed new government safeguards after the U.S. financial crisis, there is an unusual provision […]

What’s the Big Idea? The words “Renaissance man” get thrown around a lot these days, but Nathan Myrhvold’s career evokes the true spirit of the phrase. More polymath than genius, the […]

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has told an Italian newspaper that the company intends to release a high-market tablet computer in the next six months which could rival Apple’s iPad.

If I were asked, “do you believe that human beings evolved millions of years ago from ancestors shared in common with gorillas and chimpanzees?” I would answer emphatically and unequivocally: […]

Good intentions can lead to bad outcomes in business. This is especially true in organizations that have toxic cultures in which leaders tout worthy values–and then put up roadblocks that prevent employees from […]