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One billion people live beyond the reach of existing ports, roads, bridges and trains. An organization called Matternet is using exponential technology to “replace twentieth century centralized infrastructure” and accelerate economic growth for the ‘rising billion.’

The more things change, the more they stay the same. After the great social media boom of the past few years when it seemed like new digital media tools were […]

Author Blake Nelson’s new book Dream School comes out today from Figment.com, the company’s first book to be printed on physical paper. Figment.com was launched 1 year ago today, Dec. […]

A new project organized by search-engine providers Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo promises to improve Semantic Web adoption by building a standard set of data specifications.

A new approach to overcoming state-level Internet censorship relies, ironically enough, on a technique that security experts have frequently associated with government surveillance.

In this imagined, alternative State of the Union address, playwright and political blogger Eric Sanders proposes sweeping structural changes, including a “people’s congress” with veto power. 

While America has always led the world in supporting new entrepreneurs and launching innovative new companies, the democratization of the Internet over the past decade means that we are all […]

As you have probably noticed, BigThink.com has undergone several cosmetic changes today, all intended to enhance your reading and viewing experience. We hope you like it, but we’re not done […]

I think it’s about time that we get rid of the idea that cheating is a bad thing per se. Generally speaking, cheating is nothing else than collaboration, something we […]

Dream of bashing in Michelle Bachmann’s ferocious grin? Ripping open the capacious gut of Gingrich? Frying that execution-lovin’ Rick Perry? Dissecting Mitt Romney to see if he’s as weird on […]

Over the past week, Jonathan’s Card became one of the more fascinating online social experiments ever conducted in full public view. The basic premise was simple – a single individual […]

If you’re a “true freelancer,” someone who freelances because they can’t stand to work any other way, you must honor your “true freelancer” nature and do it your own way.

–Guest post by Luis Hestres, Doctoral student at American University. Petitioning the government for policy changes is a practice as old as the republic, and doing so online is a […]

In a study of recent protests across the Arab world, Yale researcher Navid Hassanpour found that crowds became more active when access to social media was cut by the government.

Despite all the advice that author Bruce Feiler was given about ‘switching off’ and ‘unplugging’ during summer vacation, he found staying connected to the Web was a boon. 

Often forgotten among our First Amendment rights are our rights to petition the government for a redress of grievances. And while the right, in principle, refers to an individual, well […]

Benetton’s controversial new “Unhate” ad campaign, which features pictures of world leaders like Barack Obama and China’s Hu Jintao caught in a liplock, actually raises a thought-provoking question: Is it […]

With the fashion industry emerging as one of the driving forces of innovation within the Internet world, it could have an important impact on the number of women who explore […]

Our power to manipulate our brains and genes is increasing dramatically – and it raises serious ethical questions.

By targeting individuals rather than the abstraction known as the consumer market, the Internet has revolutionized commerce and advertising—but what about journalism? 

Elon Musk, co-founder of PayPal and founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, on how entrepreneurs can disrupt major industries, although it’s like “staring into the face of death.”

When Leonardo da Vinci painted at the court of Milan from 1482 through 1499, he contributed to the revolution in seeing we now know as the Renaissance. Lorenzo de’ Medici […]

If talking is one thing, and conversation another, then what is chat? Online chatting has come of age, reviving the lost art of word play that characterized speech in bygone eras. 

For the past several weeks I’ve had severely limited internet access thanks to Itisalat and TE Data (two of Cairo’s least helpful internet providers), which has been responsible for the […]

The contrast in China between today’s consensus-driven leaders and Zhu Rongj, 83, and still seen as an aggressive reformer with no tolerance for corruption, incompetence or red tape.

Facebook apps and mobile apps on smartphones and tablets have, according to the University of Maryland, given rise to a new industry that it calls the “app economy.”

Your mobile wireless carrier may soon have a say in the way you think about health and wellness. AT&T, through its Emerging Devices unit, plans to offer for sale health-tracking […]

Content on the Internet is growing like weed. Every minute there are 48h of video uploaded to YouTube. One year ago at a conference, Eric Schmidt shared that every two […]

What is the link between innovation and the science fiction imaginary?

Bridging disparate cultural and political backgrounds remains a challenge for social media.