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The Web and cloud computing have made the work of archivists and record keepers faster than ever before, but is information lost in the internet’s labyrinth any more accessible than […]

Today we take a computer’s speed for granted, but it wasn’t so long ago when it was normal to sit and wait for several minutes every time we booted up […]

n “Thanks to Unicode and OpenType, modern fonts are overcoming thelimitations of traditional European typography. The size of the countries on this map does not correspond to their geographical area, […]

Google has announced it will select a city where it will install a super-fast Internet network; about 600 communities have already applied for the experiment to test the viability of such a network.

So we all know that institutions are conservative by their nature as are the old people who typically occupy their venerable posts. The American Presidency is no exception and Obama, […]

What does the future look like? We essentially rely on science fiction thrillers to give us a taste of what lies ahead for humanity: Avatar; Iron Man; I, Robot; Surrogates; […]

I watched TV last night with a buddy of mine whose wife is out of town. That means we got to drink beers and curse at the people on TV […]

While people wonder daily about the future of the newspaper, music and publishing industries, the television business seems to be surviving on its own terms. Sure it has lost revenue […]

Robert Reich warns of “coming trade wars” in a recent blog, also carried by Big Think. It is an important contribution in as far as it recognises that a debate […]

“Nowadays a specimen of unkempt, puffed-up prose or stumbling, lugubrious verse doesn’t even need to make it past an editor or publisher to glide slimily” into our awareness, writes Laura Miller.

David Brooks’s recent love letter to Christopher Hitchens called (respectfully) only glancing attention to the celebrated author’s current battle with cancer; instead, Brooks focused on how important Hitchens is to […]

The Jews have another Israel. It’s in Siberia – and it was their first official home.

Nobel-Prize winning physicist William Phillips admits that “laser cooling” is a somewhat confusing concept. How can light energy, generally thought of as a source of heat, be used to cool […]

The Economist, while recognizing Obama’s tech savvy, is critical of his pessimistic view that new communication technologies distract the public rather than empower it.

Last night I met with an old friend in Central London, who used to be a journalist and who now works for a large, international company which makes good use […]

I learned a new word today, but the condition it describes has been with me for quite some time: cartocacoethes – the compulsion to see maps everywhere. More on that […]

Of all old media platforms, TV has been the best at adapting to the Internet and still enjoys popularity while the CD, the newspaper, and possibly the book, are in decline.

When we asked author and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff what’s he thought the future held for Rupert Murdoch, he came right out with it: “The future for Rupert himself […]

Comcast can decide which of its customers can do what on the Internet. A federal court ruled on Tuesday that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) doesn’t have the authority to […]

“You had better shove this in the stove,” wrote Mark Twain in a 1865 letter, adding, “I don’t want any absurd ‘literary remains’ and ‘unpublished letters of Mark Twain’ published […]

Oil leaking from a British Petroleum pipe under the sea floor in the Gulf of Mexico has reached land slicking wildlife habitats on the Southern U.S. coast, as well as […]

Bill Clinton compares today’s anti-government rallies to the nation’s attitude during his Presidency at the time of the Oklahoma City bombing.

When Jill Tarter was growing up, she remembers walking along the beach with her father, gazing up at the night sky. Well before she would become a leader in the […]

Picture this: you’re on your way to work, in a pod, going 100 miles per hour. Meet the Sky Tran.

Catherine Asaro, the bestselling science-fiction author, uses concepts from physics and math to inform the fantastical stories of her characters. In a recent interview with Big Think, Asaro describes how […]

University authorities—seeing the distraction that the Internet and social media can cause—are trying a varied of methods to get students to turn off their computers in class.

In a now famous skit from Saturday Night Live, William Shatner told a room full of Trekkies to “get a life.” Like Shatner, highbrows tend to dismiss fan culture as […]

Determined bloggers and Google’s experts have the means to defeat China’s Internet censors, and the government can’t do anything to stop it, writes The Guardian’s Xia Qiang.

Matt Gross, the Frugal Traveler for the New York Times, announced today that he is putting down his pen. In his column, he talks about what he’s learned over the past […]

In light of a new tussle between Google and the Chinese government, it’s an interesting time to consider the role of the internet in political mobilization, particularly in countries where […]