There are few in this world who can say they’ve never sat, solemnly, in some sort of traffic. This New York Times article reported that the average American commuter spends a […]
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By Ahmed El Hady In our neuro-centric world-view, a person is equated to his brain. The neuro-discourse has penetrated all aspects of our lives from law to politics to literature […]
A European institute in Singapore wants to help ease the world’s transition toward massively populated urban centers. Of the 8.1 billion people on Earth by 2030, 5 billion will live in cities.
*spoilers obviously* Films, books, comics and so on are important topics to look at critically. You use the evidence presented in the medium to see whether the action depicted stands […]
A new venture called Planetary Resources plans to send a fleet of droids to space to prospect the most valuable near-Earth asteroids. The project will require billions of investment dollars but could yield a trillion dollar reward.
Dr, Michio Kaku: Sadly, the US government will no longer boldly go into space. Its up to private enterprise to now pick up the slack and it appears that is exactly what its doing.
Reprinted from PSFK’s “Need to Know” magazine In the future, cities will be judged by their generativity. Over seventy percent of the world’s population, and almost all of the globe’s […]
This week I came across an interesting study by Latitude Research via the MindShift Blog. In collaboration with LEGO® Learning Institute and Project Synthesis, Latitude asked children from across the […]
Whether the future is a dystopian global class struggle over technology or a Pax Technologica of transparency, access and equity will depend on spreading technology quotient (TQ) above all else.
Our species’ history appears to be aligned to the length of our weapons: how far, how much, how long can we keep attacking, killing, damaging? Men with bullets became men […]
If this video doesn’t creep you out, you might be a replicant. Researchers at Japan’s Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International have developed a robot called Geminoid|DK, which not only looks like a human, […]
MIT engineers have programmed small magnetic cubes to assume the shape of an object they come into contact with. The technology could be scaled down to sand-sized particles.
At the annual Loebner Prize Competition, robots compete against humans trying to convince judges they are actually human. Might the judges determine your boss is actually a robot?
Robotics companies are teaming up with health care providers to innovate how patients receive care. Medicine is the next arena about to undergo an information revolution.
Many essential utilities in Rio de Janeiro are being managed by a single ‘Ops Center,’ a huge hub of technologies provided by both IBM and Cisco. Is this paving the way for a future of smart cities or urban dystopias?
Every May brings with it a new crop of college graduation speeches. This spring, few (maybe none) were as though-provoking as multimedia artist Laurie Anderson’s at the School of Visual […]
Inspired by the body’s own immune system, Harvard researchers have engineered a nanorobotic device that can deliver molecular instructions to cancer cells, ordering suicide.
The Red Planet will be the closest distance to Earth in over two years tonight in an event called The Mars Opposition. That means martian features and polar caps will […]
California-based TED is perhaps the most visible of the groups that are leading the crossover of serious intellectual thought into the pop mainstream. TED’s approach – the 18 minute inspirational […]
We have devoted a fair amount of attention on Big Think to the ongoing saga of Apple’s relationship with its Taiwanese-owned electronics supplier Foxconn. Why do we care about this story […]
By Peadar Coyle It is said that education is something people have strong opinions about. A growing literature has emerged around randomized evaluations of interventions, most notably Esther Duflo’s work on […]
A new surgical robot—developed by the army for use on battlefields—is light and relatively cheap. It also uses open-source software so it can be adapted to different medical uses.
What’s the Big Idea? Officially released for the TED2012 conference, this clip (above) is the latest trailer for the upcoming summer blockbuster Prometheus. Director Ridley Scott has said the movie is set […]
A Pennsylvania start up has created a fleet of small robots that farm algae to make biodiesel. While still in an early stage, the robots could make fuel that costs 30 to 60 cents per gallon.
A survey for Birmingham Science City amongst 500 15 year-olds across the UK came up with some pretty telling numbers about how technology changes society at its roots. When asked […]
The current model of China manufacturing cheap goods for American consumers could soon be history. In the meantime, the human cost of the transition to the robot economy continues to be deeply disturbing, as evidenced by the ongoing drama at Foxconn.
“Why are we picking at these carcasses of creativity?” Holly Finn asks in a recent Wall Street Journal article, pointing her critical finger at the particular corpse of Damien Hirst’s […]
By Chris Arkenberg In what amounts to a fairly shocking reminder of how quickly our technologies are advancing and how deeply our lives are being woven with networked computation, security […]
PETMAN is an anthropomorphic robot developed by Boston Dynamics for testing special clothing used by US military personnel. PETMAN balances itself as it walks, squats and does calisthenics. PETMAN simulates […]
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Why do we not give P.E. credit for participating in football? Or any of the other various sports requiring physical activity? The kids are far more active in football than […]