Category Archives: Futures
Inventing and Fumbling the Future
Thirty-five years ago this week, Apple introduced a computer that changed the way people communicated with their electronic devices, using graphical icons and visual indicators rather than punched cards or text-based commands. On January 19, 1983, Apple introduced Lisa, a … Continue reading
Posted in Apple, Futures, IBM, Xerox, Yesterday's Futures
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The trouble with predictions: we know where we want to go but futurists don’t know how to get there
From the Pew Research Center: More than 30 years ago, the Institute for the Future, a Silicon Valley think tank, produced a book-length report on the development and potential impacts of electronic information technologies. What’s impressive is how much the … Continue reading
Posted in Futures, Predictions, Yesterday's Futures
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How Google Glass Works (Infographic)
Source: Martin Missfeldt
Posted in Futures, Google, Infographics
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The Future of Higher Education (Infographic)
Source: TheBestColleges.org
Posted in Education, Futures
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Yesterday’s Futures: The Limits of Our Vision
In 1969, the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill, U.K., produced a video titled “Telecommunications services for the 1990s.” Predictably, it extrapolates from the reality (no distortion here) of the telephone network of the 1960s. Only the transmission is digital; the rest … Continue reading
Posted in Futures, Predictions, World Wide Web, Yesterday's Futures
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Open Web Vs. Apps: Who Wins?
Pew Internet Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center surveyed 1,021 “technology stakeholders and critics” to gauge their opinions regarding whether the open Web or Apps will rule in 2020. (For the origin of this debate, see “The Web is Dead. … Continue reading
Posted in Futures, Open Web
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21-Year-Old Internet Search Keeps Most Popular Status
Today in 1990, Archie, the first Internet search engine, was launched. The program downloaded the directory listings of all the files located on public anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) sites, creating a searchable database of file names; however, Archie did not index … Continue reading
Posted in Futures, Search, This day in information, World Wide Web
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Tomorrow’s News: Storing Big Data
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have developed Moneta, a phase-change memory (PCM) solid state storage device that is thousands of times faster than conventional hard drives and up to seven times faster than current solid-state drives … Continue reading
Posted in Big Data, Futures, Information storage
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The Story of Information 