Commerce (trade)

Futurepath: 3D printing

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 03/04/2014 - 11:28

Updated 8-7-14 with new content

3d printer setup If you pay any attention to the tech world, you realize 3D printing, also called additive manufacturing, is the next big thing as dozens of startups are racing to get their product to market ahead of the competition. Everything from toys to guns, shoes to pizza - there are printers being developed to print anything we buy.

Could a same day 3D print and delivery service protect brands?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 02/25/2014 - 16:04

From the Institute for the Future, we get an artifact where the United States Postal Service offers 3D fabrication from "1000's of certified brands!" An interesting thought and believable as well as more and more companies partner with delivery services to get their packages to customers ASAP.

Where will technology and big data take our future?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 02/18/2014 - 13:16

Technology is slowly infiltrating every area of our human existence. I read Alistair Croll's Race Alongside the Machine today on re/code and it led me to a reflection on how we humans are being changed by the technology we develop and where this might lead in the future.

When I came up with the original idea for a future-focused site, I immediately created a short list I called "aspects of human existence." I've changed them to "elements of how we live" and use them as story tags, a taxonomy vocabulary in Drupal terms, in order to help users find content. After reading Croll's piece, I decided today's exercise would be to look at the (now much longer) list and see what I can come up with for where current trends and predictions will take us as we continue to combine humans, technology and big data.

Tomorrow Now: Envisioning the Next 50 Years

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 16:39

Tomorrow Now book cover Bruce Sterling has written three non-fiction books. This is his second and was published in 2003. It's a multilayered work, with seven stages (chapters) based on William Shakespeare's As You Like It, in which Jaques's monologue outlines the seven ages of man as infant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, justice, and at the end of life. Through each stage, Sterling looks at current (at the time) research and runs it out 50 years, to the middle of our century, attempting to paint a picture of how our lives will change.

Can a flawed humanity create a future with a flawless government?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Wed, 02/05/2014 - 14:41

Karl Marx Wars are fought over which flawed ideology works best and communism has turned out to be one of the most flawed, even if the original roots were designed to fix the flaws in the capitalist structures of 19th century Europe. Karl Marx's work developed into 1848's Communist Manifesto and later in Das Kapital in a response to conflict between the more wealthy ownership classes and the labour class that provides the man power for production. Marx viewed Capitalism as "the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" and made many predictions on how this socioeconomic system would eventually fail due to the internal tension between these two classes. His work would later be used to overthrow nations in order to create failing economic states where the communist effort was misused to create more disproportionate social inequality than found in nearly any other form of representative government.

Artifact from the Future: Swap spit for rides (not as bad as it sounds)

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Tue, 01/28/2014 - 16:17

Artifact from the Future: Give Some Spit, Get a Free Ride - See more at: http://www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/artifact-from-the-future-give-some-spit-get-a-free-ride/#sthash.mP4l3MBI.dpuf Another IFTF artifact this week. This time offering a trade of DNA from your spit with an offer of free transportation with the purpose of identifying "toxins, the environment, even daily stressors."

It's an interesting idea and the trade of free for personal data keeps trending upwards. Just last week we read about Glow First, the non-profit arm of the Glow app where women can earn money towards fertility treatment by filling out ten months of fertility data.

How much data will we provide? How will it be stored? For how long? There are so many ways FREE can get us to give up details of our lives. Girls Gone Wild has proven how intimate details can be leveraged from a free T-shirt. So this view of the future doesn't beg questions about spit or transportation. Instead, I ask what it will take for us to become inoculated against so freely giving up our data/bodies/intimate details in return for the free of email/prizes/social media?

Artifact from the Future: The Cost of Water

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Fri, 01/24/2014 - 12:37

Very expensive water on a shelf Institute for the Future photographed a "guerrilla future" to get shoppers to reflect on the cost of water in their community. An interesting reflection on the current California drought and a lead-in to their California Dreaming forecast of four scenarios for a 2020 California.

Eradicating Global Poverty

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Wed, 01/22/2014 - 16:04

Poor under a tarp January is being celebrated as Poverty Awareness Month. Several articles on the state of poverty have been written, but two of the more interesting ones I've read come from two very different viewpoints. The first is Bill Gates' annual letter, outlinging his concern and attempt to update "3 myths that block progress for the poor." The second is an article by Dale Hanson Bourke, "Why Am I Not Poor?", on Christianity Today where she reflects and contrasts her context and experiences with individuals living in poverty who she has met around the world.

Hershey supporting 3D systems to print confections

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Fri, 01/17/2014 - 10:23

Chocolate heart 3D Systems previously announced products to print your own food. This week, The Hershey Company announced a multi-year partnership with the device maker to develop new ways of bringing 3D printed foodstuffs to market. Hershey is the first major food company to officially announce an interest in 3D printed foods.

Via The Verge

The future of privacy: the necessary data or a march towards a future of corporatocracy?

Submitted by Daryl Weade on Thu, 01/16/2014 - 12:31

Prism logo The combination of governmental and corporate data tracking are enabling outside entities to track increasingly granular details about our lives and interactions. Most of the reasons offer positives and are focused on protecting citizens or providing services we find useful. In order to do these jobs more efficiently, inroads to more data are critical in order to query across enough channels to create accurate connections such as identifying a terrorist organization's leader or helping us make certain we get enough exercise per day.