The Future of Gaming Future games will become the ultimate playground for our mindsIn 1977 when famed mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot uttered the phrase, “as a language, mathematics may be used not only to inform but also to seduce,” little did he know that his...
Messing with the Reality of Reality Next Generation Gaming is Not for the Faint of HeartLife is a game. Every day we find ourselves in the middle of the game, involving the work we do, the people we hang out with, and the social structures that surround us.But who...
The Future of Nanotechnology – My Upcoming Book Nanotechnology is a science riddled with paradoxes Over the past year I have been eating, sleeping, and breathing nanotechnology, but feel like I have only scratched a little behind the ears of this enormous...
Rockstar Needed – Apply Now Every industry has its own “favorite son”, but for many areas of new technology there are no real household names associated with them. There are no people like Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, or Chuck Norris rising to the forefront of...
The Empire of One “The fundamental unit of the new economy is not the corporation, but the individual.” – Thomas Malone & Robert Laubacher Running a solo business in the past meant that you had a one-person practice, most often offering a...
Ten New Parks to Inspire the Mind and Redefine the Communities We Live In Participatory Parks will Create New Cultures in Communities Choosing to Charter Their Own DestinyGreat cities throughout history were known far and wide for the grand parks that served as their...
Fractal Transactions Launching a New Era in the Future of Money Imagine yourself sometime in the future sitting in front of a television, watching your favorite show, and a pizza commercial comes on. This is one of those commercials that hits you at exactly the right...
2050 and the Future of Transportation Frictionless vehicles and binary power will define transportation in the world ahead Transportation technology is progressing at a much slower pace than some of the other sciences such as information technology, biotech, and...
The Happiness Index A New Way to Measure the World Around Us What is the value of being happy? Yes, happiness means different things to different people, but even without having a common definition, happiness has become a significant focal point of study and research...
Creating the Ultimate Information Experience Planning Our Next Generation Libraries Literacy is a learned skill involving an ability to transform characters on paper into mental concepts and images. Listening to an audio book requires a slightly different skill, but...
Nano-Weaponry: Entree to a Twisted Reality Invisible to the human eye, nano diameter needles will be shot like clusters of bullets from great distances to “pin” people to a wall or freeze their physical movement. Nano needles, because of their incredibly tiny...
The New, New Language Wars When the United States was founded, only 40 percent of the people living within its boundaries spoke English as their first language. Today that number is 87%. For most of us, English is like the air we breathe: natural, given, right. ...
Some Thoughts on Flying Cars Terrafugia – Redefining the flying car What exactly is a flying car? My life is a bit unusual in that I often have conversations with people about the topic of flying cars. Since I was a child I dreamed about the day that we would...
Radical Transparency The Whole Earth Genealogy Project – Where will it lead? Starting with a concept for creating the genealogy for the entire earth, here is a fascinating journey into the topic of radical transparency. In 1999 I came up with the idea of...
The Complexity Disease Complexity is a Very-Real, Very-Destructive Disease that Destroys Human-Based Systems By Thomas Frey, Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute Often time we hear about some new disease that sounds kind of phony and quickly...
Lessons from the Ancient World Roman Numerals were a Numbering System that Prevented an Entire Civilization from Doing Any Higher Math By Thomas Frey, Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute During the time of the ancient Greek civilization...
Why Do We Fear the Future? Artwork by Patrick Turner From Futurama to Prey, our view of the world ahead has become tainted with dismal prospects for a positive future By Thomas Frey, Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute Few of the science...
Reinventing Property Rights on the Nano Scale Will people in the future sell real estate “information rights” as a separate property right? October 2007 By Thomas Frey, Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute “Science never solves a problem...
Death to the Gatekeepers A new generation of freedom-loving entrepreneurs have made it their mission to circumvent gatekeepers By Thomas Frey, Executive Director and Senior Futurist at the DaVinci Institute Recently a decision was made to allow people in 12 South...
The Library of the Future Series Part 1 – The Time Capsule Room The Community Archive What was your community like in 1950, or for that matter in 1850 or even 1650? What role did your community play during the Civil War? How active was it during the Presidential...
The Future of Automobile Transportation Industry challenges, global demands, and consumer trends ahead will define automobile transportation in the years In November I found myself on a panel discussion in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and one of the people in the audience...
Findability Vs Spyability Will the convergence of search technology and RFID chips improve our lives or forever put us in a fishbowl for all to see? A few days ago my glasses disappeared. Over the years my long range eyesight has grown progressively worse and while I...
The Future of Education The pace of change is mandating that we produce a faster, smarter, better grade of human being. Current systems are preventing that from happening. Future education system will be unleashed with the advent of a standardized rapid...
Driving Forces Emerging New Trends that will Affect the Way We Live, Think, and Act in 2006 and Beyond 2005 was defined by Google, iPods, the “World is Flat”, natural disasters, blogs, podcasting, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and a dramatic influx of new...
The Future of Libraries Beginning the Great Transformation In 1519 Leonardo da Vinci died and left behind one of the world’s largest collections of art comprised of well over 5,000 drawings, sketches, and paintings, the vast majority of which the general public...
Approaching Maximum Freud Technology Markets Will Disappear As They Approach “Maximum Freud” In 1972, I was young engineering student at South Dakota State University in Brookings, SD. One of the first courses I was required to take was a short-course on...
Ten Key Trends for Women in 2005 and Beyond As people move through life, they search for signposts along the way. They search for those rare pieces of intelligence that give them a gut-level feeling of confidence about what to do next. Today’s women are...
The Buzz Chronicles Creating a Small Blip on the Radar Screen of Humanity Somewhere around 5:30 am each morning I roll out of bed and roll up to my computer. Blurry eyed, before I brew up my first cup of tea, I grab the mouse and check Google, searching the phrase...
Roughly ten years ago I was involved in a conversation with some patent attorneys over the question of whether someone could patent a smell. The conclusion they reached was yes, as long as there was some system in place for defining smells.Enter the October 4, 2004...
Top 10 Trends in Innovation Key Factors Most Affecting Innovation in the US Innovation is a broad area of the US economy that means vastly different things to different people. The definition is even widely debated depending on the context of its use. In preparation...
Colorado’s Cash Crisis is Hanging Startups Out to Dry The engines of Colorado’s job creation have gone silent. R&D purse strings remain tightly drawn. In 2004, total U.S. R&D expenditures are expected reach $284 billion, a rise of just 1.3% in...
The Coming Collapse of Income Tax A System on the Verge of Self-Destruction Within the next ten years the income tax system in the United States will be dismantled. A number of emerging new forces coupled with the universal dislike of the system will soon gain enough...
The Innovation Crisis We have reached an innovation crisis. Innovation has been squeezed out of our world much like juice out of an orange as its being forced into a juicer. During the past three years the United States has lost its competitive edge. Our dismal...
How to Launch Your Own Movement Too often the old notions about starting a business fail because the end goal of what we’re trying to accomplish is too big. It’s too big for what you can accomplish yourself. It’s too big for the traditional revenue...
Interview with Gavalord The mystery man of science “Is it not conceivable that people in the future will have the technology to view the past?” asks the reclusive physicist as he reaches across the table for his coffee cup. “And if so, don’t...
Smart Shoes The three products that the human body must interface with the most are the seat we sit in, bed we sleep in, and our shoes. We’re going to take a couple minutes to explore the future world of shoes.With the advent of inexpensive imbedded...
The Ethics Of Knowledge Is there such a thing as inherently bad knowledge? Or is all knowledge value-neutral? These are the mind probing questions that I have posed to many seminar groups.The initial response typically is silence, as they mull over the options. They...
Smart Seat Technology On a long drive you end up exhausted. Part of the exhaustion stems from having your senses on full alert, but the rest comes from micro muscle adjustments made by your body instinctively to compensate for road bumps and vibrations. Most drivers...
The Fort Peck Incident A terrorist scenario: The two men sit patiently in the small grove of trees, quietly assembling their gear. Few words are spoken between the two of them. Weighted backpacks with connecting wires are placed in a motorized raft, followed by two...
