bigthinkeditor

Robots are usually designed with very specific tasks in mind. But the “foambot”, though it looks ungainly, lets you decide on the task and build on the spot.  

How do you bring technology to countries underserved by the Internet and other tech the U.S. takes for granted? An SMS social network & a slate that converts handwriting to data.

What are five disruptive cleantech innovations that could enable large-scale change? 3D printing, energy harvesting, energy storage, fuel cell technology, and smart meters.  

Light field technology is the key to a new camera allowing you to be re-focus images minutes, days or even years after the shot, or to view them in 3D.

The prototype of a hydrogen fuel cell tram has been built in Spain. The emission-free tram can carry 20-30 passengers at up to 20 kmh and should enter service next year.

Ethan Philbrick performs one of the first pieces of music ever written for solo cello, by J.S. Bach.

As tuition costs continue to skyrocket, parents and students are demanding answers to this question: what am I getting as the return on my $50 thousand annual investment that is college tuition today? 

It may be tempting to think that if you want to be innovative, your office has to “have all these weird things going on.” Not so, says Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO. The real power comes from shaking things up.

With the global financial crisis ongoing, the concept of “short-termism” has emerged as one underlying explanation for our current woes. As the argument goes, the increasing emphasis on quarterly reports […]

New, free navigation apps with an emphasis on social features and crowdsourced data are providing competition for premium providers such as TomTom, Garmin, CoPilot and Navigon.

Finding out that Facebook still tracks them when logged out has driven many users to use the Google Chrome extension Disconnect to help protect their privacy.

4chan founder Christopher Poole, knwon for promoting the value of digital anonymity, on why the Web should recognise that, “We all have multiple identities. It’s not abnormal.”

Alongside usability and user experience, Web design must provide PET (persuasion, emotion, trust) to yield the right results from users. Paul Rouke says Booking.com shows how.

Ford is installing a feature in its new vehicles—and many of its older ones—that uses its voice-activated technology to read text messages out loud.

On October 31st, the United Nations estimates that the seventh billion child will be born. But people have worried about overpopulation since long ago. Are we approaching a threshold? 

Radical futurist Ray Kurzweil says the pace of innovation will only continue to accelerate because exponential evolution is built into the very nature of technology.

New online exchanges aim to turn computer capacity into a globally traded commodity. Already there’s a new crop of startup companies called “cloud brokerages.”

Nissan is said to be working on a charger that could juice up an EV in just 10 minutes. It’s the kind of thing that could move EVs from the fringe squarely into the mainstream.

Apple’s new voice-driven artificial intelligence system, Siri—integrated into the company’s new iPhone—could be the biggest deployment of human-like AI the world has seen.

Five tech breakthroughs helping level the playing field in developing countries: inexpensive tablets, laptops, and mobile phones; affordable solar panels and nanotech toilets.

Tonight’s Republican Presidential Debate at Dartmouth College will feature a pre-debate panel discussion, exclusively co-sponsored by Big Think and Dartmouth College. This discussion will stream LIVE on Peter Lawler’s Rightly […]

Most people are not aware of the ease with which governments—free, open and so-called democratic—can access and peruse our private communications.

In a bid to increase newsroom transparency, UK newspaper The Guardian is making its schedule of upcoming stories available to the public in a two-week experiment.

Is desire for cultural relevance the driving force behind Facebook and Google’s unprecedented involvement in the presidential contest?

A global study of marketing officers has revealed many are unprepared for the explosion in personal data they will have access to thanks to the social media revolution.

Web authentication is headed for a sweeping change, as consumers and businesses increasingly look to a more effective way to establish identity and trust on the Internet.

Test writers should be challenged to address the fact that circumstances beyond your control influence how well you do a standardized test, says Shawn O’Connor. But you are not your score – and you have the power to improve your outcome. 

The world’s most expensive and complex ground-based telescope Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) offers unique views of deep space, including images of two galaxies colliding.