Technology & Innovation

“A small fleet of privately developed spacecraft will head into orbit in the next few years.” Technology Review looks at which companies are most eager to explore the final frontier.

“Science fiction never imagined Google, but it certainly imagined computers that would advise us what to do.” A Times Op-Ed on whether or not Google will determine our futures for us.

Life expectancy continues to climb, but why aren’t we celebrating? As populations age the assumption is that their productivity declines, but we should rethink this foregone conclusion.

“If Americans become too passive and entitled, the flames of entrepreneurial spirit will die down.” Dr. Jeffrey Cornwall says new economic policy will affect our entrepreneurial culture.

“Despite the death of spam, e-mail hasn’t gotten much easier to deal with. That’s because our inboxes are inundated with legitimate mail.” Slate reports on Google’s new ‘Priority Inbox’.

As our knowledge of politics expands, we increasingly set out on our quest for social justice over the Internet, which often results in crazed and ineffectual debates in online forums.

American workers are angry. So are their suffering customers. One of the problems with declining service may be that companies care most about the clients they don’t yet have.

Given the world economic slump, the chronic problem of exorbitantly expensive weapons is becoming acute, says The Economist. Western governments are cutting defense spending.

“Greece is about to learn whether a modern state can withdraw entitlements that people have come to take for granted but which the government no longer can afford.”

An iconoclastic economist at Cambridge University has likened free-market capitalism to that of the brainwashed characters in the film The Matrix, unwitting pawns in a fake reality.

“Any gamer, or parent of a gamer, will know the feeling. There’s a boss that just can’t be defeated.” A gamer and father on whether discovering a game’s secrets online is cheating.

Megham Daum wanted to avoid writing about Eat Pray Love but couldn’t hold back comment on the ostensible spiritual project that has become a major marketing brand of its own.

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen is laying claim to Internet technologies now widely used by Google, Facebook and Ebay. The Wall Street Journal reports that patent litigation is on the rise.

Somali fisherman have made a conscious career change to piracy with Kalashnikovs and RPGs replacing fishing poles. Stanford’s Hoover Institution looks at the burgeoning industry.

“If gold were the basis of the world economy, each ounce would be worth about $6,000.” The Christian Science Monitor asks what it would take for currency to return to the gold standard.

A Columbia professor of law and economics says the U.S. is idealizing manufacturing as a solution to the economic crisis, but that service and information industries perform just as well.

If you’re not a computer programmer, the name Bjarne Stroustrup might not mean that much to you. The creator of the coding language C++ isn’t exactly a household name. But […]

“How can economic modernization be combined with cultural robustness and social well-being?” Columbia Economics professor Jeffrey Sachs looks at Bhutan for clues to the answer.

Bill Gates says the government should do more R&D in the energy sector, that a Manhattan Project for sustainable energy won’t work and that a carbon tax is necessary.

The rate of change in our culture is increasing—and in order to compete, businesses need to increase their rate of change as well, says management guru John Kotter.  In his […]

Strange, unworkable, controversial. That’s some of the reaction to a German proposal to prevent bosses from checking job candidates’ social networking profiles.

One of the richest sub-worlds of blogging is the Atheist NetRoots.  As I described last week, popular atheist bloggers such as PZ Myers have developed a loyal and engaged following […]

Are Americans right to be pessimistic about the prospects of their children being better off economically than they are? Gary Becker examines the grounds for this growing sentiment.

Skype is one of Michael Arrington’s “can’t live without” products but the way people use it is driving him crazy, hence this primer on appropriate Skype etiquette.

Financial reforms will only work — and prevent disasters — if they take into account human nature and disincentivize greed. The latest proposals fall far short, warns Neal Gabler.

An agriculture expect says a relatively simple solution could provide food security to sub-Saharan Africa: roads. More paved roads would bring rural communities out of economic isolation.

Making $70 million in just the last five months, author James Patterson is America’s, and the world’s, richest author. The catch? He employs a team of five people to write his books.

The stimulus versus austerity debate is culturally relative, says an economist for The Guardian. What matters most is that each country reassure its entrepreneurs that demand will rise in the future.

Big Think has called August “The Month of Thinking Dangerously” and served up one radical idea each day in the Dangerous Ideas blog.  The ideas started off dangerously enough, with […]

“Obama has promised to halve the the US deficit by 2013, but nobody seems to know how he’ll manage it.” Prospect Magazine on the uncertain future of the American current account.