Technology & Innovation — March 4, 2011

The (Online) Future for Lawyers

Are the days of billable hours nearly over for lawyers? LawPivot is a site designed to aid startups find legal advice, by using a Quora-type question and answer format.

bigthinkeditor

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Tech does a good job disrupting a lot of the lower-end parts of business, from manufacturing to human resources. Now perhaps social media will start coming at the high end. LawPivot is a site designed to aid startups find legal advice, by using a Quora-type question and answer format. …LawPivot is interesting both as a clear business model — charging money in a clearly-defined vertical, as opposed to the usual ad-supported business of general interest question sites — and as a potential shape of things to come. If it works for law, why not consulting, finance, even medicine?

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

A black and white image of a skull with speech bubbles depicting death.

Business

How to avoid “death by LLM”

Generative AI — driven by large language models — has the potential to destroy or supercharge most businesses. Now is the time to pivot.

Guest Thinkers

The Introduction to my Newly Released Book, Physics of the Future!

Released just yesterday, Physics of the Future is my most ambitious book to date. Based on interviews with over three hundred of the world’s top scientists, who are already inventing the […]

Guest Thinkers

Q&A: MSNBC’s Alan Boyle answers your questions about science in the mainstream media

Alan Boyle, the science editor for MSNBC.com, answers our questions about science, the mainstream media and the fallout of the Chilean earthquake coverage.

Guest Thinkers

DEBATING THE INTERNET AND COMMUNITY, PART B: American University Students Examine ‘Virtual’ Society

This semester in the sophomore-level course I teach on “Communication and Society,” we spent several weeks examining the many ways that Americans are using the Internet to alter the nature […]

Collage of geopolitical symbols, featuring a close-up of a man's bald head, China's flag, a globe highlighting Taiwan, and circuit patterns.

The Present

Why the USSR and China fell behind the US in the Chip Cold War

Both nations made missteps, but China still has a chance to make up lost ground.

Up Next

Surprising Science

Square to be Our New Payment Network?

David Kirkpatrick talks to Jack Dorsey about his taxicab inspiration, his ejection as Twitter’s C.E.O., and his ambition to make Square the payment network of the future.