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Future Pages: The bookmark collection... frequently updated links to other websites on trends, innovation and the future.
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Signs of the Future: The news archive... past postings of items from world media on emerging trends.
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SCIENCE
Top Stories:
Laser Light to Change Colour of Metals - [Times of India] Using the technique of intense laser light, optical scientists at the University of Rochester in US, have been able to change the colour of some metals to create variations like gold aluminium, black platinum and blue silver. The process has been further pushed to make it possible for metals to be turned into any colour -- even multi-coloured iridescence like a butterfly's wings.
Three-Parent Embryo Formed in Lab - [BBC] Scientists believe they have made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of serious disease by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.
The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.
TECHNOLOGY
Top Stories:
Tuning In to Nanotube Radio - [Boston Globe] John Rogers, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of Illinois, has made a radio receiver out of which each of the active components is created from nanotubes. To test the electronics, the researchers say that they tuned the nanotube radio to a commercial station in Baltimore to hear the traffic report.
Hypersonic Plane Designed to Reach Australia in Under Five Hours - [Guardian] A hypersonic passenger plane that could fly to Australia from northern Europe in less than five hours has been designed in Britain. With funding from the European Space Agency, a team of engineers and scientists has come up with the A2, a plane they believe could carry 300 passengers at a top speed of more than 3,000 mph.
BUSINESS
Top Stories:
Nortel: Virtual Worlds May Replace the Office - [ZDNet Asia] Nortel Networks is looking to the next generation of employees to shape the workplace of tomorrow, and high on its agenda is exploring the role of Web 2.0 technologies and virtual worlds such as Linden Lab's Second Life.
Privacy on Hold in Cellphone Business - [International Herald Tribune] The mobile phone industry sees location-based services on handsets as a certain money-maker in the future. But the same technology that can send a targeted advertisement to a cellphone in the vicinity of a clothes store also lets the phone company know a lot more about its clients.
SOCIETY
Top Stories:
Kenya: Cyberactivism in Practice - [Africa News]
Kenyan citizen journalists and activists are actively using Web 2.0 tools and applications such as wikis, blogs, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and mashups to organise and share news and information about the post election crisis, chronicle violence, share crisis photos and raise funds to help the needy.
Lawmakers Push for "Green Collar" Jobs as Climate Change Looms - [King5] In a town still reeling from the closure of a massive coal mine, dozens of students train each year to work in the energy industry, immersing themselves in the intricacies of power generation and plant design.
GLOBAL POLITICS
Top Stories:
Putin Lashes Out at West's "Arms Race" - [TVNZ]
President Vladimir Putin has said a new global arms race was starting and Russia was "forced to retaliate" with new, high-tech weapons. In a tough speech outlining his vision for Russia to 2020, Putin accused the West of ignoring Moscow's concerns on security by expanding the NATO military alliance to its borders and deploying a missile defence system in Central Europe.
Toxic Globalization - [Asia Times] The West isn't the only place calling for more transparency and oversight in global markets. Demand for goods and services free of risks and flaws is shared widely. Could this convergence of attitudes be a step toward more balanced globalization? That is, globalization in which poor nations have as much say about product and service standards as the Western nations that previously lectured them about quality and modernization.
ENVIRONMENT
Top Stories:
UK's First Emissions Zone Begins - [BBC] The most heavily polluting lorries are facing charges of £200 per day to enter Greater London as Britain's first low emission zone (LEZ) comes into force.
As U.S. Utilities Switch to Gas, Energy Prices Expected to Increase - [International Herald Tribune] Stymied in their plans to build coal-burning power plants, American utilities are turning to natural gas to meet expected growth in demand, risking a new upward spiral in the price of that fuel.
THE FUTURE
Top Stories:
Ideas Whose Time Will Come - [Washington Post] So guess which of the following is the Next Big Thing: (A) "Personal Air Mobility"; (B) Commercial space travel;(C) "Tagging" content on the Web; (D) Worker "swarms" that eat corporations; (E) Machines that out-think humans; or (F) All of the above. Bingo, the answer is "F."
Climate Set for 'Sudden Shifts' - [BBC] Many of Earth's climate systems will undergo a series of sudden shifts this century as a result of human-induced climate change, a study suggests. A number of these shifts could occur this century, say the report's authors.
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