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Futurist Blog |
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msnbc.com: Practical Futurist
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Will the Internet transform storytelling?
 Next month will see the Myspace TV debut of “Quarterlife,” a Web series that follows the fictional adventures of twenty-something creatives searching for love, gainful employment and the meaning of life.
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What evolutionary psychology says about social networking
It’s dangerous to rely on the enthusiasms of the blogosphere to determine the longevity of any new Web phenomenon. But social networking may be in a class by itself — for reasons that go back long even before human memory.
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At this radio network, the audience is the star
 St. Paul, Minnesota's best-known contribution to modern media may be Prairie Home Companion — but its Minnesota Public Radio group is now working on a project with even bigger potential. And this time the star isn’t Garrison Keilor, but the audience itself.
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Is the Internet dumbing us down?
 Andrew Keen wants to start an argument. And his new book “The Cult of the Amateur: How Today’s Internet is Killing Our Culture” shows that he knows how to do it.
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Who will fix my wired (and wireless) home?
When I was growing up, my mother urged me to become a telephone repairman—that way, she said, I’d always have a job. I think she was onto something, but it’s more than just telephones — it’s all the gadgets that hang onto our increasingly complex home networks.
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Will road warriors choose electrons over airplanes?
 It turns out that videoconferencing reaches a new threshold of reality when the people you’re seeing are nearly life-sized, moving naturally (without that Max Headroom lag-time) and speaking with sound as clear as a CD.
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Who will be the TV Guide of the Internet?
 How do you find what you want in the midst of this utterly disorganized video bonanza? Clearly, the entrepreneur who comes up with the video equivalent of Google would be in a very powerful position.
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Why is U.S. always last for new phones?
 For U.S. gadget lovers, this week has been pretty much torment. We’ve been watching the enormous 3GSM tradeshow in Barcelona where the latest and greatest mobile phone gadgetry is paraded before the international press.
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Weighing the risks of biotechnology
 Can we continue to advance technology without needlessly subjecting society to more Chernobyl melt-downs? The query is made more urgent by the fact that, given the new powers of biotechnology, the next miscalculation may prove to be damaging in ways we can’t presently imagine.
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What will make the laptop obsolete?
 A decade or two from now, will there be a laptop replacement? Will an even smaller, more mobile device — perhaps something the size of today’s smartphone — replace the laptop in the lives of consumers?
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Whither the iPod?
 It’s been quite an autumn for the ubiquitous music player: the fifth anniversary celebration, the ultra-small gigabyte Shuffle and finally the ultimate iPod accessory: “The Perfect Thing,” Steven Levy’s engaging new book that chronicles all-things iPod. But here's the big question: what comes after the iPod?
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The future isn’t what it used to be
 “Follies of Science: 20th Century Visions of Our Fantastic Future” is a lavish visual compendium of art work, advertisements, cartoons, magazine covers and government documents, all depicting just how wonderful, or occasionally terrifying, the future will be.
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Will it matter if people can’t read?
 Educational doomsayers are again up in arms at a new adult literacy study showing that less than 5 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. The obsessive measurement of long-form literacy is once more being used to flail an education trend that is in fact going in just the right direction.
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What do futurists really know?
The World Future Society conference in Toronto reveals that making accurate predictions isn’t necessarily what futurists do. It’s the act of stimulating creative thought. As one futurist said: "The future will always surprise us, but we must not let it dumbfound us."
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How Washington will shape the Internet?
The most potent force shaping the future of the Internet is neither Mountain View’s Googleplex nor the Microsoft campus in Redmond. It’s rather a small army of Gucci-shod lobbyists on Washington’s K Street and the powerful legislators whose favor they curry.
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Futurist Blog 
