A decade on, IGBP in collaboration with the Stockholm Resilience Centre has reassessed and updated the Great Acceleration indicators, first published in the IGBP synthesis, Global Change and... Read more
The proposed Microsoft computer is mind-bending even by the standards of the mostly hypothetical world of quantum computing. Modern computers are not unlike the looms of the industrial revol... Read more
In the not too distant future, the business of making things will require the skills, temperament and work flow of a good film crew I love dictionaries. I like to sit and read them, immersed... Read more
“How are those men, thus thrown out of employ to provide for their families?” In 1786, the cloth workers of Leeds, a wool-industry center in northern England, issued a protest against the gr... Read more
M.I.T. economist Erik Brynjolfsson explains how technology has affected economic growth and productivity, and how human workers can adapt Fifteen years ago Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in a... Read more
What if any person, anywhere in the world, had free access to the machines that power the industrial revolution? That’s the goal of the Global Village Construction Set: empowering everyone t... Read more
THE robots are coming! Word is they want your job, your life and probably your little dog, too. Robots have once again gripped the nation’s imagination, stoking fears of displaced job... Read more
Scientists report that they have developed a method that cuts down the time it takes to make new parts for microscopic biological factories. The scientists, from Imperial College London, say... Read more
An industrial revolution on a minute scale is taking place in laboratories at The University of Manchester with the development of a highly complex machine that mimics how molecules are made... Read more
What do we know about the prospects for long-run prosperity? The great bulk of the economic commentary you read in the papers is focused on the short run: the effects of the “fiscal cliff” o... Read more
It’s time to reinvent the formula for how work is conducted, since we are still relying on a very 20th century notion of work The concept of man versus machine is at least as old as th... Read more
SOMETHING big is happening to the business of making things. Those who want to understand it are unlikely to find a better guide than Peter Marsh. A writer for the Financial Times (owned by... Read more
De-urbanization looks set to be an important demographic trend in the 21st century Since the industrial revolution, humanity has flocked to the cities, where jobs are plentiful and centraliz... Read more
As manufacturing goes digital, it will change out of all recognition, says Paul Markillie. And some of the business of making things will return to rich countries OUTSIDE THE SPRAWLING Frank... Read more