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…are ideas, trends, technologies or behaviour changes that are as yet unrecognised by mainstream society. They might have a big impact or they might disappear. We monitor them to help our partners challenge their assumptions about the future, navigate risk and seize new opportunities.
Lunar solar
Anna Simpson, August 12th 2010, Futures, ICT, Innovation
The man in the moon has a new look. A 400km broad belt of photovoltaic cells, stretching 11,000km around the moon’s equator, has transformed his ‘light side’ into the perfect suntrap. The...
No man’s land
Anna Simpson, August 12th 2010, Futures, Built environment, ICT, Innovation
Forget health and safety protocols. Construction sites are saying goodbye to builders’ bums and hello to sleek computerised systems. Automated cranes, laser excavators and industrial robots,...
Gellified grub
Anna Simpson, August 12th 2010, Futures, Innovation
Dipping into your fridge just got gooey. Instead of neat white shelves and bright lights, you pop your veg into an odourless gel where it is suspended and cooled by luminescent bio robots. Gone...
More precrime
Hugh Knowles, August 3rd 2010, ICT
The Minority Report popularised the term precrime - events and motives before an offense has been committed. We have seen Climate protesters arrested before they had actually done anything...
Change your behaviour by 'putting a contract on yourself'
David Bent, July 21st 2010, Futures
StickK is a web-based way to change behaviour with a difference. You commit to a goal (weight-loss, green initiatives, whatever), sign a contract, nominate a friend to keep you to task and put up some money...
Electronic open source cash
Hugh Knowles, July 12th 2010, Futures, Finance
For the paranoid amongst you there is now a money system that has no centralised distribution system and relies on "cryptographic principles to create unique, unreproducible, and divisible...
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