Tagged: future

Turbulent Transitions - Ariadne

Robert Hickson • Oct 17, 2011 •

• Economic,
• energy,
• future,
• geopolitical,
• Social,
• work

If you are keeping up with your futures’ reading then you’ll know about the plethora of trends and drivers that are shaping, or could shape, our future — continuing globalization, population growth or stagnation (depending where you live), multilateralism, paying down debt, urbanisation, aging western populations, obesity, rising economic inequalities, energy crises, climate change, technological convergences, economic growth across Asia, … Read More

Where’s my Robot? [Part 2] - Ariadne

Robert Hickson • Sep 15, 2011 •

• emerging technologies,
• ethics,
• future,
• robotics,
• warfare

Part 1 looked at trends in Robotics. Here I consider some of the challenges, as well as provide more information on military robots. Challenges What is needed for robots to be valued and respected members of our world? As a non-specialist I see five main requirements: Discriminating – It is easy for us to distinguish individuals and objects by … Read More

Where’s my Robot? [Part 1] - Ariadne

Robert Hickson • Sep 14, 2011 •

• emerging technologies,
• future,
• Health Care,
• manufacturing,
• robotics,
• warfare

Robots have been a promise and a fear for the last century. Up till now robots have been used for what have been called the 3 D’s — Dull, Dirty and Dangerous work. Things like building cars, vacuuming, mining, chopping up carcasses, search & rescue, and joining the armed forces. But there are also robotic footballers, … Read More

The Internet of Things - Ariadne

Robert Hickson • Sep 02, 2011 •

• future,
• information,
• internet,
• mobile computing

An interesting infographic from Cisco forecasts the anticipated growth of devices connected over the internet. It notes that the number of things connected to the internet in 2008 was greater than the world population. By 2020 it predicts that 50 billion things will be connected — from cows to household appliances. This assumes that Internet Protocol version 6 is … Read More

Welcome to my world wide futures web - Ariadne

Robert Hickson • Aug 02, 2011 •

• foresight,
• future,
• gartner

These blog postings will be on the theme of looking to the future — foresighting — particularly in relation to science and technologies. But not exclusively; I’ll also be examining social, environmental, economic and political trends and developments around the world as my fancy and browser take me. I’m on the look out for interesting developments, significant trends and influencers … Read More

Introducing a new blog: ariadne (a foresight blog) - misc.ience

Aimee Whitcroft • Aug 02, 2011 •

• ariadne,
• foresighting,
• future,
• robert hickson

Honestly, what is there to say at this point? Sciblogs just keeps getting more awesome. The newest foal to be welcomed to our fold is Robert Hickson, who will be penning the fantastically classically-named ‘ariadne: a foresight blog‘. He’s going to be doing a spot of foresighting. Some scrying, … Read More

How do you Visualise a Conversation? - Seeing Data

Chris McDowall • Jun 24, 2011 •

• Christchurch,
• conversation,
• Data,
• earthquakes,
• future,
• game,
• ift,
• social networks,
• visualisation

Over the next couple of days I am helping run an online event called Magnetic South – an online game about the long term future of Christchurch. It is part of Christchurch City Council’s Share an Idea suite of initiatives and will input to the development of the Central City Plan. The game is being run on … Read More