Last week the Internationale Funkausstellung was held in Berlin.  This is the largest consumer electronics convention in Europe, equaling and perhaps surpassing the CES show that occurs every January in Las Vegas.  One of the central themes behind major new product launches was the Internet and the central role it is now beginning to play in the wirelessly networked home.

This has been something that has interested me for years and a subject about which I have written here and here in this blog.  As recently as five years ago, the topic of convergence was a speculative, hot …

It was two years ago that I first wrote about ocean dead zones. These are areas of the ocean that, due to a lack of oxygen, no longer sustain any life.  While dead zones can happen naturally, they usually are caused by the results of human activity.  A primary cause is nitrogen-rich nutrients from agricultural fertilizers that flow into coastal waters from rivers and streams.

Last week there was a report published in the Journal of Science that stated that the number of these ocean dead zones around the world has doubled every decade since the 1960s.  There are …

As a futurist, I think, speak, and write about the future. A large part of what I do is to make forecasts on the future and what might happen. This forecasting is based upon analysis of trends and the underlying forces and flows that create and shape these trends. The more specific the forecast or the further out the forecast, the higher probability of error in the forecast. When I look 5, 10 or 20 years out I look at the macro forces at play in the world to predict the overarching changes and reorganizations that …

Growing up as part of the baby boom generation, a distinct memory is the air raid siren tests.  Every Tuesday, if I recall correctly, at 10a there was the test of the air raid siren blaring across the entire city of Chicago.  This was to prepare us for the possibility of a nuclear attack from the Soviet Union (so we could crawl under our desks as instructed by our teachers).  Since it happened each week at the same time we knew it was a test.  If it had happened on any other day, I might not be writing this column …