Services 2020

Will Asia lead the world in green technologies and in the political-economic transition to sustainability? Can Asia bury past conflicts and create stronger regional institutions including perhaps, step by step, an Asian Union? In what ways could Asia's traditional cultures - Islamic, Tantric, Taoist, Confucian, Buddhist and Vedic - be resources in inventing an alternative more hybrid cultures?

Provides insight + surprising solutions for the dramatic field of peri-urbanisation in Europe Introduces innovative tools for planners, scientists and lay-persons allowing to integratevily analyze the impact of peri-urbanisation onto sustainable development Has unique maps showing EU-periurbanisation effects on a pan-European level Has a conclusive didactic approach + text structure (e.g.  inserts, boxes ...) Presently, peri-urbanisation is one of the most pervasive processes of land use change in Europe with strong impacts on environment and quality of life. Urgently strategies and tools in support of sustainable development have to be developed. The book synthesizes results of PLUREL, a large European Commission funded research project (2007-2010). Tools and strategies of PLUREL address main challenges of managing land use in peri-urban areas. Results will be presented and illustrated through 6 case studies which are at the core of the book. A novel, futures oriented approach to the planning and management of peri-urban areas with a main focus on scenarios and sustainability impact analysis. The book is unique: - futures oriented (e.g. IPCC framework), - links quantitative modeling and sustainability impact analysis with qualitative & in-depth analysis of regional strategies - links study at European level (Nuts 2&3 regions) with case study work - involves a Chinese case study

Most popular web-based businesses are deflationary. They substitute expensive forms of content consumption for cheap ones, they make it logistically easier to deliver discounts to people who will respond to them, and they create numerous financially cheap forms of social status. As more activity moves on to the web, the main effect on the economy will be broadly lower prices and less need for employment.

FORGET using passwords to log on to your computer, needing touch screens to navigate on your smartphone or paying expensive energy bills; in the future your daily activities will create all the energy you need to power your house, biometrics will unlock your devices, and your mind will be capable of controlling them.

ONE of humanity's ultimate dreams, to peer into the future, may be moving a step closer with a controversial €1 billion ($1.3bn) EU plan to recreate the entire world in a computer system. The Living Earth Simulator project would take the vast streams of data pouring into the internet, ranging from Facebook and Twitter to dry-as-dust government statistics, and try to spot the economic and social trends that will shape the future.

shifts in online education

"Clients are provided with tailored advice and practical tools for starting, scaling or sustaining their initiatives. Consultancies can cover areas such as creative brain storming, 'asset-mapping' and brand clarification, through to exploration of appropriate legal and business structures - including social enterprise - and how to creatively market and fundraise on a shoestring budget. Where relevant, clients are steered towards free tools, sent customisable documents and introduced to relevant individuals within the consultant's network."

"TaskRabbit gets you in touch with friendly, reliable people who can help you get just about anything you need done, and put some free time back into your life."

A Silicon Valley startup that collates threats has quietly become indispensable to the U.S. intelligence community

Cool money graph

rent your room peer to peer system

About the ProjectThe Future We Want (FWW) is a global initiative to envision what we want our lives and communities to be like 20 years from now. Gathering Promising IdeasUsing everything from modern technologies like the web and social media to traditional grassroots communication we intend to reach people on a worldwide scale. We will ask everyone, at every level of society, to submit their visions for a positive future. From solutions addressing poverty and injustice to strategies for creating sustainable and environmentally responsible communities, we will gather ideas internationally. But we won't stop here.

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 22, 2011 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- The Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) has announced the results of its Pro-Poor Scenarios Competition, a global contest that invited policymakers, futurists, academics and active citizens around the world to develop scenarios that apply foresight methods to expand social and economic opportunities for poor and marginalized populations.

The world is more addictive than it was 40 years ago. And unless the forms of technological progress that produced these things are subject to different laws than technological progress in general, the world will get more addictive in the next 40 years than it did in the last 40.

" Welcome to the Sigma Scan - a searchable repository for horizon scanning papers, designed for government users. To create it, the Horizon Scanning Centre has collected 'evidence of the future' from more than 6000 document sources and interviews with 300 leading thinkers, and condensed this into 250 short papers to challenge assumptions and spark ideas. "

"On June 3, Brundtland held a keynote speech at Fudan University for the 15th anniversary of the joint BI-Fudan MBA program. Other speakers at the event included Dag Morten Dalen, Senior Vice President of BI, Lu Xiongwen, Dean of the Fudan School of Management, Professor Torger Reve, and Paul Utvik, an alumni of the BI-Fudan MBA Program. In her speech, Brundtland recognized China's importance as a collaborator in the global fight against climate change, and the challenges faced by the country in its efforts to balance economic growth with sustainable development. Citing former World Bank economist David Wheeler, she stated that China is one of the countries most vulnerable to the effects of climate change, like extreme weather. Brundtland said that the question is not if China should grow, but rather how it should grow, and that the advances made by China in green technology put it on the right track for making sustainable prosperity a reality. "

Kevin Kelly on Richard Florida's new book about why where you live is important.

It's an idea that most of us would rather not face -- that within the next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind. It seems outlandish, extreme -- even impossible. But according to cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And unless we make drastic changes now, it could very well happen. Experts have a stark warning: that unless we change course, the "perfect storm" of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change has the potential to converge in the next century with catastrophic results.

Report Being Human ; Human-computer interaction in the year 2020