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The Internet of Things can empower bottom-up community building, and it's already here, Guido Stevens reports in this article: The Internet of Things can be used to create a surveillance society, but also to empower bottom-up community building. Smart Cities is a catchy concept used by big IT vendors like IBM, to market their technology vision. A smart city is what happens when the city you live in (a dumb city?) is upgraded with a specific new infrastructure: The Internet Of Things.

In The Future of Futures, a distinguished collection of futurists - all APF members - look at the past, present, and future state of futures practise. Contributors include Wendy Schultz, on the brief history of futures, Andrew Curry on scenarios methods, Noah Raford on crowdsourced & design futures, Richard Slaughter on integral futures, and Riel Miller on futures as a discipline. Other contributions are on the future of the city, Africa's futures, and the rise, and limits, of crowd-sourcing as a futures practice.

The Scanbox on Kickstarter is a foldable scanner that's easy to put together and snaps in place with magnetic buttons. The scanner, made from a high-quality laminated card, works with most smartphones with a back-facing camera. The Scanbox can digitize full-size documents and anything that fits into its dock. Watch the video above to see how the scanner works. The Scanbox has been 702% funded with 31 more days left on the crowdsourced funding platform. Backers can receive the scanner with a $15+ donation. The scanner will go into production once its Kickstarter deadline is up.

"tartups tend to be discreet when they're raising money. Often it's because entrepreneurs are universally paranoid about revealing any details of their business. But there's also a very real reason to keep things hush-hush: the Securities and Exchange Commission has a ban on "general solicitation," left over from the days when crooks would go door to door selling imaginary oil fields to the gullible and overly optimistic. The 30-year-old ban restricts startups, and other issuers of equity in exchange for money, from pitching to anyone but "accredited investors" who meet a magic combination of criteria. That ban is about to be lifted, however, thanks to the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act (JOBS Act) that passed in April. Soon, there will be no impediment to plastering "we're raising a $1 million seed round, invest in us" in the middle of a startup's homepage, and there's no doubt that some zealous entrepreneur will. The SEC was charged with hammering out specific rules and adding investor protections related to general solicitation, and it released a proposed rule at the end of August. But critics have joined voices in vehement dissent, saying the agency's proposal merely parrots the vague phrasing in the JOBS Act without adding in any protections against predatory pitching."

"Van Bo Le-Mentzel the inventor of the Hartz IV Möbel, is talking about his 7 steps of crowdbuilding at the Symposium for the DMY-Designfestival Berlin 2012 "

"En Russie, les citoyens utilisent Internet pour lutter contre la corruption. Grâce au site Bribr, ils peuvent publier et géolocaliser leurs témoignages de pots-de-vin versés. Une initiative déjà expérimentée avec succès en Inde."

People Powered Health is a programme from NESTA, working with the Innovation Unit, to support the design and delivery of innovative services for people that are living with long term health conditions The programme focuses on co-production - that people's needs are better met when they are involved in an equal and reciprocal relationship with professionals - working together to get things done.  It is a radical approach to public services that is built around six characteristics:  Recognising people as assets Building on people's capabilities Promoting mutuality and reciprocity Developing peer support networks Breaking down barriers between professionals and users Facilitating rather than delivering

Cet espace est proposé par le Centre Multimédia intercommunal Berg et Coiron (sud Ardèche) à tous ceux qui veulent mettre en commun leurs souvenirs autour du territoire alentour. Un album collectif en quelque sorte, à partager en famille, entre amis, voisins… Vous y trouverez des documents, des anecdotes qui racontent la grande Histoire par petites touches, à travers le regard des habitants et visiteurs du territoire.

Electrifying our cultural heritage Digitalkoot is a joint project run by the National Library of Finland and Microtask. Our goal is to index the library's enormous archives so that they are searchable on the Internet. This will enable everyone to easily access our cultural heritage.

Study Together Ask questions, give help, and connect with over 100,000 students from 170 countries and 1,600 schools.

Waze is a free, community-based traffic & navigation app When you download Waze, you not only get free navigation, but also become part of the local driving community in your area, joining forces with other drivers nearby to outsmart traffic, save time and improve everyone's daily commute. All you have to do is drive, so get involved today!

Global Lessons in eHealth implementation Technology's ability to transform healthcare is undeniable. This report points to successful examples of both the conceptualization and execution of value adding eHealth initiatives. It is our observation, that a successful and efficient eHealth system will be facilitated around three concepts: crowd accelerated innovation, collaborative alignment, and creative dislocation.

Recent research shows that consumers collectively generate massive amounts of product innovation. These findings are a wake-up call for both companies and consumers - and have significant implications for our understanding of new product development.

De toutes les applications soi-disant "web 2″ ou faisant appel à l'intelligence collective, Foldit pouvait apparaître, lors de sa sortie en 2008, comme la plus prometteuse, tant elle semblait au confluent des différentes tendances actuellement en gestation : d'abord, il s'agissait d'un vrai moyen de "changer le monde par le jeu" qui abolissait la frontière entre éducation et recherche. C'était aussi la première "vraie" application de biohacking: soyons honnête, il n'est pas encore venu le temps ou chacun bricolera l'ADN dans sa cuisine. Mais agir sur des simulations informatiques d'authentiques structures biologiques (et non sur des formalisations abstraites, comme c'est le cas avec les systèmes de vie artificielle), avec la promesse d'obtenir des résultats pertinents dans le monde réel, voilà ce que permet Foldit, et c'est sans doute ce genre d'outils qu'utiliseront les "biohackers" de demain.

In 2009, Wikimedia1 launched a special wiki-one dedicated to the organization's own strategy. Over the next two years, more than 1,000 volunteers generated some 900 proposals for the company's future direction and then categorized, rationalized, and formed task forces to elaborate on them. The result was a coherent strategic plan detailing a set of beliefs, priorities, and related commitments that together engendered among participants a deep sense of dedication to Wikimedia's future. Through the launch of several special projects and the continued work of self-organizing teams dedicated to specific proposals, the vision laid out in the strategic plan is now unfolding.

L'internet très rapide est indispensable à tous les secteurs de l'économie et constituera le pilier du marché unique numérique. Ainsi, une augmentation de 10 points de pourcentage de la pénétration du haut débit correspond à 1 à 1,5 point de pourcentage de croissance de l'économie. Dans ce contexte, la Commission consulte pour savoir comment réduire le coût de la mise en place de nouveaux réseaux internet très rapides dans l'UE. En particulier, elle veut étudier des moyens de réduire les coûts de génie civil liés par exemple à la réalisation de tranchées pour la pose d'un réseau de fibre optique, qui peuvent représenter jusqu'à 80 % du coût total. La Commission pense pouvoir réduire d'un quart le coût des investissements dans le haut débit. Toutes les parties intéressées des secteurs public et privé, par exemple les entreprises de télécommunications et de services collectifs, les investisseurs, les pouvoirs publics et les consommateurs, sont invitées à contribuer à cette réflexion.