Futurism

Reviewing Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal's manifesto of gaming for a better world, Ian Bogost realizes that he likes the messy, repellent, stunning reality we've got.

French-Canadian kids doing anthropology in the midst of our broken future, contending with the vague stirrings of paleotechnology. Video after the jump.

A justly celebrated viral video celebrates Carl Sagan's hopes for the future of humankind�a good bet, but by no means a sure one. Video after the jump.

This space-saving bicycle parking system proves that the future is not only unevenly distributed, but elsewhere.

"Imagination... must not be underestimated as a valuable means to advance knowledge towards new frontiers," say the authors of a new study on the possible consequences of the discovery of extraterrestrial life; we couldn't agree more.

A documentary that helps us glimpse one of modernity's unlikeliest and most enticing of possible ends: the open-source cracking-open of industrial society.

In the age of the ebook, a ruminative turn to the inner work of building palaces of memory.

An international group of scientists proposes a "knowledge collider" to bring supercomputing to bear on social problems. While crunching the numbers won't be a problem, figuring out what they mean will prove more challenging.

During next week's CES, you'll rarely hear a single word about why you should really care about the devices debuting there... but is that really so surprising when even the electronics makers at CES can't answer as simple a question as why their gadgets matter?

An intriguing concept device called "Thimble" would serve as an interface, text scanner, and Braille e-book reader for the blind. But the crucial technology, a refreshable, haptic Braille display, remains elusive.