Futurism

Two very different sets of assumptions about what books are and what reading them in a networked age should be like.

German robotics company Festo offers a postfuturist menagerie: autonomous kites, silver air-jellyfish and flying robo-penguins.

At the blog Paleo-future, visions of techno-optimism & brave new worlds—all in a packet of cigarettes.

Larry Page tells us to ask ourselves if the work we do is changing the world. But is change always and everywhere for the better?

3-D printing is going viral. With 3-D fabrication technology at for the desktop, for LEGOs, and for nanoscale materials, it was only a matter of time before the paradigm found its way into space—and corporate science fiction. But this promising technology still has to prove itself in terrestrial infrastructure first.

At the Web 2.0 Summit, a look at the emergence of mobile technology and unforeseen twists in the story of the digital divide and the ongoing evolution of the public sphere.

To Kelly, the advance guard of the technium is to be found among the quadrillions of computer chips networked into vast electronic systems. But It may be difficult to discern whether the desires driving that process belong to technology, or are our own.

The Tokyo-based Shimizu Corporation is one of the world's leading construction and engineering contractors. It's also a prolific producer of corporate science fiction: fanciful, high-concept design projects that offer glimpses of astonishing futures. Its "Luna Ring" envisions such a future for the moon—and for Shimizu.

So, this video's got it all: off-the-grid filesharing, subcontinental slum-techno-chic, secret police in steampunk plague helmets, and a plot that remixes District 9 and Children of Men.

In 'What Technology Wants', author and Wired founder Kevin Kelly elaborates a theory of technology that emancipates tools from the bondage of human hands. In the weeks to come, I'll be blogging my reading of Kelly's challenging and provocative work.