Recent Publications
A Map for the Programmable World
The map created for our Technology Horizons Fall conference in 2009, When Everything is Programmable is now available to you!
Millennia ago, young couples in Egypt prayed to fertility gods with the hope of receiving the gift of a child. Much later, Native Americans performed ceremonial dances to pray for rain and a bountiful harvest. In the middle of the 19th...
As a part of the year-long Technology Horizons Program research task, When Everything is Progammable: Life in a Conmputational Age, the research team created a digital story—a scenario of of the future—in three parts to accompany the research released for the 2009 Fall Exchange. The story follows "Omar"—a doctor working at Seattle Grace in about 2019—as he moves...
What is the future of real-time video communication and what will it feel like to live and work in a world where real-time video is ubiquitous?
Skype commissioned IFTF to research and start a conversation about this question and much more in this newly-released report.
Video technologies are improving dramatically and rapidly, supporting mobile and ubiquitous real-time video experiences. Low cost...
Green Health is emerging from the convergence of the global health economy and the growing public recognition of the imperative for global sustainability. This convergence is visible in the two distinct ways in which our concept of “health” has expanded. We are managing, preserving, andenhancing our health in ways that include underlying causes of well-being andthe interrelated systems of our...
Sustainability Outlook is a forward‐thinking project that explores how changing social, cultural and technological conditions are likely to alter the ways that companies integrate sustainability into their business strategies.Jointly sponsored by Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) and the Institute for the Future (IFTF), this ongoing project combines IFTF’s methodologies for...
Remember the feeling of going into a darkened theater and losing yourself in another world. The overhead lights darken; you settle into your seat; the projector begins to whirr; and on the screen, a new reality flickers to life. All you're aware of is the world on the screen, the world of the screen. Finally the credits roll. The lights come up. The world ebbs back into your consciousness....
What is Signtific?
The Signtific Project is designed to engage the global scientific community in anticipating the most important innovations and disruptions in science and technology—and understanding their implications for the future of science and of society at large. It stands at the leading edge of several trends that will reshape the practice of science over the next few decades:
• It...
Health Brands:
What?
The convergence of health and entertainment evolves into anew market category that creates novel opportunities for consumer electronics,retail, travel, and the media industries. New and well-established brands position themselves toward health as consumers look for an explicit link between market offerings and their personal health.
So What?
What brands emerge around...
On June 2, Anthony Townsend presented IFTF's forecast on the future of technology-led economic development to over 800 attendees at the International Association of Science Parks' World Conference in Raleigh, North Carolina.
This study is the culmination of an 18-month joint research project with the Research Triangle Foundation of North Carolina, which oversees the development of Research...
Mobile health is emerging at the intersection of dynamic changes in mobility patterns, healthcare delivery, and new mobile technologies and networks. New technologies and the services they enable will be just one piece of a larger strategy forengaging consumers anywhere, anytime. Ultimately, mobile health will create more distributed health care systems that will move from an episodic to...
