Jun
29
This Week’s Big Question: When we buy green products, we aren’t doing much for the environment, says philosopher Slavoj Zizek. We run around obsessively recycling and biking and buying organic food because we believe we are doing something meaningful. But we are still consuming. We have good intentions but no real impact. Not quite, says former …
Jun
24
Economic struggles, drug wars, youthful optimism and great ideas: It’s all happening next week at the world’s best conferences. June 28 to July 3 – The Aspen Ideas Festival Endearingly called a “Burning Man for intellectuals,” the Aspen Ideas Festival is just what the name implies: a celebration of the world’s foremost ideas, presented by some …
Jun
23
A recent breakthrough in pharmaceutical research could spell an end to HIV as we know it. Could this horrific virus be prevented with a once-daily pill? Doctors involved in the breakthrough Global iPrEx (“Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis”) study say yes. Dr. Robert Grant, an investigator for the Gladstone Institutes – the biomedical research foundation that oversaw the …
Jun
22
How can you not like mobile? It’s the current sweetheart of the technology industry, even though there are serious technological and business obstacles to overcome before this marketing platform reaches its ultimate potential. Much like the Internet itself, industry leaders see endless opportunity in mobile – the key will be seizing it. With that in …
Jun
22
This week’s Big Question: If advances in science and health care enable humans to live 150 years, will civilization improve? No, says Harvard history professor Niall Ferguson. Human nature will not change. Dark forces will still reign. Or will they? Futurist Peter Schwartz says intergenerational learning is taking place. Ninety-year-old grandmothers are teaching their grandchildren …
Jun
21
One part Wired, one part Economist, with a celebrated Late Night host and a social media maven as marquee attractions, the Wired NExTWORK Conference kicks off tomorrow, June 22. Addressing “the promise and peril of the network’s future,” the one-day event is “not a technology conference in the traditional sense,” say organizers. And we can’t …
Jun
20
What a long year it’s been. Twelve months ago, just as the Aspen Ideas Festival was kicking off, the economy was still souring and the country was responding to an oil spill of almost-biblical proportions (and very real complications). The world’s great thinkers gathered in Aspen and discussed immediate solutions to pressing problems. Sobering questions …
Jun
17
Recovery or recession, delay or decline, success or stagnation? Amid a protracted economic downturn, a highly partisan political atmosphere and record-high unemployment levels, it’s still unclear how the history books will look back on this period in America’s culture and economy. That doesn’t mean, however, that the world’s top thinkers don’t have plenty of opinions …
Jun
17
How can the world more effectively deal with disaster? Will marketers take full advantage of an increasingly mobile playing field? Can HIV be prevented with a simple pill? The coming week promises more than a few conferences that will present medical and technological breakthroughs, and pave the way for exciting new approaches to well- ingrained …
Jun
15
FORA.tv strives to connect smart, passionate audiences to brilliant ideas that are expressed everyday. Each week, our newsletter features a provocative and compelling Big Question, inviting discourse and debate from our community. This week’s Big Question: Will the Information Revolution Save Humanity or Destroy It? Our cutting-edge tech tools are overloading our minds, stopping us from …