Category: big ideas

Inventor of the world wide web wants to try again. 

Tim Berners-Lee explained his new effort called Solid. “Solid is how we evolve the web in order to restore balance — by giving every one of us complete control over data, personal or not, in a revolutionary way. Solid is a platform, built using the existing web. It gives every user a choice about where data is stored, which specific people and groups can access select elements, and which apps you use.” | learn more

Why recycling doesn’t work. 

This article is Canada-focused, but I would guess that the content applies to the US as well. “Ontario is the only province from which detailed financials are available. In 2016, blue-box collection cost municipalities a total of $347 million, and only about $95 million was recovered from subsequent sales.” | learn more

Workers of the world unite on distributed digital platforms. 

The argument proposed in this article isn’t new – its underpinnings are the same as the CONE I wrote about in April. The more I think about it, the more I find this idea revolutionary. Corporations were an innovative structure that let humans collaborate for larger business goals. They are not necessarily the last innovation. This is a great write-up of the concept (and doesn’t get too blockchain-y). | learn more

Remember to think long-term. 

“Installation has finally begun on Jeff Bezos’ 10,000-year clock, a project that the Amazon CEO has invested $42 million in. The actual idea for the clock comes from Danny Hillis, who originally proposed a 10,000-year clock in 1995 as a way to think about humanity and the planet” | learn more

Time to rethink human embryo research limits? 

In 1979, scientists in the US signed on to an international agreement that limits embryo research to 14 days. At the time, this was an arbitrary length of time that was mostly moot because embryos couldn’t survive that long in vitro. Now that they can, some scientists want to rethink the time limit to be able to learn more about human development. Obviously, there’s an ethical debate to be had. | learn more

Scientists have created programmable shape-shifting liquid metal.

“Researchers at the University of Sussex and Swansea University have applied electrical charges to manipulate liquid metal into 2D shapes such as letters and a heart. The team says the findings represent an “extremely promising” new class of materials that can be programmed to seamlessly change shape. This open up new possibilities in ‘soft robotics’ and shape-changing displays, the researcher [sic] say.” | learn more

ARK Invests’s big ideas 2018. 

I’ve been following this fund manager for a few months, since they keep putting out great content around the big dynamic changes we’re expecting in our world: robotics, CRISPR, cryptoassets, 3D printing, etc. This is an excellent report with plenty of charts and context around these big ideas. | learn more