1) A long, solid, detailed report on the global future in 2020. 2) The potentially interesting web-based modelling application used in the report that I couldn't get to work at all.

Next spring a four volume set of books for US high school students will be published, called Tackling Tomorrow Today. Not only does it sound a fantastic idea generally, teaching kids how to think long-term, one of the volumes will...

In clearing up some backlogged links, I've come across this "virtual exhibition" of images depicting past and present visions of future vehicles: commuter helicopters; in-car "pagers"; monorails, etc....

The Guardian has been running a three-part series of supplements on 2020, but they don't seem to be on their site. Nothing to see here.

A conference in Berlin about corporate foresight this October.

A collection of documents and websites worth reading, from Ian Miles.

Pointing two a paraphrase of a review of books that may interest futures types: 'Profiles, Probabilities and Stereotypes' and 'The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few'.

The Pop!Tech and Accelerating Change conferences are on this autumn and both could be good. Oh for more time and more cash.

The University of Houston has decided to shut down its MS programme in Future Studies, founded nearly 30 years ago. It's not a huge surprise, and the course could have been better, but it's a shame closure rather than improvement is their solution.

A decent collection of links to help people learn about futuristm.

In 'Wired', Hope Cristol declares that futurism is dead. If so, it isn't because of the reasons she gives - worthless generalisations and a good dose of veiled bitterness.

Terra Nova (on multiple-player online gaming) and the Institute for the Future's tech-oriented weblog.

Kevin Kelly posts about a great looking map of 5,000 years of world history on his excellent Recommendo weblog. I'd love to see a bigger image of the map but I can't see one on the linked to site. These...

An article on how Pixar have organised their headquarters.

A so-so Fast Company article about Nokia's R&D efforts.

I was sent a flyer for this journal the other day (presumably thanks to the World Future Society selling their mailing list). I hadn't heard of World Futures before, but it's been around for a while. Despite the title it...

A talk looking at the origin of the phrase "virtual communities," taking in the Whole Earth Catalog and the WELL and its influence on Wired magazine's general techno-utopian attitude.

If you're in the UK and you get BBC Four, there's a programme on tonight called Paul Morley's Matter of Fact and this edition (at both 7.30pm and 11.40pm) is 'About the Future'. (I'm assuming it's a series; it's hard...

Wondering what the Toronto International McLuhan Festival of the Future is actually about.

I don't think I've mentioned Singularity Watch before, but it's well worth a visit. They've just announced their Accelerating Change Conference, happening in San Francisco, USA, in July. There's also an email newsletter you can sign up for. John Smart,...

Via NTK, the London Science Fiction and Fantasy Film Festival kicks off next week, including The Douglas Adams Memorial Debate: Does science fiction predict the future?...

The author of Guns, Germs and Steel "0393317552", "uk"=>"0099302780")); ?> looks at why some industries are more successful than others in the long term. He draws parallels between pairings of Microsoft and IBM, US and German beer industries, and two...

Wired's current issue has a little spot where four futurists (Jim Dator, Peter Schwartz, Glen Hiemstra and Gerald Celente) predict things. It's only small, a bit random and comes free with several pinches of salt, but it fills a couple...

NewsFutures is a virtual stock-trading site, where the stocks are predictions. For example, if you think "John-Paul II remains Pope until 2003" sounds likely then you can invest your virtual dollars in it. If it sounds familiar you may already...

Two things I meant to post earlier... The good news is that University of Houston - Clear Lake's Masters in Future Studies has two courses available online for the coming academic year. Having done them in person I can recommend...

Last week Clay Shirky produced an interesting essay on the well-used phrase "Half the world has never made a phone call." He reminds us that the rate at which increasing numbers are making their first phone call is the statistic...

The Rapture Index keeps track of whether we're approaching the End Times by counting various indicating factors (Satanism, The False Prophet, Inflation, etc). Daft, but I love reducing important and complex things to a single number. And if the index...

Advancing Futures: Future Studies in Higher Education looks like an interesting book (Amazon US, UK). An all-star cast of academic futurists on the state of future studies, corralled by Jim Dator, of the Hawaii Research Centre for Futures Studies. (via...

I love obsessively huge collections of links on a single topic, and the Governments on the WWW site fits the bill. A handy resource with links to vast numbers of international, national and local governments, institutions, departments, embassies... there are...

I've a nagging feeling I've seen A futurist at the movies before, but it's fun and it'll give you something to look at while I attempt to get on to finding new things. Josh Calder looks at a variety of...

The APF has the aim of making the profession of futurism more recognised and providing services and development to its members. The board are mostly ex-UHCL graduates and hopefully this will be a more useful and relevant organisation than the...

ClimatePrediction.com plan to release software for making long-term weather predictions. Each client will run a climate simulation that will take 12-18 months to complete its 50-100 year forecast. Climateprediction.com will then compare the range of forecasts using a Monte Carlo...

This is quite something, possibly. What with the confusing interface and the sheer mountains of information here it's hard to tell exactly whether this is any use. However, it's still impressive, and great to browse around. A selection of large...

Looks like they do some interesting stuff. According to the WFS' Futurist Update they have a Successful Societies initiative, focussed on which factors indicate whether a society will be succesful. Sounds fascinating, but I can't find anything about this project...

A comparative review of two new business-oriented but wide-ranging futures books: 'The Visionary's Handbook: Ten Paradoxes That Will Shape the Future of Your Business' by Watts Wacker, Jim Taylor, and Howard Means, and 'The Soul at Work: Listen, Respond, Let...

Set up under the United Nation's Global Environmental Facility, this agency is charged with coming up with a plan to combat the increasing lack of fresh water on the planet. The site has information about the causes and issues of...