ForaTV informs: What would you do if you could see the future? Not just one or two years out but 5, 10 or even 20 years out. Hacking the future requires the ability to dream, to visualize and to create, using a full range of creative tools, models and concepts. Come see Phil McKinney, CTO of HP’s Personal Systems Group and contributing columnist at Forbes, reveal concepts and prototypes never before shown outside the walls of HP. This family friendly session is a futurist’s view of what the world will look like. Be inspired to create and do amazing!

SmartMob informs about MIT’s Center of Future Civic Media video “The use of civic media in difficult places”.

In a live demonstration of globe-straddling communication technologies like Skype, this forum connects to citizen journalists and activists around the world, some of whom frequently test the limits of governmental authority. Moderator Ethan Zuckerman wonders if these new digital forms are fundamentally liberating, providing users access to public spaces they might otherwise be denied. He pursues this line of inquiry in a series of internet conversations with correspondents covering some of the world’s most ravaged or oppressed regions.

Commonwealth Club and Sheppard Mullin on ForaTV

Digital content will continue to transform traditional media. How old and new media make money during and after this transformation, however, remains uncertain – even as more and more content comes online, from traditional sources, independent producers and users themselves.
Which business models are working now and what will work in the future? How will emerging distribution models and new platforms affect the ways that new content is created?

Join the Commonwealth Club as a panel of experts examines the new business models for content creation, distribution and monetization.

15inno informs about Siemen’s Pictures of the Future, which is a magazine on research and innovation. In their spring 2010 issue, they focus on open innovation, green cities and molecular detectives

Here’s the section on Open Innovation

Scenario 2020: Unlimited wisdom

Brazil 2020: A company develops complex solutions for customers all over the world. In its operations it combines the advantages of a global knowledge network with those of virtual space. That saves time and money and minimizes risk. A look at IT specialist Johannes Quistorp’s first day on the job

Trends: Tapping new worlds of ideas

Potentially, gamechanging innovations are everywhere. They are hidden in the minds of employees and customers and in projects at universities and research institutes. Tapping these sources is something employers are doing to an ever increasing extent. As they do so, they are opening the doors of their labs, exchanging ideas with external partners, and creating a world of synergies

Soft Tissues Revealed: Phase-contrast X-ray imaging

They’re used every day in hospitals, but X-ray images don’t really offer the kind of detail needed to determine the size and structure of a tumor. With a new technique called “phase-contrast X-ray imaging,” however, this may be about to change

All Charged Up: Integrating electric cars into the grid

Major cooperative projects are paving the way for the launch of electric vehicles. Experts from industry and universities are creating the technological basis for linking vehicles to the power grid. In fact, field tests are now under way, especially in Denmark and Germany. One key objective is to use electric cars as energy storage units that can compensate for fluctuations in wind power

Nuclear Fusion: Here comes the sun

By 2030, researchers expect to build a fusion reactor demonstration plant that produces more energy than it consumes. If successful, fusion power will provide a nearly inexhaustible and CO2-free source of energy. Related developments in materials research are driving improvements in many Siemens technologies

Cathy Davidson of Duke University, USA talks about “The Future of Thinking: Rethinking the Role of the Humanities for a Digital Age” . She is also the co-founder of Hastac and maintains the official blog there on the latest on digital media and science of attention for learning and the workplace. You can follow her on twitter: @catinstack

Nokia’s Ideas Projects finds out What It Means to be a Student Leader in the Age of Social Media:

College students are, by nature and context, ideally suited to the role of spoilers in society. So when IdeasProject invited a group of students from the University of California, Berkeley, to interview the big "influencers" among their peers, we expected to have our assumptions challenged in ways beyond those posed by our slightly older Experts. As beta-testers and early-adopters of social media from a tender age, they not only take for granted many of the “break-throughs” we rhapsodize about, but offer an impressive range of big ideas for how these technologies can be used to address the numerous challenges we face as a planet.

Most run their own organizations and are used to doing the hiring rather than waiting to be hired. They weigh the usefulness of traditional communications tools like letter-writing and resumes against the kinds of social media (text, email, microblogging) they’ve grown up with, and envision a time when tools for sharing video, location and real-time information will be deployed more fluidly across platforms and devices. When they encounter an application, a platform, or some aspect of the world they’re not satisfied with, they think of a way to make it better and then, as the ad says, just do it.

Check out some great videos of the students talking passionately about their projects. Here’s one such video

Nikhil Arora. In his final semester at school, Nikhil found through a class research project that there was one kind of retail business that was creating a huge amount of waste in urban areas: Coffee houses. Nikhil resolved to change that – and a business was born. His company, BTTR Ventures, collects tons of coffee grounds and uses them as fertilizer to grow mushrooms, which he then sells at farmers’ markets around the country. He uses social media including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to connect to communities in urban areas and plans to deploy geo-location “to track salespeople in farmers’ markets…with give-aways and contests.”

Nikhil says that “…being able to translate the virtual world into the real world and start making them interact a lot more easily” will lead to a “next wave” of fun tools that can be used simultaneously by individuals as well as companies.

PBM MediaShift informs about the website  OurBlook.com, that gathers opinions from today’s top leaders in the hopes of collaboratively finding tomorrow’s solutions. Future of journalism interview series (@ourblook) has collected over 100 interviews with well known journalists and new media experts. From the series it’s clear that newspapers do have lot of catching up to do but journalism will survive in one form or another and trained journalists cannot be replaced.

Future of Journalism Interview Series Findings

• Newspapers are still searching for business and editorial models that are sustainable in this new world of media. Outlets that cling on to their old methods of doing things will die.
• The idea of newspapers charging for their websites was once looked down upon, but is now becoming an accepted strategy. Additionally, as online advertising changes, and banner ads are quickly becoming passé, experts are urging newspapers to explore non-traditional revenue streams such as online games or web apps.
• Hyper-local is gaining acceptance. As a result, harnessing the power of citizen journalism has become a key goal for many media outlets.
• The role of journalists and the skills necessary to succeed have changed. This has caused many industry insiders to ponder the future of journalism’s culture and ethics.
• One-way storytelling has given way to a two-way (or multiple) conversation between the journalist and the audience. Tools like Twitter and Facebook have become incredibly important in this new context.
• TV news is beginning to experience the same changes and chaos as print journalism, causing many to panic.

Bob Garfield on Journalism, Advertising, and Future from OurBlook.com on Vimeo.

Amy Gahran on Future Journalist from OurBlook.com on Vimeo.

Ericsson’s 2020 Shaping Ideas are series of great video talks by some great thinkers on their views on the drivers of the future and how connectivity is changing the world.

From the site: Broadband connectivity and mobility are changing the way we live, the way we work, the way markets function, and the way societies operate. At Ericsson, we need to collaborate and get inspiration from people outside our business in order to adapt to these changes – people that take a stand, and that want to share and work together.

In 2020 – Shaping Ideas, we ask 20 thinkers to share their view on the drivers of the future and how connectivity is changing the world.

They describe a future where a growing population faces never before seen challenges and opportunities; where digital natives will shape their lives and the enterprises they work for, and where technology could create a global golden age.

We believe it is important to share our knowledge about the future. If we do, the future might not be a place we are going to, but a place we create.

Jeffry Sachs – Fighting Poverty with connectivity
Will Steffen – Our world: transform or collapse
Ian Pearson – Twenty Four Seven connected
Calota Perez – Golden Age or another crisis ?
Johan Bergendahl – New demands on the telecom industry
Don Tapscott – Growing up digital
Adrian Bowyer – Download, adjust, print!
Jeffrey Cole – A new era of advertising
Anne Lise Kjaer – Ethical Business & Female Power
Hans Rosling – On our way to a stable world

This video was prepared by the UK branch of Dorling Kindersley Books and produced by Khaki Films. Read an interview with the creator of the video on the Penguin Blog:

TEDxNYED (@tedxnyed) was an all-day event designed to bring leading educators, innovators, and idealists together to share their vision of education. It’s an event to provide a platform for administrators, teachers, and those passionate about education to connect, learn from these extraordinary speakers, and spread their ideas on how new media and technology are shaping the future of education.

The speakers at the event were Gina Bianchini, Amy Bruckman, Andy Carvin, Dan Cohen, Jeff Jarvis, Henry Jenkins, Neeru Khosla, Juliette LaMontagne, Chris Lehmann, Lawrence Lessig, Dan Meyer, Jay Rosen, George Siemens, Mike Wesch and David Wiley

Here’s the video of Henry Jenkins and more on TEDx NYED official web site.