Entries in Innovation Hub by Kara Miller and Amanda McGowan
Will the new face of college be a computer screen? We asked a panel of educational pioneers about the university of the future on this special edition of Innovation Hub, taped at Suffolk University’s Modern Theater in downtown Boston. Read More...
It's 1894, and a tall, handsome, mysterious man is sitting in the ornate, elegant dining room at Delmonico's in New York. He's surrounded by admirers - nouveau riche and old money alike - and they're all whispering about the amazing feats they have seen him perform with electricity: including sending 250 volts coursing through his body, lighting up the surface of his skin from within. The man is Nikola Tesla, inventor of alternating current, and he's widely regarded by the people in the room as one of the greatest geniuses alive.
Say you're in the market for a watch. You have a few options: you could go to the department store and pick one in a familiar style, from a familiar brand. But what if you wanted something you couldn't find in stores -- like a smart watch that syncs with your cell phone and buzzes when you receive text messages? For that, there's Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website that connects up-and-coming innovators with big ideas to people who want to see them become reality, says Ethan Mollick, professor at the Wharton School.
Struggling to keep cool (and swat off those pesky mosquitoes) in these dog days of August? Trying to sneak in some quality outdoors time before the weather changes? Ben Saren, Innovation Hub's gadget guru, is here to help in this exclusive web extra.
When you turn on a light bulb, fill up your gas tank, or pay your electric bill, how often do you think about the fall of the Roman Empire? Chances are, not much - but Jeremy Rifkin, adviser to the European Union and author of The Third Industrial Revolution, might urge you to start. That's because, according to Rifkin, the fall of Rome was directly tied to the Empire's failure to find new energy sources to meet the needs of its growing economy -- and, he warns, we're on a similar trajectory unless we can revamp our energy regime to fit the demands of twenty-first century society.
You may know your playlists like the back of your hand, but what if your playlists also knew you? Tony Churnside, media technologist at the BBC, says the notion is not so far fetched. He and his team have developed a radio that is fully flexible to your wants and needs - including adapting its coverage depending on where you are and what you like.
This week, Innovation Hub is all about altruism in business. Meet one CEO who walks the walk: Michael Schrader of Vaxess Technologies, a company that uses silk protein to stabilize the temperature of vaccines so they can be shipped across the globe without refrigeration. In other words, with Schrader’s help, some of the 2.5 million people who die annually of preventable diseases could be saved using the fiber in your bedsheets.
Should we always reward the highest bidder? We explore the moral limits of markets with Harvard's Michael Sandel, author of “What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets.” Read More...
How is Big Data — the information generated from Google searches, GPS, online shopping and more — changing our lives? Kara Miller asked a panel of experts about the benefits and downsides of the international information database. Read More...
