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The Arc of History is Long, But it Bends Toward Asian Economic Dominance
Derek Thompson from The Atlantic manages to present 2,000 years of economic history in 5 paragraphs plus a colorful little graph by Michael Cembalest, an analyst at JP Morgan. In Year 1, India and China were home to one-third and one-quarter of the world’s population, respectively. It’s hardly surprising, then, that they also commanded one-third and [...]
June 21, 2012 |
By Rachel Nuwer
The 1958 Plan to Turn Ellis Island Into a Vacation Resort
Give me your huddled masses yearning to go shopping and swimming
June 18, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
The Rise and Fall of Ken-chan, the $43,000 Robot Waiter
The spaghetti-slinging robot drew crowds at Grazie’s Italian Restaurant in Tokyo
June 12, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Don’t Let Your Money Fly Away: A 1909 Warning to Airship Investors
Flying aboard aircraft? Just a passing fad
May 31, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Jobs of the Future: How Accurate Were the Soothsayers of 1982 At Predicting Today’s Top Careers?
College graduates take note: Your dream career as a robot psychologist or nasal technologist is just around the corner
May 15, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Billboard Advertising in the City of Blade Runner
Are Angelenos destined to be perpetually surrounded by super-sized advertisements?
April 27, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Print the News, Right In Your Home!
Decades before the Internet, radio-delivered newspaper machines pioneered the business of electronic publishing.
April 17, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
The High-Tech Minimalist Sock-Shoe
Nike's latest innovation promises to improve runners' comfort, help the environment, and revolutionize shoe manufacturing
April 06, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
Better Feet Through Radiation: The Era of the Fluoroscope
In the 1940s and 50s, shoe stores were dangerous places. At the center of the shopping experience was the shoe-fitting fluoroscope—a pseudoscientific machine that became a token of mid-century marketing deception.
April 04, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
How To Be Taller
A modern Scottish elevator shoe designer runs a global business from his Bangkok outpost
March 23, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
The Shape of Fruits to Come
How our need for convenience is redesigning our food supply
March 16, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
And for Dessert: An Object Lesson on Simple Pleasure
How a disappointing dessert becomes an object lesson on simplicity and pleasure
March 14, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
Who Is Linda Tatersmith?
If flashy package design can lure people into eating factory-extruded chemical slurries, why shouldn’t it work to trick junk food addicts into eating a vegetable?
March 06, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
Airships and Oranges: The Commercial Art of the Second Gold Rush
How citrus crate label design fueled a boom that caused the art form's own demise.
March 01, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
Design Specs for a Genetically Ideal Snack
How plant geneticists are growing convenience food on trees
February 27, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
Designing the Perfect Fruit
How a tiny, seedless fruit becomes the iPhone of the produce aisle.
February 23, 2012 |
By Sarah C. Rich
One Newspaper to Rule Them All
In 1900, British newspaper magnate Alfred Harmsworth predicted a national newspaper for the United States. "Is it not obvious that the power of such a paper might become such as we have not yet seen in the history of the Press?"
January 03, 2012 |
By Matt Novak
Senator Barry Goldwater Imagines Arizona in the Year 2012
The Republican senator and 1964 presidential candidate predicted the growth of the Sun Belt and envisioned an open border with Mexico
December 07, 2011 |
By Matt Novak
Thomas Edison’s Brief Stint As A Homemaker
The famous inventor envisioned a future of inexpensive, prefabricated concrete homes.
October 21, 2011 |
By Matt Novak
Today at War, Tomorrow in Stores
Advertisers in the 1940s promised American consumers that they would be rewarded for their wartime sacrifices on the homefront
October 12, 2011 |
By Matt Novak
