Jinn of Quality and Risk

The Social Life of Information wonders how it is that the previous generations of futurists managed to miss the significance of feminism, civil rights, and student protest while continually pointing to the imminence of the videophone and the jetpack. Futurists need to look at the context in which inventions make sense, but they tend to focus on the collapse of old hierarchies and to undervalue the social contexts provided by old systems. The authors include many examples of the way context creates meaning. 

Normal research subjects have remained awake for 8 to 10 days in carefully monitored experiments. None of these individuals experienced serious medical, neurological, physiological or psychiatric problems. ... [However] prolonged sleep deprivation in normal subjects induces altered states of consciousness (often described as "microsleep"), numerous brief episodes of overwhelming sleep, and loss of cognitive and motor functions. [Scientific American Article: Ask the Experts] 

Forbes: Twenty years ago, America was suffering from a recession combining high unemployment coupled with inflation. Major industrial companies like Chrysler had to be bailed out, the oil crisis concentrated wealth in the ground and among Arabian plutocrats and the threat from a seemingly dynamic Japan seemed insurmountable. At the time, business books were afterthoughts gathering dust in the back of bookstores. 

Forbes: Eventually large swaths of the Earth will communicate with the digital realm using millions of miniature sensors. ... Sensors will be placed in bridges to detect and warn of structural weakness and in water reservoirs to spot hazardous materials. Hospitals will track patients with such things as wireless bandages that warn of infection. Sensor networks will leverage the Internet and the analog world will be within our digital reach. RFID is only part of the story. The Japanese company Omron is likely to become a major force in that development.