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Recent Articles from Thomas Frey
A sharing economy solution to the refugee crisis
The top-down systems we’ve used to administer crisis situations like this in the past are no longer adequate for the extreme population shifts happening today, nor will they be for tomorrow’s fluid-thinking global citizens.
Nine key predictions about the darknet
Even though the veil of secrecy is likely to become more digitally opaque, the darknet itself is destined to become far more mainstream.
What you need to know about the darknet
The darknet, often referred to as the dark web, is the place where less-than-scrupulous people offer less-than-scrupulous solutions.
The futurist: The death of banking
When it comes to money, it’s all about trust. Once consumer confidence and trust begins to erode, it becomes a mammoth task to regain it.
Mankind’s greatest disasters
It’s not reasonable to think that we will somehow reach an era of being disaster-free. Machines wear out, computers break down, and even our best attempts at making a failsafe system will eventually fail. Add in a few earthquakes and nature’s own mechanisms for disrupting things when we least expe...
The futurist: Black Hat robots are coming
We are on the verge of having driverless buses delivering automated store clerks to retail shops that sell robots to other robots. Hmmmm. So where do humans fit into this equation? Much like handing us a shovel and asking us to dig our own grave, our man-made machines are being replaced with machi...
Is coworking cooler than college?
Anyone growing up has a rough idea of what they think success should look like. For teenagers, their heroes are people who have launched their own video games, started a band, filmed a rockumentary, created a mobile app, written a graphic novel or won a major video game tournament. To them, the ac...
The futurist: Will coworking replace college?
When I first brought up the idea of coworking taking over colleges, it seemed like an absurd notion. But there is a secret reason that very few people are grasping. At first glance, the highly structured ivory towers of academia seem to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from the unstructured...
The futurist: Peak car is coming
Vehicle traffic grew at a staggering rate worldwide for decades. But that all changed in 2007. Some refer to it as the perfect storm with the combination of economic collapse, digital revolution and major shifts in urban lifestyles.
The futurist: The mannequin-fashion model showdown
For many, the idea of having fashion models, that many of us regard as the ultimate form of personal beauty, lose in a one-on-one battle with synthetic humans is a rather depressing thought.
The futurist: Secret engines of off-grid living
From my perspective, there are three primary inputs and two primary outputs for off-grid living. The inputs are energy, water and media (Internet), and the outputs are sewage and trash. Three recent innovations are causing a shift in design thinking, making it far easier for people to become part...
The futurist: Creating human-free distribution networks
A couple weeks ago, I was asked to speak at the 8th annual Turkish Postal Symposium in Antalya, Turkey on the future of the postal industry. This was a fascinating gathering of thought leaders to discuss next generation postal service.
