Avishay Artsy's blog

Cutting-edge research and technology could change our lives in unprecedented and unpredictable ways. That's one of the underlying themes of The New Yorker's "Stories from the Near Future" conference this week.

The fourth annual Smart Fabrics conference wraps up today, bringing together developers, designers and manufacturers of interactive textiles.

Here at Word of Mouth, we track new ideas and trends for some clues into where we, as a society, are headed. What scraps of insight can we glean from emerging technology and culture to tell us if we're on the right track? Is there any way of knowing?

The airline industry has been going through hard times, the worst since the 9/11 attacks. United Airlines, US Airways, Delta and Northwest have all reorganized under Chapter 11 filings in the past decade. But with default and bankruptcy risk on the rise, and jet fuel prices at over $3.50 a gallon this week, airlines are still scrambling to cut costs.

Happy Earth Day! Our show today looks at efforts to make the world a greener place. NHPR reporter Amy Quinton tells us about the incredible amounts of energy used by data centers, and how engineers are trying to cut down the energy used to run them and keep them from overheating. We take a closer look at polar bears, who've become the poster-children of anti-global warming efforts. And we hear about an animated film that follows where our everyday products come from.

We were all excited when the documentary Control, about Ian Curtis, the ill-fated lead singer of post-punk pioneers Joy Division, came out last fall. If you haven't heard Joy Division, you probably don't dress all in black, hang out in smoky nightclubs and write bad confessional poetry.

The social networking site Facebook was originally targeted to college students, but since it's opened its doors to anyone, the question of what's appropriate to post on your profile has gotten complicated.

For those of you in radio land tuning in live to the show, we have big news. Beginning on Tuesday, April 15th, Word of Mouth will move to noon and will begin live broadcasts on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

As you may know, we've been putting together two complete shows every week, but only broadcasting on Thursdays. If you've missed any so far, they're all archived on the site - click here to listen.

In case you missed it, the Concord Monitor had a nice article about Virginia and the show in today's Arts & Entertainment section. Here's a choice paragraph:

What technology has taken away - the pick-up ballgame, the handwritten letter - it has replaced with other powerful connections - websites that kindle romance, chat rooms that bring together the most obscure of hobbyists, Prescott says. And it is this revolutionized world of communication that Word of Mouth is attempting to make sense of.

NPR's Day to Day had an interesting segment today about bar code technology being used by more than 500 San Francisco restaurants, shops and businesses to entice passers-by. Here's how it works:

A customer walks up to a restaurant that displays the bar code, takes a picture of it with a cell phone and then instantly downloads reviews, a menu and a wine list. Likewise, scanning bar codes on a bus stop could produce maps, and scanning a building could elicit fun facts.