Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity | Video on TED.com

Niall Ferguson: The 6 killer apps of prosperity | Video on TED.com: Over the past few centuries, Western cultures have been very good at creating general prosperity for themselves. Historian Niall Ferguson asks: Why the West, and less so the rest? He suggests half a dozen big ideas from Western culture -- call them the 6 killer apps -- that promote wealth, stability and innovation. And in this new century, he says, these apps are all shareable.

The Future is Here Today, and it's Superdense - Blog - Driving Better Futures.

The Future is Here Today, and it's Superdense - Blog - Driving Better Futures.: "The elastic has snapped on the future. Or at least that's how it seems this week. We're in a patch where simply saying 'you can't make this stuff up' is insufficient, if not far too flippant. Since New Year's Day, we've seen the unravelling of a pan-regional power structure akin to the collapse of the old Soviet Bloc, and now a sequence of epic disasters culminating in the triple whammy of once-in-a-millennium earthquake, giant tsunami, and the possibility of multiple nuclear meltdowns in northern Japan."

What will the world look like in 2030? Maddison’s forecasts revisited | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists

What will the world look like in 2030? Maddison’s forecasts revisited | vox - Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists: "Developing countries have enjoyed strong economic performance over the past decade – often growing twice as fast as OECD economies. This column asks whether developing countries will continue to outpace rich countries over the coming two decades. Updating Angus Maddison’s famous projections, it forecasts a world starkly different from today’s. The worlds’ poor countries will account for nearly 70% of global GDP in 2030."