Skip to Content

Magazine

Can We Build Tomorrow’s Breakthroughs?

January 2012

Manufacturing in the United States is in trouble. That’s bad news not just for the country’s economy but for the future of innovation.

Sign in or Subscribe to premium to download the PDF

Letter from the editor

Building the Future

Features

Categorized in 17037
The Chinese Solar Machine
Chinese manufacturers have dominated the international market for conventional solar panels by building bigger factories faster. Now they will need to innovate to maintain their lead.
Categorized in Uncategorized
Layer by Layer
With 3-D printing, manufacturers can make existing products more efficiently—and create ones that weren’t possible before.
Categorized in Uncategorized
Fire in the Library
Once, we stored our photos and other mementos in shoeboxes in the attic; now we keep them online. That puts our stuff at the mercy of companies that could decide to throw it away—unless Jason Scott and the Archive Team can get there first.
Categorized in 17035
The Mystery Behind Anesthesia
Mapping how our neural circuits change under the influence of anesthesia could shed light on one of neuroscience’s most perplexing riddles: consciousness.

Also in this issue
- Feedback
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Information’s Social Highways
  A startup studies the paths taken by viral messages
  Categorized in 17032
- Defining Experience
  A better definition of consciousness will help with tough ethical choices.
  Categorized in 17035
- Net Worth
  Efforts to preserve the Web should make use of the powerful, distributed collaboration it allows.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Making Revolution
  The U.S. can compete with China if it gives factory workers smarter tools.
  Categorized in 17032
- Nanotech Goes Big
  Large sheets made from carbon nanotubes could lead to lighter aircraft and more resilient space probes.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Eye Ball
  A globe studded with cameras captures a panorama if you throw it in the air.
  Categorized in 17032
- Room Temperature IQ
  Categorized in 17037
- Prith Banerjee
  The head of research at Hewlett-Packard talks about the disruptive technologies that could ensure HP’s survival.
  Categorized in 17032
- Ghosts in the Machines
  Bethlehem Steel, once a symbol of American industry, went bankrupt in 2001. These photos help us imagine its glory days. Photographs by Jeremy Blakeslee
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- The Empire Strikes Back
  How Xerox and other big corporations are harnessing the force of disruptive innovation.
  Categorized in 17036
- How Autodesk Disrupted Itself with an App
  A maker of high-end design software accidentally discovers a consumer hit.
  Categorized in 17036
- The Trouble with India’s People Car
  Tata created the world’s least expensive automobile. The only problem now is selling it.
  Categorized in 17036
- "Tectonic Shifts" in Employment
  Information technology is reducing the need for certain jobs faster than new ones are being created.
  Categorized in 17032
- Technological Healing
  A leading researcher says digital technologies are about to make health care more effective. But is so much data really beneficial?
  Categorized in 17035
- The Law of Online Sharing
  Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg will eventually have to deal with the fact that all growth has limits.
  Categorized in Uncategorized
- Power Polymers
  Conductive binders could make high-capacity battery electrodes practical
  Categorized in 17037
- Nanotube Motor
  Artificial muscles could power tiny actuators and microfluidic mixers
  Categorized in 17032
- Mimicking Autism
  Mice lacking a specific piece of DNA show symptoms like those in humans
  Categorized in 17035
- Stealth Texting
  Touch screens that work through fabric
  Categorized in 17032
- Keeping Up with the Despots
  One columnist wondered whether democracy was nimble enough to compete with tyranny.
  Categorized in Uncategorized

Updated