World Economic Forum

Fans of "The Sound of Music" will remember the scene in which Liesl, the eldest Von Trapp daughter, radiantly sings "I am 16, going on 17." But in real life, actress Charmian Carr, who played the teenager in the 1965 movie, hasn't felt radiant for the past two decades. Now a grandmother, Carr has long suffered from severe clinical depression. Medications not only failed to help but also produced debilitating side effects.Read more

By Jennifer L. Schenker

Today's smartphones are actually tiny computers, complete with operating systems, storage, and--in many cases--direct access to internal company networks. That makes them an increasingly attractive target for hackers and scam artists.
Read more

In 1824, English stone mason Joseph Aspdin invented Portland Cement in his kitchen and patented what has remained the primary material used in concrete ever since. Trouble is, global demand for cement;a $130 billion annual business;is skyrocketing but the process used to make it already produces an estimated 5 percent of the world's man-made carbon dioxide emissions. It took 184 years, but now another English company, Novacem, has come up with a different formula;one that actually absorbs more carbon than it releases.
Read more

Curious to know what the Roman Colosseum looked like when it was first built? Soon you'll be able to stand in front of today's remnants, point your mobile phone camera at the building, and see an interactive 3D reconstruction on your phone's screen. Same for the demolished Berlin Wall: Take a shot of the Brandenburg Gate and presto, you're whisked back to 1989 with an ugly concrete fence blocking your view.
Read more

Water scarcity is one of the biggest problems on the planet. There isn't enough clean drinking water to go around, yet an estimated 25% to 30% of treated water is lost through leaks in aging distribution networks. Such losses cost water utilities an estimated $14 billion annually, according to the World Bank. Enter TaKaDu, an Israeli start-up.Read more

A proposal to build a national federation of interconnected computing clouds in France, funded in part by government in order to protect the country's sovereignty, data privacy and local jobs, is gaining favor. Some fear that the idea, which is in part a backlash against American companies like Google, will spread to other parts of the Continent, potentially undermining the promised benefits to Europeans of  cloud computing.Read more