Business Reports
Technology Review Business Reports provide insights into how new technologies are
impacting industries, transforming companies, disrupting markets, and changing how we work.
May 2013
Data science and personal information are converging to shape the Internet’s most powerful and surprising consumer products.
March 2013
Mobile computing is the fastest-spreading consumer technology in history, but the real change for the technology business is only just beginning.
January 2013
Understand the technology and ideas behind the manufacturing renaissance.
November 2012
Explore the powerful Web technologies and business ideas that will change education.
September 2012
Will crowdfunding, X Prizes, and Internet billionaires unlock the next big innovation?
July 2012
The future of automation: how businesses are putting algorithms and robots to work.
June 2012
Internet advertising is the global $70 billion business that powers services like Google and Facebook. But has tracking of Web users gone too far?
May 2012
Mobile devices outsold PCs last year for the first time, and top smart-phone apps are reaching the...
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kind of audiences it used to take technologies decades to reach. Mobile computing has arrived. The question now: what comes next? In this issue of Business Impact, we look at major technology and business questions facing mobile computing as it reaches for global ubiquity. From the bandwidth crunch to the app-vs.-Web debate, businesses can profit as much from understanding the limits of mobile computing as from its rapid spread.
April 2012
The price of energy is rising. Carbon dioxide emissions are rising. But there’s one thing that’s...
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falling: the price of computing. In this issue, Business Impact profiles the emerging business strategy that says information technology could be the cheapest way to save or create more energy. Follow us this month into the smart electrical grid, save gas in a driverless car, and learn how some nations are exporting renewable power in the form of e-mails and Facebook photos.
March 2012
Money has gone from seashells to gold to paper bills to digits in a computer. Now money is about to...
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evolve again as the mobile Internet unlocks new consumer behaviors and business opportunities. This month, Business Impact explores the ideas, companies, technologies, and new concepts of value that are redefining the future of money.
February 2012
Digital natives are the young people who grew up with the Web. Now they’re disrupting it. This...
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month, Business Impact explores the expectations and challenges of “generation tech”—the twentysomethings who are putting their own twist on the ways that technology gets turned into products. From Internet protests to crowdsourced capital and do-it-yourself biologists working at home, young people are throwing today’s technology business models and institutions into question.
January 2012
The cars we drive are about to change, and so are the ways we commute and do business. In this...
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month’s Business Impact we look at the arrival of communication technologies that are linking motor vehicles to the information grid. From mobility apps to electric cars and vehicle automation, the connected automobile is rewriting the rules of the automobile industry and creating the chance to reorganize our transportation infrastructure.
December 2011
Technological disruption occurs when faster, simpler, cheaper inventions threaten market leaders....
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From social networks to renewable energy and medical advances, the speed of technological change has never been greater. With the creative destruction of markets, startups and established companies are vying to create tomorrow’s businesses and shape a better society.
November 2011
Long a multibillion-dollar industry in their own right, video and computer games are now affecting a...
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broad range of businesses. The appetites of game players are driving social and mobile technologies. Games are being used to train and manage employees, as well as to encourage customer loyalty and reduce health-care costs.
October 2011
Treating computing as a utility, like electricity, is an old idea. But now it makes financial...
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sense—a historic shift that explains why cloud computing is reshaping the economics of IT. Even startup companies and consumers now can access massive amounts of computing power. The cloud is also raising new questions about privacy and security.
September 2011
Medicine is stuck in the era of fax machines. But not for long. New technology and new laws are...
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making electronic health records ubiquitous, spurring innovation on mobile devices, in data analytics, and in telemedicine. Business Impact in September explores how the e-medicine explosion is changing the way we collect and use health information—and how businesses manage health care costs.
August 2011
The explosion of mobile devices, together with social technologies and smart apps, is creating a new...
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distributed workforce. It’s transforming physical offices and how work gets done. This month, Technology Review examines the implications of this trend for business efficiency, productivity, and security.
July 2011
In July, Business Impact will examine why advances in manufacturing are still critical to...
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economic prosperity and the health of your business. During the month, we will explore the intimate—and often complex—connections between innovation and advanced manufacturing. Innovation is critical in both creating new manufacturing opportunities and in developing new tools, such as robotics and cloud computing, that can make manufacturing more efficient and productive.
June 2011
In June, Business Impact will show why information security isn’t an issue only the IT...
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department needs to worry about. We’ll explore why companies still struggle to secure data—from theft or loss—even after all the attention given to costly data breaches and hacking attacks. We’ll analyze fresh ideas for improving security in the cloud and on mobile devices and explain what smart companies are doing.
May 2011
The increasing power of data analysis technologies is giving companies more opportunities to...
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understand what their customers want and need. Whether they’re scouring transaction records and Web clicks or newer sources of information, such as physical data from sensors and smart phones, companies are trying to improve their customer service and increase sales. The challenge is in choosing which data to crunch and how to act on the results. Throughout May, Business Impact will explore the technologies behind this new wave of data analytics and offer case studies of these ideas in action.
April 2011
In Business Impact this month, we are exploring good design–of products, services, and the...
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entire customer experience. How has design become a competitive advantage for businesses? How does it help to foster innovation? We’ll explain where good designs come from and how technology is changing the way they are carried out.
February 2011
The world’s most innovative companies are using technology to move faster and more decisively than...
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their competitors. They are mining data on their operations and their customers, letting their employees do inexpensive experiments, and using business software to get sprawling organizations working together. We’ll explore the industries that are most in need of fast innovation and examine new ways of doing business, with case studies and interviews from around the world.
January 2011
The unclear prospects for energy policy in the United States are complicating life for businesses,...
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which don’t have the luxury of avoiding an energy strategy. In Business Impact this month, we explain why every company needs to be rethinking the ways it consumes electricity and raw materials. Companies’ approaches to using energy and other resources are becoming a crucial part of how their brands are perceived. Spikes in energy prices can damage a company’s finances. And new analyses of how products are made can save companies money. We dive into the technologies that businesses ought to consider, and we explore new models for funding energy upgrades.
December 2010
More and more companies are using sophisticated software to model future behavior and probabilities...
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in their industries; applications range from disaster prevention to change management to anticipating the impact of economic trends to forecasting customer churn. We’ll explore how companies are employing software tools including data mining, business analytics, and neural networks to anticipate everything from this afternoon’s network traffic to potential crashes of communications satellites.
November 2010
The marketplace of mobile devices and apps is exploding and new business models are emerging. How...
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are corporations using mobile technology to manage workflow, sell products and reduce costs? What kinds of apps are generating revenue and which free ones are changing the way companies do business? Tune in all month long for your daily dose of Business Impact.
October 2010
October’s topic is digital marketing, and we are focusing our coverage on a theme: “technologies of...
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persuasion.” We’ll explore how companies are fusing technology with psychology to influence brand choice, to alter behavior, and to change attitudes.