From New Curator comes a recent set of links with a futurist bent. We like to keep an eye on this blog.

Is mobile augmented reality the future of museums? Yes, if you believe recent glowing reports [2] on the Museum of London's StreetMuseum app, which "takes users to various sites in London where, via their iPhone screen, historical images of the city appear. Over 200 sites have been selected where users can look through their iPhones and see the past emerge."

Another form of augmented reality was on display in a small Florida beach town on June 12, when the entire community became "an interactive work of swirling, hallucinatory digital art." "Artists use[d] a variety of technologies to project three dozen original works onto the town's stark white buildings," in a process summarized as Digital Graffiti.

Perhaps another form of augmented reality can be seen in British artist David Hockney's open-eyed embrace of the iPhone and other new technologies. According to The Australian newspaper,

David Hockney's contribution to the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition in London this year is a feat of technological endurance, but the artist is hoping that with the help of an iPad, making his future works will be easier. The photographs that go on display to the public this week are so large that an iPad would be unable to cope, but Hockney believes that the new Apple touchscreen computer will have a transformative effect on art. "The iPad is many things, but one is a very useful new visual tool," he says. "There is a dark side to it. It doesn't take too much imagination to see it will get thinner, perhaps even like a piece of paper, and then they might be compulsory; an iPad passport with your whole life story in it, a sinister form of control."

The entire July issue of Popular Science is devoted to The Future of the Environment.

This has been bouncing around the web for a while, but it is still compelling: Microsoft's vision of the future of communications and productivity, circa 2019. According to the project's home site, "Microsoft has collaborated with customers, partners, and thought leaders across multiple disciplines to develop scenarios that explore how long-term trends, customer challenges, and emerging technologies might converge to improve our lives, both at work and home." 

The Librarian by Day blog has gathered a variety of forecasts about libraries under the general heading, What Do You Think Libraries Will Look Like in 2015? Many of the trends affecting libraries also affect museums, of course, as highlighted in the recent report from IMLS, Future of Museums and Libraries: A Discussion Guide.

According to the new report from the Brookings Institution, The State of Metropolitan America, the United States "has grown larger, more diverse, more suburban, and more educated in the first decade of this century. These characteristics offer the potential for a tremendous advantage among industrialized nations as the global economy becomes more integrated and more competitive." In a companion op-ed for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Brookings demographer Bruce Katz (together with the president of the Rockefeller Foundation) offers a prescription for What America's Cities Need, starting with education policies to maintain a high-quality workforce. 

The GOOD Guide to Education Innovation. "In a series of 10 profiles, we look at the frontier of innovation in education and how learners of all ages will likely be impacted in the years to come. From policymakers in Washington, DC, revamping the No Child Left Behind Act to Alice Waters, whose Edible Schoolyards are changing how students are fed—real change is afoot."  

In 2020 we can wear computers on our wrist. The headline and the pictures from blogger Peter Horvath say it all.

BNET asks, The Good Boss of the Future: Just Like the Good Boss of the Past? The short answer: it all depends on whether "the rising of Gen Y up the ranks will have a profound effect on management." 

The U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts that global energy consumption will expand 49 percent between 2007 and 2035, "driven by economic growth in the developing nations of the world." They also predict that oil prices will rise "to $108 per barrel by 2020 (in real 2008 dollars) and $133 per barrel by 2035" (a prediction that predates the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico). Much more in their new report, International Energy Outlook 2010.   

This month the U.S. Census Bureau released the 2009 National and State Characteristics Population Estimates. As the Census folks note, "[t]he new estimates are not 2010 Census population counts. Rather, they are based on 2000 Census data and updated by using administrative records to estimate components of population change." Still, they provide an especially detailed set of interim data about the size and composition of the American population. 

With more than 15 million Americans out of work, the basic facts on unemployment remain grim, but the Urban Institute has done a good service by bringing the details together in one place. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, museum employment declined 3% from May 2008 to May 2010.) 

One positive effect of the economic downturn is that college enrollments are up—especially for Hispanics. "Freshmen enrollment of Hispanics at postsecondary institutions grew by 15 percent from 2007 to 2008, according to a report released [on June 16] by the Washington-based Pew Research Center. In the same time period, freshmen enrollment for blacks increased by 8 percent, for Asians by 6 percent, and for whites by 3 percent." At the same time, there is some troubling evidence of white flight in higher education; as education writer Richard Kahlenberg notes, "while the overall increase in enrollment of low-income and minority students in higher education is welcome, the trend is accompanied by white and wealthy flight from less selective institutions to more selective ones." 

Although geographic mobility in the United States is less pervasive than many people believe, a lot of Americans are still moving from place to place—indeed, more than 10 million of us moved from one county to another during 2008, the most recent year for which the data are available. The Forbes website has a nifty interactive map of these migrations. 

A series of new podcasts from CALM (the Joint National Committee on Archives, Libraries and Museums) begins with an extended interview with Archivist of the United States David Ferriero. Part 2 focuses on the coming convergence of museums and other collecting institutions.

Educators Connect Digital Games to Learning (via Education Week). "Part of learning how to teach with games is rethinking the role of the teacher in facilitating student learning, [Univ. of Minnesota researcher Brock] Dubbels says. Though students may learn on their own while playing a game, he says, having a teacher to guide discussions and draw connections between the game and lesson is imperative." Includes five tips on effective teaching with games that may apply to informal learning environments (like museums) as well. 

András Szántó in The Art Newspaper asks, "In a world mired in economic uncertainty and with cash for the arts disappearing, how do we argue for culture?"

If you have been following the news about arts funding, you have reason to be concerned. A vast pool of private, public, and philanthropic capital has gone down the drain in the U.S., and elsewhere, in the "Great Recession"—with predictable consequences. What's more, we may be on the cusp of a generational shift in giving priorities.... Arguments that used to work on behalf of the arts no longer always do. And the arguments advocates are using instead all too often miss the point, by making roundabout claims that ignore what makes art appealing on a gut level.

The nursery rhyme says that little boys are made of "snips and snails and puppy dog tails." And what are Twinkies made of? Photographer Dwight Eschliman shows us with his still life of the ingredients that are combined to create the ubiquitous snack cake.

Digitizing the past and present at the Library of Congress. A gallery of compelling photos and video interviews from the library's Preservation Research and Testing Division in Washington, DC, and the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center in Culpeper, VA. (From Boing Boing.)

Pavilion designs from the 2010 Shanghai World Expo (via design float).

A natural history of the food processor (via Eat Me Daily).