press release
MIT Technology Review Big Solutions Issue hits newsstands today.
Premiere edition of redesigned magazines asks, “Why can’t we solve big problems?”
CAMBRIDGE, MA, November 8, 2012: Starting today, MIT Technology Review’s Big Solutions Issue goes on sale on newsstands worldwide. The new issue–with cover art featuring the Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin–poses the question, “Has technology failed us?” Over a billion people still have no electricity, millions lack clean water, education is inaccessible to many, the climate is changing rapidly, traffic snarls cities, and dementia and cancer can strike any of us. In this issue, readers are introduced to the technologists who haven’t given up trying to find big solutions to big problems like these.
A feature by editor in chief and publisher Jason Pontin introduces the editorial package. “That something happened to humanity’s capacity to solve big problems is a commonplace,” he writes. “Recently, however, the complaint has developed a new stridency … people say there is a paucity of real innovations. Instead, they worry, technologists have diverted us and enriched themselves with trivial toys. It’s not true that we can’t solve big problems through technology; we can. We must.”
Other features include a story by Nicholas Carr on the crisis in higher education; “A Billion People in the Dark,” by Kevin Bullis, which highlights the potential of solar microgrids; a story about the looming health-care disaster of dementia, by Stephen S. Hall; and “The Deferred Dreams of Mars,” by Brian Bergstein, which introduces the NASA engineer who plugs away on a manned mission to that planet. The issue also tackles the critical theme with infographics, opinion columns (called “views”), a photo essay, and sidebars including “Another Way to Think about Learning,” by Nicholas Negroponte, and “The Imperative to Explore,” by Buzz Aldrin–who appears on the magazine’s cover, glowering above the headline, “You Promised Me Mars Colonies. Instead, I Got Facebook.” The compelling image has already garnered vast numbers of shares, likes, and retweets in social media.
The Big Solutions Issue also introduces readers to the redesigned magazine. With this issue, MIT Technology Review marks the return to the Institute’s rich heritage of design. The entire graphic identity has been reimagined, merging modern design theory with classic elements of the International Typographic Style to enrich the reader’s experience.
MIT Technology Review’s mission is to inform readers about important new technologies. It is for people who need to understand the business, economic, social, and political impact of innovation–how the technologies work and how they will change our lives. It makes an excellent gift, and it’s easy to subscribe online.