Sending sensitive financial data is no easy matter. The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication solved some of the problems. But has it created a new one? Show more

Charity has become big business. One recent study estimates that the British give about as much to charity as they spend on beer. But what’s the best way to elicit donations? Show more

Josiah Wedgwood was a man of many talents. But maybe his greatest achievement was solving a problem it took another 200 years for a Nobel Prize-winning economist even to identify. Show more

How many people around the world need glasses and don’t have them? Until surprisingly recently, nobody knew. Now we have an eye-popping answer: 2.5 billion. Show more

What would happen if GPS stopped working? From emergency services to just-in-time supermarket logistics networks, the ability to navigate using GPS is baked into the economy. Show more

Facebook’s ubiquitous 'like' button can reveal a treasure trove of potential insights. Should we worry? And how should we manage our impulses in this brave new social media world? Show more

Norman Borlaug transformed agricultural production around the world by tinkering with the genetic design of wheat. Yet worries about overpopulation continue. Show more

Subways get crowded, planes over-booked and roads congested. Back in the 1950s, an economist proposed a solution to these problems that worked well in theory but was never built. Show more

The ARPAnet was the forerunner of today’s Internet – and at its heart was a massive, heavily armoured piece of kit that set the stage for how the internet works. Show more

Before James Bonsack came along, cigarettes were far less popular than cigars, pipes or chewing tobacco. His machine, one historian claims, invented much of modern marketing. Show more

Blockchain: a digital technology that enthusiasts say could become as disruptive as the internet. But we need to think about all the challenges that first need to be overcome. Show more

Have factories been a force for improving the conditions of ordinary workers? And what comes next for the factory in an increasingly service-driven age? Show more

Economic progress has seen us increasingly confine fire to furnaces, or internal combustion engines. But our fear of wildfires may hold a lesson about the modern financial system. Show more

In 1840, the first year of 'penny post', the number of letters sent more than doubled – with consequences that still hold lessons for today. Show more

At the beginning of the Cold War, musical inventor Leon Theremin managed to bug the US embassy in Moscow. His device is a predecessor of a technology that surrounds us every day. Show more

Few of us truly appreciate just how much the honey bee has been industrialised – and the simple yet radical invention that made that industrialisation possible. Show more

The bicycle freed women and the young working class to roam free, and led to advances in manufacturing. Has the bike had its day, or is it a technology whose best years lie ahead? Show more

When Jacques Brandenberger invented cellophane, consumers loved it. Clear plastic food packaging transformed the way we purchased food, as well as how producers sold it. Show more

The gyroscope: a remarkable device used to guide everything from submarines to satellites, They’re also integral to drones, a technology some believe will transform how we shop. Show more

The QWERTY keyboard layout has stood the test of time, from the early typewriters to the virtual keyboard on the screen of any smart-phone. Show more