With robots like BigDog and the Terminator-like Atlas, Google's robotics efforts have been a smash success - if you measure by YouTube views and buzz. Amazon's work has been more behind scenes (apart from the widely discussed plans for delivery drones). But Amazon's energies in robotics have also had a more immediate payoff than Google's "moonshots." The differing philosophies illustrate how Amazon and Google have taken starkly different paths so far in the race to automate the physical world.

In the not-so-far-off future, teens won't bother getting driver's licenses, consumers will shun owning their own cars, and taxis will be replaced by "taxibots."

Corporations pay lip service to enforcing human rights and fair working conditions in offshore factories. But the deaths and injuries continue.

Long tails can get, well, rather long. Some see this as a mandate to hunt down and kill off the items furthest out on the tail.

Gender inequality is not only a pressing moral and social issue but also a critical economic challenge. If women - who account for half the world's working-age population - do not achieve their full economic potential, the global economy will suffer.

While vast "smart products" opportunities are allowing many high-tech companies to grow and lower their cost of goods sold, 57 percent do not have access to reliable product genealogy information, and 72 percent believe their product data is less than 80 percent accurate.