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Did your Christmas morning start off with a Mac under the tree? No matter if you unwrapped a new MacBook, iMac, or Mac mini, that hardware is just the beginning of a gift that will keep on giving. In 2025, there are more apps and games for Apple computers than ever. Here are six we recommend taking a look at. Pages Whether youre a student or a professional who just got a new Mac, one of the most critical apps to have is a word processor. For decades now, the word-processing king, Microsoft Word, has been available on Macs. The problem is that Microsoft Word is now largely a subscription servicemeaning that if you use it, youll have to pay a monthly fee. [Screenshot: Apple] That annoying subscription model is why every Mac owner should download Apples Pages. Apples word processor is incredibly powerful and versatile, enabling the easy creation of everything from manuscripts to newsletters. It even lets you create and edit documents in the Word format for cross-platform use. Book Tracker One great thing about the Mac is that there are tons of indie developers creating high-quality apps for nearly any niche use you can think of. One of the best indie apps weve found this year is dedicated to helping you track your book library. [Screenshot: Simone Montalto] Book Tracker is an app any book lover will adore. Scan the UPC of any book with your Macs camera, and the book will be added to Book Trackers library, where you can view information about it, organize it into collections, and add notes. The app also allows you to set and track reading goals, add books to your to-be-read wish list, and easily see all the quotes youve decided to jot down from your favorite books. Flighty If youre a frequent flier, youll probably be bringing that new MacBook you just got on any trip you take. But more than just a tool to use on long flights, your MacBook can actually make your travel experience less stressful, thanks to a certain app. That app is Flighty, which allows you to view all kinds of information about your upcoming flight right on your Macs desktop. [Screenshot: Flighty LLC] Enter your flight details, and Flighty will instantly display your flights itinerary on a beautiful interactive map, along with a detailed timetable of your departure, taxi, and takeoff as well as your landing metrics. The app also alerts you to delays and displays other useful information like the time zone and weather at your destination. Assassins Creed Shadows Gaming on the Mac has never been better, and 2025 saw the release of what is probably the most graphically impressive game ever to hit Apples platform: Assassins Creed Shadows. The AAA game by gaming giant Ubisoft shows that game studios are finally going all-in on Mac gaming, mainly thanks to the Macs powerful Apple Silicon chips. [Screenshot: Ubisoft Entertainment] Assassins Creed Shadows is the latest installment of the Assassins Creed franchise, which lets you play as a shinobi assassin and a samurai in feudal Japan. With riveting story, characters, and jaw-dropping graphics, this is a must-have game if youre looking for some fun downtime on your Mac over the holidays. Resident Evil 2 If youre looking for a game a little less mesmerizing and a lot more horrifying, you should definitely check out the Resident Evil 2 remake by Capcom. Originally released in 1998, Resident Evil 2 is the game that defined the survival horror genre for a generation. [Screenshot: Capcom] The remake retains all of the originals tense atmosphere, compelling characters, and bone-chilling sound design, but repackages it in a layer of modern graphics and lighting effects. Best of all, as with Assassins Creed Shadows above, Resident Evil 2 supports game controllers, making your playing it on a Mac feel reminiscent of a console experience. Altos Adventure If samurai and zombies arent your thing, and you prefer a more casual gaming experience, youll likely love Altos Adventure. The endless runner snowboarding game originally debuted on the iPhone in 2015 and was widely praised for its art design, score, and game mechanics. And all that is turned up to an 11 in the Mac version of the game, thanks to the Mac’s expansive displays compared to the iPhone’s. [Screenshot: Snowman] In Altos Adventure, you play a llama herder on a snowboard as he races across beautiful landscapes collecting his runaway flock while performing flips and other aerial acrobatics on his snowboard. Yet despite its kinetic action, the game is surprisingly calming, and its wintry, snowcapped backdrops couldnt be more appropos for this time of year.
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From boardrooms to startup garages, leaders need ideas that work in the real world. These 10 books offer a broader perspective on business, helping us see the patterns behind the day-to-day grind. Learn something new every day with Book Bites, 15-minute audio summaries of the latest and greatest nonfiction. Get started by downloading the Next Big Idea App today! Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously) By Bree Groff When we wish away the workweek, we wish away our lives. What would it take for us to look forward to Monday? Find out in this refreshing and unconventional take on the world of work. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Bree Groff, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. Click: How to Make What People Want By Jake Knapp with John Zeratsky A guide for starting big projects the smart waybased on firsthand experience with more than three hundred new products and businesses. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Jake Knapp, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. Capitalism: A Global History By Sven Beckert A challenge to rethink the most important force shaping our livescapitalismby looking beyond Western narratives and embracing a truly global perspective, opening new ways to imagine our economic futures. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Sven Beckert, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. 99% Perspiration: A New Working History of the American Way of Life By Adam Chandler An enlightening and entertaining interrogation of the myth of American self-reliance and the idea of hard work as destiny. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Adam Chandler, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune, and Gave It All Away By David Gelles A New York Times reporter reveals how Patagonia became a global leader in doing well by doing good and how other companies are adopting its principles. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author David Gelles, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart By Nicholas Carr The great tragedy of communication is that the more we have, the more discord it sows. Despite generations of repeated hope that world peace awaits on the other side of faster, more frequent contact, the reality is that history and psychology tell a different story. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Nicholas Carr, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto By Benjamin Wallace Someone created Bitcoinbut no one actually knows who. In The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto, journalist Benjamin Wallace chronicles his attempt to unmask the figure behind the currency and the world it wrought. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Benjamin Wallace, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. Breakneck: Chinas Quest to Engineer the Future By Dan Wang A riveting, firsthand investigation of Chinas seismic progress, its human costs, and what it means for America. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Dan Wang, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon. The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia, and the Worlds Most Coveted Microchip By Stephen Witt The riveting investigative account of Nvidia, the tech company that has exploded in value for its artificial intelligence computing hardware, and Jensen Huang, Nvidias charismatic, uncompromising CEO. Listen to our Next Big Idea podcast episode interviewing author Stephen Witt, or view on Amazon. 1929: Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street Historyand How It Shattered a Nation By Andrew Ross Sorkin An eye-opening account of the forces that led to the worst financial crisis in history and the lessons that disaster can teach us about todays economy. Listen to our Next Big Idea podcast episode interviewing author Andrew Ross Sorkin, or view on Amazon. The Key Ideas in 15 Minutes If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books, Roald Dahl once famously said. The only trouble is, reading even one book from cover to cover takes hoursand you may not have many hours to spare. But imagine for a moment: What if you could read a groundbreaking new book every day? Or even better, what if you could invite a world-renowned thinker into your earbuds, where they personally describe the 5 key takeaways from their work in just 15 minutes? With the Next Big Idea App, weve turned this fantasy into a reality. We partnered with hundreds of acclaimed authors to create Book Bites, short audio summaries of the latest nonfiction that are prepared and read aloud by the authors themselves. Discover cutting-edge leadership skills, productivity hacks, the science of happiness and well-being, and much moreall in the time it takes to drive to work or walk the dog. I love this app! The Book Bites are brilliant, perfect to have in airports, waiting rooms, anywhere I need to not doomscroll You guys are the best! Missy G. Go Deeper with a Next Big Idea Club Membership The Next Big Idea App is free for anyone to tryand if you love it, we invite you to become an official member of the Next Big Idea Club. Membership grants you unlimited access to Book Bites and unlocks early-release, ad-free episodes of our LinkedIn-partnered podcast. You also gain entry to our private online discussion group, where you can talk big ideas with fellow club members and join exclusive live Q&A sessions with featured authors. For a more focused learning experience, we recommend a Hardcover or eBook Membership. Every few months, legendary authors and club curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink select two new nonfiction books as the must-reads of the season. We then send hardcover copies straight to your doorstep, or eBook versions to your favorite digital device. We also collaborate with the authors of selected books to produce original reading guides and premium e-courses, 50-minute master classes that take you step by step through their most life-changing ideas. And yes, its all available through the Next Big Idea App. My biggest Thank You is for the quality of book selections so far. I look on my shelf and see these great titles, and I find myself taking down one or two each month to reread an underlined passage. Full marks to all involved! Tim K. Learn Faster, from the Worlds Leading Thinkers Whether you prefer to read, listen, or watch, the Next Big Idea is here to help you work smarter and live better. Wake up with an always-fresh Idea of the Day, the perfect shot of inspiration to go with your morning coffee. Then dive into one of our Challenges, hand-picked collections of Book Bites that form crash courses in subjects like communication, motivation, and career acceleration. Later, watch the playback of an interview with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, or philosopher John Kaag. And be sure to check the Events tab in the app, so that you can join an upcoming live Q&A and personally chat with the next featured thought leader. If youre hoping to grow as a person or as a professional, we hope youll join us and tens of thousands of others who enjoy the Next Big Idea. Get started by downloading the app today! Enjoy our full library of Book Bitesread by the authors!in the Next Big Idea App. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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In the 1966 film Fantastic Voyage, a spacecraft and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the body of an injured astronaut to remove a life-threatening blood clot from his brain. The Academy Award-winning movielater developed into a novel by Isaac Asimovseemed like pure fantasy at the time. However, it anticipated what could be the next revolution in medicine: the idea that ever-smaller and more sophisticated sensors are about to enter our bodies, connecting human beings to the internet. This internet of beings could be the third and ultimate phase of the internets evolution. After linking computers in the first phase and everyday objects in the second, global information systems would now connect directly to our organs. According to natural scientists, who recently met in Dubai for a conference titled Prototypes for Humanity, this scenario is becoming technically feasible. The impact on individuals, industries, and societies will be enormous. The idea of digitising human bodies inspires both dreams and nightmares. Some Silicon Valley billionaires fantasise about living forever, while security experts worry that the risks of hacking bodies dwarf current cybersecurity concerns. As I discuss in my forthcoming book, Internet of Beings, this technology will have at least three radical consequences. First, permanent monitoring of health conditions will make it far easier to detect diseases before they develop. Treatment costs much more than prevention, but sophisticated tracking could replace many drugs with less invasive measureschanges in diet or more personalised exercise routines. Millions of deaths could be prevented simply by sending alerts in time. In the US alone, 170,000 of the 805,000 heart attacks each year are silent because people dont recognise the symptoms. Second, the sensorsbetter called biorobots, since theyll probably be made of gelare becoming capable of not just monitoring the body but actively healing it. They could release doses of aspirin when detecting a blood clot, or activate vaccines when viruses attack. The mRNA vaccines developed for COVID may have opened this frontier. Advances in gene editing technologies may even lead to biorobots that can perform microsurgery with minuscule protein-made scissors that repair damaged DNA. Third, and most importantly, medical research and drug discovery will be turned on its head. Today, scientists propose hypotheses about substances that might work against certain conditions, then test them through expensive, time-consuming trials. In the internet of beings era, the process reverses: huge databases generate patterns showing what works for a problem, and scientists work backwards to understand why. Solutions will be developed much more quickly, cheaply, and precisely. Radical transformations The era of one-size-fits-all medicine is already ending, but the internet of beings will go much further. Each person could receive daily advice on medication doses tailored to micro-changes such as body temperature or sleep quality. The organisation of medical research itself will transform radically. Enormous amounts of data from bodies living natural lives might reveal that some headaches are caused by how we walk, or that brains and feet influence each other in unexpected ways. Research currently focuses on specific diseases and organs. In the future, this could shift to the use of increasingly sophisticated digital twinsvirtual models of a persons biology that update in real time using their health data. These simulations can be used to test treatments, predict how the body will respond and explore disease before it appears. Such a shift would fundamentally change what we mean by life science. The dream here isnt to defeat ageing, as some transhumanists claim. Its more concrete: making healthcare accessible to all Americans, saving the UKs NHS, defeating cancers, reaching poorer countries and helping everyone live longer without disease. The nightmare, however, is about losing our humanity while digitising our bodies. The internet of beings is one of the most fascinating possibilities that technology is opening upbut we need to explore it carefully. Were resuming the voyage that humankind was travelling in those optimistic years of the 1960s, when we landed on an alien planet for the first time. Only now, the alien territory were exploring is ourselves. This article was commissioned in conjunction with the Professors Programme, part of Prototypes for Humanity, a global initiative that showcases and accelerates academic innovation to solve social and environmental challenges. The Conversation is the media partner of Prototypes for Humanity 2025. Francesco Grillo is an academic fellow at the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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