San Francisco-based Soma Networks, for example, has developed a terminal that can be placed almost anywhere in a customer's building.

ECONOMIST: MONITOR

"As someone who lived in San Francisco's SoMa district for eight years, my dog Darwin and I experienced firsthand the need for even more parks and open spaces downtown, " Mr. Stoppelman says.

WSJ: Playground Plan Shows Philanthropy's Swing Toward Home

The project was born in this very space, eventually moving to a building in San Francisco's SoMa district a block or so away, the mobile payment company having opted not to travel too far from the place where it was first conceived.

ENGADGET

Wen-Chi Hsueh of the University of California, San Francisco, has been looking at one important aspect of disposable-soma theory.

ECONOMIST: Ageing