According to a new survey, two-thirds of the consumers in the U.S. with broadband are not very familiar with smart home services or products or where to buy them.
Continue reading… “Two-thirds of American consumers don’t know what a smart home is”
An estimated 5 million complete human genomes will be sequenced by 2020
Genomics pioneer Craig Venter
In 2000, researchers finished the first draft of the human genome. Although the decreasing cost of the technology has far outpaced Moore’s Law since then, we have yet to fully leverage all that new information, to make it really useful.
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The video game industry is growing 4 times faster than the U.S. economy
An Electronic Arts employee works on a character for “MySims.”
The U.S. economy is on the upswing. Unemployment is down to 5.8 percent, and we’re adding hundreds of thousands of new jobs every months — and the video game industry is partially responsible for that.
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Darkhotel tricks hotel Wi-Fi users into downloading malicious software
Business travelers beware of Darkhotel.
There are a lot of reasons not to use Wi-Fi in a hotel. It’s often expensive, sluggish, and unreliable. Sometimes it seems like nobody knows the network password, and when trouble arises it’s hard to convince the front desk that there’s a problem with their network, not one with your devices.
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Artificial intelligence is not a threat, it’s a tool
It’s a mistake to worry about us developing malevolent AI anytime soon.
Rodney Brooks – There has been several articles in the press recently, and several high profile people who are in tech but not AI, speculating about the dangers of malevolent AI being developed, and how we should be worried about that possibility. Should we be worried?
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Will robot brains catch up to human-level intelligence in 25 years?
Computers are improving at an exponential rate.
Futurists started predicting that in just a few decades machines would be as smart as humans soon after computers evolved in the 1940’s. Every year, the prediction seems to get pushed back another year. The consensus now is that it’s going to happen in … you guessed it, just a few more decades.
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Could we run the entire world on solar power?
We all want to find an alternative to fossil fuels as soon as possible. The most viable answer to the planet’s energy needs is visible to us any time we look upward. The amount of solar energy that hits just 1 square mile of this planet over the course of a year is equal to 4 million barrels of oil, and the energy that hits the Earth in a mere 40 minutes can fuel all of humanity’s energy needs for a year. Isn’t that incredible? (Infographic)
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rHEALTH diagnoses hundreds of diseases using a single drop of blood
rHealth Device
This month, the XPRIZE Foundation announced the winner of the Nokia Sensing XCHALLENGE. The global competition was aimed at accelerating the availability of hardware sensors and software sensing technology as a means to smarter digital health solutions. The winning device is called the Reusable Handheld Electrolyte and Lab Technology for Humans (rHEALTH) system. It can potentially run hundreds or even thousands of lab tests using a single drop of blood, and those tests, in turn, can be used to diagnose a range of diseases. (Video)
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Space entrepreneurship is about to become huge despite setbacks with Antares and Virgin Galactic
Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo
October was a tough month for space enthusiasts and the world’s private space industry. The explosion of the Antares rocket, which was headed to the International Space Station, was followed just a few days later by the crash of Virgin Galactic’s and Scaled Composites’ SpaceShipTwo space plane.
Evacuated Tube Transport Technology (ET3) is 50 times more efficient than rail
Evacuated Tube Transport Technology
Evacuated Tube Transport Technology is magnetically levitated capsules in vacuum tubes. Propulsion energy required is 100,000 times less than required by a car. ET3 will achieve 50 times more transportation per kWh (or ton of CO2) than electric cars or trains. The cost is ten times less. They calculate they can build an ET3 system for about $7 million per mile. (Videos)
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What Industries will produce the First Trillionaires?
Futurist Thomas Frey: A few weeks ago I got into a discussion with some friends centered around this question. “What, in your mind, will be the most powerful entity in the world 100 years from now?”
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Not since 1966 has the federal government’s workforce been so small
The shrinking government workforce doesn’t mean that government spending is at record lows.
It’s hard to believe the federal government now employs the fewest people since the mid-1960s. Yet according to jobs report earlier this month, the federal government now employs 2,711,000 people (excluding non-civilian military). Among the economy’s largest job sectors, it was the only one to shrink over the past year.
Continue reading… “Not since 1966 has the federal government’s workforce been so small”
