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Surveillance video becomes a tool to help business owners study customer behavior

January 31, 2012

Software from Prism Skylabs processes surveillance footage to show how busy a place is without compromising customers’ privacy.

Giants like Amazon and Google have led the huge success of online shopping and advertising thanks to software that logs when you visit Web pages and what you click on. Prism Skylabs is a startup that offers brick-and-mortar businesses the equivalent—counting, logging, and tracking people in a store, coffee shop, or gym with software that works with video from security cameras.

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Analysis, government, Latest Trend

More Americans say cheat on your income taxes

January 31, 2012

Uncle Sam has been given some good news: The vast majority of Americans still believe that you should never cheat on your taxes — or, at least, that’s what they tell the pollsters representing the Internal Revenue Service Oversight Board.

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Great Videos, Science & Technology News

Bio-engineered bulletproof human skin reinforced with spider silk

January 31, 2012

With a little help from genetically modified goats human skin can stop a bullet.

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Analysis, government, Historical Perspectives, Latest Trend

Is America in danger of collapsing?

January 31, 2012

The 2012 presidential election is the most critical in the modern history of America, according to GOP candidate Newt Gingrich. And when Mitt Romney says America must change its direction, he is absolutely right. The information that follows will explain why.

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Animals, Art, Crazy Photos, Crazy Stuff, Culture, Humor, Photo Perspectives

Top 10 Photos of the Week

January 30, 2012

When there’s no where to go but down!

Quote of the Day: “See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.” – – Linus Torvalds

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Analysis, Art, Education, Globalism, Historical Perspectives, Latest News

The state of OpenCourseWare (infographic)

January 31, 2012

The world of academics is changing rapidly.

OpenCourseWare, or OCW, is a term applied to course materials created by universities and shared freely with the world via the internet. The movement started in 1999 when the University of Tübingen in Germany published videos of lectures online in the context of its timms initiative. The OCW movement only took off, however, with the launch of MIT OpenCourseWare at MIT in October 2002 and has been reinforced by the launch of similar projects at Yale, Michigan University, and the University of California Berkeley…

(infographic after jump)

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Analysis, facebook, Latest Trend, Twitter

Teens shifting to Twitter for privacy

January 30, 2012

Teens are migrating to Twitter because many parents are on Facebook, but they don’t tweet.

Teenagers don’t tweet and will never tweet because it’s too public, too many older users and not cool. That’s been the prediction for a while now, born of numbers showing that fewer than one in 10 teens were using Twitter early on.

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Alternative Transportation, Science & Technology News

The Boxx electric scooter – box on wheels ideal for city commuting

January 30, 2012

Boxx electric vehicle

You can walk most anywhere you want or take a cab in the city, but having your own mode of transport gives you a bit of freedom. But cars are expensive. Bikes are good, but require a lot of energy on your part. Mopeds are an option, but not if you can’t store them – never mind the emissions from the gas-powered ones. The BOXX electric vehicle seems like the perfect solution.

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Analysis, New Viewpoints, Science & Technology News

Revolutionary new theory says ‘inanimate’ objects also alive

January 30, 2012

Earth is alive.

A revolutionary new theory asserts that even so-called inanimate matter — DNA, water and planets included — are all alive.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Food, Globalism, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Food crops harmed by air pollution crossing continents: study

January 30, 2012

Ozone pollution generated in each of the Northern Hemisphere’s major industrialized regions damages six important agricultural crops.

Europe loses 1.2 million tons of wheat a year due to man-made pollution from North America, an new study has found.

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Analysis, People Making a Difference

The power of diligence in creating a remarkable life

January 30, 2012

In Steve Martin’s memoir, Born Standing Up, he emphasizes this theme — defining diligence not just in terms of persistence, but also in the ability to ignore unrelated pursuits.

Steve Martin, the banjo player, made the comments around twenty minutes into his 2007 interview with Charlie Rose. They were talking about how Martin learned the banjo.

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Historical Perspectives

How viruses evolve, and in some cases, become deadly

January 29, 2012

Michigan State researchers show how new viruses evolve, and in some cases, become deadly.

Researchers at Michigan State University (MSU) have demonstrated how a new virus evolves, shedding light on how easy it can be for diseases to gain dangerous mutations. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Science…

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