15% of Americans older than 18 don’t use the Internet.
Jim Crawford, sixty-three years old and retired from a career as a welder, doesn’t have much use for the Internet. Crawford, who lives in Manhattan, Kan. said, “I never had to use it on the job and didn’t have to use it at home for any reason. So I never really learned to do it — and never really got interested.”
Continue reading… “Widening gap between those who use the internet and those who don’t”
Black unemployment is higher than Hispanic unemployment, which itself is higher than white unemployment. This has not only been true for the last year, or the last decade, but it has been true for the last four decades and beyond.
Continue reading… “America’s workforce is even more divided by race than you think”
A simple graphic that shows how the NSA hacked Google.
As technology races ahead, from time to time public debate and the law of the land must catch up to it. Government surveillance is one of the most important technology issues of our times. In the US, the NSA files have already had a profound impact on the perceptions of Americans about surveillance and civil liberties. Outside the US, Germany is aghast that the US and UK, NATO allies would spy on Angela Merkel and Germany. On the other hand, there is some evidence that the NSA has aided in combating Mexican drug cartels and prevented terrorism.
Continue reading… “Government mass surveillance will create a surge of technology spending”
The big online companies are calling for urgent reforms to protect us from having data intercepted.
Over a few weeks’ worth of bedtimes in the summer of 1984, my dad read me Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. Though the dystopian context would have been lost on nine-year old me, the pervasive malevolence and the futility of the struggle was not.
Continue reading… “Our best defenders against Big Brother may be Google and Facebook”
Exercise during pregnancy alters the fetal brain.
According to new research, moderate exercise during pregnancy may boost your baby’s brain development. The research involving 18 moms-to-be and their babies found that “at 10 days, the children have a more mature brain when their mothers exercised during the pregnancy,” said study researcher Elise Labonte-LeMoyne, a Ph.D. candidate in kinesiology at the University of Montreal.
Continue reading… “Exercise during pregnancy may improve baby’s brain development”
Whenever presented with a theory like Carl Jung’s theory of personality types (which Myers and Briggs formalized into a personality test) it’s important to remember that you are in possession of a unique set of neurons whose synapses fire in unique patterns that cannot easily be slotted into one of sixteen “types” from which one can draw conclusions about your destiny. (Infographic)
Continue reading… “How much money do people with your personality make?”
Would the world be a better place if Adolph Hitler never existed?
While many people will argue over who exactly was the worst of the worst, with names like Pol Pot, Josef Stalin, Idi Amin, Ivan the Terrible, Genghis Khan, Nero, Osama bin Laden, Attila the Hun, and Hirohito entering the conversation, it’s easy to attribute a face to the evil we all despise.
Continue reading… “Optimizing Evil”
Neal Stephenson launched the Hieroglyph project to rally writers to infuse science fiction with optimism.
When you think of recent films such as The Road and TV series like “The Walking Dead,” today’s science fiction, Neal Stephenson argues, is a fixated on nihilism and apocalyptic scenarios. Gone are the hopeful visions prevalent in the mid-20th century. According to Stephenson, author of modern sci-fi classics such as Snow Crash, that’s a problem. He fears that no one will be inspired to build the next great space vessel or find a way to completely end dependence on fossil fuels when our stories about the future promise a shattered world.
Continue reading… “Why are science fiction writers so pessimistic?”
There will be significant growth for jobs that require a college education and occupations in health care, energy and technology.
The jobs market for the future currently looks bleak. The unemployment rate has been stuck above 7 percent since December 2008, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And as futurist Thomas Frey recently told AOL Jobs, half of all the jobs in existence today will no longer be around by 2030.
Continue reading… “Top 19 fastest growing occupations”
The world’s first ever permanent bitcoin ATM.
The first Bitcoin ATM in North America made a lot of hoopla when it went live in a Vancouver coffee shop last week. The ATM trades cash for Bitcoins. How many people actually used it? Here are some of the numbers:
Continue reading… “World’s first bitcoin ATM gets 348 transactions in first 8 days”
When Curalate, a visual analytics platform, set out to quantify the impact that different image qualities have on Instagram, it discovered that photos with blue as the main color got the most likes. Reds and oranges on the other hand tended to receive 24 percent less likes than blue-tinted shots. (Infographic)
Continue reading… “Instagram photos that are mostly blue get more likes: Study”
Electricity usage doesn’t seem to be affected by electric cars so far.
Since electric cars lessen dependence on fossil fuels, what effect are they having on power consumption? The concern is that the large numbers of electric cars will increase the demand for electricity and overwhelm power grids — despite studies to the contrary.
Continue reading… “Electric cars have almost no grid impact so far”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.