Government agencies are tracking the data that two out of five software engineers are collecting, creating, and analyzing. And if you only ask those who are confident they could tell if the government was indeed spying on their data, that number goes up to 59 percent.
Will computers do our jobs better than we can in the future?
Almost half of U.S. jobs are vulnerable to being taken over by computers as artificial intelligence continues to improve, according to a recent study released by Oxford University.
Continue reading… “47% of U.S. jobs could be done by computers: Study”
A system of tubes contemplated for the U.S. Postal Service.
Raymond Alvarez: Travel in the 19th Century was dusty, smokey and slow – very slow. But commuters these days may be wondering if it was better. In Beijing, the roads have become so snarled that commuters abandon their vehicles in traffic that doesn’t move for days. Here in the U.S., many young adults don’t even contemplate owning a vehicle. They prefer cycling or walking.
By 2020, 40 percent of labor in the U.S. will be comprised of contingent/independent workers.
The federal jobs report that came out recently may have looked bleak, but there is a large and growing group of people who have a sure place in this economy — freelancers. And Elance had debuted its Private Talent Cloud to help companies hire, manage, and pay their freelancers on demand.
Continue reading… “Elance debuts Private Talent Cloud to drive freelance revolution”
The aim of open online massive courses is to provide instruction similar to what students can get in a traditional college atmosphere, only more cheaply and conveniently.
Why would you pay thousands of dollars to sit in a university lecture hall as a professor drones away in front of bored students when you could instead take some of the world’s greatest courses online? For free?
Continue reading… “Is the traditional university lecture dead?”
Futurist Thomas Frey: Last year the DaVinci Institute launched a computer programmer training school, DaVinci Coders, and one of the key people we tapped to be one of our world-class instructors was Jason Noble. On Friday I attended a talk given by Jason at the Rocky Mountain Ruby Conference in Boulder, Colorado titled “From Junior Engineer to Productive Engineer.”
Continue reading… “Trimming the Fat – Introducing the Lean Micro-College Model for Education”
Jimmy, an open source robot.
If you could build your own robot, what would you have it do? If you’re the type of person who is into building stuff and coding, you may soon get your chance to answer that question for real, courtesy of an interesting project coming from the labs of chipmaker Intel. (Video)
Continue reading… “Futurist at Intel shows how you’ll download and program your own robot”
The big money has moved from developing psychiatric drugs to manipulating our brain networks.
Has the psychiatric drug age reached its peak? Mind-altering drugs have are being prescribed in record numbers but there are signs of a radically new approach to understanding and treating mental illnesses. A huge research effort is now devoted to altering the function of specific neural circuits by physical intervention in the brain and the focus is no longer on developing drugs.
Continue reading… “Why neuroscience is ending the Prozac era”
High energy capacity, cost effective batteries are urgently needed for a wide range of medical, transportation and power generation devices, including in greenhouse gas reduction applications such as overcoming the battery driven “range anxiety” of electric vehicles, and increased capacity energy storage for the electric grid. Now there is a new class of battery that uses a molten electrolyte, are quasi-reversible (rechargeable), and have amongst the highest intrinsic battery electric energy storage capacities.
Continue reading… “Molten Air batteries have the highest storage capacity ever seen”
A coyote boarded a train in Portland, Oregon.
Cities are seen as the hardest place for the hardiest of animals to exist. They are seen as environmental wastelands. But more and more wild animals are adjusting to life in the city as scientists in the the urban ecology field are finding.
Continue reading… “Wild animals are adapting to city life and thriving”
In New York last week, A working prototype of a low-cost electroencephalography device funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) made its debut, the first step in the agency’s effort to jumpstart a do-it-yourself revolution in neuroscience.
Continue reading… “Can DARPA jumpstart the DIY brain-scanning movement?”
Surrogacy agencies in both countries say demand has risen rapidly in the last two years.
Rich Chinese couples are hiring American women to serve as surrogates for their children, creating a small but growing business in $120,000 “designer” American babies for China’s elite.
Continue reading… “Wealthy Chinese hire American surrogate mothers to carry ‘designer’ babies”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.