Google gets 2.5 million copyright removal requests every week

Google has been acting as a copyright cop.

Google reports that in the past six months it’s takedown too for search results has grown tenfold.  Around 250,000 requests a week went through the system when it started publicly posting takedown notices in May — which lets people or companies ask Google to remove links that infringe on their copyright. Now, that number has jumped to over 2.5 million a week. That’s a huge change, but not an unprecedented one, as requests have been increasing rapidly for the past several years. Back in May, Google reported that the 250,000 requests it received in a week were more than it got for the entirety of 2009.

 

 

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Sharp drop in law school applications

12.6% drop in law school applications.

87,900 people applied to ABA law schools in 2010. This number of people who applied was down 12.6% from the all-time high of 100,600 six years earlier.  That trend ought to have served as an early warning signal to law schools. After all, in 2008 and 2009 the economy was in the deepest recession since the 1930s, which should have have driven applications to professional school in general and law school in particular to new highs.

 

 

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Top 5 most disruptive technologies of 2012

Google glass

The top five most disruptive technologies in 2012 include energy storage technology no one thought would ever work, gesture-based interfaces that will make touch screens look as quaint as floppy disks, and computers and connectivity so cheap they’re adding billions more people to the internet. For a technology to make it onto this list, it didn’t have to be invented in 2012; in many cases, it’s enough that there was a significant development this year in its journey toward rewriting our relationship with machines and each other.

 

 

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The world is running out of helium

Helium is a very low-density gas.

Jimi Hendrix once said, “I have this one little saying, when things get too heavy just call me helium, the lightest known gas to man.” He was almost right. We know of helium, conventionally, as the lighter-than-air gas that we fill balloons, blimps and zeppelins with in order to quickly and easily “defy gravity” here on Earth. (Video)

 

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Our Rosetta Stone

Raymond Alvarez:  Can you imagine the world if Mozart was unable to record his music? How tragic that would be to lose something that belongs to all generations.

Fortunately, his music survived to our day and has been masterfully reprised and recorded in different formats. I wonder, though, if we are not aware of or have forgotten the lesson of preserving Mozart’s music and the great trove of art and knowledge of civilization. A few have not.

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Baby boomers are the driving force behind ‘big data’ demand

Baby boomers represent the largest generation driving rapid growth in data demand.

No matter what generation we are we usually see young adults, who are tethered to their mobile device for texting, gaming and surfing the web, as the drivers of our new data-driven world. But surprisingly, baby boomers — aged 46 to 64 — represent possibly the largest generation driving rapid growth in data demand.

 

 

 

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How to better predict the future

What about the combination of humans and machines predicting the future?

We would all like to know what the future is going to be like. We are talking about creating more accurate forecasts about what is likely to happen in the future. Supposedly, this is what pundits and analysts do. They’re supposed to be good at commenting on whether Greece will leave the Eurozone by 2014 or whether North Korea will fire missiles during the year or whether Barack Obama will win reelection.

 

 

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Top 6 social-digital trends of 2013

It’s that time of year where we predict how in the year ahead technology continues to influence how we work and live.  Previously the trends have been under the “social media” lens because that has been the major disruptive force, creating both opportunities and threats. This year, the trends will be under term “social-digital” to broaden the focus.

 

 

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The ‘flipped academic’ in higher education – inform first and publish later

Turning the education model inside out.

The concept of the ‘flipped classroom’ in schools is when pupils complete course material ahead of lessons to free up time with their teachers and apply the knowledge they have just learned. Now a related philosophy is developing in higher education. Can we also flip academics – or even academia itself?

 

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Denser cities are smarter and more productive

Density brings people and firms closer together.

One of the most important, and at times contentious topics in urban development is density.  Density plays an important role in economic growth. Density brings people and firms closer together which makes it easier to share and exchange information, invent new technologies, and launch new firms.

 

 

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