Analysis – Page 24

Analysis, Business, Human Behavior, New Viewpoints

Steve Blank: The unexpected reason why people start their own companies

April 22, 2018

A controversial study suggests that people become entrepreneurs because they realize they’re worth more than their resumes.

If you asked me why I gravitated to startups rather than work in a large company I would have answered at various times: “I want to be my own boss,” “I love risk,” “I want flexible work hours,” “I want to work on tough problems that matter,” “I have a vision and want to see it through,” “I saw a better opportunity and grabbed it. …”

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Analysis, Business, Life Skills

Here’s how old you should be when you start a company, according to science. (It’s not what you think)

April 22, 2018

The National Bureau of Economic Research used Census data to find the average age of super-successful founders.

Company founders can be as young as in their teens or as old as in their 80s. But is there an ideal age you should be when you start a company? It turns out there is, and it’s older than you may think.

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Amazon.com, Analysis, App, Automation, Home Technology

Anyone can now create Alexa skills in a matter of minutes

April 21, 2018

Amazon on Thursday unveiled “Alexa Skill Blueprints,” code-free templates that any Alexa owner, regardless of experience level, can use to create customized Alexa skills in a matter of minutes.

Amazon included over 20 templates across four categories — Fun & Games, At Home, Storyteller, and Learning & Knowledge — with plans to add more.

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Analysis, Environment, Historical Perspectives, Medicine, New Discoveries

Trillions and trillions of viruses fall from the sky each day

April 16, 2018

Viruses attached to a fragment of a bacterial cell wall. “Viruses modulate the function and evolution of all living things,” scientists wrote last year. “But to what extent remains a mystery.”

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Analysis, Birth, Children, Human Behavior

America’s gender-fluid future, in 100 years of baby name trends

April 14, 2018

In 1910, just 5% of American babies named “Charlie” were girls. Over 100 years later, girl Charlies took over their male counterparts for the first time in 2016—making up 51% of the share.

With little fuss or fanfare, Charlie has gone gender-neutral.

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AI, Analysis, Animals, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning

Who’s a good AI? Dog-based data creates a canine machine learning system

April 14, 2018

We’ve trained machine learning systems to identify objects, navigate streets and recognize facial expressions, but as difficult as they may be, they don’t even touch the level of sophistication required to simulate, for example, a dog. Well, this project aims to do just that — in a very limited way, of course. By observing the behavior of A Very Good Girl, this AI learned the rudiments of how to act like a dog.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Cancer, Health & Fitness

28 of the most dangerous things science has strongly linked to cancer

April 12, 2018

Cancer is the No. 2 cause of death in the US, second only to heart disease.

It fundamentally affects the way our cells grow and divide, changing them in perverse ways. All cancer is a result of damage or genetic mutations in our DNA. The nasty, debilitating class of diseases spreads through a body like an invading army, as toxic cells grow relentlessly into unruly tumors.

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Analysis, Big Problems, Future, Latest Trend

We’re on the Brink of a New Era of Innovation. Will You Survive It?

April 9, 2018

It’s better to prepare than adapt because, by the time you see the need to adapt, it may already be too late

One of the most interesting things I discuss in my book Mapping Innovation is what I call the new era of innovation, which will create profoundly new technologies, classes of data and business models. It is likely to be the most important shift we’ve seen in at least 50 years and perhaps in a century.

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Analysis, Business, Human Behavior, Latest Trend

73 Percent of Millennials are Willing to Spend More Money on This 1 Type of Product

April 3, 2018

It’s not even close to avocado toast.

In 2015, Nielsen polled 30,000 consumers in 60 countries around the world. They wanted to know more about what influences how people feel about brands, and how those feelings impact buying behavior.

One overwhelming conclusion of the report? That across the board, consumers are willing to pay extra for one thing: sustainability.

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Analysis, Automation, Employment, Robotics

As long as there are humans, there will be jobs

January 6, 2019

By Deb Frey: Automation will dominate some fields. But people will want new things, and new industries will arise.

Predicting the course of technological progress is extremely difficult. Just because worries about human obsolescence ultimately turned out to be misplaced in the Industrial Revolution doesn’t mean that the same happy result must necessarily prevail this time around. So the persistent question about artificial intelligence — or “robots” in common parlance – is whether they will make human workers obsolete.

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Analysis, Business, Economy, Employment

Seeking a roadmap for the new American Middle Class

March 29, 2018

Over the past few months, Starbucks, CVS, and Walmart announced higher wages and a range of other benefits like paid parental leave and stock options. Despite what the brands say in their press releases, the changes probably had little to do with the Republican corporate tax cuts, but they do reflect a broader economic prosperity, complete with a tightening a labor market. In the past couple of years, real wages hit their highest levels ever, and even the lowest-paid workers started getting raises. As Matt Yglesias wrote at Vox, “for the first time in a long time, the underlying labor market is really healthy.”

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Agriculture, Analysis, China

Less fertilizer, greater crop yields, and more money: China’s agricultural breakthrough

March 25, 2018

Nearly 21 million farmers in 452 counties across China have adopted recommendations from scientists in a 10-year agriculture sustainability study to reduce fertilizer use. According to Nature, their efforts are paying off: all told, the farmers are now $12.2 billion better off than they were before.

Continue reading… “Less fertilizer, greater crop yields, and more money: China’s agricultural breakthrough”