Futurist Thomas Frey: In 1964, and open letter was drafted and sent to President Johnson, warning him of the coming Triple Revolution.
Continue reading… “When it comes to jobs, why is this time different?”
The future of shopping may be no shopping at all
Harvard Law professor Cass Sustein found in his survey on “predictive shopping,” 41% of people would “enroll in a program in which the seller sent you books that it knew you would purchase, and billed your credit card.” That number went down to 29% if the company didn’t ask for your consent first.
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Top 5 ways Watson will change the way we compute
Watson will transform entire industries.
IBM’s artificial intelligence computing platform, Watson, is changing the way we compute. From its roots as a robotic contestant on Jeopardy, the machine-learning marvel is now being positioned as a tool for doctors, businesspeople, and scientists worldwide–one that can answer any question posed to it in natural English.
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What happens when an ordinary man 3D prints and assembles a gun, then takes it to the police department?
Brett Kuxhausen
We have seen a lot of amazing applications for 3D printing, but there is one particular application that has overshadowed some of the more positive uses, and that is the 3D printing of firearms. 3D printed guns aren’t necessarily a bad thing, in the wrong hands they certainly can be. Unfortunately the media has picked up a couple rather innocent stories pertaining to such fabrication, and used them to portray the future of the technology as being part sinister.
Will new technologies allow us to upgrade our brains in the not-so-distant future?
It wouldn’t be surprising if the 21st century became known for its expanded understanding of the human brain. From magnetic scans that pinpoint different brain regions to the discovery and treatment of neurological disorders, scientists have demonstrated that the brain is a highly plastic organ capable of learning new things well into the later stages of life.
The next big challenge for energy storage
Solar is now the fastest growing segment in the energy business in the U.S.
The energy storage era is upon us. States like California and New York have adapted energy policies that will make it possible to economically deploy storage systems, while technology advancements have boosted performance and trimmed costs. For the first time in history it will become feasible to store electric energy.
Students should own their educational data: L. Todd Rose
Technology can help by giving educators detailed data on students and the ability to customize teaching materials.
It may sound logical to Design a textbook or lecture with the average student in mind. But the educational neuroscience professor at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education, L. Todd Rose, argues that doing so means that the lesson is designed for nobody.
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Researchers develop laser device that may end pin pricks for diabetics
New laser device allows researchers to read blood sugar levels without a blood sample.
Researchers at Princeton University have developed a way to use a laser to measure people’s blood sugar, and, with more work to shrink the laser system to a portable size, the technique could allow diabetics to check their condition without pricking their fingers to draw blood.
Inventor of Google Glass envisions big things for the wearable in medicine
Google Glass medical applications have already gotten more interesting.
Google Glass wasn’t necessarily designed for medicine, but that use continues to be a hot topic of conversation among medical technologists and the investors who love them.
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Future biotechnology could make prisoners think they are in jail for 1,000 years
Manipulations of a neurotransmitter could give criminals more prison time within a shorter-length sentence.
Oxford University’s Rebecca Roache has some thoughts about how we could treat our criminals differently. She envisions a future where we can use chemicals to manipulate an inmates sense of time. Through these chemicals, a criminal could be made to feel like she or he is spending 1,000 years in jail, even though the person might only be in jail for days or months or a year.
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Here are 40 maps that explain the Roman Empire
Caesar Augustus died two thousand years ago, on August 19, 14 AD. He was Rome’s first emperor, having won a civil war more than 40 years earlier that transformed the dysfunctional Roman Republic into an empire. Under Augustus and his successors, the empire experienced 200 years of relative peace and prosperity. Here are 40 maps that explain the Roman Empire — its rise and fall, its culture and economy, and how it laid the foundations of the modern world.
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The end of the printed newspaper
The death of newspapers is sad, but the threatened loss of journalistic talent is catastrophic.
By Clay Shirky: The Roanoke Times, the local paper in my family home, is a classic metro daily, with roots that go back to the 1880s. Like most such papers, it ran into trouble in the middle of last decade, as print advertising revenue fell, leaving a hole in the balance sheet that digital advertising couldn’t fill. When the 2008 recession accelerated those problems, the Times’ parent company, Landmark, began looking for a buyer, eventually selling it to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Media Group in 2013. The acquisition was greeted with relief in the newsroom, as Buffett had famously assured the employees at his earlier purchases “Your paper will operate from a position of financial strength.” Three months after acquiring the Times, BH Media fired 31 employees, a bit over a tenth of the workforce.
Continue reading… “The end of the printed newspaper”
