Category: Business

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Analysis, Business, Internet, Latest Trend, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

Bitcoin: The revolution of digital currency

Several brick-and-mortar businesses across the US have started accepting the virtual currency.

Bitcoin is a cryptographic digital currency that is not underwritten by any government. Bitcoin is designed to be secure and can’t be counterfeited and can be used with anonymity because the software underlying the currency operates on  decentralized peer-to-peer network. What started out in 2010 as an underground currency for grey-market activities, has since grown to a $400 million worldwide market for buying everything from pizza to domain names. In an attempt to prevent inflation, the number of Bitcoins in circulation will continue to grow automatically at an ever-decreasing rate, according to the laws of its software, until reaching maximum of 21 million coins shortly after 2030. There are just over 10 million today.

 

 

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Analysis, Business, Economy, Science & Technology News

Small business is big

Small business is an American cultural icon.  Companies with fewer than 500 employees account for almost two-thirds of net new jobs and generate 13 times more new patents per employee than large ones do. But optimism among these enterprises is at its lowest levels in almost 20 years. If the US economy had generated as many start-ups in the Great Recession’s aftermath as it did in 2007, the country would have almost 2.5 million more jobs.

 

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Analysis, Breakthrough Thinking, Business, Education, Latest Trend, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Credit Banks, Testing Centers, and Micro-Credits – Missing Elements of a Future Education System

Futurist Thomas Frey: A couple years ago I was on a weekend outing in Vail, Colorado and ended up attending a kayaking tournament taking place on the Gore Creek in the heart of town.

 

 

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Analysis, Business, Internet, Latest News, Science & Technology News

Startups usher in retail revolution by clearing out cash registers

Business are replacing traditional cash registers with such products as Square’s Business in a Box.

The cash register has reigned as an icon of American commerce ever since the Civil War era. It’s an American ritual to pay for your purchases at the cash register. But, the average point-of-sale (POS) system is expensive, inconvenient to set up and manage and not connected to the internet. Despite all of this, these types of transactions occur a million times every day.  The last significant shift happened in the 1950’s when credit card terminals enter the scene.

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Analysis, Business, Internet, Latest Trend

Paywalls rise for online news readers

More newspapers adding paywalls to their online subscriptions.

Several newspapers have recently announced plans to erect paywalls to extract subscription revenues for their most loyal online readers. While the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Telegraph, and the Sun are adding paywalls other paywalls are being tweaked.  The NYT paywall is getting less porous, while Andrew Sullivan’s is being tightened up, with a new $2/month option to complement the existing $20/year price point.

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Analysis, Business, Games, Internet, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Gamification increases site engagement 29% according to billions of online user actions

Are you looking to increase commenting, social sharing, and other user engagement on your site? Billions of user actions with partners like Pepsi, Nike, and Dell, adding gamification to your site boosts engagement by almost a third, according to a Gigya study.

 

 

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Business, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Fabsie – a library for printed furniture

Fabsie stool

Thanks to 3-D printers one day custom furniture can be turned into something for the masses, but for now, James McBennett is more concerned with an older, perhaps less sexy, machine, that essentially does to wood what 3-D printing does to concrete or plastic. It’s called a computer numerical control (CNC) router, and “It’s 60 years old,” McBennett says.

 

 

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Analysis, Business, Globalism, Internet, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

Why the Internet of Things needs to create its own economy

Internet of Things exists, but often badly.

If you track the Q rating of tech trends, then you know the cloud is so last minute and big data is good for little more than wrapping fish at Whole Foods. For 2013, it’s all about the Internet of Things.  But, for the Internet of Things to succeed it is going to need an economy supported by developers who can rely on open standards and APIs.

 

 

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