Culture – Page 2 – Impact Lab

No cash needed at this cafe. Students pay the tab with their personal data

October 13, 2018

At Shiru Cafe in Providence, R.I., students “pay” for coffee, but not with money.

Shiru Cafe looks like a regular coffee shop. Inside, machines whir, baristas dispense caffeine and customers hammer away on laptops. But all of the customers are students, and there’s a reason for that. At Shiru Cafe, no college ID means no caffeine.

“We definitely have some people that walk in off the street that are a little confused and a little taken aback when we can’t sell them any coffee,” said Sarah Ferris, assistant manager at the Shiru Cafe branch in Providence, R.I., located near Brown University.

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Culture, Healthcare, Home Technology, Robots

Culturally sensitive robots are here to care for the elderly

October 2, 2018

Humans are living longer, healthier lives. That’s great, but there’s a downside — the growing elderly population requires an entire industry of (expensive) caregivers, and we’ll likely need even more of them in the future.

Care robots might be able to do some of that work. Researchers suspect robots could help elderly people with everything from staying active to remembering their medications. Now researchers in Europe and Japan are working to make sure those robots don’t offend the people they’re supposed to take care of — they’re making what they say are the world’s first robots with a sense of cultural norms.

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Culture, Entertainment, Health & Fitness, Human Behavior

India’s bodybuilding boom reflects a nation coming of age

September 9, 2018

A group of twenty-something guys are crammed into a small room, flexing their muscles and applying thick layers of fake tan on dark brown skin. It’s approaching 40°C outside but, inside this windowless pen, it’s hard to breathe. Sweat is running freely and the air is thick with a tang of muscle spray as guys attempt to accentuate their bulges before stepping out on stage.

Bodybuilding is booming across India. Mr Universe-inspired competitions and gyms are popping up everywhere, from small towns in the middle of nowhere to megacities like Delhi and Mumbai.

In just over a decade, economic prosperity has transformed a struggling nation into a country developing at rapid speed, with smartphones becoming ubiquitous and tech hubs competing with the growth of Silicon Valley

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Culture, Globalism, government

One of Estonia’s first “e-residents” explains what it means to have digital citizenship

August 3, 2018

An online community survey recently asked me where I’m based. Without hesitation, I answered “Estonia.” You might ask: as a US citizen, why in the world did I do that? But as crazy as it may sound, Estonia is the country to which I feel most loyal today. I am one of the country’s first “e-Residents,” and I feel more welcome there than pretty much anywhere else in the world.

Hold on: an e-what?

I’m an Estonian e-Resident. A virtual resident, sort of. Let me explain.

In 2014, Estonia, a country previously known as much for its national singing revolution as anything else, became the first country in the world to launch an e-Residency program. Once admitted, e-Residents can conduct business worldwide as if they were from Estonia, which is a member of the EU. They are given government-issued digital IDs, can open Estonian bank and securities accounts, form and register Estonian companies, and have a front-row seat as nascent concepts of digital and virtual citizenship evolve. There is no requirement to have a physical presence in Estonia.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Culture, Entertainment, Fashion, Virtual Reality

The rise of the computer-generated celebrity

July 31, 2018

A new generation of celebrities is selling out concerts, starring in commercials, and amassing huge Instagram followings. But none of them exist—corporeally, anyway. In recent years, and starting in Japan, technology and social media have spawned a digital demimonde of computer-generated stars, ranging from fake musicians and models to company mascots who appear as holograms (like Betty Crocker, with AI). When they’re not entertaining you, they’re trying to convince you of their humanity, and even the more cartoonish among them have fleshed-out personalities. In a way, it’s the purest expression of celebrity, which has always been an elaborate illusion. CGI starlets, though, “are much easier to control,” says Ryan Detert, CEO of the branding firm Influential. Except when they misbehave.

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Culture, Entertainment, Human Behavior, Shopping

Study: Gen Z craves ‘novelty’ and experience

June 11, 2018

Generation Z shoppers share a love of real-world retail experiences, as long as they are augmented by technology.

Gen Z, also called the Instagram generation, lives by visuals and expects retailers to make experiences cool and aesthetic, show how products are used, and feature them in their best light. This requires their favorite brands to empower the use of mobile, the Web, and apps, according to “Gen Z Report,” from Criteo.

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Analysis, Culture, Human Behavior, Life Skills, Science & Technology News

These professions attract the highest number of psychopaths

May 23, 2018

Psychopaths are difficult to spot most of the time. They’re not the “Jack the Ripper” caricatures you see in films or read about in books. Often, psychopaths appear normal, which makes them hard to identify.

In the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5, someone with a psychopathic personality type is defined as having an inflated, grandiose sense of themself, and a knack for manipulating other people. But a diagnosis is rarely simple.

One thing psychopaths tend to have in common is the careers they go for. For example, you’re likely to find a lot of them in leadership positions because of their ruthlessness, charisma, and fearlessness. They’re very good at making snap decisions, but not so good at the empathetic professions like nursing or therapy.

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Analysis, Culture, Economy, Human Behavior

The rise of the rural creative class

May 15, 2018

Richard Florida: One of the most persistent myths in America today is that urban areas are innovative and rural areas are not. While it is overwhelmingly clear that innovation and creativity tend to cluster in a small number of cities and metropolitan areas, it’s a big mistake to think that they somehow skip over rural America.

A series of studies from Tim Wojan and his colleagues at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service documents the drivers of rural innovation. Their findings draw on a variety of data sets, including a large-scale survey that compares innovation in urban and rural areas called the Rural Establishment Innovation Survey (REIS). This is based on some 11,000 business establishments with at least five paid employees in tradable industries—that is, sectors that produce goods and services that are or could be traded internationally—in rural (or non-metro) and urban (metro) areas.

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Analysis, Culture, Economy

The most inclusive U.S. cities, mapped

May 6, 2018

Heads up, cities: Economic growth does not necessarily go hand-in-hand with economic and racial inclusion.

That’s the finding of a new, in-depth analysis by the Urban Institute (UI) of the 274 largest cities in America. The report and accompanying data tool show how economic shifts in these cities since the 1980s have corresponded with “inclusion”—the ability of low-income residents and people of color to benefit from and contribute to the city’s economic gains.

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City Planning, Culture, Historical Perspectives, Human Behavior

Failed ‘Utopias’ throughout history

April 15, 2018

An illustrated account of both evil and righteous attempts to create a “perfect” society. They were all fantastically unsuccessful.

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Analysis, Culture, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News, Social Media

The grim conclusions of the largest-ever study of fake news

March 9, 2018

Falsehoods almost always beat out the truth on Twitter, penetrating further, faster, and deeper into the social network than accurate information.

A large megaphone projects lies, fake news, falsehoods, and images of Donald Trump, Mark Zuckerberg, and Hillary Clinton. A smaller megaphone projects truth.

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