Stockton, California Mayor Michael Tubbs is leading the charge on a basic income experiment in his recovering town.
The large parts of America left behind by today’s economy
Distressed Communities Index
Economic prosperity is concentrated in America’s elite zip codes, but economic stability outside of those communities is rapidly deteriorating.
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Robots and AI are going to make social inequality even worse, says new report
Rich people are going to find it easier to adapt to automation.
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Future of retail – what happens to the empty stores?
Iconic mall-based department chains, like Sears and JC Penney, are announcing hundreds of store closures in 2017. More chains are expected to announce shutdowns over the next decade. Experts say the shuttered locations could turn into other businesses that benefit from the large square footage, like fitness centers, churches, offices, public libraries, movie theaters, and medical clinics.
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Cryptocurrency wars – Untraceable coins storming into top 10
Bytecoin, an untraceable privacy-preserving cryptocurrency, has just seen an astronomical triple-digit percent surge in price. The cryptocurrency soared to the all time high market capitalization of $444,000,000, before calming down to around $300,000,000 and establishing itself at the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization at the time of writing (according to CoinMarketCap). A symbolic turning point for one of the first untraceable cryptocurrencies launched in 2012.
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27 common uses for A.I. in 2027 that don’t exist today
If you’re impress with the progress we’re making with A.I. so far, hang onto your hats. We’re just getting started. Over the next 10 years, artificial intelligence will make more progress than in the fifty before it, combined. With countless quickly oncoming applications to business, government, and personal life, its influence will soon touch absolutely every aspect of our lives.
Here are 27 surprising ways life and society that will be forever changed by artificial intelligence over the coming decade.
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Amazon hunting for 1,300 European warehouses as battle for fast delivery hots up
Amazon is looking for a staggering 1,300 warehouse units across Europe to fulfil its commitments for its one-hour Prime Now delivery service.
The online retailer is understood to be seeking small warehouse units in urban locations near major cities, as consumers increasingly demand shorter delivery times for goods from laptops to lawnmowers.
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Only 3% of seniors wait until 70 to collect social security even thought it’d mean a 76% larger payment
Social Security is a program that forms the financial foundation for a majority of our nation’s retired workers, and that’s not expected to change anytime soon. We’re really dependent on Social Security income, and that could be a problem
Data from the Social Security Administration (SSA) shows that 61% of all current retired workers receiving benefits count on Social Security to provide at least half of their monthly income.
Have we reached peak beer?
When craft brewers get together, we agree that this is the greatest time in history to be a beer drinker in America. In 1981, there were only 82 breweries in the United States, and our beer, fizzy and flavorless, was the laughingstock of the beer world. Today, America is home to over 5,300 small, innovative craft breweries making unique, flavorful, creative brews.
But we also agree that the horizon isn’t so bright. After years of 15 percent growth, the craft sector is down to the single digits. Part of that is to be expected in a maturing part of any market — but it’s also a result of a pushback by a handful of gargantuan global brewers, aided by slack government antitrust oversight. I worry that yet another major shift in the beer landscape is upon us — and this time, American consumers will be the losers.
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Marijuana ‘trimmigrants’ have the hardest job in the industry ― and they could soon be upstaged by robots
Every summer, tens of thousands of migrant workers swarm a remote area of Northern California — the marijuana-growing capital of the US — to find work as “trimmers” after the weed has been harvested.
Their job is to prune the fluffy, green buds with small pairs of scissors to clear them of leaves before they wind up on dispensary shelves or in dealers’ pockets.
The work is arduous and pays between $100 and $300 a day for 10 to 15 hours of labor on the black market, which generated 87% of pot sales in North America in 2016.
Rolls-Royce charts course for autonomous shipping
The company has secured the grant from Tekes, the Finnish funding agency for innovation, which it plans to invest in an R&D centre in Turku, Finland.
Engineers at the site will carry out development projects focusing on land-based control centres and the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in remote and autonomous shipping.
There is still very little AI or machine learning used in the maritime industry, according to Sauli Eloranta, head of innovation and technology at Rolls-Royce Marine.
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BARCLAYS: Amazon is probably going to be one of the first ‘trillion-dollar’ companies (AMZN)
Amazon’s stock price has been on a tear over the last year, gaining 46%.
A Barclays equity research team led by Ross Sandler thinks that the party may just be getting started, initiating coverage of the stock with $1120 price target, or 29% upside.
In a flurry of notes released from their Internet & Media desk on March 29, Barclays picked Amazon as one of their favorites in the sector and made the case for the stock’s market cap to reach one trillion dollars.
