Pebble Smartwatch
The adoption of smartphone in the U.S. continues to grow. It now accounts for 57 percent of the mobile market according to comScore. Rollout of in-store mobile payments has been slow and fragmented. Some experts attribute it to infrastructure challenges or hesitancy on behalf of consumers due to security risks. Others suspect the market just isn’t ready.
Continue reading… “Smartwatches are the future of mobile payments”
Circa
There has been a lot of talk in media circles about how the “story” needs to be disrupted, so that news can be rendered in a way that makes more sense for a real-time, digital and mobile age — but so far all we have is more listicles and slideshows, or streams of headlines that mimic a wire service. About the only company that is really trying hard to disrupt the idea of a news story from the inside out is Circa, the news startup co-founded (and funded) by Cheezburger founder Ben Huh, and it is doing so by thinking about news the way programmers think about code, or scientists think about atoms. (Video)
Continue reading… “Reinventing the News – What Will that Look Like?”
Bitcoin
It has been a roller coaster ride for Bitcoin over the past few months. Bitcoin rose in value from $33 at the end of February (then an all-time high) to a peak of nearly $266 on April 10, followed by the crash of as much as 70 percent.
Continue reading… “Are we looking at a Bitcoin revolution?”
Business in China are swamped with job applications from college graduates but have few jobs to offer.
The headline in he New York Times read “Degrees, but No Guarantees.” However, the story was not about the students graduating from American universities this season. Instead, it was about Chinese grads. Chinese businesses are swamped by job applications from graduating students but have few jobs to offer. As bad as our economy seems for our own grads, their prospects are better than China’s.
Continue reading… “The Chinese skills disconnect may be an opportunity for us”
The U.S. loves religion and spirituality.
A German non-profit, the Bertelsmann Stiftung, researches, publishes, and “stimulates debate” on a variety of societal issues. They just released the results of their 2013 Religion Monitor in which they analyzed responses to a 100-question survey regarding religion/politics completed by 14,000 individuals in 13 countries.
Continue reading… “50% of Americans find Atheism ‘threatening’: Survey”
Futurist Thomas Frey: A thousand years from now, what is it that the human race will need to have accomplished?
Yes, I realize that this is a huge question and many of you reading this are living paycheck-to-paycheck worrying about who’s going to win the big game this weekend. But if we don’t begin to frame our role of humanity inside a much bigger picture, we are likely to remain in sputter-mode until we eventually do.
Continue reading… “In Search of Humanity’s Prime Directive”
Minimalist running
President-elect John F. Kennedy lamented the state of the nation’s fitness in an article under his byline for Sports Illustrated in December 1960, “The Soft American.” As president he exhorted citizens to plunge into activities like 50-mile hikes.
Continue reading… “Rise of the minimalist workout”
Engineering majors in particular have the highest median earnings out of college.
According to a recent report from Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (aka STEM) majors still have the best overall job prospects.
Continue reading… “The best and worst majors for earning money”
IT is transforming the world.
The many forces reshaping the way we work and live these days all have one thing in common: They are all the result of the transformative effect of IT. Such forces of change have recently been documented by Michael Chui and a team of co-authors from McKinsey Global Institute, who point to the way IT is transforming the world. They also say some good things about the DaVinci Coders program.
Continue reading… “How IT is transforming the world”
An exascale computer operates at 1,000 petaflop.
This week’s discussion at a congressional forum was on China retaking the global supercomputing crown on cognitive computing, Computerworld reports. Unlike China and Europe, the U.S. has yet to adopt and fund an exascale development program.
Continue reading… “U.S. will be pushed toward exascale with the fear of thinking war machines”
Tim Berners-Lee
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, says the internet is facing a “major” threat from “people who want to control it on the sly” through “worrying laws” such as SOPA, the US anti-piracy act, and through the actions of internet giants.
World population will grow from 7.2 billion people today to 9.6 billion in 2050.
In 1950, the world looked very different from how it does today. Europe was home to 22% of the world’s 2.5 billion people. Germany, Britain, Italy and France all counted among the 12 most populous countries. But strong economic growth in Asia coupled with high fertility rates in Africa have contributed to a big regional shift in the global population. The UN’s latest World Population Prospects expects the world to grow from 7.2 billion people today to 9.6 billion in 2050.(Chart)
Continue reading… “The size of it: How the population of the world has changed”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
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