Facebook has acquired the facial-recognition software company Face.com
A problem with uploading your life into the cloud: you’re sending it Internetward with an understanding of today’s technologies — and tomorrow always comes.
Continue reading… “What happens to all the data we upload with the technologies of tomorrow”
“Social-Mobile-Local” is an overused buzz phrase and most of the attention has been placed on the “social” and “mobile” parts of the phrase. In social, the spectacular rise of Facebook and Twitter is clearly a disruptive and critical trend. In mobile, the adoption of the smartphone (led by Apple’s iPhone and now catapulted forward by Android) is also a fundamentally important platform transition. Much less attention has been paid to the third concept, “local,” which is ironic since it may be a much larger real business opportunity than either social media or Smartphone application revenue. Over the next five years, this massive opportunity will come into focus as local businesses embrace the Internet and adopt new interactive technologies that increasingly automate the connections between their customers and themselves.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gb5poTdUMg[/youtube]
The Tek Robotic Mobilization Device is a device that allows people to stand up is being hailed as a potential breakthrough for the disabled. The machine allows paraplegics – those without the use of their legs – to perform everyday tasks far more easily from shopping in the supermarket to ironing.
Continue reading… “Tek Robotic Mobilization Device: Next generation wheelchair lets users stand up”
What is the correlation between intelligence and income? Razib Khan, Gene Expression, used the GSS’s WORDSUM variable to indicate intelligence, which has a ~0.70 correlation with IQ. He used REALINC for income, which is indexed to 1986 values (so it is inflation adjusted) and aggregates the household income. and then Razib limited his sample to non-Hispanic whites over the age of 30 ( this also limited the data set to respondents from the year 2000 and later).
Continue reading… “Does higher intelligence mean higher income?”
Apple Store in Boston
Since the iPhone launched five years ago, Apple has created a total of 35,852 retail jobs.
Continue reading… “Apple: The face and the brand”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJUblvGfW6w&hd=1[/youtube]
“The human brain starts working the moment you are born and never stops until you stand up to speak in public,” George Jessel famously quipped. Dr. Susan Weinschenk unpacks the secrets of eliciting response from people — the core purpose of design, it’s been argued — through a combination of behavioral science, psychology, and practical examples to alleviate the misery and mystery of public speaking in 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People.
Continue reading… “5 secrets every presenter should know about people”
Futurist Thomas Frey: In 1997 Reed Hasting returned his copy of “Apollo 13” to the video store and was hit with a late fee so big that he was embarrassed to tell his wife about it. Out of this moment of humiliation the idea for Netflix was born, a business that would eventually take down the entire video rental industry, and its excessive fee-charging practices in the process.
Continue reading… “The Disruptive Underground Vs. the Banking Industry”
Growing startups in the digital babysitting space allow parents to book, review, and often pay babysitters online.
There are few areas of life that haven’t been changed by the mobile and Internet revolutions for the young, urban smartphone owner. We can book restaurant reservations through OpenTable, take a cab without swiping a credit card on Uber, or crash at someone’s house in a foreign city through AirBnB. Life has moved online, and commerce is moving with it.
Continue reading… “Babysitting goes digital with credit card payments and online bookings”
Redbox says that families are hitting the rental machines the most.
Redbox, owned by parent company Coinstar, the DVD and game rental kiosk chain has been so disruptive in the entertainment industry that it helped Netflix hammer the final nail in Blockbuster’s coffin. They has doubled their annual revenue year after year, cutting so deeply into Hollywood’s piggybank that several movie studios attempted legal action, eventually settling to impose a 28-day delay before new releases hit Redbox machines.
Continue reading… “Redbox video game rental stats (Infograph)”
New research shows that the moderate noise level in busy cafés also perks up your creative cognition.
How quiet or noisy should your workplace be in order to optimize creativity?
Five experiments were conducted by researchers led by Ravi Mehta to help understand how ambient sounds affect creative cognition. In one key trial, they tested people’s creativity at different levels of background noise by asking participants to brainstorm ideas for a new type of mattress or enumerate uncommon uses for a common object.
Continue reading… “Crowded coffee shops can fire up your creativity: Study”
Intel’s goal is to build chips that work more like the human brain.
The most extraordinary computing machine is the human brain. It carries out tasks as a matter of routine that would fry the circuits of the most powerful supercomputers on the planet: walking, talking, recognizing, analyzing and so on.
Continue reading… “Intel’s neuromorphic chip design that works more like the human brain”
Augmented reality will completely change retail.
What is the future of retail? In the next couple of years, customers will be able to try on clothes and products at home with no shipping required. Technology will allow shoppers to virtually wear garments — smelling, hearing and feeling the fabric as if it were real.
Continue reading… “Augmented reality is the future of retail”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.