About 700 job reductions at HSBC will mainly affect UK branch offices.
The wave of lay-offs hitting banks gathered pace on Thursday. Thousands more job losses are set to hit retail businesses and market divisions while lenders fight off a limp economic recovery, trading woes and tougher regulation.
Continue reading… “Wave of lay-offs hitting banks and thousands more job losses to come”
Qingdao Haiwan Bridge
The 26.4 minle long Qingdao Haiwan Bridge would easily span the English Channel and is almost three miles longer than the previous record-holder, the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway in the American state of Louisiana. (Pics and video)
Microsoft rationalized the patent as a way to answer to government requests for surveillance and wiretapping.
Microsoft is seeking a patent for technology that lets it eavesdrop on VoIP calls, weeks after Microsoft bought Skype for $8.5 billion.
Continue reading… “‘Legal Intercept’ – Microsoft seeks wiretapping technology patent for Skype”
The divide between states gaining and losing their younger populations.
When the Beatles song “When I’m Sixty-Four” was released in 1967, many baby boomers adhered to the mantra, “Don’t trust anyone over 30.” Now the boomers are fully ensconced in advanced middle age, and the oldest of them are beginning to cross into full-fl edged senior-hood, as the first boomer turned age 65 last January. Some 80 million strong and more than one quarter of the U.S. population, baby boomers (born between 1946 and 1965) are a still a force to be reckoned with, even as they have all crossed the age-45 marker. Along with their elders, the large and growing older American population presents significant future challenges for federal government programs such as Social Security and Medicare. State and local social services and infrastructure needs will also change in communities across the nation as the population ages.
Continue reading… “2010 census trends: Uneven aging and ‘younging’ in the U.S.”
Speech recognition searches may take time for web users to get used to.
Asking a computer out loud for information is seen as a futurist idea right out of science fiction. But Google is trying to change that. They are adding speech recognition to its search engine which will release technology that will allow any browser, website, or app to use the feature.
Continue reading… “Google adds speech recognition to its search engine”
Alabama tornado 2o11
Epic floods, massive wildfires, drought and the deadliest tornado season in 60 years are ravaging the United States. Scientists warn that climate change will bring even more extreme weather than we seen in the last century.
Continue reading… “Extreme weather ravaging U.S. could worsen, warn experts”
Live-tweeting supports live tv viewing.
Social media is bringing dramatic changes to nearly every aspect of the TV business. Viewers are using Facebook and Twitter to comment about shows before, during and after they air. Television networks, grappling with the fragmentation of their audience, are experimenting with mobile apps, Twitter promotions and branded social networks in an effort to bring viewers back together. And a variety of other stakeholders are getting in on the social action as well.
Continue reading… “Social media draws more viewers to live tv”
Android had become the most popular operating system among smartphone users in the United States.
The vice president for engineering at Google, Andy Rubin, said in a Twitter message Tuesday that the company was now activating over 500,000 Android devices each day. Andy leads the company’s Google Android platform.
Continue reading… “Google activates 500,000 Android devices every day”
Unstructured information – such as files, email and video – will account for 90% of all data created over the next decade.
1.8 zettabytes (or 1.8 trillion gigabytes) of data will be created in 2011 alone. That is the equivalent to every U.S. citizen writing 3 tweets per minute for 26,976 years. And the number of servers managing the world’s data stores will grow by ten times over the next 10 years.
Continue reading… “IDC study predicts world’s data will grow by 50 times by 2020”
A healthy way to surf the net?
Now you don’t even have the excuse of getting some exercise or going to the gym as a reason to leave work; expensive tchotchke store Hammacher Schlemmer lets you bring the gym to the office with the Elliptical Machine Office Desk.
We are big fans of standing desks, and have discussed treadmill desks as alternatives to sitting all day. But is the elliptical machine office desk an advancement of the art?
Continue reading… “Spend Even More Time At Work With The Elliptical Machine Office Desk”
Now even robots can sweat and stink.
Why did Kevin Grennan make a robot that simulates the functions and odors of a human armpit? Certain scents, his research revealed, manipulate human emotional reactions…
WikiLeaks certainly has powerful cyber-supporters.
Just one day after the LulzSec hacking group announced its retirement after a 50-day stint, it appears that hackers with the Anonymous group have picked up from where they left off by attacking the MasterCard website in protest of the WikiLeaks blockade.
Earlier today, Twitter user @ibomhacktivist tweeted a message saying that MasterCard.com was down. The hacker said “that’s what you get when you mess with @wikileaks and @Anon_Central.”
Continue reading… “Anonymous hacktivists take down MasterCard.com again in support of WikiLeaks”