States have laws stipulating that the government becomes the owner of abandoned property after a period of time.
Billions of dollars in unclaimed life insurance benefits are at the center of a legal wrestling match as cash-strapped state governments step up their efforts to make sure insurance companies properly account for the funds.
Thumbs are important to Pandora’s listeners.
Personalized radio service Pandora has reached a major milestone: last week it recorded its 10 billionth thumb (and it was a thumbs up).
Avid fans of the popular service already know what that means — for the rest of you, Pandora lets users mark the song that’s currently playing with a Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down. The effect is pretty straightforward: hit a thumbs up and Pandora will try to play more music that sounds like the song you’re listening to, thumbs down and Pandora will immediately jump to the next song and send a minor electric shock to CTO Tom Conrad…
Twitter has just revised its preliminary measurements of 4,000 tweets per second from last night’s announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death, tweeting out the new measurements below. At the event’s peak (11pm EST) there were 5,106 TPS, beating out Super Bowl 2011 (with 4,064 TPS) but not NYE 2010 (with 6,939 TPS).
The event had the highest sustained rate of tweets ever according to Twitter, reaching 3,000 tweets per second between 10:45 and 2:20am, raking in 38,7 million tweets in 3 hours and 35 minutes. At its peak it averaged 3440 TPS from 10:45pm to 12:30pm EST, at an average of 12,4 million tweets an hour. For comparison, this year’s Super Bowl had sustained 20 minutes at 3,000 TPS.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PspagsTFvlg&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Tactile communications: it may not sound too exciting, but it’s precisely the field of research that produced a device which lets users “transmit the feeling of a kiss” long-distance.
The Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications has created a device which consists of a hardware receptacle which is placed into the mouth, and software that remembers the movements of your tongue and sends them to the other connected device, which moves accordingly.
Of course, there’s more to a kiss than just the movement of the tongue, and the folks from Kajimoto plan to recreate them all…
Continue reading… “Finally, You Can Kiss People Over the Internet”
40% of children wriggle out of carseat restraints while the car is moving.
Children as young as 12 months and still too young to walk are finding ways to wriggle out of protective car restraints and are increasing their risk of serious injuries, a study shows. 40% of the children unbuckle themselves while the car is moving.
Continue reading… “Children as Young as 12 Months Can Undo Carseat Restraints”
The study shows that daily growth and sleep patterns are inextricably linked.
Findings from the first study of its kind finally confirm what grandma knew all along: infants wake up taller right after they sleep.
Continue reading… “Infants Wake Up Taller After They Sleep: Study”
Business Colonies: Matching talent with pending work projects
Futurist Thomas Frey: The average person that turns 30 years old in the U.S. today has worked 11 different jobs. In just 10 years, the average person who turns 30 will have worked 200-300 different projects.
Continue reading… “Business Colonies: A study of structure, organization, and the evolution of work”
TWSS
Since the days of Chaucer and Shakespeare, double entendres have been making us laugh. B ut computers haven’t had the capability to tell jokes until now. Two computer scientists at the University of Washington, Chloé Kiddon and Yuriy Brun, have developed a system for recognizing a particular type of double entendre – the “that’s what she said” joke. The double entendre are seemingly innocent sentences that can be transformed into lewd utterances by appending just four short words.
Continue reading… “‘That’s What She Said’ – Scientists Develop Software That Tells Dirty Jokes”
Historical photo of the Great Wall of China.
Here we have some amazing photographs of China, some from over 100 years ago. The photographs show people from the poorest in China to China’s nobility. (Pics)
Factories making Apple iPhones and iPads forced staff to sign pledges not to commit suicide before they were taken on. At least 14 workers at Apple’s Chinese supplier Foxconn have killed themselves in 16 months.
And more have either survived suicide bids or were stopped from trying at plants in Chengdu and Shenzhen.
Continue reading… “Factory Workers Forced to Pledge Not to Commit Suicide”
Parenting in the age of social media is no easy endeavor.
On the one hand, the web has allowed thousands of parents greater flexibility, either by working in traditional jobs from their home or starting and promoting their own businesses with the help of Facebook and Twitter. No longer needing to “go to work,” parents can be at home and conduct business in their free time, while still being available to their kids.
On the other hand, living “constantly connected” as many of us do can result in less quality time with one’s kids. While parents may physically be in a room, often their attention is elsewhere. In one tragic case, a 13-month old boy died in the bathtub while his mom was distracted playing games on Facebook. While this an extreme case, more parents are continuously pulled away by their ringing phone or the latest posts on Facebook or Twitter, resulting in less attention to their kids.
Continue reading… “4 Lessons for Parents in a Constantly Connected World”
The drumbeat of lamentation of how cursive handwriting is dying continues (It seems like every year we have a poston the death knell of cursive, so why should 2011 be any different?)
Young people rarely use cursive anymore, and that may be fine for their daily communication needs, but consider this report by Katie Zezima for The New York Times: the death of cursive also means that a growing number of historical documents will become indecipherable to them…
Continue reading… “Death of Cursive Handwriting: Will It Make Historical Documents Indecipherable?”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.