Impact Lab – Page 590 – A Laboratory of the Future Human Experience

Bitcoin, Blockchain, communication, Science & Technology News

What the hell is a blockchain phone—and do I need one?

March 12, 2019

The first wave of crypto-focused smartphones from big players like Samsung is a small step toward a decentralized web.

The crypto world is full of buzzwords, but if you can peel away the marketing fluff, you sometimes find innovation beneath the surface. You are often also reminded just how early it is in the history of this technology. Case in point: the blockchain phone.

All of a sudden, several crypto-focused handsets are hitting the market, or will soon. The biggest player in the new game is Samsung, which confirmed this month that the Galaxy S10 will include a secure storage system for cryptocurrency private keys. It joins HTC, which for months has been touting the Exodus 1; Sirin Labs, which used proceeds from a huge ICO to build the Finney; and Electroneum, which this week began selling an $80 Android phone that can mine cryptocurrency.

Continue reading… “What the hell is a blockchain phone—and do I need one?”

Education, Higher Education, Latest Trend, Legalized marijuana, Science & Technology News

‘It’s a serious degree’: Students across US now majoring in marijuana at colleges

March 12, 2019

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (CBS) — Colleges are now adding cannabis to their curriculum. Grace DeNoya is used to getting snickers when people learn she’s majoring in marijuana.

“My friends make good-natured jokes about getting a degree in weed,” said DeNoya, one of the first students in a new four-year degree program in medicinal plant chemistry at Northern Michigan University. “I say, ‘No, it’s a serious degree, a chemistry degree first and foremost. It’s hard work. Organic chemistry is a bear.’”

As a green gold rush in legal marijuana and its non-drug cousin hemp spreads across North America, a growing number of colleges are adding cannabis to the curriculum to prepare graduates for careers cultivating, researching, analyzing and marketing the herb.

Continue reading… “‘It’s a serious degree’: Students across US now majoring in marijuana at colleges”

Analysis, Children, Healthcare, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

Study of 657,461 children finds no link between vaccines and autism

March 12, 2019

Danish researchers followed children born over a 10-year period and found no connection between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.

It only hurts for a second.

The vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella doesn’t cause autism, according to a massive, new study.

It’s yet another study that unravels any tie between vaccines and the developmental disability. A link between autism and the MMR vaccine has long been erroneously suggested, due to a controversial paper published in prestigious journal The Lancet over 20 years ago.

Continue reading… “Study of 657,461 children finds no link between vaccines and autism”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Crime, Law Enforcement, Machine Learning, Science & Technology News

The new weapon in the fight against crime

March 11, 2019

Solving a murder or tracking down the perpetrators of sexual abuse often requires dogged police work. What if a machine could help detectives spot the vital clues they need?

The images on Eduardo Fidalgo’s computer show mundane scenes – a sofa scattered with pillows, a folded duvet on a bed, some children’s toys strewn across a floor. They depict views most of us would see around our own homes.

But these rather ordinary pictures are helping to build a new weapon in the fight against crime. Fidalgo and his colleagues are using the images to train a machine to spot clues in crime scene photographs.

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bicycle, Latest Trend, Mass Transit, Science & Technology News, Transportation

Study: Bike-share programs affect transit ridership

March 11, 2019

Introducing bike-share to a city correlates with an increase in light and heavy rail ridership, but a drop in bus ridership, according to a study from researchers at the University of Kentucky.

The study found a 1.8% decrease in bus ridership. In addition, heavy rail ridership experienced a decrease of 1.3% per year after ride-hailing services entered a market, while bus ridership saw a decrease of 1.7% per year. But the data found that bike-share had a positive effect on subway ridership, increasing it by 6.9%, and light rail ridership saw an uptick of 4.2%.

The study examined data from 2002-2018 in seven large U.S. cities: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, DC. It primarily relied on data from the National Transit Database as well as supplementary data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.

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facebook, privacy, Science & Technology News, security

Alternatives to Facebook

March 11, 2019

Facebook has been under relentless attack since the Cambridge Analytica scandal in early 2018. Broadcasters and news publishers have declared open season on Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and other senior executives at the company. And while not quite ubiquitous, #deletefacebook pops up every time there’s a story about data privacy. The EU has fined them, the US is trying to figure out how to regulate them, and the notion that free services should be absolutely free (as opposed to checking a box on a terms and conditions page that allows the free service to use your data as payment) is gaining traction.

Whether or not Facebook deserves the scrutiny it is under is a great topic for another article. Today, I want to have a look at alternatives. If you don’t like Facebook, what might work for you? Is the time right for the reemergence of focused social networks?

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Food, Life Skills, Science & Technology News

Confused by expiration dates? You’re not Alone. Here’s what they really mean

March 10, 2019

Most Americans are needlessly tossing out packaged food—not because it’s gone bad, but because they take the date stamped on it far too literally. That’s according to a recent study published in the journal Waste Management, which surveyed more than 1,000 people about the phrases and dates on food packages.

Many Americans wrongly believed that food product dates—often prefaced by “best by” or “sell by”—are federally regulated and indicate the point after which the food is no longer safe to eat. (Neither is true: labeling decisions are made voluntarily by food companies and are meant to help consumers determine how fresh a food is, according to the USDA.) As a result, 84% of people throw out food when it’s close to the package date at least occasionally, the researchers found.

Continue reading… “Confused by expiration dates? You’re not Alone. Here’s what they really mean”

Big Problems, Employment, Science & Technology News

Baby boomers upend the workforce one last time

March 10, 2019

As older workers look to retire, companies reckon with how to replace departing skill sets

Baby boomers are entering their final years in the workforce, and their relationships with their employers are changing. Some companies are considering offering older workers partial-year employment and shorter hours.The youngest baby boomers are around 55 years old. The oldest are in their 70s. MostAmericans don’t remember a workforce without the largest generation.

And yet, as boomers enter their final years in the workforce, their retirements are taking companies by surprise.

In the next five years, almost three-quarters of the companies surveyed in 2018 by Willis Towers Watson, a risk-management and insurance brokerage company, expect to face significant or moderate challenges from late retirements. But because nothing is predictable, a significant share are also worried about early ones.

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Big Problems, Food, Science & Technology News, Shopping, Transportation

Americas trucker shortage is about to hit consumers where it hurts

March 10, 2019

The U.S. Is Facing A Truck Driver Shortage

And autonomous trucks won’t arrive in time to fix it.

America’s trucker shortage is about to hit consumers right where it hurts: in the kitty litter.

McDonald’s Corp.’s long-time distributor Martin-Brower Co. is raising delivery fees, imperiling low menu prices, and Procter & Gamble Co., Church & Dwight Co. and Hasbro Inc. are sounding the alarm that higher freight fees could be passed on to consumers of everything from Crest toothpaste to Arm & Hammer cat litter to My Little Pony figurines. And it’s all because transport companies can’t find drivers.

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Bitcoin, Blockchain, government, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

Sweden: How to live in the world’s first cashless society

March 8, 2019

Sweden goes from being the first in adopting banknotes in Europe in 1661 to introducing its own digital currency in 2021, and becoming the first world’s cashless society in 2023.

How is a country becoming the world’s first cashless society? Sweden, one of the most technologically advanced nations on the planet, is leading the way.

Sweden is expected to become the world’s first cashless society by March 2023. By then, cash will not be accepted any longer as a means of payment in Sweden.

Sweden has always been one of the first countries in embracing new technologies. There is a tradition in Sweden about being the first. This is noticeable throughout the Scandinavian country’s history. And its financial system is not the exception.

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AI, Artificial Intelligence, Food, Science & Technology News

AI trained on decades of food research is making brand-new foods

March 8, 2019

IRON CHEF

IBM’s AI scientists teamed up with McCormick & Company’s food developers to enhance food research.

FlavorBot

You may not think that Tuscan chicken’s creamy, garlicky flavor is due for a high-tech upgrade, but advanced artificial intelligence is on the case all the same. An AI algorithm is about to analyze and improve that and other classic recipes before designing some brand-new foods as well.

And if it goes well, we can expect AI to play a bigger role in developing the foods we eat every day. Right now, some big names are working to amass the expertise of all the world’s food experts, head chefs, and flavor scientists into a single artificial intelligence algorithm that concocts new foods better and faster than any mere human.

Continue reading… “AI trained on decades of food research is making brand-new foods”

Big Problems, Healthcare, Medicine, Science & Technology News

The future of pain management

March 8, 2019

Access to painkilling medications that can’t cause addiction, abuse, and overdose would make life easier for prescribers and could save the lives of patients.

Development of such drugs has been slow-going, in part because scientists don’t completely know how chronic pain works. They believe the body has multiple pathways to chronic pain, and that means multiple targets for painkillers. But researchers don’t have proven ways to identify which pathway is causing the pain in each person.

Continue reading… “The future of pain management”