December 2011
61 posts
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Amazon’s Lending Library Now Holds Over 66,000... →
infoneer-pulse:
When Amazon launched its lending library on November 3, the collection had only 5000 titles. But the collection has grown exponentially since then, as the Public Libraries blog points out, with 66,037 titles available the morning of December 28.
Some of this growth is undoubtedly because Amazon decided on December 8 to expand the collection beyond titles from established...
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“In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the...”
– Amazon Kindle: A Highlight and Note from a Personal Document
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IBM predicts five big technologies of the future →
IBM today issued its sixth annual look at what Big Blue thinks will be the five biggest technologies for the next five years. In past prediction packages the company has had some success in predicting the future of telemedicine and nanotechnology.
This year IBM thinks
very soon people will never need passwords
mind reading will happen
the so-called digital divide will cease to...
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Not Quite an MIT Degree, but MITx May Still... →
Not a full-fledged diploma — that’s still a possibility only for the 10,000 or so students admitted to its Cambridge, Mass., campus. But on Monday, MIT is announcing that for the first time it will offer credentials — under the name “MITx” — to students who complete the online version of certain courses, starting with a pilot program this spring.
Interesting that a model like...
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Most print newspapers will be gone in 5 years - Is... →
Circulation of print newspapers continues to plummet, and we believe that the only print newspapers that will survive will be at the extremes of the medium – the largest and the smallest,” said Cole. It’s likely that only four major daily newspapers will continue in print form: The New York Times, USA Today, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. At the other extreme, local weekly...
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Technology Cannot Disrupt Education From The Top... →
Computer technology has penetrated the classroom for thirty years with little impact. After hundreds of “disruptive” education startups, the best innovation in education is still the chalkboard. This isn’t the fault of the entrepreneurs, but the fault of an education system which resists innovation at every turn.
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Anyone who has ever run their own business should immediately see...
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Drone-Ethics Briefing: What a Leading Robot Expert... →
Robots are replacing humans on the battlefield—but could they also be used to interrogate and torture suspects? This would avoid a serious ethical conflict between physicians’ duty to do no harm, or nonmaleficence, and their questionable role in monitoring vital signs and health of the interrogated. A robot, on the other hand, wouldn’t be bound by the Hippocratic oath, though its very existence...
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Highway to Health | Metropolis Magazine →
Incorporating wireless technology into its newest cars, Ford prepared to roll out vehicles capable of monitoring everything from pollen counts to glucose levels.
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The Great Start-Up Stagnation — Marginal... →
The numbers are sobering. From the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, 450,000-550,000 new businesses with at least one employee were created in the US each year. In 2009, the latest year for which records are available, there were just 400,000. More recent numbers suggest that the climate has not improved: the number of incorporated self-employed people, a measure of the health of small businesses, was...
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5 trends driving the future of work | ZDNet →
From legions of independent consultants to cities dotted with coworking facilities, the future of work is virtual, online and global.
Trend 1: Independent consulting to see hockey stick growth curve
Trend 2: Order books, movies, and now….workers online
Trend 3: Coworking moves beyond early adopter stage
Trend 4: Adaptive lifelong learning the norm
Trend 5: Jobs of the future will either...
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Are Colleges or Businesses Responsible for Fixing... →
infoneer-pulse:
With an 8.6 percent unemployment rate and 3.4 million job openings, there’s a clear mismatch between the kinds of jobs available and the skills job-seekers actually have. But who is responsible for bridging the gap for college graduates: schools or employers?
It turns out that businesses are divided over whether college should be about practical skills for specific industries...
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Neelie Krooes - takes stand for an open internet →
EUROPA - Press Releases - Neelie Kroes Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda ICT for democracy: supporting a global current of change Freedom Online – Joint Action for Free Expression on the Internet The Hague, 9 December 2011
The Arab Spring was a wake-up call for all of us. A reminder that democracy is not just a rich world luxury—but something which...
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Gallup: In U.S., Fear of Big Government at... →
Americans’ concerns about the threat of big government are near record-high levels. The Occupy Wall Street movement, focused on “fighting back against the corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations,” has drawn much attention and a large following. Still, the majority of Americans do not view big business as the greatest threat to the country when asked to choose among big...
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Big Pharma’s Uncertain Future - Strategy+Business →
[…]it is doubtful whether big pharmaceutical companies will be able to pursue these goals within the old model of developing exclusive new pills that they can sell under patent protection. For one thing, pharma companies in the past were able to develop drugs for health problems that had never before been addressed. When anti-cholesterol drugs were first launched, for example, they created...
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Box Sends Health Data Right to the Cloud -... →
Qualcomm aims to integrate home-health monitoring devices, and give doctors easier access.
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Qualcomm has formed a division called Qualcomm Life to sell the new home-based hub, run the back-end databases, and establish partnerships with device makers. The platform meets all medical standards, is “technology agnostic, and can pair with virtually anything,” says Rick...
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Rising Use of Consumer Technology in the Workplace... →
Another report on the extent and effects of consumerization of IT in the workplace, this time from Accenture.
Harris concludes, “IT consumerization will be one of the biggest tests for organizations in the next five years, but resisting it is simply not an option and is tantamount to capitulation. A good first step is to learn just how extensively consumer IT has embedded itself into your...
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“We see the library as not being in the book business, but being in the learning...”
– Libraries Make Room For High-Tech ‘Hackerspaces’ : NPR
(via rachelfershleiser)
The problem by this view is that there are many others aiming for that business as well… And when it becomes a business, maybe libraries are not that competitive??
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Renault Opens Up the ‘Car as Platform’ - Tech... →
Open innovation is finding it’s way into the automotive industry through an pre-installed tablet with Android.
PARIS — Renault has launched what it describes as a “tablet,” an integrated Android device built into its next range of cars, effectively opening the way to the car-as-a-platform.
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“The car is becoming a new platform,” said Mr. Hoffstetter. He said the seven-inch device...
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Police employ Predator drone spy planes on home... →
Janke knew the gunmen could be anywhere on the 3,000-acre spread in eastern North Dakota. Fearful of an armed standoff, he called in reinforcements from the state Highway Patrol, a regional SWAT team, a bomb squad, ambulances and deputy sheriffs from three other counties.
He also called in a Predator B drone.
As the unmanned aircraft circled 2 miles overhead the next morning, sophisticated...
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Detroit nears bankruptcy: Nowhere to run →
economist.com
Detroit nears bankruptcy Nowhere to run The motor city flirts with fiscal disaster IN THE 1960s, the first hit song from Berry Gordy’s Motown empire was “Money (That’s What I Want)”. It might well be an anthem for modern-day Detroit. On…
What happens when a major city like Detroit goes bankrupt? If nothing else, such an event will amplify the message to many cities around the...
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The Future of Context: Mobile Reading from Google... →
For the new mobile reading, context becomes a cluster of these factors. Flipboard’s Mike McCue highlights a few of these in an interview with the Los Angeles Times‘ David Sarno:
It’s a mix of what’s going on in the world and what’s going on in your world, fused together. And it might seem weird that I’m looking at a picture of my daughters, and then the next flip I’m reading a story...
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Finally, A Rich American Destroys The Fiction That... →
Because, despite Hanauer’s impressive lifestyle—his family owns a plane—most of the $9+ million just goes straight into the bank (where it either sits and earns interest or gets invested in companies that ultimately need strong demand to sell products and create jobs).
If that $9+ million had gone to 9,000 families instead of Hanauer, it would almost certainly have been pumped right back...
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PopTech, The next 10 years will be very unlike the... →
poptech.org
Resilience is not optional!
Watchsmarterplanet:
Twine, “the simplest possible way to get the objects in your life texting, tweeting or emailing.” This 2.5” square, created by a duo of MIT Media Lab graduates, offers wifi connectivity, internal and external sensors, and two AAA batteries that keep it running for two months. John Pavlus has more.
via curiositycounts:
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