Vet Bootstraps Independent 3D Printing Shop in New York’s Washington Heights

Via 3DPrinter.net:

Mr. Castanos enlisted the help of family, friends and the local community rather than going the VC route, to put together 3D Heights, a retail shop that sells a wide range of 3D Printers and scanners and does printing on demand .  Most importantly if you read my earlier post about the new MakerBot store in Boston, the shop has the added benefit of 3D Printing consulting and training, as well as membership to a MakerSpace called the Lab.  I strongly feel this is the missing link for 3D Printing to make it in the mainstream market.

Click the link to see more: Vet Bootstraps Independent 3D Printing Shop in New York’s Washington Heights | 3D Printer3D Printer

Points:

• “3D Prints on Demand can be ordered.”
• “…check out machines such as the Cube or MakerBot before you buy.”
• “…best of all are the classes.”

Looking back at mobile payments in 2013

Via Business Insider:

As the calendar speeds toward 2014 — surely the year that the phrase "mobile payments" becomes a household term (wink) — Mobile Payments Today is taking a moment to look back at the year that was.

To get a feel for the year, we asked a handful of industry insiders to weigh in on one simple question: What was the biggest mobile payments news story or trend in 2013?

Click the link to see more: Looking back at mobile payments in 2013 | MobilePaymentsToday.com

A glimpse at the future of financial transactions? Eschatology followers will certainly watch this closely as they call to mind this prediction: “And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:16-17).

3D Printing Technology Could Bring Down Bunnings in 2014

Via CountingPips:

Every time I look at the latest 3D printing developments I end up asking more questions about how it’s all possible.

That’s what makes the sector so exciting. That’s what makes it so revolutionary and innovative.

The truth is that no one on Earth fully understands the potential for 3D printing. No one knows the theoretical or actual limitations for this game-changing technology either.

And yet, that didn’t stop me putting together a vision of what things could be like if the 3D printing industry goes in the direction I expect.

Click the link to see more: 3D Printing Technology Could Bring Down Bunnings in 2014 - | CountingPips Forex News & Market Analysis

Points:

• “3D printing has the potential to destroy China’s position as a global manufacturing powerhouse.”
• “3D printing poses a threat to the ‘big box’ retailers too, such as Walmart and Bunnings.”

Ponder: A utopian take on technological progress. Of course, one person’s utopia might create another person’s dystopia.

Japanese Team Dominates Competition to Create Generation of Rescue Robots

Via NY Times:

The Darpa event has been described as a grand challenge to open the way for an era in which a generation of mobile robots will aid in disaster situations, traveling and working where humans cannot. The research agency is trying to develop systems that could be used in situations like the meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. The fact that there were no robots that could quickly be called upon in that emergency led to consternation in Japan, a nation that has prided itself on its advanced robots.

Click the link to see more: Japanese Team Dominates Competition to Create Generation of Rescue Robots - NYTimes.com

Edward Snowden doesn’t show up once in Google’s list of top 2013 searches

Via Instapundit and Washington Post:

This year's National Security Agency revelations have created a firestorm of reports and debates about the state of U.S. surveillance technology and intelligence policy. It set off a brief international manhunt. Entire countries are now building countermeasures to deflect the NSA's gaze. But at least in the eyes of Google, Edward Snowden was hardly a blip on the radar.

Click the link to see more: Edward Snowden doesn’t show up once in Google’s list of top 2013 searches

Ponder: Snowden doesn’t show up after several search iterations. The article’s conclusion: “…although Snowden himself clearly thinks he's still a major subject of debate — the rest of the world seems to think otherwise.”

'We Are Creating Walmarts of Higher Education'

Via The Atlantic:

Under pressure to turn out more students, more quickly and for less money, and to tie graduates’ skills to workforce needs, higher-education institutions and policy makers have been busy reducing the number of required credits, giving credit for life experience, and cutting some courses, while putting others online.

Now critics are raising the alarm that speeding up college and making it cheaper risks dumbing it down.

Click the link to see more: 'We Are Creating Walmarts of Higher Education' - Timothy Pratt - The Atlantic

Points:

• “…the push for more efficiency in higher education often leads to lower quality, and that reforms are being rushed into practice without convincing evidence of their effectiveness.”
• “…more conventional classrooms are filling up with part-time faculty, often hired two or three weeks before they’re due to begin teaching.”
• “’We are creating Walmarts of higher education—convenient, cheap, and second-rate,’ says Karen Arnold, associate professor at the Educational Leadership and Higher Education Department at Boston College.”
• “Steven Ward, a sociology professor at Western Connecticut State University and the author of Neoliberalism and the Global Restructuring of Knowledge and Education, likens the new world of higher education to another American business known for its low prices. Ward calls it the ‘McDonaldization’ of universities and colleges.”
• “The best ways to help students succeed include providing them with ‘a critical mass of interesting peers, interactions with professors and outside-the-classroom experiential learning,’ says Boston College’s Arnold. Yet, ‘At the same time we know this, we are moving in the opposite direction.’”

Ponder:

• To be fair to Walmart, the chain does provide sound products at a low price.
• Consider this quotation from the article: “In the end, says Humphreys, when it comes to ‘getting students through more efficiently, more quickly and with the learning they need, we need to pay attention to all three. Otherwise, at least one will suffer.’”
• This is similar to the triple constraint of project management: cost, time, and scope. About that, project managers like to say, “You can have any two.” In this case:
• More efficiently = cost.
• More quickly = time.
• With the learning they need = scope.
• The implication is we can’t have all three. At least one of the constraints has to give to meet the others. For example, to finish something more quickly, you may have to reduce the scope to lessen the workload or spend more money to bring additional resources to bear.
• Education is widely held to be a prerequisite for a prosperous and civil society. What kind of society will a utilitarian education system produce?

In the NSA we trust: the trouble with faith in an omniscient state

Via The Guardian:

It's nothing new, this fear that there is someone out there watching my every move, knowing my inmost thoughts. It used to be a fear of God. Now it's a fear of Google, the NSA and GCHQ. In other words, we have invented a secular form of omniscience.

Click the link to see more: In the NSA we trust: the trouble with faith in an omniscient state | Giles Fraser | Comment is free | theguardian.com

Points:

• “…whatever one thinks of (let's call it) the God idea, the big difference between God almighty and the secular almighty, is that the former is supposed to be benign, indeed the very epitome of love itself, whereas I don't think it entirely uncontroversial to say that the NSA is not.”
• “…too many Americans think of their nation as inherently Christian, as set apart by God. For all their supposed separation of church and state, and for all their supposed suspicion of big government, in the end a significant proportion of Americans believe in America in the same way that they believe in God.”
• “…the state not so subtly claims for itself the same level of trust that Christians have in the almighty.”

Gamers Are Not Only Athletes, But the Internet Has Changed the Definition of 'Sports'

Via Wired.com:

Because the very concept of professional gaming is so unusual to most — “people get paid to play games?” — terminology tends to unduly dominate discussion about eSports: organized video game competitions that pit world class players against each other for cash prizes. (ESports is also known as “competitive gaming” and “cybersports”, not to be confused with simulated sports because computers aren’t the ones making the decisions.)

The problem with terminology, however, is that it often leads to bigger, almost existential questions: Are eSports really sports? Will eSports ever truly arrive? ESports is sports. It’s here, and everyone from companies and investors to fans and broadcasters better start paying attention.

Click the link to see more: Gamers Are Not Only Athletes, But the Internet Has Changed the Definition of 'Sports' | Wired Opinion | Wired.com

Points:

• “…nowadays, kids who play, say, baseball, are a minority compared to the ones playing videogames.”
• “Games that become eSports are usually fast, strategic, and violent.”
• “It’s becoming a real business. Sponsors like Coke and Red Bull and other major corporate players are dumping cash into online streaming, tournaments, and sponsorship deals with top players.”
• “The structure of eSports is being built on the fly. Where there’s demand, fans and games are finding ways to make things work.”

Stanford Researchers: It Is Trivially Easy to Match Metadata to Real People

Via The Atlantic:

Mayer and Mutchler are running an experiment which works with volunteers who agree to use an Android app, MetaPhone, that allows the researchers access to their metadata. Now, using that data, Mayer and Mutchler say that it was hardly any trouble at all to figure out who the phone numbers belonged to, and they did it in just a few hours.

Click the link to see more: Stanford Researchers: It Is Trivially Easy to Match Metadata to Real People - Rebecca J. Rosen - The Atlantic

Points:

• “What about if an organization were willing to put in some manpower?…In under an hour, we were able to associate an individual or a business with 60 of the 100 numbers. When we added in our three initial sources, we were up to 73.”
• “How about if money were no object? We don’t have the budget or credentials to access a premium data aggregator, so we ran our 100 numbers with Intelius, a cheap consumer-oriented service. 74 matched.¹ Between Intelius, Google search, and our three initial sources, we associated a name with 91 of the 100 numbers.”

Ponder:

• A theologian would notice the level of surveillance might make us think we can achieve omniscience, one of God’s attributes. The Bible is replete with references like: “Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:24 ESV).
• Is that in fact a goal of increased surveillance? The speculation ranges from scholarly research (note the date of the linked article) to the popular media.

Atlanta Battles Public Urination With Pee Detectors in Subways

Via Wired:

Atlanta’s public transit authority has begun installing $10,000 urine detectors to try to stop people from relieving themselves in subway elevators.

Apparently, MARTA — the eighth-largest public transit operator in the country — has a wee problem with public spaces doubling as urinals.

“If you’ve ever been in a Porta Potty, that’s what it smelled like before,” Tom Beebe, MARTA’s own Director of Elevators and Escalators, told WSB-TV.

The new sensors alert police the moment someone begins relieving him or herself so an arrest can be made mid-stream.

Click the link to see more: Atlanta Battles Public Urination With Pee Detectors in Subways | Autopia | Wired.com

Ponder: More sensors coming. This may seem like a funny story, but it illustrates how everything can be monitored.

Cormorant Fishing In China Is Dying

Via Business Insider:

Fisherman set out with domesticated cormorants, a seabird, on bamboo rafts before sunrise and often in the early evening. These birds prey on fish. But the fishermen tie threads around the necks of the cormorants to prevent them from swallowing the fish they catch.

Once the threads are set, the fishermen begin chanting on their boats to prompt the birds to dive down and retrieve the fish. They control their birds with long poles

Unable to compete with modern fishing, cormorant fishing on the river Li is now largely practiced for tourists.

Click the link to see more: Cormorant Fishing In China Is Dying - Business Insider

Is this an analogy for the impact of accelerating productivity on other jobs?

The Internet of Things: How will this change our world as consumers? | GulfNews.com

Via :

The Internet of Things (IoT) represents a new construct in an ICT world. Within our view of the third platform technologies like mobility, analytics, cloud and social and enabling technologies such as security and virtualization, the IoT is at the heart of it. It is increasingly clear that the future of IT will be driven by four pillars — mobile broadband, social business, big data/analytics, and cloud services. This will result in millions of applications available with billions of users. The pinnacle of this next technology platform is that we will move toward a future where there are “trillions of things” that could be connected to the Internet and thus drive consumer behavior and increasingly intelligent industry solutions that can operate either autonomously or non-autonomously. IoT will be critical to the success of the third Platform as these connected “things” will shape business processes and the increasingly connected consumer.

Click the link to see more: The Internet of Things: How will this change our world as consumers? | GulfNews.com

Points:

• “IDC [International Data Corporation] defines IoT as a network connecting (either wired or wireless) devices, or ‘things,’ that is characterized by autonomous provisioning, management, and monitoring…and is largely driven by intelligent systems that will be installed and collecting data — across both consumer and enterprise applications.”
• “…municipalities are looking for ways to become more efficient, and IoT solutions provide several options to save money, improve productivity, and better serve their constituents.”
• “…connectivity is becoming increasingly ubiquitous — whether using personal area networks, local area networks such as WiFi, or wide area networks such as cellular, in addition to fixed connectivity. This anyway, anytime ability to connect anything is helping make IoT a reality.”
• “…individuals are developing a high affinity for full-time connectivity, which makes consumer IoT a compelling proposition.”

CES 2014 will showcase the near future of driving

Via CNET:

Auto shows make great places to see the cars coming to showrooms in the next year, but CES shows how we will be driving by 2020. Automakers and suppliers are participating in CES 2014 to show off their latest tech concepts, designed to make driving safer and easier than ever.

Click the link to see more: CES 2014 will showcase the near future of driving | CES 2014: Car Tech - CNET Blogs

Ponder: Will these developments eventually bring more Millenials to driving?

The World Of Reputation Management

Via Business Insider:

There is an entire industry dedicated to making bad things on the Internet quietly disappear and making promotional, good things about a person or a company look totally legitimate, even when they're just PR spin.

It's known as "reputation management" and those who are good at it can earn $5,000 - $20,000 per month per client.

The crux of the work is to trick the search engines, mainly Google, into pushing bad news low in the search results while leaving good news (some of it maybe even fake) up high.

Click the link to see more: The World Of Reputation Management - Business Insider

Points:

• “It can involve anything from writing positive articles, launching web sites to promote those articles, fake reviews, biased Wikipedia articles, to plastering comments and links on blogs and other sites.”
• “The biggest spenders are actors, lawyers, doctors, and politicians.”
• “…people who are earning $1 million or more a year will pay a lot for monthly reputation management because ‘they will realize immediate return’ by getting negative information buried on Google.”

Article takeaways:

• “Ideally, the best way for a person or company to clean up an online reputation is to do actual, good, newsworthy things that gain the attention of established news sites.”

• “If you want a good reputation on the web, you need to build or rebuild a good one offline first.”

Two Makers Come Together To Make A Robotic Hand For A Boy In South Africa

Via RoboticsOnline and TechCrunch:

Two makers on opposite ends of the globe, Ivan Owen in Bellingham, Washington and Richard Van As in South Africa, teamed up to build a custom robotic hand and publish it on Thingiverse. The best part? They built it for Liam, a five-year-old South African boy who was born without fingers on his right hand, by collaborating online between continents.

Click the link to see more: Two Makers Come Together To Make A Robotic Hand For A Boy In South Africa | TechCrunch

Cheers to the all-knowing robotic bartender

Via CNET:

The Monsieur uses an Android tablet as its interface, from which you can view and order from an extensive drink menu. You also can order drinks through an Android and iOS app.

The tablet also controls the mechanics.

Click the link to see more: Cheers to the all-knowing robotic bartender | Crave - CNET

Points:

• “The bartender actually learns you and learns your lifestyle.”
• “The Monsieur comes in several sizes to accommodate home and commercial use.”
• “…the company is focusing on getting the Monsieur into places where a bartender may not be present, like arena suites, nightclubs, hotels, and people's homes.”

Ponder: Precise measuring of drink ingredients can also help manage and finally predict costs.

We're Constantly in Fear: The life of a part-time professor

Via Instapundit and San Diego Reader:

The Executive Summary of the American Federation of Teachers survey, as published in the March 2010 issue of American Academic, reads, “Most part-time/adjunct faculty members are motivated to work primarily by their desire to teach and have been at their institutions a considerable amount of time. About 57 percent of those surveyed say they are in their jobs primarily because they like teaching, not primarily for the money. This reflects their commitment and passion for the profession but not a high level of satisfaction with their working conditions, which a significant majority believes are inadequate.”

Click the link to see more: We're Constantly in Fear: The life of a part-time professor (page 5) | San Diego Reader

Points:

• “There’s an atmosphere where we don’t feel safe to talk [publicly] because we’re afraid our opinions and our thoughts can work against us. We’re constantly in this fear that this could hurt me from getting classes assigned next semester or my comments could hurt me when I’m trying to apply for a position.”
• “Through my dean I learned that the administration does not want adjunct faculty to be advisors because they do not want to have to compensate them for the time they serve the students.”
• “…many ‘part-time’ professors, like Rall and Jenny, create full-time schedules across multiple campuses, often equaling more hours than tenured (or full-time) professors.”
• “I work five classes, and I’m making barely $40,000, probably more like $35,000. A full-timer teaches five classes and they’re making $65,000 a year.”
• “Out in the World Wide Web, one can find several highly political analogies in which the national ‘adjunct crisis,’ is compared to slavery, sweatshops, apartheid, indentured servitude, and the civil rights and farmworkers movements.”

Ponder: Are schools faced with a cash crunch from two directions: the cost of bringing more faculty on full-time status and slowing growth of enrollment that keeps schools from having enough cash to bring more faculty on full time?

Football vs. Soccer Map

Via Business Insider:

Americans aren't the only ones who don't call it "football." Not by a long shot. Much of Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, Oceania, South Africa and even Italy call it something other than "football."

Check it out (via r/soccer):

Click the link to see more: Football vs. Soccer Map - Business Insider

Points:

The one question to ask customers

The crucial step, says Baker, founder of The Verasage Institute consultancy, is to have a serious conversation about value. Begin with a phrase similar to the following: “Mrs. Customer, we will only undertake this engagement if we can agree, to our mutual satisfaction, that the value we are creating is greater than the price we are charging you. Is that acceptable?”

Three words sum up 3D printing in 2013: Money, money, money

Via VentureBeat :

Between big-bill acquisitions, surging stock prices, and major interest from investors, this was a year of financial success for the industry. Newbies entered the market, big companies got bigger, and some of the word’s biggest brands finally got interested.

Click the link to see more: Three words sum up 3D printing in 2013: Money, money, money | VentureBeat | Gadgets | by Ricardo Bilton

Points:

• “MakerBot cashes out.”
• “Shapeways prints some more cash.”
• “3D printing gets crowdfunded in a big way.”
• “Big brands hop get into 3D printing.”

Apollo 8 and how they made that photo

"Nowadays people don't stop to think twice about what they're seeing—that precious blue jewel engulfed in the pitch black nothingness of space. However, this was a vision that deeply affected the view of ourselves as species and our place in the world and the universe. Earthrise truly made everyone realize that we're all living in a fragile tiny ball that we needed to protect in order to survive. Humans are—for now—alone in the void"

What Is Transhumanism?

Via Business Insider:

Humans are augmenting themselves with computers and technology that will expand their abilities, and it's going to get more advanced and morally complex as time passes.

Imagine transplanting your entire consciousness into a computer. That's a new type of immortality. Imagine having a robotic exoskeleton that's not just part of your body — it is your body. That's a new type of existence entirely.

Click the link to see more: What Is Transhumanism? - Business Insider

Radical thought for Christians: Is there a relationship between these developments and Christ’s second coming?

Target Traffic Is Falling

Via Business Insider:

The number of transactions at Target fell 3 to 4 percent compared with last year's final weekend before Christmas, while, transactions at other retailers were strong, the Journal said, citing estimates by retail consultancy Customer Growth Partners LLC.

Target said on Thursday that hackers had stolen data from as many as 40 million credit and debit cards of shoppers who visited its stores during the first three weeks of the holiday season.

Click the link to see more: Target Traffic Is Falling - Business Insider

Google’s Schaft Robot Dominates Pentagon Contest

Via Wall Street Journal:

Schaft Inc.’s robot dominated the two-day Pentagon Robotics Challenge Trials this weekend in Florida, where 16 teams competed at the NASCAR race track south of Miami for one of eight slots to secure more federal development funds.
…
Schaft, which was recently acquired by Google, led the field, securing 27 of 32 possible points.

Click the link to see more: Google’s Schaft Robot Dominates Pentagon Contest - Washington Wire - WSJ

Mikhail Kalashnikov's Death And His Greatest Regret

Via Business Insider:

Kalashnikov [inventor of the AK-47] had mixed feelings about his success.

"I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawnmower," he said on a visit to Germany in 2002.

Click the link to see more: Mikhail Kalashnikov's Death And His Greatest Regret - Business Insider

What is a City For?

Via Newgeography.com:

Living well should not be about where one lives, but how one lives, and for whom. Families can thrive in many places, but these bearers of the next generation are not the primary focus of much of the urbanist community. I am referring here to urban neighbourhoods like in Singapore or in the great American cities, as well as the country’s vast suburbs. These are not necessarily the abodes of the glittering rich, or the transitory urban nomadic class, who dominate our urban dialogue, but a vast swath of aspiring middle- and working- class people. They are not necessarily the places that hipsters gravitate to, or lure people thinking of a second or third house.

Click the link to see more: What is a City For? | Newgeography.com

'Untrue statements' anger over work to make H5N1 bird-flu virus MORE dangerous to humans

Via Drudge and The Independent:

Some of the world's most eminent scientists have severely criticised the arguments used by some influenza researchers who are trying to make the H5N1 bird-flu virus more dangerous to humans by repeatedly infecting laboratory ferrets.
More than 50 senior scientists from 14 countries, including three Nobel laureates and several fellows of the Royal Society, have written to the European Commission denouncing claims that the ferret experiments are necessary for the development of new flu vaccines and anti-viral drugs.

Click the link to see more: 'Untrue statements' anger over work to make H5N1 bird-flu virus MORE dangerous to humans - Science - News - The Independent

Points:

• “The letter signed by 56 eminent scientists, many of whom are national science academicians, was designed to correct "misstatements" made by the president of the European Society of Virology, Professor Giorgio Palu, who they claim made "incorrect" assertions about the need to carry out the research in an earlier letter he had sent to the Commission.”
• “The ferret research is being carried out by Ron Fouchier and colleagues at the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam. He has been involved in a legal dispute with the Dutch government which has insisted that he needs an export licence before his H5N1 work is published in a scientific journal.”
• “Professor Palu said that Dr Fouchier's "gain of function" experiments are designed to see what kind of mutations are necessary to enable the bird-flu virus to be transmissible between mammals in order to make better vaccines and drugs, and that these mutations have already been seen in nature.”
• According to the letter: "Despite intensive field surveillance conducted by national health authorities, government agencies, local and regional disease surveillance networks in Southeast Asia and elsewhere over a period of 16 years, there is no evidence that efficiently mammalian transmissible H5N1 viruses have ever emerged naturally in the wild."
• “We are in a situation where the probabilities of a laboratory accident that leads to global spread of an escaped mutated virus are small but finite, while the impact of global spread could be catastrophic.”

Players:

• Professor Giorgio Palu at European Society for Virology and CV.
• Ron Fouchier blog mentions, bio, and call for research.

Found: The secret of looking up to 40 years younger is chemical that rewinds the effects of old age can make you look 20 again

Via Drudge and Mail Online:

A protein found in all living cells called NAD could be the key to slowing down the ageing process or reversing it altogether. 
Tests on two-year-old mice who had been given the NAD-producing compound for just one week had body tissue which resembled that of a six-month old.

Click the link to see more: Found: The secret of looking up to 40 years younger is chemical that rewinds the effects of old age can make you look 20 again | Mail Online

Points:

• “The compound works by restoring communication between energy cells within the body which have broken down as we get older.”
• “His [Professor David Sinclair] team are now looking at the longer-term outcomes of the NAD-producing compound in mice and how it affects the mouse as a whole.”
• “They are also exploring whether the compound can be used to safely treat rare diseases or more common diseases such as Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.”
• “Longer term, the professor plans to test if the compound will give mice a healthier, longer life.”

Raul Castro issues stern warning to entrepreneurs

Via The Associated Press:

Castro has legalized small-scale, private businesses in nearly 200 fields since 2010, but has issued tighter regulations on businesses seen as going too far or competing excessively with state enterprises. In recent months, the government has banned the resale of imported hardware and clothing and cracked down on unlicensed private videogame and movie salons.

Castro threw his full weight behind such measures in an address to the biannual meeting of the communist legislature, saying "every step we take must be accompanied by the establishment of a sense of order."

Click the link to see more: News from The Associated Press

Points:

• “…Cuba wants better relations with the U.S. but will never give in to demands for changes to Cuba's government and economy.”
• “Cuba blames a half-century-old U.S. embargo for strangling its economy but Castro's government has also acknowledged that it must reform the state-run economy with a gradual opening to private enterprise.”
• “Many Cubans have enthusiastically seized opportunities to make more money with their own businesses, but new entrepreneurs and outside experts alike complain that the government has been sending mixed messages about its openness to private enterprise.”

The next Detroit? Atlantic City and Las Vegas facing catastrophic collapse

Via Drudge and Fox:

…the niche that Las Vegas and Atlantic City once offered as a gambling and entertainment hub is heading toward the dustbin of history.
Time will tell if these two cities will end up like Detroit. However, the fact that they are losing their biggest industries to major competition, much like Detroit did, with depressed housing, casinos bankrupting/closing and businesses fleeing, makes their fate seem eerily similar.

Click the link to see more: The next Detroit? Atlantic City and Las Vegas facing catastrophi - New York News

Points:

• “The reality is, people just won’t fly to the middle of a desert to play some slots, watch shows and sit down for some blackjack when they can drive right near their town or city, or play legally online.”
• “…the American Gaming Association called on Congress to enact federal legislation that would allow states to license and regulate online poker so Americans who play can do so safely using responsible, law-abiding operators.”
• “California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Pennsylvania and Texas are hoping to join Delaware, Nevada, New Jersey and the U.S. Virgin Islands in offering online gambling to their residents.”

New robotic `muscle` thousand times stronger

Via Drudge and Z News:

Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in US demonstrated a micro-sized robotic torsional muscle/motor made from vanadium dioxide that is able to catapult very heavy objects over a distance five times its length within 60 milliseconds.

Click the link to see more: New robotic `muscle` thousand times stronger

Points:

• “…vanadium dioxide an ideal candidate material for creating miniaturised, multi-functional motors and artificial muscles.”
• “Heating the dual coil actuates it, turning it into either a micro-catapult, in which an object held in the coil is hurled when the coil is actuated, or a proximity sensor, in which the remote sensing of an object causes a "micro-explosion," a rapid change in the micro-muscle's resistance and shape that pushes the object away.”

Facebook self-censorship: What happens to the posts you don’t publish?#!#!

Via Slate:

Das and Kramer argue that self-censorship can be bad because it withholds valuable information. If someone chooses not to post, they claim, "[Facebook] loses value from the lack of content generation." After all, Facebook shows you ads based on what you post. Furthermore, they argue that it’s not fair if someone decides not to post because he doesn't want to spam his hundreds of friends—a few people could be interested in the message. "Consider, for example, the college student who wants to promote a social event for a special interest group, but does not for fear of spamming his other friends—some of who may, in fact, appreciate his efforts,” they write.

This paternalistic view isn’t abstract. Facebook studies this because the more its engineers understand about self-censorship, the more precisely they can fine-tune their system to minimize self-censorship’s prevalence. This goal—designing Facebook to decrease self-censorship—is explicit in the paper.

So Facebook considers your thoughtful discretion about what to post as bad, because it withholds value from Facebook and from other users. Facebook monitors those unposted thoughts to better understand them, in order to build a system that minimizes this deliberate behavior. This feels dangerously close to “ALL THAT HAPPENS MUST BE KNOWN,” a motto of the eponymous dystopian Internet company in Dave Eggers’ recent novel The Circle.

Click the link to see more: Facebook self-censorship: What happens to the posts you don’t publish?#!#!

Isaac Asimov Robot Predictions

Via Business Insider:

Isaac Asimov grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., reading pulp sci-fi magazines in his father's candy store. Because the magazines had "science" in the title, he was able to convince his father that it was educational. It was the 1930s, and the popular perception of robots (if and when they became real) was that they were more monster than assistant. It was a perception that Asimov would unwittingly change forever.

Asimov's imagination was completely captured by robots. He began writing and publishing speculative fiction in the late 1930s in which robots featured prominently. The short version of the story is that he simply never stopped after that, writing up a storm until his death in 1992.

Click the link to see more: Isaac Asimov Robot Predictions - Business Insider

Points:

• “…Asimov looked at them [robots] another way, more like intelligent appliances than monsters.”
• “Asimov is famous for his ‘laws of robotics,’ which prevent robots from hurting humans, or through inaction, allow humans to come to harm.”
• “Asimov's vision of robot-as-appliance became reality in 1961 when General Motors introduced Unimate, a robot that worked on factory floors, spot-welding car parts together.”
• “His military experience got him thinking of new potentials for robots. What if they could take the place of humans on the battlefield?”

Army successfully tests truck-mounted laser to stop mortars, drones

Via CSMonitor.com:

The Army has, for the first time, used a truck-mounted laser weapon to stop a barrage of 90 incoming mortars and several drones in mid-flight.

Defense officials at the Army Space and Missile Defense Command hailed it as a “big step” in the development of targeted, high-energy laser beams that might also one day be used to defend US airspace against, for example, fighter-jet or cruise-missile attacks.

Click the link to see more: Army successfully tests truck-mounted laser to stop mortars, drones - CSMonitor.com

Points:

• “The circumference of the laser beam is about the size of a quarter.”
• “In an era of belt-tightening around the Pentagon, the laser weapons are also cheap to operate, say Army officials, who estimate that the ‘cost per shot’ is about a cup of diesel fuel.”
• “The Army says its next step will be to field-test 50- and 100-kilowatt laser beams. A 100-kilowatt laser beam can destroy a target in one-tenth of the time as the 10-kilowatt laser that the military just tested.”

A Cybernetic Implant That Repairs Brain Damage

Via io9:

a team of neuroscientists from Case Western Reserve University and the University of Kansas Medical Center have devised a solution that appears to work in rats. It's an implantable prosthesis called a brain-machine-brain interface that serves as a closed-loop microelectronic system. The device works by recording signals from one part of the brain, processing them in real time, and then linking the injury by stimulating a second part of the brain that has lost connectivity. Essentially, the prosthetic works by bridging the gaps caused by brain injuries, which in turn facilitates repair.

Click the link to see more: A Cybernetic Implant That Repairs Brain Damage

Biggest Trends Of 2014

Via Business Insider:

LinkedIn asked its group of top influencers to pick the "one big idea" that they believe will shape 2014. 

Before stepping back from work to celebrate the holidays, here are a few of the most fascinating ideas, from how investing could change to the leadership skills that are going to be most important in the future. 

Click the link to see more: Biggest Trends Of 2014 - Business Insider

21 Amazing Women In Science

Via Business Insider:

The female contribution to the advancement of science and medicine is often overlooked, but the Grolier Club celebrated the role of women in science with its exhibit "Extraordinary Women in Science & Medicine: Four Centuries of Achievement."

Starting with women born in the mid 1500s, the 32 women celebrated in this exhibit were not only pioneers in their fields, many were women's rights activists and worked to encourage other women to enter the science and medical fields.

Click the link to see more: 21 Amazing Women In Science - Business Insider

Computer-Generated People - Business Insider

Via Business Insider:

It shouldn't be terribly surprising that artists can do amazing stuff with computers nowadays.

Monsters destroy cities in the movies and people fly and turn invisible, for example.

And a new school of 3D artists has taken to creating some astounding imagery of human beings without using a single real human.

Click the link to see more: Computer-Generated People - Business Insider

Future stars? Hatsune Miku already has quite a following. Imagine the impact of idealized figures that look real.

The new world of prosthetics

Via Instapundit and MIT Technology Review: "...researchers at the Cleveland Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University have developed a new kind of interface that can convey a sense of touch from 20 spots on a prosthetic hand. It does this by directly stimulating nerve bundles—known as peripheral nerves—in the arms of patients."

World’s smallest movie–Made at nano-scale

Via Business Insider:

Researchers compete to bring humanoid robots to life

Via Drudge and Computerworld:

Teams of researchers are hoping to give life to a six-foot, 330-pound humanoid robot at the the Robotics Challenge in Homestead, Fla. on Dec. 20 and 21.
The teams are expected to enable the robot -- and others -- to autonomously walk, use human tools and drive a car.

Click the link to see more: Researchers compete to bring humanoid robots to life - Computerworld

Points:

• “The test is part of a multi-year competition that's divided into three phases. The Florida event is the second phase. The final phase is set for late in 2014. The winner will receive a $2 million prize.”
• “During a disaster, communications could be very poor. The robot needs more smarts to be able to do things on its own.”
• “The robots will have 30 minutes to complete each task in the challenge. They include climbing a ladder, removing debris, opening and walking through doors, cutting a hole into a wall, turning valves and driving a car. The tasks are geared to test the robot's mobility, dexterity, perception, and operator control mechanisms.”

Not your average drone: new technology the US military is developing

Via CSMonitor.com:

This could ultimately mean “omnipresent” surveillance, Mr. Marks said in remarks Thursday at the McCain Institute in Washington. “We might have a capability that is so pervasive that we have ISR [intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance] on top of everybody all the time,” he said.

“What we are doing now will not go away,” he added. “We are now defining what our new ‘normal’ looks like.”

Click the link to see more: Not your average drone: new technology the US military is developing (+video) - CSMonitor.com

Points:

• “…drones have worked well for the US military in wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, where enemy fighters had little to no air-defense capabilities.”
• “…it’s actually not too hard to shoot down America’s current crop of go-to drones, like the Predator and the Reaper, since they don’t have any stealth technology.”
• “The new RQ-180, funded in the Air Force’s classified budget, would have cutting-edge stealth technology, so it could evade radar systems in a way that the Predator and Reaper drones cannot. It would also have the ability to be deployed on electronic attack missions (targeting radar and communication systems),”

Amazon, drones, and getting your stuff you quickly.

Via USA Today: "The idea would be to deliver packages as quickly as possible using the small, unmanned aircraft, through a service the company is calling Prime Air."

Some manufacturing news

Via Business Insider:

“France's manufacturing sector just hit a 5-month low.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/french-pmi-2013-12#ixzz2mJaKhS8w

“The PMI Manufacturing report [for Italy] just hit a 2.5 year high.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/italian-pmi-2013-12#ixzz2mJaXCdSR

“Spain's manufacturing PMI report for November just came in quite weak.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/spanish-pmi-2013-12#ixzz2mJampQLR

Where All The Major World Economies Are In The Economic Cycle

Via Business Insider:

The country most closes to "peaking" right now is China. The US, Canada, New Zealand, and Kazakhstan are past the halfway point, but still have room to grow.

Countries like India, Brazil, and Russia are troughing, while Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand are still on the way down, though getting close to the bottom of their respective cycles.

Click the link to see the chart: CHART: Where All The Major World Economies Are In The Economic Cycle - Business Insider