The USA is starting to look very different

Via Business Insider:

it wasn't difficult at all to come up with 20 brand new trends this year that will dominate headlines over the next decade. 

It's not that all of last year's forces have already dissipated.

But new movements have already sprung up.

The 2013 list includes two new geographic centers of the American economy, evolving patterns of relationships, robots, and the changing energy landscape.

Click the link to see more: Business Insider US 20 2013 - Business Insider

Spend some time studying this list of trends

New Microsoft CEO

Via Business Insider:

Bloomberg says Microsoft's next CEO will be Satya Nadella, an executive vice president at the company. Nadella is in charge of Microsoft's lucrative cloud and enterprise group.

Who is the heir apparent?

Even has the Big Brother commercial

The tagline about 1984 works well.

Making Dick Tracy envious

Via Business Insider:

The $2.5 billion wearable computing market has so far been anchored by smart fitness bracelets and the Kickstarter-funded Pebble smart watch. These two categories are quickly fusing into one larger market: smart wristwear. Smart wristwear will become the wearables category-leader for the ordinary consumer.

Just as we were learning to live without our wristwatches.

Accelerating inequality

Via Business Insider:

…the relationship between technology and inequality. Like others, he fears that without smart policy, the benefits of new technology will go to a very small part of the population, threatening capitalism itself.

 

If inequality is indeed exacerbated by tech, then the acceleration of technological progress brings us closer to a day of reckoning in this life or the next.

Carrying the cashier around

Via Business Insider:

The habit of paying for things on smartphones and tablets is already ingrained in modern consumer society, particularly among young demographics. In the same way digital payments companies like PayPal helped usher in the PC-based e-commerce explosion, mobile-focused companies are exploring how to make these transactions easier, for shoppers and merchants, at physical stores and online.

Carrying our computing with us.

Amazon Prime Is A Threat To Netflix

Via Business Insider:

While the combination of critical acclaim and award nominations for "House of Cards" and "Orange Is The New Black" have posed serious competition to HBO's reputation for prestige programming, Netflix is perhaps focusing its attention on the wrong adversary.

Amazon Prime Instant Video is essentially the online retail giant's own version of Netflix. Customers put down one payment of $79 for the year to access a slew of movies and TV shows to stream. Although this may sound like it's just a Netflix clone, Amazon Prime has a few weapons in its arsenal that could help it force Netflix off the throne of its cord-cutting kingdom.

Click the link to see more: Amazon Prime Is A Threat To Netflix - Business Insider
Points:
  • “Amazon's Strategy For Streaming Shows Could Build Better Relationships With Subscribers.”
  • “The Service Is Creating Strong Relationships With Content Providers.”

  • “Amazon Has A Long-Term Advantage.”

Yet another area Amazon may dominate.

How I stopped worrying and learned to love my kid’s underemployment

Via Instapundit and Time :

…the Federal Reserve Bank of New York released a study showing that “recent graduates are increasingly working in low-wage jobs or working part-time,” if they’re lucky enough to find work at all.

The bright spot, according to the Fed analysis, students who majored in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics—areas in which recent graduates “have tended to do relatively well, even in today’s challenging labor market.”

Click the link to see more: When Your College Grad Studies Something That Won't Get Her a Job | TIME.com
Points:
  • “…we are not immune to the high cost of college. Emma’s father and I have made sacrifices to give her, and her brother, the kind of education we value. There will be loans to pay when she graduates—and, yes, my husband and I will foot that bill. And, of course, we will be thrilled if Emma finds work come May and doesn’t have to move back in with us.”
  • “It has become practically quaint these days to think of institutions of higher learning as places that teach students to think critically and analytically, read widely and write well.”
  • “…encouraging your kid to study the humanities—which are facing funding challenges, scrambling for students and under siege—can seem, at best, unwise or, at worst, reserved for elites unconcerned with earning a living. Only 8% of students now major in the humanities, down from a peak of more than 17% in 1967, according to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.”
  • “…college is not vocational school. And promoting STEM subjects should not be society’s only answer to helping the next generation thrive in a competitive world.”
  • “I’ve come to realize that what really matters will be something that we may not be able to measure for quite a long time: Emma’s contribution to the world and how happy and fulfilled she is in it.”

Do you agree?

Could Growing Patient Stem Cells on a Synthetic Scaffold Slash Organ Transplant Waiting Lists?

Via Instapundit and MIT Technology Review:

Harvard Apparatus Regenerative Technology, or HART, is testing its synthetic trachea system in Russia and has plans for similar tests in the European Union this year. The company is working with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to set up a trial in the United States as well.

The synthetic windpipes are made by growing a patient’s own stem cells on a lab-made scaffold. In the future, this technique could be adapted to create other organs, such as a replacement esophagus, heart valve, or kidney.

Click the link to see more: Could Growing Patient Stem Cells on a Synthetic Scaffold Slash Organ Transplant Waiting Lists? | MIT Technology Review
Points:
Parallels:
Ponder:
Practice:
Predict:
Propose:

Meet the Man Google Hired to Make AI a Reality

Via Instapundit and Wired:
Hinton aimed to create a team of world-class thinkers dedicated to creating computing systems that mimic organic intelligence — or at least what we know about organic intelligence, what we know about how the brain sifts through a wealth of visual, auditory, and written cues to understand and respond to its environment. Hinton believed creating such a group would spur innovation in AI and maybe even change the way the rest of world treated this kind of work.
Click the link to see more: Meet the Man Google Hired to Make AI a Reality | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com
Points:
  • “Hinton’s consortium of free thinkers is set to feed countless dollars back into the economy.”
  • “…developments like the speech recognition and artificial vision systems adopted by Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and other giants of the web came sooner because of the NCAP [Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception]”
  • “The big potential lies in deciphering the words we post to the web — the status updates and the tweets and instant messages and the comments — and there’s enough of that to keep companies like Facebook, Google, and Yahoo busy for an awfully long time.”
Parallels:
Ponder:
Practice:
Predict:
Propose:

How Technology Killed the Future

Via Instapundit and Politico:
…where everything is happening so fast that it may as well be simultaneous. One big now. The result for institutions—especially political ones—has been profound. This transformation has dramatically degraded the ability of political operatives to set long-term plans. Thrown off course, they’re now often left simply to react to the incoming barrage of events as they unfold. Gone, suddenly, is the quaint notion of “controlling the narrative”—the flood of information is often far too unruly. There’s no time for context, only for crisis management.
Click the link to see more: How Technology Killed the Future - Douglas Rushkoff - POLITICO Magazine#.Utnk5bXnY5s#.Utnk5bXnY5s
Points:
  • “Our leaders’ ability to articulate goals, organize movements or even approach long-term solutions has been stymied by an obsession—on their part and ours—with the now.”
  • "…we can blame our current condition, at least in part, on digital technology.”
  • “The extreme present is not an environment conducive to building lasting movements.”
  • “…without a guiding narrative to make sense and create purpose, we end up relying too much on whatever happens to be happening in the moment.”

Is technology really to blame?

Is the Universe Made of Math?

Via Scientific American:

In my new book “Our Mathematical Universe”, I argue that it means that our universe isn’t just described by math, but that it is math in the sense that we’re all parts of a giant mathematical object, which in turn is part of a multiverse so huge that it makes the other multiverses debated in recent years seem puny in comparison.

…the more carefully we look, the more math we seem to find. So what do we make of all these hints of mathematics in our physical world? Most of my physics colleagues take them to mean that nature is for some reason described by mathematics, at least approximately, and leave it at that. But I'm convinced that there's more to it, and let's see if it makes more sense to you than to that professor who said it would ruin my career.

Click the link to see more: Is the Universe Made of Math? [Excerpt]: Scientific American
Points:
  • “…mathematicians study abstract structures far more diverse than numbers, including geometric shapes.”
  • “From just 32 such numbers, we physicists can in principle compute every other physical constant ever measured.”
  • “…if you believe in an external reality independent of humans, then you must also believe that our physical reality is a mathematical structure.”
  • “This crazy-sounding belief of mine that our physical world not only is described by mathematics, but that it is mathematics, makes us self-aware parts of a giant mathematical object.”

Hardcover               Kindle

Overstock on Bitcoin

Via Business Insider:

…online retailer Overstock.com became the most mainstream retailer to start accepting Bitcoin. On Twitter, the company's CEO Patrick Byrne said the retailer saw $130K worth of Bitcoin orders on the first day.

Click the link to see more: Overstock Bitcoin - Business Insider
Points:
  • “the company immediately swaps out its Bitcoins back to US Dollars once the transaction is complete.”
  • Amazon will be forced to accept Bitcoin at some point.”

Upward mobility has become tougher to achieve

Via Instapundit and The Washington Post:
Soon the crucial distinction will be between those with meaningful college degrees and those with worthless ones. Many colleges are becoming less demanding as they become more expensive: They rake in money — much of it from government-subsidized tuition grants — by taking in many marginally qualified students who are motivated only to acquire a credential and who learn little.
Click the link to see more: George Will: Upward mobility has become tougher to achieve - The Washington Post
Points:
  • “Modernity — education-based complexity — intensifies the demands on mental abilities. People invest increasingly in human capital — especially education — because status and achievement increasingly depend on possession of the right knowledge.”
  • “…humanity has moved from lives rooted in a remembered past to lives focused on an imagined future. This orientation favors the intellectually nimble.”
  • “…those with college degrees occupying jobs that do not require a high school diploma include 1.4 million retail salespeople and cashiers, half a million waiters, bartenders and janitors, and many more.”

MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D Launches

Via Business Insider:

MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis unveiled the "MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D" today, a smaller, cheaper, simpler 3D printer that he believes will finally make all consumers want to start extruding corn-based plastic in their own homes, and printing objects on demand.

Pettis believes that in the future, anyone with a creative bent will want to make custom objects at home, in the same way that printing things on paper in 2D became huge with home consumers in the 1980s and 1990s.

Click the link to see more: MakerBot Replicator Mini Compact 3D Launches - Business Insider

If this takes off, one impact to speculate about will be the impact on agriculture because of the use of corn.

How A $100 3D-Printed Arm Is Saving The Children Of Sudan

Via Business Insider:
A company called Not Impossible Labs has come up with one of the best uses for 3D printer technology we've ever heard of: printing low-cost prosthetic arms for people, mainly children, who have lost limbs in the war-torn country of Sudan.
Click the link to see more: How A $100 3D-Printed Arm Is Saving The Children Of Sudan - Business Insider

Survey Reveals Top Global and U.S. Locations for Dream Job Transfers

Via CLO Media:

Cartus Corp., a provider of domestic and global relocation services, asked several hundred relocation and human resource professionals, "If you could accept a job transfer to any place in the world, where would it be?"

Overall, the United States was the No. 1 answer, followed closely by Europe.

Click the link to see more: Survey Reveals Top Global and U.S. Locations for Dream Job Transfers - Chief Learning Officer, Solutions for Enterprise Productivity

Pretty vanilla. Just follows the big established metro areas.

Forget Gen Y — There’s a New Generation Arriving at Work

Via CLO Media:
Just as you were beginning to making some headway in understanding how best to develop Gen Y, along comes Generation Z.
Click the link to see more: Forget Gen Y — There’s a New Generation Arriving at Work
Points:
  • “Generation Z represents the greatest generational shift the workplace has ever seen.”
  • “…those children of the 2000s simultaneously grew up way too fast and never grew up at all.”
  • “…five key formative trends shaping Generation Z [read the linked article to find out].”

Sphero Robot

Via Business Insider:

Sphero, the little robotic ball that you control with smartphone, is alive and well at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Orbotix, the company behind Sphero, set up a fun little obstacle course at CES to let people give it a try.

Click the link to see more: Sphero Robot - Business Insider

If you watched Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, this will remind you of Rover.

Unemployed in Europe Stymied by Lack of Technology Skills

Via NYTimes.com:
After a five-year economic crisis, the mismatch represents one of the thorniest problems facing Ireland and many other European countries. Hundreds of thousands of people who lost work, and many young people entering the work force, are finding that their skills are ill suited to a huge crop of innovation-based jobs springing up across the Continent.
Click the link to see more: Unemployed in Europe Stymied by Lack of Technology Skills - NYTimes.com
Points:
  • “…there is an expectation that many of the new jobs created will be in the knowledge-intensive economy.”
  • “People laid off in hard-hit sectors, from construction to finance, face lengthy retraining, while too few graduates entering the job market have chosen engineering, science or technology degrees for the growing innovation-based jobs market.”
  • “…despite the recession, almost 40 percent of companies reported difficulty in finding workers with the right skills, compared with 37 percent in 2008 and 35 percent in 2005.”

Not just in the USA. Notice the jobs are veering toward science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines. This coincides with another finding that management jobs are disappearing and being replaced with STEM and other specialized jobs.

Knowledge Workers Look Like Factory Workers

Via Business Insider:

Just-in-time is a production strategy aimed at, among other things, reducing the need for excess inventory. Parts are supplied only when needed in the amount needed. While it makes a business more capital efficient, it also makes it more fragile.

We’ve adopted a similar strategy to information gathering. We’re so consumed by noise and busywork that the only time we really seek out signals is when we need it the most: right before we make a decision.

Click the link to see more: Knowledge Workers Look Like Factory Workers - Business Insider
Points:
  • “The worst time to look for information is when we need it to make a decision.”
  • “…we’re more likely to see what’s unique and miss the historical context.
  • “If we can’t connect the current situation to something we already understand, we might reason that it is not in our circle of competence and thus we shouldn’t be drawing conclusions.

An argument for ongoing learning, reading, and reflecting. We need to keep building our personal store of knowledge so we have a context against which to evaluate new information.

China's App Advertising Difficulties

Via Business Insider:

With a record 450 million smartphones expected to ship in China this year and recent news of Apple's partnership with China Mobile, foreign app developers are looking toward the East.

Despite the opportunities, a messy, fragmented, and unorthodox mobile advertising system presents these developers with a challenging way of doing business.

Click the link to see more: China's App Advertising Difficulties - Business Insider
Points:
  • “China doesn't have the big mobile ad networks found in the West.”
  • “…if a developer chooses to go through one of China's hundreds of smaller channels, it opens itself up to losing potentially huge revenue to pirated versions.”
  • “There are no signs that China's mobile ad marketplace is consolidating into something neater.

Issues affecting progress toward interconnecting the world’s largest market. A fully interconnected market facilitates buying and selling via ecommerce.

Play This Harmless-Looking Web Game, and You're Helping the Pentagon

Via Wired.com:

DARPA has set up a new gaming site, called Verigames, that it says will help eliminate vulnerabilities in commercial off-the-shelf software the U.S. military, government and other organizations use, marking an interesting move that the Pentagon’s research wing is turning to the crowd to solve the problems of private enterprise.

Darpa’s Crowd Sourced Formal Verification (CSFV) program offers games that simultaneously perform formal verification of C and Java software, a process that checks that software is free from flaws that can make it vulnerable to misuse.

Click the link to see more: Play This Harmless-Looking Web Game, and You're Helping the Pentagon | Danger Room | Wired.com
Points:
  • “…it may be possible for large numbers of non-experts to perform formal verification much faster and more cost-effectively than with conventional processes.”
  • “…when users solve puzzles to advance to the next level of play, they are actually generating mathematical proofs that can identify software flaws that cyberattacks could exploit.”

Interesting use of crowdsourcing.

Futurists' quest an age-old dilemma

Via TribLIVE:
…aging falls within one of three categories — biological, computational and energy sciences — that might advance the most, technologically, in coming decades.
Click the link to see more: Futurists' quest an age-old dilemma | TribLIVE
Points:
  • “Beware, doctors and other specialists. Such machines as IBM's Watson not only can beat humans at “Jeopardy!” but might beat them at diagnosing diseases and treatments.”
  • “Beware, pharmaceutical companies. One-size-fits-all medicine could change to medicine produced to fit a person's genome.”

Determining a job applicant’s actual experience

Via Business Insider:
…how having job applicants explain their thought process of solving a problem helps him figure out if they are qualified for the job.
Click the link to see more: Elon Musk's Rule About Job Interviews - Business Insider

Pretty good insight for applicants and hiring managers.

The 'Quantified Self' Craze: Tracking Your Own Data Can Be Dangerous

Via Inc.com:

…there may be some downfalls to this new trend of the "quantified self"-- this idea that one can use data to monitor oneself. 

Dennis Nash, president of Data Speaks Health Solutions, told the outlet that the data aggregated by tracking technology can be hard--even dangerous-- to analyze without a doctor. Additionally, he said that the act of tracking can consume users.

Click the link to see more: The 'Quantified Self' Craze: Tracking Your Own Data Can Be Dangerous | Inc.com

Blogging, Tweeting, and Instagramming in the Image of God

Via Christianity Today:
Christians are divided on what to make of this recent flood of digital technology. Generally speaking, evangelicals are either "determinists" or "instrumentalists" when discussing media technology. On the determinist side are intellectuals like Jacques Ellul, Neil Postman, and Marshall McLuhan who warn that technology comes with its own set of values that shape (and erode) culture almost apart from human agency. People who decry the corrupting "force" of Instagram or iTunes would also be in this camp.
On the other side are instrumentalists, who view media like Facebook or Twitter as either neutral tools or unfettered allies in the work of the gospel. They ask, like Leonard Sweet, not "Would Jesus Tweet?" but "What would Jesus Tweet?" There are certainly wise moderate voices in between these two extremes (John Dyer's fine book From the Garden to the City: The Redeeming and Corrupting Power of Technology comes to mind). But arguably most evangelicals fall into a dazed middle ground, posting status updates, "pinning" pictures, and hashtagging away with little thought for how the Christian story might inform their media usage.
Points:
  • "If God creates and uses media…then there is a theological logic instructive for how we produce and use media technology today."
  • “…understand how God himself employs media and to craft a theological framework for our media usage and production today.”
  • “The Bible puts God's vast media repertoire on display. Dreams, visions, symbols, plagues, deliverances—all are chosen mediums for God's revelation.”
  • “…tension between two forms of ancient media: God's words (‘'’law,’ ‘my voice’) versus the images of ‘the Baals’ (Jer. 9:12-16).”
  • “Because God uses and creates media (broadly defined), there is a discoverable logic to guide Christians in using and creating their own media. This changes the conversation from the proverbial "Yea" or "Nay" to blogging, Pinterest, or cable news, and instead asks how we can imitate God's media use and take the next step to creating divinely-inspired media.”
The immediate thought that came to mind was about those Christian authors who must apply these lessons to what their agents and editors tell them, namely to always be promoting themselves. However, a broader application is for Christians in the knowledge economy. These thoughts can apply to drafting a business memo on a word processor or crunching data in a spreadsheet. Both are media, and both have incarnational, criuciform, and resurrectional implications.

Paperback             Kindle

iGods book review

Via Christianity Today:

The most important writing on technology takes place in the middle of major technological shifts. Before the new trends become so normal that questions are no longer asked and protests no longer raised, we need the perspectives of parents watching their kids adopt technologies barely conceivable in the days of their own childhood.

With the dawn of the digital age, a major technological shift is currently underway. Those of us who can still recall the pre-Internet dark ages need to be making observations and taking notes. If you once brought home a bulky answering machine from Radio Shack, created documents by way of typewriters, or enjoyed nightly entertainments in the glow of a cathode ray, then we need your wisdom: How is digital technology shaping and modifying society and culture?

More importantly, how is this new media culture, so in love with the little letter "i," informing our ideas about God and faith?

Points:

  • “…secular society often appeals to religious language when describing digital technology.”
  • “…we need to acknowledge the possibility that these new technologies and their makers can demand an allegiance as totalizing as religious faith.”
  • “Who (or what) are the iGods? …the august pantheon of digital business magnates and their corporations.”
  • “…we are left wondering if the digital age is inevitably an era of religious compromise.”
  • “We are also left without a clearly defined theological vision for technology.”

Paperback              Kindle

Intel Conflict-Free Minerals

Via Business Insider:

Intel will no longer use any tungsten, tantalum, tin, or gold from war zones within Africa’s Democratic Republic of Congo. “Every Intel micro-processor we manufacture in 2014 will be conflict-free,” he said.

The four minerals are essential to any computer or electronic game. They are supplied by mines and smelters in the Congo under the control of war lords who have used them to fuel “the world’s bloodiest conflict since World War II,” Krzanich said.

Click the link to see more: Intel Conflict-Free Minerals - Business Insider

Everyone Loves Intel's Smart Bowl

Via Business Insider:

At CES, the big tech conference in Las Vegas, Intel unveiled a "smart bowl" that could change all that forever. It's a wireless charging bowl: You dump your phone, iPod, earpiece, Fitbit or any other gadget that needs a charge into it and — boom! — pick it out a while later and it's fully charged.

No more wires. No more jacks. No more plugs and sockets.

Your gadgets go into the bowl (probably with a bunch of other non-tech junk too) and voila! They're charged.

Click the link to see more: Everyone Loves Intel's Smart Bowl - Business Insider

From utopia to dystopia: technology, society and what we can do about it

Via openDemocracy:

In the second half of the 20th century, coming out of two world wars and with technology progressing at an unprecedented rate, it was widely believed that technological advancement would continue improving living conditions in an almost utopian way. Great technological achievements, progress in medicine and a greater sense of social responsibility gave rise to the idea that, for the first time in history, war, disease and poverty were all soluble problems.

But technology did not turn into that science-fiction dream of curing disease and ending world hunger. Instead it became a tool to observe and control people en masse,

Click the link to see more: From utopia to dystopia: technology, society and what we can do about it | openDemocracy
Points:
  • “Many would consider drones flying at low altitude over their home a violation of their privacy and space. Yet such drones are already available in a variety of shapes and configurations in many countries, with regulation trying to play catch-up.”
  • “…military spending, in particular in the United States, remains a strong driving force for technological innovation.”
  • “…the redirection of the innovation flow from consumer electronics to the military means that technologies which used to be exclusive to states and their agencies are now available openly.”
  • “It is difficult to predict with accuracy how technology will shape our future, to what extent it will be used in favour of the citizen and the public good. What has become clear is that it has fallen upon society to assume responsibility for the way technology is used—including to protect individual identity and privacy from governments and corporations.”

The 10 Best Sci-Fi Movies—As Chosen By Scientists

Via Instapundit:

Real scientists can be the harshest critics of science fiction. But that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy a movie just because it bends the laws of nature.

Found at: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/digital/fact-vs-fiction/the-10-best-sci-fi-movies-as-chosen-by-scientists?click=pp#slide-1.

Illinois Law Grounds PETA Drones Meant to Harass Hunters

Illinois Law Grounds PETA Drones Meant to Harass Hunters
...PETA has another plan for lovers of the wilderness. They want to spy on hunters as self appointed green police trying to trap them in violations. Surprisingly, these “hobbyists” are able to take home their personal drone for only $324.99. By creating a law to prohibit PETA from fulfilling its mission to harass hunters and fisherman in Illinois, it has averted problems that other states like Massachusetts has endured

The linked piece is from Breitbart via Drudge. The sympathies are definitely right-leaning but raise a question. What if a conservative wants to use drones for some reason, e.g., surveil the US-Mexico border for crossings? Will the ruling apply to that practice?

Could this be extended to those who don't like "big ag," the industrial level practices of modern agriculture? After all, drone use is starting to pick up as a tool for that industry.

If so, will the PETA ruling become another way of saying only the government has the right to use drones or can we expect future cases to delineate those things?

Facebook's US User Base

Via Business Insider:

Users in North America have been basically flat since 2012. The U.S./Canada added only 2 million daily users last quarter.

By contrast, Asia and the Rest of the World is where user-growth is really moving the needle. The non-West added 20 million users in the last quarter alone — 10 times as many as North America. And as the non-West is so much vaster than the U.S., you can see that the ROW is where the vast majority of Facebook's future growth will come from.

Click the link to see more: Facebook's US User Base - Business Insider

Is technology a harbinger of the future of US influence? Economically, the US share of world GDP has remained pretty constant. Interestingly, European share has declined. Since those interpreting Bible prophecies as foretelling an empire based in Europe, it remains to be seen how those scenarios will play out and what the role of technology will be in any shifts of influence.

Our Fossil-Fueled Future

Via Utne Reader:

Known as the International Energy Outlook (IEO), the assessment incorporates detailed projections of future energy production and consumption. Although dense with statistical data and filled with technical jargon, the 2013 report provides a unique and disturbing picture of our planetary future.

Many of us would like to believe that, by 2040, the world will be far along the path toward a green industrial future with wind, solar, and renewable fuels providing the bulk of our energy supplies. The IEO assumes otherwise. It anticipates a world in which coal -- the most carbon-intense of all major fuels -- still supplies more of our energy than renewables, nuclear, and hydropower combined.

The world it foresees is also one in which oil remains a preeminent source of energy, while hydro-fracking and other drilling techniques for extracting unconventional fossil fuels are far more widely employed than today. Wind and solar energy will also play a bigger role in 2040, but -- as the IEO sees it -- will still represent only a small fraction of the global energy mix.

Click the link to see more: Our Fossil-Fueled Future - Environment - Utne Reader
Points:
  • “Global energy use will continue to rise rapidly.”
  • “An increasing share of world energy demand will be generated by developing countries, especially those in Asia.”
  • “China, which only recently overtook the United States as the world’s leading energy consumer, will account for the largest share -- 40% -- of the growth in global consumption over the next 30 years.”
  • “…four critical trends: the surprising resilience of fossil fuels, the degree to which the world’s energy will be being provided by unconventional fossil fuels, the seemingly relentless global increase in emissions of carbon dioxide, and significant shifts in the geopolitics of energy.”

Chris Dixon Defends Bitcoin

Via Business Insider:

I was disturbed by the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. I thought the government did what it had to do at the peak of the crisis but missed an important opportunity afterwards to reform the financial system.

... if the technology industry wants to change the financial services industry, it can’t just build new services on top of existing financial services companies.

... you need to create services that completely bypass incumbent financial companies.

Click the link to see more: Chris Dixon Defends Bitcoin - Business Insider
Points:
  • “Banks charge too much.”
  • “Startups can't afford the banks.”
  • “If money becomes a software program, there's amazing new things that can be done with it.”

Climate Change And Productivity

Via Business Insider:

…hotter-than-average years produce lower output per person in hotter-than-average countries, and higher output in colder-than-average countries, to the tune of 3% to 4% of GDP in both directions.

While they're hesitant to connect this directly with climate change, as it's an ongoing process, they note that this two-sided effect could have "serious political, economic, and philosophical consequences."

There's both the productivity drop off from extreme temperatures, and the fact that existing inequality between warmer (generally poorer) and colder (generally richer) countries could be increased.

Click the link to see more: Climate Change And Productivity - Business Insider

Points:

  • “Some of the negative effect likely comes from extreme weather events, decreased agricultural yield, rising sea level, and possible related disruption and violence.”
  • “…higher temperatures make people perform worse on tasks and score lower on tests.”
  • “Warmer countries tend to have lower productivity and GDP in general, which has been backed by years of research and data.”

Egg Kickstarter Robot For Cats

Via Business Insider:
A Kickstarter project called Egg aims to give your cat an autonomous plaything while you're at the movies or the grocery store or even just in another room. Egg is an ovoid robot that moves around in such a way as to imitate a small creature that your cat wants to pounce on and play with.
Click the link to see more: Egg Kickstarter Robot For Cats - Business Insider
Predict: Companionship will be the next big thing in robotics, and not just for pets.

The dark side of the digital world

Via Utne Reader:
Quit Facebook Day, as an expression of the desire to kill one’s networked self, illustrates the need for a language to talk about these tensions, to talk about the darker aspects of the relationship between platforms and individuals. It is obvious that digital information and communication technologies, such as Facebook, act as templates for organizing sociality, for building social networks. They arrange individuals into social structures, actively shaping how they interact with the world. But during the process of assembling a community, not every type of participant or every kind of participation is supported by the technology. While some things can be assimilated or rendered in terms that can be understood by the network, others cannot. As participation in social and civic life becomes increasingly mediated by digital networks, we are confronted by a series of disquieting questions: What does the digital network include in the process of forming an assemblage and, more important, what does it leave out? How does the network’s logic of exclusion shape the way we look at the world? At what point does the exclusion carried out by the digital network make it necessary to question its logic and even dismantle it, and to what end exactly?
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Points:
  • “The essentialism behind discussing the network, therefore, is a strategy meant to clarify the relationship between capitalism and the architecture of digital networks across a variety of instances; to facilitate, in short, a structural critique or unmapping of the network.”
  • Critiquing digital networking “seems unnecessarily antagonistic at a time when it is almost universally accepted that digital networks—everything from cell phones to social networking sites—are bringing humanity closer.”
  • “…critiquing the digital network would seem like critiquing the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit of the corporations that brought us the information revolution.”
  • “…whereas ‘primitive man’ was socially determined by taboos, rites, and rules, the technological phenomenon represents the most dangerous form of determinism in the modern age.”

The Robots Are Coming -- from Google

Via Top Tech News:

In the past six months, Google has acquired seven robotics companies and the search giant is now looking to build its own robots.

Google may be quiet when it comes to the robots, previously being worked on in secret, but based on the companies that Google has acquired, we can infer that these robots will not be for consumers. Instead, the robots will be meant for businesses in the manufacturing sector that are trying to automate their supply chains.

Click the link to see more: The Robots Are Coming -- from Google | Top Tech News
Points:
  • “Google should be able to build a line of manufacturing robots that are far superior to what any of the individual companies have designed.”
  • “Many companies, particularly in the automotive and defense industries, have already begun to focus on robots, but in the past year, more technology companies have been heading down the same road.”
  • “…not only are robots cheaper (after an initial investment) but they can frequently be better when it comes to repetitive jobs.”

Your New Robot Overlords

Via Reason:
The rise and spread of intelligent machines has led to increasing income inequality and anemic job growth. And this dynamic is likely to be permanent.

The American economy is becoming a "hyper-meritocracy" in which workers will either be big earners or big losers, Cowen believes. He blames this bifurcation on the rise of "genius machines," which are increasingly doing the routine intellectual work that once supported millions of middle-income workers. If your skills enhance the work of ever-more-intelligent machines, you'll likely be a big earner. If your skills do not complement the computer, you're liable to be a big loser. "Ever more people are starting to fall on one side of the divide or the other," writes Cowen. "That's why average is over."
Click the link to see more: Your New Robot Overlords - Reason.com
Points:
  • “The recession revealed an interesting paradox: Average productivity per worker soared while unemployment deepened.”
  • “…the average local and state government employee earns 40 percent more than the average worker.”
  • “The health care industry is also bifurcated in terms of pay.”
  • “…government has boosted the threshold costs of hiring new employees.”
  • “…the most successful doctors, lawyers, teachers, marketers, and retailers will be members of teams skilled in the use of intelligent machines to inform and guide their decisions.”
  • “…smart machines will constantly monitor and rate every professional and worker on the quality of their outputs.”
  • “The big earners in our increasingly bifurcated workforce will be self-motivated, conscientious, and highly skilled.”
  • “At the low end, many who lack motivation or talent will not upgrade their skills and instead opt for what Cowen calls the world of ‘threshold earners,’ making just enough income to get by. For high earners, learning will be a constant feature of their lives as they seek newer skills to complement ever-smarter machines.”

Hardcover              Paperback             Kindle

Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience

Via Instapundit and NYTimes.com:

The first commercial version of the new kind of computer chip is scheduled to be released in 2014. Not only can it automate tasks that now require painstaking programming — for example, moving a robot’s arm smoothly and efficiently — but it can also sidestep and even tolerate errors, potentially making the term “computer crash” obsolete.

The new computing approach, already in use by some large technology companies, is based on the biological nervous system, specifically on how neurons react to stimuli and connect with other neurons to interpret information. It allows computers to absorb new information while carrying out a task, and adjust what they do based on the changing signals.

Click the link to see more: Brainlike Computers, Learning From Experience - NYTimes.com
Points:
  • “…the computing style can clear the way for robots that can safely walk and drive in the physical world.”
  • “…being driven by the explosion of scientific knowledge about the brain.”
  • “The new processors consist of electronic components that can be connected by wires that mimic biological synapses.”
  • “One great advantage of the new approach is its ability to tolerate glitches.”
  • “The largest class on campus this fall at Stanford was a graduate level machine-learning course covering both statistical and biological approaches, taught by the computer scientist Andrew Ng.”

The first 3D printed organ -- a liver -- is expected in 2014

Via Drudge and Computerworld:
…the creation of a viable liver is a watershed moment for the bio-printing industry and medicine because it proves 3D printed tissue can be kept alive long enough to test the effects of drugs on it or implant it in a human body where it can further develop.
Click the link to see more: The first 3D printed organ -- a liver -- is expected in 2014 - Computerworld

The business of robots: Why robotics are finally taking over corporate America

Via CNN Money:
Big Tech is on the precipice of breaking the robotics industry wide open, according to Bourne. If we compare the robotic industry to the computing boom, Bourne believes we're still in 1980. It's not quite 1984, when the Macintosh made computers mainstream, but robotics breakthroughs are quickly heading in that direction.
Click the link to see more: The business of robots: Why robotics are finally taking over corporate America - Dec. 17, 2013
Points:
  • “Robots are truly beginning to make their way into big business: from manufacturing and agriculture to telecommuting bots, surgical machines and wildfire-fighting drones.”
  • “Corporate America is investing so heavily in robots because they're cheap and perform functions humans can't or don't want to do.”
  • “The technology is finally sophisticated -- and affordable -- enough for companies to consider adding robotics in a relatively simple and cost-effective manner.”
  • “…robots now take all sorts of forms.”

Body Maps Show Of Emotions

Via Business Insider:
Screen Shot 2013 12 31 at 9.05.29 AM
Click the link to see more: Body Maps Show Of Emotions - Business Insider

A mood ring might be cheaper.

The world braces for retirement crisis

Via MSN Money:
Many people will be forced to work well past the traditional retirement age of 65. Living standards will fall and poverty rates will rise for the elderly in wealthy countries that built safety nets for seniors after World War II. In developing countries, people's rising expectations will be frustrated if governments can't afford retirement systems to replace the tradition of children caring for aging parents.
Click the link to see more: AP IMPACT: The world braces for retirement crisis: Associated Press - MSN Money

One way to get to dystopia.

New Pentagon blueprint sees bigger role for robot warfare

Via CSMonitor.com:

…the Unmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap, is meant to provide the Pentagon with a “technological vision” for the next 25 years – a vision that will be “critical to future success” of the US military, according to its authors.

“Over the past decade, the qualities and types of unmanned systems acquired by the military departments have grown, and their capabilities have become integral to warfighter operations,” the study notes. “The size, sophistication, and cost of the unmanned systems portfolio have grown to rival traditional manned systems.”

Click the link to see more: New Pentagon blueprint sees bigger role for robot warfare - CSMonitor.com

Roadmaps like this are updated every year or so.

Dystopia

Via Wikipedia:
Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization,[1] totalitarian governments, environmental disaster,[2] or other characteristics associated with a cataclysmic decline in society. Elements of dystopias may vary from environmental to political and social issues. Dystopian societies have culminated in a broad series of sub-genres of fiction and are often used to raise awareness of real-world issues regarding society, environment, politics, economics, religion, psychology, ethics, science, or technology that, if left unaddressed, could potentially lead to a dystopia-like condition in the future. For this reason, dystopias have taken the form of a multitude of speculations, such as pollution, poverty, societal collapse, political repression, or totalitarianism.
Click the link to see more: Dystopia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

What is a dystopia? For starters, here’s a look at some characteristics listed in Wikipedia. Read the article to see what the rest of the characteristics are:

  • “Many dystopias found in fictional and artistic works present a utopian society with at least one fatal flaw.”
  • “Some dystopian works emphasize the pressure to conform in terms of a requirement not to excel.”
  • Violence is prevalent in many dystopias.”
  • “Concepts and symbols of religion may come under attack in a dystopia.”

Robots Won’t Take Over The World: But They Might Help at Home

Via Inquisitr:
According to Wired.com the guys at DARPA, who are behind the cool tech in the US Army, have a $2.8 billion budget, so robot makers might need to send in their robots to rob a few banks, or perhaps the federal reserve in order to keep the funding streaming in, iRobot has decided to change their focus to helping out at home, and it’s worked.
Click the link to see more: Robots Won’t Take Over The World: But They Might Help at Home
Points:
  • “…a boost of confidence as a result of the technology giant Google purchasing seven robotics companies from the US and Japan.”
  • “One of the biggest problems for companies like iRobot to get off the ground and really build up enormous sales volumes is that consumers are just too scared and unfamiliar with any new technology.”
  • “If Google enters the market, they are for sure going to invest greatly in marketing interesting and cool new products which will undoubtedly help iRobot as robots become a more acceptable commonplace matter in society.”

1920s Vision Of The Future Video

Via Business Insider:

…we're still waiting on some predictions from the 1920s, like an atmosphere scientifically kept to the right temperature and suspension-bridge apartment houses that "will gratify the human desire for novelty and romance."

Those are just some of the predictions made in this old video from the 1920s, which we first found on Gothamist. It does its best to predict what the future in the new millennia would look like. "In recent years, we have seen enormous changes," the video says. "The Great War was the war to end all wars. Thanks to everlasting peace and posterity, the 20th century looks bright!

Click the link to see more: 1920s Vision Of The Future Video - Business Insider

Forecasting the future isn’t always spot on. That’s why this blog is speculative and makes no effort to predict when the end times might be.

Sex Toys and Cybersex Are Enhanced by New Technology

Via Instapundit and NYTimes.com:
…sexual-techno prospects are increasingly the here and now.

“We’re experiencing an unparalleled technological revolution, and we’re learning that social desire feeds technological change,” Mr. Moukarbel said.

Click the link to see more: Sex Toys and Cybersex Are Enhanced by New Technology - NYTimes.com

Technology gaining a place in the most intimate relationships.

The Marines Corps quietly puts off the requirement that female Marines perform 3 pullups.

Via Instapundit and Althouse:
A Marine spokesperson cites the need to "ensure all female Marines are given the best opportunity to succeed." Only 45% of female recruits could meet the standard, which 99% of male recruits meet.
Click the link to see more: Althouse: The Marines Corps quietly puts off the requirement that female Marines perform 3 pullups.
The linked article in the quotation lays out the 2 sides of the argument.

Predict:
  • Assuming the policy of allowing women into combat arms branches stays in place, this could create a golden era for defense contractors as the military becomes more technology-centric to offset these discrepancies, if they continue to arise.
  • There will also be some structural changes:
    • Special operations forces retain their rigorous physical requirements.
    • Conventional combat units become more reliant on overwhelming firepower and act more like forward observers, designating targets for drone and artillery strikes.