November 2011
11 posts
Tech Firm Implements Employee ‘Zero Email’ Policy →
CEO Thierry Breton of the French information technology company said only 10 percent of the 200 messages employees receive per day are useful and 18 percent is spam. That’s why he hopes the company can eradicate internal emails in 18 months, forcing the company’s 74,000 employees to communicate with each other via instant messaging and a Facebook-style interface.
Read the article here.
NYTimes Steven Pinker: Human Nature’s Pathologist →
By CARL ZIMMER
Published: November 28, 2011
In his latest book, Steven Pinker, a leading advocate of evolutionary psychology, says our brains have produced a far less violent world.
“Videos 10 minutes or longer accounted for 30 percent of the hours watched on...”
– Tablets blow away desktops in video engagement (via mediafuturist)
ShockStat: Self-publishing websites are attracting...
From The Guardian books blog, posted by Allison Flood.
Self-publishing websites are attracting more than 40% of all China’s internet users every month? I didn’t, and I am reeling, a little, from the statistic.
These aren’t Authonomy-esque, publish-and-be-encouraged-by-fellow-writers sorts of sites, though, or even collections of self-published novels. The websites host what is being dubbed...
Artificial intelligence: Difference Engine:... →
futuramb:
In his analysis, Mr Ford noted how technology and innovation improve productivity exponentially, while human consumption increases in a more linear fashion. In his view, Luddism was, indeed, a fallacy when productivity improvements were still on the relatively flat, or slowly rising, part of the exponential curve. But after two centuries of technological improvements, productivity has...
September 2011
1 post
August 2011
6 posts
The Eerie Silence and Physics of the Future
Sis-in-law gets the pick of the uncorrected proofs at Penguin and brought me the latest from Paul Davies and Michio Kaku, respectively. Some good reading ahead.
3 tags
9 tags
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June 2011
1 post
April 2011
2 posts
Kenya Leapfrogs the Rest of the World with its... →
smarterplanet:
If you plopped down in any Kenyan city or town these days you’d be certain to see a handful of iconic images: a Coca-Cola stand in the shape of a Coke bottle, a matatu (privately-owned taxi…
2020 Foresight: Predictions for the Next Decade |... →
March 2011
7 posts
Data for smarter cities: IBM's ideas →
Nice article in GRIST by Todd Woody. Includes these fun facts about what IBM is doing:
In Switzerland, IBM is rolling out a sensor and computer system to let Swiss Federal Railways perform real-time monitoring of 1,864 miles of track, plus switches and railroad stations. Another IBM software service manages those smart electricity meters being installed nationwide in the United States while yet...
The World’s Technological Capacity to Store,... →
The study by the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism estimates that in 2007, humankind was able to store 2.9 × 1020 optimally compressed bytes, communicate almost 2 × 1021 bytes, and carry out 6.4 × 1018 instructions per second on general-purpose computers.
Full Story: Kurzweil
February 2011
1 post
BBC News - Google-backed Moon robot teams... →
techspotlight:
The final line-up of teams competing for the $30 million (£18.5m) robotic Moon-explorer prize has been confirmed. The prize will go to the builders of the first robot to send back video as it travels over 500 metres of the Moon’s surface. Competition organisers hope to spur the development of low-cost robotic space exploration. The Google-sponsored Lunar X-Prize will be fought...
January 2011
3 posts
473. You can't drink champagne from the bottle....
Of course.
December 2010
1 post
July 2010
1 post
June 2010
2 posts
IBM Seer Gives Visitors to Wimbledon Ability to... →
Description from eWeek Europe:
UK spectators watching the action at Wimbledon from the infamous Henman Hill will enjoy a double whammy of good fortune this year.
IBM announced this week that it further developed a mobile application launched last year with the ability to actually view video of live games. IBM’s “Seer” mobile app for iPhone andAndroid handsets now has the ability to stream...
May 2010
7 posts
April 2010
7 posts
1 tag
“Scientific controversies must be settled by the methods of science rather than...”
– Simon Singh wins libel dispute.
