GUARDIAN Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:30:01 GMT
Innovation offers expansion in productivity, but not employment. Where are the World Economic Forum strategies to tackle this?
The hook to every song sung at Davos is "jobs, jobs, jobs". The chorus of machers on stages here operate under an article of faith that growth can come back, that they can stimulate it, that this will create jobs, and that all will be eventually well.
What if that's not the case? I am coming to believe, more and more, that technology is leading to efficiency over growth. I've written about that here. This notion is obviously true in some sectors of society: see news and media, retail, travel sales and other arenas. But how many more sectors will this rule strike? Universities? Government? Banking? Delivery? Even manufacturing?
As I write this, I'm watching a World Economics Forum panel moderated by Reuters's editor, Steve Adler, with Larry Summers and government and business leaders. They're discussing growth strategies and so far we're hearing the same..
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BOSTON Fri, 27 Jan 2012 14:48:42 GMT
Two Canadian high-school seniors, Matthew Ho and Asad Muhammad, have launched a Lego man into near-space -- about 24 kilometers above sea level. (Space officially begins at about 100 kilometers above sea level, at the Kármán line.) The camera they attached to his weather balloon clearly shows the Lego man, clutching a Canadian flag, with the curvature of the Earth behind him: According to the Toronto Star, "Ho dreamt up the project two summers ago when he saw an online video of a balloon sent to near space by some Massachusetts Institute of Technology students": He decided to try it himself. He likes building things and has an adventurous streak, he says. He wants to be an entrepreneur, so he has applied to Queen?s University and University of British Columbia for commerce.
Ho approached Muhammad in the hallway of Agincourt Collegiate Institute, where they are both Grade 12 students. Muhammad has a passion for all things flight-related. His goal is to be an aircraft technician, so..
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GUARDIAN Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:02 GMT
Compiled by an ardent bibliophile, this weekly report includes books about extinct birds, frogs of Australia, and New World flesh-eating plants that have been newly published in North America and the UK
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
~ Arnold Lobel [1933-1987] author of many popular children's books.
Compiled by Ian "Birdbooker" Paulsen, the Birdbooker Report is a long-running weekly report listing the wide variety of nature, natural history, ecology, animal behaviour, science and history books that have been newly released or republished in North America and in the UK. The books listed here were received by Ian during the previous week, courtesy of these various publishing houses.
Featured Title:
Hume, Julian P. and Michael Walters. Extinct Birds. 2011. T & A D Poyser. Hardbound: 544 pages. Price: £50.00 (about $78.46 U.S.). [Amazon UK; Amazon.....
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GUARDIAN Fri, 27 Jan 2012 15:54:59 GMT
Prime minister's lack of leadership on green issues among concerns raised by head of charity that helped rebrand party
The head of the charity that helped to arrange David Cameron's memorable husky photoshoot in the Arctic, launching the Conservatives' rebranding as the nice-not-nasty party, has warned that the PM's lack of leadership on environment issues risks "retoxifying" their image.
The striking images of Cameron posing on the ice with huskies on the way to visiting a melting glacier in 2006 marked a turning point for the Conservatives, who had been seen by many voters as uncaring. After the pictures appeared across newspapers and TV back home, Cameron's image-maker and policy guru, Steve Hilton, is said to have received a text from an ally back home: "Simply brilliant – that was worth a thousand speeches."
Reflecting on the 2006 trip, David Nussbaum, the chief executive of WWF UK, said: "What we were most encouraged about was it was part of his detoxification of the.......
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GUARDIAN Thu, 26 Jan 2012 11:32:01 GMT
Just who are the mysterious women who produced Positive Weather Solutions' forecasts and appeared in Mail articles?
This month, I questioned the credentials of the alternative weather forecasters used by the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph and the Sun. I suggested that their qualifications were inadequate, their methods inscrutable and their results unreliable. I highlighted the work of these two companies: Exacta Weather and Positive Weather Solutions (PWS).
Now the story has become more interesting: do the people from Positive Weather Solutions, making its forecasts and quoted in news articles, exist?
A sharp-eyed reader has sent me a screenshot he took from the PWS website at the end of last year. As you can see, it shows eight people whom the company lists as its forecasters and experts. (Well, seven and a cup of tea, currently standing in for its chief assistant forecaster). They have, the website claims, produced PWS's forecasts and written its blogposts. They have..
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FASTCOMPANY Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:17:23 EST
Breaking news from your editors at Fast Company, with updates all day.
Google Adds Public Alerts To Maps. When natural disasters strike, the Google Crisis Response team is usually prompt with a response. For smaller scale U.S. emergencies, the group has launched a permanent alerts feature, Public Alerts, on Google Maps. Information from the National Weather Service, the U.S. Geological Survey and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will feed into location searchers, bringing up weather, public safety and earthquake alerts. --NS
Angry Birds On Facebook On Valentines Day. A match made in app heaven, Facebook and the blockbuster mobile game Angry Birds are finally joining forces. Rovio has announced via a Facebook event page that the game will make its Facebook debut on Valentine's Day. According to the note, the fun begins at 6pm. --NS
Wii Successor Expected Late This Year. Nintendo has forecast lower sales and bigger losses this year, as gamers on tablets....
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ENGADGET Wed, 25 Jan 2012 16:37:00 EDT
You can't deny that Google often hands out marvelous tools for the masses to utilize (yes, some can be a miss), and today the King of Search is launching a fresh virtual apparatus as part of its Crisis Response project. Dubbed "Public Alerts," the feature is accessible from within Google Maps, keeping you in the loop during times of high alert. Your search query will trigger things like weather relevant to your area, public safety and earthquake alerts -- all of which are provided by the NOAA, the National Weather Service and the US Geological Survey. The Crisis Response squad says its goal is "to surface emergency information through the online tools you use everyday," which is a great idea, but we honestly hope that you don't have to use it very often. Those of you stateside can start using Public Alerts now -- as for the rest, let's hope that the search giant brings its alerts to a map near you sooner rather than later...
Google adding Public Alerts to Maps, keeps you in the...
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GUARDIAN Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:16:04 GMT
What's new on the app stores on Wednesday 25 January 2012
A selection of 19 apps for you today:Take Me Out Flirting
ITV's TV dating show Take Me Out has an app for iPhone and Android, which is encouraging viewers to chat to the contestants, and also to one another. So, besides being promotional for the show, it's effectively a mobile dating service in its own right.
iPhone / AndroidMPme
TuneIn Radio has been hugely popular as a way to listen to radio on mobiles and tablets, but now it's got some competition in the form of startup MPme. Initially available as an iPad app, it uses your music library and social graph to recommend streaming radio stations that you might like.
iPadMet Office Weather Application
The UK's Met Office has taken its official app to Android, offering five-day forecasts, weather warnings and maps, UV forecasts and "feels like temperature" figures. It was developed by Mubaloo.
AndroidI Am a Child: Just Like You
A fantastic idea for an app: this........
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GUARDIAN Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:33:16 GMT
Solid-state drives (SSDs) are the key to ultrabooks and they can give your old laptop or desktop a whole new lease of life. Here we've compared a group against each other, and against two hard drives
With all the noise about how last year's floods in Thailand have wrecked the hard drive industry, and Intel's latest efforts on ultrabooks (laptops which are obliged, by its requirements, to have some sort of solid-state disk, aka SSD, storage) it's time to really think about getting flash storage for your laptop: it will truly give it a whole new lease of life.
Even better, if you upgrade to a faster machine, you can (given a little determination) generally take the disk from your old machine and get it transplanted into the new one.
The difference that an SSD makes – especially to your startup time, if you have to boot your machine often – is dramatic. Startup processes that usually take a minute or so will take a few seconds, because SSDs are terrific at reading data (though......
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GUARDIAN Mon, 23 Jan 2012 08:37:25 GMT
Plus the MegaUpload indictment in full, and Acer says ultrabooks to account for 25-35% of its notebook shipments in 2012
A quick burst of 14 links for you to chew over, as picked by the Technology teamLove online: 100,000 Grindr users exposed in hack attack >>> Sydney Morning Herald
This is big.
The hacker discovered a way to log in as another user, impersonate that user, chat and send photos on their behalf. The vulnerabilities are also present in Blendr, the straight version of the app, according to a security expert who said both apps had "no real security" and were "poorly designed".Two things about SOPA/PIPA and then I'll shut up :) >> Joel Spolsky - Google+
Founder and chief executive of Stack Exchange, Joel Spolsky, with some sensible reflections post PIPA and SOPA. This is starting to feel too cogent and organised for the internet:
The internet seems to ignore legislation until somebody tries to take something away from us... then we carefully defend that one thing...
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GUARDIAN Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:39:36 GMT
Richard Laws needs to replace his old-style laptop and would rather have something with a 4:3 ratio screen than a 16:9 widescreen model
I suspect I know what your answer will be, but does anyone still make a laptop with a 4:3 aspect ratio screen? My six-year-old 14.1in Toshiba is starting to fail. Other than browsing and email, it's used almost entirely for text and spreadsheet work. The extra depth of a 4:3 screen is ideal for both of these. I've tried widescreens, but the depth at 16:9 is much less. To match the existing 9in, I'd need an 18.5in screen. Also, I'd like the screen to be non-reflective matte. Otherwise, I don't watch films or play games, so most modern machines would surpass what I have. Any hope?
Richard Laws
Toshiba and probably most other laptops from around that time had non-reflective 4:3 screens, but the industry switched quite quickly to PCs with glossy 16:9 widescreens. That might have had something to do with changes in the TV industry, where sales of......
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