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Because of these patent wars and patent trolls, technology companies are divesting huge resources to defend themselves rather than advancing their innovations. This is the equivalent of nuclear arms race and is a lose-lose situation.

do we even need patents in an era in which technology is advancing so rapidly that it makes entire computing platforms obsolete in less time than it takes to be awarded a patent?

This happens in the pharmaceutical industry when a company is allowed to exclude competitors for a fixed period of time to recoup its sizable investment in research.

Uber wants you to “paws whatever you’re doing,” because in honor of this week’s Puppy Bowl, the company is teaming up with Animal Planet, the SF SPCA, Peninsula Humane Society, and Berkeley Humane Society to deliver on-demand puppies to your house to hang out with you for a bit

A post on Uber’s blog specified that if you’re selected a “puppy squad and their coaches will come by for a cuddle huddle.”

Sociologists from Public Opinion Foundation (FOM), avoid using the term “middle-class”, explaining that a mechanical transfer of terms used in most developed countries standards only distorts the picture. Other researchers claim that if the middle-class does not exceed 25%-30 % of the population (the highest figures obtained for Russia), it is useless to discuss the phenomenon, since this figure is around 60% and over in developed societies! It is not just a matter of statistics; it means quality difference for middle-class role in society in general and its consumer aspect in particular.

‘The Russian middle-class is growing not due to entrepreneurs and people from free business, but due to government employees or state corporations. Furthermore, gradually this tendency is becoming more vivid and changing the mentality of what the middle-class is

the average desktop computer now has the raw processing power equivalent to all of the human brains on Earth combined

There is no longer a clear distinction between human and machine intelligence

Full immersion VR is now a mainstream phenomenon

Cognitive Apprenticeship: To engage students to participate in a community of practice can provide the following advantages: Legitimacy on the apprentice and available of community resources Strong goals and motivation Development of understanding of the enterprise through engagement in practice Communication among peers and near-peers.

Learning-in-practice (Lave, 1990): Learning is conceived as increasing participation in communities of practice

Knowledge accrues through the lived practices of the people in the society

"Since about 1955 ... children's free play has been continually declining, at least partly because adults have exerted ever-increasing control over children's activities,"

It provides critical life experiences without which young children cannot develop into confident and competent adults.

Gray sees the loss of play time as a double whammy: we have not only taken away the joys of free play, we have replaced them with emotionally stressful activities. "[A]s a society, we have come to the conclusion that to protect children from danger and to educate them, we must deprive them of the very activity that makes them happiest and place them for ever more hours in settings where they are more or less continually directed and evaluated by adults, setting almost designed to produce anxiety and depression."

it’s clear that in the future, tech companies—not publishers—will be the chief distributors of the news we consume.

Google’s AMP

is a continuation of that trend

European travel planner platform GoEuro has today announced a $45 million Series B round, led by Goldman Sachs

It’s more fitting to think of GoEuro as a long distance version of another European transportation startup

While maintaining its pan-European travel focus, GoEuro does also support worldwide air travel routes

“When the zeitgeist is moving, art usually goes hand-in-hand with it,” says Rossin, describing a world in which we’re constantly glued to our iPhones, Androids, laptops, and tablets as much if not more than we are to the faces of fellow humans. Mediums have historically risen from the predominant technology and social relations of the time in which they exist

“Because of the level of sensory overload we experience on a day-to-day basis, we need to have this fully arresting experience in virtual reality in order to get a total sense of vertigo from a work of art,”

Enveloping, consciousness-bending experiences aren’t “just to escape life,” says Rafman. “But to create a total experience that will create a feeling that is qualitatively new. That is ultimately the most radical thing.”

Финляндия с 2017 года запустит пилотный проект по безусловному основному доходу граждан.

В течение двух лет 10 тыс. трудоспособных финнов будут ежемесячно получать по €550 независимо от их занятости. Эта сумма примерно равна пособию по безработице и включает в себя расходы на еду, личную гигиену, одежду и другие ежедневные расходы.

если эксперимент будет успешным, безусловный доход введут в систему социального обеспечения Финляндии. Согласно проекту, анонсированному в 2015 году, сумма выплат составит €800. Предполагается, что безусловный доход заменит систему социальных пособий.