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The Climate Change Real Estate Boom Is Coming | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and inno... - 0 views

  • whole countries such as Mauritius and Tuvalu will need to evacuate due to rising sea levels. But while coastlines in much of the world may suffer, climate change will be a positive development in some areas. Specifically, Canada; northern Europe; Russia; Alaska; Patagonia, Argentina; and southern Africa may all experience real estate booms.
  • Continuing with the New York example, Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently proposed a $20 billion climate change plan for the city.
  • new cities, which would cater to the “well-heeled,” would be built in places where rising sea levels would actually improve local climates. Rising temperatures and an increase in arable land as a result of climate change is expected to occur in Russia, Canada, Scandinavia, Chile, Argentina, southern Africa, the Great Lakes region
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  • The plan is designed to mitigate damage from another Sandy-sized storm and would drastically change everyday life for New Yorkers, with sharply increased taxes and large construction projects in most seaside neighborhoods.
  • cities would also make use of newer technologies. Self-driving cars, for example, will transform living patterns due to convoy features that sharply reduce both commute times and greenhouse gas consumption
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SDF: Looking for a Few Good Women -- To Date - Japan Real Time - WSJ - 0 views

  • 131 women who signed up for a Self-Defense Force “Talking Festival,” a social gathering to promote matchmaking between Maritime SDF personnel and women interested in dating, and maybe even marrying, men in uniform.
  • 61 couples claim to have gotten married as a result of linking up at the events
  • The number of applicants seeking to attend each event rose to around 300 from 200 or so previously.
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  • For the Saturday, July 13 barbecue attended by JRT, a record 1,117 women raised their hands for the 80 spots advertised as available. Given demand, the sponsors expanded the party and 131 women ultimately came
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    another way to meet the significant other and build a family without any tech involved 
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The Four Things People Can Still Do Better Than Computers | Fast Company | Business + I... - 1 views

  • computers' strengths lie in speed and accuracy, while humans' strengths are all about flexibility
  • There are three types of work that humans do really well but computers cannot (yet):
  • 1) Unstructured problem-solving
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  • 2) Acquiring and processing new information, deciding what is relevant in a flood of undefined phenomena
  • reinvent our education system to prepare children for an "increased emphasis on conceptual understanding and problem-solving"--and to better collaborate with, take care of, and program the computers that are going to continue to be our sidekicks
  • 4) Being human
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Higher education: The attack of the MOOCs | The Economist - 2 views

  • Since the launch early last year of Udacity and Coursera, two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.
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    the spreading popularity of MOOCs from various prestigious educational establishments might change the traditional educational systems, making the knowledge accessible. Thus making education a commodity rather then a luxury 
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Little Girls Losing Love for Barbie: Is Body Image to Blame? | TIME.com - 1 views

  • the decline in popularity of the iconic Barbie doll, sales of which fell 12% — the fourth quarter in a row that Barbie turnover declined year-over-year.
  • One possible explanation is body image
  • “There was a sense that you wanted to expose little girls to role models that were a little more diverse and not so stereotypical, so they tried to make Barbie active and gave her all kinds of activities to do and tried to make her more interesting than a beauty queen.”
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  • So what are the alternatives to Barbie? American Girl dolls look a lot more like, well, girls. They’re chubby-cheeked, freckled, and breast-less.
  • Monster High dolls. Mattel asserts that they convey a healthy message to growing girls. “The message about the brand is really to celebrate your own freaky flaws, especially as bullying has become such a hot topic,”
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1: Scentography | Check It, Proust: A "Camera" That Captures Memorable Smells | Co.Desi... - 1 views

  • Our tastes and impulses are hyper-visual, which contributes, some say, to a flattening of experience, dulling what would otherwise be enriched by the input of our other senses
  • Her “Scentography” camera aims to introduce other sensory channels into the mix that would more vividly capture memories--namely, through smell
  • Just place the plastic dome over the object whose scent you want to extract, then attach an “odor trap” over the central mechanism. The unit is connected to the dome and trap via a set of tubes that suck the scents from the former to the latter
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  • the reconstitution of scents in liquid form which is subsequently stored in capsules--remains speculative
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ВЕДОМОСТИ - Максим Трудолюбов: Государство беззащитных - 0 views

  • Дело в гуманизации безопасности. И в воплощении в политике идеи, что мир состоит прежде всего из людей, а не из государств.
  • Российское государство ни в какой из своих инкарнаций не было чемпионом защиты индивидуальной безопасности и формирования среды.
  • Мы уже недалеки от признания, что индивидуальная и национальная безопасность исключают друг друга.
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  • Но традиции незащищенности граждан есть в прошлом каждой страны. Сила не в том, чтобы за такой опыт держаться, а в том, чтобы его преодолевать.
  • что стабильных правил игры ждать не приходится: то, что можно сегодня, станет запретным завтра. Ощущение опасности, которое внушают представители власти, — не стихийные эмоции, а вполне намеренная технология управления населением.
  • Нежелание заниматься развитием инструментов для вложения денег, изъятие накопительной части пенсии и нынешнее обесценение рубля — все это подтверждение того, что государство в лучшем случае не справилось с обеспечением безопасности сбережений и инвестиций граждан.
  • Переключение внимания общества на внешних врагов — почти неизбежное следствие провала создания внутри России достойной среды человеческих отношений.
  • Содержание большинства телепрограмм российского ТВ — это не страх перед внешними врагами, а концентрированный страх общества и власти друг перед другом.
  • Готовность к дурному исходу, к человеческим и экономическим утратам — не мистика и не фантазия. Это и не просто национальное свойство, замечаемое иностранцами и прочитываемое даже в российских лицах, а выражение незащищенности. То, что за тобой могут прийти; то, что могут отнять все, что ты делал и берег, — не болезнь, а правда жизни.
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    this is a very good piece on why Russians are so "fortress thinking" and are incapable of planning for the long term 
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ВЕДОМОСТИ - «Умные часы - это отличная возможность для нашей индустрии» - 0 views

  • по мнению гендиректора Swatch Group,
  • умные часы – это быстро устаревающая бытовая техника и она не станет конкурентом механическим часам, которые служат десятилетиями и передаются из поколения в поколение.
  • В Swatch Group есть компания под названием EM Microelectronic, которая является поставщиком компонентов для многих производителей умных браслетов – Garmin, например, – а также для производителей смартфонов, название которых я не могу разглашать.
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  • Наши умные часы Swatch Touch Zero One появятся на рынке летом. Oни ориентированы на людей, увлекающихся пляжным волейболом:
  • Например, часы можно будет использовать как электронный пропуск для входа в офис
  • Наш следующий продукт, который должен появиться в конце лета, – Swatch NFC: часы, с помощью которых можно будет осуществлять платежи. Мы ведем переговоры с Visa, MasterCard и китайской UnionPay.
  • Следом появятся новые версии Swatch Touch: Zero Two, Zero Three, Zero Four, ориентированные на другие виды спорта – серфинг, горные лыжи, – и не только на спорт, но, например, на кулинарию. А часы Swatch Touch Zero Six, возможно, будут называться «Камасутра». Эти часы считают, сколько калорий вы сжигаете в какой позиции и нужно ли вам менять вашего партнера.
  • А чип часов пользователь сможет конфигурировать сам под собственные потребности.
  • Философия очень проста: это часы-ключ, мы сознательно не стали делать в них дисплей, поскольку дисплеи и так нас окружают повсюду.
  • Сейчас умные часы можно снабдить любыми функциями, но вам придется снимать их с руки и подзаряжать в лучшем случае раз в день.
  • Плюс такие часы открыты для рекламы.
  • А вы хотите получать сообщения от каждой близлежащей пиццерии, что у них для вас спецпредложение?
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Disney Research » Printing Teddy Bears: A Technique for 3D Printing of Soft I... - 1 views

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    Printing Teddy Bears: A Technique for 3D Printing of Soft Interactive Objects
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Tesla's New Battery Could Solve One of Solar Power's Biggest Problems - 0 views

  • What’s happening in Hawaii is actually indicative of what’s going to be an issue everywhere as many cities start to see an increase in large-scale solar implementation: There’s going to be too much energy generated, and nowhere to put it.
  • The absolute best idea is for homeowners to start installing batteries that can store the power for later use instead of giving the power back to the utilities, something called peak load shaving.
  • Right now, Tesla’s batteries are about about $300 per kWh, which is comparable to the market rate the industry expected for 2020.
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  • homeowners will now very easily be able to achieve complete energy independence. You could store your power for off-peak usage, and you might be able to sell your excess energy to a neighbor
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Alibaba Group Holding Ltd Teams Up With Disney To Sell Avengers 2 Merchandises In China - 0 views

  • Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (NYSE:BABA) has entered into a partnership with Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) to distribute the merchandise of Marvel Studio’s blockbuster movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron
  • Alibaba has become the first official distributor of Marvel Studio’s merchandise in China. The move is also significant since this is the first time for the company that it has used its platform to bring merchandises related to a movie to its customers
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Inside L'Oreal's Plan to 3-D Print Human Skin | WIRED - 0 views

  • L’Oreal makes cosmetics and hair color. It also makes skin
  • Now it’s talking about
  • printing
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  • The idea is to produce skin more quickly and easily using what is essentially an assembly line developed with Organovo, a San Diego bioprinting company.
  • L’Oreal already
  • produce its patented skin, called Episkin
  • Organovo pioneered the process of bioprinting human tissues, most notably creating a 3-D-printed liver system
  • In concept, it’s the same idea of programming the 3-D printer to print architecture on an X-Y-Z axis
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http://www.wired.com/partners/bnymellon/futureofmoney/ - 0 views

  • M-Pesa’s success has been phenomenal. Recent statistics show that fully one-quarter of the Kenyan economy flows through M-Pesa.
  • Other countries are taking a crack at a similar mobile digital currency. Vodacom
  • has launched M-Pesa in other African nations, as well as India and parts of Eastern Europe. In Latin America, Ecuador recently announced it would launch a nationwide digital currency, residing largely on people’s smartphones
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  • digital currency will bring the same safety and ease of monetary transfer that the M-Pesa has to Kenyans to the roughly 40% of Ecuadoreans who don’t have access to a bank account. Plus, it offers Ecuadoreans the opportunity to start saving
  • What is increasingly evident is that the traditional role of banks is being reimagined by non-banking software and hardware companies
  • Bitcoin will increasingly enter the mainstream and challenge the traditional rails of finance along which money has moved.
  • Goods of all kinds can reach customers in places that just didn’t make financial sense in the past.
  • This leads to the increased competition for all kinds of things, especially for information-based products and services that the United States leans on for much of its economy. Digital currencies, Bitcoin in particular, will lower economic barriers.
  • It might be different kinds of loans, payroll and other small business services and specialized accounts that serve specific needs and populations.
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