Just published last week, Verizon’s patent application enables TVs with specially-outfitted cameras and microphones to detect what’s happening in a room — such as arguing or talking on the phone — and display appropriate advertising.
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Two months before a plagiarism scandal rocked his career, popular science writer Jonah Lehrer discusses failure as a learning opportunity.
As more people derive their income from careers that rely on public exposure, the cachet and economic appeal of simply being a celebrity will decrease.
Dartmouth professor Marcelo Gleiser tackles the headache-inducing question of whether we can arrive at the end of knowledge.
I’m going to write the unpopular thing and go Tough Love on my own people. A modest proposal: Women need to act like the successful grown-ups that they are or […]
Inspired by the 1960s TV show Mission: Impossible, the founders of Wickr say that their app helps put users, not companies or governments, in control of their communication.
How is it that such a persistent stereotype — which is certainly not unique to Jersey Shore– has been reproduced for so long, and continues to resonate in today’s culture?
The football helmet was designed to protect players against harm (by skull fractures), but the new behavior created a new threat (of concussions and other brain injuries).
Joi Ito says the key to innovation is not the ability to see things through a crystal ball, but rather, to figure it out as you go along.
So here’s an article (really blog) from the interesting journal The American Conservative. The AC has two themes: America ought to be a republic, and not an empire. And America […]
Last night, the group of researchers responsible for the creation of the SPAUN project – that just published the first large scale model of a functioning brain to produce complex behaviours began […]
The great American poet Wallace Stevens, author of “The Emperor of Ice-Cream” and many other famous works, was also a longtime insurance executive. While researching him for my previous post, I decided […]
As government budgets continue to tighten, several Web sites are enabling citizens to contribute funds towards building, repairing, and/or maintaining public spaces.
A videoconference scheduled for tomorrow will bring together 6,000 people from opposite sides of a 40-year-old conflict in the hope that they can begin the hard work of peace.
New times demand new journalism, Rupert Murdoch said at the time of The Daily’s launch in February, 2011. That still holds true today, even as we hear the news that […]
Bob Costas’ Sunday Night “perspective,” his celebrated half-time denouncement of American gun culture, wasn’t just dissonant hectoring. It wasn’t just a burlesque of Murrow or Cosell (USA Today‘s forced, but […]
Country motto: Don’t do today what you can put off until tomorrow. Aren’t we all honorary citizens?
Optimism Bias – “Things will work out okay” or “things will work out better for me than the next guy” or, simply, “It won’t happen to ME!” – is one the mental games we play in order to do the things we want to do even when those choices come with costs or danger.
Our leaders in Washington are playing an irresponsible game of chicken with the American economy.
On the one hand, some smokers say the new labeling — complete with gruesome images — is the “final push” they need to stop. On the other hand, the illicit tobacco market is expected to grow.
Big Data is becoming as powerful an asset as oil, and it will be the source of many high quality jobs in the near future.
Despite the fact that the label has been on restaurant menus for years, the authentic version never left Japan until this year. The US is the third country to receive shipments.
The sight of a grown man trying to stuff a bobbing plastic doll into a jar of what he claims to be his own urine is a sad thing, but […]
Legalizing the buying and selling of homes between residents and foreigners with “permanent” residence status has created a massive real estate boom in Cuba’s capital.
“Now” trends are those with high energy and can be leveraged in the present; “Next” trends will begin to manifest towards the end of 2013 and gain traction through 2014; “Future” trends are fringe signals that will play out in 2015 and beyond.
A government-commissioned 152-page brochure gives school educators some much-needed guidelines, but it also discusses alternative lifestyles to a detail that some groups say is unacceptable.
London’s Pearson College, open since September, is the first institution of its kind to develop within a large, diversified, and distinguished corporation.
This weekend I saw Lincoln, which was a tremendous movie. Daniel Day-Lewis gives a compelling performance as President Abraham Lincoln during the closing days of the Civil War, when he […]
Technology is always evolving. That’s why smart organizations stay ahead of the trends by anticipating them, adapting them to their unique environment before the competition does, and ultimately enabling the organization to profit from them.
Research shows that the exciting emotional bonds created by marriage begin to fade after just two years, but that introducing variety into the relationship has restorative effects.