Techonomy Media today announces its annual conference, Techonomy 2012, a unique three-day multidisciplinary gathering at The Ritz-Carlton, Dove Mountain in Tucson, Arizona, taking place November 11-13, 2012. More
Google Casts a Big Shadow on Smaller Websites
As a go-to search engine and powerful online advertiser, Google has great influence over online consumers. But is this influence illegal? As Google has moved beyond search and search advertising and into online commerce and local reviews, antitrust officials have become suspicious. Regulators in the U.S. and Europe are conducting inquiries into whether Google is using its power to stifle competition—specifically whether the company uses its search engines to favor offerings like Google Shopping and Google Plus Local over rivals. More
Ethiopian Kids Teach Themselves Using Only Tablet Computers
Can tablet computers educate the world? In two Ethiopian villages, illiterate children with no schooling are quickly learning their ABCs—and more—with Motorola Xoom tablets provided by the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) organization. OLPC is experimenting to see if the children can teach themselves to read by playing around with the tablet and its preloaded educational apps and games. So far, the program has been a success—the children quickly figured out how to turn on and use the tablets, and within five days they were using 47 apps per child, per day. They retained information from the apps, and even customized their tablet desktops (working around OLPC software set up to prevent them from doing so). While the study is still in its early phases, these results confirm that technology will be an invaluable resource for educating the uneducated. More
Why Revolution Can’t Come to North Korea
If you woke up tomorrow morning with the desire to, say, overthrow your government, you couldn't have picked a better day. Before you left the house, you could tag some inspirational photos of homemade signs on Facebook; Tweet out a few patriotic blasts with locations of the day's protest spots; email friends, family, and sympathetic bloggers with firsthand reports and mission statements; Skype with a foreign journalist in one of those romantic grainy interviews you see on CNN; and, if you had a few extra minutes, create a Freedom Playlist to rock out to, because every revolution needs a soundtrack. This is the golden age of grassroots regime change. Unless, of course, you woke up in North Korea. More
Elections Government Life Science
Where Obama and Romney Stand on Life Sciences
We have heard debates, convention speeches, and campaign events with lots of talk about jobs and foreign oil and national security. But what about where the candidates stand on another matter critical to innovation in our country and the future of healthcare: life sciences? More
Instagram Offers Powerful Views of Storm
When I checked my email this morning, my mother, who lives in France, had sent me links to two Instagram photos of the blackout and flooding in lower Manhattan. Some of the most visually stunning impressions of Sandy's impact have been shared via Instagram. According to Forbes.com's Steve Bertoni, even before the storm made landfall, there were 300,026 photos shared on the mobile site under #sandy; 183,003 tagged #hurricanesandy, and 27,564 under #frankenstorm (along with 1,467 photos tagged #huricanesandy, for those whose spelling gets shaky when the wind blows). As power remains out and cell networks stay up, Bertoni predicts Instagram, along with Twitter and Facebook, may prove "one of the key links to the outside world to millions of stranded people." More
Gamers Help Map Brain’s Machinery in Retina Unraveling Challenge
Citizen scientists playing the online game Eyewire are helping neuroscientists map the J cells of the retina—a task that will help understand the machinery of the mind. MIT professor of computational neuroscience, Sebastian Seung, described the approach at Wired 2012. More
$97,500 for an Online Degree? 2U Is Worth It, Say Students
Still think college degrees earned online are universally cheaper and less esteemed in the job market than traditional ones? In the case of graduate degrees offered by universities collaborating with a company called 2U, you’d be dead wrong. More
How to Sell Cloud Computing to Skeptical Executives
As companies adopt cloud computing solutions, CIOs universally report positive results. But what about their bosses, employees, partners, and customers? Are they finding cloud computing efforts to be beneficial? According to Andi Mann, vice president for strategic solutions at CA Technologies, business executives are not as excited as IT about cloud computing. Companies must realize that the cloud does more than cut costs. More
