BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY A Company In The Clouds Key Takeaways: The influential US venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, commonly known as a16z, which is based in Menlo Park, California, has just announced in a post on its corporate blog written by one of its founders, Ben Horowitz, that it is “moving to the cloud”. Cloud computing has been around for some time. The […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK FINANCE TECHNOLOGY The Pros & Cons Of Cryptocurrencies For Developing Countries Isabella Roiz of The Washington Post contacted me by email to discuss the consequences of El Salvador’s decision to adoption bitcoin as its official currency, despite its volatility. Here’s her article, “Central America hoped bitcoin would attract tourists. It hasn’t worked.” (pdf). The problem with a country adopting a cryptocurrency as its official currency is is […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY How News Drives Economic Change News of a big pay rise might see you booking the nearest fancy restaurant for a slap-up meal to celebrate, or encourage you to go on a shopping spree even before your raise hits your bank account. Recent research shows that this is also essentially what happens on a wider economic scale when news breaks about future […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
ART & DESIGN EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY TECHNOLOGY Is DALL-E Considered Art? Key Takeaways: A picture may be worth a thousand words, but thanks to an artificial intelligence program called DALL-E 2, you can have a professional-looking image with far fewer. Until recently, the program produced 10 images per prompt. Today the human authorship and craft involved in artistic photography are recognized, and critics understand that the […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK SOCIOLOGY TECHNOLOGY The Secret Of Tumblr’s Enduring Appeal Key Takeaways: When tech billionaire Elon Musk made a deal to acquire Twitter in April 2022, many Twitter users threatened to shut down their accounts and migrate elsewhere online. This is partly due to the flexibility of the main user interfaces. In 2013, after Yahoo acquired Tumblr, there was concern that the platform would tighten […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK PHILOSOPHY TECHNOLOGY Is Google’s LaMDA Conscious? A Philosopher’s View Key Takeaways: LaMDA is Google’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Google strongly denies LaMDA has any sentient capacity. LaMDA certainly seems to “think” it is a person capable of desires and emotions, as can be seen in the transcripts of its conversations. LaMDA is Google’s latest artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot. Blake Lemoine, a Google AI engineer, […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY Apple’s Vision For Augmented Reality Apple continues putting the pieces in place for what many believe could be its next big product: an augmented or virtual reality viewer, aimed at reinventing a space that is still largely occupied by enthusiasts. Faced with Meta’s $2 billion-plus purchase of Oculus VR in 2014 and its recent name change to reposition itself as the master of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY What Exactly Are Digital Twins? Key Takeaways: A digital twin is a virtual representation of a real system – a building, the power grid, a city, even a human being – that mimics the characteristics of the system. A digital twin is more than just a computer model, however. For example, a warehouse operator can optimize a warehouse’s performance by […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
BUSINESS & ECONOMICS EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY The Exploitative Nature Of Crypto Gaming Key Takeaways: Video games are increasingly incorporating blockchains, the decentralised databases that underpin cryptocurrencies, as well as NFTs and other “digital assets”. Game assets (such as a sword or an e-sports trading card) can also take the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with each unique token represented on the blockchain. It’s questionable whether they have […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
EDITOR'S PICK TECHNOLOGY What’s The Difference Between A Metaverse And A Virtual World? Preparing a session for the IE University faculty on the metaverse that I delivered on Wednesday, I came across a good article that classified the attributes needed to establish, explain or understand the differences between the metaverse as such, and proposals such as Meta’s Horizon Worlds and the like. As far as I’m concerned, Meta’s idea of […] Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Can Science Solve Poverty? Key Takeaways: The fight against poverty and inequality is resuming with tools and programs that are more effective than ever before, thanks to a quiet revolt against business as usual. The evidence-based policy movement is increasingly being embraced by researchers, activists and government officials. The use of randomized controlled trials to assess social programs is […] Written by M. Mitchell Waldrop November 25, 2022November 29, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How To Test If We’re Really Living In A Simulation Key Takeaways: Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. But another is that our universe is a computer simulation, with someone (perhaps an advanced alien species) fine-tuning the conditions. This leads to the extraordinary possibility that our entire universe might in fact be computer […] Written by Melvin Vopson November 24, 2022November 24, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Ants Could Inspire Solutions For Human Problems Key Takeaways: There may be new wisdom to gain from what scientists have learned about ants’ biology. Ant farmers face many of the same challenges as human farmers do, including the threat of pests. Ant pesticides are produced by bacteria they allow to grow in their nests, and in some cases even on their bodies. […] Written by Scott Solomon November 17, 2022November 17, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How Flooding Impacts The Economy Key Takeaways: The impacts of natural disasters, in particular those related to climate change, have been attracting growing attention. The results show that floods hamper GDP, with the extent depending on how financial intermediary activities respond to the floods. The study is related to a growing literature that quantifies the impact on natural disasters such […] Written by Ryuichiro Hashimato November 16, 2022November 16, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
The Philosophy Of Ghosts Key Takeaways: French philosopher Jacques Derrida invented the term ‘hauntology’ for his 1993 lecture Spectres of Marx. It is that eerie zone where time collapses and our past memories and associations haunt our minds, like a ghost. Hauntology also describes a post-traumatic-like disquiet of those born in the 1960s and ‘70s. English theorist Mark Fisher […] Written by Alistair MacIntyre November 15, 2022November 15, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
What Is Mastodon & Why It Won’t Be The Next Twitter Key Takeaways: In the wake of Elon Musk’s noisy takeover of Twitter, people have turned to Mastodon. Mastodon allows users to post, follow people and like and repost others’ posts. While Mastodon supports many of the same social networking features as Twitter, it is not a single platform. Each Mastodon server is governed by rules […] Written by Brian Keegan November 14, 2022November 15, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Testing Einstein’s Theory Of The Universe Key Takeaways: Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been remarkably successful in describing the gravity of stars and planets. However, gaps in our understanding start to appear when we try to apply it to extremely small distances, where the laws of quantum mechanics operate. A new study, published in Nature Astronomy, has now tested […] Written by Kazuya Koyama November 11, 2022November 15, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Rethinking Education Key Takeaways: The Industrial model of education that fueled the modern era and its dizzying reach did its job incredibly well. In his writing, Flynn illustrates study after study, spanning nations and decades, in which modern educational gift of abstraction — a transcendent sign of intelligence, as we saw in Raven’s Matrices — has been […] Written by Anthony Fieldman March 2, 2022October 19, 2022 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
How China Is Transforming Its Economy Through Learning I highly recommend reading the McKinsey Global Institute’s new report, “Reskilling China: Transforming The World’s Largest Workforce Into Lifelong Learners”, which focuses on the country’s biggest employment challenge, re-training its workforce and the adoption of practices such as lifelong learning to address the growing digital transformation of its productive fabric. How to transform the country […] Written by Enrique Dans February 1, 2021February 1, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
Why You’re Not Seeing Success With Influencer Marketing With the new year around the corner, now is a good time to re-evaluate your past marketing strategies and gear up for the year ahead. For some businesses, influencer marketing has simply not seemed to live up to its lofty promises of genuine engagement, credibility, and transparency. Some have claimed that it has been failing […] Written by Michael Tan January 14, 2021January 15, 2021 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
A New Philosophy of Business I’m about to ask you to take a mental leap. For the next 8 minutes, suspend your notions of what a business is, and I’ll propose a new lens for you to look through. There are a lot of questions asked around what “community” means for business. “Where should community fit in my organization?” and […] Written by Empirics Asia September 5, 2018September 5, 2018 Saving Bookmark this article Bookmarked
