FutureHotchpotch

Reading list about future, technology and social change.  

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Sexist search results: Google less likely to show women high-paying job ads than men

According to a new study, women are less likely than men to be shown ads for high-paying jobs.

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[stoweboyd]

What we need, then, is more uncommon futurism. A futurism that cares not a whit about what’s hot right now, who remain stoically unimpressed by drones and wearable IT, and who instead take it as their job to shock and awe CEOs with visions as radical as those of the futurists of yore. We need futurism that is less interested in agreeing with contemporary futurists and their ongoing circle-jerk, and who takes pride in offending and disgusting those futurists who would like to protect the status quo.

Alf Rehn, On the Rarity of Uncommon Futurism (via stoweboyd)

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Kätzchen, Klamauk und Katastrophen

Die Zukunft liegt im Digitalen? Kann sein. Aber nicht für Marken. Ein Gespräch mit dem Organisationspsychologen Professor Peter Kruse.

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Geschäftsmodelle 20 share

Was ist das Geheimnis der erfolgreichen digitalen Pure Player? Ein Impulsvortrag für eine Diskussion in der Hamburger Handelskammer am 26.3.2015

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Algorithmen bestimmen mittlerweile unser tägliches Leben. Ist eine von Menschen getroffene Entscheidung richtig, auch wenn der Algorithmus das anders sieht?

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Save All Your Photos—Especially the 'Bad' Ones | WIRED

Don't delete those old photos, even if you think they suck. Your uncurated images are a key part of your personal history.

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A Tech Boom Aimed at the Few, Instead of the World

The industry once thought big, but today’s wave of start-ups is characterized by a rise in services aimed at the wealthy and the young.

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Rise of the machines

ELON MUSK busies himself building other people’s futures. A serial entrepreneur who made his first fortune in the early days of the world wide web, he has since...

[emergentfutures]

How Bitcoin could revolutionize remittance in Africa

The problem they are looking to fix is a big one, though the opportunity is also enormous. Remittances to and within Africa are big business. There are more than 30 million Africans living in the diaspora, sending home US$40 billion per year, an amount which is steadily increasing. This amounts to an average per migrant of US$1,200.

Yet the cost of these transaction is hurting those sending and receiving money. Total annual fees amount to US$1.4 billion. Western Union and MoneyGram dominate the field, with 50 percent or more market share across most of Africa, but charge an average of 12.3 percent to send just US$200. Acceptance of payments by merchants is also an issue, with less than three percent of Africans owning credit cards, bank transfers as expensive as remittances and PayPal not yet widespread.

Full Story: The Next Web

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Jon Turney describes "a new way of questioning technology: design fiction. As questions about technological choices trouble us more and more, it could be that design fiction, not science, has the better answers. [...] Every technology starts with a story. We don’t know how the first hominids who fashioned a hand-axe from a flint shaped their thoughts, but the very action of flint-knapping implies a plan for the future: the result will be better, in some way, than the flints already to hand. So it is with all technologies.”

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[emergentfutures]

Augmented And Virtual Reality To Hit $150 Billion, Disrupting Mobile By 2020

Full Story: TechCrunch

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Overconfidence in new technologies can influence decision-making

Technological advances in recent decades have transformed most aspects of daily life, and technology now plays a major role in business and society. However, little is known about how perceptions of technology might influence decision-making. Now, University of Missouri researchers have shown that people tend to overestimate the likelihood of new technologies' success; this overconfidence can influence important decisions, such as investment choices.

[prostheticknowledge]

Level-Ups

Proof-of-concept VR peripheral are mechanical stilts which provide a sense of elevation when standing on a virtual object:

We present “Level-Ups”, computer-controlled stilts that allow virtual reality users to experience walking up and down steps. Each Level-Up unit is a self-contained device worn like a boot. Its main functional element is a vertical actuation mechanism mounted to the bottom of the boot that extends vertically. Unlike traditional solutions that are integrated with locomotion devices, Level-Ups allow users to walk around freely (“real-walking”). We present Level-Ups in a demo environment based on a head-mounted display, optical motion capture, and integrated with a game engine.

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