Overview: Science&Technology

The 2015 Digital Business Global Executive Study and Research Project by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte identifies strategy, not technology, as the key driver of success in the digital arena. Conservative companies that avoid risk-taking are unlikely to thrive - and they'll also lose talent ... The ability to digitally reimagine the b…

Spot the big IF*: "If a fleet of autonomous electric taxis were to replace everyone’s gas-powered, personal cars, we could see more than a 90 percent decrease in greenhouse gas emissions..." There is no specific reason why taxibots need to be electric. It would be great, but it may require regulation. Moreover, you could replace the current …

the competitive significance of business models turbocharged by machine learning is poised to surge... companies must have two types of people to unleash the potential of machine learning. "Quants" are schooled in its language and methods. "Translators" can bridge the disciplines of data, machine learning, and decision making by reframing the …

"Europe is currently a global leader in automated transport research" - Driverless taxis to become a major form of transport 'in 10 years' | Horizon Magazine - European Commission

"By evaluating 18 practices related to digital strategy, capabilities, and culture, we have developed a single, simple metric for the digital maturity of a company... its Digital Quotient. This survey reveals a wide range of digital performance in today’s big corporations... a strong and adaptive culture can help make up for a lack of technica…

"the rise of suggested content tools has shifted the balance between conversation and link-sharing, and in so doing has diminished the value of the links that get shared... a tweeted link no longer reflects any curation or judgment on their part; it may well be something that was found for them rather than by them. Nor is it a sign that they’ve…

people commit to “taking one action, just one, in their local organisation to counter the local brand of disadvantage that women may be facing.” - 2020 Science A call to proactively support Women in Science - 2020 Science

Distributed intelligence means you need to find a social process, not a data-driven solution... You cannot outsource leadership to your analytics group. - Thinking Small: 3 Ways To Remain Creative In A World Of Big Data | Co.Create | creativity + culture + commerce

"in a world dominated by self-steering taxis, each ride becomes cheaper if the vehicles are autonomous rather than owned and run by major corporations... We can program it to ... make it the most moral, socially minded capitalist possible...it would not be self-aware... But they would be programmed to seek self-improvement in order to avoid bec…

Twitter enables connections between accounts. What exists today as a social network between people who follow and reply to each other could tomorrow expand to be an information network between devices that could follow and reply to each other. - The Internet of Tweets — The Message — Medium

Nice play by Nasa: ~"Can you guess what's creating those unusual bright spots on Ceres? On March 6, NASA's Dawn spacecraft began orbiting Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Even before the spacecraft arrived at the dwarf planet, images revealed mysterious bright spots that captivated scientists and obser…

If the market can express more directly which content is in high demand, more of that content will be created. But there is missing a simple and convenient way for the consumer to value the everyday content they consume

"There are many kinds of intelligence, and many kinds of stupidity. But not all are created equal. The intelligence of a computer is not the stupidity of a human, and vice versa. Which one would you rather be? ... One can be smart in stupid ways... or stupid in smart ways... technology’s making us stupid stupid — not just stupider, but stupider…

Surveys indicate ... most people also think they will be able to do things like watch videos, read, play  games, work, text, and browse the internet... content companies could be major beneficiaries from the self-driving car revolution... these types of activities are also the types of thing that increase the frequency and severity of motion si…

In addition to the piloted S2 and the newer four-seat S4, Joby has also started mapping out plans for its next-generation of unmanned, remotely controlled versions. In essence, drones for people.  - Forget Pizza: In The Future, Drones May Deliver You - ReadWrite

Cars will 'eliminate bad driving' and halve insurance costs, according to industry experts - Driverless cars will shave '£265' off insurance premiums in five years - Telegraph

"According to Morgan Stanley, self-driving cars will be commonplace in society by ~2025. This got me thinking about the ethics and philosophy behind these cars... can you imagine a world in which say Google or Apple places a value on each of our lives, which could be used at any moment of time to turn a car into us to save others?" - Self-dr…

Cards are bite-sized, self-contained, interactive units of graphical real estate presented within digital apps... cards are mostly used within apps to present information and provide interactive functions ... Things get a lot more fun, however, once cards can be shared between different apps.... The Guardian provides cards on Google Now ... [wh…

Now that machines can diagnose cancer, trade stocks, and write symphonies, they're not just going to make humans more efficient as they have in the past—they are replacing them entirely and wrecking the economy along the way... Economists tend to dismiss robotization as just another form of "creative destruction." ... that's a mistake... this i…

Good analysis of the economic & social impact of taxitrucks is subtitled "The imminent need for basic income in recognition of our machine-driven future ... We are facing the decimation of entire small town economies, a disruption the likes of which we haven’t seen since the construction of the interstate highway system itself bypassed entire t…

"What’s important here is Google’s commitment to its all-or-nothing approach, which contrasts with the steady-as-she-goes approach favored by automakers ... One of the trickiest ... challenges facing automakers is how to handle the transition between computers and humans, particularly in an emergency. ... Audi’s testing has shown it takes an …

Finally kicked Medium’s tyres. Result: an unfair comparison between my post originally on BlogActiv with a new version on Medium. Unfair because Medium is all about the content [and] I reduced the historical blah-blah... Medium’s editor is as good as they say, import post function worked like a dream.

The conference gathered about 500 girls between the ages of 11 and 14 to learn about STEM fields from female students and professionals in various tech industries. - Expanding the STEM Horizons of Young Girls — Other Machine Co.

"Firms such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Baidu have got into an AI arms race ... not so much making new sorts of minds as it is removing some of the need for the old sort... deep learning ... is a general-purpose pattern-recognition technique ... any activity which has access to large amounts of data—from running an insurance business to res…

Armed with game theory and a wealth of social data, it seems we have – for the first time in history – the tools to start experimenting with democratic, egalitarian social structures that bring out the best in us.

"the whole point of digital transformation is realizing that technology fundamentally changes how you do business in just about every way. It therefore poses very difficult questions to business and technology leaders: Who best should do our work today? Where does the value come from? What do these new ways of working actually look like? How c…

"The rise of open data, crowd-sourcing, predictive analytics, and other big tech trends, aren't just for companies to contend with. They're also a challenge for government. New technology gives public agencies the opportunity to develop and deliver services in new ways, track results more accurately, and open up decision-making. Deloitte's big ne…

The impact autonomous cars will have on personal mobility and cities will dwarf the disruption Uber and AirBnB have wrought on their respective industries. Joined-up European policies seem in short supply

"self-driving, shared “taxibots” ... could eliminate 90% of cars on the roads, open up acres of land and slash commute times ... completely obviate the need for traditional public transport." - How Self-Driving Cars Could Radically Transform Cities - ReadWrite

"A Columbia University study suggested that with a fleet of just 9,000 autonomous cars, Uber could replace every taxi cab in New York City13 – passengers would wait an average of 36 seconds for a ride that costs about $0.50 per mile.14 Such convenience and low cost will make car ownership inconceivable, and autonomous, on-demand taxis – the ‘trans…