The threat of super fast Google Fiber is causing other Internet providers to crank up their own offerings.

Of course, the music industry has a long tradition of separating a song’s profit from its creators. Still, wrote Krukowski, “the ways in which musicians are screwed have changed qualitatively, from individualized swindles to systemic ones.” May 16, 2013 at 12:43AM

parislemon:

Steven Levy interviewed Ray Kurzweil about his new role at Google. On the topic of having the courage to follow your convictions:

Levy: What’s the biological basis for that kind of courage? If you had an infinite ability to analyze a brain, could you say, “Oh, here’s where the courage is?”

Kurzweil: It is the neocortex, and people who fill up too much of their neocortex with concern about the approval of their peers are probably not going be the next Einstein or Steve Jobs.

If the last century was marked by the ability to observe the interactions of physical matter—think of technologies like x-ray and radar—this century, he says, is going to be defined by the ability to observe people through the data they share…”
Really not sure I am willing to extend the Faustian bargain that far (adds Gerd) May 04, 2013 at 11:21AM

Yesterday three economists, (Tobias Preis of Warwick Business School in the U.K., Helen Susannah Moat of University College London, and H. Eugene Stanley of Boston University) published an eye-opening paper that said Google Trends data was useful in predicting daily price moves in the Dow Jones industrial average, which consists of 30 stocks.

Gerd adds: yet another reason why the current form of stock markets won’t exist in 5 years;) May 04, 2013 at 08:36AM