BtoB (@btobmagazine) says paper use by the magazine, newspaper, book, and other publishing sectors will fall by 12% to 21% by 2015 compared with 2010 levels, according to a report released by RISI, which provides information to the paper industry.
An article in the Los Angeles Times (@latimestech) says brands such as Kraft and Adidas are considering making use of facial recognition technology in a bid to provide shoppers with more targeted information in stores.
Technology company Intel is one of a number of firms that has created software capable of scanning the faces of consumers, and then determining the approximate age and gender of the person concerned.
Christopher O'Malley, director, retail marketing, of Intel's embedded and communications unit, says, “You can put this technology into kiosks, vending machines, digital signs. It's going to become a much more common thing in the next few years.”
The above video is a clip from the movie Minority Report, in which the character John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, walks in a mall in the year 2054 while his eyes are getting scanned by sensors connected to 3D screens that call to him directly by his name to get his attention to display “personal” advertising messages.
The following video demonstrates the reality of what’s already here.
Is this type of advertising personally invasive or strategically helpful to consumers?
Futurist Ray Kurzweil (@KurzweilAINews) was interviewed on Jimmy Kimmel Live about his vision of humans merging with technology in the coming years to create The Singularity. The above videos are Part 1 and 2 of that interview. If even a tenth of what he predicts comes true, it will further revolutionize the world.
What do you see as the implications of these possibilities from a Christian point of view? From a publishing point of view? Add your comments below.
Join Somersault (@smrsault) in keeping an eye on how today’s technology will influence our future by reading the Somersault Futurist Daily News and using the SomersaultNOW dashboard of more than 300 articles and RSS feeds designed for publishers and marketers; especially note the Future tab. And tell your colleagues. Thanks!
Dumped into a black-and-white landscape littered with wreckage, Morris Lessmore encounters a savior of sorts, who tosses him a flying book that leads him to a library set out in the countryside. Here he takes up residence, learns to care for the thousands of books he lives with and begins to write down his own story, an effort that takes him all his life.
In every scene, the viewer has to help move the action along — speeding up the wind that carries Morris away, spinning the house on which he flies through the storm, spelling out words in the cereal bowl with which Morris feeds the books (cereal like Alphabits, of course). But the interaction is not merely some computer form of a pop-up book. Besides spelling words, you can play a piano keyboard and make the books dance, and if you don’t want narration, you can mute it, and if you don’t want text, you can remove that, too. You can’t change the story, but the app designers have nevertheless found ways to make you feel very much a part of the story.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation), award-winning author/illustrator William Joyce and co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a hybrid style of animation that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals.
This chart by AdAge (@adage) shows that the generation coming up after the millennials – the iGen – is quickly consuming content digitally. Technology isn't skipping this generation, it's being handed down from mother to child. The data come from an annual survey by Parenting Group, the publisher of Parenting, Babytalk, and Parenting.com (@parenting), and the BlogHer (@BlogHer) network.
The generational breakdown is striking. Across the board, younger moms are passing technology along to their kids at an early age. This might not seem too surprising, given the Gen-Y embrace of technology. But when you consider that many of the youngest Gen-X moms are still having their first kids, whereas many millennials are putting off having kids, the adoption rates of technology start to blur.
Digging deeper into the data we see that the percent of moms who haven't let their children use a smartphone corresponds roughly to the percent of moms who don't have a smartphone themselves. We suspect that moms who haven't let their 2-year-olds use a smartphone likely got a smartphone when their kids were already older than that. Crazy, eh? Looking at stats for more-established technologies would seem to confirm that. The Gen-Xers and Boomer moms -- who are more likely to have older kids -- do show a higher overall rate of having passed the laptop or non-smartphone to their children of all ages.
The sweet spots for majority-usage looks like this: Mobile phone, age 11; smartphones, age 16; laptop/PC, age 4; digital camera, age 5.
Overall, the study finds that nearly three-quarters of moms with Internet access can't go a day without it. One in four report letting their kids use a mobile phone by age 2. We wonder when the ability to hit the home button, swipe to unlock and find an app will become a recognized developmental milestone -- maybe somewhere between walking and multi-word sentences.
According to The Christian Post (@ChristianPost), a report to be released August 1 by a globalized think tank predicts that although the world of tomorrow will be richer, healthier and better educated, it will also be a more violent and corrupt unless action is taken to curb terror-related crime.
The Millennium Project’s (@MillenniumProj) 2011 State of the Future (pdf) reports the world's future will include improved access to water, food, health care and schooling. The report projects the number of physicians per 1,000 people will grow to over 20% by 2020. Infant mortality is also projected to drop from over 40% last year to under 30% in the next decade. Both malnutrition and problems accessing water is expected to shrink to less than 15%.
Global school enrollment will rise to 70% in the next decade and the number of women in government is expected to exceed 300% from under 20% in the previous decade, the report predicts.
A story in eWeek (@eWEEKNews) says tablet shipments will outpace those of e-readers by 2012, according to a new report by research firm In-Stat (@instat).
E-readers still offer the truest reading experience and appeal most to avid readers, but a broader market of consumers are demanding multimedia functionality, like Web browsing, video, and gaming, in their next mobile device. Tablets, like the Apple iPad, are optimized to deliver this kind of multifunction experience, and therefore, represent a stronger opportunity for suppliers and manufacturers alike.
“Of the two, the tablet market is the stronger and more sustainable opportunity,” Stephanie Ethier, an In-Stat senior analyst, wrote in a June 20 research note. “In fact, e-reader manufacturers will soon begin adding tablet-like devices to their lineups in order to take advantage of the tablet frenzy. Barnes & Noble already offers the Color Nook, which is often compared with a tablet, and Amazon, the leader in the e-reader space with its Kindle, will likely launch a tablet device later this year in an effort to compete head-to-head with the iPad.”
According to the research
38% of respondents own a tablet, compared to 26% who own an e-reader.
Fueled by low prices and continued expansion of ebook content, global e-reader shipments will reach 40 million by 2015.
Tablet shipments will outpace e-reader shipments.
Over 60% of future tablet purchasers plan to buy a tablet equipped with both Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity
By 2015, 15% of all tablet shipments will go into business markets.
According to a new Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (@Pewforum) survey of more than 2,000 evangelical leaders from around the world, evangelical Protestant leaders who live in the Global South (sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Latin America and most of Asia) generally are optimistic about the prospects for evangelicalism in their countries. But those who live in the Global North (Europe, North America, Japan, Australia and New Zealand) tend to be more pessimistic.
Seven-in-ten evangelical leaders who live in the Global South (71%) expect that 5 years from now the state of evangelicalism in their countries will be better than it is today. But a majority of evangelical leaders in the Global North expect that the state of evangelicalism in their countries will either stay about the same (21%) or worsen (33%) over the next 5 years.
The survey was taken of evangelical leaders from 166 countries and territories who were invited to attend the Third Lausanne Congress of World Evangelization (@capetown2010), a 10-day gathering of ministers and lay leaders held in October 2010 in Cape Town, South Africa.
Overall, evangelical leaders around the world view secularism, consumerism and popular culture as the greatest threats they face today. More of the leaders express concern about these aspects of modern life than express concern about other religions, internal disagree-ments among evangelicals or government restrictions on religion.
Ben Mutzabaugh (@TodayInTheSky) of USA TODAYasks, “What will the airplane of the future look like?” One answer is the concept plane of 2050 unveiled by Airbus (@Airbus): a long sleek fuselage, complete with duel fins flanking each side of the jet's tail area.
Inside Airbus envisions a future where class divisions disappear. Instead of first- business- and coach class, The Telegraph of London notes Airbus' concept plane offers "personalized zones that offer flexible, tailored levels of relaxation, interactivity and working spaces."
Popsci.com notes "when flights are at less than full capacity, unneeded seats at the rear of the plane will collapse and all seats will redistribute themselves to offer everyone an equitable boost in legroom. These seats will also morph to fit passengers' bodies."
What will people be reading on these planes in 2050? And what devices will they be using to enjoy that content?
Join Somersault (@smrsault) in keeping an eye on how today’s technology will influence our future by reading the Somersault Futurist Daily News and using the SomersaultNOW dashboard of more than 300 articles and RSS feeds designed for publishers and marketers; especially note the Future tab. And tell your colleagues. Thanks!
NewScientist (@newscientist) reports a robot has the flexibility and accuracy to play pool, completing 400 shots with an 80% success rate.
The robot, designed by Thomas Nierhoff, Omiros Kourakos, and Sandra Hirche at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, has two arms that can move in 7 different ways. Cameras mounted above the table track the position of the balls and cue, and feed this information to the robot's computers. It can then decide on the best move and calculate how the arms should be oriented to complete the stroke. To get into position, it rolls around the table using predetermined coordinates.
Join Somersault (@smrsault) in keeping an eye on how today’s technology will influence our future by reading the Somersault Futurist Daily News and using the SomersaultNOW dashboard of more than 300 articles and RSS feeds designed for publishers and marketers; especially note the Future tab. And tell your colleagues. Thanks!
