Global cell phone use at 50 percent

It's not a trivial waypoint. We are very, very connected, and technology adaption is very, very fast. And it's going to get faster.

Global cell phone use at 50 percent

It's not a trivial waypoint.

Biotech meets demography meets (as always) finance

Brandon Kein initiates the discussion about the possible costs of future life-extending therapies. Add to that the grim outlook of fiscal and pension systems even assuming no revolutionary breakthroughs in biotech, and you have the recipe for interesting times ahead.

The glue of globalization

Migration is so central to Western Union that forecasts of border movements drive the company’s stock. Its researchers outpace the Census Bureau in tracking migrant locations. Long synonymous with Morse code, the company now advertises in Tagalog and Twi and runs promotions for holidays as obscure as Phagwa and Fiji Day. Its executives hail migrants as “heroes” and once tried to oust a congressman because of his push for tougher immigration laws.

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When children aren't the future

Sent by Guido of the always interesting Globally Connected:

Japan has the world's highest proportion of elderly people. More than 20% of the population are now over the age of 65. By 2050, that figure is expected to rise to about 40%.

The year 2050 isn't that far away; for Japan to maintain economic viability (not to mention competitiveness), it will take a huge shift in economic, technological, and fiscal structures. They seem to be aware of the fact, at least.

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From the "shouldn't be surprising" department

Porsche makes more money from options trading than from cars. That's not a car-making company, that's a hedge fund with a funny portfolio.

I don't mean it in any demeaning sense; a financial engineering department is as necessary nowadays as an IT department (and for interestingly similar reasons). Of course, the fact that they are doing it doesn't imply that they are doing it right.

Some navel gazing

Let's call it the C Criteria: computational feasibility trumps legality. In other words, if something is computationally unfeasible it won't get done, even if the law says it should (a rather obvious assertion), and its more interesting counterpart, that computationally feasible things will get done, regardless of legality. It only takes one person anywhere having both the desire and the knowledge to make it happen, and presto!

I understand it's impossible for laws to predict situations derived from new technology, but unless at some point the political and legislative processes begin to pay attention to feasibility envelopes, we'll end up with legal systems too out of touch with reality to be useful at all, getting them ignored, and us in a terrible fix.