Category: Social

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Art Education Finance Life Science Social

How to be clever

Poor people have I.Q.’s significantly lower than those of rich people, and the awkward conventional wisdom has been that this is in large part a function of genetics. If intelligence were deeply encoded in our genes, that would lead to the depressing conclusion that neither schooling nor antipoverty programs can accomplish much. Yet while this view of I.Q. as overwhelmingly inherited has been widely held, the evidence is growing that it is, at a practical level, profoundly wrong.

New research strongly advocates intensive early childhood education because of its proven ability to raise I.Q. and improve long-term outcomes.

Read the article: How to Raise Our I.Q.

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Business Education History Innovation Social Technology

Precision hacking ‘The 2009 TIME 100 Poll’

A fascinating description of how the current 2009 Time 100 poll of “the world’s most influential people in government, science, technology and the arts” has been precision hacked to include a message from the folks, and to vote 4chan.org founder moot at the top!

Please note that this article assumes computer knowledge!

Read the article: Inside the precision hack

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Business Education Finance History Innovation Life Productivity Social Technology

Light and Cheap, Netbooks Are Poised to Reshape PC Industry

Get ready for the next stage in the personal computer revolution: ultrathin and dirt cheap. Personal computers — and the companies that make their crucial components — are about to go through their biggest upheaval since the rise of the laptop. Netbooks are a big success story in the PC industry, with sales predicted to double this year, even as overall PC sales fall 12 percent, according to the research firm Gartner. By the end of 2009, netbooks could account for close to 10 percent of the PC market, an astonishing rise in a short span.

The new breed of netbooks, built on cellphone innards, threatens to disrupt that oligopoly. Intel and Microsoft, which make the chips and software that run most PCs — face an unprecedented challenge to their dominance. The big winners in the rise of netbooks that use cellphone chips could be the cellphone carriers, which would have access to a whole new market: PC users.

Read the article: Thin and Inexpensive Netbooks Affect PC Industry

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Innovation Social Technology

Turn your iPod Touch into an iPhone with iClamp

“The iClamp iPod Converter has been developed to give us mere mortals a chance to live the iPhone dream without having to sell a kidney. All you have to do is insert your simcard into the iClamp (any network will do – sorry O2) and clamp this device to your iPod Touch, making sure the top and bottom section are properly inserted. The onboard software does the rest – you’ll see a little call icon pop up on the screen, which means your ready to make and receive calls. Hey presto – you’ve got yourself an iPhone, and all for under £100!”

Update: This was an april fool’s joke. I would have known if I had try to buy it. It didnt appeal to me since the specs showed that it was twice as thick as the iPhone and that is a major consideration for me personally. This would be a cool gadget to have though.

Link to the Product Page: iClamp iPod Converter – I Want One Of Those

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Business Education Finance History India Life Science Social

Why India Has Escaped the Downturn

India has multiplied its per capita income levels many times over since 1950, and has done so far faster in recent years than Britain or the United States did during and after the industrial revolution. In the last 15 years, India has pulled more people out of poverty than in the previous 45 – 10 million people a year on average in the last decade. The country has visibly prospered, and, despite population growth, per capita income has grown faster than ever before. The current financial crisis is unlikely to change the basic success story.

Read the article: Resilient India

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Business Education Finance Life Social

Europe’s Top B-Schools 2009

English-based and bilingual MBA programs in Europe have given their American counterparts a run for their money in recent years. As international experience becomes increasingly desirable in financial, managerial, and operations employment, a strong history of trans-border ties gives the Old World an edge. Shorter programs, lower tuition, and healthy starting salaries for grads also make for attractive choices. Here’s a list compiled by BusinessWeek, arranged in alphabetical order.

Read the article: Europe’s Top B-Schools 2009

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Business Education Health Life Nature Science Social

How Much Energy Goes Into Making a Bottle of Water?

Researchers have calculated that the energy required to produce bottled water is up to 2,000 times more than the energy required to produce tap water. Most people who buy bottled water have access to clean drinking water virtually for free (in the US, tap water costs less than a penny per gallon, on average). Nevertheless, the consumption of bottled water continues to grow, far surpassing the US sales of milk and beer, and second only to soft drinks.

Read the article: How Much Energy Goes Into Making a Bottle of Water?

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Business China Education India Life Science Social

Indian Americans: The New Model Minority?

Indian Americans are in fact a new “model minority.” Despite constituting less than 1% of the U.S. population, Indian-Americans are 3% of the nation’s engineers, 7% of its IT workers and 8% of its physicians and surgeons. The overrepresentation of Indians in these fields is striking–in practical terms, your doctor is nine times more likely to be an Indian-American than is a random passerby on the street. So why do Indian Americans perform so well? A natural answer is self-selection. Someone willing to pull up roots and move halfway around the world will tend to be more ambitious and hardworking than the average person.

Read the article: Indian Americans: The New Model Minority

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Art Business China Education Finance History India Innovation Life Productivity Science Social Technology

An idea whose time has come

Entrepreneurialism has become cool. Victor Hugo once remarked: “You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come.” Today entrepreneurship is such an idea. The triumph of entrepreneurship is driven by profound technological change. A trio of inventions—the personal computer, the mobile phone and the internet—is democratising entrepreneurship at a cracking pace. Today even cash-strapped innovators can reach markets that were once the prerogative of giant organisations. An activity that was once regarded as peripheral, perhaps even reprehensible, has become cool, celebrated by politicians and embraced by the rising generation.

Read the article: A special report on entrepreneurship: An idea whose time has come

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Education History India Social

India’s shrinking national parties

It is open to question whether India is really governable from the centre – New Delhi. It is already inaccurate to call the two main contenders – the governing Congress party and the Hindu revivalist Bharatiya Janata party – national parties. The species no longer exists. India’s political spectrum is so fragmented that this Congress government heads a coalition of 13 parties – until last year with external Communist support. It replaced a BJP that bounced around inside a 23-party coalition.

Read the article: India’s shrinking national parties