No Cash in Japan?
When we last talked about abolishing paper currency, we joked about it happening in 2012. In Japan, where the future comes early, they’re considering banning cash now, as a way to stave off deflation.
When we last talked about abolishing paper currency, we joked about it happening in 2012. In Japan, where the future comes early, they’re considering banning cash now, as a way to stave off deflation.
As the price of energy rises in the U.S., however, I would bet that we will be substituting away from ordinary cookers and toward energy-saving pressure cookers. It’s a nice illustration of how choice of technology depends on prices.
The average job-seeker takes 12 weeks to find work. TIME profiles one laid-off software architect who used social networks including Facebook and Twitter to land a job in just 11 days. Will the recovery favor the internet-savvy in other fields as well? (Or: maybe this guy was just a super employee who, if he hadn’t been wasting his time tweeting, would have found a job in 10 days?)
Many improvements in technology shift the production possibility frontier outward. Many of these increase human happiness, and a few do this by increasing marital harmony (Viagra?).
One piece of technology my wife and I just acquired does all of these while saving that most precious of all things — time:
We’ve told you about recession music, recession comfort, and depression cooking. Now: recession gadgetry? Last Year’s Model is a site encouraging users to reject disposable culture by hanging on to their good old gadgets as long as possible. It’s good for the pocketbook and good for the environment. We’ve got a 2004 model-year iPod whirring around the Freakonomics office. Is . . .
Go ahead, complain all you want about living in America — but at least you can name your kid whatever you want, whether it’s Temptress, Yourhighness, or even Marijuana Pepsi. In China, meanwhile, the government is cracking down on uncommon names. From today’s Times: Seeking to modernize its vast database on China’s 1.3 billion citizens, the government’s Public Security Bureau . . .
Computers are sophisticated enough to play a flawless game of checkers. They can beat the world’s greatest chess masters. But humans still put them to shame on the Go board.
| The new Kindle is nice, but it’s still playing catchup to replicate the solid, solitary experience of a printed book. Seth Godin thinks that’s silly. He has some ideas to make the Kindle better by making it social. [%comments]
Some things — Terminator, Elvis — were better in their original incarnations. Forbes‘s Andy Greenberg thinks the Kindle was too. The Kindle2, which came out this week, doesn’t “feel as natural for reading” as the original Kindle, Greenberg writes. Its “cold and slippery” aluminum back and smaller page-turning buttons, he says, make the Kindle2 seem “more interested in wowing customers . . .
The streaming music site Muxtape has returned as a free platform for musicians to promote their music.
Emerging in a time when cassette tapes had long been an anachronism, Muxtape became a go-to site for music fans to string together their favorite songs and share the virtual mix tapes with friends and internet passers-by. Founded in early 2008, the site quickly became ensnared in licensing disputes and was shut down last August.
The Recording Industry Association of America (R.I.A.A.) has quietly ended its campaign to sue illicit digital music sharing into oblivion, the Wall Street Journal reports.
I’m home after five months away, and it’s the first day back in my office. Before 2000, I would have viewed this day with great trepidation — piles of mail, numerous requests to do things for other people (referee papers, write promotion letters, etc.), and the possible heartbreaking rejection of a paper of mine by a journal (or the delightful . . .
My Michigan son tells me that the Detroit Free Press will be doing home delivery only three days a week as a cost-cutting measure. I asked him what the source of the difficulty is, and he responded succinctly, “The internet, Dad!” Of course he’s right; internet advertising at least partly displaces print advertising, shifting the demand curve for newspapers leftward; . . .
Since last Wednesday, the torrent of junk e-mail coursing through the internet has been slowed dramatically, with 40 percent or more of it cut off at the source. The source of all that spam? San Jose, California. That’s where a group of servers responsible for much of the world’s spam had been operating until they were severed from the internet . . .
Photo from the University of Washington. If you’re reading this post on a laptop computer, rest easy. Your computer may have just become far less appealing to thieves. The University of Washington has released a free program that will track your laptop if it’s stolen. If the program is installed on a computer with a built-in camera, it will . . .
Photo taken from Kathleen and May Levitt recently sang the praises of cheap wine. But how can wine stay cheap when oil prices keep pushing up the cost of transportation? Sailing ships might be the answer. Last Friday, a 108-year-old British sailing ship delivered 30,000 bottles of French wine to Dublin. It was the first time since the 1800’s that . . .
The answer: in prisons, where CDs are routinely banned because they can be shattered and the shards refined into shivs. MP3 players are unavailable in most prisons, as are, one imagines, turntables. California-based entrepreneur Bob Paris got the idea five years ago to sell cassettes by mail to the 2.3 million people locked up in federal, state, or local prisons . . .
Health care is an important, huge, and growing piece of our economy. But as a reader named Beth Wieder points out, the design of medical devices isn’t always as user-friendly (or, I would add, as cost-efficient or as practical) as one might like. For instance, we blogged some time back about a very cheap and portable asthma spacer. Here is . . .
From the department of curious legal precautions: Apple’s iTunes licensing agreement — which you have already agreed to if you’ve installed the latest version of the popular music software — contains a clause which prohibits anyone from using the program … … for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of . . .
Burglaries are on the decline across the United States, with at least one notable exception: increasingly, thieves are breaking into foreclosed homes — stripping out the copper pipes, wiring, and appliances — and selling their pilfered goods as scrap. From there, Treehugger reports, the scrap metal is most often shipped to China. Coincidentally, that’s the country Tyler Cowen credits for . . .
Online education increases in popularity. (Earlier) Is jealousy linked to height? Microsoft turns down Blu-ray for Xbox 360. (Earlier) Want to stop junk mail? Sign this petition. (Earlier)
Prostitution gets a technology upgrade. The new pricing scale for prostitution. (Earlier) Could adding vinegar make biofuels less inefficient? (Earlier) Are self-experimenters good for science? (Earlier)
Author visits all 22 countries ranked “happier” than the U.S. (Earlier) Scientists study the key to artists’ improvisation Bigger computer monitors may lead to greater worker productivity Will hefty cash prizes stimulate “revolutionary” science? (Earlier)
Tips for naming your successful technology company. Does an oil-based economy hurt women’s rights? Why do more disasters seem to occur in election years? Team of physicists capture and store nothing.
Even if you don’t care one bit — and this probably describes the vast majority of Americans — you have probably heard by now that a Great Format War has been fought, and apparently won. The HD-DVD format for DVDs, backed by Toshiba, has lost out to Sony’s Blu-ray format. To be sure, there are some caveats. In this Computerworld . . .
Roland Fryer and Joel Klein are back at it again, trying innovative approaches to help students in the New York City schools learn. Fryer, who is a tenured professor at Harvard, a frequent co-author of mine, and Chief Equality Officer in the New York City school system, was the driving force behind a pilot program now ongoing in New York . . .
Last week, we cited a study finding that 16.6 percent of all pay-per-clicks on the Internet were fraudulent in the fourth quarter of 2007, up from 14.2 percent for the same quarter in 2006. The statistic, as reported by MediaPost, was compiled by Click Forensics, an independent auditor that has created the Click Fraud Index. Given what must be billions . . .
Last week, we solicited your questions for Google chief economist Hal Varian. Here are his answers. Thanks to Hal for his generosity and to all of you for the good questions. Q: Google’s recent announcement that it will be investing in energy research suggests that management now thinks it can earn better returns from investing in fields other than its . . .
A breakdown of current inflation psychology. VP of biofuels company to chat online about ethanol production. (Earlier) The link between women’s hairstyles and the Japanese economy. Tech pioneer predicts human-robot marriages to happen in the next 50 years.
Online music sales to pass CD sales by 2012. (Earlier) Scammers take advantage of “death bonds.” Music found to aid recovery for stroke victims. Are identical twins really genetically identical?