http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_%E2%80%93_Live_in_Berlin

Rumours are emerging from the rival to the Large Hadron Collider that the Higgs boson, or so-called “God particle”, has been found.

“I’m an inventor.
I became interested in long term trends because an invention has to make sense in the world in which it is finished, not in the world in which it is started.”

- Ray kurzweil

[O'Reilly Publishing]… we change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators

O’Reilly Methodology

• “The future is here. It’s jusrt not evently distributed yet” – William Gibson
• We “watch the alpha geeks” and think about the futures they are living in
• We then look for trend data that tells us that a particular future if becoming mainstream
• I’m going to tell you some seemingly unconnected technology stories from the front lines of innovation. Then we’re going to connect the dots.

Ad and I (with Josef on the right)

More of Ad and I

Andy and I (with Mao in the background)

Andy and I (with Mao in the background)

Andy and I (with Mao in the background)

Jean-Michel and I

Jean-Michel and I

Jean-Michel and I

Jane and I

Jules and I

Mark and I

Stuart and I

Vincent and I

24/7 Wall St. has created a new list of brands that will disappear, which includes Readers Digest, Kia Motors, Dollar Thrifty (NYSE: DTG), Zale (NYSE: ZLC), Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI), T-Mobile, BP plc (NYSE: BP), RadioShack (NYSE: RSH), Merrill Lynch, and Moody’s (NYSE: MCO).

24/7 Wall St. regularly compiles a report of brands that are likely to disappear in the near-term. Last April, and again in December, we published our findings. Usually, it would take a full year before such a list could be compiled again. However, the current economic climate has accelerated this process and a majority of the brands on the first two lists are either gone, have been acquired, or have filed for bankruptcy. Last April, 24/7 Wall St. identified twelve brands that our analysis showed would disappear, including Saturn, Borders, Palm, AIG and Eddie Bauer.

We also accurately identified brands that would disappear in our December list.

The first brand on that list was Newsweek. The publication was founded in 1933. Parent firm, The Washington Post Company (NYSE: WPO), has given up on the magazine, which it has owned since 1961. None of the buyout offers made thus far seem to be serious. Closing magazines was in vogue during the depths of the recession. Newsweek has little chance of staying open.

Another brand on last year’s list was Palm. Its sales were so slow and its new mobile device, the Pre, sold so poorly that Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) was able to buy Palm for next to nothing. The Palm brand is so badly damaged that HP is likely to keep the technology and kill the name.

Read more at: 24/7 Wall St

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(Photography by Andrew Levine)

The company’s future depends on finding just the right balance between the privacy expectations of its users and the quality of the social marketing data it can serve to its business partners.

For many people, Facebook is the first stop in any Web surfing session. It has developed into a highly engaging combination of online bulletin board, personal scrapbook, and group communication network. But did you ever wonder why, being all those things, Facebook is free?

Well, it really isn’t. Facebook offers its service in exchange for the right to capture and collect mountains of demographic and preference data from its users (you mean they didn’t tell you that when you signed up?). That data can be extremely valuable to marketers and advertisers because it is highly detailed and personal.

Many Facebook observers believe that the company hopes eventually to license parts of its “social graph,” or profile information database, to external marketers and advertisers who might use it to target ads or other content to potential customers. But to be useful to marketers, the user data must be set to “public,” and Facebook has come under intense scrutiny over its handling of the privacy of its users’ data of late. In light of the current backlash, any quick moves by Facebook to monetize its user data could prove disastrous.

What will Facebook do?

Low-Hanging Fruit: Facebook’s Business Today

Today, Facebook is mainly an advertising platform. It sells ad space on its site, and it helps its advertisers aim their ads at specific groups of Facebook users, based on “public” elements of its members’ profile data. Facebook also takes in a small amount of money through revenue-sharing agreements with developers who offer apps on Facebook: Facebook hands over a certain amount of “public” profile data to the app makers, enabling them to personalize the experience of the app’s end users.

And that’s it.

Some observers, such as Tom Phillips, CEO of social marketing company Media6Degrees, believe that Facebook’s userbase is so massive, and its database of user data is so rich, that it can do good business simply by selling ad space and by hosting apps on its own platform. “With the amount of volume they have, they only have to do simple things,” Phillips says. “They can make enough money selling big marketers volume impressions online, by running ads at their own site based not on keywords but on the actual tastes and preferences of Facebook users.”

Read more at: PC World

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{Photography by Ludovic Toinel}

It’s official, the Linchpin Day Boston Group has found a venue. And what a great venue!

Thanks to Abby and Leah, and to the generosity of Microsoft, Linchpins from the Greater Boston area will congregate on Monday, June 10, 2010 (6:00 PM to 9:00PM) at the New England R&D Center at One Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02142 .

If one or more of these words describe you:

Then, this is an event where you can meet vis-à–vis like-minded individuals. Come prepared to share of your wealth of knowledge, share your ideas, network with other Linchpins with the ultimate goal to make something happen (ship it!).

Lesser consumption of animal products is necessary to save the world from the worst impacts of climate change, UN report says

A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today.

As the global population surges towards a predicted 9.1 billion people by 2050, western tastes for diets rich in meat and dairy products are unsustainable, says the report from United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) international panel of sustainable resource management.

It says: “Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.”

Professor Edgar Hertwich, the lead author of the report, said: “Animal products cause more damage than [producing] construction minerals such as sand or cement, plastics or metals. Biomass and crops for animals are as damaging as [burning] fossil fuels.”

The recommendation follows advice last year that a vegetarian diet was better for the planet from Lord Nicholas Stern, former adviser to the Labour government on the economics of climate change. Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has also urged people to observe one meat-free day a week to curb carbon emissions.

Read more at: guardian.co.uk

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