If you’re a parent, there’s a chance you’ll want to track your
child when they’re not home. There are physical devices for doing this, but there are also a bunch
of apps that make it really simple.
An article for my students to consider.
Automation Can Actually Create More Jobs
Since the 1970s, when automated teller machines arrived,
the number of bank tellers in America has more than doubled. James Bessen, an economist who teaches at
Boston University School of Law, points to that seeming paradox amid new concerns that automation is
“stealing” human jobs. To the contrary,
he says, jobs and automation often grow hand in hand.
Sometimes, of course, machines really do replace humans,
as in agriculture and manufacturing, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology
labor economist David Autor in a succinct and illuminating TED talk, which could have served as the headline for this
column. Across an entire economy,
however, Dr. Autor says that’s never happened.
Change the law to reflect new technology? Good luck with that!
Google’s antitrust battle with the European Union seems to
be heating up. In recent weeks, the
company has rebutted the European Commission’s charges that it uses its internet
search engine to give its shopping services an unfair advantage over rivals,
improperly uses its AdSense ad-placement service to restrict third-party
websites from displaying search advertisements from Google’s competitors, and
unfairly exploits the dominant position of its Android operating system with
smartphone manufacturers and mobile network operators (see its November 3 and November 10 blog posts.)
We think Google’s rebuttal of the charges against its
shopping and ad-placement services are effective, and it has even made some
changes to its products to address issues raised by the European Union. But we think it is unlikely that Google will
be able to prevail in the Android case unless it abandons its contention that
E.U. authorities should adopt a U.S. perspective. Instead, it
should try to persuade them that competition in the mobile space is radically
different from that in traditional markets and consequently, the European Union
— and the United States, for that matter — should revamp their
antitrust laws.
Watching a country self-destruct? (Google says 100 Venezuelan Bolívars equals 10.05 US Dollars)
Venezuela pulls highest-value banknote 'to strike against
mafia'
The Venezuelan government has announced it will remove the
country's highest-denomination banknote from circulation within 72 hours to
combat contraband.
Central bank data suggests there are more than six billion
100-bolivar notes in circulation, making up almost half of all currency.
… President
Nicolas Maduro said the move would stop gangs hoarding the notes.
But in India, a similar move to scrap high-value
bank notes last month has caused major disruption.
… He said the
gangs held more than 300bn bolivares worth of currency, most of it in
100-bolivar notes.
President Maduro said there were "entire warehouses
full of 100-bolivar notes in the [Colombian cities of] Cucuta, Cartagena,
Maicao and Buaramanga".
… Analysts say the
move is likely to worsen the cash crunch in Venezuela, where people have
already been limited in the amount of cash they can take out at automated
teller machines.
Venezuelans have only been given 10 days to exchange their
100-bolivar notes for new coins and bills ranging from 500 to 20,000 bolivars
due to be introduced from 15 December.
Critics of Mr Maduro have predicted chaos and doubt that
the facilities will be in place for people to exchange all their 100-bolivar
notes.
An interesting business model.
Opendoor: A Startup Worth Emulating
I suppose I appreciate the efficiency with which
Techcrunch expressed its skepticism for tech’s latest unicorn, Opendoor; it’s
right there in the headline: Online
real estate service Opendoor raises $210M Series D despite risky financing
model. And, to be fair, Opendoor’s
approach is risky. Here’s a
summary from a
feature in Forbes magazine:
Opendoor is betting that there
are hundreds of thousands of Americans who value the certainty of a sale over
getting the highest price. The company
makes money by taking a service fee of 6%, similar to the standard real estate
commission, plus an additional fee that varies with its assessment of the
riskiness of the transaction and brings the total charge to an average of 8%. It then makes fixes recommended by inspectors
and tries to sell the homes for a small premium.
A challenge for my Data management students: Name three
more “things.”
5 enterprise-related things you can do with blockchain
technology today
Where my students should look for work and what they
should avoid?
24/7 Wall St – America’s 25 dying industries – America’s 25
thriving industries
by Sabrina
I. Pacifici on Dec 11, 2016
“Valued at nearly $20 trillion, the U.S. economy is the
largest in the world. Maintaining a
competitive edge necessitates remaining diversified and dynamic. While this means that some U.S. industries
thrive, others inevitably decline or are rendered obsolete. As certain industries fade, so do hundreds of
thousands of American jobs. 24/7 Wall
St. analyzed employment figures from 2006 to 2015 from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics to determine the 25 fastest dying industries. Employment in each industry on this list
declined by at least 43%, and in the top two by at least 80%…”
- Click here to see America’s 25 dying industries.
- Click here to see America’s 25 thriving industries.
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