Entries in Innovation Hub by Kara Miller and Amanda McGowan
Think about those emails you get every minute, the texts constantly vibrating in your pocket, a news cycle that never ends. In his book Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, best-selling author Douglas Rushkoff offers up an arresting theory about how living in this brave new world changes us.
This week, we spoke with author Douglas Rushkoff about a new kind of economy that doesn't involve punching the clock. But what does it look like when you're creating and selling your own product? Your own brisket, pickles, or ideas? We talked to Susan Piver, director of the Open Heart Project, an online meditation and mindfulness guide designed to help people cope with what Rushkoff calls "present shock."
If you were to travel back in time 20 or 30 years and tell the first person you saw that machines in the future could read your checks, deposit them, and dispense exactly the amount of money you needed whenever you needed it, you probably would get a few raised eyebrows. Yet, how many times have you visited an ATM in the past month instead of a human bank teller? In a new controversial study from Oxford University, researchers Michael Osborne and Carl Frey argue that this kind of automation is only the beginning. They predict that in the next twenty years an astounding 47 percent of American jobs may become automated.
The last time you saw Watson the supercomputer, he was probably cleaning up on the game show Jeopardy! But since roundly defeating reigning champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, Watson hasn't been resting on his laurels. In fact, just two years after his debut, Watson - as Steve Gold, executive at Watson Solutions at IBM describes it - has been "going to work." So what sets Watson apart from the average, run-of-the-mill computer sitting in your cubicle (which, we would hazard to guess, has not recently won thousands of dollars on a television game show?)
We talked in this week's show about very smart computers - including Watson, the supercomputer and Jeopardy! champion. Want a little taste of Watson in your own home? Gadget guru Ben Saren has some pointers on how the newest gadgets can spruce up your humble abode, from a smart scale to replace the one languishing in your upstairs bathroom to a thermostat that knows exactly how late you like staying in bed on the weekends.
Most of us have seen a television commercial and thought: “If only I had that iPad, that new television set, or that big Jacuzzi, I’d be so much happier.” But Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton, authors of the new book "Happy Money" aren’t so sure. When it comes to money—whether in the form of a bonus, a new car, or the latest gadget--they argue that more is not always better.
When journalist Steven Brill first began investigating the American health care system for his article "Bitter Pill, he started in a familiar place: medical bills. What he found shocked him. One patient, for example, paid $2,293 per day just for room and board in a hospital - about ten times more than he would have paid for a hotel room - and had little choice in the matter.
"There's no marketplace at all," Brill says. "The person buying the service has no leverage, no power, and no visibility into the cost."
Imagine you're a doctor about to write a prescription for a patient, but you realize what she really needs is food, or heat, or a safe place to live. For years, you had two options, says Rebecca Onie, co-founder and CEO of Health Leads. You could either adopt a "don't ask, don't tell policy" and look the other way, or spend valuable time away from clinical care addressing social needs. (In fact, one survey conducted at Bellevue hospital found that for every fifteen minute visit with a patient, doctors spent 9.2 minutes addressing social – and not medical – needs.) That’s where Health Leads comes in.
When it comes to new technology, Guy Kawasaki is ahead of the curve. Former Chief Evangelist at Apple and now special adviser to Google in their Motorola division, Kawasaki has long been a Silicon Valley insider. "You can't buy me, but you can rent me," he quips. This week, Kawasaki tells us what he sees ahead for tech. And with legions of followers on Google+ and Twitter, his predictions carry a lot of weight.
What was the last television show your friends, family, or coworkers were buzzing about? Chances are, it wasn't on regular cable television. Brian Stelter, media reporter at the New York Times and author of Top of the Morning, says innovations in television programming and delivery may soon pull the plug on cable as we know it. If you've ever recoiled in horror at the sight of a hefty cable bill, you're not alone - and you may have other options. Companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon have introduced devices that stream content directly from the Internet to your television, bypassing cable altogether. "They're putting Trojan horses in our living rooms," says Stelter, who says such devices could cut in on cable's sizable audience.
