In this issue: COMPUTERS NOT CARS SKY GARAGES BAR CODES FOR BODIES CAMEL COMEBACK And much, much more... ------------------------------------------------------------ ____ ____ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ * / __ )/ __ \/ | / _/ | / / |/ / | / _/ / / __ / /_/ / /| | / // |/ / /|_/ / /| | / // / / /_/ / _ _/ ___ |_/ // /| / / / / ___ |_/ // /___ /_____/_/ |_/_/ |_/___/_/ |_/_/ /_/_/ |_/___/_____/ *Feeding hungry minds since 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail email issue 40 - June 2008 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail is a free snack-sized newsletter dedicated to current and future trends. To subscribe or unsubscribe go to http://brainmail.nowandnext.com Tell the whole world about brainmail forward this to a couple of friends. ------------------------------------------------------------ > Word Detective: Metadata Trails A meeting arranged via a Blackberry is an example of passively created digital data. As more and more activities become digitalised and connected vast amounts of 'people data' will be created and metadata trails will allow organizations to monitor behaviour in ways that would have been unheard of just a few decades ago. Ref: Harvard Business Review (US) > Trend Watching A list of eight business technology trends to watch from McKinsey includes; using consumers as innovators, expanding the frontiers of automation, unbundling production from delivery, making businesses from information and extracting more value from interactions. Ref: Customer Experience Matters (US) > Computers Not Cars Sales of cars in Japan feel last year (2007) partly because young people are finding car ownership too expensive and difficult but also because their enthusiasm is switching to other electronic machines as a measure of status and independence. Ref: Sydney Morning Herald (Aus) > Money Trends Indians sent an estimated $26.9 billion 'back home' in 2006, so it's no surprise that an Indian company called Sahara Care House is tapping into this market by offering a range of 60 products that immigrants can buy and send home. The products range from flower delivery to real estate transactions and healthcare. Ref: Business 2.0 (US) > Word Detective: Synthetic Biology It's life Jim, but not as we know it. Scientists are on the brink of creating life forms from totally artificial DNA. Synthetic Biology refers to treating DNA like computer code. In other words, Synthetic Biology is a cross between biology and architecture. The issues involve not only what and when but who owns the resultant life forms. Ref: Williams Inference (US) > Ask Your Mum A study by the accountancy firm KPMG has found that members of Gen Y are more likely to ask their parents for financial advice rather than any external advisor. Ref: The Australian (Aus) > Sky Garages Wealthy residents in cities such as London and New York are building apartments with sky garages - private en suite car elevators that negate the need to get out of the car to get into the apartment. Other high security measures that are being added to homes include doors that only allow access between certain times, retina scan door entry systems and panic rooms. Ref: Financial Times (UK) > Chinese Think Tanks In Europe the number of people actively involved in serious think tanks might be a few thousand. In the US, spiritual home of the think tank, the figure is somewhere in the region of 10,000. In Beijing, a single think tank, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) employs 4,000 researchers. Ref: Prospect (UK) > Short-Tempered A study by Helsinki University says that there is a link between birth height and aggression later in life. In short, small babies often turn into adults that are small in stature and short-tempered. Ref: The Times (UK) > Left-Brain Thinking Think of a number between one and five and count the number out using your hands. Did you use your left hand? 70% of people do, which is something to do with where the brain does maths according to a Dundee University (UK) study. Could this finding be used to teach maths in a different way? Ref: The Times (UK) > Word Detective: Gesture Computing Gesture controls are controls that respond to touch or sound inputs rather than typed instructions. Apple's iPhone is one example. Tom Cruise searching pages of data on a computer in the film Minority Report is another. Ref: The Australian (Aus) > Bar Codes for Bodies Surgeons leave things like instruments and surgical sponges inside 1 in every 9,000 patients, so surgeons have developed a way of bar-coding surgical items. The idea is that items are scanned 'on the way in' and scanned again 'on the way out' thereby, hopefully, leaving nothin behind. Ref: Annals of Surgery (US) > The Rule of Two According to Dr Ashley Ward (Sydney University) it only takes two to do something silly. For example, if you are part of a crowd waiting to cross a busy road once two mavericks attempt to cross the road a good proportion of the rest will generally follow. The same effect has been seen in shoals of fish and even how groups of people subconsciously synchronise their footsteps. Could this herd phenomenon explain crowd behaviour in stock markets? Possibly not due to the lack of visual signals. Ref: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US) > Radical Rubbish The city of Zurich in Switzerland has adopted a radical approach to waste disposal. Large stainless steel bins, each of which can hold the weekly rubbish of sixty homes, are being built around the city. The clever bit is that most of each bin is buried under street level, thereby making each bin relatively unobtrusive. Ref: Monocle (UK) > Word Detective: Zeptolitre A Zeptoliter is 1,000th of an attonliter or sextillionth of a litre. Clear? Ref: Popular Science (US) > Freshen Up Service The Asics store in Tokyo's Ginza district offers runners a shower and freshen up service. The shop charges a monthly fee for the use of the service but the fee is waived for anyone spending more than ´ 15,000. Ref: Nikkei Weekly (Japan) > Heads Up Display Dr Babak Parviz at the University of Washington (Seattle) has created what some people believe to be the world's first example of a contact lens that can be used to display visual data and other information. Keep an eye on this. Ref: Economist (UK) > User Filtered Content Amazon.com's #1 book reviewer is a speed-reader called Harriet Klaus who has read and reviewed approximately 16,800 books in eight years. That's 5.7 books per day. Moreover, Harriet has never once posted a negative review. Is this an example of the way in which we increasingly value quantity over quality (e.g. online friends). Ref: Slate (US) > Food Inflation In November 2007 Carrefour, the French owned supermarket chain, increased the price of vegetable oil by 20% in some Chinese stores. This resulted in a shopper stampede that killed 3 people and injured 31. Ref: The Atlantic (US) > Robotic Surgeons Scientists at Duke University (North Carolina) have invented a table-top robot that uses 3-D ultrasound to feel its way around and 'see' patients. The prototype could one day become a fully automated robotic operating table. Ref: The Times (UK) > Food Provenance Are 50-mile diets and local eating a good idea? You'd think so but evidence is mounting that eating locally is harming economic development in other regions such as Africa. Moreover, according to the UK's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, around 50% of the environmental impact of food transport is actually caused by local shopping trips rather than transport from abroad. Ref: Financial Times (UK) > Camel Comeback The Indian camel population has decreased by more than 50% since 1998. However, as the cost of running petrol fuelled machinery continues to increase, farmers in the Indian state of Rajasthan are returning to the use of the humble humpback. What are some of the other implications of oil approaching $150, or perhaps $200, per barrel? Ref: Financial Times (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : STATSHOTS China has 21% of the world's population but only 1.8% of the world's oil supply. Ref: Eurasia Group (US) Ford's 2007 car fleet averaged 18.7 mpg. A 1908 Ford Model T could reach 25mpg. Ref: Environmental Protection Agency (US) The UK's DNA Database contains information on 40% of black men in Britain. Ref: The Economist (UK) In 2001 there were 3 shopping malls in India. By 2005 this had risen to 100. Ref: The Sunday Times (UK) According to the General Social Survey (US) there has been a 300% increase in the number of American's that have absolutely nobody to talk to about their problems. Ref: American Sociological Review (US) The number of cats and dogs in Japan has risen by 30% since 2006. Ref: Pet Food Manufacturers Association (Japan) 50% of men in the UK say that they would give up sex for six months in return for a 50-inch plasma television. However, only 17% would give up the internet in exchange for the television. Ref: The Register (UK) 40% of the world's 923,000 industrial robots reside in Japan. Ref: Robotictrends.com (US) There are approximately 46,000 items of plastic floating in each square mile of the world's oceans. Ref: Time (US) Between 1980-2000 membership of political parties in the West fell by almost 50% Ref: Prospect (UK) By the year 2025 people aged over 60 will outnumber those aged under 25 in the UK Ref: Daily Telegraph (UK) It is predicted that the retail space devoted to recorded music in the US will fall by 30% in 2008 Ref: The Economist (UK) People in the UK spent £497 million on cosmetic surgery in 2000 - more than any other country in Europe Ref: BBC (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : BOOK OF THE MONTH Counterknowledge: How We Surrendered to Conspiracy Theories, Quack Medicine, Bogus Science and Fake History by Damien Thompson. ------------------------------------------------------------ : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The world is not running out of oil reserves, but out of oil production capacity" Ref: PFC Energy (US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : WEBSITE OF THE MONTH Don't look at this immediately before, or after, you've eaten. http://www.healthinspections.com ------------------------------------------------------------ : 2008 TRENDS There are just a handful of hard copies of the report 2008+ Tend Trends: Predictions & Provocations still available. View a sample at http://www.nowandnext.com ------------------------------------------------------------ : STILL HUNGRY? If this snack-sized newsletter still leaves you feeling hungry feed your brain with something a little more substantial at www.nowandnext.com (and yes, that's free too). ------------------------------------------------------------ : LOVE IT? THEN SHARE IT Do you know someone whose brain is not being fully exercised? Someone that is snacking on media that isn't terribly satisfying. Floss their brain and brighten up their day with a copy of brainmail in their inbox - forward this to your friends. ------------------------------------------------------------ : SMALL PRINT The stories and statistics appearing in brainmail are sourced from a variety of trustworthy publications worldwide. However, brainmail cannot guarantee the truthfulness of stories and a degree of commonsense should be applied before quoting or using any of this material in a commercial context.