The Website That Visualizes Human Activity in Cities Across the World
September 9th, 2015Via: MIT Technology Review:
Phone data is set to become a standard resource that almost anyone can use to study and watch humanity continuously, much as they can now watch the weather unfold anywhere on the planet almost in real time.
But one thing is holding them back—the lack of powerful computational tools that can gather, crunch, and present the data in meaningful ways.
Today, that looks set to change to the work of Dániel Kondor and a few pals at the SENSEable City Laboratory, part of MIT, and at Ericsson, a company that produces network infrastructure technologies. These guys have unveiled a powerful online tool that uses mobile phone data to visualize human activity in cities all over the world.
This new tool, called ManyCities, allows anybody to study human activity in various cities with unprecedented detail. But the key is that it organizes and presents the data in intuitive ways that quickly reveals trends and special events.
Kondor and co show off their new toy by gathering mobile phone data from base stations across the cities of Los Angeles, New York, London, and Hong Kong between April 2013 and January 2014. The data includes the number of calls placed, the number of text messages sent, the amount of data downloaded and uploaded and the number of data requests at 15-minute intervals.
“The aggregated data does not include any sensitive customer information, but provides enough detail about the typical usage patterns on the scale of small neighborhoods,” say Kondor and co.
The CIA’s Most Famous Ship Headed for the Scrapyard
September 9th, 2015Via: PRI:
The Hughes Glomar Explorer was more than just a giant ship — it was a giant secret, possibly the biggest and strangest covert operation the CIA pulled off during the Cold War. But now, 40 years after its original mission, it’s finally headed to the scrapyard.
Macy’s to Close 35-40 Stores
September 8th, 2015Recovery.
Via: USA Today:
Macy’s will close 35 to 40 underperforming stores, around 5% of its total locations, the department store chain announced Tuesday.
The stores, slated to be shuttered in early 2016, will be identified at a later date, said the company with corporate offices in Cincinnati and New York.
New Teflon Coating Renders Drones Nearly Invisible
September 8th, 2015Via: Inverse:
Just as we’re getting used to the idea of drones flying overhead, the University of California-San Diego has figured out how to make them invisible.
While making a drone literally invisible isn’t possible, covering it in a sheet that reflects its surroundings — like a fluid mirror — has a similar effect. The UCSD researchers just published their work in the journal Progress In Electromagnetics Research and, yes, they can do that.
Germany: Dozens of People at Homeopathy Conference Given Hallucinogenic Drug
September 8th, 2015Via: Independent:
An alternative medicine conference has ended in chaos in Germany after dozens of delegates took a LSD-like drug and started suffering from hallucinations.
Broadcaster NDR described the 29 men and women “staggering around, rolling in a meadow, talking gibberish and suffering severe cramps”.
The group of “Heilpraktikers” was discovered at the hotel where they held their conference in the town of Handeloh, south of Hamburg, on Friday.
More than 150 medical staff, ambulances and police descended on the scene and took the raving delegates to hospital.
The patients, aged between 24 and 56, were found suffering from delusions, breathing problems, racing hearts and cramps, with some in a serious condition, Deutsche Welle reported.
Tests on their blood and urine revealed they had all taken hallucinogenic drug 2C-E, which is known as Aquarust in Germany and has been illegal there since the end of last year.
Study Links Air Pollution to Children’s Low Grades
September 8th, 2015Via: University of Texas at El Paso:
A University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) study on children’s health has found that fourth and fifth graders who are exposed to toxic air pollutants at home are more likely to have lower GPAs.
UTEP researchers analyzed academic performance and sociodemographic data for 1,895 fourth and fifth grade children living in El Paso, Texas that were attending the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD).
They used the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Air Toxics Assessment to estimate children’s exposure to toxic air pollutants, such as diesel exhaust, around the location of their homes.
Children who were exposed to high levels of motor vehicle emissions from cars, trucks and buses on roads and highways were found to have significantly lower GPAs, even when accounting for other factors known to influence school performance. The results of the study were published in the academic journal Population and Environment.
Russia: Trading Halted Across All Markets
September 8th, 2015Via: Bloomberg:
Moscow Exchange PJSC, Russia’s main bourse, said stocks and bonds trading will resume at 4:50 p.m. Moscow time after a nearly two-hour outage.
Equities, ruble, bonds and derivatives trading was shut down due to a network equipment failure, the bourse said earlier on its website. Money-market operations have already resumed, while derivative trading will restart at 5 p.m., according to the bourse’s press service. The resumption of currency trading will be announced separately, it said.
The exchange said it is using backup infrastructure to restart trading. The last interruption on the Moscow Exchange was on Aug. 12 when derivatives trading was halted. In March, the exchange stopped currency and precious-metals transactions for more than an hour.
Qatar Sends 1,000 Troops Into Yemen
September 7th, 2015Via: BBC:
Qatar has reportedly deployed troops to Yemen for the first time, according to the Doha-based al-Jazeera news.
One-thousand ground troops, supported by armoured vehicles and helicopters, are reportedly headed for the province of Marib.
Last week, 60 soldiers from the Saudi-led coalition were killed at a base in Marib.
Asia’s Smartphone Addiction
September 7th, 2015Really?
Via: BBC:
Nomophobia – or no mobile phone phobia – the onset of severe anxiety on losing access to your smartphone has been talked about for years. But in Asia, the birthplace of the selfie stick and the emoji, psychologists say smartphone addiction is fast on the rise and the addicts are getting younger.
A recent study surveyed almost 1,000 students in South Korea, where 72% of children own a smartphone by the age of 11 or 12 and spend on average 5.4 hours a day on them – as a result about 25% of children were considered addicted to smartphones. The study, to be published in 2016 found that stress was an important indicator of your likelihood to get addicted.
…
A controversial government app to monitor smartphone usage among teenagers sparked heated debate in South Korea. Officials also imposed a series of measures in 2011 banning children from accessing online games after midnight.
China, one of the first countries to label internet addictions as clinical disorders, set up military-style clinics to stamp out new media addictions.
Consultant psychiatrist Thomas Lee argues that other countries in Asia should follow suit and classify smartphone addictions as “official mental disorders” in the way sex and gambling have been designated.
“Using a smartphone to benefit one’s mood is almost similar to how drugs are able to affect a person’s behaviour,” said Mr Lee.
“Like drug addicts, smartphone addicts will also display withdrawal symptoms like restlessness, anxiety and even anger.”
China Dumps a Record $94 Billion In US Treasurys In One Month
September 7th, 2015Via: ZeroHedge:
On Monday we got the official data from China and sure enough, we find out that the PBoC liquidated around $94 billion in reserves during the month of August and as Goldman argues (see below), the “real” figure might have been closer to $115 billion. Whatever the case, it’s a staggering burn rate and needless to say, were the PBoC to continue to liquidate its assets at this pace, it would necessitate a raft of RRR cuts and hundreds of billions in short-term liquidity ops to ensure that money market don’t seize up in the face of the liquidity drain.
