Disney Bets $1 Billion on Technology to Track Theme-Park Visitors
March 10th, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
Jason McInerney and his wife, Melissa, recently tapped their lunch orders onto a touchscreen at the entrance to the Be Our Guest restaurant at Florida’s Walt Disney World Resort and were told to take any open seat. Moments later a food server appeared at their table with their croque-monsieur and carved turkey sandwiches. Asks McInerney, a once-a-year visitor to Disney theme parks: “How did they know where we were sitting?”
The answer was on the electronic bands the couple wore on their wrists. That’s the magic of the MyMagic+, Walt Disney’s (DIS) $1 billion experiment in crowd control, data collection, and wearable technology that could change the way people play—and spend—at the Most Magical Place on Earth. If the system works, it could be copied not only by other theme parks but also by museums, zoos, airports, and malls. “It’s a complete game changer,” says Douglas Quinby, vice president for research at PhoCusWright, a travel consulting firm.
Global Debt Exceeds $100 Trillion as Governments Binge
March 10th, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
The amount of debt globally has soared more than 40 percent to $100 trillion since the first signs of the financial crisis as governments borrowed to pull their economies out of recession and companies took advantage of record low interest rates, according to the Bank for International Settlements.
The $30 trillion increase from $70 trillion between mid-2007 and mid-2013 compares with a $3.86 trillion decline in the value of equities to $53.8 trillion in the same period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The jump in debt as measured by the Basel, Switzerland-based BIS in its quarterly review is almost twice the U.S.’s gross domestic product.
Borrowing has soared as central banks suppress benchmark interest rates to spur growth after the U.S. subprime mortgage market collapsed and Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.’s bankruptcy sent the world into its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.
Chemotherapy for People with End Stage Cancer
March 9th, 2014Is this the most egregious scam in the world?
Via: CBS:
More than half of end-stage cancer patients receive chemotherapy during the last few months of their life, and those who received such treatment were more likely to die in a hospital intensive care unit, hooked to a ventilator, rather than at home as they would have preferred, says a new study.
Patients were also less likely to have discussed their end of life wishes with their oncologist compared to other end-stage cancer patients who opted not to continue chemotherapy.
Christian Cult Leader Worked Tampa “BLACK ICE” Operation
March 8th, 2014Via: Mad Cow Productions:
Moreover, during the 1970’s and 1980’s, McClain was one of the leaders of a bizarre Christian cult which grew to more than 10,000 members living on farms and ranches in wilderness areas on three separate continents, including remote corners of Colombia, Peru, and Guatemala.
According to an account in the New York Times, the cult—in which McClain was active for a decade and maintained cordial relations afterwards— also owned its own fleet of planes.
Research Credit: alvinroast
Department of Homeland Security Reads Woman’s Email, Questions Her About Relationship with Man at Airport
March 8th, 2014Via: Indy Star:
Christine Von Der Haar has heard President Barack Obama and national security officials insist the U.S. government isn’t spying on ordinary citizens.
The Indiana University faculty member doesn’t believe them. Not after what happened to her at the Indianapolis airport.
Von Der Haar says in a federal lawsuit that she was illegally detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in 2012 at Indianapolis International Airport. The lawsuit says the detention occurred after government agents intercepted and read emails she had exchanged with a friend from Greece before he came to visit her in Indiana.
Commercial Drone Operations in U.S. Airspace Are Legal, Rules Federal Judge
March 7th, 2014Via: Drone Hire:
The long stand-off between commercial drone operators and the FAA has just taken an extraordinary twist: A federal judge has rejected the FAA’s ban as unenforceable, ruling that commercial use of drones in the United States is unequivocally legal.
College Grads Taking Low-Wage Jobs Displace Less Educated
March 7th, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
Jeanina Jenkins, a 20-year-old high-school graduate from St. Louis, is stuck in a $7.82-an-hour part-time job at McDonald’s Corp. that she calls a “last resort” because nobody would offer her anything better.
Stephen O’Malley, 26, a West Virginia University graduate, wants to put his history degree to use teaching high school. What he’s found instead is a bartender’s job in his home town of Manasquan, New Jersey.
Jenkins and O’Malley are at opposite ends of a dynamic that is pushing those with college degrees down into competition with high-school graduates for low-wage jobs that don’t require college.
MIT’s Liquid Metal Batteries Could Compensate for Intermittent Nature of Renewable Energy
March 7th, 2014Via: Bloomberg:
A 40-foot trailer loaded with 25 tons of liquid metals may be the solution to the renewable-energy industry’s biggest challenge: making sure electricity is available whenever it’s needed.
A Boston-area startup founded by MIT researchers is working to turn this new concept into a commercially viable product, liquid-metal batteries that will store power for less than $500 a kilowatt-hour. That’s less than a third the cost of some current battery technologies.
The technology promises an alternative to the massive pumped-water systems that make up 95 percent of U.S. energy-storage capacity. At that price, developers will be able to build wind and solar projects that can deliver power to the grid anytime, making renewable energy as reliable as natural gas and coal without the greenhouse-gas emissions.
“If we can get liquid-metal batteries down to $500 a kilowatt-hour, we’ll change the world,” Donald Sadoway, chief scientific adviser at Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Ambri Inc., said in an interview.
Power storage will compensate for the intermittent nature of renewable energy. Batteries can store energy when the wind blows at night, and then send electricity to the grid the next day when it’s needed.
Moscow Signals It Will Embrace Crimean Move for Secession
March 7th, 2014Via: New York Times:
Leaders of both houses of Russia’s Parliament said on Friday that they would support a vote by Crimea to break away from Ukraine and become a new region of the Russian Federation, the first public signal that the Kremlin was backing the secessionist move that Ukraine, the United States and other countries have denounced as a violation of international law.
The E-Waste Disaster in Ghana
March 7th, 2014Via: Kevin McElvaney:
