US Health Report: Exercising More, But Mental Health Suffers | Live Science

January 11, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

How healthy are people in the U.S.? A new federal report shows that although the country has made progress in some areas, such as increasing how much exercise people get and lowering the number of teens who smoke cigarettes, it’s fallen behind in others, particularly in taking care of mental health.

The new report, published today (Jan. 11) by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), detailed the country’s progress in meeting a set of 10-year national health goals that were set in 2010 as part of an initiative called Healthy People 2020.

The initiative called for improvements in 26 different measures of public health, covering a wide range of areas including access to health care services, mental health, quality of the environment, and rates of injuries and violence

How Campbell’s Dusted Off a Century-Old Recipe to Cook Up Its Latest Marketing Idea | Adweek

January 10, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

On the 350 acres they farm in Vineland, N.J., Richard Marolda Sr. and his son, Richard Jr., grow 30 different kinds of produce. They raise beets and bok choy, peppers and radishes, four varieties of lettuce and even dandelion greens. But when the Marolda’s phone rang last year, the customer on the other end wanted just one thing: beefsteak tomatoes.

“Lucky for us,” Richard Jr. said, “we had what they wanted, and they wanted what we had.”

The caller was the Campbell Soup Company, located 31 miles north in Camden, and Campbell’s didn’t just want beefsteak tomatoes; it wanted every single beefsteak tomato on the property. The Maroldas combed their fields and found a thousand pounds of tomatoes. Campbell’s bought it all.

Up in Camden, a secret project was in the offing. On a recent trip to the company vault, Campbell’s R&D team had come across the original 1915 recipe for Beefsteak Tomato Soup, and decided to cook up a batch.

Land Rover design chief: Car industry needs more female designers | Money CNN

January 9, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The mastermind behind one of the world’s most distinctive SUV brands says gender imbalance is hurting the automotive industry.

Land Rover design director Gerry McGovern, who works on the luxury brand’s newest models, said the industry needs more women.

“I think for a long time we’ve suffered [from] not having enough automotive female designers,” he said.

According to EY, women comprise only a quarter of the auto industry workforce. But they influence almost 80% of decisions to buy a car, according to market research firm Frost & Sullivan.

Nemonic is like Post-It notes with IoT smarts | TechCrunch

January 4, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Mangoslab, a company spun out from Samsung’s innovation division back in June 2016, showed off its first product today. Nemonic is a $120 thermal printer that prints on sticky notes from your phone. That’s right – everyone’s favorite tool for passive-aggressively leaving notes on a colleague’s computer monitor is now weaponized with all the powers of IoT combined. Ladies and gentlemen, the future of office warfare is here.

Volvo wants you to never miss a meeting again. Thanks so much, really | Mashable

January 4, 2017January 4, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The best thing about being out of the office is being unavailable for certain meetings.

Evil geniuses Volvo and Microsoft are about to end all that. The two companies have collaborated on an in-car solution to this office absentee problem: integrating Skype for Business in a Volvo car.

Maybe Volvo should take most of the blame… er… credit since it’s the one integrating existing business communication technology in its 90 Series cars.

Ford Cancels Plans for New $1.6 Billion Mexico Plant | Bloomberg

January 3, 2017January 3, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Ford Motor Co. will scrap plans to build a $1.6 billion plant in Mexico, after coming under criticism by President-elect Donald Trump for shifting small-car production south of the border.

The next-generation Focus compact car will be built at an existing factory in Hermosillo, Mexico, and Ford will cancel plans to build a plant in San Luis Potosi, Chief Executive Officer Mark Fields said Tuesday. The second-largest U.S. automaker will build two products at a factory in Wayne, Michigan, where it assembles the Focus now, protecting about 3,500 jobs.

China is behind the latest bitcoin craze | Business Insider

December 30, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Bitcoin had a great 2016. The cryptocurrency rallied 120% to $952, threatening to break the $1,000 mark for the first time. While bitcoin has seen a consistent bid throughout the year, its 57% gain (in US dollar terms) over the past three months has been particularly impressive.

So what’s behind the move?

China.

In his latest edition of “Greed & Fear,” CLSA’s Christopher Wood notes, “Daily turnover in Shanghai-based BTC China, the world’s largest bitcoin exchange by volume, has risen from around Rmb1bn in late September to a peak of Rmb27.8bn on 22 December and Rmb16.4bn on Wednesday (see Figure 11) while the Bitcoin price has risen by 70% over the past three months to Rmb6,927.”

Remembering Carrie Fisher, Princess of Hollywod | WIRED

December 28, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

OF ALL THE dramatic introductions in the Star Wars series, few are as mysterious, or as crucial, as the very first scenes of Carrie Fisher as Princess Leia in 1977’s A New Hope. Standing amid a fog of smoke, she deposits a mysterious object into R2-D2 before retreating back into the dark, only to emerge later to fearlessly blast a stormtrooper—all moments that set the original trilogy into motion, and which helped make the then-21-year-old actress one of the most recognizable faces in the world.

How to Spot Student Loan Forgiveness Scams | The Simple Dollar

December 27, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

After completing college, you may feel overburdened by your student loan costs, but don’t fall victim to student loan forgiveness scams that offer false promises of easy debt relief.

That’s not to say there’s no such thing as student loan forgiveness — federal loans really can be forgiven under certain conditions. But debt relief companies know that millions more people are struggling to repay student loans and, in response, they’ve set up programs that offer to help reduce your debt — for a fee.

Often they offer services that you could perform yourself at no cost. According to the U.S. Department of Education, such companies solicit business through mail, mobile phone ads, social media, and direct phone calls.

UN Will Take on ‘Killer Robots’ in 2017 | Live Science

December 27, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Good news, fellow humans: The United Nations has decided to take on killer robots.

At the international Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva, 123 participating nations voted to initiate official discussions on the danger of lethal autonomous weapons systems. That’s the emerging designation for so-called “killer robots” — weapons controlled by artificial intelligence that can target and strike without human intervention.

The agreement is the latest development in a growing movement calling for an preemptive ban on weaponized A.I. and deadly autonomous weapons. Last year, a coalition of more than 1,000 scientists and industry leaders, including Elon Musk and representatives of Google and Microsoft, signed an official letter to the United Nations demanding action.