Human development scientists and computer game developers designed a video game that teaches kids how to resolve conflicts peacefully amongst themselves. Inanimate objects, such as pencils and erasers, come to life to lead players through a series of common scenarios in which arguments are about to occur. The player is prompted for the non-violent solution and is rewarded for choosing correctly.

Amid growing concern surrounding the effects violent video games have on children, a new computer game could be the alternative parents have been waiting for.

Kids who play together also argue together. Fights over games, toys and friendships are common, but when arguments heat up, it’s time to solve them before things get out of hand. A new computer game teaches kids how to solve playground and classroom quarrels that kids face every day in a positive way — without fists and fights.

"It helps them resolve conflicts by giving them a chance to think about what happens in the course of an actual conflict episode," said Melanie Killen, Ph.D., a human development expert at the University of Maryland in College Park, Md.

The game, called "Cool School: Where Peace Rules" — designed by a team of human development scientists, teachers, government mediators, computer game developers and animators — helps kids solve school violence and bullying while still having fun.

via Cool School – Where Peace Rules — Human Development Scientists And Computer Game Developers Design Video Game That Teaches Conflict Resolution To Kids.

In October, British researchers supported by the U.K. government will attempt to pump water a kilometer into the air using little more than a helium balloon and a rubber hose. The experiment, which will take place at a military airfield along England’s east coast, is meant as a test of a proposed geoengineering technique for offsetting the warming effects of greenhouse gases. If the balloon and hose can handle the water’s weight and pressure, similar pipes rising 20 kilometers could pump tons of reflective aerosols into the stratosphere.

via British to Test Geoengineering Scheme  – Technology Review.

In IT, theres reality, and then theres whatever the boss/project lead/stakeholder wants. Today, were hosting a community discussion about what you, the IT guru, think is the single most powerful change your department could adopt, short of replacing your end users with robots. Well be highlighting the best feedback next week, and returning to the topic in a series of reports we have in store for you over the next month or so. Here are the key questions:What are the most productive changes IT departments today can make, based on your experience? What worked best at your company—and how did it help? If you are imagining a bold new direction, what obstacles do you expect?Heres my take. Up in the Orbiting HQ, we have a sneaking suspicion that every IT department back on Earth has at least one big efficiency challenge. And its common knowledge that IT departments are in upheaval, beset on the one side by users and on the other by budgets. Thus, one big efficiency boost I expect to see gain traction is the practice of letting users choose their own tools. Less than a year ago I spoke with an IT manager at Intel who said one of the best things his corporation ever did for efficiency was letting employees do their work on just about any device they—and not the IT department—wanted. As you know, this wouldnt have gone over well in most IT departments a decade ago. Intel ended up with 15,000 mobile devices hooked up to its e-mail system; nearly two-thirds of them were owned by employees. This was a big win for end users, for the budget, and for efficiency.

via The single best change your IT department could make—what is it?.

Watson, the "Jeopardy!"-playing computer system, is getting a job.

WellPoint Inc. and International Business Machines Corp. are set to announce a deal on Monday for the health insurer to use the Watson technology, the first time the high-profile project will result in a commercial application.

WellPoint said it plans to use Watson’s data-crunching to help suggest treatment options and diagnoses to doctors. It is part of a far broader push in the health industry to incorporate computerized guidance into care, as doctors and hospitals adopt electronic medical records and other digital tools that can record, track and check their work.

via WellPoint Hires IBM’s ‘Jeopardy!’-Playing Computer System, Watson – WSJ.com.

If you want to make processors 1,000 times faster, you’re going to need some serious technology, right? That would be the conventional wisdom. But 3M and IBM have unlocked a secret low-tech shortcut.

The companies found a much simpler way to hit that elusive goal — not by creating some spectacular new circuitry or using exotic quantum mechanics, but with the invention of a new variety of a mundane substance: glue.

This is not just any glue. It’s an adhesive that dissipates heat so efficiently that layer upon layer of chips can be stacked on top of each other into silicon “towers” up to 100 layers high, glued together with this special adhesive that keeps things cool. The result? Faster chips for computers, laptops, smartphones and anything else that uses microprocessors.

With IBM supplying its microprocessor and silicon expertise and 3M contributing its super-cool adhesive, the two companies aim to stack together processors, memory chips and networks into monster “skyscrapers” of silicon they say will be 1,000 times faster than today’s fastest processor.

When can we get our hands on this breakthrough tech? IBM’s media relations representative Michael Corrado tells us, “By the end of 2013 it should go into production. It’ll show up on servers first, and then a year after that consumers might see it.”

via IBM and 3M Discover the Secret to Making Processors 1,000 Times Faster [VIDEO].

Sleep deprived and weary travelers in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport can now rent a small pod to recharge themselves and their electronics. The Sleepbox allows travelers to enjoy the luxury of privacy in a very public and active space.

The Sheremetyevo airport has installed the first functioning Sleepbox, designed by the Russian firm arch group. Inspired by the compact sleeping hostels in Japan, the unit holds two bunk beds in close quarters.

The Sleepbox has chic and smart design earmarks including a small footprint and sleek, rounded detailing. Each unit measures six and a half feet long, four and a half feet wide and seven and a half feet high. A simple frame of wooden beams sheathed with laminated moisture-resistant MDF (medium density fiberboard) creates a soundproof enclosure. Besides the beds, the pod is simply equipped with an LED lamp, fold down desktop, and electrical outlets. Flexible ducts allow connection to the general HVAC system for air and temperature control.

In Russia, a sleeping capsule for travelers | SmartPlanet.

Will the future be filled with cool technologies and endless opportunities or will our own creations lead to eventual doom? I tend to think the former. Technology has seemingly endless ability to improve the health, freedom, and happiness of our lives. Even optimistic futurists like Ray Kurzweil and James Canton admit, however, that the road to advancing technology is fraught with dangers. Super viruses, artificial intelligences run amok, environmental calamity – science has its threats as well as its promises. Yet there could be one near term problem that even futurists tend to ignore – economic collapse. Martin Ford, a silicon valley computer engineer, entrepreneur, and blogger has written The Lights In The Tunnel, a book which explores the economic implications of a world which is becoming increasingly automated.

Ford proposes that in the upcoming years robots and computer programs will edge human workers out of their jobs and that unless we take drastic actions this will reduce mass market purchasing power, destroy consumer confidence, and shut down the global economy. Ford has the reader envision these changes during a thought experiment where lights in a tunnel represent purchasing power in the mass market (hence the title). Even after discussing the book with the author, I’m not convinced that The Lights In The Tunnel is an accurate prediction of our future, but I wanted to spread the question: what does increased automation mean for our economy?

via Martin Ford Asks: Will Automation Lead to Economic Collapse? | Singularity Hub.

I don’t know if you noticed, but a parallel Earth has merged with our own, overlapping our reality no matter where we go. I’m talking about the digital realm – the confluence of internet, data, and social networks that we spend so much time with every day. As you walk around, the digital realm comes with you and augmented reality (AR) is your portal to merging that information with the world you see. With AR you can pick up your mobile phone, turn on the camera, and look as icons and virtual objects overlap with the real environment you see on your screen. Mobile AR lets you see reviews for restaurants as you glance up the street, or see new dimensions to the ads and posters around you.]

via Augmented Reality Browser Makes Your Mobile A Portal Into the Digital World | Singularity Hub.

Let’s not be silly here, robots don’t want to kill all humans…they just want to take all their jobs. The accelerating rise in robot labor of the past decade, and its expansion into all areas of production, have led many to worry about the future of human workers. Yet how extensive is the robotic take over of labor? Our friends at Mezzmer Eyeglasses did some impressive research and created an even more impressive infographic explaining the present and future of robots in the workplace. Check out the Singularity Hub exclusive image below. With 9 million robots working in the world, and 4 million+ more scheduled to arrive next year, we’re clearly entering into a new age of automation. But will it bring a new era of unemployment with it?

via Robotic Labor Taking Over the World? You Bet – Here Are the Details | Singularity Hub.

U.S. citizens may soon reach into their pants to elect their next president, according to researchers studying the feasibility of using smartphone technology to enable online voting.

Reporters have spilled their share of digital ink covering the future of electronic voting since the botched U.S. presidential election in 2000. Casting votes over the Internet is fraught with security concerns such as ballot fraud and voter identification.

via Future of Technology – The voting booth in your pocket.

Great piece by Rushkoff! Our society is changing RIGHT BEFORE OUR VERY EYES.

The U.S. Postal Service appears to be the latest casualty in digital technology’s slow but steady replacement of working humans. Unless an external source of funding comes in, the post office will have to scale back its operations drastically, or simply shut down altogether. That’s 600,000 people who would be out of work, and another 480,000 pensioners facing an adjustment in terms.

We can blame a right wing attempting to undermine labor, or a left wing trying to preserve unions in the face of government and corporate cutbacks. But the real culprit — at least in this case — is e-mail. People are sending 22% fewer pieces of mail than they did four years ago, opting for electronic bill payment and other net-enabled means of communication over envelopes and stamps.

New technologies are wreaking havoc on employment figures — from EZpasses ousting toll collectors to Google-controlled self-driving automobiles rendering taxicab drivers obsolete. Every new computer program is basically doing some task that a person used to do. But the computer usually does it faster, more accurately, for less money, and without any health insurance costs.

We like to believe that the appropriate response is to train humans for higher level work. Instead of collecting tolls, the trained worker will fix and program toll-collecting robots. But it never really works out that way, since not as many people are needed to make the robots as the robots replace.

And so the president goes on television telling us that the big issue of our time is jobs, jobs, jobs — as if the reason to build high-speed rails and fix bridges is to put people back to work. But it seems to me there’s something backwards in that logic. I find myself wondering if we may be accepting a premise that deserves to be questioned.

I am afraid to even ask this, but since when is unemployment really a problem? I understand we all want paychecks — or at least money. We want food, shelter, clothing, and all the things that money buys us. But do we all really want jobs?

We’re living in an economy where productivity is no longer the goal, employment is. That’s because, on a very fundamental level, we have pretty much everything we need. America is productive enough that it could probably shelter, feed, educate, and even provide health care for its entire population with just a fraction of us actually working.

via Are jobs obsolete? – CNN.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 5, 2011) — Most people view creativity as an asset — until they come across a creative idea. That’s because creativity not only reveals new perspectives; it promotes a sense of uncertainty.

The next time your great idea at work elicits silence or eye rolls, you might just pity those co-workers. Fresh research indicates they don’t even know what a creative idea looks like and that creativity, hailed as a positive change agent, actually makes people squirm.
“How is it that people say they want creativity but in reality often reject it?” said Jack Goncalo, ILR School assistant professor of organizational behavior and co-author of research to be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Psychological Science. The paper reports on two 2010 experiments at the University of Pennsylvania involving more than 200 people.
The studies’ findings include:
Creative ideas are by definition novel, and novelty can trigger feelings of uncertainty that make most people uncomfortable.
People dismiss creative ideas in favor of ideas that are purely practical — tried and true.
Objective evidence shoring up the validity of a creative proposal does not motivate people to accept it.
Anti-creativity bias is so subtle that people are unaware of it, which can interfere with their ability to recognize a creative idea.
For example, subjects had a negative reaction to a running shoe equipped with nanotechnology that adjusted fabric thickness to cool the foot and reduce blisters.
To uncover bias against creativity, the researchers used a subtle technique to measure unconscious bias — the kind to which people may not want to admit, such as racism. Results revealed that while people explicitly claimed to desire creative ideas, they actually associated creative ideas with negative words such as “vomit,” “poison” and “agony.”
Goncalo said this bias caused subjects to reject ideas for new products that were novel and high quality.

via Why we crave creativity but reject creative ideas.

Although the world is dependent on personal computers, making them has not been a great business for most American companies for almost a decade….

Click here to view the New York Times report.

Click here to learn more about tablets.