Read morea study published today by Internet security firm AVG found that 5% of babies under 2 have social media profiles, while 7% have an email address.
The main reason for doing this, it seems, is to share baby scans and and information about the pregnancy with family and friends. Meanwhile, many more babies are “online” in some form or other. 23% of fetuses had images of their antenatal scans uploaded before birth.
The idea of babies having an online presence before birth and in early life shouldn’t be surprising, giving the growth of social media in recent years. A positive side effect of the phenomenon, although the study didn’t go into it, is that parents are ‘reserving a patch of the Internet’ for their kids.
Author: m1k3y
Read moreiPad sold three million units in the first 80 days after its April release and its current sales rate is about 4.5 million units per quarter, according to Bernstein Research. This sales rate is blowing past the one million units the iPhone sold in its first quarter and the 350,000 units sold in the first year by the DVD player, the most quickly adopted non-phone electronic product.
Read moreChina Steps Ahead in Space Race
China appears to be pulling away from the pack in Asia’s space race after announcing plans to launch its second lunar probe, Chang’e-2, on October 1–China’s National Day.
If the mission succeeds, it will put China another step ahead of India in the race to become the second nation, after the United States, to land an astronaut on the moon.
China has pledged to do that by 2025 and India by 2020–setting up a 21st Century Asian version of the Cold War space race between the U.S. and Soviet Union.
William Gibson interviewed by Cory Doctorow about Zero History, the Bigend trilogy and more
Read moreThe Bigend-Draperist Playlist
There is a new cult on the Internet. The cult of Bigend-Draperism. Led by the constantly moving Ben Hammersley, it attempts to synthesize the philosophies of those fictional creatures (Donald Draper and Hubertus Bigend), standing at opposite ends of this period of History we find ourselves in, into a Guide to Living. Sometimes just a […]
Read more "The Bigend-Draperist Playlist"Read moreThe volunteer service, which is available in the south-east of England, offers a free out-of-hours service to a number of NHS hospitals and can be asked to carry anything urgently needed from baby milk to blood products and X-ray results.
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Steve said his two most unusual jobs had been getting a rabies vaccine for a hospital in Milton Keynes and getting frozen urine to a London ward for next-day testing.
All Serv volunteers are unpaid, receive no expenses whatsoever and give up a few nights throughout a month to be on call to respond to requests from hospitals.
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The group is said to have begun after a motorcyclist had a serious accident and needed a transfusion. A friend volunteered to fetch the blood from the nearest hospital that held his blood type and Serv was born.
Read moreIn 1490, the von Thurn und Taxis clan organized a postal line between European cities. Albert’s father claimed the family had the resources and manpower to start the organization after a stint as brigands in the Alps.
The Thurn und Taxis family eventually won the lucrative position of postmasters-general for the Holy Roman Empire. Their riches piled up. They moved into their 500-room castle in Regensburg in 1812. Albert still lives there with his mother and older sisters.
In our 2008 list of the planet’s richest, published in March, we found 1,125 billionaires worldwide. Of that group, 370 inherited their money. Many have had plenty of wealth in their families for multiple generations.
The U.K.’s richest citizen Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor traces his $14 billion fortune back centuries. In the 1600s, his family bought a cabbage farm. Cabbages may not make billionaires, but great real estate does. Those hundreds of acres are now hugely valuable because of their central London location. Like Albert, Grosvenor also has a title to go along with his fortune. He’s the sixth Duke of Westminster.
The Committee to Nuke Elysium 