Links for 6/12

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But today "technological unemployment," the term used to describe machines, robots and algorithms replacing human labor for good, is starting to feel less like a far-fetched idea and more like reality, and it has its roots in the exponential nature of technology.

Get ready, robots are going to steal your job

Larson argues that a few features will make highly dense but livable cities possible. One is urban farming, which could involve adding a lightweight “skin” to buildings where crops can grow in a process that is 100 times more land-efficient than conventional farming, and also uses much less water and produces much less carbon dioxide. In China alone, “you have 250 million people moving to cities, mostly farmers, and they’ll need jobs, so it’s a no-brainer,” he said.

Media Lab's Kent Larson Argues that Livability Spawns Urban Innovation | MIT Technology Review

Pretty much every single warning, every data point, every item Laffer complained about was wrong.

What's the Penalty for Pundits Who Get It Wrong? - Bloomberg View

Seventy per cent of my salary goes on rent, which is normal among my peers – but I'm well aware that this situation isn't right.

Living in an airing cupboard is no joke but the housing crisis forced me to do it | Holly Baxter | Comment is free | theguardian.com

It’s the defining image of the 1974 World Cup; the defining image of the great Dutch team of the 70s; the defining image of one of the most talented, enchanting and magical players to ever breeze around a football field.

Vogts was then booked for persistently fouling Cruyff, an achievement that was quite remarkable (thanks to the BBC’s David Coleman again) seeing only four minutes had elapsed.

World Cup: 25 stunning moments … No25: the Cruyff Turn is born in 1974 | Football | theguardian.com

4K has securely replaced 3D as the buzzword feature on new TVs, and as content producers scramble to churn out genuine ultra HD content, it looks like Sony's new A7s just might be their weapon of choice. It trades the 36.4 megapixels of the A7R for a 12.2 megapixel sensor optimized to shoot incredible low-light video in the darkest of conditions. For comparison, the Sony A7 and A7R top out at a max ISO setting of 25,600. Where as the new A7S boasts a max ISO setting of 409,600.

Sony's A7s Could Be the New Champion of Low Light Cinematography

Their namesake company is cooking up some awfully ambitious industrial-strength computing technology that, if and when it’s released, could replace a data center’s worth of equipment with a single refrigerator-size machine.

With 'The Machine,' HP May Have Invented a New Kind of Computer - Businessweek

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Eating a high protein diet significantly lowers the risk of stroke and could prevent 10,000 deaths in Britain every year, a study has suggested. Consuming as little as one chicken breast, or a salmon fillet – the equivalent of 20g – reduces the risk of stroke by 20 per cent.

Eat protein to lower stroke risk - Telegraph

There are no one-way bets in global finance, but Japan's stock market comes close. The authorities are about to funnel large sums into Japanese stocks openly and deliberately under the next phase of Abenomics, both by regulatory fiat and by purchasing the Nikkei index directly with printed money.

Japan to keep printing money for years to come, so learn to enjoy it - Telegraph

This time around, Abe didn't ignore the economy. Backed by economic adviser Koichi Hamada and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, Abe first implemented the biggest monetarist push in world history. He went the opposite direction of Europe, and -- unlike the U.S. -- he gave every indication that the shift toward monetarism was permanent. The result: Japan has escaped deflation. The stock market is up, growth is way up and even wages are finally starting to rise.

Japan's Abe Is the World's Best Leader - Bloomberg View

In other words, Friedman was calling for large scale asset purchases (LSAPs) long before it was vogue and understood that for the purchases to help the economy there must be a sufficiently large and permanent expansion of the monetary base.

Macro and Other Market Musings: Abenomics as a Fulfillment of Milton Friedman's Policy Prescriptions

Solar panel prices have plummeted more than 80 percent in recent years, but solar power is still more expensive than fossil-fuel power in most places, and accounts for a tiny fraction of the world’s energy supply. Few people have a better idea of what it will take to make solar compete with fossil fuels than Richard Swanson, who founded SunPower

How close is solar to competing with fossil fuels? It’s darn close. In 2000, a big study concluded that solar panels could get below $1 per watt [a level thought to make solar competitive in many markets]. At the time, everyone in the industry thought the authors were in la-la land. Now we’re under that cost target.

Richard Swanson on the Future of Solar | MIT Technology Review

China has announced new measures aimed at bolstering its economic growth. These include plans to build railways, roads and airports along the Yangtze River - which connects China's less developed inland provinces to Shanghai.

BBC News - China takes new steps to boost growth

The economic crisis in Europe and North America led to more than 10,000 extra suicides, according to figures from UK researchers. A study, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, showed "suicides have risen markedly".

BBC News - Recession 'led to 10,000 suicides'

Secondly, it gravely weakens the most optimistic explanation for the post-2008 drop in productivity. We had hoped that this was due in part to labour-hoarding; firms hung onto skilled workers in the downturn in anticipation of needing them in the recovery.

Stumbling and Mumbling: The productivity slump

The question of whether fiscal policy should be pro- or countercyclical has become increasingly relevant during the recession. This column provides causal evidence from South American countries showing the success of countercyclical policy in improving social indicators of economic success, combined with correlative evidence from Europe. This represents a strike against the case for austerity-led growth.

Fiscal policy responses to crises: The social impacts | vox

As we’ve mentioned in the past, perhaps the Samsung Galaxy Tab S range’s defining feature will be its thinness. Both versions will be just 6.6mm thick, which will make the 7.5mm iPad mini 2 Retina seem like a bit of a fatty.

Samsung Galaxy Tab S leaks in full - News - Trusted Reviews

Today Panasonic once again leads the way in digital camera development with the launch of the Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 - the world's first compact camera to feature 4k video capture.

Panasonic Lumix FZ1000 Review | First Impressions

George Osborne will use his Mansion House speech on Thursday to give City regulators the power to cap risky mortgage loans in a bid to allay fears of a growing housing bubble. In a dramatic move, the chancellor plans to allow the Bank of England to limit mortgage loans that could undermine the financial stability of the UK housing market.

Osborne to give regulators power to cap mortgage loans | Business | theguardian.com

The world must act to contain the risk of another devastating housing crash, the International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday, as it published new data showing house prices are well above their historical average in many countries.

IMF sounds global housing alarm

New data showing the return of a couple of old friends — subprime mortgages and so-called "jumbo loans" — have some people worried that recent history is repeating itself. Just six years after a housing bubble nearly tipped the world into a new depression, home prices in California and Florida are climbing precipitously – enough to prompt the real estate listing company Trulia to rank much of the property in these two traditionally frothy state markets as overvalued.

Some scary practices return to US property market, but the bubbles are overseas

A new journal article by researchers from Poland's Wojskowa Akademia Techniczna (WAT; translates to "Military University of Technology" showcases an interesting roadside sensor that could revolutionize law enforcement if it can be made more accurate and more consistent. We've seen system-on-a-chip (SoC) microfluidic laboratories that "sniff" for the presence of alcohol and other drugs.  Such sensors are already becoming commercially available, and have been deployed in traffic studies and at key security points across the U.S.

DailyTech - Roadside Laser Could Remotely Detect Drivers' "Alcohol Breath"

Johnson takes it upon himself to debunk the claim, made by the gun reform group Everytown for Gun Safety, backed by Michael Bloomberg, that there have been 74 school shootings since Adam Lanza killed 20 children, six adults and himself at Sandy Hook elementary School 18 months ago. In fact, Johnson concludes, there have only been seven. How does he manage this feat of mathematical magic? Simple: by narrowing the definition of “school shooting” so far that almost none of them count.

The gun lobby’s new tactic: redefining 'school shootings' so they don’t count | News | theguardian.com

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Even if you've never seen a soccer game before, there is hope. Most conversations about sports are an exchange of well-worn phrases and cliches, and soccer is no different.

World Cup Phrases To Know - Business Insider

"Being short one Tesla, as I was, can undo a dozen good short positions when you get the occasional moonshot that runs against you," he said. "By the way, I'm no longer short Tesla — and it was one of the biggest mistakes long or short of my investment career." In fact, he added, only the most experienced investors should ever be short.  "Don't do it," he said. "It is exceptionally hard — I can give you a dozen good reasons why shorting is a tremendously difficult and dangerous business, and I can show you a lot of scars on my back from dozens of years of doing it myself, learning a lot of lessons the hard way."

Whitney Tilson On Tesla - Business Insider

Treasurys fell a second day Monday, ahead of data this week that economists said will show improvement in the U.S. labor market and consumer confidence. Morgan Stanley recommended going “maximum underweight” U.S. debt.

Morgan Stanley Slaps 'Maximum Underweight' on Treasurys

Bill Gates is the richest individual person in the United States, and is worth $77.5 billion. With that kind of wealth, Redfin says, Gates could own every home in the entire city of Boston, where the city's 114,212 single-family homes, condos and townhouses would cost a total of $76.6 billion.

Billionaires' Fortunes Could Buy Up Entire Cities

Now, China -- which consumes almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined -- is accelerating a planned switch to cleaner fuels, including a possible cap on carbon emissions and limits on new coal-fired plants.

China’s Clean-Fuel Focus Tests U.S. Coal-Export Lifeline - Yahoo Finance

The "average" American worker earns about $44,000 per year and saves around 4% of his income. And the "average" household has a net worth of approximately $710,000, including the value of homes, investments, bank accounts and so on. But many Americans, needless to say, fall well below those benchmarks, which fail to capture widespread financial distress.

The middle class is even worse off than the numbers show | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

Wealthy Americans save about 12% of their income, by contrast, and the richest 1% save 38% of their income. Saving money is obviously important, because that’s how people create wealth

The middle class is even worse off than the numbers show | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

Some of the most influential groups in the Republican Party are behind the effort to put the Ex-Im Bank out of business, including Americans for Tax Reform, the Heritage Foundation and Americans for Prosperity

The Koch brothers target the Export-Import Bank for elimination; export financing agency is corporate welfare, critics contend - The Business Journals

Just as a new generation of virtual reality goggles for video games are about to hit the market, researchers at Microsoft have come up with what could be the perfect accompaniment—a way for ordinary headphones to create a realistic illusion of sound coming from specific locations in space.

Microsoft Researchers’ “3-D Audio” System Is Like Oculus Rift for Your Ears | MIT Technology Review

Though the ECB became the first big central bank to adopt negative interest rates, even that historic step may turn out to be less important than its signal that it will be propping up the troubled periphery of the euro area for years to come.

The ECB's gloomy message: Propping up the periphery | The Economist

Later on Thursday, the US Supreme Court may decide whether to accept or reject Argentina’s pari passu case. Rejection could mean a swift end to the saga. Argentina would be left to decide whether to comply with paying bond holdouts alongside its restructured debt, or defaulting on both, or settling with the holdouts. It’s always possible however that the court decides another day, or just asks the US Solicitor General to advise. That can take months. Hey. It’s the pari passu saga. (Update: no decision after all from the court on Thursday, it seems.)

The injunction has landed: Pari passu, the Black Eagle, and sovereign debt enforcement | FT Alphaville

Being king or queen of the high-school hallways might seem cool in your teens, but it doesn't bode well for your social status later in life, a new study suggests.

Being Popular In High School Leads To Problems In Adulthood - Business Insider

Pollan recommended that people avoid "anything your great-great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food" and "shop the perimeter" of the supermarket, largely avoiding the freezer and the junk-filled aisles.

How To Lose Weight - Business Insider

Since 1971, the United States has spent $1,000,000,000,000 on the war on drugs. If you have a hard time reading that enormous number, it’s 1 TRILLION dollars! There are an estimated 500,000 inmates incarcerated for drug related charges. At an annual cost of $25,000 per inmate, that equates to $12.6 billion a year. America spends 58% less money to educate a child than it does to keep an inmate behind bars.

"Drug Bless America" | Zero Hedge

Consumer prices in the euro zone are stable rather than too low, former European Central Bank (ECB) board member Jürgen Stark said, countering a widely held view that the current low level of inflation could derail the economic recovery in the euro zone.

Low inflation warnings ‘irrational’: Ex-ECB’s Stark

When we talk inequality in this country, we tend to focus on “the 1 percent” -- the very-high-income earners who are pulling away from the merely extremely well-off. But a growing body of evidence suggests that the distance between the middle and the bottom may be equally important. Possibly, it’s even more important.

It Takes a Village to Lower Inequality - Bloomberg View

But that's not the main reason older Scotch is more expensive. The Glenlivet brand ambassador Craig Bridger explained that by the time the 21-year has aged, 30% to 40% of what was in barrels is gone. This is because of "Angel's Share" — the natural evaporation of the liquid into the atmosphere over time.

Why 25-Year-Old Scotch Is So Expensive - Business Insider

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“Successive governments knew more than 10 years ago that diesel was producing all these harmful pollutants, but they myopically plowed on with their anti-CO2 agenda,” says Simon Birkett, founder of Clean Air in London, a nonprofit. “It’s been a catastrophe for air pollution, and that’s not too strong a word.”

In addition to NO2, diesel combustion also generates easily inhaled fine particulate matter, which probably killed 3,389 people in London in 2010, the government agency Public Health England said in April

London Leads EU in Car Pollution; Diesel Fuel Blamed - Businessweek

According to data from the WHO’s Global Burden of Disease project, air pollution was responsible for 3.2 million deaths worldwide in 2010, and 223,000 specifically from lung cancer.

Air Pollution Is More Harmful Than Passive Smoking, Two Reports Find - Businessweek

A new study concludes that under Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve’s extraordinary measures to fight the financial crisis cut the unemployment rate by about 1 percentage point from what it would otherwise have been.

Study: Bernanke's Fed Lowered the Jobless Rate by One Percentage Point - Businessweek

A trend change is at hand for the euro-dollar after the European Central Bank exceeded the market's easing expectations last week by imposing a negative interest rate on banks for their deposits and cutting its main interest rate from 0.25 percent to 0.15 percent.

As the ECB delivers a euro trend change is at hand

The "smart" in Smartisan OS is all about how it solves the many pain points that we come across while using our smartphones. You can check out a detailed list of features in our previous article, so we'll focus on the new ones introduced at this launch event, as well as some of our favorites here.

Meet the Smartisan T1, a surprisingly unique Android phone from China

What's the holy grail of tech? That's when Intel (INTC) lifts sales, earnings and gross margins because of enterprise demand. Anyone who has followed Intel as long as I have knows that when you get that mid-60s gross margin and more orders than you can handle, then the leverage is monstrous and the guidance conservative, simply because they can't keep up with the momentum. Yep, it's happening, and it is happening just in time, because the downward pressure from Iraq threatens to take out the entire consumer and transport leadership and this market is desperate for a leader.

Iraq could be a real monkey wrench in this market- MSN Money

Within a few years, the Internet of Things is going to be worth trillions of dollars

The Internet of Things: it's a really big deal | Technology | The Observer

Cantor's campaign spent more at steakhouses than his challenger, economics professor Dave Brat, spent on his entire campaign

Eric Cantor Loss: Steakhouse Spending - Business Insider

The liberalisation of labour market institutions has made labour markets more flexible and created many jobs. But beyond a certain point, the net effect of further liberalisation might be negative for society.

Why does inequality grow? | vox

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Even with the market soaring to record heights, some investors are afraid of a melt up: a sudden rise in stock prices. After the rise could come a fall and some investors are bracing to exit the market.

Could Stocks Melt Up? | Watch the video - Yahoo Finance

Tired of wasting your time watching cat videos or scrolling through your Facebook newsfeed? Want to be more productive next time you go online? Here's a list of websites that will actually make you smarter

Websites That Make You Smarter - Business Insider

A new surveillance and reporting program in 80 countries led by the World Health Organization shows that counterfeit antibiotics are a growing problem in all regions of the world, rivaling fake versions of erectile dysfunction pills like Viagra. Infections become superbugs by gaining resistance when the treatments used against them aren’t strong enough to kill them. It’s a growing problem as substandard counterfeit drugs become more prevalent.

Fake Antibiotics Feed Growing Worldwide Superbugs Threat - Bloomberg

Market research has shown that BlackBerry is still more popular than Windows Phone here in the UK.

BlackBerry still beating Windows Phone in UK - News - Trusted Reviews

We cannot allow that we are prevented from honouring our commitments to 93 per cent of bondholders. We are going to initiate a debt swap to pay the bonds in Argentina, under local legislation… That would be Axel Kicillof, Argentina’s economy minister.

They shall not pass (but let’s try and reroute our bonds around them anyway) | FT Alphaville

Back in September we calculated that the average London house had earned more in the previous year than its average occupants. The difference then was small, a capital gain of £38,729 in the year to July, against a post-tax income of £38,688 in 2011, the last year for which the ONS has statistics. Fast forward the best part of a year and your London house has had a raise, is flicking through the Audi catalog and considering exotic holidays.

This is nuts. When’s the crash? | FT Alphaville

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Here are two problems with the U.S. economy that reinforce each other: Employers aren’t creating enough jobs, and big companies increasingly seek tax advantages by relocating overseas. A new study suggests there may be one solution to both problems: Cut the corporate tax rate by a sizable margin.

A controversial way to create 10 million jobs | Daily Ticker - Yahoo Finance

There might only be 30 kilometers of sea water that separates the U.K. from continental Europe but the gulf between the policies of its two central banks has grown exponentially, leading currency analysts to believe an interesting trading opportunity could develop over the coming months.

Could this be the trade of the summer?

When the S&P 500 earnings yield (inverse of PE ratio) is higher than the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, stocks are considered to be the better value. The higher the earnings yield, the better. And the bigger the magnitude of the gap between earnings yield and the 10-year T note rate, the better. While the gap has narrowed a bit recently, it is still very wide

Key Metric Makes Case For Stocks Over Bonds

Now the schoolchildren are wondering what to tackle next. “I think they feel empowered,” Becky DeSalvo said. “They know they have the power to make a difference, especially when they work together.” It seems simple: if a bunch of middle school students with no real power can figure out how to be more environmentally conscious, so can managers in their workplaces.

BBC - Capital - How lunch led to a green revolution

Aspirin has been used for years to help protect patients from strokes, but mounting evidence suggests the drug's benefits are too small compared with other treatments.

BBC News - Aspirin 'not best' for preventing heart problem

Using this method they found that the average man in their study had 19 thoughts about sex a day. This was more than the women in their study – who had about 10 thoughts a day. However, the men also had more thoughts about food and sleep, suggesting perhaps that men are more prone to indulgent impulses in general.

BBC - Future - How often do men really think about sex?

But it’s not only humans who do it. Long-tailed macaques at the Buddhist shrine of Prang Sam Yot in Thailand take strands of long human hair and wind them round their fingers to get to those hard to reach parts of their mouths.

BBC - Future - Does flossing your teeth prevent tooth decay?

A handful of girls seem to defy one of the biggest certainties in life: ageing. Virginia Hughes reports on the families wrestling with a condition they can’t explain, and the scientist who believes that these children could hold the key to immortality.

BBC - Future - Ageing: The girls who never grow older

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Eleven-year-old Lucy Li will become the youngest qualifier to compete at the US Women's Open when she tees off at Pinehurst on Thursday.

BBC Sport - US Women's Open: Eleven-year-old Lucy Li prepares to tee-off

China Investment Corp. (CIC), China's $650 billion sovereign wealth fund, is shifting some of its allocation to agriculture. "We believe the agriculture sector offers stability, a way of hedging against inflation and a device for spreading risk," CIC's CEO Ding Xuedong wrote in the Financial Times. "We are keen to invest more across the entire value chain—in partnership with governments, multilateral organizations and like-minded institutional investors—in areas that will help to unlock the industry’s potential, increase the food supply and offer attractive returns."

China's Latest Investment Pick: Agriculture, Food

In terms of oil, the important development is not ISIS’s gains, but the consequent Kurdish takeover of Kirkuk, where northern Iraq’s main oil fields sprawl. The Kurds had long aimed to become oil-thirsty Turkey’s suppliers. The problem was the government in Baghdad. Now ISIS, in its stupidity, has effectively helped its Kurdish enemies consolidate economically, and for good measure, have also stormed the Turkish consulate in Mosul. The Kurds’ takeover of the northern oil is likely to be emulated in the south by the Shiites, for whom the fields near Iran, from Rumaylah to Abu Ghraib, will be an economic bloodline as they confront the Sunni challenge they face. Ultimately, Iraq’s current turmoil can actually improve oil production, placing it in sectarian hands that will benefit most from its recovery, and secure it better than any foreign rule.

Iraq’s unraveling would be good for oil - Amotz Asa-El's View from Jerusalem - MarketWatch

As for Argentina, they mesmerised us in the first fortnight in 2006. And 1998. And 1994. Come to think of it, their slow start ought to be seen as a positive.

World Cup history is full of teams that fizzed only to fizzle out but Louis van Gaal's Netherlands need to be different | Football News | Sky Sports

Increasing comfort with the outlook for China's economy will make emerging market equities the best performing asset class in the second half of 2014, according to financial services firm ING.

This asset class may be the superstar of the second-half

Here’s a radical idea to deal with the London house bubble from Rob Perrins, managing director of Berkeley Group, the upmarket housebuilder. Give London its own interest rate.

A game of mega-city states | FT Alphaville

U.S. multinational companies sidestep a whopping $90 billion in federal income tax annually, according to a study released this month by the Citizens for Tax Justice and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. Some companies are so successful at skirting taxes that they end up making money from the government: 26 of the 288 profitable companies examined paid a negative tax rate over the five-year period from 2008 to 2012.

10 companies that are great at avoiding taxes - Slide Show - MarketWatch

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Musk will have to meet the targets for building battery "gigafactories" and having nationwide charging stations for the stock to be successful, Sanchez said. "This stock right now is priced for that," she added. "It's priced to perfection and that's a challenge." That 200-day moving average has provided very nice trading signals on a number of occasions

This is how you trade Tesla: Pro | Talking Numbers - Yahoo Finance

The murky world of lobby groups bankrolling politicians is garnering more attention, but is there a way to find out which representatives are in the pocket without a lot of tedious research? A 16-year-old programmer has developed a browser plugin that, when you mouse-over the name of a US lawmaker, will serve up a list of which parties have donated to their campaign funds, and the quantities.

Teenager builds browser plugin to show you where politicians get their funding

Takara Tomy promised us that maglev technology would make its way to playsets next year, when we spoke at this year's Tokyo Toy Show. It had two very different toys on hand, one a train that the company claims can reach up to 600 KPH (relative to its scale, at least). To our untrained eyes, all we can say is it seemed pretty damn fast. The train contains its own magnet that levitates it off the plastic track

High-speed maglev toys are coming in 2015

It’s still true that Veterans Affairs provides excellent care, at low cost. Those waiting lists arise partly because so many veterans want care, but Congress has provided neither clear guidelines on who is entitled to coverage, nor sufficient resources to cover all applicants. And, yes, some officials appear to have responded to incentives to reduce waiting times by falsifying data. Yet, on average, veterans don’t appear to wait longer for care than other Americans. And does anyone doubt that many Americans have died while waiting for approval from private insurers?

The Hype Behind the Health Care Scandal - NYTimes.com

Stocks with dividend yields of 10% or more have historically been more likely to cut their dividends than to raise them. Still, the last two years have poked a hole or two in the old aphorism, and high-dividend stocks have returned more, in many cases, than growth stocks.

Five great stocks that pay dividends of 10% - or more

Jack Hough of Barron's dropped by MoneyBeat to play contrarian to the market and suggest four currently oversold stocks to buy

Barron's: Four Oversold Stocks To Buy | Watch the video - Yahoo Finance

Currently, the public expects inflation to average 1.83% over the next 10 years, with little change over the past year. According to the expectations theory, inflation is going nowhere.

5 reasons the Fed isn’t troubled by inflation - Rex Nutting - MarketWatch

A number of recent pieces have compared sitting down to smoking, an analogy complicated, I would have thought, by the fact that smoking is now usually done while standing up

Upright desks and treadmills at work – is standing really better for you? | Society | The Guardian

When I asked Forbes how the machine was benefitting her, she said: "Ask me in 20 years' time," which reminded me of the joke by the American comedian Steven Wright: "Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now."

Upright desks and treadmills at work – is standing really better for you? | Society | The Guardian