Featured Articles

HOUSTON — At the public library in Wilmer, Tex., books were checked out not with the beeps of bar code readers but with the scratches of pen on notebook paper. Out on the street, police officers were literally writing tickets — by hand. When the entire computer network that keeps the small town’s bureaucracy afloat was recently hacked, Wilmer was thrown into the digital Dark Ages.

See more ... Ransomware Attacks Are Testing Resolve of Cities Across America

One of the perennial challenges for any civic initiative is to encourage the public to get involved. Following the lead of e-commerce companies and social networks, some city governments are turning to gamification, defined as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, to introduce an element of competition and social activity to public engagement.

See more ...  City of games - Interact - Empowering Spaces

Big data analytics, while powerful, can be tough to decipher. To make it simpler, innovative organisations are bringing big data’s insights to the people who can use them.

Imagine a book that reveals the secrets of health, happiness and prosperity—yet is so complicated, hardly anyone can read or understand it.

See more at ... Democratising big data

Jukay Hsu is an enthusiastic Amazon backer. He wanted the company to build a big new campus in New York and participated in wooing it. He met with Amazon executives and appeared in a video pitch, and his tech-training program for disadvantaged New Yorkers was cited in the city’s written proposal to the company. 

See more at … Income Before $18,000. After: $85,000. Does Tiny Nonprofit Hold a Key to the Middle Class?

As a kid, I remember watching “The Jetsons,” where Rosie the Robot took care of most of the family’s needs and George flew to work a few hours a week, as the household’s lone breadwinner in a world where the feminist movement never happened. That vision of the future was about as accurate as “The Flintstones” portrayal of early humankind. 

See more at … Are You A Futurist

For your business to thrive in today’s online world, a strong online presence is a must. Paid advertising on AdWords and social platforms will produce immediate results, but for long-term success, nothing trumps content marketing. And it all begins with what I call “home base” — your website’s blog. 

See more at … Starting a Business Blog Is A Must For Success: Eight Tips

PHOENIX — It’s hard to miss the dogged technological ambition pervading this sprawling desert metropolis.

There’s Intel’s $7 billion, seven-nanometer chip plant going up in Chandler. In Scottsdale, Axon, the maker of the Taser, is hungrily snatching talent from Silicon Valley as it embraces automation to keep up with growing demand. Start-ups in fields as varied as autonomous drones and blockchain are flocking to the area, drawn in large part by light regulation and tax incentives. 

See more at … Tech Is Splitting the U.S. Work Force in Two

At first, technologists issued dystopian alarms about the power of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to destroy jobs. Then came a correction, with a wave of reassurances. Now, the discourse appears to be arriving at a more complicated understanding, suggesting that automation will bring neither apocalypse nor utopia, but instead both benefits and stress alike. Such is the ambiguous and sometimes disembodied nature of the “future of work” discussion. 

See more at … Automation and Artificial Intelligence: How machines are affecting people and places