Business & management:
• The NZ Tourism Strategy 2015 has been awarded ‘Overall Winner’ in the prestigious Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards 2008, competing alongside 1,900 international nominees.
• The credit crunch in the UK is causing major problems for residents who have bought homes in a partially completed private development suburb in affluent Cambridge. The "contemporary, attractive and vibrant" suburb of 900 homes is under half completed and is now starting to look like “a rubbish dump”.
• The CEO of a learning technology company warns that the “wisdom of crowds” idea of the benefit of collaboration over individual effort has been embraced as dogma and that the results of group effort are not always better than those produced by the efforts of skilled individuals.
• Researchers at Deutsche Bank's Asset Management (DeAM) Division have published a new white paper arguing that increased spending on green infrastructure can provide enough economic stimulus to avoid a severe recession.
• The US green building industry has been less affected by the downturn in the housing industry than the conventional building industry. One advantage is that homebuyers are willing to pay more for a green home.
Education
• The Asia Pacific Managing Director of Cambridge University Press has said, "All countries in the world are looking at ways to provide education online and in a digital format. This is the trend of education in the future.”
• A Canadian education researcher has reviewed his predictions from 1998 about the future of learning, in the light of the changes over the last 10 years.
• A number of articles in the US are suggesting that the higher education industry may be the next to be seeing the end of boom times with many independent colleges choosing between shutting down, merging, or being acquired.
Environment & sustainability:
• If you’ve felt confused about whether reusable nappies are better for the environment or not, then you’re in for good news. A recent research report has shown that there can be considerable environmental benefits to using reusable nappies.
• The UK recession is having an impact on the recycling industry in the UK, and local authorities have requested government permission for Ministry of Defence land to be used to stockpile growing amounts of recyclable waste for which there is no use and no market.
• Researchers have produced a new model of the Earth’s climate that suggests that human-generated carbon dioxide emissions may prevent the onset of the next ice age.
• Some companies aren’t sure where to begin with their green initiatives, so a group of green business owners and consultants provide their favorite high-impact, low cost and easy-to-implement green initiatives.
•The world can expect energy prices to continue their generally upward spiral in the years ahead if global energy policies remain the same, according to the latest World Energy Outlook report.
• Scientists studying man-made “atmospheric brown clouds” and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere say that they are resulting in Asian cities are getting darker, glaciers melting faster and weather systems becoming more extreme.
• Greenhouse gas emissions by industrialised nations rose 2.3% from 2000 to 2006, according to new figures from the UN's climate change agency.
• 2 new books in the LOGIS collection are available: Microgeneration: low energy strategies for larger buildings / Dave Parker, and The value of parks: inspire, refresh, conserve, protect, play / [developed by Parks Forum in partnership with IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, and The People and Parks Foundation ; foreword by John Landy]
Health & wellbeing:
• Diabetes NZ is concerned that the public health system is not meeting its targets for free basic annual diabetes checks and new figures show that there are now 500 NZ children between the ages of 10 and 18 with Type 2 diabetes, the form of the disease that used to only be known in adults over 45.
• A recent report in the US has shown that while the bottled water industry promotes an image of purity, contaminants in bottled water from some states exceed the industry’s own voluntary standards, and many contaminants are not legally regulated in bottled water in the US/
• Google has found that it can predict where 'flu outbreaks will take place in the USA because "certain search terms are good indicators of flu activity", and Google can estimate current flu levels one to two weeks faster than published US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports.
• Researchers have found that traffic pollution adversely affects respiratory health in asthmatic children.
Law & Government:
• The public’s attitude is moving away from the use of physical punishment of children, since the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Act 2007 came into force. In a survey asking whether children should be entitled to the same protection from assault as adults, 80% of people surveyed responded positively.
• Internet identity and account theft is a global business with organised criminal groups making such details easily available online for a price.
• The Australian Senate has passed legislation that allows Australia access and property rights in its offshore waters for geological storage of CO2.
• Bhagidari is a UN award-winning system that actively encourages the participation of local citizen forums and community groups in collaboration with government officials to develop “joint ownership” of change processes. A British commentator contrasts the success of the Indian scheme with local governance in the UK.
People, culture & diversity:
• Nordic countries are still ranked top in the world for closing the gender gap between men and women, but in this year’s report from the World Economic Forum, NZ has kept its ranking of 5th.
• A report from Manchester University and the London School of Economics claims that stories and their writers can do just as much as academics and policy researchers, perhaps even more, to explain and communicate the world's problems.
• The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said in October that Britain should take urgent action to stop the demonization of children, and Barnado’s has now discovered in a controversial survey of 2000 adults, that half of them are fundamentally prejudiced against the current generation of children.
• “Individualism and consumerism” have been identified as modern “social evils” in the UK, and 2 viewpoint articles discuss aspects: one article looks at why people are less happy in spite of the many liberties available to everyone, and the other looks at investing in civil society to change things.
• Ireland is introducing a citizenship test for immigrants, of which English would be the key precondition. "Increasingly throughout all the nations of the EU language of the host nation is the key requirement. Learning that language is no longer voluntary”
• One of the world’s biggest photo collections, with images from the 1750s through to the present day is being made available online by Google, in a deal with Life magazine and other archives.
Science, technology & transport:
• If you’ve seen the “invisible” moon-walking bear in the now-famous Youtube video, what you’ve been watching is a subtle road safety campaign planted by London transport officials.
• The co-founder of Second Life has made some predictions about what might be the next exciting areas in technology development.
• Loss of personal data records held on discs, laptops and USBs by corporate staff or government officials in the UK has prompted the suggestion that biometrics be used as a security measure. However, there are problems and issues with the use of biometrics for security purposes.
• A chief adviser to the UK government is suggesting that the future of broadband would be a "patchwork" of community-based networks.
• Verdiem, the producer of Edison software for cutting PC energy use, is introducing the free software to the UK market. Edison is a pared down version of Verdiem's corporate-level Surveyor software.
• There is discussion in the US about lowering speed limits to help conserve fuel. It may not work, as Purdue University researchers found few US drivers have any respect for speed limits, which they consider nothing more than vague guidelines they can ignore. Researchers attribute the attitude to a similar previous law passed in 1974.
• Popular Science has published its “Best of What’s New” list for 2008. Among the list are Honda’s hydrogen car, software that can start your PC in 20 seconds, and a machine that can power generators by using waste heat as low as 93°C (200°F).
• Microsoft will offer a free anti-virus and security solution from the second half of next year, and stop selling its OneCare security and PC management service.
• Two GPS systems to track traffic snarls that went into operation earlier this month, will be on show at the World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) in New York this week.
• A Scots scientist uses a remote controlled helicopter that flies over active volcanoes to gather his data, to help predict when volcanoes will erupt.
Thursday, 20 November 2008
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