Sounds like it might have been a bit of business from a novel by Bruce Sterling or Charles Stross:
Nasdaq OMX Group said on Friday it will launch options trading on its three-week old Government Relief Index, which tracks the performance of companies bailed out by U.S. taxpayers.
Heroic Randian capitalists — masters of the universe, if you will — will save us.
[Image: Tony the Misfit; story tip: Atrios]
When better to advertise to someone than when they’re engaged in the activity of shopping? As proof positive that there’s no surface in the modern world that won’t eventually be used to barrage you with information about products that you almost certainly don’t need, a company called Modstream is pitching scrolling text ad displays that are embedded in the handles of shopping trolleys (or carts, as you call them on the other side of the pond) which can have messages beamed to them wirelessly. As Engadget points out, though, there’s plenty of opportunity for comedy hacks and culture jamming right there … [Image by Cyron]
Bigelow Aerospace is certainly on a roll with their inflatable orbital module projects, demonstrating that you don’t need a vast Federal budget to get functional capsules into space. Colony Worlds suggests that such low-tech success stories will erode political support for the ISS, which will become increasingly hard to maintain once the Space Shuttle is retired. Will this be the tipping point for the commercial space industry?
Tom Doyle’s nasty new story “Consensus Building” takes on the commercialization of your head space.
[ IMPORTANT NOTICE: This story is NOT covered by the Creative Commons License that covers the majority of content on Futurismic; copyright remains with the author, and any redistribution is a breach thereof. Thanks. ]
Irena’s head chip woke her like a slow sunrise, a gradually rising voice cooing “good morning” inside her mind. Damn, two flaws already. The first was last night — too many weird dreams had interrupted her sleep. She would have noted the dreams in her alpha test journal, but this morning she couldn’t remember any of them. She must have chewed out her subconscious for shoddy work so it was giving her the silent treatment.
The second, more concrete flaw: she had specifically asked to be awakened with a sudden jolt. She detested the cloyingly sweet morning alarm that did not resemble her own thoughts. Maybe Will McRae in Design could fix it. Continue reading CONSENSUS BUILDING by Tom Doyle