Weird World: Business & Industry

July 10, 2016

Traders' Hormones' Destabilize Financial Markets

Privacy? Huge Identify Theft Risks

Huge 3-D Displays Without 3-D Glasses

Sociable Robots: Rise of Compliant Machines

Latest Headlines

updated 12:32pm EDT

Technique from Biology Helps Explain the Evolution of the American Car

July 1, 2016 — Researchers have taken a unique approach to explain the way in which technologies evolve in modern society. Borrowing a technique that biologists might use to study the ... read more

Communicating Vehicles Could Ease Through Intersections More Efficiently, Study Finds

Mar. 17, 2016 — Imagine a scenario where sensor-laden vehicles pass through intersections by communicating with each other, rather than ... read more

Delivering the Internet of the Future, at the Speed of Light and Open-Sourced

Jan. 26, 2016 — New research has found, for the first time, a scientific solution that enables future Internet infrastructure to become completely open and ... read more

Sweden Is on Track to Becoming the First Cashless Nation

Oct. 13, 2015 — Sweden is on its way to becoming the world's first cashless society, thanks to the country's embrace of IT, as well as a crackdown on organized crime and terror, according to a new ... read more

Scents Sell: The Sweet Smell of Success

Sep. 9, 2015 — The concept of 'olfactory branding' has been the focus of recent research, and how in some settings, such as the hotel lobby, it can supplant or augment the more traditional audiovisual marketing ... read more

Omnidirectional Free Space Wireless Charging of Multiple Wireless Devices

July 7, 2015 — Scientists have made great strides in wireless-power transfer development. A new WPT system is capable of charging multiple mobile devices concurrently and with unprecedented freedom in any ... read more

Turning the Internet of Things Into the Internet of 'Cha-Ching'

June 15, 2015 — That Nest thermostat on your wall could be making you money. Not saving money, mind you. That's its day job: learning your habits so it can fine-tune your energy use and lower your power bills. But ... read more

With One False Tweet, Computer-Based Hack Crash Led to Real Panic

May 20, 2015 — A false tweet from a hacked account owned by the Associated Press demonstrates the need to better understand how social media data is linked to decision making in the private and public sector, ... read more

Spare Computing Power: Secure, Anonymous, Easy Way to Pay for Online Content

May 13, 2015 — Page views and “likes” are great for journalists' and webmasters’ egos, but they don't pay the bills. Researchers may have found a solution. ... read more

The Language of Invention: Most Innovations Are Rephrasings of Past Inventions

May 1, 2015 — Most new patents are combinations of existing ideas and pretty much always have been, even as the stream of fundamentally ... read more

KFC India Is Offering A Chicken Meal Box That Charges Your Phone

Airbus Looks to Algae Jet Fuel Future

This Pricey Machine Will Fold Your Laundry For You

Fishing Nets Recycled Into Skateboards in Chile

How Will Automated Technology Affect Communication-Related Jobs?

June 8, 2016 — What happens if people increasingly rely on automated machines to carry out the socially essential work of communicating with one another? Automation of communication raises broad social, economic, ... read more

Benefit of Organizational Misconduct: Others in Group May Work Harder, Study Says

May 19, 2016 — Misconduct within an organization is generally seen as a predicament at best, a catastrophe at worst. But a new study shows that such misconduct, or “deviance,” can prove beneficial by causing ... read more

Do Witchcraft Beliefs Halt Economic Progress?

May 9, 2016 — A new study provides empirical evidence for the mistrust and erosion of social capital that exists in regions worldwide due to witchcraft ... read more

Engineering Student’s Late Night Caffeine Craving Inspires Travel Mug That Brews Its Own Coffee

Mar. 16, 2016 — When Joseph Hyman ‘11, mechanical engineering, was a student at UMBC, he was sitting in the library craving a fresh, hot cup of coffee, when an idea struck him: Wouldn’t it be great if a travel ... read more

Color Affects Ethical Judgments of Brands, Research Suggests

Dec. 3, 2015 — Researchers have found that everyday shoppers make assumptions about brands that use green colors. The findings hold ethical implications for environmentally friendly ... read more

Encryption Made Easier: Just Talk Like a Parent

July 2, 2015 — A researcher has created an easier email encryption method – one that sounds familiar to parents who try to outsmart their 8-year-old child. The new technique gets rid of the complicated, ... read more

Emoticons May Signal Better Customer Service ;)

May 21, 2015 — Online customer service agents who use emoticons and who are fast typists may have a better chance of putting smiles on their customers' faces during business-related text chats, according to ... read more

Would You Rather Work for Megatron or Optimus Prime?

Apr. 27, 2015 — Researchers have rated the leadership skills of more than 120 characters featured in 'The Transformers' cartoon in 1984-85 and 'The Transformers: The Movie' in 1986. Their ... read more

Ten More Years of Real Money?

Apr. 21, 2015 — We will still be using "real" money for at least the next 5 to 10 years, but financial transactions carried out using mobile electronic devices, such as smart phones and tablet computers, ... read more

Who's a CEO? Google Image Results Can Shift Gender Biases

Apr. 9, 2015 — A new study assesses how accurately gender representations in online image search results for 45 different occupations -- from CEO to telemarketer to engineer -- match reality. Exposure to skewed ... read more

March Madness Brackets: Flipping a Coin Is Your Best Bet

Mar. 10, 2015 — Each year, millions of people lose billions of dollars in NCAA March Madness basketball pools. Still, most return the following year for another ... read more

Deciding on a Purchase: Does It Matter If You Look Up or Down While Shopping?

Mar. 4, 2015 — Next time you look up at a higher shelf in a store or down at your phone when making a purchase, think about how the direction you are looking could influence your decision. According to a new study, ... read more

Taking Madness out of March Madness

Mar. 4, 2015 — A business professor takes the madness out of the month with his "Dance Card" Method for determining NCAA March Madness brackets, also known as ... read more

Blockbusters: Can EEGs Predict a Movie's Success Better Than Surveys?

Feb. 25, 2015 — Seventy-five percent of movies earn a net loss during their run in theaters. A new study finds that brain activity visible through EEG measures may be a much cheaper and more accurate way to predict ... read more

Women Seek Greater Variety in Men and Consumer Products Near Ovulation

Feb. 17, 2015 — New research suggests women seek more options in dating partners near ovulation -- when they are most fertile -- which may lead them to also seek a greater variety of products and ... read more

People Value Resources More Consistently When They Are Scarce

Feb. 12, 2015 — We tend to be economically irrational when it comes to choosing how we use resources like money and time but scarcity can convert us into economically rational decision makers, according to new ... read more

Heightened Scents: Do Ambient Fragrances Make Consumers Purchase More?

Jan. 21, 2015 — Do consumers make different choices based on the fragrance surrounding them? A new study shows for the first time that the “temperature” of scents in a store atmosphere may have a powerful effect ... read more

How Attached to Our Smart Phones Are We?

Jan. 21, 2015 — Are we emotionally attached to our smart phones? That was the question scientists hoped to answer in a new article. understanding how users become reliant on their smart phone for particular tasks, ... read more

Hostile Boss? Study Finds Advantages to Giving It Right Back

Jan. 20, 2015 — In a result that surprised researchers, a new study found that employees who had hostile bosses were better off on several measures if they returned the hostility. "Before we did this study, I ... read more

Inventors Choose to Reveal Their Secret Sauce Before Patent Approval

Jan. 15, 2015 — Common wisdom and prior economic research suggest that an inventor filing a patent would want to keep the technical know-how secret as long as possible. But a new study of nearly 2 million patents in ... read more

Wednesday, June 8, 2016