Have We Uploaded Enough Data To Create Digital Copies Of Ourselves?

Probably not yet. But that's not stopping anyone from trying. JL

Sean Captain reports in Fast Company:

We're already uploading data from tweets, Facebook posts, Instagrams, Slack messages, Fitbit readings, and Pokémon Go wanderings. Augmented Eternity could be a shortcut resembling the artificial intelligence of sci-fi—like HAL from 2001, Jarvis from Ironman, or Samantha from Her—but basing on real people, rather than minds synthesized from scratch. It might some day pass the Turing Test; i.e., to respond in such a natural manner that someone could mistake it for a human.

There Are No Experts About the Future

Explaining the present is hard enough these days. JL

Matt Ridley comments in The Rational Optimist:

So trust experts, yes, but never about the future.

Why 30 Percent Of Millennials Plan To Leave Current Job Within One Year

Coming of age in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Watching loved ones lose their jobs and their financial security while investors and senior executives benefited. And, at the same time, raised to possess talents their older peers and parents cannot even fathom.

Why shouldn't they take advantage when they can? Everyone else around them has. JL

J.T. O'Donnell reports in Inc. :

Millennials make up half the current working population and will continue to dominate over the next decade. The top two reasons Millennials leave for a new job are: A) more money and benefits, and B) more career opportunities. Companies offering professional training, mentoring, and even private career coaching not only help their Millennial work force become more valuable faster, they also gain their trust and loyalty.

Peter Thiel Wants To Inject Himself With Young Peoples Blood To Prolong His Life. But Of Course He Would.

PayPal founder. Trump convention delegate. Gawker Media bankrupter. Gay man. Venture capitalist. User of young people's blood to prolong his own life? Narcissism and money can make a very complicated combination. JL

Maya Kosoff reports in Vanity Fair:

The venture-capitalist explains that he’s interested in parabiosis, which includes the practice of getting transfusions of blood from a younger person, as a means of improving health and potentially reversing aging. Gawker has reported that it received a tip in June claiming that Thiel “spends $40,000 per quarter to get an infusion of blood from an 18-year-old based on research conducted at Stanford on extending the lives of mice."

Can Fact-Checking Myth-Busters Like Snopes.com Keep Up In the 'Post-Factual' Era?

Technology has made more information more available to more people more quickly than ever in human history.

Unfortunately, it has had the same effect on mis-and-disinformation.

The internet created this problem, but the good news is that it may also be able to provide a what appears to be, at least, a partial solution JL


Rory Carroll reports in The Guardian:

The fact-checking website was launched to correct urban legends and false rumors. Now, with even presidential candidates repeating fake stories from the web, its co-founder David Mikkelson says ‘the bilge is rising faster than you can pump’

Government Gives Google OK To Test Drone Deliveries

The initiative to begin integrating drone flights into Federal airspace management protocols has begun, which means commercial drone flights won't be far behind.

It also suggests Google has a much more effective (ie, connected) Washington lobbying office than does Amazon. JL

Steve Dent reports in Engadget:

Alphabet's UAVs, aren't like Amazon's drones -- they take off vertically then fly like a fixed-wing plane. While not as maneuverable, they can fly much farther and carry more weight. Alphabet will be able to test drones with cargo beyond line-of-site. It will also "develop and deploy an open-interface, airspace management solution for safe low-altitude operations,"

The Trend In Moving Corporate Headquarters Downtown To Embrace the Digital Future

The move of corporate headquarters from suburban office parks to downtown urban locations is strategic.

To attract the talent that creates the intellectual capital and intangible value driving the performance of the contemporary enterprise, organizations have to be where those sources of value want to be.

And in an economy where ideas and communication enhance performance, it pays have leaders closest to the nexus of such activity. JL

Nelson Schwartz reports in the New York Times:

The trend represents the deconstruction and disaggregation of the traditional corporate headquarters. Business(es) are changing the nature of their headquarters, staffing them with top white-collar employees and digital talent, rather than recreating endless Dilbert-like pods. To attract younger workers, it helps to be in the city. Advanced communications make it easier to separate corporate operations, (so) location is increasingly driven by function.

Is Constant Multi-Tasking Damaging Millennials' Brains?

Huuuh? Whuuuut? JL

Minda Zetlin reports in Inc:

The average Millennial switches his or her attention among media platforms 27 times per hour. Multitasking can lower your IQ by 15 points. It trashes your emotional intelligence (because) if you're switching your gaze you stand to miss a lot of subtle nonverbal signals. Prolonged multitasking will damage your brain. Regular multitaskers have less brain density in areas controlling cognitive and emotional functions, (and are) 40 percent less efficient, less attentive.

Should People Have the Right To Challenge the Data and Assumptions Used in the Algorithms That Increasingly Influence Their Lives?

People understand that their data is being used against them. And they want a say. The burden of western law's evolution suggests time and tradition are on their side. This isn't just about monetary outcomes, it's about due process. 

Julia Angwin comments in the New York Times:

Computer-generated criminal “risk scores” were wrong 40% of the time. If you are given a score that jeopardizes your ability to get a job, housing or education, you should have the right to see that data, know how it was generated, and be able to correct errors and contest the decision.

Mercedes Introduces First Fully Electric Heavy Duty Urban Truck

It is noteworthy that competition from Tesla appears to have spurred innovation that all the environmental studies in the world failed to inspire. JL

Darrell Etherington reports in Tech Crunch:

Daimler isn’t about to let Tesla own any more ‘firsts’ in electric transportation; the German company revealed the Mercedes-Benz Urban eTruck, an all-electric truck with a total admissible weight capacity of 26 tonnes (29 U.S. tons), which makes it the first clean energy big rig of its kind. In addition to emissions and environmental benefits, use of vehicles like the Urban eTruck have an immediate upside for city-dwellers: reduced noise.

Why It Makes Sense For Walmart To Buy Jet.com, Even For $3 Billion

Walmart has always focused on price. Amazon has dominated ecommerce by emphasizing convenience.

Jet.com has ecommerce capabilities with state-of-the-art pricing technology. Sounds like a match, especially given Walmart's seeming inability to threaten Amazon using conventional means. JL

Jason Del Rey reports in Re/code:

In Jet, Walmart would be acquiring the startup’s sophisticated pricing technology, which provides discounts to shoppers based on factors such as order size and proximity to partner warehouses.While Amazon’s success has largely been built around the convenience of its Prime membership program, Jet has been  focused on trying to beat everyone on price. It’s won’t topple Amazon, but could make a dent with Walmart’s existing pricing power and logistics.

What Happened When We Ditched Our Flat Org Chart

In organizations where human and intellectual capital contributes much of the value being created, it is tempting to eliminate organizational structure in order to let the best ideas and people realize their potential via the distributed network opportunities that technology provides.

But as the following article explains, in any society, there are implicit if not explicit structures and sometimes it's best to openly acknowledge them. JL

Chris Savage comments in Read/Think:

Being really flat meant that certain decisions had to be centralized because no one knew who to turn to. The way we operated meant that some people, like myself, were involved in every. single. decision. And after we grew past 30 people, that process started to break. There’s always a structure whether or not you define it.

Why Google Is Open-Sourcing Some Of Its Most Important Technology

Because expanding the overall size of the market delivers greater benefits than does containing the technology.

Sharing information and inviting participation forestalls obsolescence and may identify even better alternatives. Increasing the size of the technological ecosystem also makes more customers and allies reliant, even dependent, on it. And those who become so connected then feel compelled by self-interest and competitive instinct to contribute to its optimization. Which benefits everyone so involved.

Greg Satell comments in Digital Tonto:

We live in a semantic economy where everything connects and competitive advantage goes not to those who best reduce costs and leverage assets, but those who create new informational value for the entire ecosystem. Google employs some very smart people, but they can only advance technology if they are firmly embedded in the greater community. It needs legions of others to expand (its) reach through embedding Google technology into their own products.

Are Voting Machines the Next Target of Russian Hacking?

Is it possible to hack voting machines?Yes.

Is it easy to hack them? Also yes.

Is it easy to do without being discovered? We're about to find out. JL

Brian Barrett reports in Wired:

People weren’t thinking about voting system security or all the additional challenges that come with electronic voting systems. Moving to electronic voting systems solved a lot of problems, but created new ones. The list is what you’d expect from any computer that’s a decade or older. The problem with putting auditing systems in place is the same one keeping more reliable voting machines from the booths: a lack of money and political will.

Feeling Pressure, Big Banks Belatedly Vie For Instant Payments Market

Banks discover that all those little transactions add up to real money. JL

Michael Corkery and Nathaniel Popper report in the New York Times:

In this digital age, the movement of money can seem glaringly slow. (So)Wells Fargo joined JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and US Bank in allowing customers to send money to one another’s bank accounts using a phone or email. Banks worry they will be relegated to less-profitable back-office functions for new payment companies. Person-to-person payment is valuable because it allows (banks) first point of contact with a consumer to sell them other products.

How Facebook Is Beating Ad Blockers

The advantage of controlling your own platform and distribution channel. JL

Leila Abboud reports in Bloomberg:

Ad blocking cost web publishers nearly $22 billion in lost ad sales last year, compared with total internet ad sales of $160 billion. Ads within the mobile Facebook app (and its photo-sharing app Instagram) can't be stripped out by blockers. They're delivered by Facebook servers with none of the usual identifiers. Google's display advertising, such videos on YouTube, is more threatened by ad blockers than Facebook's. Google ads aren't sheltered within an app.

The Reasons Executive Team Size Is Ballooning In An Era Of Tech Efficiency

In an age where increasing value takes precedence over operating effectively, the emphasis, too often, is on minimizing downside risk rather than enhancing entrepreneurial opportunity.

The addition of multiple C-suite leaders, each with a very particular expertise, is supposed to help assure there are no hiccups. But, as the following article explains, the result is often less than optimal. JL

Jacques Neatby reports in Harvard Business Review:

The average team size for large firms is now 10, double what it was 30 years ago. The idea was to centralize decisions related to their functions, coordinate cross-business activities, and provide CEOs with decision-making support. CEOs find themselves more and more often acting as a referee. This task has grown as each new member comes aboard with a strategy to implement and an expectation that their priorities supersede all others.

Why More Companies Are Choosing A Sale Over An IPO

Cost and convenience apply to the benefits of finance as well as technology. Becoming a public company is expensive, time-consuming and fraught with regulatory oversight, as well as peril from perennially dissatisfied activist investors.

But once you sell to a 'strategic buyer,' (Wall Street speak for someone who will pay more than you are worth by any rational accounting of value), your investors can cash out, while you can wait a year or so, then hit your golden parachute and start all over again. JL

Maureen Farrell and Matt Jarzemsky report in the Wall Street Journal:

2016 (is) the slowest year for U.S. IPOs since 2009. Bankers and investors say the downtrodden IPO market can’t compete with buyers who are willing to pay big to take potential listings off the board.“There is a lot of wariness about how returns will ultimately be realized in the public market. The bar has gone up for seeing a public company as an alternative.”

How Storytelling Adds Value To the Customer Purchase Decision

Data can't do it all. JL

Drew Neisser reports in Advertising Age:

Targeted delivery of a story, and brand positioning, for that matter, involves a great deal of research and strategy -- even more so when your product is a high-value purchase.While there will always be customers to buy the product for functionality alone, layering the functionality with a human story adds meaning, novelty and imagination to the purchase. That's the irrational piece where you can exchange value.

Which Households Have Negative Wealth?

One out of six American households are likely to have a negative net worth. That they tend to be young, less well educated, female and from a minority group may not be surprising.

That there are so many of them should be. JL

Olivier Armentier reports in Liberty Street Economics:

15.1 percent of the households in the U.S. population have net wealth less than or equal to zero. The heads of such households are younger than their counterparts in households with non-negative wealth. They are less likely to have a college degree. Negative-wealth households are also much less likely to be homeowners; or self-employed. Heads of household with negative wealth are more likely to be female; single; or from a minority group.

The Ways That Verizon's Transformation Will Determine Its Future

Verizon's strategic goal is to use its telecom base as the largest wireless provider in the US to compete with Google, Facebook and Amazon in data, search and advertising.

The question is whether the organization, a traditional hide-bound telecom, can inspire its staff, used to a regulated environment, to combine forces with the bruised remnants from AOL and Yahoo to forge a competitive culture and deliver sustained results against experienced, determined opposition.

Could be a tough bet. Or the greatest change story in a generation. If they pull it off. JL

David Gelles reports in the New York Times:

Verizon is now the biggest wireless company in the country, selling voice and data plans to roughly one in three Americans.While Verizon is still adding wireless customers, its sales are no longer growing. Verizon will cast off its reputation as a big, boring telephone company and emerge as a digital media player mentioned in the same breath as Snapchat and Pokémon.Their goal is not to appeal to users in a different way. It’s to appeal to advertisers in a different way.

How Tech Companies Are Dominating the Stock Market As Never Before

They may not always - or consistently - be the top five companies in the world in terms of market capitalization (number of shares outstanding times share price), but the fact that they are now and may continue to be among the top seven or eight underscores the importance of technology to this economy. And of the growing dominance that a few, large enterprises may have. JL

Will Oremus reports in Slate:

The five largest companies in the world by market cap were all technology companies on Friday, July 29th. This was the first time that tech companies swept the top five spots in market cap. “It's really a reflection of how valuations are determined by future expectations."

Why Instead of Asking If Robots Are Becoming More Human, We Should Be Asking If Humans Are Becoming More Robotic

Co-evolution asserts that closely associated species influence each other's development. Which is why, as machines attain more human-like characteristics, humans may be becoming more machine-like.

The issue is more than idle speculation because our interpersonal relationships, cultural mores, diplomatic exchanges and economic vitality depend to a great degree on our ability to interact with others, however they may be defined.

If we lose the spontaneity and irrationality that often inspires, infuriates and otherwise characterizes human interaction, we may be sacrificing a fundamental attribute of our civilization. JL

 Olivia Goldhill reports in Quartz:

We need an inverse Turing Test to determine to what extent humans are becoming indistinguishable from machines. Changes in technology and our environment are making humans more machine-like. Our obsession with efficiency fuels the infatuation with new technologies. Technology is changing our environment to make us more robotic. Growing surveillance and “nudges” are slowly transforming the way we behave.

Hacking Capability of Drones Revealed

Photos of you sunning yourself in the backyard are one thing. Intercepts of your emails, smartphone calls and credit cards are quite another. JL

Hannah Kuchler reports in the Financial Times:

A simple drone can be used to attack WiFi, bluetooth and other wireless connections such as those used in contactless payment cards, making it as easy to intercept information in a private building as it is in a public café. A drone could just go land on the roof, sit there and record people’s keystrokes, and access the internal network over the wireless.

Why Technology Has Enhanced, Not Eliminated, the Database Administrator

Oh. Right. Management! What a concept. JL

Sean Gallagher reports in ars technica:

Virtualization, cloud data storage, micro-services, the "DevOps" approach to building and running applications, and a number of other factors have significantly changed how organizations store and manage their data. While there is definitely more automation and tooling, the counter to that is that many of the newer technologies are less mature and require more care and feeding.

When Startups Fail, Silicon Valley Millennial CEOs Like To Share Feelings

Talking about it is one thing. Learning from it is another. JL

Rolfe Winkler reports in the Wall Street Journal:

There is a history of introspection and commentary about failure in Silicon Valley, where success is rare. Founders found catharsis writing postmortems of their collapsed companies. Conferences examining failure have been created. The mantra “fail fast” has been adopted. Failure became popular to talk about. Startup postmortems (are) available online. “It’s WAY too much. It makes a lot of founders think it’s okay to fail. Like it’s a badge you get to wear.”

The US Is Producing More Research Scientists Than It Can Employ

It might be more accurate to say that the country is producing more research scientists than it is willing to invest in by employing them. JL

Gina Kolata reports in the New York Times:

We have been told time and again that the United States needs more scientists, but when it comes to some of the most desirable science jobs — tenure-track professorships at universities — there is such a surplus of Ph.D.s that in the most popular fields, like biomedicine, fewer than one in six has a chance of joining the club in the foreseeable future.

Glaxo and Google Form $715 Million Bio-Electronics Medicines Firm

Take two implants and call me in the morning. JL

Ben Hirschler reports in Reuters:

GlaxoSmithKline and Google parent Alphabet's life sciences unit are creating a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a novel field of medicine called bioelectronics. Galvani will develop miniaturized, implantable devices that can modify electrical nerve signals. The aim is to modulate irregular or altered impulses that occur in many illnesses such as diabetes, arthritis and asthma

How Didi Schooled Uber - And the Rest of the On-Demand Economy

Learning the hard way 101: when you enter the Chinese market, you are not just competing against another company or sector, you are competing against the Chinese government.

Uber found itself up against Alibaba, Tencent (two of the biggest tech companies in the world), Apple (trying to ingratiate itself and reduce opposition to its own standing there) - and the government.

Cost of tuition for that course: $2 billion and the forced sale of its Chinese operations. JL

Lulu Chen and Christina Larson report in Bloomberg:

(Uber's) capitulating. Didi Chuxing (will) buy out its local business to create a $35 billion Chinese ride-share leader. Uber will be left with about a 20-percent stake and Kalanick joins Didi’s board.The deal is the culmination of a year of war waged through massive subsidies on rides, costing Uber $2 billion. Its investors clamored for a ceasefire.

Good Luck With That: Olympic Committee Wants To Ban Non-Sponsors Tweeting About Games

The International Olympic Committee claims it is banning the use by non-sponsoring brands of numerous words on social media because under its extremely constipated view of intellectual property law, it 'owns' them.

These banned words include Rio de Janeiro, gold, victory, performance, medal and sponsor.

Lawyers - and stand-up comedians - should win lots of g*ld from this poorly conceived initiative. JL

Patrick Kulp reports in Mashable:

Under the rules, an act as minor as a brand retweeting a post from the IOC's account could be considered an offense. Whether or not this rule — which seems to strain the definitions of intellectual property law — will prove enforceable remains to be seen. But risk-adverse brands will likely avoid testing the committee all the same.

Digital Dining: When Cash Won't Buy Lunch

Speed, convenience - and a willingness to spend more. JL

Gloria Dawson reports in the New York Times :

A 2015 study on consumer payment choice found that although credit card use was steadily rising, slightly over 26 percent of purchases were still made in cash. Those transactions tend to be small in value. Mobile payments are expected to continue growing as well. In-store mobile payments will grow to nearly $34 billion in 2019 from about $4 billion in 2014.

The Dramatic Growth In US Solar Energy Capacity

It is interesting that the greatest and fastest growth is coming not from obvious Sunbelt states like California, Arizona, Nevada and Florida, but from northern states like New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, where the cost-benefit ratio has shifted to solar. JL

Price Economics reports:

Solar capacity reflects energy generating potential and in which areas solar is more or less widely adopted. States with the greatest solar capacity, like California, have more utility solar capacity than rooftop. Other states, such as New Jersey, primarily generate solar from rooftops.

Four Days That Shoook the Digital Ad World

Google and Facebook delivered results that established - as if any further notice were needed - that their dominance of digital advertising is duopolistic.

Admittedly, Amazon and Apple have yet to focus on this market and time will tell if Microsoft or IBM might yet re-emerge. But as the following article explains, Verizon believes that with its acquisition of AOL and Yahoo, it may be the only credible third competitor in the near term.  JL

Richard Waters reports in the Financial Times:

Digital advertising is expected to top the $200bn global TV advertising market within the next two years. 72 per cent of the world’s online advertising already passes through Facebook and Google. Verizon’s acquisition of Yahoo following last year’s purchase of AOL, represents an attempt to build a third force with the scale to stand up to the dominance of Google and Facebook.

How Poor Software Integration Has Caused HP Enterprises Sales Compensation Problems Since the HP Split

Post-merger integration gets a lot of attention, but with activist investors demanding more corporate disruption, post-divestiture management is also an issue, especially in an era of comprehensive software packages. JL

Julie Bort reports in Business Insider:

HP was withholding $40,000 to $50,000 of many salespeople’s pay, simply because the software it used for tracking their compensation, a program called myComp, worked so poorly. Splitting HP into two companies, with two separate IT systems caused the situation. By some estimates, a good 10,000 salespeople were impacted by the faulty myComp compensation tracking. By other estimates, it was less than half that number.

Why Job-Hopping Is Losing Its Stigma

With the rise in mergers, acquisitions and new startups, the institutional landscape has changed, so the market for employees to fill it has moved to reflect that. Technology and globalization have driven those working in this economy to seek the same sorts of advantages that their corporate employers have.

Not only is the stigma of what used to be called job-hopping diminished, but as the following article explains, the danger of remaining too long in one place may be interpreted as lack of ambition or diminution of up-to-date skills. The rapid changes in organizational structure and the compensation derived from it has been driven by economic forces that have also required a change in workforce attitudes about the benefits of employment longevity. Smart institutions do not want to penalize talent for the disruption they themselves have inspired.

Successful companies recognize that the pressure for immediate results has redefined the meaning of loyalty, both for enterprises and for those who work in them. The dedication has moved from the organization to the outcome from which both the enterprise and the employee benefit. JL

Joann Lublin reports in the Wall Street Journal:

Workers aged 25 to 34 years old in 2014 had worked a median of three years for their current employer. That compared with 5.5 years for all employees 25 and over as of 2014. It has become risky for managers to stick with the same employer for longer than a decade. There’s a concern they won’t be able to play in a new sandbox. 80% of U.S. recruiters are more willing than they were a decade ago to consider executive prospects who stay less than three years

Collision Course: Tesla and Uber

In the end, all big tech companies end up competing with each other. As does any enterprise whose model uses data and tech. In this case, it's just that they happen to be first in each other's sights. JL

John Mannes reports in Tech Crunch:

Both Uber and Tesla used an initial product or service to enter a market with serious barriers to entry. For Uber, ride-sharing required serious human capital and powerful regulatory influence. Tesla needed to build a mass-produced automobile from scratch. Both companies have an obsession with driverless cars. Tesla is using car-sharing to boost vehicle utilization rates. Both companies are betting on autonomous driving to reduce transportation costs.

Why Sports Authority's Bankruptcy Has Retailers Even More Spooked About Ecommerce

The retail dominoes are falling faster. And those focused on teens, traditionally among the most persistent shoppers, most of all. JL

Mallory Schlossberg reports in Slate:

The consignment business model is one area that retailers are concerned about, as Sports Authority had $85 million worth of consigned items in stores at the beginning of its bankruptcy. Sports Authority’s downfall came several months after Quiksilver and American Apparel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This spring Aeropostale and PacSun filed for bankruptcy.

Mercedes Pulls TV Ad Over Misleading Autonomous Driving Claims

Ever since a Tesla driver was killed, auto and tech companies have become more cautious about promoting autonomous driving, especially given the public's evident eagerness for it. JL

Amy Wilson reports in Automotive News:

The E-class offers an optional driver-assist feature that Mercedes calls “Drive Pilot,” which includes advanced adaptive cruise control and automated steering that allows the sedan to follow traffic and keep its lane at speeds of up to 130 mph. Advocates, including the publisher of Consumer Reports said the ad overstates the capability of automated-driving functions available on the sedan and asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate

How Google Will Use Wireless To Extend and Enhance Faster, Cheaper Internet Fiber Business

Convergence. Again. JL

Jack Clark reports in Bloomberg:

In the long term, fiber is cheaper. In the short term, wireless is vastly cheaper. Wireless is cheap to install initially but the equipment needs to be replaced every two or three years whereas fiber can generate consistent revenue without major maintenance after the initial expensive build out. Wireless internet can be installed in a matter of hours.

Are Paranoia and Schizophrenia More Common In Cities?

The wisdom of crowds? JL

Vaughan Bell reports in The Atlantic:

The two big psychological negatives of city living (are) social isolation and social threat. There is good evidence that urban environments amplify anxieties, increase the intensity of hallucinations, and weaken self-confidence. (But) You can't talk about social life without accounting for its richness, complexity, contests, ambiguity

The WTF Economy

Meet the new boss. Most emphatically not the same as the old boss. JL

Tim O'Reilly comments in Medium:

The algorithm is the new shift boss. What is the future when more and more work can be done by intelligent machines instead of people, or only done by people in partnership with those machines? What happens to workers, and what happens to the companies that depend on their purchasing power? What’s the future of business when technology-enabled networks and marketplaces are better at deploying talent than traditional companies?

Pew Research: Majority Expect Artificial Human Enhancements Are Coming: And Half Don't Want Them

Robots? How utterly 2016. A majority of those surveyed by Pew believe that technological and medical enhancements of human performance will be available in the not so distant future and that even cloning may become routine.

There is clearly concern about meddling with nature. Respondents are split on this: half would accept them, half would not. Men are much more intrigued than women. Which may be neither surprising...nor reassuring. JL

Brian Kennedy and Cary Funk report in Pew Research:

81% of U.S. adults expect artificially made organs to be routinely available for transplant by the year 2066. 66% say scientists will probably cure most forms of cancer within 50 years.None of the techniques that anchor this study are available for enhancing purposes today. 54% think the idea of implanted computer chips is likely to be a routine occurrence in the future. Half  say they would turn such options down.