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HUMANITY

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STYLE OF LIFE

7 billion people and you: What's your number? Sources: All population data are based on estimates by the UN Population Division and all calculations provided by the UN Population Fund. The remaining data are from other sections of the UN, the Global Footprint Network and the International Telecommunications Union. Want to find out more? Visit the UN Population Fund's detailed population calculator, 7 billion and me. Notes on the data: Only birth dates after 1910 can be accommodated and only countries with populations of more than 100,000 people are included.

Where available, the UN's medium variant and average figures from 2005-2010 have been used. World and country population clocks are estimates based on the latest UN figures and growth rates. Three country groupings - developed, developing and least developed - featured in the conclusions are those referenced by the UN for assessing the Millennium Development Goals. Read the answers to frequently asked questions here. Robot solves Rubik’s cube in 5 seconds, sets world record [video] A smartphone-powered robot beats the world record of set by Feliks Zemdegs (a human). Puzzles have this paradoxical appeal where no matter how much they give the human mind fits, people can't seem to put them down. Part of this is a testament to the degree in which we pride ourselves as relentless problem-solvers.

But for some of life's most perplexing problems, it's becoming more apparent that we're better off handing them off to computers. A recent demonstration of this can be seen in a video released last week in which a smartphone-powered robot solved the legendary Rubik's cube in 5.352 second flat, beating the world record of 5.66 seconds set by Feliks Zemdegs (a human). However, the secret to the Cubestormer II's prowess is a two-phase algorithm. Alright, so the computer beat the human record by a fraction of a second. More mind-blogging tech videos: More record-breaking tech: The "Dumbness of Crowds" « Female-friendly tech shirts | Main | Reverse-engineering user reviews » The "Dumbness of Crowds" Community. Wisdom of Crowds. Collective Intelligence. Jaron Lanier, in his controversial Edge essay Digital Maoism, has a great quote: "In the last year or two the trend has been to remove the scent of people...

" All geeks-and-personal-hygiene-jokes aside, we need the smell. By "crowd,", I think he meant "more people", sure, but he also defined a big ol' set of constraints for how much togetherness people can have before the results became dumber. Web 2.0 and putting the Community in Control One of the high-profile concepts of the Web 2.0 meme is community. What's the difference between Collective Intelligence and Dumbness of Crowds? "Collective intelligence" is a pile of people writing Amazon book reviews. "Dumbness of Crowds" is a pile of people collaborating on a wiki to collectively author a book. "Dumbness of Crowds" is expecting a group of people to create and edit a photo together.

Steven Pinker: Humans are less violent than ever - science-in-society - 21 October 2011. The 20 worst things people have done to each other - Embedded code.