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Revolt of the Elites Has any concept more completely defined and disfigured public life over the last generation than so-called elitism? Ever since Richard Nixon’s speechwriters pitted a silent majority (later sometimes “the real America”) against the nattering nabobs of negativism (later “tenured radicals,” the “cultural elite,” and so on), American political, aesthetic, and intellectual experience can only be glimpsed through a thickening fog of culture war. And the fog, very often, has swirled around a single disreputable term. The first thing to note is the migration of the word elite and its cognates away from politics proper and into culture. There are two opposed explanations for this situation. To the first idea, that cultural vocations are uniquely elitist, there is more truth than is fun to admit. And yet if these days the cultural elite is more impenetrable than any other, it can’t be by much. How does this work? The effects in the US were contradictory. In some ways, this is strange.

Collaborative consumption A sharing economy takes a variety of forms, often leveraging information technology to empower individuals, corporations, non-profits and government with information that enables distribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services.[1] A common premise is that when information about goods is shared (typically via an online marketplace), the value of those goods may increase, for the business, for individuals, and for the community.[2] Collaborative consumption as a phenomenon is a class of economic arrangements in which participants share access to products or services, rather than having individual ownership.[3] The collaborative consumption model is used in marketplaces such as eBay, Craigslist, Tradepal and Krrb, emerging sectors such as social lending, peer-to-peer accommodation, peer-to-peer travel experiences, peer-to-peer task assignments or travel advising, car sharing or commute-bus sharing.[4] Scope[edit] Types of collaborative consumption[edit] History[edit]

The World’s Most Expensive Cities 2010: New York ranks only No. 29 By Venessa Wong If you think $43 is too much to pay for lunch, you shouldn’t live in Oslo. According to "ECA International", a global human resources company, that’s how much an average lunch costs in Norway’s capital. But Oslo is only the second-most expensive city on ECA’s ranking of 399 global locations. ECA’s ranking is based on a basket of 128 goods that includes food, daily goods, clothing, electronics, and entertainment, but not rent, utilities, and school fees, which are not typically included in a cost-of-living adjustment. Click here to see the world’s 30 most expensive cities. Source: "ECA International"

Ultimate CES 2011 Tablet Roundup: 25 Tablets Compared To say there were a few tablets at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show would be a vast understatement. With more than 80 tablet launches in total, there were at least as many Android tablets and devices on the show floor as almost anything else, including 3D devices, which popped up almost everywhere else. There was even a 3D tablet, as a matter of fact. We’ve boiled down the overflowing list of tablets down to a manageable 25. Motorola Xoom The Motorola Xoom is our favorite tablet of the show. BlackBerry PlayBook The BlackBerry PlayBook entered CES an underdog, but left as one of the hot items of the show. Toshiba Android Tablet This still-unnamed Toshiba tablet is running Android 2.2, but should be upgradeable to 3.0 (Honeycomb) before the tablet hits retail sometime this spring. Dell Streak 7 and 10 Dell’s 5-inch Streak failed to capture much interest when it hit AT&T last year, but the PC manufacturer isn’t done yet. Dell Inspiron Duo Samsung 7 Series Sliding Windows PC

11 Technology and Social Media Books You HAVE To Read We spend so much of our time online reading short snippets of information about our industry that sometime we forget to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Reading books is a great way to get some extra insight in to your industry especially in to one as new as social media. I’ve selected 11 books below that I’ve read and although they cover different levels of the industry and come at it from different angles they are all well worth a read. Re-Work by 37 Signals These guys are a small software company who make big profits and think very differently about business. Socialnomics This really is one of the best books around written by Erik Qualman. What Would Google Do? This is a fantastic read about one of the biggest and most innovative companies of our generation. Wikinomics The Whuffie Factor Crowdsourcing One of the most popular buzz words in the last couple of years in the online world has been crowdsourcing but surprisingly the word itself has only been around since 2006.

iPad 2 with High Res Screen, SD Card Slot and iPhone 5 with A5 Processor? Take a peek at some high probability rumors coming your way via Engadget, a couple about the iPad 2, iPhone 5, and a next generation Apple TV. First there's a few bits having to do with that super mysterious iPad 2 dummy model that was sighted at a booth at CES 2011 - non working, not confirmed as anything legit, but the details here don't seem that far fetched: a "super high resolution" screen similar to that of iPhone 4's Retina Display (hotness.) Then there's the notion of an SD card slot - this one I and we are a little bit less confident in, unless Apple plans on marketing the iPad to be more like the easy-open G3 towers of yore, openable and customizable - almost like a computer that was meant to be modified! The final couple of details on the iPad two are thus - a screen size that's exactly the same as the current model (likely,) and both front and rear cameras (also likely.) That all sound alright to you?

Population-wide reduction in salt consumption recommended The American Heart Association Thursday issued a call to action for the public, health professionals, the food industry and the government to intensify efforts to reduce the amount of sodium (salt) Americans consume daily. In an advisory, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association , the association sets out the science behind the American Heart Association’s recommendation for the general population, which is to consume no more than 1500 milligrams (mg) of sodium a day because of the harmful effects of sodium – elevated blood pressure and increased risk of stroke, heart attacks and kidney disease. Elevated blood pressure (hypertension) is a major public health problem – approximately 90 percent of all Americans will develop hypertension over their lifetime. Sodium consumption is currently more than two times higher than the recommended upper limit of 1,500 mg daily, with 77 percent of that consumption coming from packaged, processed and restaurant foods.

iPhone 5, iPad 2 to follow Motorola Xoom? iPhone 5, iPad 2 to follow Motorola Xoom? iPhone 5 and iPad 2 will ditch the home button? Motorola Xoom, the forthcoming Android tablet, has no buttons present in most of current Android devices available. Looks like Apple inc is not just planning solar-powered devices, but also products with less physical buttons. According to a Los Angeles Times report, Apple inc might remove the home button, based on a report of website Boy Genius Report. The new rumor suggests that iPhone 5 and iPad 2 (or Apple devices scheduled to hit the stores this year) will not rely on the home button, and will get access to the “return to home” function by pushing a button programmed inside the touchscreen UI. The report also added that some folks inside the Cupertino, California-based company are now testing the iPad with no home button model, most likely the iPad 2, reportedly scheduled to arrive in the USA exclusively (in just three months) next quarter. Around The Web: 1. Related Articles

Rumor: iPad 2 To Launch On April 2nd or 9th Although Apple is notoriously tight-lipped about new products in the pipeline, it’s pretty easy to predict when they’ll refresh one of their devices as long as you know when they last released an update… and this is doubly true for iOS devices, which follow a strict yearly update cycle. Knowing this, you’d have to be addled-of-brain and swollen-of-tongue to bet against the iPad 2 shipping anytime before early April: after all, the first iPad shipped in America on April 3rd, a Saturday. MacNotes‘s “reliable sources” tipping either an Apil 2nd or April 9th U.S. release for the iPad 2 aren’t really saying anything jaw-dropping then. They suggest, like last time, that the iPad 2 will ship on a Saturday early in April, and, like last time, it’ll be a U.S. exclusive for a a couple months before launching internationally.Also like last time, they say it’ll be six months before big box retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy get to offer the tablet. Well, yeah. Related