Top 10 disruptive technologies for the next 4 years

According to Gartner, the top 10 disruptive technologies in the next four years are:

* Multicore and hybrid processors
* Virtualisation and fabric computing
* Social networks and social software
* Cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms
* Web mashups
* User Interface
* Ubiquitous computing
* Contextual computing
* Augmented reality
* Semantics

I personally think that each of these technologies is already here or is in progress. The most interesting ones to follow are Semantics and Cloud Computing.

Visualizing Large Graphs

Pretty cool collection of large graphs presented here from the University of Florida Sparse Matrix collection.

Here are some samples.

Your Mobile Phone Data —> Your Habits

The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.

The study concludes that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again.

Most people also move less than 10km on a regular basis, according to the study published in the journal Nature.

The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.

“It would be wonderful if every [mobile] carrier could give universities access to their data because it’s so rich,” said Dr Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University, Boston, US, and one of the authors of the paper.

Dr William Webb, head of research and development at the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, agreed that mobile phone data was still underexploited.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” he told BBC News.

More here from BBC

New marketing school by Drayton Bird

It is very interesting to learn that Drayton Bird, the man who according to David Ogilvy knows more about direct marketing than anyone else in the world, is starting a new marketing school in Europe.

Read more here.