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Two-thirds of American adults have slept with their cell phones on or right next to their beds. The number rises to over 90% among people ages 18 to 29. Those are some of the conclusions from the huge Pew Internet & American Life Project called “Cellphones and American Adults.”
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Much has been made of the Vanity Fair 100, a list of “the 100 most influential people of the Information Age.” But this list looks backward, highlighting well-known names like Zuckerberg, Jobs, Page, and Brin. Another just-released ranking is all about the future–and the new innovators who will define it.
The World Economic Forum has chosen 31 innovative start-ups to honor as the Technology Pioneers of 2011.
Selected from over 330 nominations from more than a dozen countries, the World Economic Forum’s Technology Pioneers “represent the cutting edge in innovation and are poised to have a critical impact on the future of business, industry and society.” Kevin Comolli, Managing General Partner at Accel Partners, called this year’s selection process “one of the most difficult to date.”
See the 31 innovative and visionary Technology Pioneers in the slideshow below. You can learn more about the selection process and companies from the World Economic Forum.
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A grim fact of the recession is that it pays to lay people off.
The CEOs who laid off the most employees during the recession are also the CEOs who took home the biggest pay checks, according to a study released last week.
CEOs of the 50 U.S. firms that slashed the most jobs between November 2008 and April 2010 took in 42 percent more than the average CEO at an S&P 500 firm, according to the 17th annual Executive Excess study by the Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive Washington think tank.
The study (PDF) also found that 36 of the 50 layoff leaders “announced their mass layoffs at a time of positive earnings reports,” suggesting a trend of “squeezing workers to boost profits and maintain high CEO pay.”
The 10 “highest-paid CEO layoff leaders” ranked in the report include the CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Mark Hurd, who earned $24.2 million in 2009 as the company laid off 6,400 workers and Walmart CEO Michael Duke, who earned $19.2 million as the company laid off 13,350 workers. No Wall Street banks were included in this list, but three banks — Citigroup, Bank Of America and JP Morgan — showed up on the study’s list of the 50 firms that laid off the most employees.
Overall, the study found that executive pay remains astronomically high compared to previous decades. “After adjusting for inflation, CEO pay in 2009 more than doubled the CEO pay average for the decade of the 1990s, more than quadrupled the CEO pay average for the 1980s, and ran approximately eight times the CEO average for all the decades of the mid-20th century,” the study says. Currently, CEOs of major U.S. companies average 263 times the average compensation of American workers, the study claims.
Check out Institute for Policy Studies’ ranking of layoff leaders among the highest-paid CEOS:
For more, visit our new Third World America section.
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The US Census came out with its annual report, the “Consolidated Federal Funds Report for Fiscal Year 2009: State and Country Areas” on how much the federal government spends on the 307,006,550 citizens who lived in America at the end of 2009. The state that received the most money per person was Alaska– $20,351. The state which received the least per person was Nevada– only $7.148.
The total federal domestic spending in the government’s last fiscal year was $3.2 trillion. That was up 16% from the previous year, almost entirely because of the government’s stimulus package, set up to ameliorate the effects of the recession. This was the greatest increase since 1983 which also occurred at the end of a deep and long recession.
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Bristol Palin might be “Dancing With the Stars” but she plans to stay covered up, People reports. Palin told the magazine,”I think I will be the most dressed [contestant and have] the most modest outfits for sure because that’s who I am.” Calling herself “naturally shy,” she added, “I have no experience in dance. But I come from an athletic background, so I’m thankful for that.”
Palin previously told Radaronline.com that she wants “to set a good example for all of the amazing moms out there. Yes, we can balance work and family, and we can also take on a new and exciting challenge.”
Palin isn’t the only contestant speaking out about what types of costumes she won’t wear on the show. David Hasselhoff told the UK Press Association he won’t be wearing any tight leotards, explaining, “You won’t see me in Spandex because it reveals too much of The Hoff.” Instead he’ll rely on his personality, saying, “I’m going to be big on attitude and big on interpretation.”
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