One of biggest information technology companies in the world to abolish e-mails

One of the largest information technology companies in the world is to ban e-mails – because it says 90 per cent of them are a waste of time.

Why Our Parents Put Us To Shame

I often think about how we survived under the watch of our parents.  There were no infant seats (how did you get anywhere with me in the car?), no seat belts (ok, there were seat belts, but they weren’t safe and no one wore them), people smoked basically everywhere, we gnawed happily on plastic and toys full of lead, climbed on high steel monkeybars, and electrical outlets were always in plain view and ready for a zappin’.

Be a Jerk: The Worst Business Lesson from the Steve Jobs Biography

Apple’s founder and CEO could be a cruel and nasty guy. He was also the greatest chief executive of our time. Don’t go thinking those two things are related.

Excessive internet use linked to depression, research shows

Leeds University study finds people classified as internet addicts are more likely to be depressed than non-addicted users.

Is this really the end?

EVEN as the euro zone hurtles towards a crash, most people are assuming that, in the end, European leaders will do whatever it takes to save the single currency. That is because the consequences of the euro’s destruction are so catastrophic that no sensible policymaker could stand by and let it happen.

25 Worst Passwords of 2011

SplashData created the rankings based on millions of stolen passwords posted online by hackers.

20 predictions for the next 25 years

From the web to wildlife, the economy to nanotechnology, politics to sport, the Observer’s team of experts prophesy how the world will change – for good or bad – in the next quarter of a century.

Europe´s Ideal Employers 2011

Universum, a Swedish-based employer branding consultancy, reveals its research on the continent’s most ambitious career-seekers and presents their choice of Ideal Employers. Based on 60,700 employer evaluations, reflecting the opinions of 19,890 students studying at Europe’s top academic institutions, Apple and Google are respectively no. one for business and engineering students.

The Interview Question You Should Always Expect

Whether you are a new middle manager or a new President-elect, the common wisdom is that you have three months to make an impact in your new role. And yet when preparing for job interviews, candidates make the mistake of believing that most questions will be about their past experience, not what they plan to do once hired.

Google’s Lab of Wildest Dreams

In a top-secret lab in an undisclosed Bay Area location where robots run free, the future is being imagined.

Why Economic Models Are Always Wrong

When it comes to assigning blame for the current economic doldrums, the quants who build the complicated mathematic financial risk models, and the traders who rely on them, deserve their share of the blame. But what if there were a way to come up with simpler models that perfectly reflected reality? And what if we had perfect financial data to plug into them?

India: The World’s Secret Silicon Valley

You might not know it, but a key cog in the global innovation machine is hiding in plain sight in the world’s largest democracy.

Aging Well Through Exercise

Is physical frailty inevitable as we grow older? That question preoccupies scientists and the middle-aged, particularly when they become the same people. Until recently, the evidence was disheartening.

The Bright Side of the Global Economy: The Middle Class Is Growing

There is a middle class revolution happening in the largest economies in Central and South America, a counterbalance to the terrible news coming out of Europe.

Measuring Happiness Now Could Predict Risk of Death in the Future

It’s no secret that social factors, like having a good support system in place around you, are linked to longevity. A related factor, being happier throughout life, has also been associated with reduced risk of death. The problem with the happiness-longevity relationship is that most studies have asked patients to rate their happiness looking back over their lives.

The Rise of the Megacity

Jakarta, Lagos, and Sao Paolo, and other massive population centers are changing the way we think about cities.

How The CIA Uses Social Media to Track How People Feel

In a nondescript building in Virginia, analysts are tracking millions of tweets, blog posts, and Facebook updates from around the world.

Ethical People More Satisfied With Life

University of Missouri economist Harvey James finds a relationship between life satisfaction and low tolerance for unethical conduct.

Idolize Bill Gates, Not Steve Jobs

Apple is undoubtedly the gold standard of today’s tech world. In fact, it’s probably the gold standard of American industry at the moment. Its innovative design, user interface, and ecosystem make it a titan in any category it enters. And it’s clear that Steve Jobs was the reason Apple rose to its current heights from the brink of bankruptcy.

The best time and place a woman to be alive: America, C.15,000BC

For women, there was only one time and place better than here and now to be alive—and that was 10,000 to 20,000 years ago on the Pacific north-west coast of what is now America, or anywhere else that was nice and fertile.