Our Changing World

People love to talk about their opinions regarding global transformation and progression. However, regardless of whether one is for or against globalization, our world is undergoing substantial changes. Here are some interesting facts and estimates:

-It is estimated that a week's worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century.

-The 25% of India's population with the highest IQ's is greater than the total population of the United States. In other words, India has more honors students than America has students.

-The top 10 in-demand jobs for 2010 did not exist in 2004.

-If MySpace were a country it would be the 5th-largest in the world (between Indonesia and Brazil).

-There are 31 billion searches on Google every month. In 2006, this number was 2.7 billion.

-The first commercial text message was sent in December of 1992. Today, the number of text messages sent and received everyday exceeds the total population of the planet.

-Years it took to reach a market audience of 50 million: Radio- 38 years, TV- 13 years, Internet- 4 years, iPod- 3 years, Facebook- 2 years.

-The number of internet devices in 1984 was roughly 1,000. The number of internet devices in 1992 was roughly 1,000,000. The number of internet devices in 2008 was roughly 1,000,000,000.

-There are currently about 540,000 words in the English language. This is about 5 times as many as during Shakespeare's time.

-NTT Japan has successfully tested a fiber optic cable that pushes 14 trillion bits per second down a single strand of fiber. This is roughly equivalent to 2,660 CDs or 210 million phone calls every second. It is currently tripling every six months and is expected to do so for the next 20 years.

-It is estimated that by 2013 a supercomputer will be built that exceeds the computational capabilities of the human brain.

-Predictions are that by 2049, a $1000 computer will exceed the computational capabilities of the entire human species.

-Americans have access to 1,000,000,000,000 web pages, 65,000 iPhone Apps, 10,500 radio stations, 5,500 magazines, and 200+ cable TV networks.

-Newspaper circulation is down 7 million over the last 25 years but in the last 5 years, unique readers of online newspapers are up 30 million.

-More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last 2 months than if ABC / NBC / CBS had been airing new content 24/7/365 since 1948 (which was when ABC started broadcasting).

-10 million is the number of unique visitors ABC / NBC / CBS get every month, collectively. These businesses have been around for a combined 200 years. Meanwhile, 250 million is the number of unique visitors MySpace / YouTube / Facebook get every month. None of these sites existed 10 years ago.

-Roughly 95% of all songs downloaded last year weren't paid for.

-Wikipedia launched in 2001. It now features over 13 million articles in more than 200 languages. Cisco's Nexus 7000 data switch could move all of Wikipedia in .001 seconds.

-Nokia manufactures 13 cell phones every second. Right now, 93% of US adults own a cell phone.

-In February 2008, John McCain raised $11 million for his US presidential bid. That same month, Barack Obama attended no campaign fundraisers. Instead, Obama leveraged online social networks to raise $55 million in those 29 days.

-90% of the 200 billion emails sent every day are spam.

-It is estimated that the mobile device will be the world's primary connection tool to the internet in 2020. The computer in your cell phone today is a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful and about a hundred thousand times smaller than the one computer at MIT in 1965. In other words, what used to fit in a building now fits in your pocket what fits in your pocket now will fit inside a blood cell in 25 years.

Source: The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/22/did-you-know-tracks-progr_n_366803.html)