Modern smart phones are fast becomingthe must-have item. But what's in store for the next generation of smart phones?

    Tired of carrying around that heavy wallet? Soon you won't need to! The next generation of smart phones will have NFC technology, which lets you pay for things with your smart phones. All youdo is enter your credit card information into your phone. Then, when you are ina shop that allows NFC payments, you just wave your phone over a special instrument at the checkout. The purchase is instantly charged to your creditcard.

    Ever seen someone wearing something and wished you knew where to get it? Soon it will be easy with PicCommerce, new technology that uses image-recognition software. Here's how it works. If yousee something you like, simply take a photo of it with your smart phone. Then, your phone will send the image to a special server, which will respond with information about where you can buy it and how much it will cost.

    Sick of your smart phone battery going flat? With so many applications draining (消耗) the battery, the latest phones need tobe charged every day. But next generation smart phones will come with built-inchips that can connect to an antenna (天线) in your home. And as long as your phone is within range of the antenna, you will be able to charge your smart phone wirelessly, even if it is in your pocket.

    Worried about getting your smart phoneswet in the rain? A company called Hz0 has invented Water Block, new technologythat makes your phone completely water proof. And it's so effective that your phone will even work under water.

    Fed up with carrying a heavy phone around? Soon, you will be able to get a Paper Phone! “Flexible phones are the future,” said scientist Roel Vertegaal. So, what are the benefits of flexible phones? Well, it means that instead of carrying your phone in your pocket, you could wear it wrapped around your wrist, for example.

    Of course, there is just the problem: with so much new smart phone technology around, you will soon need to buy a newphone!

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      A new collectionof photos brings an unsuccessful Antarctic voyage back to life.

Frank Hurley's pictures would be outstanding—undoubtedly first-rate photo-journalism—if they had been made last week. In fact, they were shot from 1914 through 1916, most of them after a disastrous shipwreck(海滩), by a cameraman who had no reasonable expectation of survival. Many of the images were stored in an ice chest, under freezing water, in the damaged wooden ship.

The ship was theEndurance, a small, tight, Norwegian-built three-master that was intended to take Sir Ernest Shackleton and a small crew of seamen and scientists, 27 men in all, to the southernmost shore of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. From that point Shackleton wanted to force a passage by dog sled(雪橇) across the continent. The journey was intended to achieve more than what Captain Robert Falcon Scott had done. Captain Scott had reached the South Pole early in 1912 but had died with his four companions on the march back.

As writer Caroline Alexander makes clear in her forceful and well-researched story The Endurance, adventuring was even then a thoroughly commercial effort. Scott's last journey, completed as be lay in a tent dying of cold and hunger, caught the world's imagination, and a film made in his honor drew crowds. Shackleton, a onetime British merchant-navy officer who had got to within 100 miles of the South Pole in 1908, started a business before his 1914 voyage to make money from movie and still photography. Frank Hurley, a confident and gifted Australian photographer who knew the Antarctic, was hired to make the images, most of which have never before been published.

    On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicted that 42% of Americans could be overweight by 2030. Our expanding bodies not only lead to a medical problem, but also endanger personal safety in some situations—in an airplane crash, for example, according to a recent article in The New York Times.

The New York Times' Christine Negroni reports that engineers and scientists are questioning whether airplane seats are designed to protect overweight travelers. Government standards(标准) for airplane seat strength—first set more than 60 years ago—require that the seats be made for a passenger weighing 170 pounds. Today, the average American man weighs nearly 194 pounds and the average woman 165 pounds. Negroni reports:

     “If a heavier person completely fills a seat, the seat is not likely to behave as designed during a crash,” Robert Salzar, the leading scientist at the Center for Applied Biomechanics at the University of Virginia. “The energy that is built into the aircraft seat is likely to be overpowered and the passengers will not be protected properly”.

     “Nor would the injury be limited to that passenger only,” Dr. Salzar said. “If a seat or a seat belt fails,”he said, “those people who are seated nearby could not be safe from the uncontrolled movements of the passenger.”

    Most complaints(投诉) about airplane seats focus on their lack of comfort and high ticket price, and whether overweight passengers should be made to buy two seats. But The New York Times' article brings up another reason to feel anxious about flying. Investigators(调查者) got in touch with the airplane seat and seat belt makers, but they refused to talk about the problem. Experts agreed that crash testing should be done. Both airplane seats and seat belts should be tested, they said.

    Fortunately, however, according to Nora Marshall, a senior adviser at the National Transportation Safety Board, the board's investigators have never seen an accident involving a commercial plane in which the weight of a passenger was a problem.

Mark Twain's First Money

      Mark Twain was asked one day if he could remember the first money he ever earned. He thought a long time and then said, "Yes, it was at school. I can remember everything about it. School boys in those days did not take good care of their chairs and desks. There was a rule in our school that if anyone damaged his desk or chair, he would have to pay five dollars or the teacher would beat him in front of the whole school."

    "One day I damaged my desk in some way, I had to pay five dollars or be beaten before the whole school. My father said it would be too bad to have our family disgraced in front of the whole school. He agreed to give me five dollars to hand over the teacher. But before he gave me the money, he took me upstairs and gave me a beating."

    "But as I had one beating and I decided I would take another beating at school and keep the five dollars. So that's what I did. That was the first money I ever earned."

    One of the features of a successful business is its ability to employ creativity to constantly push into new territory. Without growth and innovation, businesses eventually fade away. Those with staying power, however, have mastered an often-overlooked factor that allows them to focus on the future clearly: empathy (共情). While that may surprise many, I am certain that the ability to connect with and relate to others—empathy in its purest form—is the force that moves businesses forward.

    Though the concept of empathy might go against the modern concept of a traditional workplace competitive, the reality is that for business leaders to experience success, they need to not just see or hear the activity around them, but also relate to the people they serve.

    Some may think they want the results from doggedly (顽强地) pursuing their goals without much thought for other people. This attitude works for some, but at some point often sooner rather than later everyone needs to rely on their relationships and established personal and professional connections. These relationships are the product of taking an honest and dedicated interest in others and their businesses. Successful people do not operate alone; each of us needs the support of others to achieve positive results that push us toward our goals. True empathy combines understanding both the emotional and the logical rationale(根据) that goes into every decision.

    Effectively understanding empathy involves viewing it as each person's connection to the people and marketplace that surround them. A biological principle known as co-evolution explains that the adaptation of an organism is caused by the change of a related object. Similarly, businesses and their leaders participate in co-evolution-type relationships. Business success depends on empathetic leaders who are able to adapt, build on the strengths around them, and relate to their environment. When businesses fail, it is often because leaders have stopped focusing on understanding their environment and instead stay separated in their own operations. Successful business leaders are receptive to disturbance and aware of what is going on in their organizations both internally and externally.

    To develop an effective workforce, we must be willing to give in and meet people where they are. This can be frustrating and uncomfortable, particularly when you feel like your position makes more sense or offers a better solution. A critical part of developing empathy, however, is learning to understand, respect and implement another individual's point of view rather than forcing your own.

    In a room at Texas Children Cancer Center in Houston, eight-year-old Simran Jatar lay in bed with a drip(点滴)above her to fight her bone cancer. Over her bald(秃的)head, she wore a pink hat that matched her clothes. But the third grader's cheery dressing didn't mask her pain and weary eyes.

    Then a visitor showed up. "Do you want to write a song?" asked Anita Kruse, 49, rolling a cart equipped with an electronic keyboard, a microphone and speakers. Simran stared. "Have you ever written a poem?" Anita Kruse continued. "Well, yes," Simran said.

    Within minutes, Simran was reading her poem into the microphone. "Some bird soaring through the sky," she said softly. "Imagination in its head…" Anita Kruse added piano music, a few warbling (鸣,唱)birds, and finally the girl's voice. Thirty minutes later, she presented Simran with a CD of her first recorded song.

    That was the beginning of Anita Kruse's project, Purple Songs Can Fly, one that has helped more than 125 young patients write and record songs. As a composer and pianist who had performed at the hospital, Kruse said that the idea of how she could help "came in one flash".

    The effect on the kids has been great. One teenage girl, curling(蜷缩)in pain in her wheelchair, stood unaided to dance to a hip-hop song she had written. A 12-year-old boy with Hodgkin's disease who rarely spoke surprised his doctors with a song he called I Can Make It.

    "My time with the kids is heartbreaking because of the severity of their illnesses," says Anita Kruse. "But they also make you happy, when the children are smiling, excited to share their CD with their families."

    Simran is now an active sixth grader and cancer-free. From time to time, she and her mother listen to her song, Always Remembering, and they always remember the "really sweet and nice and loving" lady who gave them a shining moment in the dark hour.