TREND REPORTS
(Infographic) Most Consumers Don’t Even Notice Store Closures
[Consumer]
2018/11/13 09:02
36% said they don't miss any shuttered retailers. Nearly 40 percent of consumers didn’t notice the 200 percent increase in store closures in 2017.As online shopping skyrockets, brick-and-mortar stores continue to close. And most consumers don’t even notice, according to new research from Sailthru.While nearly 40 percent of consumers didn’t notice the 200 percent increase in store closures in...
(Patent) Google Patents Eye-Tracking System To Read Expressions For VR
[Tech]
2018/11/12 11:06
Google may one day make our virtual avatars more expressive by tracking our eyes.That is according to a patent published last week in which the company details a system for ‘Classifying Facial Expressions Using Eye-Tracking Cameras’. According to the description, the method uses “one or more eye tracking sensors implemented into one or more head mounted devices”.Eye-tracking is thought to b...
(PDF) Mckinsey - How Consumer-Goods Companies Can Win in Southeast Asia
[Business]
2018/11/12 11:06
Disciplined spending, stronger partnerships with retailers and distributors, and cross-functional collaboration set winners apart. But all companies in the region need to step up their game in digitization and analytics.For more than a decade, Southeast Asia has been a growth market for consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) manufacturers. The sustained rise in consumer demand in the region is, of cours...
A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty. That’s 50 Million Apartments
[Investing]
2018/11/12 11:05
Risk is potential for flood of sales during any property slump. Xi has said homes are for living in, not for speculation.Chinese President Xi Jinping’s mantra that homes should be for living in is falling on deaf ears, with tens of millions of apartments and houses standing empty across the country.Soon-to-be-published research will show roughly 22 percent of China’s urban housing stock is un...
MIT's See-Through Film Rejects 70% of Incoming Solar Heat
[Tech]
2018/11/12 11:05
To battle the summer heat, office and residential buildings tend to crank up the air conditioning, sending energy bills soaring. Indeed, it’s estimated that air conditioners use about 6 percent of all the electricity produced in the United States, at an annual cost of $29 billion dollars — an expense that’s sure to grow as the global thermostat climbs.Now MIT engineers have developed a heat-...
The Top Ten Cities For $100M VC Rounds In 2018 So Far
[Investing]
2018/11/12 11:05
Crunchbase News profiled a selection of U.S. companies’ largest VC raised in 2018, and no surprise here: the ten largest rounds all topped out well north of $100 million.A major driver of global venture dollar growth is the relatively recent phenomenon of companies raising $100 million or more in a single venture round. We’ve called these nine and ten-figure deals, which shine brightly in the...
The Growth of Microbrands Threatens Consumer-Goods Giants
[Business]
2018/11/12 11:05
Often the giants’ best and only response is to acquire them.Companies such as Casper, which sells mattresses, Warby Parker, a spectacles brand, and Glossier, a cosmetics firm, were once seen as interesting curiosities. Touting their products online, luring customers with digital advertising and eschewing conventional retailers and marketers, they were anomalies shaking up small segments of ret...
Next-Gen Color-Changing Properties Appear in Fashion and Beauty
[Product]
2018/11/12 11:04
Customization reigns supreme to modern youth as they are increasingly able to adjust their surroundings with the tap of a smartphone button, and they’re demanding it in their personal style as well. Within the rise of smart attire, researchers are experimenting with color-changing properties that aren’t limited only to clothes, but also accessories, jewelry, and beauty. Beauty Color-changing...
The Netherlands’ New Train Cars are Nicer Than Your Office
[Design]
2018/11/12 11:04
Designed by the architects at Mecanoo, these mobile work spaces look downright utopian.Next year, 373 million people will find themselves on Dutch National Railway Company trains (dubbed NS), and for all sorts of reasons. Some people will be solo, commuting to work with laptops, while others will be in groups, with massive amounts of luggage, playing tourist. Some will want to make friends. Oth...
