TREND REPORTS
Japan is Building a Giant Robotic Lettuce Factory
[Tech]
2015/09/08 11:32
In 2016, Japanese vegetable production company Spread plans (pdf) to begin building a lettuce factory in Kyoto that produces 30,000 heads of lettuce per day, or 10 million heads annually, using a growing technique that’s almost entirely automated.As of last year, the world’s largest vegetable factory by square footage, also located in Japan at an abandoned Sony factory in Miyagi Prefecture, p...
(PDF) Mckinsey - Shifting Tides : Global Economic Scenarios for 2015–25
[Investing]
2015/09/07 11:30
Are we in for a bumpy ride? How bumpy? And for how long?At the National People’s Congress in Beijing in March 2015, China’s Premier Li Keqiang announced a growth target of 7 percent, acknowledging that “deep-seated problems in the country’s economy are becoming more obvious.”1 Three months later and thousands of miles away in Washington, the World Bank lowered its growth forecasts across t...
(Video) Infento Offers Transformable Transportation for Kids as They Grow
[Product]
2015/09/07 11:30
The reconstructible Infento lets young designers build 19 models of scooters, bikes, trikes, carts, and sledges.Looking to both solve the problem of children quickly outgrowing their rides and give parent and child a fun project to create together, two Dutch inventors dreamed up Infento. The name, inspired by the Latin for "infinite makes," is a collection of creative ride-ons for ages 0-13. Wi...
EBay : 20 Years of Trading
[Business]
2015/09/07 11:30
IN THE dawn of the internet, shopping online was seen as a slightly whacky idea. But during an idle long weekend 20 years ago, Pierre Omidyar sat down at his computer to thrash out the first lines of code for AuctionWeb, an online marketplace. When a broken laser-pointer became the first item to be sold on the site, Mr Omidyar knew he was on to a good thing. He hired his first employee the foll...
The Most Popular Books in U.S. Public Libraries, Mapped by City
[Consumer]
2015/09/07 11:30
Across the US people are flocking to public libraries to get their hands on Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman and Paula Hawkins’ novel The Girl on the Train. Those books are the most popular at nine of the 15 city libraries that provided Quartz with their recent circulation rankings for adult books. Both are New York Times Best Sellers.The time period for the checkout lists varied by library, bu...
China Has Made Key Stock Market Data—from 2 Weeks Before the Crash Onward
[Investing]
2015/09/07 11:30
Most of the time, weekly data published by the China Securities Depository and Clearing Corporation (CSDC) is as dull as the organization’s name would suggest. But of some interest this year has been the weekly number of people opening trading accounts that allow them to buy and sell stocks.Earlier, Quartz reported that a record 3.3 million individuals had rushed to join China’s stock market...
Barn Meets Loft in Savvy Energy Positive Home Design
[Design]
2015/09/07 11:30
The Solar Barn Loft is described as compact yet spacious, with an open-plan layout that has the potential for a variety of different interpretations.Inspired by the New England barn and the New York loft, Architect Paul Lukez has penned a cleverly compact home design that uses natural ventilation, "super insulation" and passive and active solar systems to minimize energy use. he angle of the ro...
Understanding the Fundamentals of the 3D Bioprinting Space
[Tech]
2015/09/07 11:29
For medicine, bioprinting is a necessity and an inevitability. The demand for organs will undoubtedly continue to climb with the global median age. Yet what hurdles lie in the way of creating a renewable supply? One major engineering obstacle is properly seeding and feeding the culture in order to create a functional organ. This is because complex tissues are composed of many different types of...
Ground Wakeboard Is A Combination of A Fuel Cell Car and Hoverboard
[Design]
2015/09/07 11:29
Ground Wakeboard is a conceptual project that inspired by the idea where Toyota works together with Yamaha, two popular transportation makers. The concept car is a fuel cell crossover Toyota “Cross Cruiser” that pulls Yamaha “Hover Board”. It’s a unique concept, perhaps dedicated to people who love extreme sports to make their life even more exciting.Cross Cruiser is a fuel cell concept ca...
(PDF) The Return of Corporate Strategy in Banking
[Business]
2015/09/06 11:10
For many years, corporate strategy languished in banking circles. During the go-go 1990s and most of the 2000s, too many bankers pursued indiscriminate growth, had a broad appetite for risk and diversified their portfolios without worrying enough about controlling costs or staking out distinctive positions in the eyes of customers.Then, the 2008 financial crisis caused an abrupt about-face from...
Wacom Bamboo Spark Creates Digital Copies of Written Notes
[Product]
2015/09/06 11:09
Pressing a button to the left of the folio wirelessly transfers the notes or doodles on the paper to a companion app.If you want a smartpen – which digitizes your handwriting and transmits it to a computer or mobile device – you currently have your choice of models including the Neo Smartpen N2, the LiveScribe Sky or the Orée Stylograph. All of those pens, however, require you to use special...
Facebook's Growth May Be Slowing, But Americans are Still Obsessed with It
[Consumer]
2015/09/06 11:08
Facebook's usage growth may have plateaued over the past 3 years, but Americans still appear to be huge fans of the world's largest social media site.According to stats from the Pew Research Center, charted for us by Statista, Facebook is the runaway leader in user engagement among all social media sites in the US. The percentage of US Facebook users who said they logged in every day reached 70...
