Amazon won a patent for an on-demand clothing manufacturing warehouse.Standard operating procedure in the apparel industry goes like this: Make clothes, and then sell them. It can take weeks, if not months, to manufacture clothes, so that step has to come first. It can be a costly upfront investment, and items that don’t sell get discounted, eating into margins.But Amazon, the ecommerce giant...

Eyewear retailers have been sending frames to try on for years, but Quattrocento's paper concept makes the whole process cheaper and fasterThe Italian eyewear startup Quattrocento is making online shopping for a new pair of glasses a lot more efficient. With their new “paper try-on” service costumers can receive different paper cut-outs of models they can try on at home before making their pu...

China tops the US as home to the most private e-commerce companies with funding over $100M.[click to enlarge]E-commerce is one of the most well-established and well-funded categories within tech. Between 2012 and 2016, private e-commerce companies raised over $46.7B across 3,880 deals. Notably, while the US is often the top hub for various categories within tech, China takes the top spot over t...

The card is currently being trialled in a number of markets.The rise of mobile payments has made buying things with your fingerprint commonplace, so why not put that technology in a credit card? Mastercard thinks it’s worth a shot, and has built a credit card with a fingerprint scanner built right into the bottom. The card is no thicker than normal, and lets users authorize their payments with...

Despite Privacy Concerns, Consumers Will Share Personal Data If It Saves Money or Resolves Customer Service Issues.Only 15 percent were interested in 'targeted ads,' and 31 percent were unwilling to share personal data for any reason.Consumer surveys have repeatedly shown the public’s ambivalence about digital privacy. When there’s a clear value exchange or concrete reason for information sha...

CLEAR, the biometric security firm popular in U.S. airports and stadiums, has raised $15 million from T. Rowe Price to expand their footprint. The company, led by CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker, is already partially owned by Delta Airlines.“We are obsessed with our customers, and can’t wait to bring them more ways to use CLEAR. We lead the industry in secure biometric-powered customer experiences a...

The metallic "space fabric" that was created using 3-D printing techniques that allow different functionality to be integrated into each side of the material.NASA is getting into the textile business thanks to a team led by systems engineer Raul Polit Casillas at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The team has unveiled prototype swatches of a new metallic "space fabric" crea...

Finland-based Naava has developed a remotely-monitored smart wall of plants that constantly purifies indoor air, providing spaces with a fresh, clean supply.Building on research done by NASA, Finnish company Naava has developed a proprietary operating system for remote management of a smart wall of plants. The wall provides a constant stream of clean air and requires little to no management fro...

While sharing cars likely means slower growth of vehicle sales, it also suggests strong new opportunities for automakers, suppliers, and many more mobility players.The increasing popularity of shared mobility will slow global vehicle sales but not reverse them. Although there likely will be fewer new vehicles on the road because of sharing, car sales in developing countries will outpace shared...