Mobile devices are changing the way people shop, with consumers increasingly looking to make purchases where and when they choose. Though the majority of online purchases are still made via desktop, smartphone technology enhances the experience of consumption through social discovery, product identification capabilities, and more. A host of new apps offer shoppers creative ways to expand their...

The Whirlpool Levita aims to change your kitchen. On the one hand, appliances are good at what they do, but they only do one thing… the Levita is a jack of all trades in that aspect, allowing it to lend itself to the many activities of cooking. The left hand side of the device is an induction cooker. It has the ability to work with more than one utensil, sensing the the surface area of each ut...

Despite a tentative financial recovery, the retail-banking industry faces unrelenting, disruptive challenges. Banks that hope to prevail must urgently pursue digital simplicity. That is, they must develop digital and data capabilities that radically simplify their businesses while dramatically improving the customer experience through greater efficiency, quality, and speed. That mandate for dig...

Apple has today been granted a patent for an iPad Smart Cover with more smarts than usual: it incorporates a built-in display, and even a Wacom-style drawing tablet.The patent illustrates a number of different ways the Smart Cover display could be used, from simply extending the iPad’s own display through text-only displays of things like reminders to a combined display and touchpad. Some of t...

Investors Dial Back On Funding Food-Focused Startups. Deals and funding plunge amid a scarcity of mega-rounds, with only two $100M+ deals to food tech in the quarter.Food tech startups were hit hard by the global pullback in funding to VC-backed companies in Q1’16. Global food tech deals dropped to 27 in Q1’16 from their record high of 78 in Q4’15. The category has raised just $684M in the q...

Product is based on brand's two favorite recipes.April Fools' Day was a month ago, but KFC is only just now announcing that it has made two edible nail polishes that bring the classic tagline, "Finger Lickin' Good," grossly to life.Ogilvy & Mather worked with food technologists at McCormick, the spice company that provides KFC's secret mix of 11 secret herbs and spices, to crate the nail po...

The forward motion of its subsonic, people-carrying pods will provide the necessary magnetic levitation as a side effect, says Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, a Southern Calif.-based startup, in an announcement made this morning. Dirk Ahlborn, the CEO and founder of HTT, told IEEE Spectrum that this passive leviation saves energy and trouble. “One of the biggest problems is the need for...

SoundPays and ToneTag are disrupting the fin tech industry with offline cashless payments through sound waves.Contactless payment is revolutionizing the retail experience for merchants and customers but it is currently only available on selected devices and to stores who can afford to upgrade their system. Offering other solutions are ToneTag and SoundPays — two sound-based mobile payment syst...

Biophilia is human's deep-seated affinity for nature. It explains why we feel restored after being in a park, invigorated by the seashore, captivated by crackling fires and crashing waves; why our capacity to be creative can be influenced by viewing scenes of nature.That’s why it is now part of good green building practice and is considered critical in the Living Building Challenge and the Wel...