Berlin-based travel startup conichi has secured a $7.9m (€7 Million) seed-round from Hotel portal HRS. conichi simplifies check-in and check-out at hotels by using Beacon technology to display a guests’ personal preferences — such as allergies, room amenities, or late check-outs — onto a tablet held at the reception once a guest enters a hotel, thereby personalizing the whole experience. It...

The Cable Industry Faces The Perfect Storm: Apps, App Stores and Apple.On the 3rd of September, 2015, Benedict Evans, a veteran mobile industry analyst turned venture capitalist, tweeted a chart showing how traditional TV is losing its share of screen to smartphones and tablets. While Mr. Evans’ chart was not the first chart to alarm the cable industry, its timing was particularly interesting,...

With flood of new brands, water is on track to outsell soda by 2017.Nestlé, whose water brands include Pure Life and Poland Spring, sold more water than Dr Pepper Snapple Group sold soda last year, making Nestlé—not Dr Pepper—the No. 3 company in the U.S. for nonalcoholic beverages. Nestlé, whose water brands include Pure Life and Poland Spring, sold more water than Dr Pepper Snapple Group...

What brands can learn from students to grandparents.Nearly everyone and their mother is on social media. Literally. But, thankfully, that's where the similarity ends. When it comes to sharing across social media, the generational divide is stark.Accenture Interactive's Acquity Group's 2015 Next Generation of Commerce Study took a deep look into social habits across demographics. "Our study look...

Have we reached a tipping point for technology? Hold on tight. We are about to enter a period of unprecedented change, like nothing else you have ever seen in the past.Now, I know that everyone says this, and usually they are overstating the case. Indeed, since the Industrial Revolution, we have had 200 years of consistent change. But while these changes have been astounding, they have often be...

U.S. “Switching Economy” Up 29 Percent since 2010 as Companies Struggle to Keep Up with the Nonstop Customer, Finds Accenture Despite heavy investment, only 11 percent of U.S. consumers strongly agree companies are effectively converging digital, mobile, social and traditional channels U.S. companies are struggling to keep pace with their customers’ “always on” nature and greater use of di...

Sales of adjustable beds get a lift, as retailers promote features such as massage, USB ports and anti-snoring functions.Bed makers have been spiffing up styling for adjustable beds, which include features like massage and remotes. What was once known as the hospital bed has become one of the hottest products in the U.S. furniture industry.Bed makers have stripped off guard rails, spiffed up st...

A look at the top 25 most popular mobile apps in the US, as measured by comScore, leads to several observations.1. As the US smartphone market matures, the mobile-app leaders aren’t changing.Some 21 of the top 25 apps, as ranked by comScore, were the same in June 2015 as a year ago, when we first published this list. Eight of the top 10 were the same. Those were: Facebook, YouTube, Google Sear...

With Apple expected to reveal a new iPhone model today, we figured it was an ideal time to dig deep into our 3DMark benchmark data and see what we could learn about the competition between Apple and Android. Working with more than three million 3DMark benchmark results from the last two years we've gathered some unique insights into one helpful infographic.Infographic : http://www.futuremark.co...