TREND REPORTS
Adidas Found Its Next Samba. Watch Out, Nike.
[Business]
2024/04/24 09:08
The company is following its well-worn playbook. But it shouldn’t become over-reliant on one signature style.Adidas AG is Samba-ing all the way to the top.The popularity of its retro sneakers, as well as its Gazelle, Campus and Handball Spezial shoes, was the main driver of last week’s upgrade to forecasts for full-year operating profit to about €700 million ($745.4 million) from €500 milli...
Is This The Future of Coffee ? Kaffa Roastery Releases AI-Conic Blend
[Product]
2024/04/24 09:07
The Finnish roaster collaborated with AI consultancy startup Elev to create an unusual combo of four beans.I am really into (my friends might say somewhat obsessed with) coffee. Not just for the hits of caffeine that fuel our productivity-enthralled capitalist society, but also for the taste, as well as different styles of brewing (although my Swedish roots make me partial to a pour-over). Sadl...
Luxury Labels Hit by Soaring Number of Chinese Returning Goods
[Business]
2024/04/24 09:06
Some brands’ rates well above luxury industry’s normal level. Worrying sign consumer demand still weakening in mainland.During China’s biggest online shopping festival last November, orders poured in for upscale labels on the mainland’s dominant luxury e-commerce platform, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Tmall.But within days, brands including Burberry Group Plc and Cie Financiere Richemont S...
The Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses have Multimodal AI Now
[Product]
2024/04/24 09:05
It can be handy, confidently wrong, and just plain finicky — but smart glasses are a much more comfortable form factor for this tech.When the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses launched last fall, they were a pretty neat content capture tool and a surprisingly solid pair of headphones. But they were missing a key feature: multimodal AI. Basically, the ability for an AI assistant to process multiple ty...
E-Books Still No Match for Printed Books
[Consumer]
2024/04/24 09:04
Happy World Book Day! While UNESCO's General Conference probably thought of ink on paper when it first celebrated the event in 1995, some 21st century book lovers have moved onto enjoying the pastime in the electronic form. In the following chart, we compare just how popular e-books are versus those in print.According to data from Statista’s Market Insights: Media & Advertising, e-book pen...
Phone-Powered Smart Speaker Concept - The MIX:X Speaker
[Design]
2024/04/24 09:03
Not everyone likes listening to music, but even those will perhaps begrudgingly agree that certain kinds of music can have different effects on one’s mood or mental state. Next to entertainment or the sheer joy of listening to favorite tunes, the most common use of music is to set the right mood, whether it’s to relax, to get pumped, or to be more productive. That said, musical tastes can be...
(Patent) Snap Files A Patent 'Workplace Emotion Detection'
[Tech]
2024/04/23 09:10
Snap’s latest patent application may want to keep a smile on employees' faces. The social media firm is seeking to patent “emotion recognition for workforce analytics.” Snap’s tech aims to measure “quality metrics” for individuals in the name of “workforce optimization,” with the filing using call-center employees as an example. “Contact centers typically stress that their employees st...
(PDF) BCG - To Seize a $7 Trillion Opportunity, Banks Need Bolder Strategies for Serving Customers
[Investing]
2024/04/23 09:09
Banks must redefine where to compete, who to partner with, and how to deliver value amid multifaceted disruption in the global financial ecosystem. They cannot succeed without active support from governments and cooperative partnerships with regulators.Banks are not likely to return to the profitability levels and valuations that existed prior to the global financial crisis. Yet they have the o...
Heineken Dials Down On Frills With Nokia Maker To Launch ‘The Boring Phone’
[Design]
2024/04/23 09:08
Is your phone always a third wheel during your nights out with friends? You’re certainly not alone. Heineken is so irked by this tendency that it’s teamed up with HMD—the maker of Nokia phones—and streetwear tastemaker Bodega, and made a detour from crafting beers to designing ‘The Boring Phone’, ringing in a new era of connection.This limited-edition “dumbphone” ditches the endless app...
Is South Korea’s Economic Miracle Over ?
[Investing]
2024/04/23 09:07
Decades of growth are tapering off as the country struggles to reform its model and reduce its dependence on manufacturing.Outside the town of Yongin, 40 kilometres south of Seoul, an army of diggers is preparing for what South Korea’s president has described as a global “semiconductor war”.The diggers are moving 40,000 cubic metres of earth a day, cutting a mountain in half as they lay the...
(Paper) Microsoft VASA-1 : Lifelike Audio-Driven Talking Faces Generated in Real Time
[Tech]
2024/04/23 09:06
Microsoft's VASA-1 takes AI-generated video one step closer to 'aw hell, we're all doomed'. The researchers are targeting 'positive applications' for their work, so that's alright then. With generative AI being a key feature of all its new software and hardware projects, it should be no surprise that Microsoft has been developing its own machine learning models. VASA-1 is one such example, whe...
OpenAI's Sam Altman Invests in Energy Startup, Exowatt Focused on AI Data Centers
[Investing]
2024/04/23 09:05
Exowatt Launches with $20 Million to Modernize Data Center Power for the AI Era. Breakthrough Modular Approach Makes Renewable Energy Scalable, Reliable, and Cost-Effective.Exowatt, a next-generation renewable energy company, today unveiled a first-of-its-kind modular energy platform designed to power energy-intensive data centers along with a $20 million seed round from a16z, Atomic, and Sam A...
