As the world reopens, the role of brick-and-mortar retail comes back to the fore as consumers are in desperate need of social interaction. Key Takeaways: Consumers are going back to brick-and-mortar stores in impressive numbers, looking for meaning, looking for distractions, but more importantly, looking for a sense of belonging.Luxury brands are benefiting greatly from this consumer comeback w...

Just do it, direct. Nike's direct-to-consumer strategy is starting to pay off — big time.This week Nike reported that its total Nike brand revenues for the 12 months ending in May topped $42bn for the first time. A whopping $16.4bn, or almost 40% of that total, came from direct sales to consumers. That's up from 35% last year when we charted this data.The Nike marketing machineGoing direct to...

The inventor and pioneer of a novel adaptive lens technology, announces the launch of its new product, 32°N (pronounced 32 North), the first and only adaptive focus sunglasses, on Kickstarter. 32°N sunglasses enable a number of different prescriptions with a single pair of glasses. 32°N can dynamically correct for reading while serving as functional sunglasses. The glasses mimic natural huma...

Not everyone wants a face full of DEET when they head outside. Kinfield’s Golden Hour mosquito repellant is a delightful, effective alternative.Most bug sprays are intense. They look intense, in cans wrapped in graphics of mountaintops, pine trees, and highly aggressive mosquitos. They smell intense, like aerosol death. They have ingredient lists full of chemicals that sound intense. Those spr...

In many ways, the VW Bus ushered in the era of the mobile van camper. Inspired by its open interior, iconic pastel color schemes, and warm, rounded exterior‒designers have modeled their own camper vans after the VW Bus for as long as it’s been around to take us on trips. Taking the design language of Volkswagen and applying it to his own interpretation of the camper, design studio Ozan Kayick...

As more retailers deploy innovative, in-store technologies to boost the customer experience, improve performance, and reduce costs, edge computing is becoming a must-have.After a year like no other, marked by shutdowns and physical distancing, retailers are revving up for consumers to head back to physical stores in droves. Shoppers browsing in the aisles may be only hazily aware of the digital...

The NVIDIA Maxine cloud-AI video streaming SDK is based on GAN research, now on display at CVPR 2021 . Roll out of bed, fire up the laptop, turn on the webcam — and look picture-perfect in every video call, with the help of AI developed by NVIDIA researchers.Vid2Vid Cameo, one of the deep learning models behind the NVIDIA Maxine software development kit for video conferencing, uses generative...

Who wouldn't want to be shadowed by a beer-toting robot?It currently is a day of the week—which one? Doesn't matter, but kicking back at the end of it with a cold snack is surely a great way to wind down. But who wants to get up from the couch, work-from-home desk, or patio to grab their first (or second, or third ... ) brewski from the fridge or cooler? You could train your dog to grab one fo...

Carbon is the most valuable resource on earth, according to Climeworks, which has developed machines that suck it from the air so it can be turned into useful materials."We capture CO2 from the atmosphere," said Christoph Beuttler, head of climate policy at the Swiss company. "We're mining the sky because there's too much carbon in it. And it's a sustainable resource."Climeworks has developed d...