New Florence. New Renaissance.

Holiday Trends during the pandemic from Google

"We’ve analyzed Google Maps data before and during the pandemic (for the purposes of this post, we analyzed data from March to October 2020) to see how people across the U.S. are getting ready for the holidays. Read on for top trends on how people are navigating, how they’re spending their time and what type of food they’re craving."

Google Blog

The year of the cold chain

At the start of the pandemic, it became clear very quickly that the cold chain was a priority.

Manufacturers and distributors committed to ensuring the food supply chain would continue working as an essential industry. The focus later expanded to figure out how the cold chain would also be used to successfully deliver a temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccine to billions across the globe, once a viable option was ready.

Supply Chain Dive

Video below of the massive logistical challenge around COVID-19 vaccine distribution

The pothole hunter

“Our waste vehicles are out and about every day, so we thought why not tap into this network to get the latest information on the status of our roads.

“By equipping waste trucks with videoing technology and using AI to identify potential issues, we’re able to collect up-to-date information and get to fixing our roads quicker”.

The program began in early 2019 with Council’s Asset Management team and ICT department working together with tech suppliers to fit a Council garbage truck with a consumer-grade dashcam, GPS and 4G modem.

Video footage captured by the camera is then transmitted to the cloud, where AI methods are used to identify potholes, cracking, line markings, and signs while also protecting privacy.

Moreton Bay Regional Council

https://fb.watch/23_jLTuOEC/

 

 

Japan, China and Maglev trains

On one side is Central Japan Railway Co.’s 9 trillion yen ($86 billion) maglev that’s expected to connect Tokyo and Osaka by 2037. On the other is China’s 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) on-again, off-again project that will run between Shanghai and the eastern port city of Ningbo. After several false starts, it’s now forecast to be completed by around 2035. Japan’s is more expensive largely because of the amount of excavation that will be required to tunnel through the mountainous countryside. If Japan and China are able to unveil their long-distance projects successfully by their due dates, it should give them a leg up when they look to export the next-generation technology, rail experts say.

Bloomberg

 

McKinsey's State of AI Survey

Overall, half of respondents say their organizations have adopted AI in at least one function.   And while AI adoption was about equal across regions last year, this year’s respondents working for companies with headquarters in Latin American countries and in other developing countries are much less likely than those elsewhere to report that their companies have embedded AI into a process or product in at least one function or business unit. By industry, respondents in the high-tech and telecom sectors    are again the most likely to report AI adoption, with the automotive and assembly sector falling just behind them (down from sharing the lead last year).

The business functions in which organizations adopt AI remain largely unchanged from the 2019 survey, with service operations, product or service development, and marketing and sales again taking the top spots.

McKinsey

 

Apple iPhone 12 teardown

No chance I am tearing down my new 12 Pro. It has Belkin Ultraglass to shield the screen and a clear case to protect the body. However, I am glad there are others who have torn theirs down.  

The teardown from Fomalhaut Techno Solutions shows a bill of materials of around $406. It shows the most expensive components of this iPhones models are undoubtedly the Qualcomm X55 5G modem which cost around $90 (estimated). After this, it’s the OLED display from Samsung. The estimated price for this Samsung OLED display is around $70. around $90. Deep in the report, we got the production cost for the A14 Bionic chipset is said to be around $40. 

The iFixit video shows the teardown of the phone with an updated 3 camera system that includes Lidar, a new flat-edged design, an updated processor and 5G network support.

AeroNabs

“Far more effective than wearable forms of personal protective equipment, we think of AeroNabs as a molecular form of PPE that could serve as an important stopgap until vaccines provide a more permanent solution to COVID-19,” said AeroNabs co-inventor Peter Walter, PhD, professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. For those who cannot access or don’t respond to SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, Walter added, AeroNabs could be a more permanent line of defense against COVID-19.

UC San Francisco

 

The Great Reboot

Arnobio Morelix, Inc.'s chief data scientist and chief innovation officer of San Fransisco-based Startup Genome, from his forthcoming book

"Over half of Fortune 500 companies were created in a recession, an impressive number. And even if you look at the Great Recession, we had over 50 unicorns created during that time. So there's a ton of opportunity during periods of adversity. In the present moment, this specially helps digital businesses.

There are a lot of new, tech-enabled markets and products that will dominate our daily lives in the future. For example, we're seeing new technological implementations these days that probably would have taken years to roll out without the the pandemic, including touchless and cashier-less transactions at stores, automated toll booths (a technology that existed for years but has just now been completely implemented in the Bay Area, for example), small family restaurants and stores with digital interfaces for ordering. (Don't expect to be given reusable menus at your favorite neighborhood cafe any time soon.)"

Inc

Digital autopsies

A medical examiner puts on a pair of augmented-reality goggles and brings up a computer simulated image of a body that appears to hover steps away. Nearby on a metal autopsy table lies the body of a person brought into the lab after a fatal shooting. Instead of cutting into the victim, the examiner slices through the 3-D image, mapping the bullet’s trajectory and determining the cause of death without making a single incision.

This is one vision of the virtual future of autopsies, based on interviews with forensic and digital health-care experts: Using digital reconstructions and machine-learning algorithms to diagnose the cause of death, identify a victim, and even triage battlefield or motor-vehicle injuries in live patients by analyzing images of victims who died in similar incidents. It would mark a step change for the field of forensic science, where the standard methods of autopsy have remained nearly unchanged for a century.

WSJ

 

New security jobs for the digital world

WSJ highlights 5 new jobs for the digital world

• Deepfake analyst
• Driverless-Car Security Specialist
• Implanted-Device Guardian
• Anti-Cheat Referee (for video games)
• Chief Digital Identity Officer

Video on Trend Micro's threat research

Mathematical Library of the Future

Digitizing mathematics is a longtime dream. The expected benefits range from the mundane — computers grading students’ homework — to the transcendent: using artificial intelligence to discover new mathematics and find new solutions to old problems. Mathematicians expect that proof assistants could also review journal submissions, finding errors that human reviewers occasionally miss, and handle the tedious technical work that goes into filling in all the details of a proof.

But first, the mathematicians who gather on Zulip must furnish Lean with what amounts to a library of undergraduate math knowledge, and they’re only about halfway there. Lean won’t be solving open problems anytime soon, but the people working on it are almost certain that in a few years the program will at least be able to understand the questions on a senior-year final exam.

Quanta

More on Lean and the future of mathematics below

Autonomous medical robots

A fully autonomous robot surgeon is the Holy Grail—and many years off, says Dr. Tee, assistant professor of materials science and engineering at the National University of Singapore. He and other researchers are developing devices that can perform surgical tasks with minimal human oversight.

Dr. Tee’s latest project is an “artificial skin” that would give robots a sense of touch, allowing them to do things like differentiate between healthy tissue and tumors and make surgical incisions. Other researchers are working on robots that stitch up incisions and navigate to repair organs.

WSJ

 

Combat armor designed for females

From helmets to accommodate a hair bun to maternity flight suits, gear designed for women is being developed and issued, changing the way the previously one-male-size-fits-all military outfits troops.

The Air Force has the highest percentage of women service members at 21% of its active-duty force. The Navy is next at 20.2% followed by the Army at 15.4% and the Marine Corps at 9.1%, according to Pentagon figure. The services combine efforts at times to develop equipment, such as a new combat flight suit for women in the Army, Air Force and Navy, according to Army Lt. Col. Naim Lee, a project manager for Soldier Clothing and Individual Equipment. It is scheduled to be delivered to aviators in Oct. 2021.

USA Today

This video gives you an idea into all the combat jobs opened up to ladies 5 years ago

AI and Battery Development

In 2019, a team of researchers from Stanford, MIT, and the Toyota Research Institute used AI trained on data generated from these machines to predict the performance of lithium-ion batteries over the lifetime of the cells before their performance had started to slip. Ordinarily, AI would need data from after a battery had started to degrade in order to predict how it would perform in the future. It might take months to cycle the battery enough times to get that data. But the researchers’ AI could predict lifetime performance after only hours of data collection, while the battery was still at its peak. “Prior to our work, nobody thought that was possible,” says William Chueh, a materials scientist at Stanford and one of the lead authors of the 2019 paper. And earlier this year, Chueh and his colleagues did it again. In a paper published in Nature in February, Chueh and his colleagues described an experiment in which an AI was able to discover the optimal method for 10-minute fast-charging a lithium-ion battery.

Wired

 

The "going-out" blanket

For the first time in recent history, the preferred environment for socializing has become “anywhere outside.” And during a pandemic and period of worldwide unrest, most people are seeking comfort more than ever. As a replacement for the timeworn going-out top—obviously better suited to the indoors—the going-out blanket suddenly makes sense.

Blankets have always been at the heart of the knitwear brand The Elder Statesman. Founder Greg Chait started the company in 2007 with a series of cashmere blankets, and now sells a full range of clothing for men, women and children, as well as accessories and home goods. Chait thinks carrying some sort of blanket for outings is a good idea. In fact, The Elder Statesman has had a blanket scarf in its collection for years for that very purpose. “Very handy,” he said in an email. Like Bode, he’s a fan of the car blanket and also keeps his brand’s socks and sweaters with him on the go.

WSJ

Talking of Bode, here is a video on her Vault, in collaboration with Microsoft AI on a digital quilt archive.

Hum to Search

You can hum, whistle or sing a melody to Google to solve your earworm. On your mobile device, open the latest version of the Google app or find your Google Search widget, tap the mic icon and say “what's this song?” or click the “Search a song” button. Then start humming for 10-15 seconds. On Google Assistant, it’s just as simple. Say “Hey Google, what’s this song?” and then hum the tune. This feature is currently available in English on iOS, and in more than 20 languages on Android. And we hope to expand this to more languages in the future.

After you’re finished humming, our machine learning algorithm helps identify potential song matches.

Google

 

Skyscrapers inspired by sea sponges

The next generation of skyscrapers could be, well, spongey. Researchers at Harvard University’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences say a lattice reinforced with diagonals, inspired by the structures built by sponges, could mean lighter, but stronger skyscrapers and bridges.

Popular Mechanics

Video on how biomimicry increasingly influences design in many fields

Goodbye, Spark Plugs

Transient Plasma System (TPS) proposes employing a different kind of plasma to initiate combustion in a completely different way. Leveraging recent advances in solid-state high-voltage switching capability, voltage similar to that built up in an old-fashioned coil is summoned in a matter of 10-50 nanoseconds and dispersed not across a discrete gap but rather in streamers and sheets between an electrode and the plug's peripheral housing.

Motor Trend

Google's Journalist Studio

Our team at Google spent the past two years working collaboratively with newsrooms to help tackle this problem. What would it look like if we put the best of Google’s search, AI and machine learning technology into the hands of reporters?

Today we’re announcing Journalist Studio, a suite of tools that uses technology to help reporters do their work more efficiently, securely and creatively, and two new products for reporters.

Google Blog

Image Credit

 

AR Goggles for Military Dogs

In 2017, Dr. A.J. Peper started Command Sight, a small business based in Seattle, to bridge human and animal communication. Through conversations with current and former military operators he identified a need to increase the efficacy of communication between canine and handler. As a result, Command Sight built the first prototype of augmented reality glasses for military working dogs.

The augmented reality goggles are specially designed to fit each dog with a visual indictor that allows the dog to be directed to a specific spot and react to the visual cue in the goggles. The handler can see everything the dog sees to provide it commands through the glasses.

US Army

iPhone 12 Pro and LiDAR

The first three-dimensional lidar sensor was introduced by Velodyne more than a decade ago. The spinning unit cost around $75,000 and was significantly larger than a smartphone. Apple needed to make lidar sensors radically cheaper and smaller in order to put one in each iPhone, and VCSELs helped the company do it.

What's a VCSEL? If you're building a laser using conventional semiconductor fabrication techniques, you have two basic options. You can make a laser that transmits light out the side of the wafer (known as an edge-emitting laser) or from the top (a vertical cavity surface emitting laser, or VCSEL).

Traditionally, edge-emitting lasers have been more powerful. VCSELs have been used for decades in everything from optical mice to optical networking gear. They were traditionally considered unsuitable for high-end applications where a lot of light was needed, but VCSELs have become more powerful as the technology has matured.

Ars Technica

 

Snow Park in Florida!

Snowcat Ridge – the one-of-a-kind alpine snow park – will feature a massive snow tubing hill, Alpine Village and a ten thousand square foot snow-covered arctic igloo.

The snow tubing hill will be 60-feet-tall and 400-feet-long, with a magic carpet lift that will whisk riders and their snow tubes to the top of the hill. Guests can ride in a single, tandem, or 6-person family tube to slide down the snow-covered slope.

ABC Action News

 

The Fly-fishing boom

Fly-fishing is only a fraction as popular as spin fishing, its more accessible cousin. According to a 2019 joint report by the Outdoor Foundation and the Recreational Boating & Fishing Foundation, only one out of every seven American fishers uses flies. It is an older form of the sport, named for its signature element: the miniature imitations of minnows and aquatic insects, which are traditionally crafted out of fur and feathers. These lures are so lightweight that they rarely travel an arm’s length when thrown; rather, a weighted, tapered fly line and the caster’s skill conspire to send a fly the dozens of feet it needs to travel in order to attract the notice of an unsuspecting fish.

It is conventionally considered a challenging type of fishing, one that requires patience, practice and often a hefty investment in gear.

Even so, the sport is on the rise. In fact, it hasn’t been this ascendant in decades, industry experts say—not since the early ’90s, to be precise, when images of a young Brad Pitt casting for Montana trout in A River Runs Through It sent droves of neophytes to their nearest Orvis dealer.

WSJ

 

AR and Six degrees of freedom

The reason for the false starts and the delay is that it is very hard for computers to map and represent the physical world, so the experiences which today’s augmented reality applications can provide are limited. They can overlay digital images onto the physical world, but these images incorporate very little information about the physical world. Emil thinks his new company has cracked the problem. Using highly accurate 6-DOF (degrees of freedom) tracking to capture every motion in six directions (up, down, forwards, backwards, left and right), he and his team have developed technology that creates a near-perfect simulation of any physical space in three dimensions. A digital twin, imbued with intelligence from the physical world.

Forbes

 

Personal PCR device

Visby Medical's single-use, palm-sized Personal PCR platform is expected to provide a sample-to-result in less than 30 minutes. On September 16, 2020, Visby Medical received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its Personal PCR device for use in moderate complexity CLIA certified laboratory settings. While currently only authorized for use in moderate complexity labs, the device is designed to one day benefit both point-of-care (POC) and over-the-counter (OTC) use cases, thus avoiding lengthy delays caused by sample transport, lab analysis, and result reporting. The device is designed to enable rapid, geographically distributed testing with accuracy equal to lab PCR instruments, meeting a critical, and as yet missing, need for testing in the U.S.

Visby Medical

 

 

Seaweed as climate change fighter?

Seaweed can play a huge role in fighting climate change by absorbing carbon emissions, regenerating marine ecosystems, creating biofuel and renewable plastics as well as generating marine protein. Until recently, this centuries old industry has mainly farmed seaweed for food in Asia, with China as the world’s biggest producer of seaweed, accounting for 60% of global volume. But over the past decade, global seaweed production has doubled—with an estimated value of $59.61 billion in 2019—as interest in seaweed as a food source, carbon sink option and renewable product from consumers, farmers, researchers, and business leaders blossoms. The coast of British Columbia, where Druehl has spent his adult life, is a hotspot of seaweed biodiversity and yet the industry here is only just taking off. A seaweed industry could bring jobs to the area, amidst mass layoffs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Could this remote, seaweed-rich corner of the world turn seaweed into climate solutions for the future? Druehl is optimistic: “I think we’re going to pull it off.”

Time

 

Apple Health Records

The Health Records feature within the Health app is now available for users in the UK and Canada to securely view and store their medical records right on their iPhone, with their privacy protected at all times. Oxford University Hospitals and Women’s College Hospital are among the first healthcare institutions in the UK and Canada to make this feature available to their patients.

In the US, over 500 institutions currently support Health Records on iPhone, listing more than 11,000 care locations. Previously, patients’ medical records were held in multiple locations, requiring patients to log in to each healthcare provider’s website to piece together their health information manually. Health Records creates a direct connection between medical institutions and a patient’s iPhone, allowing users to see a central view of their allergies, conditions, immunizations, lab results, medications, procedures, and vitals across multiple institutions, and to be notified when their data is updated.

Apple

Eye Exams at home

All of that is incorporated in a small Bluetooth vision testing device that temporarily attaches to your smartphone. You stare into the device, which works in concert with an app on the phone, and based on where you see the intersection of a green and red line, it takes a series of measurements.

After ten measurements taken of the left eye and ten of the right eye, it spits out a series of numbers the company calls "EyeGlass Numbers." These are specifications you can send to some online eyeware suppliers, and get back a pair of vision-correcting glasses.

A second component in the $69 kit is a pair of white frames with special markings on them. These are the PDCheck frames and are designed (again, in concert with an app) to measure your pupillary distance, or how far apart your eyes are from a focal perspective.

ZDNet

 

The Fisker Ocean evolves

While Fisker had already revealed the specs, features and the looks of the new Ocean electric SUV, it had no way to manufacture it prior to the Magna deal. Fisker was still on the hunt for the right EV architecture. At one point Fisker was in talks with Volkswagen to use the German carmaker's MEB electric architecture. Eventually Fisker landed at an agreement with Manga instead.

The agreement entails the development of a new EV platform specially engineered for the Fisker Ocean and future siblings. Dubbed the "FM29", this lightweight aluminum-intensive platform will leverage Magna's existing EV architecture and the carmaker's Fisker-Flexible Platform Adaptive Design (FF-PAD) to deliver best-in-class range, interior room with third-row seating as well as overall performance.

Hot Cars

 

Robotic Brewing

Just outside Gävle, Sweden, Mackmyra Whisky partnered with Microsoft and Finnish tech company Fourkind to create the world’s first AI-generated whiskey. The distillery used machine learning models on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform and AI cognitive services and fed them Mackmyra’s existing recipes, cask types, sales data, customer reviews, and tasting notes.

The models could generate more than 70 million high-quality recipes. Master blender Angela D’Orazio reviewed hundreds of them until she landed on five to test in her laboratory. She then chose the best of the batch, a blend now known as Intelligens, which was released in September 2019.

Popular Mechanics (sub required)

 

How a large slum coped with COVID-19

From the beginning, Kiran Dighavkar, the city official leading the response to the virus in Dharavi, knew that standard models of social distancing, contact tracing, and home quarantine would be ineffective here. Instead, his team focused on creating customized solutions that responded to the community’s lived reality. They enlisted local doctors who ran private practices in the area and provided them with the personal protective equipment they needed to re-open their clinics and go door-to-door to screen for people with high temperatures or low oxygen levels. They created health-care facilities and quarantine centers by taking over a sports club, a marriage hall and private hospitals. They set up community kitchens with customized meals so that those fasting during the month of Ramadan could be accommodated. A 200-bed hospital equipped with supplemental oxygen for coronavirus patients was built in just two weeks in a parking lot. The 450 community toilets in the area were sanitized three times a day, and the local government provided free virus tests.

Time

 

Flying Ferries

Lifting boats from the water reduces drag and fuel usage, even for older vessels, so Artemis Tech started developing foils and complex control systems for many kinds of new and existing vessels. Turbines mounted on the hydrofoils will generate electricity from the boat’s motion, storing it in batteries to power engines when the wind dies.

WSJ (sub required)

 

Blockchain at the ballot box

Utah County Clerk/Auditor Amelia Powers Gardner — one of Government Technology’s Top 25 Doers, Dreamers and Drivers of 2020 — told Fox News that Voatz has been “one of the most cost-effective initiatives” that she and her team have implemented since her election in January 2019.

“In true pioneer spirit, Utah County is honored to be the first place where a blockchain vote was cast in a presidential general election,” Gardner said. “We are proud to lead our state and the nation on this innovative and cutting-edge technology.”

Government Technology

In video below Amelia talks about other changes at the polls

 

Asteroid Bennu

NASA's asteroid-chaser Osiris-Rex completed a key part of its mission this week by managing to nab some rocks from the surface of the potentially hazardous asteroid Bennu, NASA reported Friday.

The spacecraft traveled over 200 million miles and four years to briefly bump into Bennu, blast it with compressed gas and collect bits of its surface. The space agency on Wednesday shared the first batch of images from the daring operation, revealing a delicate-yet-explosive moment between rock and robot.

CNET

ML and Auto Insurance Claims

The algorithms are trained in image classification, and they identify damage and hand off the claims to companies like Mitchell International, based in San Diego, that price out parts and calculate labor costs. The best algorithms already provide estimates in a few seconds that are as accurate as those produced by experienced human estimators. The pandemic has made A.I.-powered estimating even more attractive because the technology reduces or even eliminates the need for face-to-face interaction between drivers and insurance adjusters.

One of the leaders in this “insuretech” market is Tractable, a company based in London that was founded in 2014 by the entrepreneur Adrien Cohen and two computer vision experts, Alex Dalyac and Razvan Ranca. Since then, Tractable has received more than $50 million in venture capital funding and grown to over 100 employees in London, New York and Tokyo. Major insurers in Europe and Asia have used Tractable’s A.I. to settle more than $1 billion in claims.

NY Times

 

Where WiFi is illegal

“The signals we detect from space are extremely faint,” says Harshal Gupta, the National Science Foundation program officer for the Green Bank Observatory. “A source of close-by, man-made radio frequency can completely overwhelm these very faint signals from space.” Meaning, any radio frequency interference (RFI) could corrupt that research.

In order to limit RFI, the Federal Communications Commission in 1958 established the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) covering approximately 13,000 square miles and parts of both Virginia and West Virginia. In the mid-20th century, this meant no radio towers, television antennas, or heavy machinery could be installed unless they met very restrictive guidelines set forth by the FCC (like highly directional antennas and reduced power).

Popular Mechanics

 

 

The history of maps

The map has no single origin or known inventor. But these breakthrough maps illuminate the milestones of science and discovery that guided civilizations—and define how we view the world today

Popular Mechanics (sub required)

BTW, Interesting lecture on the history of cartography

How really clean are your hands?

PathSpot sells handwashing hygiene machinery to any place “where food is served, handled or stored,” according to Schindler. Its customers range from restaurants and packing facilities to cafeterias and farms.

PathSpot sells a scanner that mounts on a wall next to handwashing sinks. An individual can come to the hand hygiene machine, place their hands in it and get a green or red light depending on if their hands are clean.

TechCrunch

 

Artificial Blood

At a lab in Kyoto, Japan, scientists are running a pioneering clinical trial to treat this singular patient with a long-sought goal: artificial blood. Led by Dr. Koji Eto and a team at Kyoto University’s Center for IPS Cell Research and Application, the study aims to assess the safety and efficacy of platelets engineered in a lab out of a special type of stem cell. If successful, the research could pave the way for larger clinical trials and, ultimately, the broad use of lab-made blood.

While scientists have developed backups for most parts of our bodies—from prosthetic limbs to titanium teeth implants—the production of artificial blood has eluded them. Now, helped by advances in stem-cell research and interest from investors, scientists are closer than ever to coming up with a blood substitute.

WSJ

 

Redesigning Sugar

Even though the resulting crystal is ninety-nine per cent sugar, the addition of silica has two outsized effects: the bond between the silica and the sugar comes apart in the mouth, exposing a vastly expanded surface area of sucrose to the liquefying powers of saliva; and the sucrose immediately surrounding each silica grain changes form. The atoms in a sucrose molecule are usually stacked in a well-ordered lattice, but when this structure becomes what scientists call “amorphous,” its atoms frozen in random chaos, it dissolves on the tongue much more quickly. Incredo’s exponentially more soluble structure rapidly saturates your taste buds, delivering an intense hit of sweetness. The best analogy is cotton candy: melting sugar into an amorphous state and spinning it into a tangle of fine strands produces a confection that seems much more cloying than chocolate or soda, despite containing a fraction of the sugar.

New Yorker

 

Another metric to revisit

Why not? After all it is 2020.

"Our temperature's not what people think it is," said Julie Parsonnet, MD, professor of medicine and of health research and policy. "What everybody grew up learning, which is that our normal temperature is 98.6, is wrong."

For their study, Parsonnet and her team compiled temperatures from three distinct historical periods. The three periods covered people born in the early 1800s all the way to today.

The researchers then used 677,423 temperature measurements to develop a linear model that interpolated temperature over time. What their calculations found was a decrease in body temperature of 0.05 F for every decade.

Interesting Engineering

The Future of Humans

Wide ranging report from the UBS Chief Investment Officer

The millennials and Generation Z will move into their peak earnings years and likely benefit from wealth transfer. These cohorts are broadly more conscious of their social and environmental impact. They often value experiences more than material ownership. Companies that produce goods and services that cater to these generations’ social and environmental values are likely to benefit. Furthermore, companies that provide new consumer experiences through technologies like augmented and virtual reality can offer attractive investment opportunities.

Download full report here.

Below is a graph from the healthcare section

 

Any color so long as it is black!

One of Henry Ford's famous quotes about the Model T was, "A customer can have a car painted any color that he wants, so long as it is black."

A century later, we have much more choice but black and white cars still dominate. From The Drive

"A lot of things about the 90s get a rose-tinted treatment, but if you think there were more red cars back then, you’re actually right. Reddit user Feemiror posted this illustrative breakdown of car colors by year of production, which paints—literally—the rise of monochrome compared to the relatively flamboyant 90s.

I should note that the data is sourced from Poland, but if you’re hoping for the situation to be any better in the U.S., unfortunately it isn’t. Over 23 percent of cars last year in the US were white and another 23 percent were black, while purple languishes, unloved, as the least popular."

Back to the Future - Supersonic flight

Built out of carbon fiber, the sleek white and black craft resembles a fighter jet more than a passenger transport. The 71-foot XB-1 will start making its first flights early next year, reaching a speed of Mach 1.3 before going even faster as testing progresses. If all goes well, Boom will turn its focus in late 2021 to completing the design of its first commercial plane, dubbed Overture.

The 199-foot Overture will get the blood of businesspeople and travel enthusiasts pumping as they picture a thrombosis-free future. The jet will carry 65 to 88 passengers, with roomy seats on either side of the plane separated by a walkway, meaning everyone gets a window and an aisle seat, ideally at business-class prices.

BusinessWeek

 

The repurposing of malls

Maybe this will become the next use case for empty mall space?

Bloomberg describes what Apple is doing

The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has typically shipped devices like iPhones, Macs, iPads, and accessories from warehouses located across a customer’s region or directly from China. Now items that are in stock can be shipped directly to consumers from a network of almost 300 retail stores spread across the U.S. and Canada, according to people familiar with the matter.

The shift in delivery operations ensures that stores that remain shuttered or limited due to Covid-19 restrictions can still operate in a way that assists Apple in selling devices. The company also has discussed converting select stores into online support or sales call centers in the event that locations need to be closed again due to the pandemic. Some back rooms at stores have already started serving as small call centers.

Here's a Deloitte Canada pov on the future of malls

What enterprise tech can learn from the Apple iPhone 12 virtual event

I watched the Apple "Hi, Speed" event yesterday, and have excerpted some in the Analyst Cam series on Deal Architect.

I hope enterprise vendors pick up on some of the production themes as they plan future virtual events

Move outdoors

Ok, so not everyone has a prop as good as Apple Park. But too many enterprise sessions are interviews from people's homes. They are gorgeous homes, but I would show a bit of the great outdoors. Most people are tired of home settings:)

Let your product speak for you

The "transportation modes" Apple showcased - iPhone strapped to a drone, to bottom of truck - made for stunning imagery. In enterprise events, there is a little too much focus and talk time for vendor executives and in character-based product demos. With a little imagination, enterprise software could let products showcase live customer scenarios.

Summarize along the way

I liked how Apple reinforced features - in spoken words, highlighted text, even in infograph format.

Music never fails

Apple had me when they introduced the Home Pod Mini. I thought I heard the start of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song". It's actually "I'm ready to rock that" by Bonti. Lots of other other upbeat music throughout the show.

Subtly work in other contemporary themes

COVID health and sustainability are hot topics now. I like how Apple used credits to describe protocols that applied to their production team. They also worked in their carbon footprint and rare earth messages. Did not dwell on it - probably took two minutes in total.

Have product ready to order

May be too far a bridge for enterprise tech, but I will try:) Don't announce, then show a multi-year product release cycle. Ideally get a half a dozen beta customers in progress before you even showcase, and then say available to order TODAY. And get your SI partners ready to implement in weeks. 

Watch the entire show below  - it is just over an hour long - but I highly recommend it.

100 is the new 60

Peter Diamandis covers the " rewiring the biology of aging." - gene therapy, AI applied to patient data and many other advancements

"For the first time in history, leading scientists and entrepreneurs believe there’s a way to slow aging -- and maybe even reverse it.

The latest research on longevity suggests there is no reason that people born today can’t live to at least 120 years old... perhaps even to 150 and beyond."

Video on how we learn about aging from mice

Amazon's new delivery vans

While most have focused on the fact that the vans will be electric, Car and Driver explores the customizations for Amazon

"The prototype takes information Amazon sourced from working with drivers to see how the vehicle could make their jobs easier, adjusting the workspace based on their feedback making it it easier to get in and out of the vehicle.

In addition to the expected built-in delivery optimization system and voice controls with Alexa, Amazon and Rivian have added driver-assistance technology for highway driving, exterior cameras to give the driver a 360-degree view of the exterior of the van, a strengthened driver's door in case of collision, a large brake-light array that starts at the midway point of the rear pillar and reaches all the way to the other side of the van over the top of the rear door, a bulkhead door that slides up and down instead of out, and something Amazon is calling a "dance floor" inside the cabin, which really just means there's more room to move about. Of course, if a driver has time we suppose they could dance."

More in the video

 

Meatless Future?

Excerpts about food startups from CBInsights

Among these startups, Soylent leads the pack with over $71M in disclosed funding from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, Google Ventures, and others.

San Francisco-based startup Ample Foods ...has taken aim at the plant-based food industry by offering a general replacement, vegan option, and a meal replacement geared toward the ketogenic food market.

A $17.4M Series B round to French startup Feed aims to propel meal-replacement products forward in Europe

Companies like pea-protein milk producer Ripple Foods, non-dairy cheese provider Kite Hill, and AI-powered eggless mayo producer NotCo already are selling their products in grocery stores for everyday consumption.

Another company, Perfect Day, is applying gene sequencing and 3D printing to create milk without the cow.

By providing new food sources, meal and dairy substitutes could further chip away at traditional meat market share.

Here is a McKinsey pov

 

A Costco model for luxury fashion?

E-commerce site Italic caters to the latter set—and those who never before could afford either. It began in 2018 with $13 million in venture funding as yet another millennial-­targeting, direct-to-consumer disrupter. The site offers unbranded ­women’s and men’s clothes, shoes, bags, and home decor produced by the same factories that Burberry, Fendi, Stella McCartney, and other bona fide luxury brands use. And all sold at cost.

Bloomberg