New Florence. New Renaissance.

Logi Dock

Logitech is simplifying personal workspaces and improving the video meeting experience for remote and hybrid workers with the launch of Logi Dock, an all-in-one docking station with one-touch meeting controls and a built-in speakerphone, targeted to be certified for Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom.

Life Drawing COVID Renaissance

The standard template for life drawing hasn't changed much in centuries: a musty studio, a model on a dais holding a pose while a circle of artists works at easels. But with Covid-19 lockdowns in effect, studios stood empty and models stayed home, their employment options evaporating. Then, everything changed. Suddenly, life drawing was reborn—filling up video-chat grids the way it had once populated studios. Artists began sketching from home, inspired by models posing live on their computer screens. The methods used weren’t exactly new—video conferencing existed before the pandemic, after all—but the changes they brought to life drawing went far beyond what anyone expected. “Online life drawing was a game changer,” says Diane Olivier, who taught life drawing at City College of San Francisco from 1991 through 2020. It allowed students to keep learning and drawing, and it kept models employed.

Wired

Here is a virtual exhibition of life art created virtually

Lennar: reimagining residential real estate

"These days Miller oversees LenX which amounts to a private equity arm within Lennar that makes investments in real estate tech. The I.ennar-backed platform Opendoor—which uses AI to value and make almost instantaneous often on any home—went public in December bringing Lennar a $470 million gain in its first quarter. Other LenX startups provide fully digital insurance underwriting for most Lennar buyers, are developing a digital title insurance and escrow platform; and are honing technology that conserves water and channels the earth’s energy to heat and cool homes."

What's interesting is its not just about fancy smart homes. The pandemic has changed what people want from a home.

"For him, as for tens of millions of Americans, the home of the future isn’t filled with futuristic gadgets, it’s a principal workplace, a gym, a homeschooling center, an entertainment hub, and refuge where everything from pandemic-ready leisure wardrobes to gourmet cuisine can be delivered to their doorstep while they spend quality time bonding instead of fighting traffic and roaming stores, “The pandemic’s rewired the way people think about their homes,” says Miller, “As a result, they’re rethinking the amount of their paycheck to spend on housing. We have a front—row seat seeing in real time the enthusiasm for the home growing.”"

Fortune (sub required)

 

Herman-Miller B2C foray

Office furniture company Herman Miller Inc. is trying to expand further beyond selling large orders of expensive chairs to employers with a new bid for individual at-home workers.

Herman Miller this month will open its first stores designed for consumers in Century City in Los Angeles and New York City’s Hudson Yards, and plans to open two more next month in Austin, Texas, and Tokyo. It previously relied purely on large showrooms aimed at business-to-business customers, e-commerce and a presence in consumer outlets such Design Within Reach, a sibling under parent company Herman Miller Group.

WSJ (sub required)

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