Hoxton has come up with a novel way of measuring footfall – literally by filming people’s shoes. Sherlock Holmes-like, its system can deduce a remarkable amount of information such as age, gender and social class of shoppers from their footwear. “We have cameras at about 50cm off the ground and it points down so it… Read more »
Posts Categorized: Competitive advantage
Trump Can’t Stop the Globalization of Work—the Internet Will See to That
DONALD TRUMP IS promising to make America great again by keeping others out. That approach is already undermining the smidgen of tentative good will he had enjoyed from the tech industry. As a strategy for keeping jobs in the US, it’s also fatally flawed. Turns out that in a world connected by the internet, isolationism… Read more »
Carnival cruises to unveil personalized concierge tech
What if your room on a cruise ship were to unlock automatically as you approach, or if the wait staff could bring your favourite cocktail before you even ask? Carnival Corp., the operator of such cruise lines as Princess, Holland America and Carnival, wants to make that happen so it can get cozier with its… Read more »
Changing Minds Where It Mattered
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO and founder of Facebook is trying hard to convince everyone that Facebook had no nefarious role in the 2016 US Presidential election. But according to President-elect Donald Trump’s digital director Brad Parscale, the social media giant was massively influential—not because it was tipping the scales with fake news, but because it helped generate the… Read more »
Acura’s Concept Cockpit Envisions the Age of Autonomy
The Acura Precision Cockpit fuses a sporty design with a next-gen touchpad-based interface and new Acura operating system. Source: Wired Magazine Date: December 6th, 2016 Link: https://www.wired.com/2016/11/acuras-concept-cockpit-envisions-age-autonomy/#slide-1 Discussion 1) “As much as people like touchscreens in their cars, because of the parallels to tablets and smartphones, it may not be the best strategy for cars,” says Acura product… Read more »
The All-American iPhone
Donald Trump says that if he becomes president, he will “get Apple to start making their computers and their iPhones on our land, not in China.” Bernie Sanders has also called for Apple to manufacture some devices in the U.S. instead of China. Neither could instantly make that happen. As Steve Jobs once told President… Read more »
Amazon imposes limit on reviews
Online marketplace Amazon has placed a limit on the number of reviews shoppers can leave on the site. In a bid to put a stop to false feedback, people can now write only five reviews a week of items not bought via the online store. The change applies to most products and is part of… Read more »
My Insane Adventure to Buy Snap’s New Spectacles
wiley-blog LATE LAST WEEK, a Minionesque vending machine mysteriously appeared in a parking lot near Snap’s original offices in Venice, California. It was named Snapbot, and it was there to sell Specs, the company’s goofy new picture-taking sunglasses, for $130 a pop to anyone who got there fast enough. After 24 hours, the machine disappeared…. Read more »
Beware online “filter bubbles”
[ted id=1091] As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be… Read more »
Should games firms welcome or fear Chinese conquest?
The Chinese are coming and they’re hungry for games companies. They need new content to feed their 560 million avid gamers, who contribute to the biggest gaming market in the world – worth an estimated $24.4bn (£19.8bn) in 2016, according to Newzoo. And this market is growing at around 15% a year. Source: BBC Technology News… Read more »