WHAT WE'RE GONNA TALK

Just like in a cafe, we talk about everything. Nothing heavy. Just talk over a cup of coffee.


Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

PERSONALIZED "CODED COUTURE" DRESS BASED ON SMARTPHONE APP DATA IS CREATED BY GOOGLE AND H&M

"Finding something unique to wear is difficult. It can be expensive or take a lot of time," says Swedish fashion blogger Kenza Zouiten, in a film on the H&M-backed Ivyrevel fashion website.


But now the "I have nothing to wear" dilemma could be solved by a new app, which aims to create a customized dress design based on smartphone data showing someone's location and activity, as well as the weather.

The "data dress" technology is a collaboration between Google and Ivyrevel, and is based on Android's Awareness API, which lets apps "be aware of all aspects of a user's environment," according to a post on the Android Developers' blog.

Friday, August 14, 2015

G FOR GOOGLE

G is for Google, as the company's chief executive, Larry Page, put it this week in a blog post introducing Alphabet, Google's new corporate name.

G is also for genericization.

That's the process of becoming generic, or "not sold or made under a particular brand name," according to Webster's dictionary.

The definition is of more than just linguistic interest to Google and its shareholders.

Friday, April 17, 2015

HOW SUCCESS ALMOST KILL "MAGIC: THE GATHERING" CARD GAME

This guy is ready to play a really sick hand.Magic: The Gathering is a game where players use cards to cast spells on their opponents. The game quickly became a hit after it was introduced in the mid-1990s. But the game's very popularity led to a crisis inside the company.

Magic cards are sold in small packs with random sets of cards, like baseball cards. And, like baseball cards, some Magic cards quickly became more desirable — and more expensive — than others. Not long after the game was invented, particularly desirable cards were selling for hundreds of dollars each.

A LITTLE JOLT OF ELECTRICITY WILL BOOST PEOPLE'S CREATIVITY

ShutterstuckNeed some creative, out-of-the box ideas? Try adding a little jolt to your next brainstorming session.

Researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have found that stimulating the brain with electrical impulses boosts creativity. The impulses, researchers say, activated specific brain waves associated with originative thinking, and people who were buzzed scored significantly higher on a test of creative thought.

Time to kiss writer’s block goodbye.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

"PAY IT FORWARD" ACTS IN ST. PETERSBURG STARBUCKS

starbucks-st-pete-82014The acts of kindness began at 7 a.m. Wednesday with a woman, her iced coffee and a stranger's caramel macchiato.

The woman paid for her own drink, then asked to pay for the drink of the person behind her in the drive-through. That person returned the favor and paid for the person behind, and so did that person, until the employees at the St. Petersburg Starbucks on Tyrone Boulevard began a tally on green laminated paper near the drive-through window.

By 1:30 p.m., the chain had reached 260 customers.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

THORIUM CAR: NEED TO BE REFUELED EVERY 100 YEARS (video)

If you haven’t yet been amazed by the hybrid car that runs on air or the water-powered engine, this vehicle is sure to make you think twice about the alternative forms of transportation which will one day rule the road.

The new Thorium car, created by a company called Laser Power Systems, is completely emission-free, turbine-free, and is electricity generated. It’s one of the new sustainable-powered engines to show just how unnecessary modern day propulsion engines are and also offer an exciting alternative.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

BABY-SHAPED PEARS

Baby-Shaped Fruit

Chinese fruit farmers are using plastic molds to grow bizarre baby-shaped pears. The farmers use molds fabricated by Fruitmould, a Chinese company that specializes in creating molds that help you grow baby-shaped pears, square watermelons, heart-shaped cucumbers and all manner of other edible oddities.

Saturday, August 9, 2014

A NEW LOGO FOR ADIDAS

Based in Frankfurt, Germany, BRAND DESIGNER Oğuzhan Öçalan recently gave sportswear giant Adidas a branding makeover.

After analyzing Adidas’ branding design, he concluded that the brand’s use of different logos for each of its sub-brands can be confusing for consumers and thus weaken the branding strategy.

Thursday, August 7, 2014

THE STORY BEHIND SEXY CHINESE PEACH BUTTS

Because Nothing Says 'I Love You' Like Fruit Wearing Lingerie

Saturday is Chinese Valentine's Day (August 2, 2104). But why buy your loved one flowers when you can give her peaches wearing panties? Just yesterday, the scantily-clad fruits went viral -- not just in China, but globally. The juicy bottoms were tweeted by a Chinese state news outlet, the People's Daily, and also got coverage in mainstream U.S. outlets such as New York magazine and Kotaku.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

THE POWER OF STORY

Some people have a way of making the complex clear.  They know who they are, why they do what they do, and where they want to go. Because they have internalized all this, they are able to sharply crystallize ideas and vision. They speak in simple, relatable terms. And they can get a lot accomplished.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

THE DAILY ROUTINE YOU SHOULD KNOW ..... AND LEARN

Juan Ponce de León spent his life searching for the fountain of youth. I have spent mine searching for the ideal daily routine. But as years of color-coded paper calendars have given way to cloud-based scheduling apps, routine has continued to elude me; each day is a new day, as unpredictable as a ride on a rodeo bull and over seemingly as quickly.

Naturally, I was fascinated by the recent book, Daily Rituals: How Artists Work. Author Mason Curry examines the schedules of 161 painters, writers, and composers, as well as philosophers, scientists, and other exceptional thinkers.

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

JACK MA'S BUSINESS ADVICES

Billionaire Jack Ma shares what type of people you should and shouldn’t work with.

Jack Ma is a Chinese Internet entrepreneur. He is the Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group, a family of highly successful Internet-based businesses. He is also the first mainland Chinese entrepreneur to appear on the cover of Forbes Magazine and ranks as one of the world’s billionaires.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

THE STORY BEHIND THE NEWS OF THE GAME "FLAPPY BIRD"

Last April, Dong Nguyen, a quiet 28-year-old who lived with his parents in Hanoi, Vietnam, and had a day job programming location devices for taxis, spent a holiday weekend making a mobile game. He wanted it to be simple but challenging, in the spirit of the Nintendo games he grew up playing. The object was to fly a bug-eyed, big-lipped, bloated bird between a series of green vertical pipes. The quicker a player tapped the screen, the higher the bird would flap. He called it Flappy Bird.

Friday, March 14, 2014

HIGHLY CREATIVE PEOPLE DO 18 THINGS DIFFERENTLY

Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

THE BITCOIN MINES

On the flat lava plain of Reykjanesbaer, Iceland, near the Arctic Circle, you can find the mines of Bitcoin.

To get there, you pass through a fortified gate and enter a featureless yellow building. After checking in with a guard behind bulletproof glass, you face four more security checkpoints, including a so-called man trap that allows passage only after the door behind you has shut. This brings you to the center of the operation, a fluorescent-lit room with more than 100 whirring silver computers, each in a locked cabinet and each cooled by blasts of Arctic air shot up from vents in the floor.

Monday, December 23, 2013

CREATIVITY DIES IN EXPENSIVE CITIES

New York City, a traditional incubator for artists, has now become a 'gated citadel' for creativity.

On May 5, musician Patti Smith was asked what advice she had for young people trying to make it in New York City. The long-time New Yorker's take? Get out. "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling," she said. "New York City has been taken away from you."

Smith was not the only New Yorker to reject the city that had nurtured artists for decades. In October, musician David Byrne

CHRISTMAS: HOLIDAY NOT HOLY DAY

Nine in 10 Americans will celebrate Christmas this year, but a new poll shows that increasing numbers see the holiday as more tinsel than gospel truth.

This year more than ever, Americans prefer that stores and businesses welcome them with the more generic "Happy Holidays" or "Season's Greetings" than "Merry Christmas," according to a survey by the Public Religion Research Institute in partnership with Religion News Service.

And for one in four American adults (26%), Dec. 25 is simply a cultural holiday, not a religious holy day.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

FLYING DELIVERY ROBOT FROM AMAZON.COM (video)

Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is known for making big bets in the world of innovation, and on Sunday night on 60 Minutes he revealed what might be one of his biggest: product delivery by flying robot drones.

The service is called Amazon Prime Air and it's slated for rollout sometime in 2015, depending on FAA approval.

10 POP-CULTURE ROBOTS THAT SHAPED OUR FUTURE

Say "laptop" or "tablet" or "app" to a technophile and you may get them interested. Say "robot," and you've got them excited.

For centuries, we've been intrigued by the concept of creating mechanized beings that are as much like us as possible. And as our technological know-how marches ever forward, we're closer than ever to doing it.

From robots you can buy right now to the ones invading the work force to tech giant Google's move into military robotics, our automated friends are no longer just the stuff of science-fiction double features.

But like many scientific advances, fantasy was a prime motivator.

CREATING ROBOT FOR DISASTER RESPONSE OF THE FUTURE

Seventeen rescue robots are competing in Florida this weekend, where their task is to clear away debris, break through walls and climb ladders -- a test run for their use in future disaster scenarios. But the humanoid figures are still a little shaky on their feet.

"Atlas" is attached to a hook, like a piece of meat, with his metal limbs dangling limply from his torso.

Suddenly the 150-kilogram (330-pound) robot comes to life. The hydraulic system whines, an orange light starts blinking on the robot's head and a laser scanner shaped like a tin can rotates in its face. The knees begin to bend slowly, as Atlas cautiously places his two flat feet onto the ground.