The Hub, Amazon’s new delivery locker for apartments, is now being offered to building management companies around the country. Last July, Amazon launched the program, which places a large metal locker unit in a common area of an apartment complex where people can pick up their packages 24 hours a day. Now (as of this past Tuesday) Amazon officially announced that over 500,000 residents across the country who live in buildings managed or owned by AvalonBay, Fairfield Residential, Pinnacle, J.P. Morgan Asset Management, WinnResidential and Equity Residential, already have access to the Hub, and thousands more are getting access each month.

How it works:

• A delivery is sent to shoppers’ usual address.
• Upon delivery to the Hub, the intended recipient gets a code sent via email or text.
• They then enter the code into the machine, and a door pops open to reveal the package.

While this might sound similar to the Amazon Lockers delivery storage that was launched back in 2011 at public pickup stations including grocery stores, gyms and convenience stores, the Hub, unlike the Amazon lockers, hold packages from any sender.

Why it’s hot:
Some of the biggest complaints that companies like USPS face, is that customers will stay home from work all day waiting for a package and in some cases, they still do not even get it. This issue is also a pain point for the sender, as they often have to resend a package that has been lost or stolen. Amazon is tapping into a massive market by offering the Hub as a solution for both the online shopper and the sender. Further, building owners also benefit, as the device could be useful for keeping hallways and package rooms relatively clear – in other words, who wouldn’t want this?

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-hub-receives-packages-at-apartments-2018-6

The brand, Everybody.World, has a staple product called the “Trash Tee,” a 100 percent recycled cotton T-shirt, made from meticulously processed waste fibers.

They shot new footage on vintage Kodak film, so it would match with 14-year-old stock footage. And for the voiceover, they spliced together snippets of PSAs from the 1950s.

“So, we invented a new fabric for our T-shirts that’s made from 100 percent recycled cotton, which means that we can use the waste that other companies disregard,” it continues. “We can use what others find useless to create something useful for us and less stressful for the environment. Because if we don’t care enough to change the way it’s done, who will?”

Why it’s Hot

This company is taking the old adage – the medium is the message – to a new level. The idea of the, not just the product being recycled, but the ad itself provides a whole new ad trend and, of course, reinforces a worthwhile message. 

Developer Diana A Smith has been working on using only code and style sheets to create digital artwork. Each element is coded separately to make up the composite image.

Smith created this with the Chrome browser in mind. When opened in older browsers however, the image can become distorted. Examples below:

Why It’s Hot: Users are frequently reminded to update the browsers, but it is often unclear why it matters and what the difference will be. On the other hand, it’s helpful to think about how we are designing experience for users who may be using different browsers, older computers, etc rather than designing for the newest, crispest, and fastest devices.

Source

We all know that in the near future humanity will come to a crossroads. With 99% of the world’s population currently tasked with creating memes and/or dank memes, what will happen when computers get better at it than humans? Researchers may have just found out.

Using machine learning, a pair of Stanford researchers, Abel L. Peirson V and E. Meltem Tolunay, have created a system that automatically generates memes including the ones visible above. Their system, they’ve discovered “produces original memes that cannot on the whole be differentiated from real ones.”

The system uses a pre-trained Inception-v3 network using the long short-term memory model to produce captions that are applicable to a particular picture. Humans then assess the humor of the meme, rewarding the system for true LOLs.

The researchers trained the network with “400.000 image, label and caption triplets with 2600 unique image-label pairs” including funny memes generated by actual humans. The system then recreates memes in a similar vein.

Why it’s hot:

The headline uses the word “dank.” And the application of machine learning is taking a turn into culture town.

One of the great things about Uber Pool is that it offers people who have had a few too many drinks on a Saturday night a safe and cheap alternative to driving home drunk. On the other hand, a sober ride sharer has to deal with a belligerent passenger who can create an uncomfortable situation for everyone.

Enter Uber’s plan to detect drunken behavior before users get into a Pool. They have applied for a patent for a keystroke system that tracks how a user normally uses the Uber app through AI; how often they make typos, how precisely they click on buttons, how often they drop their phone, their normal walking speed, etc. The algorithm will track changes in these factors along with where and when the ride was requested which then may result in notifying the driver that the passenger may have been drinking. Depending on their level of intoxication, they may be prevented from joining a Pool or could match with drivers trained to handle people in this state.

Why it’s Hot: There’s two obvious issues that could result. 1.) This technology will motivate drivers who don’t want their car ruined to decline drunk passengers, possibly resulting in people driving home drunk instead. 2.) Another, more disturbing possibility, are drivers who would use this information as a draw rather than a deterrent. A common theme in many of Uber driver’s past assault cases have been the passengers level of inebriation. This feature could essentially allow drivers to scan neighborhoods for passengers in a drunken state for this exact purpose.

Source: https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/8/17441554/uber-drunk-passenger-ai

Uber has drawn up a plan for AI that detects a user’s drunken behavior to accommodate them before they get into the backseat. The system, described by members of Uber’s Trust & Safety team in 2016 and published yesterday, tracks how someone typically uses Uber’s app: how quickly they type (and with how many typos), how precisely they click on buttons, their walking speed, and the way their phone is typically held or dropped on any given day.

Someone who hails a car to get home after hitting the bars probably won’t be the best at typing out their home address or walking too quickly (if at all). Factors like these are plugged into Uber’s planned algorithm, along with details about when and where the ride was requested. A late-night Uber call or one that’s from an area loaded with bars, would tip the system off about a rider’s sobriety differently than a daytime call from the suburbs.

Why It’s Hot 

Although this could enhance the rider experience for those who carpool, and arm the drivers with information on the rider’s state before they get in the car, there are also some clear issues. It could deter drivers from picking up passengers, perhaps forcing them to drive, or could act as a draw for assault. It will be interesting to see how this unravels; it appears it could cause more issues than it could mitigate..

https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/8/17441554/uber-drunk-passenger-ai

So Twitter is definitely going to make an edit button because Kim Kardashian corned Jack Dorsey at some party and made a case for one.

So that means it’s definitely happening. Probably

I had a very good convo with @jack this weekend at Kanye’s bday and I think he really heard me out on the edit button.

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 13, 2018

This is actually the second time Kim K has brought this up to Twitter’s CEO. The last time was in 2015.

I just emailed Twitter to see if they can add an edit feature so that when u misspell something u don't have to delete & repost Let's see…

— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) July 25, 2015

So what’s different now? Well, probably not much. But Twitter would certainly love a quick win given how often they’ve been hammered in the press for how they handle banning abusive users, cleaning out phony bot accounts, and handing out verification check marks.

Maybe an edit button will be some easy positive press.

There’s also the power of Kim K. If she doesn’t get the edit button she wants, maybe she just tweets something negative about Twitter, delete her account, and tank their stock. Kim’s sister Kendall Jenner did it to Snapchat already!

Why it’s hot

Personally, I don’t want an edit button, but I think I am in the minority and people would rather have it than not. Threading tweets makes it possible to add context to amend previous tweets, but to be able to go back and change things you’ve tweeted could cause a lot of problems trying to hold powerful people responsible for their posts (ahem, Donald Trump). Perhaps the edit ability expires after 5 minutes or something like that. Could be a good compromise.

VR has been used on patients in medical settings before, from distracting nervous patients at the dentist to helping patients combat phantom pains. But now graduate students in France are working on bringing VR into a new territory: the emergency room.

Students at St. Joseph’s Hospital have designed an immersive VR program that has two goals: 1) to help patients calm down in the stressful setting, and 2) to help increase the patients’ pain tolerance without any drugs. It’s a simple implementation – basically the patient simply straps on a VR headset, and is transported via auditory and visual stimuli to a Zen garden or a tranquil forest setting.

The VR experiences help calm patients down just by nature of being calming settings, but the really interesting part is relating to the pain tolerance response. Patients exhibit increased pain tolerance because of several affects of the VR experience. Distraction is important, because the patient is less aware of what’s happening to their body when their focus is successfully held elsewhere. But also significant is the way the VR actually helps trigger changes in the patient’s brain and nervous system, which can slowly be reprogrammed to give the patient a lesser response to the pain. This neural reprogramming has already been studied and implemented for treatment of chronic pain and illnesses, and now the work of these French grad students is exploring the potential for VR as a tool in acute, immediate situations as well.

Why It’s Hot: An innovative new approach to pain management that has zero side effects -especially promising given the increasing dangers of addiction with many pain medications currently being used (and overused) in hospitals today.

Learn More: Engadget

It’s no news that newspapers have been on the downtick for years. But despite the uptick in news consumption in America, largely thanks to the Trump bump, the newspaper industry’s survival remains in jeopardy, according to the Pew Research Center’s newly-released newspaper fact sheet for 2017. (SOURCE: Axiom)

On June 6th Taco Bell announced that they will be testing Berry Frosé (frozen rose) at two Taco Bell Cantina locations in Newport Beach, California, and Chicago. The drink combines frozen rosé features blended with berry flavors. The frosé will cost $7.99 at the Newport Beach Cantina and $5.49 at the Chicago location.

Why It’s Hot: 
Taco Bell is continuing to give the millennial what they want. In 2015, Taco Bell launched its first Cantina, which features designs geared towards foot traffic (no drive-thru) and offers beer and mixed drinks. Cantinas are especially appealing to the millennials, with their digital menu boards, trendy décor, DJ’s blasting music and tapas style appetizers. And now, by adding Frosé to the menu, Taco Bellis even more in line with the millennial. It will no longer be a late night treat or stop on the road, but instead, it will be a destination. The fast-food chain isn’t doing something new (think Pinknic) but they are following a smart trend. “Rose All Day” has become a cultural movement and by joining in, Taco Bell is sure to gain traction.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/taco-bell-launches-frozen-ros-fros-2018-6

The Peruvian Amazon has already lost over 1 million hectares of forest in the last 15 years, and indigenous communities are seeing their water grow more polluted by the day and their lands dry up.

Last year, residents of the indigenous northern Peruvian communities that populate the Amazonian rainforest between Yurimaguas and Lagunas noticed the beginnings of a new highway running through their lands. New roads through the Amazon often mean that logging and mining companies are preparing to move into the region.

The Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest (AIDESEP), an indigenous rights organization, recently partnered with Oxfam to deploy a drone to indigenous communities facing land rights infringements. The drone enables community members to track changes to their land and provide precise location data for where these changes are occurring.

The drone program, says Oxfam program manager Neal McCarthy, is still very much in the pilot stage. AIDESEP holds the drone at its main office in Lima, and deploys it out for use when one of the 109 indigenous communities it coordinates with detects an invasive development to document. (AIDESEP has operated another independently funded drone since 2015, but its capabilities and scope were more limited.) With around $25,000 in funding from Oxfam, AIDESEP sourced the drone and hosted trainings through the Amazonian rainforest to instruct community leaders in how to use it.

Why its hot

Drones can deliver packages and drop tear gas on protesters, but what good can they do. It’s good to see noble uses of drones and given that they are a relatively cheap technology, they should be more accessible to under-served communities.

Xbox One used guerrilla tactics to promote the release of Fifa 18 despite losing the right to market the football simulation video game. Sony PlayStation, Xbox’s main competitor, had secured the exclusive marketing rights to FIFA 18 prior to its release (on both PlayStation and Xbox). Microsoft-owned Xbox decided to promote the game anyway – just without mentioning or showing the product.

Xbox achieved this with The Beautiful Combination, a campaign created in partnership with football team Real Madrid. The activation kicked off with an online film featuring several Real Madrid players showing off their skills while the corresponding Xbox button combinations for FIFA 18 loom large in the background.

Viewers see slick passes, shots and skill moves before a voiceover announces: ‘Xbox and football – a beautiful combination’. At no point in the film is FIFA’s product or brand mentioned.

Xbox extended this mechanism into several Real Madrid football games, including the much-anticipated Uefa Champions League fixture between Juventus and Real Madrid – a match watched by millions around the world in April this year. Passes, tackles and shots by the Real Madrid football players were ‘decoded’ into Xbox button combinations in real time by a ‘world-class gamer’ (shots became Bs, passes As, and so on) during the game. These button combos were then broadcast on pitch-side boards around the stadium, turning the football match into a live tutorial for Xbox gamers.

Meanwhile Talksport, a popular sports radio broadcaster, adapted its live football commentary to chronicle the equivalent button combinations throughout the match. The day after the Champions League game, Xbox published a post-match report teaching readers how to recreate moves from the game on their consoles. The report was published in the sports section of London Evening Standard, one of the most widely-read newspapers in the UK.

Why its hot?
-Beautiful Truth Well Told: Gamers don’t just watch to enjoy the game. They want to learn the moves.
-Xbox hijacked competitor’s sponsorship by speaking the fans language.

In attempts to reduce their carbon footprint, Ikea has announced it will no longer use plastic bags, straws or other single-use plastics, with a goal of phasing these items out completely by 2020. The move is part of an initiative by the furniture giant to become “people and planet positive by 2030,” which will also involve the introduction of affordable home solar products.

Ikea said plastic straws, plates, cups, freezer bags, bin bags, and plastic-coated paper plates and cups would all be phased out and where possible replaced by alternatives. It has invested in a plastics recycling plant to help push the plan forward.

Ikea’s sustainability manager is aiming to design all products “from the very beginning to be repurposed, repaired, reused, resold and recycled.” They also plan to implement more plant-based food options in its eatery, like a vegetarian hot dog, which will be available starting in August. They will be offering products such as a tap nozzle that could save more than 90% of water used and solar panels in 29 markets.

Why it’s Hot:

Ikea’s decision to remove single-use plastic products from all stores is a major step towards influencer big retailers and corporations to follow suit and reduce the amount of throwaway plastic on their shelves. Other brands like Adidas, Dell and Nestle have launched similar movements to combat plastic waste and promote sustainability. Adidas has released a line of shoes made from upcycled plastic waste intercepted before reaching the ocean. Dell is repurposing plastic ocean waste for electronic packaging. And Nestle plans to make all packaging reusable or recyclable by 2025. The EU has even proposed banning plastic products altogether and although come US cities have taken action on plastic, the effort has been less impressive in the US.

Source: https://www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/ikea-will-no-longer-use-plastic-bags-or-straws/

Lyft has been making moves in the corporate benevolence arena lately, starting with their Lyft Relief Rides program which provides free rides after natural disasters and other crises. They announced in May that they’re expanding the program and committing $1.5 million to it over the next year. And they’ve now provided more details on how they’re expanding the program: they are partnering with United Way to provide free rides to appointments for passengers in need – not just for medical visits, but also other vital appointments like job interviews and veterans services.

United Way is integrating Lyft into their 2-1-1 referral helpline in twelve cities across America, including Austin, Denver, San Francisco, and Philadelphia. 2-1-1 is a free, confidential referral and information helpline that allows people in need to connect with essential services via phone, text, and the internet. Per the United Way U.S. President Mary Sellers, last year the 2-1-1 network received over 250,000 transportation requests, and they could not meet 20% of the requests due to resource issues. The Lyft partnership will enable United Way to meet more community needs than previously allowed.

Why It’s Hot: It’s unclear what the corporate/profit motivation is behind this – maybe it’s truly just an act of generosity by Lyft? Either way, this is a great example of a company thoughtfully and appropriately helping to meet a need through offering their unique resources.

Learn More: Engadget | Lyft

A few weeks ago Google released its plans to implement elements to make phone use less addictive. This week Apple released similar plans at the WWDC Keynote talk this week. These implementations will include:

Do Not Disturb:

When you set a bedtime the background screen is displayed in muted tones to detract from bright notifications in the middle of the night. You will also be able to automatically set do not disturb at certain times or when you are in certain locations.

Nested Notifications:

Notifications from the same app will be nested to reduce as many notifications. Siri will also suggest deactivating notifications from infrequently used apps.

Screen Time:

Similarly to the Google updates, users can track which apps they use and for how long as well as set time limits for apps per day.

Why it’s hot: This is nothing new, since Google already announced it will release similar changes. This is another point for how reducing screen addiction is a growing trend and how this pain point is being addressed. The more I read about these new changes the more excited I am to see them implemented on my own device.

Source

FP7 McCann UAE 

As one might imagine from Coke, the story is ultimately a positive one, as the woman—preparing to break her fast with the traditional meal of three dates—is offered a soda from a supportive passerby. Once the sun goes down, they enjoy the drinks together in a lovely shared moment.

The closing message is:
“What unites us is bigger than what divides us.”

Coca-Cola is doing something against the discrimination of Muslims. There is also others are upset claiming it’s unhealthy breaking fast with a Coke.

Why it’s Hot

Advertisers are known for jumping on every holiday, but Ramadan has traditionally been an exception. During a time of fasting, it represents the exact opposite of most marketing messages. But, somehow Coke managed to create an uplifting moment in a touch topic.

Mercedes Benz is launching an app-based subscription service that will give drivers access to different luxury vehicle for up to $2,995 a month. Mercedes is offering two plans: Signature for $1,095 a month and Reserve $1,595 a month. A one-time $495 joining fee is also required. Each plan includes insurance, roadside assistance, service, and maintenance as well as a “personal concierge” who will flip you from one vehicle to another. That makes Mercedes’ plan notably cheaper than comparable subscription services by BMW ($2,000–$3,700 / month), Porsche ($2,000–$3,000 / month), and Cadillac ($1,500 / month).

For now, the service is just a pilot. The monthly subscription called Mercedes-Benz Collection will be tested in Nashville and Philadelphia. BMW’s U.S. subscription pilot, which launched in April for up $3,700 a month, is also in Nashville.

But the subscription service could expand as customers shift away from owning vehicles and move towards short-term rental services like car2go and peer-to-peer options, such as Turo.

Why It’s Hot

The automotive industry has been shifting to mobility as a service, and even luxury brands will have to respond to this new ecosystem and provide the same level of flexibility, convenience, and cost-savings to compete.