Noveto’s ‘sound beaming’ technology emits audio straight to your ears
Noveto’s futuristic device is beaming audio media straight to people’s heads without the need for headphones. For some, I’d imagine the second round of Covid-19 lockdowns is akin to a peaceful meditation retreat, but for larger families it’s likely a daily cacophony of noise. As someone firmly in the latter bracket,...
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How AI-based app WYSA is helping Gen Z’s mental health
Offering pragmatic solutions to mental health struggles, WYSA is using AI chat algorithms and questionnaires to tailor emotional support for Gen Z users. It seems AI is everywhere these days. Whether it’s used to help artists create paintings from scratch, or to quicken disaster response times via satellites,...
Virgin’s Hyperloop to carry passengers in levitating pods at 600mph
Virgin’s Hyperloop may one day have commuters flying through vacuum tubes in levitating pods at over 600mph. It’s safe to say Branson’s dreaming big. Remember the Futurama opening sequence that depicted commuters whizzing around cities inside giant tubes? Well Richard Branson’s vision for the future of human and cargo transportation...
Gen Z help location apps flourish but is our privacy at risk?
Dating apps and COVID-19 tracking services have seen huge growth this year - particularly with Gen Z and Millennials - but should we be concerned about the privacy risks? It’s official - a second wave of COVID-19 is here in full swing. With no real end to the pandemic restrictions...
The floating trashcan transforming the fight against plastic pollution
A new floating rubbish container called the ‘Seabin’ could help prevent marine and port waste from entering our oceans, making the entire process more affordable. Could floating trashcans become the future of ocean clean-ups? A new Australian start-up called the ‘Seabin Project’ is certainly hoping so. Founded in 2015 by...
Minecraft’s ‘Build the Vote’ readies young voters for US election
Minecraft is weighing in on the upcoming US elections, and its blocky recreation of the Capitol Building may inspire young gamers to vote for the first time. Getting young people to turn up to voting booths has been a notoriously difficult task in recent years. Fewer than half of Americans...
First ever AI satellite quickens disaster response times
A satellite the size of a cereal box is using AI to remove clouds from orbit imagery and pinpointing disasters faster than ever before. On September 2nd, a satellite that looks a little like a desktop PC was shot into orbit, it’s original task being to monitor the state of polar ice and soil moisture as climate change continues to impact our planet’s delicate ecosystems. However, a month into deployment the...
The rise of ‘dark social’ is changing brand marketing
Gen Z is one of the biggest drivers of dark social traffic, often blurring the line between private and public social media activity - it’s only set to increase. Dark social is commonly used to describe any online interaction or click that can’t be traced by third parties or marketers. This applies to WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger chats, private emails, or Snapchat photo sending, for example. It means that web...
Quibi shuts down following lockdown marketing misstep
Launching in lockdown has proved a fatal miscalculation for mobile centric streaming service Quibi. Six months ago, at the height of the first COVID-19 lockdown, veteran execs Jaffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman boldly opted to launch a mobile-centric streaming service called Quibi. Spurred by a clear consumer demand for short-bite TikTok-esque content, the pair rapidly sunk a whopping $1.8 billion into both capital and star power including $63 million on advertising...
New in-game video series for NBA 2K urges Gen Z to vote
Teaming up with the ‘More Than A Vote’ campaign, basketball video game franchise NBA 2K is releasing a two-part electoral video message to encourage Gen Z to head to the polls. It seems like most tech companies and social media platforms are trying their hand at encouraging young people to vote in this year’s US elections. Snapchat introduced direct hyperlinks to voter registration sites, Instagram has released unique ‘I Voted’...