Ford Europe has unveiled a “Lane-Keeping Bed” that ensures partners always have equal amounts of sleeping space. The idea was inspired by the driver-assist technology that prevents unintentional drifting in new models like the 2019 Ford Ranger.
As demonstrated in the video below, pressure sensors detect when an active dreamer strays to the opposite side of the mattress and triggers an integrated conveyor belt that puts them back where they belong.
Like Ford’s noise-cancelling dog kennel, the Lane-Keeping Bed is only a prototype in the company’s “Interventions” series of innovations that extend beyond the car industry.
Only a tiny fraction of the $1 trillion grocery market has moved online. On-demand delivery is prohibitively expensive for retailers and it is extremely important for consumers to pick their own foods. For decades consumers have had the convenience of their local greengrocer, milkman, and ice-cream vendor coming door to door, yet it never made economic sense to scale – until now, by leveraging driverless technology.
This spring, Robomart, a California-based company is teaming up with grocery chain Stop & Shop for a trial run of their world’s first driverless grocery store service in Boston, Massachusetts. All the users of this service need to do is summon the mobile grocery store using a mobile app. When the store turns up outside their door, they can simply tap in a code on the vehicle to unlock its doors, grab what they like from the selection of everyday items and meal kits, and that’s it.
In summer 2018, Nuro, a tech startup, teamed up with supermarket giant Kroger for an autonomous grocery delivery service to customers in Scottsdale, Arizona. To use the service, customers had to place an order with Kroger via a smartphone app. Back at the depot, the staff loaded up the autonomous pod’s secure lockers with the customer order and sent it on its way. When the “R1” autonomous delivery pod arrived at the scheduled stop, the customer simply tapped in a code to open the locker and access their groceries.
A new Google and Disney partnership has brought Disney Storybooks to life. The next time you read out loud select Disney Little Golden Books, your Google Home will add sound effects and soundtracks to accompany the story as it is read aloud.
This new feature uses voice recognition to be able to tell when a reader has skipped ahead or gone back, and adjusts the sound effects accordingly. If the user pauses reading, ambient music will play until the user begins reading again. This feature works on Google Home, Home Mini, and Home Max speakers in the US. To activate the action, just say, “Hey Google, let’s read along with Disney.”
During the story, unlike with other typical commands, the smart speaker’s microphone will stay on so the device can follow along and add sound effects. To address privacy concerns, Google says it does not store the audio data after the story has been completed.
Voice computing is opening new possibilities for the retail industry, especially to inspire and interact with customers. So, this holiday season (2018), H&M decided to take the lead when it comes to shaping the voice commerce of the future and to have their customers be part of the journey.
H&M in USA launched the H&M HOME Gift Guide – an easy to use voice application filled with inspiration and ideas for different holiday gifts for anyone’s home available via the Google Assistant on all smartphones and Google Home smart devices. To activate the H&M HOME Gift Guide, users had to simply ask for H&M HOME from their Google Assistant and then easily browse through the H&M assortment to find the most suitable gift. The voice application also offered easy payment through voice.
H&M HOME initially announced the creation of a voice application, called H&M HOME Stylist, in June 2018. At that time, H&M said the voice stylist offered personal styling suggestions, mood boards and inspiration for every room in the home.
Hence the H&M Home Gift Guide is just a revamped version of H&M Stylist, prepped with Holiday themed products.
For the world premiere of their new Mercedes-Benz ECQ at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, Mercedes transformed their new model into a wedding carriage. Four lucky couples were invited to test drive the new Mercedes-Benz ECQ on the roads of Las Vegas and experience its special A.I. features first hand.
An estimated 45% of dogs in the UK show signs of fear when they hear fireworks – causing distress to owners and their families too. So, Ford developed a noise-cancelling kennel concept that applied automotive know-how to help solve this everyday problem.
The idea was inspired by the noise-canceling technology Ford developed and introduced in its Edge SUV to give passengers a quieter ride. It worked so well that it got Ford thinking about how it could be applied to other facets of everyday life. In this case, it applied the tech to dogs and their fear of fireworks.
Ford in Italy along with their agency GTB Rome have teamed up with Aedo, a local start-up that creates devices for people with visual impairments. Together they have designed a new innovative device, that when applied on a car window can decode a landscape seen from the car, allowing visually impaired people to experience it with the tip of their fingers.
The device can transform a flat surface of a car window into a tactile display. The prototype captures and transforms the photos taken by the integrated camera into haptic sensory stimuli, not visible, but perceptible through touch and hearing.
The war of the digital assistants just got a new entrant. IBM has recently revealed the Watson Assistant, that is designed for enterprises to use with their customer-facing applications. The video below shows some of the use cases that make the Watson Assistant I-VIE seem like an enhanced version of Alexa and Google Assistant put together, that eventually hopes to be more like J.A.R.V.I.S. from Iron Man.
What this reinforces is that while Alexa and Google Assistant have momentum with consumer use cases, enterprises have strong interest in having more control over the customer experience and data. So it comes as no surprise that Amazon introduced Alexa for Business in December 2017 and set its sights beyond the kitchens and bedrooms.
The battle for enterprise assistant market share is shaping up to be every bit as competitive as the current war for consumer voice assistant users.
Marketing is one of the most creative and toughest industries in the world. Each day, companies are seeking new ways to attract attention and to mesmerize possible clients into becoming loyal customers. At Milan Fashion Week on Sunday, Dolce & Gabbana stunned the watching crowd with a memorable opener that replaced human fashion models with drones.
The drones were made to carry Dolce & Gabbana’s latest range of “Devotion” leather handbags as part of its fall and winter collection. Around seven copters hovered along the runway, each with a Dolce & Gabbana handbag dangling beneath it.
The Moby Mart is set to turn every parking space in the world into a new 24-hour store. About the size of a small bus, the store carries a selection of everyday products like snacks, meals, basic groceries, and even shoes. To use the store, you have to download an app, register as a customer and use your smartphone to unlock the doors.
The store is currently undergoing trials in Shanghai, thanks to a collaborative effort between Swedish startup named Wheelys Inc and China’s Hefei University. For now, the trial prototype is stationery i.e. based permanently in a carpark. But the company says that it is currently working with tech companies to develop its self-driving technology as seen in the below video.
