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.
Mercedes-Benz has recently announced that all of its 2016 and 2017 vehicles in the US would now be able to connect with both Amazon and Google’s digital voice assistants.
With the help of this integration Mercedes owners can now instruct their Amazon Echo or Google Home to remotely start or lock their vehicles, as well as send addresses to their in-car navigation system. The video below however shows Mercedes-Benz creating an intelligent ecosystem around its cars with the help of cutting-edge technology.
Mercedes isn’t the first automaker to recognise the potential of artificially intelligent
third party digital voice assistants. At CES earlier this year, Ford unveiled its plan to roll out Alexa-equipped vehicles. Around the same time, Hyundai announced a new partnership with Google to add voice control through the Google Home.
To help tackle the stress of Christmas present-buying, eBay with the help of American technology firm Lightwave, opened a pop-up store in central London that aimed to inspire shoppers to reconnect with the emotional spirit of giving. By using intelligent bio-analytic technology and facial coding, eBay recorded which products provoked the strongest feelings of giving. Then through personalised emotion reports they suggested the gift that stirred the most feeling.
Move over Alexa, Siri and Cortana. Gatebox is set to be the worlds first virtual home robot. Gatebox’s first character, “Azuma Hikari” is a fully interactive holographic girl, who at her most basic can control your smart home equipment. Additionally, she can recognize your face and your voice, and is designed to be a companion who can wake you up in the morning, fill you in on your day’s activities, remind you of things to remember, and even welcome you back when you return home from work.
Gatebox is currently availble for pre-order to customers who speak Japanese in Japan and USA for around $2,600 per unit. For more details visit gatebox.ai.
The future of elevator maintenance is here. ThyssenKrupp recently announced the implementation of Microsoft’s Hololens out in the field where its technicians and engineers will benefit from minimized delays and matchless workflow. Fusing cloud computing and digital IoT solutions with an augmented reality interface, ThyssenKrupp will facilitate real-time prediction of repairs and component replacements while priming their experts on potential issues before they arise.
To launch Old Irish, a new craft beer with a unique Irish recipe in Georgia, ad agency Leavingstone came up with the idea to give the people in the streets of Tbilisi a virtual tour of Ireland. While the people were busy exploring the Irish nature, streets of Dublin and a typical Irish bar virtually, they quietly brought the whole virtual reality Irish bar experience out into the real world. The results…
Netflix has taken the world by storm, transforming itself from a mail order DVD company into a streaming behemoth that uses immense amount of internet bandwidth worldwide. This in turn has led to a cultural phenomenon called Binge-watching, where you tend to watch 2-6 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting.
The insight ice-cream maker Cornetto had to this cultural phenomenon was that over 28 million Netflix users have binge-watch cheated on their loved ones. 21% of them did it while the other person was asleep, while 12% of them re-watched the show with their loved ones. So Cornetto to fix this “Netflix infidelity” created a pair of smart wearable rings that blocked access to the shows unless the two were watching them together.
The rings had to connect to the smartphone over NFC, and then through an app users would have to register the shows they wanted to watch together. After that, both parties would have to be present, and have their Commitment Rings nearby, to be able to play a new episode from any of the saved shows.
At the moment there aren’t any pricing details or release dates for this particular wearable, so you’ll have to keep checking the Series Commitment website for more details about it, or register with the site to receive more information about the product.
