If you ever wanted someone to blame for having to change your password every 90 days – last week the world found out who that person is. Former National Institute of Standards and Technology manager Bill Burr recently admitted to the WSJ that his 2003 password guidelines were unnecessarily harsh. The new guidelines suggest removing the
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As the highly anticipated solar eclipse approaches, there are plenty of towns and brands finding creative ways to cash in. Chiquita created a humorous video about the impending “Banana Sun,” there are “eclipse chasing” flights selling for $10,000 and Krispy Kreme even created an “eclipse donut.” This article takes a deeper look at the windfall that seems to be approaching small
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The team at WGSN produces some great trend insights primarily in for the fashion sector and recently launched their “Anatomy of a Trend” white paper which is worth a download. One element that was particularly interesting was their distinction between macro and micro trends and how they think about trends in general. As a fellow
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If your smart robot vacuum cleaner created a map of your home in the process of cleaning it, that data could provide new insights to help tailor smart home products to your specific living conditions. That’s the bold assertion of Colin Angle, chief executive of Roomba maker iRobot Corp. It does raise some clear privacy
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One of the side effects of social awareness among millennials is how many young brides are coming to embrace lab grown diamonds as equally beautiful but more ethically sourced alternatives to “blood” diamonds. It doesn’t hurt that the Gemological Institute of America qualifies these synthetic diamonds as “real diamonds” – but the significant discount may
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This week IKEA will release its new 2018 catalog, and this timely piece looks at how a small internal army of hundreds of photographers, art directors, copywriters, proofreaders, prop masters, carpenters, photo retouchers, programmers and CGI specialists make the catalog globally relevant. From zooming in on kitchen photos (because Chinese kitchens are smaller than American
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In a perfect example of Passive Loyalty (a 2017 trend from Non-Obvious), this article on discusses how to break up with your bank. While changing banks is notoriously inconvenient, the author of the piece was inspired to do so because of ethical differences with his bank (Wells Fargo) and its support of the Dakota pipeline. This consumer empowerment
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Starting with a set of 5,000 images that were retouched by five different photographers, Google and MIT built an algorithm that can automatically retouch a photo WHILE you take it. In a world already filled with “photoshopped” images which distort reality, advancements like this have the potential to further blur the line between real and
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The bored husband at a shopping mall is one of the most common stereotypes of suburbia and now a Chinese gaming company has a solution that is rapidly going viral. The so-called “husband pod” features seat massages, retro video games and virtual reality experiences. While there are no plans to expand this outside of China
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What if elevators went sideways? They might soon thanks to a new system invented and being tested by German elevator producer ThyssenKrupp which aims to get rid of cables altogether and build elevators more like magnetic levitation trains, which are common in Japan and China. The idea would allow people in a tall tower to
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