WEEKLY REVIEW  |  February 9, 2017

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TECH

Forget home assistants—take your bot with you.

Folks, it’s official: we’re the Jetsons. Piaggio Fast Forward just unveiled Gita, a personal cargo bot. It’ll follow you wherever you go with 2,000 cubic inches of interior space. It’s equipped with built-in sensors and cameras, and its battery can last for up to eight hours of continuous use at walking speeds. Maybe it’s time to upgrade your backpack?

“OK Google” everywhere.

Last week we covered the issues with Amazon’s personal home assistant, but Alexa is not alone. This past Sunday, the Google Home Super Bowl commercial set off A LOT of devices in the country. While we don’t know how many, the tweets poured in with the home assistant piping up to the sound of “OK Google.” 

MARKETING

All the single ladies still spend money on Valentine’s Day.

And the single guys, too! Single women spend on average $40 on the holiday of hearts, and single men spend $71. A shocking $681 million is spent on pets, and a not-so-shocking $4.5 billion on jewelry. Entrepreneur has all the Valentine’s Day stats for you, and hint: most people don’t want gifts, they want experiences. But those cost money, too!

Super Bowl wins for the ad world.

Sunday came and went, and now it’s time for the world of advertising to discuss not who won the game, but who won the commercial breaks. Tim Nudd, Adweek’s creative editor, discusses his champions and the prominent themes: humor and politics.

DESIGN

Google and H&M team up for smart fashion.

Lest you think the fashion-tech combo industry would stop at smart watches, Google and H&M’s Ivyrevel line have teamed up to create Coded Couture: a smart dress. There will be three styles: party, gala, and business. The dress will use the Snapshot and Awareness APIs to learn about the user’s fitness activities, frequented places, local weather location, and more, all with the goal of a dress “truly tailored to one’s lifestyle.”

Old-school cinema gets a techy revival.

Michael Counts, creator of immersive movie experiences, has a new endeavor: August Moon, a drive-in movie theater. But—it’s indoors. The project will debut in Nashville and includes a 40,000-square-foot, air-supported dome, complete with simulated starry sky, seating in modified classic cars,  burgers and milkshakes, and of course a full bar. And it’ll cost $10 million to make. Remember when we said experiences cost money?

INFLUENCERS

Trending TED: the learning zone.

Eduardo Briceño’s TED Talk, “How to get better at the things you care about,” is trending and we think we know why: it’s the beginning of the year. People want to be their best selves in their jobs, their relationships, their bodies. Briceño has a refreshing take on this: get in the learning zone instead of the performance zone. How? Well for starters, watch his talk.

EVENTS

You could celebrate the Chinese New Year with a parade on Saturday or get some laughs this Friday at the “Millenials Ruin Everything” comedy show at El Rio. Or spend the weekend hunkering down with some antiquarian books in Oakland and fit in some brews with Beer Week in between.

AND JUST FOR FUN

Nature’s “smart fashion.”

Sure, Google and H&M are creating a smart dress, but squid wore it first. Squid and other cephalopods use their skin to communicate, and Chuan-Chin Chiao, a neuroscientist at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, is trying to crack their code. The jist: each part of the squid body has its own patterns, so it can simultaneously have polka dot fins, dark tentacles, and a stripy mantle. Think of it as the squid alphabet—and the coolest thing we’ve read about all week.


“Nothing will work unless you do.”

Maya Angelou