17 2019 January
Robot Layoffs, Disappearing Street Food & Asymmetrical Jeans | Non-Obvious Insights 01.17.19
Japanese Hotel Has First Round Of Robot Layoffs I first wrote about the Henna hotel, staffed entirely by robots, more than two years ago. It...
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13 2018 December
The 2018 Non-Obvious Book Awards – Top 50 Business Books Of The Year
Every year my team and I read and review hundreds of books in the process of curating ideas to incorporate in our annual list of...
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17 2018 October
Amy Winehouse And How Dead Artists Might Come Back On Tour As Holograms
This week the father of Amy Winehouse announced a world tour in 2019 featuring a “hologram” of his daughter on stage. A digital avatar of Winehouse,...
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01 2018 October
How To Separate Meaningful Data From Quantified Bullshit
Last year I got my test results from the 23andMe genetic testing and found it to be fascinatingly useless. The numbers told me I was...
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21 2018 September
Why The Future of Work Should Be Jobs Humans Actually Want To Do
On September 13th Time magazine ran a cover story on the plight of underpaid teachers in America. A few days later, an Amazon worker published an expose about...
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28 2018 August
The Loneliness Industry and the World’s Saddest Product
About a year and a half ago, a Japanese company called Gatebox released a depressing preview video of a new AI powered “Holographic Wife” that would offer...
Read Now17 2018 August
New Study Finds Robots Can Emotionally Manipulate Humans Easily
A team of German researchers from the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany studied how humans interact with robots. In a paper published in PLOS ONE – they...
Read Now12 2018 August
Why Netflix Uses Taste Communities Instead of Demographics
Last week Netflix announced that they would be stopping their long standing policy of asking customers to vote on early pilots for programs to see...
Read Now10 2018 August
Victorinox and How To Use Powerfully Ordinary Videos For Marketing
One piece of advice I am fond of sharing from the stage is about the importance of showing your work – something we are told...
Read Now12 2018 July
Pokemon Go Isn’t Dead … It’s Quietly Dominating
A little over two years ago, Pokemon Go was everywhere. People walked down the street glued to their phones. And then one day it all...
Read Now01 2018 July
5 Dangerously Futuristic Features Facebook Is Quietly Testing
Facebook is fond of running experiments, even though in the past this hasn’t gone so well. Yet these missteps haven’t stopped them from trying. Over...
Read Now25 2018 June
The Passive Future Of Learning: How To Learn Piano In An Hour
Imagine learning a new skill such as playing the piano or reading braille in as little as an hour. That may soon be a reality...
Read Now09 2018 April
Extinct Animal Zoos, Ungendered Baby Names And How To Save Social Media
Social media is under attack and all of us are trying to figure out what to do about it. Should we use Facebook less like...
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