🎭 Fake it 'til you make it - or don't!
Tech is off to a flying start already this year, including BMW introducing colour changing cars 🚗
Hey 👋 This edition is brought to you by cinch.
cinch’s mission is simple - to take away all the things that make changing cars trickier than it should be. cinch know what drivers want, so they’ve ripped up the rule book and replaced it with an approach that helps people browse, buy and receive cars from the comfort of their own homes.
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Image source: The Verge
“Fake it ‘til you make it” was certainly not the case for Elizabeth Holmes, former Silicon Valley sweetheart who last week was found guilty in California on four counts of conspiring to defraud investors. Holmes founded a company, Theranos, and raised millions of dollars of investment. The technology that Theranos was producing claimed to test for hundreds of diseases with a tiny blood sample.
In Silicon Valley, there is a lot of privacy and secrecy around technology and processes - after all, you don’t want your competitors finding out your inner workings. But in Holmes’ case, she was simply unable to make the technology work, but investors, companies and journalists all believed that it did, as there is a certain level of trust that you give to a company - particularly one like Theranos who make incredible claims.
On the flip side, one of the tech calendar's biggest annual events, CES, took place last week. Here’s just a few of the weird and wonderful tech that was on offer:
BMW has brought a new idea to the table with a colour changing car 🚗
Samsung is changing the game with their latest solar panelled TV remotes 🔋
Procter and Gamble delivered a metaverse experience, allowing users to wander the grounds of London’s Royal Botanic Gardens 💐
🔭 Science & Futuristic Tech
Image source: The Verge
“Play to earn” is a current trend in crypto, where you earn crypto or NFT for playing games. Currently, “Axie Infinity” has around 2 million daily players on the game, but you need a certain amount of “Axies” to start, which can cost you around £1k. But, by playing the game, you can battle and earn more. 🤑 In October 2021, the game was given a $3bn valuation.
This is another example of a use case for crypto, other than just buying and selling. Another example of which is StormX, a cryptocurrency cash-back app - where you purchase items you usually would such as Ubers, Udemy courses, Sephora, and hundreds more, and you get a % back in crypto.
Where the future of crypto and blockchain technology will be in 5 years is still unknown. Recently, we spoke to a junior blockchain developer, Asia who said: “Personally, I believe blockchain technology will allow us to have the freedom and control we desire, not just because it is decentralised and gives us control of our finances but also our data and anything we own. It gives us data control, data integrity, ownership and accountability.”
🧑💻 Programming, Data & Design
Image source: UX Collective
‘Living in the Waste Age’ - an increasingly concerning subject but could design be the answer?
It might not come as a shock, but as a society (globally) one of the most poignant problems we have is waste. Each year around two billion tonnes of waste is produced across the globe and, disappointingly, only 15% of this is recycled! ♻️ So, what solution can design bring? An exhibition has been set up to showcase the impact of waste on our planet and Design museum Co-curator, Justin McGuir, said “Design has helped create our wasteful society, and it will be crucial in building a cleaner future. There is so much we can do, but it begins with understanding our waste.”
Here are a few of our favourite design concepts which are helping to tackle the issue ⬇️
The Tyre Collective - a device that can be attached to car wheels to collect micro-plastics 🚘
Snøhetta and Nordic Comfort Products teamed up to create a chair made of 100% recycled plastic from local fish farming industries, with a design mimicking that of waves 🌊
⚙️ Miscellaneous
Have you jumped on the Wordle bandwagon yet? This daily word game has gone viral 📲
Farm equipment maker, John Deere just revealed their latest gadget - an automated, self-driving tractor 🚜
“Zombie fires” which are fires that are started underground, and are linked to climate change, have been found in Russia 🇷🇺
Dogs have been found to tell when you’re speaking a foreign language - pretty cool huh? 🐶
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📚 Blog Round-Up
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