The Cupertino, California-based technology giant has struggled in the home space and has ceded much of the market to its rivals. Its current devices remain limited in their functionality, with Apple’s Siri voice-control service lagging behind Amazon’s Alexa and the Google Assistant. The new devices — along with upcoming changes to Siri — are aimed at turning around Apple’s fortunes.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-18/apple-to-expand-smart-home-lineup-taking-on-amazon-and-google
Category Archives: bathroom
Homes Past, Present, Future (Deloitte)
There are many paths forward, and overlaps are likely. We map possible futures on a spectrum from those centered closely around the individual, to those encompassing the places and communities around us.
Plastics production is skyrocketing. A new U.N. treaty effort could cap it.
Negotiators from around the world will start work this month on a treaty to reduce plastic pollution, in what diplomats say is the most ambitious round of climate diplomacy since the 2015 Paris agreement that focuses on global warming.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/02/08/plastic-pollution-un-treaty/
L’Oréal and Alphabet’s Verily Are Working on Extremely Personal Skincare
‘Clients want us to clean the air’: how the pandemic took hygiene to a whole new level
Has China’s “Too Skinny” Trend Gone Too Far?
The Jing Take: For years, celebrities and role models in China promoted an unattainable beauty standard: white, skinny, and young. But this unrealistic view of femininity is slowly changing thanks to the rise of new consumer trends and the influence of social media.
Nevertheless, online challenges like this most recent one prove that social media still has a distressed relationship with body inclusivity. The penchant for size-zero KOLs and idols sends women an implicit message, so it is hardly surprising when younger women glorify skinny. Read more (Jing Daily)
The Evolution of the Bathroom
The evolution of bathing goes back thousands of years, from religious ritual and social life – to today’s wellbeing haven and place of peace and solitude. Read more (BBC)
Amazon to Offer Telehealth Service to Other U.S. Firms This Summer
Amazon said it has started to offer its Amazon Care program to employees and other companies throughout Washington state and plans to make the program available throughout the U.S. this summer. Launched in 2019 at its Seattle headquarters, Amazon Care started by offering virtual primary-care services to Amazon employees in the city. The service also has an at-home care option, where medical professionals are dispatched to perform medical services such as blood draws or listening to a patient’s lungs. Read more (WSJ)
The rise of virtual surgery
Now that the cultural resistance has been broken down, ‘Zoom surgery’ is likely to remain a feature of modern medicine. But during Covid-19 lockdowns, with travel restricted, doctors have not been able to work in other countries or share expertise with colleagues face to face. As a result, some of the cultural resistance among surgeons towards telemedicine has started to melt away. In 2020, there were ninefold and fivefold increases respectively in the number of users and procedures on Proximie’s platform. Read more (Financial Times)
The Promise and the Peril of Virtual Health Care
During the coronavirus pandemic, telemedicine looks like the future of health care. Is it a future that we want? Read more (New Yorker)
Analyzing Trends with Tim Stock 