Category Archives: the home

How Architectural Digest became the new Vogue

A new generation of digital-native celebrities, relaxed about the blurring of boundaries between public and private lives, have embraced celebrity home tours as a tool to promote their personal brands and to challenge public preconceptions. Emma Chamberlain, a social media influencer who found fame via YouTube, confounded expectations with her sophisticated taste in mid-century design and grown-up love of a kitchen island and copper taps when a video of her home went viral. When Khloé Kardashian posts content showing her impeccably organised pantry on YouTube, it is greeted with the kind of swooning comments that were once reserved for Carrie’s walk-in closet in the film Sex and the City.

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/feb/10/how-architectural-digest-became-the-new-vogue

Our future could be full of undying, self-repairing robots. 

With generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and StableDiffusion being the talk of the town right now, it might feel like we’ve taken a giant leap closer to a sci-fi reality where AIs are physical entities all around us.

Indeed, computer-based AI appears to be advancing at an unprecedented rate. But the rate of advancement in robotics – which we could think of as the potential physical embodiment of AI – is slow.

Could it be that future AI systems will need robotic “bodies” to interact with the world? If so, will nightmarish ideas like the self-repairing, shape-shifting T-1000 robot from the Terminator 2 movie come to fruition? And could a robot be created that could “live” forever?

https://theconversation-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/theconversation.com/amp/our-future-could-be-full-of-undying-self-repairing-robots-heres-how-196664

How are U.S. cities rebuilding after the pandemic? Richard Florida on the resilience of urban life in America.

In the U.S., the axiom about the imminent death of the big cities depended on a belief that people would abandon New York and San Francisco for the hinterlands, or for far-off suburbs, or for Miami and other smaller metropolitan areas—and we would see this great reshuffling of the American population.

https://www.thesgnl.com/2023/01/post-covid-us-cities-richard-florida/

Marie Kondo Has ‘Kind of Given Up’ on Tidying Up: ‘My Home Is Messy’

Kondo became an international phenomenon in 2019 with the launch of her Netflix reality series “Tidying Up,” in which she helped people clean up their messy homes and declutter their spaces in an attempt to restore calmness and “spark joy” in their lives. While Kondo has long been devoted to decluttering “physical” spaces, her new book also stresses the importance of cleaning up mental and emotional spaces. In other words, keeping your clothes folded and organized can be just as important as listening to classical music in the morning or making time for your children.

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/marie-kondo-stops-tidying-up-home-messy-1235504610/

We still use appliances like it’s 1970. There’s a better way.

“If automobiles were regulated to the same extent as household appliances, the average vehicle would be getting 60 miles per gallon and seat nine people,” says Pamela Klyn, an engineer and sustainability executive at Whirlpool, which manufactures 20 million products every year under brands including Whirlpool, Maytag and KitchenAid. Yet these appliances could be saving us even more water, energy and time — if we used them properly.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/24/home-appliance-myths-energy-saving-tips/

SAMSUNG AND PATAGONIA MAKE AN UNLIKELY PAIRING IN THE FIGHT AGAINST OCEAN MICROPLASTICS

Tech giant Samsung and eco-minded clothier Patagonia have teamed up to tackle ocean pollution. In a statement released earlier this month, Samsung says that “together, the companies are working on a feasible, effective and expandable way to combat the microplastics that result from textiles and laundry.”

https://futurevvorld.com/design/samsung-patagonia-microplastics-filter-washing-machines-ces-2022-ocean-pollution/

Digital Twins Are Set For Rapid Adoption In 2023

The idea of digital twins — digital representations of physical systems, products or processes that serve as indistinguishable counterparts for purposes such as simulations, testing, monitoring and maintenance — has been around for some time. But indications are the concept’s time has come for wider adoption to support business applications.

https://frankdiana.net/2023/01/24/digital-twins-are-set-for-rapid-adoption-in-2023/

Related Report: Pre-emptive Culture Mapping: Exploring a System of Language to Better Understand the Abstract Traits of Human Interaction | presentation slides

Apple to Expand Smart-Home Lineup, Taking On Amazon and Google

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

Our Homes reveal the story of culture…. Do You Really Want a New Kitchen Counter?

A home plays two essential roles for many people: It’s the place you live your day-to-day life, and it’s the single most important asset you’ll ever have. Housing has served these dual purposes for much of the country’s history, but over the past 50 years in particular, as rising home values have far outpaced wage growth, Americans have begun to stake their financial future even more heavily on their home. If you’re one of the nearly two-thirds of adults in this country who own a home, it’s pretty likely that its potential sale price is a major factor in your long-term financial stability, even if you don’t plan to sell anytime soon.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/11/lifestyle-media-home-improvement-trends-obsession/672168/?utm_source=twitter&utm_term=2022-11-18T12%3A30%3A55&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo&utm_medium=social

Our homes reveal the story of culture…

A robust and standardized framework for reuse measurement is needed. Here’s why

Only 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling, with an effective recycling rate of approximately 2% globally. Reusable packaging, designed to be used several times, is necessary to reduce total virgin material consumption, emissions and waste generation by keeping resources in circulation.

Measurement and reporting is a significant barrier to scaling reuse models of consumption. There are currently no standardized and tested metrics to track progress on reuse, which is critical for companies to fully understand the economic, consumer and environmental benefits of reusable business models. Organizations still tend to operate in siloes, using different reuse metrics and calculation methodologies. Standardization of reuse metrics across industry, government and standard-setting institutions will accelerate the systemic shift toward reuse models.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/09/plastic-waste-reuse-measurement?utm_source=linkedin&utm_medium=social_scheduler&utm_term=SDIM2022&utm_content=26/09/2022+00:00