Car Lots, What’s That?
Cadillac is looking for a way to innovate their struggling luxury car company. The idea, “Project Pinnacle,” is transforming 925 of their Cadillac properties into virtual dealerships. Cadillac President, Johan de Nysschen, is beginning to search for other store owners willing to hop on this bandwagon. You won’t be able to drive out of the store with your new purchase, because inventory will be no more. Not much has been said whether there will be some cars available to test drive. The car will have to be ordered, but de Nysschen said it shouldn’t be a problem since the cars are made in the U.S. Future plans involve moving these dealerships into stores more suitable and convenient for shoppers. They believe other manufacturers could turn to virtual reality as well to help with the sales. Some individuals are concerned the move may wipe out small-volume stores if it succeeds. (Source: WSJ)
Now Everyone Can Have Their Own Butler
Zenbo is a butler robot. It’s like your smartphone, but with the ability to move on its own. Zenbo is becoming widely known for its ability to assist the elderly when they fall down. Cue the “Help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” commercials. Family members will pretty much be FaceTimed from the robot of the fallen individual, where they can proceed to help. Zenbo will adapt to your family by interacting with everyone and beginning to recognize speech commands. ASUS, innovator of Zenbo, said machine learning and cloud computing will help improve the robot’s functionality. The robot can also assist with childcare by reading books and providing lessons. The best part is… Zenbo helps with cooking. The only problem is, the robot doesn’t have any arms so it can only read off the recipes as you do all the work. (Source: engadget)
New Instagram Algorithm
Instagram is breaking out a different newsfeed similar to Facebook – think getting to see your BFF’s selfies and J. Bieb’s posts allll the time. Instead of chronological order, the newsfeed will be “what you care about” instead. It will be based on the likelihood of your interest, your relationship with the individual posting it, and the timeliness of the post. Of course Instagram users, looking at you Millennials, are concerned about what this might mean for likes on their posts. The update could ruin the game for their digital rep. However, Instagram says not to worry, because supposedly there has been a lot more engagement with this new feed versus the one it is replacing. (Source: Mashable)
