The Amsterdam company Respyre has developed concrete and plaster that support the growth of moss. These materials can be used for new construction, as well as on existing buildings. The moss then acts as a respiration system for the city. It takes in water and CO2 from the air and releases oxygen.
Moss has other benefits, too. Watch this short video to find out more.
Tokyo has topped a list of the world’s most innovative cities, leapfrogging London and New York after embracing the “globe-shaking trends of robotics and 3-D manufacturing.”
Tokyo has risen rapidly since entering the top 10 of the Innovation Cities Index three years ago behind Paris, and was one of three Asian cities to feature this year.
“What really surprised us this year was the resurgence of Tokyo, moving up to eclipse rival cities like Boston,” said Christopher Hire, director of commercial data provider 2thinknow, which published the annual ranking on Friday.
“They showed clear direction by embracing smart technology change to lead innovation and leadership in what we have identified as the twin long-term globe-shaking trends of robotics and 3-D manufacturing.”
Your next smartphone might just throw you a curve.
Picture this: You pull your phone out of your pocket and unfold it like a napkin into a tablet. You press your finger on the screen, and it unlocks. You switch to the camera app, and a spider-like array of lenses shoot simultaneously to capture one giant photo.
These are all things I’ve seen phones do—some in prototype form, others in models you can get only in China. Analysts in Korea say we might see a folding “Galaxy X” phone from Samsung as soon as 2019. When I look into my crystal ball, I’m convinced we’re on the cusp of the most significant changes to the design and functionality of smartphones since they first arrived.
Hong Kong has one of the worst housing crises in the world, and has been ranked the least affordable city for housing for the last eight years.
Hong Kong architect James Law has designed a low-cost solution to the problem: stackable, retro-fitted water pipe "tube homes" called "O-Pods" that could be rented cheaply to young people.
"If we can work with governments, and even private landowners and manufacturers, we could very cheaply build the O-Pods, and we could rent them out very cheaply to young people who are struggling to afford housing."
Law sees the design as an "open-source" solution for housing crises around the world.
The first O-Pod development is being built in Shenzhen, China and due to open in July.
Walmart is taking aim at Amazon's Kindle business and diving into the business of selling e-readers, e-books, and audiobooks through a partnership with Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten.
As part of the deal, Walmart will start selling Aura-branded e-readers made by Kobo, a division of Rakuten, in stores and online at Walmart.com. Kobo is one of Amazon Kindle's biggest competitors.
Walmart will also offer customers access to Kobo's vast library of nearly six million titles from more than 30,000 publishers, Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Rakuten Kobo, told Business Insider.
Customers will be able to access the e-books and audiobooks through a co-branded Walmart-Kobo app that will be available on smartphones, desktop computers, and Kobo's e-readers.
ZOZOTOWN, Japan’s largest fashion e-commerce company, has announced the launch of the ZOZOSUIT, a revolutionary body measurement device. The suit’s technology will allow the company to create clothes that are guaranteed to fit, every time.
The ZOZOSUIT features patented sensor technology that is capable of capturing 15,000 precise measurements unique to each customer. Enabled with Bluetooth, the ZOZOSUIT seamlessly syncs with the ZOZO app and allows customers to upload their measurements from the comfort of their own home. Once their measurements have been captured, customers can shop the ZOZO collection, men’s and women’s high-quality basics including denim, t-shirts and coats, in the world’s first size-free e-commerce experience.
With the ZOZOSUIT and ZOZO collection, shoppers will never again have to debate which size to select or struggle with common fit issues.
Japan's push to attract innovative financial technology (fintech) startups to the country could spell trouble for the US.
On Wednesday at the New York Stock Exchange, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the government was moving forward with a plan to roll back regulations on some fintech startups to help spur the development of emerging technology and drive growth in the country.
As such, Abe is pushing for a regulatory sandbox program that would allow fintechs, startups looking to automate or digitize aspects of financial services, to operate and scale without meeting existing regulations.
"We will make a sandbox in which it is possible for certain participants to conduct trial and error freely on new business for a certain period of time without conforming to existing regulations," Abe said.
Vice president of Amazon Echo, Mike George, explained: "We have a thing called 'working backwards.' The first thing we do is we write a press release, ignoring every technical thing we can’t do for now. It’s our aspirations. We also write FAQs where we identify every question we would receive as if we issued the press release. We answer the question in aspirational ways too, ignoring, for the moment, the technical hurdles. In some cases we actually build things."
The idea is to dream about what this product could be. The next step is to hash out the idea between a team of experts that would potentially work on the new product. "There's a team in there, in a room, debating, from vice presidents to junior software developers," he says.
Everyone is not only encouraged to speak their mind, they are obligated to, he says. That's because Amazon has a motto: "Have backbone." It means that Amazon wants all the people working on a new product to be on board with the idea.
At SoftBank Group's annual shareholders meeting in Tokyo on Wednesday, founder and chief executive Masayoshi Son said: "Some say SoftBank is a mobile phone company, but that's wrong [...] We are an information revolution company. A cellphone is just a device. From now on, we will be in an age where all infrastructure will be connected by information networks."
Son has about 30 targets lined up in emerging sectors such as artificial intelligence, robotics and the internet of things. SoftBank, he made it clear, intends to be at the forefront of all these fields.
