Analytics, Digital, Design In Action
Happy Mid Autumn Day! Although it still feels like late summer here in Toronto, we are approaching the end of the year. Anyways, hope you’re all excited about Fall weather as we are!
A Bootstrapped Outlier Valued at $12 B
For marketers, Mailchimp is a familiar tool that was created two decades ago. Intuit, the maker of TurboTax and QuickBook, has intended to purchase Mailchimp for 12 billion dollars, which would be the largest-ever acquisition of a privately-held bootstrapped company. What is impressive about this? Mailchimp has never raised any funds since its 2001 founding.
Not Enough Innovation, How about More Promotion?
Soon after the iPhone 13 was launched, the products were available online since last Friday, though it already appears to be sold out in many places. You might be wondering why each successive generation of the iPhone has been more iterative than innovative and consumers are holding their current phones longer. Carriers want to expedite the 5G adoption and widen its user base and Tim Cook also needs you to open a wallet to continue buying the latest devices or the ones before.
By the way, did you know last month was Cook’s 10 years anniversary with Apple. Time really flies - Although Tim might not be as product obsessed as his predecessor, he certainly brought some successful new products and diversified Apple’s landscape.
Robot Doctor in a Room
In the latest National Robotarium (funded by the UK government aims to support research on artificial intelligence and robotics), a new AI-powered telepresence robot solution was introduced to further telemedicine, which enables healthcare practitioners to assess the patient’s physical and cognitive health anywhere, any time.
The robot is equipped with powerful sensors and operates in semi-autonomous mode, ensuring tracking and quality data collection 24/7. The healthcare professional can take control over robots directly through the Internet, move freely, interact with the patient and perform some complex evaluation protocols. So, are you ready to invite a robot doctor to your home? Let us know.
AI Violates Human Rights?
The United Nations (UN) issued a report last week highlighting how AI (profiling, automated decision making and other machine learning technologies) affects human rights, with examples including states and businesses alike rushed into incorporating AI without doing due diligence, resulting in people being treated unjustly, such as being denied to social security due to faulty AI tools.
“The power of AI to serve people is undeniable, but so is AI’s ability to feed human rights violations at an enormous scale with virtually no visibility. Action is needed now to put human rights guardrails on the use of AI, for the good of all of us,” spoke by UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet.
American Influence
MET Gala, the fashion world equivalent of the Oscars, attracts top-line celebrities and fashion houses to showcase the latest trends, and this year is no exception. The 2021’s theme was on “American independence”, where we can see many celebrities intended to create the golden 20s, from Kendall Jenner’s recreation of classic Hepburn’s look in the film “My Fair Lady” to Lil Nas X’s golden armor - in fact, his inspiration comes from anime, which makes us ask how it’s relevant to the theme. To be fair, his outfit is not the only one that confuses us, as it seems many stars did not really recreate the American style that we can relate to. But, who cares? As long as they look good!
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