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Robot Layoffs, Disappearing Street Food & Asymmetrical Jeans | Non-Obvious Insights 01.17.19

Japanese Hotel Has First Round Of Robot Layoffs I first wrote about the Henna hotel, staffed entirely by robots, more than two years ago. It seems that the experimental property in Japan has discovered a hopeful truth: people sometimes prefer people. And so it may also be the first example in history of robots being … Read more

Emotion Sensing App, P&G Challenges Agency Model, and Remembering Herb Kelleher | Non-Obvious Insights 01.10.19

Huawei’s New App Uses Sound To Let The Blind “See” Emotions Imagine an app that uses AI to read facial expressions and then translates the seven universal human emotions – anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise and contempt – into seven distinct sounds. Once it detects an emotion, it will play the sounds to allow visually … Read more

Japanese Immigration, Tesla Time Lapse and the Best New Year’s Resolution | Non-Obvious Insights 01.03.19

Japan Turns To Immigration To Solve National Demographic Crisis Can Japan find an antidote for their aging population crisis through immigration? The country is notorious for how difficult it is for outsiders to live and prosper, so it will be interesting to see if this new policy works. The First Major US Copyright Expiration In 20 Years … Read more

The 2018 Non-Obvious Book Awards – Top 50 Business Books Of The Year

The Non Obvious Book Award

Every year my team and I read and review hundreds of books in the process of curating ideas to incorporate in our annual list of trends. Beyond using those books to inspire how we see the world, we also select our favorites each year to feature as part of the Non-Obvious Book Awards program. For … Read more

Most Online Content Is Crap. How Will We Decide What To Save?

This week the Library of Congress mapped out an ambitious vision to expand its collection of digital content and broaden access to all of it. On the surface, cataloging all of this data seems like the ultimate impossible task because of how exponentially it is growing. It’s hard to imagine how any one group will be able … Read more

Why The Future of Work Should Be Jobs Humans Actually Want To Do

On September 13th Time magazine ran a cover story on the plight of underpaid teachers in America. A few days later, an Amazon worker published an expose about inhumane working conditions and low pay in Amazon’s warehouses, while Bloomberg reported that the retailer is considering opening 3,000 cashierless stores by 2021. To cap off the week, the World Economic … Read more

The Loneliness Industry and the World’s Saddest Product

holographic wife

About a year and a half ago, a Japanese company called Gatebox released a depressing preview video of a new AI powered “Holographic Wife” that would offer lonely young Japanese salarymen companionship at home. The character is based on anime and stand about 8 inches tall inside a glass box. This week the company finally released their actual … Read more

Pokemon Go Isn’t Dead … It’s Quietly Dominating

Pokemon_Go

A little over two years ago, Pokemon Go was everywhere. People walked down the street glued to their phones. And then one day it all seemed to stop. Yet as this article from WIRED explores, the game is still dominating. Who is still playing? As writer Brian Barrett notes: “The game attracts proportionally more older … Read more

How Twitter Is Killing Our Culture (And Why We Probably Won’t Fix It)

elon musk twitter

Is Twitter useful anymore (or was it ever)? Most of us who have been on the platform for some time have likely experienced a downward shift in its value. For me, the platform used to offer an interesting stream of real time commentary from friends and acquaintances. Over time it became a noisy flood of … Read more

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Rohit is the author of 10 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.

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