The most recent podcast episode of Freakonomics talks about the benefits of exercise, and implications of an exercise-replacing drug. One guest, Robert M Evans, a scientist who works at the Salk Institute, invented a drug, which was tested on mice, that essentially gave the mice effects of exercise […]
When a user enters her Netflix account, recommendations such as ‘Top Picks For ___’ and ‘Because You Watched ___’ are all over the place, and often spot on, based on certain algorithms. This Netflix patent US8887095B2 describes a method for recommending shows based on collecting information during your […]
Peloton Interactive brings the spin class to your living room. Peloton machines have displays mounted on them that can show a spin instructor while the user is exercising. Part of the experience is that the user can join a spin class with her peers, in real-time. In this […]
Amazon recently received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) for RnD purposes. With this approval, Amazon may start testing the UAVs for deliveries at certain authorized locations. Here, we have an Amazon patent US9305280B1 filed way back in 2014 that describes an […]
This recent patent by Lyft, the ride-sharing app, describes a very outgoing autonomous vehicle. The vehicle detects nearby ‘entities’, e.g., people and cars, and will display different messages to the detected entities based on the situation. For example, many of us who use Lyft or Uber have been […]
In honor of Mother’s Day, which admittedly passed last week, I would like to present a patent by one of the richest self-made mothers in the world – Sara T. Blakely. If you don’t know, she is the founder of Spanx, the undergarment and shapewear company. US Patent […]
Beyond Meat IPO’d recently and has been going gangbusters since. As I write this today, the stock closed above $79.00, which is nuts considering that the first traded stock of the IPO was $46 less than a week ago. The stock is so hot that even though the […]
The story of Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos is well known. The company claimed to have technology for testing blood that required only about 1/100 to 1/1,000 of the blood compared to traditional blood tests, while costing far less. https://www.hematology.org/Thehematologist/Op-Ed/6540.aspx, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/15/blood-simpler. Theranos claimed to have a point of care […]
Happy 30th Anniversary to the World Wide Web! Now, I know that this isn’t the anniversary of the internet, but without the internet, there would be no world wide web. Thus, please allow me to present to you, an invention by the pair who are often referred to […]
At SXSW 2019, the founders of Instagram (Systrom and Krieger) mentioned that Instagram developed Snapchat-like features to build what is known as Instagram Stories. Story here. Prior to Instagram Stories, Snapchat was unique in that the content that a user posted and shared could be ‘Ephemeral’ and would […]
