Cool Sh*t - 3D Printed Shoes, Refik Anadol, Coach AR Window, Unity AI, Food Angel x Microsoft and more...
Vol. 33
Welcome to the 13 cool as sh*t people (Emma, Simon, Dannie, Yasmin, Janete, Jamie, Steph, Laura, Tom, Logan, Bryony, Kelsey, and Sophie) who joined us since last week! If you haven’t subscribed, be cool and join 183 subscribers here:
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#1 - Custom 3D-printed shoes, fully recyclable and factory-free. Sustainability in the fashion industry has become such a hot topic in recent years, and this is a by-product of that. Personally, I’m not a fan of the Zellerfeld look, but then my fashion choices are undoubtedly questionable at times too. It’s also a high price point. However, I like the concept and the industry evolution it represents. The fact they deliver you the perfect fit (*99% accurate) through a smartphone app that scans your feet, is pretty amazing. The brand launched in a smart way too, fueling hype and demand through a closed (lottery) and open beta. I think their biggest USP is they can recycle your old pair into a new one. Though they don’t appear to incentivize that, which feels like a missed opportunity. A great case study for that approach is Nudie Jeans, who offer you 20% off a new pair when you trade-in an old pair. With such a blank canvas to experiment with, I’ll be keen to see if/how Zellerfeld work with partners in future.
#2 – Beautiful AI data paintings and sculptures from Refik Anadol. This happened in 2022, completely passing me by, but it’s so good that I wanted to include it here. Shout out to my main man *Paul Tooth for putting it on my radar. Lifting verbatim from the website “Living Architecture: Casa Batlló is the first UNESCO World Heritage Site to be represented in the form of a dynamic NFT, using climate data from the city collected in real-time and showing ephemeris being celebrated on the building’s façade. The work was sold at Christie’s 21st Century Evening Sale on May 10th with 10% of the proceeds donated to institutions that work with neurodiverse adults and children. On May 7, 2022, Anadol and his team projected a mapping version of the piece on the façade of Casa Batlló before nearly 50,000 attendees. The digital piece was also on public view at Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, New York. The process for this multilayered project began when Anadol created the first AI-based immersive room in 2021, “In the Mind of Gaudí,” a six-sided LED cube room inside Casa Batlló. For this 360-experience, Anadol collected a dataset of approximately one billion images consisting of Gaudí’s sketches, visual archives of the building’s history, academic archives, and publicly available photos of Casa Batlló found on various internet and social media platforms.”
#3 – Coach AR retail window facilitates try ‘Tabby’ before you buy. This is very tech/tactical, but I’m interested in the future of retail and this type of application fundamentally shifts the way shoppers can engage with the brand at a store level. That opens the doors to an entirely new platform with boundless opportunities to explore e.g. A personalized AR experience based on customer data etc. There are two stages to this activation, 1. Passers-by automatically see themselves in the AR window trying on the bag, 2. If they venture in-store, there is another AR mirror that allows them to try more bags and take a pic to share on social #InMyTabby. Cue a launch event with a DJ, bubbles and lots of fashionistas… Expect data capture as standard (see example above). Could have been scaled up in a lot of ways, but very simple and well executed. Now, if my local Nike store had one and combined it with an AI personal shopper, I’d be very poor… But would look sooooooo fresh!
#4 - Game engine company Unity plans to integrate AI into its platform. There’s a lot of exploration around AI integration within businesses right now and I’ve included the topic in Cool Sh*t for some time. It’s no surprise that this is being explored heavily in the game development industry. Development takes a long time, but AI can help speed up otherwise time draining processes, which ultimately, I think will lead to better games being produced. It also means that for those with limited technical capability, AI can assist bringing their ideas to life. I think this quote from senior vice president and general manager at Unity, Marc Whitten, sums it up well “We look at things like AI as very exciting ways to imagine how you open up the opportunity for professional creators to be even more productive. [It allows] a whole new wave of people who might have some ideas to have access to a set of technologies that would enable them to be very successful.” There is a lot of fear mongering around AI replacing jobs. I think it’s wiser to look at how it can assist in many fields and hopefully evolve practices to deliver greater creativity and innovation.
#5 - Hong Kong’s Food Angel turns surplus food into hot meals, with a boost from technology. Firstly, I love what Food Angel is all about, feeding people in need. I also really like the way that SMEs/NGOs can use technology to drive better business practices and outcomes. In this case, due to challenges around food expiration/health and safety, Food Angel needed to elevate their business operation. They found a solution through Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Field Service and Business Central software and Power Apps, hosted on Azure. Like many big businesses, Microsoft use these types of programs/partnerships as a CSR/brand positioning strategy. It’d be easy to take the view that as a trillion-dollar company, why don’t they do more in this space, but I’m focused on the positive that their technology (not just money) has the power to change the world when put in the right hands.
If you have a curious mind, follow these links into the unknown…
I recently discovered American Korean Yaeji because she in the line-up for Vivid Sydney this year. She doesn’t sound much like M.I.A, but for some reason reminds me of her. Her track ‘Raingurl’ makes it onto the Cool Sh*t Spotify playlist this week.
Cool Sh*t is typically written from the comfort of my own home, here in Sydney, Australia - Gadigal land. Always was, always will be. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present. I extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
The views expressed are my own and don’t reflect the views of my employer…