FEBRUARY 21, 2019|TECHNOLOGY & SOFTWARE
Samsung's Quiet Innovation, Men's Makeup and Why Long-Term Space Missions Might Need Funny Astronauts | Non-Obvious Insights 02.21.19
- Samsung's Quiet Innovation That Everyone Ignored This week Samsung launched the world's first folding phone. They also defied Apple and Google by keeping the 3.5mm headphone jack. This seemingly insignificant choice might be the cleverest part of the entire launch. Sometimes the most "innovative" thing you can do is deciding what NOT to change.
- Scientists Find Long-Term Space Missions Need Comedians Scientists studying the long term effects of space travel shared the interesting idea that a heavy dose of humor and charisma among at least one of the astronauts may be the secret to helping a crew maintain their sanity during a long mission.
- Will Men's Makeup Finally Take Off? As interest from men in fashion and beauty continues to rise, this article notes that it may not be long before makeup lines for men are commonplace. The new interest is leading brands like "Boy de Chanel" to experiment with everything from anti-aging creams to lipgloss for this unexpected new segment.
- Can "DeepSqeak" Allow Us To Hear What Rats Are Saying? This is an intriguing idea - what if artificial intelligence could help us decipher how animals communicate? The next step might be for us to "talk" to them. Though if the tech ever does start working, I'm not sure the rats (or any other animal) would have anything nice to say to us given how badly we have screwed up their planet.
- Hidden Cameras Lower Our Faith In Tech Even Further There were two disturbing reports of invasive technology this week - firstly the discovery from Singapore Airlines customers that there were cameras in seat-back displays, and then Google admitting that there is a microphone embedded into the Nest device which they had never bothered to mention. The stories are yet another example of badly executed technology that raises consumer privacy concerns even more.
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How It All Started
A Short Backstory Of This Blog
This is a blog about non-obvious ideas. Originally launched on the Typepad platform in 2005 as the Influential Marketing blog, the stories at first focused mainly on digital marketing while Rohit worked at Ogilvy Advertising. In 2015 Rohit officially rebranded to the Non-Obvious Insights Blog and published his WSJ bestseller Non-Obvious. For the past twenty one years, this blog has coined new terms, introduced future marketing practices and inspired the next generation of non-obvious thinkers and marketers.
