CommonSense Robotics pulls in $6 mln seed – PE Hub (subscription) (blog)

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Israeli robotics company CommonSense Robotics has secured $6 million in seed funding. The backers were Aleph VC and Innovation Endeavors.

PRESS RELEASE

Tel Aviv, Israel, August 1, 2017 CommonSense Robotics, a leader in on-demand fulfillment technology, announced today that it has raised $6 million in seed funding from Aleph VC and Innovation Endeavors. CommonSense Robotics disruptive technology enables retailers of all sizes to offer one-hour delivery and make on-demand fulfillment scalable and profitable. The company is using the funds to expand the team, drive new product development and build out its operations towards its first deployments.

At a time when Amazon is making on-demand delivery an industry standard, brick-and-mortar retailers of all types are struggling to offer the service in a way thats profitable and scalable. CommonSense Robotics merges the convenience of online purchasing with the immediacy of in-store shopping, empowering retailers to improve speed in the fulfillment and delivery processes and offer economically sustainable on-demand delivery.

On-demand is rapidly becoming the standard for retail businesses of all sizes from across the spectrum, and will be a critical determining factor between success and failure, said Elram Goren, CEO and Co-Founder of CommonSense Robotics. Bringing together the most advanced technologies in robotics and AI, we are giving the worlds leading retailers the ability to stop catching up and start setting the pace.

I am fascinated by the world of hardware in general and robotics in particular, adds Eden Shochat an Equal Partner at Aleph. I have been looking for an opportunity to invest in an Israeli robotics company for a long time, but to date I have not found a company with a strong enough team, interesting technology and a huge potential market for a venture capital investment. All these components: The use of AI and robotics to automate and streamline the process of fulfilment and distribution can bring significant savings in time and money to the retailers, the end consumers and to the households. We are excited to work with this talented and experienced team and delighted that they have chosen Aleph and Innovation Endeavors as partners on their journey.

Utilizing state-of-the-art robotics and AI, CommonSense Robotics creates Micro-Fulfillment-Centers, a new building block for the on-demand supply chain that combines the benefits of local and automated fulfillment, enabling a sustainable, on-demand experience. By utilizing an advanced approach that combines AI and robotics, CSR creates micro-fulfillment centers that maximize expensive retail space, enabling smarter, faster fulfillment and delivery of goods to customers.

About CommonSense Robotics: CommonSense Robotics is building on-demand supply-chains that enable retailers to offer sustainable, one-hour delivery to online customers. Its Micro-Fulfillment-Center is an urban, automated fulfillment solution that combines the benefits of local distribution with the economics of automated fulfillment, and is redefining the way goods are delivered within cities.

By utilizing a novel approach to this last-mile challenge and state-of-the-art robotics and AI, CommonSense Robotics allows its clients to offer true on-demand services, dramatically reduce their operational costs and benefit from superior operational scalability. Founded in 2015, CommonSense Robotics is based in Tel Aviv.

For more information visit http://www.cs-robotics.com/

About Aleph Venture Capital: Aleph is an early stage venture capital fund with $334 million under management. Aleph partners with Israeli entrepreneurs to help scale them into large, meaningful companies and globally recognized brands. Aleph is an Equal Partnership of Eden Shochat, Michael Eisenberg and Aaron Rosenson.

Aleph invests in a broad range of software and software enabled services companies in industries such as Financial services (Lemonade, Colu), Transportation and Logistics (Freightos, Nexar), Sharing Economy (Wework, Honeybook) and Consumer Applications (Joytunes, Houseparty). To learn more about Aleph visit http://www.aleph.vc.

About Innovation Endeavors: Innovation Endeavors is an early-stage venture capital firm partnering with startups that apply cutting edge technology to transform large industries. The firm runs a dedicated global team and builds industry networks to create value for its portfolio companies. Innovation Endeavors has offices in Silicon Valley and Tel-Aviv, and is solely backed by Eric Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Alphabet, Inc.

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CommonSense Robotics pulls in $6 mln seed - PE Hub (subscription) (blog)

Secretive surgical robotics company raises $280 million – ZDNet

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Auris Surgical Robotics just raised $280 million in a Series D round, bringing its total funding to date to $530 million.

Never heard of Auris? You're not alone. The startup--which was founded in 2007 by Federic Moll, co-founder of Intuitive Surgical, which makes the da Vinci robot--has made an art of keeping its R&D, and even its basic ambitions, under wraps. It has yet to release a product to market.

Last year, Auris got FDA approval for its first medical robot, an endoscope to help treat lung conditions. That bot is part of a class of flexible robots that avoid cutting patients by using the body's natural openings--the mouth, in the case of the FDA-cleared bot.

The company has chosen lung cancer as its first surgical target, according to a vague statement on its website.

So why did 39 investors help pad Auris' latest round? A big part of the reason is the incredible success of Intuitive, which saw $2.7 billion in revenue last year.

Intuitive received FDA clearance for the da Vinci in 2000, though at that time it wasn't clear how readily surgeons would adopt the new technology or how patients would react to it. But the robot quickly demonstrated reduced complications associated with, among other things, prostate removal.

Because of the position of the prostate, surgeons have to enter through the abdomen and then tunnel down to reach it. The invasiveness of the procedure carries high risks, and two common complications are incontinence and impotence. The da Vinci uses long pencil-like rods in place of a surgeon's hands, meaning surgeries performed with it are less invasive, reducing complications and recovery times.

Last year, Auris spent $80 million acquiring another Moll company, Hansen Medical, which has a trove of valuable patents relevant to robotic surgery.

According to Auris' website: "With our technology, physicians will be able to access early stage lung cancer without incisions, allowing accurate diagnosis and targeted treatment."

Cancers of the lungs and airways kill more than 150,000 people each year, in part because diagnosis often comes late. Current surgical treatments are invasive and risky. Auris clearly sees an opportunity to do better.

The company is based in San Carlos, California. I'll be following this one closely in the months ahead as Auris moves to market with its FDA-cleared device.

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Secretive surgical robotics company raises $280 million - ZDNet

Robotics pioneer and former CMU Provost Jordan dies at 86 – Pittsburgh Business Times

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Robotics pioneer and former CMU Provost Jordan dies at 86
Pittsburgh Business Times
It was in the latter role, in 1979, when he joined with Raj Reddy, a computer science professor, and Thomas Murrin, a top executive at Westinghouse Electric Corp., to create the Robotics Institute, which was the first to establish a Ph.D. program in ...

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Robotics pioneer and former CMU Provost Jordan dies at 86 - Pittsburgh Business Times

Hilary Duff’s bathing suit picture was all over our Facebook this weekend & here’s why – Glamour.com

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A picture of Hilary Duff in a bathing suit has gone viral after the 29-year-old actress called out body shamers.

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Uploading a sweet snaps of her carrying her 5-year-old son, Luca, Duff wrote: "I am posting this on behalf of young girls, women, and mothers of all ages. I'm enjoying a vacation with my son after a long season of shooting and being away from him for weeks at a time over those months."

"Since websites and magazines love to share 'celeb flaws' - well I have them!", she contined. "My body has given me the greatest gift of my life: Luca, 5 years ago. I'm turning 30 in September and my body is healthy and gets me where I need to go."

"Ladies, lets be proud of what we've got and stop wasting precious time in the day wishing we were different, better, and unflawed. You guys (you know who you are!) already know how to ruin a good time, and now you are body shamers as well."

She closed the statement with "#kissmyass ".

This is not the first time Duff has used her social media as a platform for calling people out. Last year the actress was criticised by her followers for kissing her son - something she had zero time for.

She responded to haters by writing: "For anyone commenting that a kiss on the lips with my four year old (sic) is 'inappropriate' go ahead and click a quick unfollow with your warped minds and judgement."

We commend Hilary for speaking her mind and standing up for women - the more transparent celebrities are, the better.

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Hilary Duff's bathing suit picture was all over our Facebook this weekend & here's why - Glamour.com

New Virtual Reality Arcade Brings Immersive, Social Experience – Hartford Courant

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Walk through the door of Spark VR in Vernon, and you'll see four spaces partitioned by a curtain, a projector screen on the back wall of each one, and a person strapped into a headset with joysticks swinging their arms around. Strap on the headset, and you'll be in an entirely different world.

Connecticut's first virtual reality arcade opened in May in Vernon, and allows users to experience VR technology that is currently too expensive and impractical to have in the home. Co-founder Joe Eilert, an engineer for General Dynamics, came up with the idea last year, and at the time, did not know of any other virtual reality arcades. Since then, others have popped up around the country, but Spark VR is the first in Connecticut.

Virtual reality has existed for about 30 years, and when most people think of VR, they picture a cardboard headset and a static video taken on a 360-degree camera. The VR used by Spark VR is known as interactive roomscale. It requires more physical space for users to participate and is interactive in a way that VR formerly was not.

Eilert and his fellow co-founder Matt McGivern described their vision for the arcade as similar to a bowling alley, only cooler.

"Your [virtual reality] bowling alley might involve zombies," says McGivern, who works for Pratt & Whitney.

Each "lane" has a high table with four bar-stools and a microphone for guests to speak directly into their friends' headsets while watching them play. Beyond that, the space is minimal, with a desk to sign a waiver at the front and a vending machine in the back. Eilert says the atmosphere has created a much more social experience than they originally expected.

"If there's more than one zone going at a time, people are going to the other zone, even if they don't know who the people are," Eilert says. "I didn't expect it to be quite that open."

The games and experiences range from mini-golf to zombie hunting to brewing potions as a wizard to a high-tech version of racquetball. Beyond games, users can explore Google Earth and other passive VR, including one experience in which the user is standing in a sunken ship at the bottom of the ocean while a blue whale swims by, mere feet away.

Customers are introduced to the technology with a brief tutorial in the VR space, which shows them how to use the controllers, move around, and not accidentally wander beyond the borders of the space and hit something in the real world.

First-timer Aaron Bergeron was impressed and planned on returning.

"I'm kind of a techy guy so I knew that they had the headsets but I had just never had one on my head," Bergeron says.

The arcade is not just for those who already play video games, Eilert says. Because it's a full-body experience, he says, it's much more natural to learn the technology.

Jenee Jordan says she is not into video games, but regularly comes to Spark VR. She enjoys watching her friends play, and the movements they make out of context.

"Just the laughter alone, I would pay $40 just to watch him play," Jordan says, while watching her boyfriend play a climbing game.

Jordan lives in Manchester, and says it's easy for her to come to the arcade frequently, but she says she would still come if it was farther away.

The owners say they already have repeat and even regular customers and expect their customer base to increase when UConn students return in the fall.

Because McGivern and Eilert both still work their day jobs, the arcade is only open Thursday and Friday nights, as well as weekends. They said they hope as their audience continues to grow, that the arcade will become a full-time endeavor.

Gamers heading to Spark VR, at 425 Talcottville Road, can reserve a time online or just walk in. It is open Thursday, 6 to 10 p.m.; Friday, 6 to 11 p.m; Saturday, noon to midnight; and Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. Space is available by the hour. $40 per hour for groups of one to five people. Parties for the entire space start at $300 for a minimum of two hours. Ages 10 and up. sparkvirtualreality.com.

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New Virtual Reality Arcade Brings Immersive, Social Experience - Hartford Courant

Can ‘Star Wars’ Ignite Cinematic Virtual Reality? – MediaPost Communications

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In the past few years, Ive been on the lookout for virtual reality experiences that cross the line into believable experiences. Ive demod Microsoft HoloLens and explored Vive, Oculus, and Samsung Gear.

They all have their place, but none of them took me out of this world, and into another -- except one.

Two years ago, I was one of the first people to demo a new technology platform called The Void at the TED conference in Vancouver.

The Void describes Itself as hyper-reality": a whole-body, fully immersive VR experience.

I wore a haptic vest that uses sound and vibration to ramp up the sense of realism for explorers. I was transported to an ancient temple. From there, I walked down the stone-lined pathways, solving puzzles to open a door into the next chamber. On the wall, a torch was burning, and a voice in my headset suggested I take it along with me.

The plot was carefully choreographed to play out from room to room, with actual walls and stone chairs that drove the sense of reality. The floors shook and the walls felt cold to the touch.

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Then a floor dropped away and a lake emerged with a rumble, and a massive serpent rose up and moved in for the kill. Thankfully, I had my torch to keep the serpent at bay.

The Utah-based startup has developed a proprietary head-mounted display, the haptic vest, a tracking system and software called Rapture.

TED's Katherine McCartney said The Void "is pioneering a new form of cinematic virtual reality.

Because The Void is both digital and physical, it takes your mind places that just images and sound cannot. The images of the waves crashing on the shore are combined with a mist of water -- and that little physical clue takes you there. Its not fake, its real. And it felt to me then as if id seen a glimpse into the future.

At The VOID, we combine the magic of illusion, advanced technology and virtual reality to create fully immersive social experiences that take guests to new worlds, said Curtis Hickman, co-founder and chief creative officer at The VOID. A truly transformative experience is so much more than what you see with your eyes; its what you hear, feel, touch, and even smell.

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. Youre my only hope. Princess Leia Organa Smell? Yes, the idea is to engage all your senses and turn audience members into active participants. How many of us have imagined having a light saber in our hands, hearing the sound as it cuts through the air, and our hands tingling when our saber connects with a combatant's weapon? Im SO THERE!

The Force will be with you. Always. Obi-Wan Kenobi

The executive in charge of ILMxLab, Vicki Dobbs Beck said, By combining Lucasfilms storytelling expertise with cutting-edge imagery, and immersive sound from the team at Skywalker Sound, while invoking all the senses, we hope to truly transport all those who experience 'Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire 'to a galaxy far, far away.

For a generation raised on "Star Wars," this is a journey weve been waiting for.

Do. Or do not. There is no try. Yoda

If you want to see what it feels like to be inside The Void, this was my experience at TED:

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Can 'Star Wars' Ignite Cinematic Virtual Reality? - MediaPost Communications

4-D camera could improve robot vision, virtual reality and self-driving cars – Phys.Org

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August 7, 2017 Two 138-degree light field panoramas (top and center) and a depth estimate of the second panorama (bottom). Credit: Stanford Computational Imaging Lab and Photonic Systems Integration Laboratory at UC San Diego

Engineers at Stanford University and the University of California San Diego have developed a camera that generates four-dimensional images and can capture 138 degrees of information. The new camerathe first-ever single-lens, wide field of view, light field cameracould generate information-rich images and video frames that will enable robots to better navigate the world and understand certain aspects of their environment, such as object distance and surface texture.

The researchers also see this technology being used in autonomous vehicles and augmented and virtual reality technologies. Researchers presented their new technology at the computer vision conference CVPR 2017 in July.

"We want to consider what would be the right camera for a robot that drives or delivers packages by air. We're great at making cameras for humans but do robots need to see the way humans do? Probably not," said Donald Dansereau, a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering at Stanford and the first author of the paper.

The project is a collaboration between the labs of electrical engineering professors Gordon Wetzstein at Stanford and Joseph Ford at UC San Diego.

UC San Diego researchers designed a spherical lens that provides the camera with an extremely wide field of view, encompassing nearly a third of the circle around the camera. Ford's group had previously developed the spherical lenses under the DARPA "SCENICC" (Soldier CENtric Imaging with Computational Cameras) program to build a compact video camera that captures 360-degree images in high resolution, with 125 megapixels in each video frame. In that project, the video camera used fiber optic bundles to couple the spherical images to conventional flat focal planes, providing high-performance but at high cost.

The new camera uses a version of the spherical lenses that eliminates the fiber bundles through a combination of lenslets and digital signal processing. Combining the optics design and system integration hardware expertise of Ford's lab and the signal processing and algorithmic expertise of Wetzstein's lab resulted in a digital solution that not only leads to the creation of these extra-wide images but enhances them.

The new camera also relies on a technology developed at Stanford called light field photography, which is what adds a fourth dimension to this camerait captures the two-axis direction of the light hitting the lens and combines that information with the 2-D image. Another noteworthy feature of light field photography is that it allows users to refocus images after they are taken because the images include information about the light position and direction. Robots could use this technology to see through rain and other things that could obscure their vision.

"One of the things you realize when you work with an omnidirectional camera is that it's impossible to focus in every direction at oncesomething is always close to the camera, while other things are far away," Ford said. "Light field imaging allows the captured video to be refocused during replay, as well as single-aperture depth mapping of the scene. These capabilities open up all kinds of applications in VR and robotics."

"It could enable various types of artificially intelligent technology to understand how far away objects are, whether they're moving and what they're made of," Wetzstein said. "This system could be helpful in any situation where you have limited space and you want the computer to understand the entire world around it."

And while this camera can work like a conventional camera at far distances, it is also designed to improve close-up images. Examples where it would be particularly useful include robots that have to navigate through small areas, landing drones and self-driving cars. As part of an augmented or virtual reality system, its depth information could result in more seamless renderings of real scenes and support better integration between those scenes and virtual components.

The camera is currently at the proof-of-concept stage and the team is planning to create a compact prototype to test on a robot.

Explore further: Lensless camera technology for adjusting video focus after image capture

More information: Technical paper: http://www.computationalimaging.org/w 04/LFMonocentric.pdf

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4-D camera could improve robot vision, virtual reality and self-driving cars - Phys.Org

Firefox soon will help you lose yourself in the VR web – CNET

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A demonstration shows Mozilla's Firefox catching up to Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge with WebVR support.

Mozilla plans to release a version of its Firefox browser Tuesday that embraces a version of virtual reality for the web.

Back in 2014, Mozilla developers including Vladimir Vukicevic put together a concept called WebVR. The idea was to let web browsers navigate virtual realms, and make it easier for people to create a VR world once that would work on all sorts of devices.

But Vukicevic headed off to game engine maker Unity, and Google's Chrome browser beat Mozilla with WebVR support. Microsoft's Edge also edged out Firefox, adding WebVR support in April. Microsoft and Google, which both sell devices to experience virtual reality and its augmented reality cousin, have a big incentive to make virtual reality real.

"WebVR is the major platform feature shipping in Firefox 55," the latest Firefox release calendar update says. "Firefox users with an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift headset will be able to experience VR content on the web and can explore some exciting demos."

There's plenty to do on the web with a PC, and plenty of apps to run on a phone. But for VR to thrive, there has to be plenty of stuff for us to do online virtually, too. WebVR is an important part of keeping keep us supplied with games, tourist attractions, educational lessons and other interesting things to do in virtual realms.

There are caveats to using WebVR today. Chrome's support only is on Android-powered devices right now, and WebVR on Edge requires you to put the browser in a developer mode.

WebVR is also important for Mozilla. The nonprofit organization is fighting to reclaim its relevance and restore its reputation after Firefox slid into Chrome's shadow in recent years. The work to get Firefox back into fighting trim will culminate with Firefox 57, due to arrive Nov. 14.

There's plenty of VR hardware available, from high-end headsets like Facebook's Oculus Rift and HTC's Vive to basic models like Google's inexpensive Cardboard, which relies on your phone to show VR views. With WebVR, it's in principle easier to build those VR destinations, because developers don't have to re-create them for each device.

WebVR isn't the only way to bridge the divide, though: Unity also offers tools to span multiple headsets.

And WebVR is no universal cure. Some VR headsets don't support WebVR, and some browsers don't support all devices.

Mozilla has high hopes for VR. Its senior vice president of emerging technologies, Sean White, has been working with VR for more than two decades.

"In the 1990s, unless you had $5 million or $10 million, you couldn't do it," he said in a recent interview. "Now if there's somebody with Parkinson's disease who can't move or travel, I could take them to Angkor Wat."

In the long term, he and his boss, Mozilla Chief Executive Chris Beard, think VR could be eclipsed by augmented reality. VR immerses you in fully computerized worlds of VR, but AR overlays computer-generated imagery atop the real world.

"VR will beget AR pretty quickly as a mass-market opportunity," Beard said. "Browsers play a very meaningful role."

First published Aug. 8, 5 a.m. PT. Update, 10:55 a.m.: Adds detail about Microsoft and Chrome support for WebVR.

Virtual reality 101: CNET tells you everything you need to know about VR.

Tech Enabled: CNET chronicles tech's role in providing new kinds of accessibility.

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Firefox soon will help you lose yourself in the VR web - CNET

Virtual reality video showcases UCLA campus as 2028 Olympic Village – Daily Bruin

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LA 2024 knew it couldnt bring every member of the International Olympic Committee to UCLA.

So it brought UCLA to the IOC.

LA 2024 which, following a deal with the committee, is now LA 2028 gave a presentation at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland last month and brought a virtual reality video with it. The goal was to convince the committee that Los Angeles was games-ready because the facilities at UCLA will serve as the Olympic Village.

The video takes the viewer around UCLAs sports and living facilities in 360 degrees, seamlessly transitioning from spots like the basketball courts at the John Wooden Center to the dining room at Bruin Plate.

We wanted to be able to showcase this and really put people on UCLAs campus and in the middle of the village, even if they couldnt be here, said LA 2028s director of marketing, Matt Rohmer. With the latest developments in (virtual reality), we were able to develop a VR film that literally puts you on the middle of campus.

The video came out of a joint effort between LA 2028s team and two other companies: advertising agency 72andSunny and virtual reality team Jaunt.

The partnership between 72andSunny and LA 2028 has lasted for the last three years, with the two working together to develop a brand for the movement. 72andSunny was the first team to come up with the idea to use VR.

Sean Matthews one of two creative directors at 72andSunny said developing an athletes village is one of the main challenges of creating an Olympic bid, so a key message in the video was that Los Angeles already has a fully equipped facility. With the village ready to go, there will be no need to invest billions of dollars in building one.

Paris has plans to build a city, or to build this Olympic Village, Matthews said. You can put on this headset and well actually show you how an athlete will train, will live and will dine. Instead of showing you renders and blueprints, lets just show you the real thing.

From there, LA 2028 and 72andSunny reached out to Jaunt, which started as a Silicon Valley technology company four years ago, but has since started Jaunt Studios, a content-driven, cinematic VR producer located in Santa Monica.

When 72andSunny approached us, (the company) had a very tight deadline to create a very high-end piece of immersive content to help seal the deal for (its) bid, said Jaunt Studios creative director Patrick Meegan.

Jaunt had less than six weeks to shrink UCLAs campus down to the size of a VR headset. The approaching summer break accelerated its timeline even more, since it was crucial that the campus be populated with students.

On the timeline we were doing, this would have been very difficult a year ago, Meegan said. You could have done it potentially a year ago, but definitely not five years ago or even two years ago.

Meegan said technologies that Jaunt developed in the past year allowed them to meet the deadline. Jaunt used hardware like waterproof cameras, drones, remote control cameras and cable cams in addition to recently developed software to help ease the transitions between scenes.

Though the IOC was LA 2028s initial target audience, the video has been shared on Facebook, amassing more than 340 thousand views, 7,000 reacts and 1,000 shares, many of which came from within the UCLA community.

Meegan added she thinks VRs ability to make an empathetic connection, and how the new medium lends itself to a certain type of honesty and authenticity, allows the campus to speak for itself.

With a 360 view, you cant hide anything, Meegan said. I think that part of why it resonates with UCLAs current students and alumni is that youre very much put back there; its very familiar.

Even with all the outside people LA 2028 had to bring in to make the video, it didnt have to look far to find athletes. UCLA swimmers, divers and track and field runners participated in the production of the video and even made the final cut.

UCLA has such an amazing athletics program; we could really get the highest caliber of athletes to do set pieces with us, Meegan said.

One of those athletes was diver Annika Lenz, who holds the UCLA record with a platform score of 323.15. At one point Lenz was atop Spieker Aquatics Centers 10-meter platform, eye-to-eye with a drone camera hovering above the pool.

Ive always loved the Olympics, Lenz said. Ive wanted to go to the Olympics. I mean, Ive been to Olympic trials, but I didnt qualify, so I think its great to be part of the Olympic spirit that brings us all together.

The best part about the video, though, is that it worked. The IOC was convinced.

Los Angeles was officially named the host of the 2028 games July 31. In just 11 short years, UCLA will be the site of the Olympic Village in more than just virtual reality.

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Virtual reality video showcases UCLA campus as 2028 Olympic Village - Daily Bruin

Study: Many shoppers ‘eager’ to use virtual reality tools – Retail Dive

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Dive Brief:

Between 70% and 80% of 1,000 early technology-adopting consumers surveyed by L.E.K. Consulting said they are eager to use virtual reality and augmented reality technology to design rooms, try on apparel and take virtual shopping trips as part of the shopping process.

Specifically, 80% of those surveyed said they want to use AR or VR to design a room or physical space by browsing virtual or physical showrooms, getting information about furniture and dcor, and seeing what an item looks like in a room by using technology to place it into view.

About 70% of those surveyed said they want to use v-commerce tools to try on clothes and accessories and to customize them. Another 70% said they are strongly interested in virtual shopping, where consumers use VR headsets to shop in a virtual store with a friend who isnt physically present, or with an AI virtual shopper similar to Alexa or Siri.

Evidence of strong interest in use of virtual reality for room design and furniture shopping reinforces some of the earliest retail uses of the technology we have seen in retail so far.

In particular, Lowe's and Wayfair.com have been experimenting with AR and VR technology in recent years. In the last year, Lowe's has started to expand applications for its Holoroom technology, and just last month, the retailer appeared to up its commitment to AR and VR with the announcement that it had developed a new 3D scanning technology to help it develop extremely realistic components for VR and AR applications. AR and VR applications may only just now be entering the physical store environment, but any commitment to continue refining the technologies bodes as well for the future as this survey does.

Meanwhile, VR and AR also are being used in the context of mobile apps to drive sales. Sephora's Virtual Artist try-on features, for example, allows customers to try on beauty products virtually. In the apparel sector,Gap's virtual DressingRoom app allows shoppers to view items on virtual avatars.

Investing in these technologies does not come without risks, as L.E.K. Consulting also pointed out in its analysis. The initial investment can be expensive, and consumers have proven historically fickle about embracing VR for their own entertainment purposes. Yet, for retailers and brands, the potential marketing value of using VR and the ability of the technology to bridge the gap between in-store and online shopping capabilities may outweigh the risks.

Beyond the retailers mentioned above, not many more seem ready to commit. But,L.E.K. is advising retailers that have been on the fence about use of AR and VR that it is time to get off the fence, and at least approach the evolution methodically by starting to integrate these technologies into their digital strategies. Some consumers, at least, are ready for the era of v-commerce.

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Study: Many shoppers 'eager' to use virtual reality tools - Retail Dive

Virtual-reality freelancers most sought – Arkansas Democrat-Gazette – Arkansas Online

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As the world's tech giants invest heavily in virtual reality, the relatively few workers who specialize in the nascent field are seeing big benefits.

Demand for online freelancers with virtual-reality expertise grew far faster than for people with any other skill in the previous quarter. Billings on virtual-reality projects grew more than 30-fold from the same period a year earlier, according to U.S. data provided by Upwork Inc.'s website that connects freelancers with employers.

Virtual reality has so far struggled to break into the mainstream, with the technology largely confined to high-end video-gaming. Facebook Inc., which bought virtual-reality headset maker Oculus in 2014 for $2 billion, has already been lowering prices for the Oculus headset and is working on a more consumer-friendly version to be sold next year. Other companies that make virtual-reality goggles include Samsung Electronics Co., Alphabet Inc.'s Google, and Sony Corp.

Overall, tech-related skills accounted for nearly two-thirds of Upwork's list of the 20 fastest-growing skills. Conometrics, a subspecialty of economics that involves building mathematical models to explain and predict the real world, also saw a big spike in demand for its work.

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Store that specializes in selling legal cannabis products opening in Lawrence – Lawrence Journal World (blog)

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Here is the alphabet soup of marijuana. (Apologies Lawrence grocers. Ive inadvertently created a stampede in the soup aisle.) Marijuana has a chemical compound called THC, which produces a high. In Kansas, selling a product with THC results in OTJ off to jail. Kansas has some of the strictest laws in the country regarding THC products.

But the cannabis plant also produces another chemical compound called CBD. It does not produce a high, but many people swear it helps relieve inflammation, pain, stress and other ailments. That chemical compound is legal, and Lawrence residents soon will get to find out for themselves whether it works. A store that specializes in CBD more commonly called hemp oil is opening at 19th and Massachusetts streets.

CBD American Shaman Lawrence is set to open today at 1901 Massachusetts Street, next door to the popular Alchemy coffee shop. Co-owner Trevor Burdett said the store will sell creams, liquids and other edibles that have the CBD oils in them. What the store wont be selling is anything that will get you high. Burdett said the CBD products are completely free of THC. That's an important disclaimer because products with THC are illegal in Kansas and also run afoul of federal law. The American Shaman company previously was selling products that had a trace amount of THC, but after a store in Mission got busted for selling them, the company changed its production processes to remove all THC. Thus far, that seems to have satisfied Kansas regulators, and the feds also have not stepped into the fray. Burdett said the new business will make it clear that marijuana is not the store's business.

That is not our market, Burdett said. Were not looking for people to come in and get high. If they just want the euphoric aspects of getting high, that is fine. They can go smoke somewhere else.

Burdett and his business partner, Corey Landreth, though, know they will have to do some explaining to people who may mistake hemp and marijuana. We understand there is a market in Lawrence that we will have to talk to and tell them that they arent going to eat some medical gummies and get loopy.

Lawrence, however, may be better educated than most communities on the subject. There is the guy with his pro-hemp signs frequently in downtown Lawrence. (No word yet on whether we have to honk every time we go by the store at 19th and Massachusetts.) Burdett said the company looked at both Lawrence and Manhattan for the store and settled on Lawrence, in part, because it is a town open to alternative medicine.

At this point, I should remind you that hemp oil does fall into the realm of alternative medicine. The products are not FDA approved. You should think of them more like a supplement. Everybody will have to make their own decisions about the safety and effectiveness of the products. While stressing that more research needs to be done, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has noted CBDs potential to be a nonaddictive treatment option for certain types of conditions, although the article notes it doesnt seem to work for everybody.

Regardless of its status in the medical world, there is no denying CBD products are catching on with many people.

CBD American Shaman, which is based in Kansas City, has about 70 products. They include water-soluble hemp oil that you can drink, hydrating body lotions, hemp oil capsules, face creams, lip balms and even hemp candy. (You know your grandpa is from the 1970s when he pulls out hemp candy from his pocket instead of a Werther's Originals.)

The store also has hemp-based products for pets. There are canine, feline and equine hemp oils for sale. Burdett said he knows of some weight lifters or people who suffer from extremely high levels of pain who take the stronger equine formula.

People who are wanting to control pain are expected to be a big market for the store. There is an American Shaman store that has opened in Topeka, and Burdett said it serves a lot of people with severe arthritis, fibromyalgia or other conditions that produce chronic pain.

Burdett said he spent some time at the Topeka store, and some of what he saw convinced him to open his own store.

We had people come in the store that didnt know where they were at, couldnt tell you who their family was because they were in so much pain, Burdett said. They would take a water soluble, and to see them come around in 10 or 15 minutes was amazing.

Besides pain relief, Burdett said there are some other frequent users of the products. Some believe CBD is effective in controlling seizures, which causes some people who have epilepsy to use the products. Some athletes also use the products with the idea that they help reduce inflammation and pain that come from particularly hard workouts. A particularly large market in a college town may be students who are looking for the purported stress-relieving benefits of CBD products.

As for how much all of this relief will cost, Burdett said many of the products are in the $40 to $70 range, but often last for multiple weeks.

Burnett believes the store will do plenty of business once folks catch on to what it is selling.

"Everybody hears about the medical benefits of marijuana," Burnett said. "We have a form now that is 100 percent legal that people can take on an everyday basis."

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The truth about your child’s vaccines: No alternative facts allowed – Miami Herald

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I Tested 3 Super Food Supplements; Here’s What I Found – TheInertia.com

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Packaged like fish food, packed with healthy stuff.

The term superfood gets thrown around a lot, but what does it really mean? Beyond the arbitrary nature of the buzzword, it could really apply to any whole food containing potent nutrients that provide a broad range of health benefits. Some examples include matcha, broccoli sprouts and salmon. The only trouble with superfoods is that theyre often expensive because of their high quality and are sometimes hard to find. So while real food almost always tops supplements, if youre trying to include more than a couple and dont want to bust your budget, it can be hard going. Enter a growing range of powders, goos and such made from whole ingredients yet condensed down into a portable package. Despite the fact many are packaged too look like something youd drop in a gold fish bowl, we tested a few and here are the top three of the superfood supplement crop:

HANAH One

After being hurt in a bike accident in his second Ironman, Joel Einhorn needed a way to speed his recovery process. After a lot of self-experimentation he found the ancient healing practice of Ayurveda and then journeyed to India to work with expert Dr. V.A. Venugopal, who introduced him to a broad range of curative plants found in the Himalayas, particularly by those used by mountain guides. They settled on 30 of these to put into HANAH One, alongside ghee and sesame oil which helps your body process the phytochemicals. The result is a dark, smoky-tasting goo that looks like (this is for you Brits and Aussies) Marmite or Veggiemite. Ingredients like Indian gooseberry increase blood-flow, while Terminalia Bellirica increases rejuvenation. While the jar will last you longer, we found that the single-serve sachets of HANAH One are very convenient on the go, such as when on a camping trip above tree line. And if youre somewhere off the grid and forget to bring your coffee pot, HANAH One gives you an even, consistent energy boost despite being caffeine-free.

UB Super

UB Super-founder Scott Kanyok scoured the planet for some of the most potent plant foods around and then spent a couple of years tinkering with them, settling on hormone-balancing maca root, cell regenerating camu camu and blood sugar-stabilizing acerola cherry. Then he added high quality grass fed whey to the final blend or a vegan protein blend if you cant or dont do dairy. A bonus is fulvic minerals that help other micronutrients cross cell walls to aid their absorption and reduce free radical damage. We like the chocolate flavor best, not least because the flavor comes from organic cacao instead of some artificial flavor. UB Super packets are handy if you want to mix up a post-workout shake at your gym and all the better if theres a fridge available so you can fill your shaker bottle with milk if youre going the whey route or an alternative like hemp milk if youre vegan (you can use water if theres no refrigeration available). If youre at home, we like adding in blueberries, raspberries or blackberries and a scoop of peanut or almond butter.

Amazing Grass Green Superfood

This one has been around for a while but of all the green blends weve tested, its still king of the hill. In addition to packing a potent veggie punch with the usual suspects broccoli, spinach and alfalfa, the folks at Amazing Grass have crammed in magnesium-loaded (anxiety reduction) chlorella, iron-rich spirulina and, as the company name suggests, B vitamin (energy metabolism) powerhouse barley grass and chlorophyll-stacked (blood-boosting) wheat grass. There are also gut health-promoting prebioitics and probiotics included, plus some extra fiber from flax seeds and apple pectin. Green Superfood comes in a range of flavors, including pineapple lemongrass, sweet berry and tangerine, but we still like the originals clean, earthy taste. One of the best uses we found for it is to boost the immune system while traveling, when its hard to find good quality veggies on-the-go (not least at the airport food court or on the plane). Just put a scoop in your water bottle, shake for a few seconds and youve got a good nutritional start to your journey. Plus, the container easily fits in a carry-on bag with no concerns about leaking.

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Eat these foods to prevent sun damage – Daily Republic

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In addition to slathering on sunscreen (I prefer mineral-based blocks with zinc and titanium), you might find extra ways ways to protect your skin in the fridge or pantry or medicine cabinet. Research shows that certain foods and supplements can enhance your skin's natural protection ability and minimize sun damage.

Of course, sunburn is an inflammatory condition caused by overexposure to the ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Sunburn is never good.

To decrease the risk of burning, remember sun safety basics using hats, sunglasses, special sun clothing and sunscreen. Also, stay away from most processed foods, simple carbs like sugar and vegetable oils that turn on the internal inflammatory response.

Here are some nutrients to eat as part of your safe sun program.

Vitamin C

Enjoy citrus fruits of all kinds, strawberries, kiwis, papaya, guava, black currants, chili peppers, bell peppers, brussel sprouts and greens like kale and spinach.

Vitamin E

Almonds are my go-to snack food and are rich in Vitamin E. Mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, spinach and sunflower seeds also pack a lot of E.

Lycopene

Tomatoes, especially cooked tomato paste and sauce, are high in lycopene. In a German study, participants who ate a quarter cup of tomato paste with olive oil every day for 10 weeks experienced 35 percent less skin reddening when exposed to UV radiation than those who did not eat the tomato paste. Watermelon has 40 percent more than tomatoes. I love a watermelon, basil and feta salad.

Omega3 essential fatty acids

Think grilled salmon for dinner and put ground flaxseed or flaxseed oil in your morning smoothie.

Vitamin D

Salmon, sardines, caviar and tuna are rich sources of Vitamin D. So are milk, eggs and mushrooms. Sunlight promotes vitamin D synthesis from cholesterol in the skin, so some limited sun exposure is healthy. Vitamin D has numerous positive effects, including stabilization of the pigment melanin that protects our skin.

Antioxidants

Eat foods like grapes and pop them in the freezer for a cold treat. Pomegranates are full of antioxidants as well. Green tea has ECGC, which research showed stopped genetic damage in human skin cells exposed to UV light. Green tea also has tannic acid and can be soothing to sunburned skin. Consider green tea and pomegranate seeds for a summer refresher.

Beta-carotene

Eat carrots for your eyes and skin. Beta-carotene also helps protect the skin against the free radical damage caused from sun exposure, especially when combined with vitamin E.

Astaxanthin

The richest natural food sources of astaxanthin are red or pink fish, seafoods and algae sourced from the sea. Wild sockeye salmon has the highest concentration.

If you avoid foods in certain groups, supplements are available to make sure that you have adequate levels.

Dr. Susan Mathison founded Catalyst Medical Center in Fargo and created PositivelyBeautiful.com. Email her at info@catalystmedicalcenter.com.

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Trump Watch: Vampires, Yusopov and The Zeitgeist – The London Economic

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There is one great truth that ties all revolutions in common and that is they never burst out in surprise. History, or at least when current events have been aged in the cask long enough to be classified as history, always has shown that there were warning signs, hints, foreshadowing adeptly revealed yet not immediately obvious. It is as though the story of humanity is being written by a truly cunning mystery novelist, thus casting God as the supreme meld of Charles Dickens and Agatha Christie. A failed assassination attempt here, a farmers protest there, like a red sky at morning we sailors should take warning. Except we usually dont. Wed rather ignore what in retrospect seems so obvious. If we notice the approaching thunderheads at all, we prefer to just wish them away, as though the winds respond to wishes. Good luck with that.

Donald J Trump and his ultra-nationalist, white supremacist, anti-democratic crew have been what Bob Dylan once called a slow, slow train comin up around the bend, but we didnt put our ears to the track in time. My personal regret is that I actually did quite literally read the signs but I couldnt figure out the final stage. A story:

As a writer, its been my recreation disguised as work to indulge my passions. Plays, poetry, Human Rights, sports, border collies, I cover the waterfront and those are the docked freighters I unload. My bread and butter has been book reviewing and for a significant (slightly shameful) portion of my career I took contracts writing Sponsored Reviews for various websites. A Sponsored Review is something an indie author buys, essentially an ad thinly disguised as an objective opinion. God knows I never let my name appear as a by-line as the content would have to be approved by the author or else I wouldnt get paid.

Most of those novels were excrementally awful; badly edited (if edited at all), with paper-thin characters that spoke not in dialogue but in slogans. There was some value in it reading a ton of crap improved my own skills as an Editor and later as a Literary Agent, but I digress. For you see, there was a certain overlay of a common element that I began to find disturbing. Most, and I mean an actual majority, had a dystopian setting. Usually centred on America, traditional government had crumbled, some form of neo-fascism had taken hold, small groups of resistors hid in the hills or woods, struggling for survival. There were variations on the theme, but you get my point.

Generally speaking, none of these lousy novels ever put together a plausible case for how A got to B why did democracy collapse? What was the method? It was all just a matter of, Well here we are and doesnt life suck?

Still, these dozens of books crawled inside my consciousness like a subcutaneous parasite. You see, years earlier when I was studying Film at university I learned about the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. Oh I know, properly one should learn about such things in a course on Philosophy, comparing and contrasting Hegel with Thomas Caryles opposing Great Man theories. Instead I watched His Girl Friday and saw the dawning of the womens movement. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell were much more fun than droning German philosophers. Regardless of the origin point of this academic sidebar I did come to the conclusion that the Zeitgeist is a tremendous predictor of future events. We emotionally or instinctively feel, as a group, what is coming even if our conscious selves choose to think instead of birthday parties and picnics, hot sex and the Premier League. We know theres a slow, slow train coming, but we still dont move in time.

When Trump emerged, I realized that all those terrible dystopian writers had got it right. I still do not know what those writers didnt know either How did we get from A to B? Why did over 60 million American voters go off their nut simultaneously and vote for a bog ignorant, racist, misogynistic blowhard? It wasnt all Russia and stealing Hillary Clintons campaign emails, you know. That may have been the casus belli but there equally or more so an itch in the American mind-set that made it susceptible to that specific manipulation. In any event, Trump Watch is going to be here for awhile, so we can come back to that analysis another day.

On this day though, we have to be good generals and anticipate the enemys next move. There is a sense among those that resist Trump that once the Republicans in Congress get their collective shit together, likely after Special Counsel Robert Mueller delivers his final report with or even without criminal indictments, they will in turn begin Impeachment proceedings, remove Trump (and possibly Vice-President Pence, Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) from Office and then all shall be sweetness and light again.

Not so fast.

Trump throughout his career has been a Vampire, rising again and again, even after five bankruptcies. This is why I wonder what his long game is. The man may be an idiot, but he is not entirely stupid and certainly the moneyed powers that put him in office in the first place will not give up quite so easily.

Thus, my nightmare scenario, one born of noticing how Trump has turned against his own Republican Party, mocking it as weak, indecisive, ignoring the yahoo base that elected him and them. You see, even if Trump is successfully impeached and ordered to pack his belongings including all those hideous gold curtains and get out of the White House immediately, there is nothing to stop him from running again in 2020. Nothing at all.

But wait! What if he is in prison for State crimes? Even a Presidential pardon, such as Gerald Ford granted Richard Nixon, has no effect on State sentences. Well thats true, but I invite you to look at Article Two, Section 1 of the US Constitution, which states the eligibility requirements for serving as President of the United States:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Do you see anything in there about, Must not be a convicted criminal? No, neither do I. A Trump, seen by his followers as a victim, with all the squeezing of the electoral lists (over 500,00 have recently lost the right to vote just in the State of Georgia alone) and intimidation of mild-mannered others could win again. He could run the US from prison like a convicted Mafia don.

Is any of this likely? Perhaps not, but I remind you of something. When Prince Yusopov saw Rasputins body sink into the river he thought the danger to Imperial Russia had been destroyed once and forever. He failed to account for all those nasty peasants foaming at the mouth. History never ends, it just starts a new chapter following from its previous.

Be seeing you.

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Kabaka Pyramid comes to Nebraska and surveying Reggae Revival | Concert Preview – Hear Nebraska (registration) (blog)

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On Tuesday, August 8th, the Bourbon Theatre hosts the first Nebraska appearance by Kabaka Pyramid, one of the new generation of Jamaican performers from the Reggae Revival movement. While Bob Marleys contemporaries such as Burning Spear, the Wailing Souls, and Black Uhuru have made Nebraska tour stops for years, the inheritors of the roots reggae legacy havent found their way to this part of the prairie until now.

Assuming youre curious, the word Kabaka comes from the head of the Ugandan kingdom Buganda, and presumably you know about pyramids. Born Keron Salmon, the singer-songwriter and lyricist has a career dating back over 10 years and has been scoring popular reggae and dancehall tracks along the way.

Roughly five years ago, Kabaka Pyramid was among a group of younger Jamaican artists to gather regularly near a beach East of Kingston where singer and actor Billy Wilmot had founded a surfing camp called Jamnesia. This like-minded group of artists, also including Protoje, Chronixx, and Jah9, found common ground in the mission of advancing Afrocentrism through music and the arts, something fewer and fewer Jamaican performers have explicitly embraced in the last three decades. As recording artists, they soon would make guest appearances on each others projects, name-check each other in concert, and generally provide each other the moral support not often found in an otherwise hyper-competitive music culture.

Kabakas take on the whole thing is encapsulated in the lyrics to The Revival from 2013:

This movement, they call it a revival, we all got a part to playIn this movement, none a we nuh rival, the mission is all the sameIn this movement, is more than music, much more than tours and jewelry.

While advancing Afrocentrism through music may sound like nothing new, for at least 30 years, the most popular continuum of artists out of Jamaica have come out of its dancehalls exemplified most recently in the unparalleled success and influence of the genius emcee and criminal mastermind Vybz Kartel. Kartels aesthetic was the perfect reflection of the Jamaican youth zeitgeist of the mid-2000s, which often manifested in wanton materialism. Kartel is currently a few years into a life sentence for murder and will likely remain a folk-hero for generations to come.

The artists of the reggae revival, in contrast, saw a strong position to uphold in a celebration of an Afro-Jamaican identity, Rastafari, and an embrace of reggae and its original one drop rhythms as the music vehicle of choice. At the same time, each of the Reggae Revival artists shows to varying degrees a millennial affection for American hip-hop Kabaka Pyramid and Protoje chief among them. Jamaicas identity as an Afro-Caribbean society has long been informed by its proximity to the United States. While American music has influenced the development of Jamaican music since the days of Louis Jordan and Bill Doggett, one of Jamaicas well documented roles was in providing the seminal ingredients for African-American sound-system music, aka hip-hop. (See the story of Kool Herc if you doubt this for a second, or check the video from Jay-Zs recent trip to Jamaica to collab with Damian Marley on Bam, in which Kabaka Pyramid makes a minor cameo.)

If there is one thing to understand about Kabaka Pyramid, he is not a pure reggae artist in the tradition of Bob Marley or Burning Spear. If thats your flavor, an artist like Samory I will hit closer to the mark. Kabaka Pyramid is more in the line of artists like Sizzla, Capleton, or Damian Marley, Rasta dancehall performers who have a strong interest in hip-hop and whose emphasis on lyrical fusillades outshines instrumental virtuosity.

Kabaka seems to love rapping almost as much as being a dancehall emcee, and its hard to tell which he does with more authority. He embraces this duality most clearly on Kabaka vs. Pyramid, from the 2016 Major Laser/Walshy Fire mixtape.

For more examples of Kabaka Pyramid in action, I recommend the early Reggae Revival combination, Selassie Souljahz, where Kabaka trades verses with Chronixx, Protoje, and Sizzla. Also, give a listen to the lyrical climax on Protojes The Flame from Protojes outstanding Ancient Future LP; or Well Done, a harder reggae dancehall outing, based on R.E.M.s Losing My Religion and first adapted by Wayne Marshall as On The Corner.

Kabaka Pyramid tours with his own band, the Bebble Rockers, seen here at their recent performance at the Summerjam festival. His most recent single is Cant Breathe.

Carter Van Pelt hosts Eastern Standard Time, Fridays from 10 to midnight on KZUM-FM and is the founder and host of Coney Island Reggae On The Boardwalk. Check out his writing on Protoje and Chronixx.

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Review: Cary Cordova’s romp through the Mission Renaissance – Mission Local

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Every city has its moment a time when events and people converge in one place to define it for years to come. Drill down and those moments often decades long are generally associated with neighborhoods Montmartre in the first years of the 20th Century, Harlem in the 1920s, Soho in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Cary Cordovas new book, The Heart of the Mission, Latino Art and Politics in San Francisco, offers the first history of the Mission Districts moment a confluence of art and culture that began in the late 1960s and lasted into the 1990s. The Beats, jazz, the 1968 student movement and the Central American wars all fueled a Mission Renaissance. The Heart of the Mission is a lively guide throughthis history, but its also an important book in documenting and contextualizing the work of Mission artists.

Cordova, a San Francisco native who teaches at UT Austin, traces the beginning of the Mission Renaissance back to the Latin Quarter in North Beach, and such early institutions as The Unin Espaola, also known as the Spanish Cultural center, a block away from Our Lady of Guadalupe Church. Latin music seeded San Franciscos bohemian culture through some of the centers tenants including the 1941 Marimba Club and the 1967 Tropicana Club. By the 1970s, Cordova writes, music of the North Beach Latin music scene had relocated to the Mission District. Muralist Patricia Rodriguez describes to Cordova what that sounded like: In every corner in the Mission in the seventies Santana was playing, Malo was playing, whoever was playing in the street. Drumming sessions became part of Dolores Park culture, precipitating a debate over the right to occupy public space in the city.

While a pan-Latino arts community would follow, initially Latino artists and musicians played in the citys avant-garde milieu and the evolving bohemian counterculture, perhaps most notably embodied in Beat and jazz cultures, Cordova writes. The San Francisco Art Institute then the California School of Fine Arts and its training in abstract art and Bay Area figurative abstraction influenced artists such as Luis Cervantes, Jos Ramn Lerma and Ernie Palomino. Later, when the Mission District and its artists became identified with political and mural art, these and other artists continued to produce first-rate abstract, pop and assemblage art.

Gallery artists had a difficult time getting recognition, but the media discovered the muralists early on. The artists working in 1974 on Homage to Siqueiros inside the Bank of America building at Mission created a media spectacle designed to undermine their corporate sponsor, while the artists of Latino America caught attention as one of the first all-female community mural groups in the nation. From the outset, politics local and pan-Latino were embedded in the mural tradition.

Cordova provides an excellent narrative and analysis of both murals. She also documents the shift provoked by the Central American civil wars, most visibly on Balmy Alley where in 1984, 27 artists contributed 27 murals attacking U.S. intervention in Central America. The concentration of murals in a single block proved an astonishing display of diverse aesthetics and shared politics, Cordova writes.

If you thought you knew Balmy Alley, think again. Cordova recounts its history but also gives a close contextual look at the iconography, often supplemented by interviews with the artists. And she goes deep: Balmy Alley, we learn, was a needle strewn alley in 1972 when artist Emilia Mia Galaviz de Gonzalez envisioned it as a Mexican garden with murals of flowers, birds and fish.

Poets, artists, activists and musicians riff off one another throughout the Mission Renaissance. Cordova sets the scene as poet Nina Serranos re-christens the 24th Street BART plaza as Plaza Sandino, then documents the ways all of the Mission players connected with the zeitgeist of a global third world movement. Poet Roberto Vargas, Cordova writes, brought together the war to overthrow the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua with the battles at Wounded Knee and the fight to free U.S. activist Angela Davis.

To demonstrate the threads of these relationships, Cordova follows the November 1968 Third World Strike at San Francisco State and its impact on Juan Fuentes, Rupert Garca and Yolanda Lpez. Lpez and others also embraced an alliance with the Black Panthers. From the politics we better understand Lpezs complex and stark posters. Another section follows the trajectory of three Salvadoran artists, Romero G. Osorio, Martivn Galindo and Victor Cartagena, and shows how closely their Salvadoran roots affected their journeys and those of fellow Salvadoran activists, some of whom joined the Salvadoran guerrillas and Nicaraguan Sandinistas on the front lines.

There is a rich history of how Da de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, provided a cultural nexus for mourning in the 1980s in San Francisco. Grief consumed a city in the midst of the AIDS crisis, but also families losing loved ones in Central America as well as on the streets of San Francisco. The Mexican tradition, which Ren Yaez and Ralph Maradiaga at Galera de la Raza, took into the public sphere in 1972, provided a collective release and remembering.

Although Da de los Muertos is now mainstream San Francisco, it was suspect at first. When Yolanda Garfias Woo lectured about it to her students at John McLaren School, one teacher accused her of teaching witchcraft. And when Yaez tried to get a permit from the police for the candlelight procession, he tells Cordova, This captain thought I was part of a Charles Manson cult or something.

This summer has produced a number of retrospectives of artists left out of museums during the periods when they created art. These include the Brooklyn Museums We wanted a Revolution Black Radical Women, 1965-85, New York MOMAs Making Space: Women Artists and Postwar Abstraction, and finally SF MOMAs Revelations: Art from the African American South. Perhaps it is time for a retrospective of the Mission Renaissanceone that attempts, as Cordova succeeds in doing, to more than scratch the surface. A retrospective would showcase some of the artists featured in the bookGraciela Carrillo, Ren Yaez, Romeo G. Osorioas well as the exquisite work by such artists as Lpez, Garcia, Fuentes, Enrique Chagoya, Juan Pablo Gutirrez and many more. In the meantime, you can start by paying closer attention to the historic murals on Balmy Alley and elsewhere in the Mission as well as the art from newcomers and old timers showing up at the Galera de la Raza and other neighborhood galleries.

I will be interviewing Cary Cordova at a book event on August 17th at the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts, 2868 Mission St. The event will include music, free tapas and it will run from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. You can get free tickets here.

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Many start-ups, bulging with endless capital, still lack the nous on how to enforce the ethical values needed to mature – South China Morning Post

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Travis Kalanick, CEO of Uber, has vowed he plans do a Steve Jobs and stage a comeback as Ubers CEO.

Whether or not he can improve the treatment of women in Uber and restore its dominance in the ride sharing market are not two independent goals.

The inability of its investors and board to enforce ethical conduct shows its level of disarray even as they have been seeking a new CEO. The Washington Post reported last week the short list has been narrowed down, to three men.

Discrimination against women is alive and well in Silicon Valley and technology. I know successful female engineers who were told in high school by teachers even female teachers they should plan for a career as a secretary.

How Hong Kong women are levelling the pitch in the male-heavy tech industry

From an early age, to start-ups and right up to board level, women are treated poorly in the male dominated, fraternity house atmosphere.

Sexism, ageism and other afflictions of stereotyping are rising to the surface in Silicon Valley and technology like no other time.

One of the reasons is that women are more willing to speak out and militate against sexual harassment and campaign for equal pay. Feminism may be dead as a social movement, but it has evolved into issue-driven battles.

Sexism, ageism and other afflictions of stereotyping are rising to the surface in Silicon Valley and technology like no other time

As more brave women have come forward to share their own tales and experiences from the belligerent environment of the tech world, it is becoming more evident the industry has long-standing, pernicious problems. And everyone in the industry is complicit.

But, today the financial and technological stakes in Silicon Valley are higher than ever. And tech, venture capital and the power and glory of successful start-ups have become mainstream culture.

The Silicon Valley zeitgeist is accurately skewered in the HBO series Silicon Valley. At a valuation of $60 billion, sovereign funds and leading private equity investors have piled into Uber. Yet, they cannot seem to extricate themselves from this embarrassing corporate governance dilemma.

Unlike established corporates with longer histories, start-ups are usually formed with little regard for issues such as political correctness and gender balance. The founders are usually friends or colleagues or classmates people close and relevant and necessary for starting the business and developing the technology.

There is scant thought for any political sensitivities. Meeting gender quotas in management or at board level is a low consideration.

Start-ups are a high risk for founders, surviving milestone to milestone, month to month.

Today, a new breed of start-up like Uber presents conflicting corporate governance issues. Its not really a new company since it has been around since 2009. With $6.5 billion in 2016 sales and a $60 billion valuation, its certainly not a small operation.

Ellen Pao drops high-profile Silicon Valley gender bias case, citing personal resources

But, because it is not publicly listed, Ubers investors treat it like a start-up have indulged a dominant founders excesses. They fear that if they lose him that the enterprise will collapse. And with billions of capital tied up, it could one of the biggest failures in VC history.

Meaningful change can only begin at board or investor level. The overarching issue for investors is how tech companies even as big as Uber can cross the chasm into becoming sustainable and successful high growth corporations.

There is scant thought for any political sensitivities. Meeting gender quotas in management or at board level is a low consideration

It used to be that hiring adults older and more experienced senior managers from IBM or Hewlett-Packard was enough to convert a start-up with a successful product with structured sales and marketing and product support teams.

It is no excuse that ethics and corporate sustainability have a hard time keeping up with sprawling growth. All of Ubers institutional investors state they adhere to ethical codes, yet few of them acted to rectify serial sexual harassment and bad boy CEO conduct.

The ability for a young company to cross the chasm from being a small enterprise into a large one remains a constant challenge facing tech start-ups. The initial promise of monopolies like Uber can encourage an investment frenzy. The lure of temporary exclusivity makes it almost worthwhile to ignore or suspend unethical behaviour because the rewards are astronomical.

How Ubers board works together to resolve its current dilemma will serve as an important example for years to come.

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Many start-ups, bulging with endless capital, still lack the nous on how to enforce the ethical values needed to mature - South China Morning Post

What you need to know about the Kenyan elections – African Independent

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The running mate configuration has not changed either, with both retaining their previous partners. William Ruto for Kenyatta and Kalonzo Musyoka for Odinga. The only thing that has changed is their party identities.

Kenyattas 2013 Jubilee coalition is now the Jubilee Party, comprising most of the constituent parties that had been part of the coalition. The 2013 Jubilee formation was an alliance between parties loyal to the president, and his deputy William Ruto.

For its part Odingas camp underwent a coalition overhaul, morphing from the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy to the National Super Alliance. The coalition brings together several parties, both old and new, led by the Orange Democratic Movement, Odingas longtime party.

Latest polls have indicated that the two candidates are neck-and-neck. Both have factors working for and against them.

Uhuru Kenyatta A few things are in Kenyattas favour. At 55 years of age, he is a young president who represents generational change. Kenyatta also comes from one of the wealthiest families in Kenya. Forbes Magazine ranks him as the 26th richest person in Africa, with an estimated fortune of $500m. This means that hes been able to contribute financially to a vibrant campaign.

As the incumbent some would also argue that he has had access to state resources and agencies to facilitate his re-election. Incumbency has also allowed him to drive his campaign on the steam of his development record and flagship projects in infrastructure, the energy sector and public service delivery.

In terms of voting blocs, Kenyatta has the support of Kenyas two most populous ethnic groupings: the Gikuyu, Embu and Meru (Gema) and the Kalenjin. The registered voters in the Gema grouping are approximately 5588nbsp;389, in the Kalenjin are 2nbsp;324nbsp;559.

Combined, thats 7nbsp;912nbsp;948 votes, which is equivalent to 40% of the electorate. Thats a formidable start when you consider that presidential strongholds have historically recorded a higher voter turnout during elections.

On the other hand, Kenyattas four-year tenure has been riddled with corruption allegations, including the Eurobond and National Youth Service scandals.

His admitted inability to rein in corruption in his government has worked against him. Additionally, his government is also accused of ethnic exclusion.

The Jubilee presidency is seen as a two-man show. This has contributed to the perception that Jubilee is not ethnically representative.

Raila Odinga Odinga has many things going for him. High up on the list are his charisma and strong political mobilisation skills. Historically, Odinga has always been a formidable opposition politician; not being an incumbent has enabled him to galvanise effectively.

Odinga enjoys wider ethnic support compared to President Kenyatta, comprising among others the Kamba, Luhya, Luo and Maasai tribes. These communities comprise over a third of the voting population. But the disadvantage is their historically lower record of voter turnout.

At 72 years of age, Odinga represents the older generation of Kenyan leaders who joined politics in the 1970s and 80s. And this being his fourth attempt at the presidency, theres lethargy among some of his supporters.

Hes viewed by some as power hungry and untrustworthy, especially because of his alleged association with Kenyas 1982 coup. His calls for mass action after the contentious 2007 election, during a period that saw the displacement and death of thousands of Kenyans, also contributed to this perception.

Also to his disadvantage is an association with past corruption scandals during his term as prime minister, including the maize and Kazi Kwa Vijana youth programme scandals.

The main political formations There are two main formations in the 2017 election the Jubilee Party and the National Super Alliance.

The Jubilee Party, formed in September 2016, followed a merger between The National Alliance and the United Republican Party representing two ethnic communities the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. The Jubilee Party also has the support of other political parties including the Kenya African National Union, NARC Kenya, the Labour Party and the Democratic Party amongst others.

The National Super Alliance is a coalition of political parties formed in April 2017. Its leading lights are Odingas Orange Democratic Movement, the Wiper Democratic Movement led by Kalonzo Musyoka, the Amani National Congress led by Musalia Mudavadi, Ford Kenya led by Moses Wetangula and Isaac Rutos Chama Cha Mashinani. The coalition brings together the Luo, Kamba and Luhya ethnic groups, and a section of the Kalenjin community.

In this election cycle party manifestos have become increasingly important. This explains the Jubilee administrations scramble to complete promises outlined in its 2013 document.

The Jubilee Party has made even more promises in its recently launched manifesto. Three that have caught the public attention include the creation of 1.3 million jobs a year, free public secondary education and the expansion of Kenyas food production capacity.

The National Super Alliances promises are more political. They include a constitutional amendment to provide for a hybrid executive system to foster national cohesion. Two other notable promises are to lower the cost of rent by enforcing the Rent Restriction Act and to implement free secondary education.

Strengths and weaknesses The strengths of the Jubilee Party lie mainly in its incumbency and its development track record over the last four-and-a-half years. But the party has been weakened by divisions within its ranks. These were amplified during the campaign as disagreements broke out over the leadership of campaign teams. The ruling party is also handicapped to the extent that its not as ethnically diverse as its competitor.

The National Super Alliances main strength lies in its ethnic diversity. Its five principals represent different ethnic communities.

The super alliance also creatively captures the zeitgeist of a section of the electorate, with some of its campaign slogans such as vindu vichenjanga (things are a-changing in the Luhya dialect) making their way into popular use. It is riding on the euphoric wave that usually accompanies the hope of regime change.

One of its weaknesses, however, includes a perceived predilection to violence because the opposition has previously resorted to mass action. In 2016 for example, it organised a series of protests to mobilise for the removal of key members of the Independent Electoral and Boundaries commission, the body responsible for organising the general election.

Another weakness is its close association with allegedly corrupt financiers.

Key concerns There is a perception that historically, the presidency has been the preserve of two ethnic groups the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin. This feeling of disenfranchisement has become a key campaign issue.

There are however, some non-tribal issues that have taken the foreground. These include corruption, economic and social stability, lower cost of living and improved security.

Daisy Maritim Maina is a PhD candidate in Political Economy at SMC University

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What you need to know about the Kenyan elections - African Independent