Category Archives: Evolution

Jul 10th 2021

IMAGINE A WORLD without bird song. Yet this might have come about if it had not been for a genetic change that happened some 30m years ago, at the beginning of the evolution of the Passeri, to give songbirds their proper name.

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Birds evolved from carnivorous dinosaurs called theropods. Meat eaters need not detect sugar in the way that, say, fruit eaters do, and genetic analyses of modern birds suggest their theropod ancestor had lost the ability to taste sweetness. Today, however, many birds have sugar-rich diets of nectar or fruit, so perceiving things as sweet is a useful attribute. And research just published in Science by Toda Yasuka of Tokyo University and Maude Baldwin of the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen, Germany, suggests songbirds can indeed perceive sweetness. This re-evolved ability may have been instrumental in their success. Since almost half the bird species now alive are Passeri, that is no small matter.

Vertebrates taste-receptor genes normally include three that encode proteins called T1R1, T1R2 and T1R3. The taste receptors themselves are formed from pairs of these proteins. Receptors for sweetness are a combination of T1R2 and T1R3. Birds, however, lack the gene for T1R2. Presumably, it was lost by their theropod ancestors, which did not need it. Dr Todas and Dr Baldwins experiments have shown how this loss was reversed.

The pairs first study, published in 2014, was on hummingbirds, which feed on nectar from flowers. It found that hummingbirds regained the ability to taste sugars via mutations in the genes for T1R1 and T1R3. The receptor formed by combining T1R1 and T1R3 normally detects umami, a savoury flavour typical of meat. In hummingbirds, these mutations allow this receptor to detect sugars, too. Dr Toda and Dr Baldwin therefore wondered whether that was also the case for songbirds.

To find out, they cloned T1R1-T1R3 receptors from a variety of songbirds and tested their responses to sugar. All the receptors they testedfrom birds with sugar-rich and sugar-poor diets alikeinteracted strongly with sugar molecules. This confirmed that, as with hummingbirds, songbirds regained perception of sweetness via mutations of the gene for T1R1 and T1R3. By contrast, umami receptors cloned from the Tyranni, a sister group to the Passeri, did not interact with sugars, though they did so strongly with amino acids typical of meat. The mutations in the songbird lineage must thus have happened after the Passeri and Tyranni lines diverged, but before the Passeri themselves began proliferating into their current variety.

Intriguingly, when Dr Toda and Dr Baldwin looked at the molecular modifications which allowed the T1R1-T1R3 receptors of hummingbirds and Passeri to detect sweetness, they found them to be completely different. Both, though, involved numerous changes to the underlying DNA, suggesting a strong evolutionary pressure to optimise them. This pressure was probably a consequence of competition to fill the new ecological niches opened up by an ability to recognise sweet things as both edible and nutritious. And it was that which resulted in the Passeris current diversity. How all this ties up with the mellifluous songs sung by many members of the group is unclear. It may just be a coincidence. But if so, for those who enjoy bird song, it is a fortunate one.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline "The sweet taste of success"

Original post:

Songbirds can taste sugar. That may explain their ubiquity - The Economist

(The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fan-made productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows.)

In this edition, the VFX artists from Corridor Crew bring in Industrial Light and Magics visual effect art director Alex Laurant for a closer look at The Mummy starring Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz. Plus, see how outer space in movies has evolved across the 120-year history of motion pictures, from A Trip to the Moon to Gravity. And finally, watch as The Flight Attendant star Kaley Cuoco and WandaVision star Elizabeth Olsen interview each other.

First up, the gang at Corridor Crew brings Alex Laurant in to talk about beingIndustrial Light and Magics visual effects art director and all the work that he did on the 1999 remake of The Mummy. Get a look at amazing concept art, find out the secrets of several memorable sequences, and see how ILM brought The Mummy to life over 20 years ago.

Next, Movies Insider reveals how the depiction of outer space in movies has evolved across 120 years of movie magic. Space on film relied on practical effects and camera tricks with the likes of A Trip to the Moon in 1902 and Destination Moon in 1950. But the biggest innovations would come from 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Wars, Apollo 13, and Gravity.

Finally, Kaley Cuoco and Elizabeth Olsen have received plenty of acclaim for their performances in The Flight Attendant and WandaVision, respectively. Both are in the running for Emmys later this year, and Variety had them sit down for their Actors on Actors series to discuss each of their shows, how they approached their characters, and more.

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The Morning Watch: VFX Artists React to 'The Mummy', The Evolution of Outer Space in Movies & More - /FILM

From Handcrafted Stone to 3D Printing: The Technological and Material Evolution of Gaud's Sagrada Familia

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A masterpiece is often defined as the most remarkable work in an artist's career, one which highlights the height of their techniques and ideals. The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci; Michelangelo's Piet; the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album. There are many examples, which are not always unanimously agreed upon. But what if what many consider to be the masterpiece was started by someone else, the credited creator didn't live to see its completion, and almost all of its documentation was destroyed? Catalan architect Antoni Gaud and his world-famous Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Famlia are examples of these complications. From a highly crafted stone construction to the most modern 3D printing techniques and high strength concrete, numerous technologies were and continue to be incorporated in the project's construction.

In 1882, architect Francisco de Paula del Villar began the project for the Church following the guidelines of the time, and thus employed standard neo-Gothic elements: five longitudinal naves, ogival windows, buttresses, and a pointed bell tower. Due to differences with the Catholic Church, however, Villar resigned from the work and Antoni Gaud, a 31-year-old architect, was appointed responsible in 1883, as shown in the work's chronology. While the cruciform plan of the original project was maintained, Gaudi brought numerous significant changes to the building such as angular columns and hyperboloid vaults, eliminating the need for buttresses. By removing these important structural pieces that could withstand the horizontal thrusts of the heavy roof, the architect proposed the building's iconic branched and angled columns instead.

Since then, the project has consistently been under construction, and is expected to be completed in 2026, the centenary of Antoni Gaud's death. But one can imagine that a work in progress for over 130 years, with some stoppages, experienced several changes in construction methods and materials. The first period of construction, the one that had Gaud as the architect responsible for the work, goes from 1883 to 1936. At that time, traditional materials of the time were used, especially stone masonry with lime mortar as a binder. [1] Between 1914 and 1926 Gaud lived on the church's construction site, dedicating himself exclusively to the work and building numerous plaster models of the pillars, naves, facades, and other construction elements, with the aim of conveying his ideas to employees.

Shortly before that, in 1901, the first cement plant in Catalonia was founded by Eusebi Gell, Gaud's friend, supporter and patron. Researchers [3] point out that one of the reasons why reinforced concrete took a long time to reach Catalonia was because of the region's optimized traditional Catalan techniques, such as masonry arches (Catalan vaults) supported by metal beams, which had a good cost-benefit ratio for construction and reduced the need for other solutions.

From there, Gaud began experimenting with the material, which was used in the construction of Parc Gell, Casa Mil and the Colnia Gell church. In the construction of the Sagrada Familia, reinforced concrete was used for the first time on the spiers of the faade of the Natividade, built between 1915 and 1934.

Ten years after Gaud's death, who was run over by a tram near the construction site, a fire destroyed most of the plans and drawings in the office. Luckily, some models were saved, which allowed for the redoing of much of the project's documentation according to the architect's ideas.

Some periods of stoppage due to World War II and the Spanish Civil War delayed the work. Many of the finishing decisions, some structural solutions, and some detailing and connections between different materials had to be defined by subsequent generations of architects and engineers working on the building, who sought as much fidelity as possible to Gaud's original ideas.

From 1944 onwards, the buildings for which concrete was already one of the most important materials resumed construction. During these years, they used, above all, cyclopean concrete in the filling of the walls and reinforced concrete in the structural elements [2]. From the 60's onwards, reinforced concrete began to be widely used in construction, but in the 90's, a new stage begins at the most famous construction site in the world. It is at this time that public interest in the Sagrada Familia greatly increases, causing visits and revenue to accelerate. As a result, the work began to incorporate many new advances in the construction process, including several cranes and the beginning of experiments in computer modeling of complex geometries. Two events symbolize the changes that have taken place since then: the increase in revenue that has allowed us to accelerate the pace of construction, and the introduction of new technologies in terms of materials, design, and construction processes. The main objective in recent years has been the construction of the naves. This resulted in the lifting of the perimeter walls (completed in 1999), the columns and interior vaults, and the curves of the main body, which are now finished; they are currently operating on the transept and apse [2].

Almost all the building elements are currently built in concrete in the Sagrada Familia Church, often covered in natural stone. Concrete appears in various forms: precast elements, reinforced concrete, solid concrete, and parts with special concrete of very high structural strength, such as in the apse and transept columns, where microsilica was introduced in the concrete mixture, reaching a resistance of 80 MPa. In other portions of the structure, because of Gaud's complicated geometry, the fittings, and the impossibility of increasing cross sections, concrete features had to be developed with high fluidity and strength.

In addition, in recent decades, the Sagrada Familia has embraced contemporary digital design and construction technologies. Architects and artisans use programs like Rhinoceros, Cadds5, Catia, and CAM to understand complex geometries and visualize the building as a whole. The process uses stereolithographic 3D printers that build the prototypes layer by layer, resulting in a plaster-like material, a method that allows builders to manually alter the prototypes to meet specific building demands.

The construction of the Sagrada Familia has taken so long that building technologies and materials have changed significantly from beginning to end. Many researchers wonder if it could have actually been built with the materials at the time it was designed while stillfollowing every form imagined by the genius of Catalan modernism. Wouldthe project have been adapted by Gaud if he had lived to resolve all of the design issues? Or is his genius, as some researchers have pointed out, that he has developed a project that allows for the incorporation of new technologies and materials over time?

Notes

[1] Rosa Grima Lpez. El Hormign en el Templo de la Sagrada Familia. Available at this link[2] R. Espel, J. Gmez, R. Grima, A. Aguado. La evolucin de la construccin del Templo de la Sagrada Familia. Informes de la Construccin 61(516). December 2009. Available at this link[3] Rosa Grima Lpez, Antonio Aguado de Cea & Josep Gmez Serrano. Gaud and Reinforced Concrete in Construction. Available at this link

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From Handcrafted Stone to 3D Printing: The Technological and Material Evolution of Gaud's Sagrada Familia - ArchDaily

Eva Marie credits Total Divas with the evolution of womens wrestling. She claimed that the show helped bring in more women as fans of wrestling.

Eva Marie has had a lot to say since shes returned to the WWE. While most of them are meant to elicit a negative reaction from the crowd due to her alignment as a heel on the show, her latest comments appear to be a sentiment she genuinely believes to be true.

Also read: New Champions crowned at WWE NXT Great American Bash

Eva Marie, who used to be a notable part of the reality show Total Divas during her first WWE run, claimed that show led to more women becoming fans of wrestling. In a statement that will surely raise some eyebrows, Eva Marie also told TVInsider that the evolution of womens wrestling, or the womens revolution, started with Total Divas.

Im super fortunate and happy that I had that opportunity. In hindsight, it is kind of crazy I was doing everything for the first time on camera as well. Whether it was in the company filming a reality show, being in a relationship, getting married. It helped me grow so much.

It opened so many eyes to more women becoming fans of WWE. Total Divas was on the E! Network, so youre opening up the demographic to so many women to watch that show and channel. Total Divas came around, and now all of a sudden they are watching RAW and SmackDown. It was really where the whole evolution of women and womens wrestling really started and got talked about.

Eva Marie is currently on RAW with Doudrop as her lackey, although the two are having a bit of a hard time keeping it together. The angle has had mixed reactions from the audience so far but it seems that Vince McMahon is quite impressed and loves the endgoal of this storyline.

Click here for more Wrestling News

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It was where the whole evolution of womens wrestling really started Eva Marie credits Total... - The Sportsrush

1. Invisible frog

Most creatures hide their internal organs underneath multiple protective layers of skin, tissue and bone. But what if these layers were see-through?

Looking at a glass frog from above, you may not notice anything out of the ordinary. But if you were to flip it over, you would spy a tiny, fast-beating heart, a long, red vein, and a section of squirming intestines breaking down food. These amphibians have evolved to have extremely thin, translucent skin.

So why did these frogs evolve to be see-through? While these frogs' thin skin puts their entire internal anatomy on full display, when light shines on the frogs from above their silhouette becomes muddled to predators, according to a study published June 9 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

These frogs live in the rainforests of Central and South America and spend much of their time perched on leaves. Because the frogs are surrounded by lush greenery, their vibrant-green topcoats are ideal for camouflage. Meanwhile, their more transparent legs blur the outlines of their bodies, making it tough for predators to recognize the frogs' shape, the study found.

Related: How many organs are in the human body?

Unlikely relationships are often formed in the wild. For instance, fig wasps have found an unusual home inside figs. The fig "fruit" is actually a bundle of tiny flowers, called an inflorescence, which relies on fig wasps for pollination. In turn, the fleshy inflorescence provides a comfy and safe home for the wasps during their very short lives.

When female fig wasps hatch into the world, they are primed to "sniff out" receptive fig trees, or those whose flowers are ready for pollination, according to The Netherlands Entomological Society. Instinctively, the wasps search out the particular aroma emitted by female fig flowers, according to the U.S. Forest Service. Once they find a fig-in-need, the wasps dig their way into the soft, sweet flower through an opening at the end of the fig "fruit." The hole is so small that many wasps lose their wings and parts of their antennas. Once inside the fig, the female wasps are protected and out of sight, and they are able to lay their eggs. According to the Journal of Nematology, the wasps will not see the outside world ever again. The females die just 24 hours after laying their eggs.

When the fig wasps hatch, the male hatchlings mate with the females, before digging escape routes out of the fig for the females. The male wasps spend their entire lives in the fig and die shortly after producing the tunnels.

This odd behavior has kept this wasp species alive for over 60 million years, according to an article published in 2005 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Figs have these insects to thank for their continued existence, as their movement from one fig to another spreads their pollen.

Mexican walking fish (Ambystoma mexicanum), also called axolotls, are quirky creatures: Not only do these "fish" sport a protruding, spiky hairdo, they can also "walk." When they approach the bottom of a lake or canal, they pull out four legs from their sides to crawl around their swampy habitat in Mexico City.

Although they look like overdeveloped fish, they are actually amphibians. Often amphibians begin their lives equipped with gills so they can breathe underwater until they mature and lose their gills, ready for life on land. But axolotls keep their juvenile gills and remain in the water a phenomenon called neoteny, according to an article in the journal Nature.

Never leaving the water, axolotls are found in the lakes of Xochimilco near Mexico City. Growing up to 12 inches (30 centimeters) long, they feed on small insects, worms, mollusks and crustaceans. Historically, these grinning creatures were at the top of the food chain, but invasive fish species such as tilapia and carp fish, which eat baby axolotls and pollution are now threatening their survival.

Females don't always have to bear the brunt of pregnancy. According to Scientific American, for seahorses, pipefish and sea dragons members of the Syngnathidae fish family it's the males that get pregnant. Seahorses and pipefish carry their young inside brood pouches, supplying nutrients such as energy-rich fats through the pouch tissue, while sea dragons' eggs simply stick to the outside of the males tail.

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Is there any benefit to this arrangement? Because the females can focus solely on egg-making (leaving other baby-rearing roles to the males), seahorses can give birth in the morning and be pregnant again by the evening, according to National Geographic. This helps the species' numbers increase for a higher chance of survival.

With the males carrying the babies, the females are also less likely to be drained of energy. Usually, the females expend more energy producing eggs than the males do producing sperm, according to Oxford Academic. By transferring egg-carrying duties to males, the energy demand is shared more evenly.

Male and female anglerfish are so varied in appearance that you might think they were different species at first glance. The females are up to 60 times longer and half a million times heavier than their male partners; as such, when scientists first observed the males with the female anglerfish, they thought that they were looking at a mom and her young, according to an article published in a journal of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists.

The most common images of anglerfish show the females. Found lurking mostly in the darkest depths of the Atlantic and Antarctic oceans, female anglerfish look like the stuff of nightmares: Light rods hang from their faces and terrifyingly large fangs protrude from their mouths.

But the arrival of the males makes everything even more peculiar. When mating, a male anglerfish acts like a parasite, according to New Scientist. Biting into the side of his chosen female, the tiny male fuses his body with hers so he can steal her nutrients by sucking out her blood. Since the male has no need to swim or see, his eyes, fins and some major organs begin to deteriorate. He gets everything he requires for little effort, while his only responsibilities are to provide reproductive cells when the time is right. At that time, the male and female release their sperm and eggs, respectively, into the water for fertilization, Live Science previously reported.

Do you ever wish you could jump back in time to when you were young and start life again? As time passes, our bodies are designed to grow, age and eventually die. However, not all species follow this cycle. Meet the immortal jellyfish, Turritopsis dohrnii.

When injured or in the face of starvation, this jellyfish can push the "reset" button, according to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). With that reset, the jellyfish adults reverts back to an earlier developmental stage, in this case a polyp. That new polyp then continues the life cycle and spawns lots of genetically identical medusas, or the tentacled creatures we call jellyfish. Scientists think the immortal jellyfish use a process called transdifferentiation to pull off this rejuvenating feat. In this process, an adult cell that has become specialized for a certain tissue can transform into a different kind of specialized cell, AMNH said.

At their largest, adults of this jellyfish are still less than 0.2 inches (5 millimeters) across. These jellyfish were first discovered in 1883 in the Mediterranean Sea, but they only gained the moniker of the immortal jellyfish in the mid-1990s. While a German student was studying them in a lab, he noticed the bizarre phenomenon. When the medusa stage of the jellyfish got stressed, it fell to the bottom of the holding jar and reverted straight into polyps, skipping any fertilization or larval stages, according to The Biologist, published by the Royal Society of Biology. The researchers liked it to "a butterfly transforming back into a caterpillar."

Next, researchers hope to figure out how the jellyfish accomplishes its everlasting life. "The genome ofTurritopsis dohrniiis being investigated and decoding it will be the first step towards the search for an 'immortality switch,'" according to The Biologist.

Explore how these jellyfish reverse maturity to relive the cycle. Click the numbers below to learn more.

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6 weird animals that evolution came up with - Livescience.com

Today, retailers are laser focused on building customer-centric strategies, making their products available anywhere and anytime, in the channels their customers inhabit. As media consumption habits increase, shoppable media emerges as a critical channel for the engagement and conversion of customers, and a growth lever brands are investing in.

Global media companies are recognising the opportunity. YouTube announced in October 2020 that it would be making its videos more shoppable, while TikTok entered the market in December via fashion livestreams. Similarly, Instagram launched its Reels and Shop tab for users to connect with brands and creators and to discover products.

A leader in the content-driven commerce space, Tipser was founded on a simple premise: sell any product on any digital surface. It works with brands like H&M and Filippa K, retailers like Harvey Nichols and publications like Bustle, Elle and InStyle to monetise existing traffic flows with e-commerce.

In conversation with BoFs Robin Mellery-Pratt, Tipsers head of business development, Josep Nolla, shares extensive insight on the opportunities for growth within commerce-connected content alongside The Future Laboratorys foresight editor, Kathryn Bishop. BoF identifies the key insights below.

Shoppable Media Offers Opportunity at Scale

JN: Were no doubt ahead of the next big shift in commerce. Currently, we are seeing that every single media [platform] is becoming a store and each store is a [form of] media. Every single publisher, media company, everyone that has an audience influencers are essentially storefronts, too if they can build their e-commerce platform and build their retail logistics, the growth potential is massive. The scale [of opportunity] is tremendous.

The key question is how you scale the infrastructure around it. Consider Google it generates 1 billion+ shopping queries per day, and yet its product that facilitates transacting in those Google properties YouTube video, Google Shopping is still in its early stages. [The challenge is] how to leverage such a large audience.

KB: As more people are coming online and much younger consumers we can really think about the untapped market potential for this kind of content, commerce and service opportunity. [] Cybersecurity Ventures found that, by 2030, 90 percent of the human population [over the age of 6] will be online. Of course, we will see huge growth [in digital adoption] in the African continent, Latin America and Asia. I think right now in the Middle East and Latin America, roughly the average consumer spends three hours on social media. Thats likely potentially bigger in some regions, according to insights from Globalweb Index.

Relevancy and Trust Can Build Competitive Advantage

KB: Drivers around trust, convenience and education stood out to me as reasons why consumers are responding positively to content-driven commerce. There is a shift towards education and moving away from a one-way broadcast to content where there is more interaction to be had with commerce folded in. A recent report talked about this and phrased it as D4C, not D2C. Brands have crept into home interactions and become more personal and intimate.

Consumers are always looking for a way to find trust.

Trust is key especially if youre shopping online. Consumers are always looking for a way to find trust. As the retailer, if you are putting out content and it has a commerce aspect tied to it, you need to ensure that it doesnt come across as overly sales-focused.

JN: From a consumer standpoint, the media adds a layer of relevancy, a layer of context and a layer of trust. We go to the same sites everyday whether its hobbies, news etc and we do that because we have a trust relationship with those media partners and its created by the people that we follow. Thats essential in making content commerce successful.

Set Clear Goals and Keep Exploring Channels

JN: From a content commerce perspective, begin by establishing specific goals what you are trying to achieve and try to break those down. Most likely, [the focus] is sales for businesses, but customer acquisition is very important and it can be a subset of other goals. The next step is asking, how can I reach that? What is the expectation of my audience? Then, you can highlight opportunities in [...] different types of platforms.

From here, [you must] keep exploring because you will always have limited opportunities when you work with tech-giants. However, if you connect with a specific media group, you can tap into their audience and build something together thats very unique. In truly knowing who the audience is, you can align around the goals you have set.

KB: For me, its the peer aspect thats really huge. Anthropologist Grant McCracken said more than a decade ago that brands are behaving as networks of the unacquainted. Brands should consider all the places where they can bring together that network of the unacquainted and create content, or opportunities and ways of bringing those kinds of people together, creating the learnings and feedback you can garner from the content youre producing.

The Metaverse Opportunity

JN: If we think about e-commerce now, theres limitations. Its very two-dimensional from a certain [aspect]. Thats why physical retail still excites us with tactility touching and smelling. We are simply not there yet with e-commerce. Live video is the starting point, everything being transformed to moving images makes it more three-dimensional but we need a deeper experience.

KB: [With] the potential of the metaverse, especially for luxury brands, things like Roblox and Animal Crossing have come to the [forefront] within the last year. Brands are [beginning] to explore more of that immersive content in these metaverse spaces. Even the Boomer generation have become big gamers in the last year, and are spending time in these virtual spaces. They are an audience to watch, on that front.

This is a sponsored feature paid for by Tipser as part of a BoF partnership.

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The Evolution of Commerce-Connected Content | Sponsored Feature | BoF - The Business of Fashion

Most people have spent the past year (more, in many cases) in various states of quarantine. During that period, we have learned how convenient ordering from our favorite restaurants can be. Given it only takes a few months to develop a habit, it is easy to see why digital sales for the restaurant industry are sustaining, even after the country emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic. In many ways, this global event will continue to change the restaurant industry forever across operations, real estate, human capital, technology, etc.

The most apparent evolution within the restaurant industry is the customer experience and how guests interact with the restaurant. The majority of these interactions now happen outside of the four walls. Having it your way now means allowing customers to order-ahead digitally for curbside pickup, delivery, drive-thru, takeout, or even order-ahead for dine-in. The last, ordering ahead for dine-in, is the latest trend which has even larger implications for real estate and floor plans.

When customers order-ahead even when they are planning on sitting down in a restaurant's dining area, it questions the value of a point-of-sale and a waiting line altogether. Much like Apple Stores re-invented the format for a retail environment, we will see the physical layout of restaurants dramatically change in the near future. Eliminating the counter and waiting line provides more effective use of space to accommodate guests that do prefer to dine in, while requiring less interior space overall.

We can certainly expect to see more digital-only restaurant formats like Chipotles Digital Kitchen, where 100 percentof orders happen on mobile apps or websites. In the past year, many major restaurant chains (Shake Shack, Burger King, Panera Bread, etc.) have unveiled their store of the future concepts, all of which have less and repurposed dining areas, and more attention for off-premise handoff modes like drive-thru and curbside pickup. In the case of Wingstop, where digital ordering has reached 63.3 percentof sales according to their latest quarterly earnings report and continues to climb.

An underlying effect of this shift to digital order, which cannot be understated in its importance, is a new wealth of first-party customer data. The restaurant industry has never seen or leveraged so much information about their visitors before, which is paving the way too much more sophisticated digital marketing practices. In an industry that has always relied on traditional advertising and mass media communications, the ability to capture and action upon real-time customer data is allowing marketers to edge closer into the world of personalization. Digital marketing tactics like triggered CRM campaigns that leverage first-party data, A/B testing, multi-touch attribution, etc., all of which have been employed by other industries (retail, travel, finserve, etc.) for years are now being added to the arsenal of restaurant marketing teams. As a result, many brands in the restaurant industry are quickly bringing in talent from outside the industry to help advance their digital marketing capabilities.

Meeting and exceeding customers expectations across convenience, contactless, and value will require more reliance on technology. However, it is up to the brands themselves to find ways to make a more meaningful connection even in a virtual world that will win the hearts and minds of their customers. Despite the explosive growth of digital, brand marketing and creativity will be more important than ever.

SHIFT TOWARD CURBSIDE PICKUP & FIRST-PARTY DELIVERY

While in-store pickup orders are down, curbside pickup is seeing over a 50 percentlift when comparing the latter half of February with the first half of March. Restaurant brands are already starting to adapt to support this shift by operationally facilitating curbside pickup in stores. Additionally, brands that have their own delivery are seeing an uptick, while those relying on third-party are seeing a drop.

Convenience and safety are primary decision criteria when selecting handoff mode.In general, convenience was the primary motivator across all handoff modes, followed by safety.For those who identified Delivery as their preferred handoff mode, only 11 percent were motivated by free delivery, as convenience and safety were still theprimary decision criteria.

Source: Hathway Consumer Insights Survey | March 21

As the CMO and co-founder of Hathway, Kevin Rice uses his entrepreneurial spirit and drive to understand the digital landscape across the retail, restaurant and CPG industries. This skill allows him to solve real business problems for the large brands Hathway partners with while also helping him accelerate the company's growth. Kevin has been published in CMO.com and Chief Marketer and speaks around the country at digital marketing conferences.

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The Industry's Digital Evolution is Here to Stay - QSR magazine

BREA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ViewSonic Corp., a leading global provider of visual solutions, introduces the expansion of tools in the myViewBoard software suite that assists in the transition of the digital classroom. As one of the fastest growing EdTech solutions in digital learning, the myViewBoard software suite continues to lead the market with educator-centric management features that transform remote and hybrid learning.

The ViewSonic myViewBoard software is a powerful tool that empowers teachers to build lesson plans, create engaging content and share lessons with students. myViewBoard allows real-time wireless collaboration, screen mirroring/sharing, and digital whiteboarding. It works with Windows-, Android- and cloud-based environments, and can work with existing technology for seamless integration. A part of the ViewSonic myViewBoard education ecosystem, myViewBoard Manager Advanced, myViewBoard Clips and myViewBoard Classroom 3.0 let you do everything from managing multiple devices, creating engaging content to video-assisted learning and so much more.

The myViewBoard ecosystem was developed by teachers for teachers and is an open and agnostic platform, said Sean Liu, business line manager, software at ViewSonic America. The latest updates to myViewBoard Manager, myViewBoard Clips and myViewBoard Classroom were developed to not only be supplementary tools for digitalized learning but help make collaboration easier to manage in this new remote/hybrid learning environment, for both educators and IT administrators. ViewSonic is constantly updating and optimizing all the tools with feedback from educators to ensure that the software evolves to match the needs of changing learning environments.

myViewBoard Manager Advanced

myViewBoard Manager Advanced is a centralized hub which allows IT administrators to have full control to manage and operate any ViewSonic panels deployed at any location as well as broadcast multimedia messages to those display panels from anywhere and is available to myViewBoard entity users. Designed with built-in enterprise-grade security with AES encryption, the cloud-based myViewBoard Manager provides a secure device management platform to IT no matter where they are. myViewBoard Manager Advanced is a premium version that features more cloud storage, broadcast of multimedia messages, as well as a report for device usage. Updates to myViewBoard Manager Advanced include automating tasks with a job scheduler through the central control board, and metrics and insight for the network of devices.

myViewBoard Clips

The content from myViewBoard Clips is educationally curated, fit for common core standards, and can be sorted based on age level and subject matter. Every video is selected from a library of more than 150 media partners, including: TED Talks, PBS NewsHour, The Economist, and Dow Jones as well as teachers favorites such as Crash Course, Minute Earth and LearnZillion. With the myViewBoard Clips, educators can access more than two million licensed educational videos and share with students learning at home. Access to these videos allows educators and teachers to create interactive and engaging content. Enhanced features allow teachers to create quizzes and can view student responses from in-class or at-home activities with the click of a button.

myViewBoard Classroom 3.0

With the latest iteration of myViewBoard Classroom Software, ViewSonic continues to digitally optimize the learning experience. myViewBoard Classroom is a hybrid teaching software tool packed with a variety of features to help teachers easily create a classroom environment in the digital space. The integrated hardware and software solution is integral to creating immersive, next-generation digital classrooms. It allows teachers to engage students with content they already have, and students, both in-person and remote, can engage with a collaborative digital whiteboard. Teachers can assign students to work in breakout groups using the huddle features or allow them to work individually. With a comprehensive dashboard, teachers can monitor and manage their class and check that their students are on task.

For further news and information about ViewSonic, visit ViewSonic.com and follow on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

About ViewSonic

Founded in California, ViewSonic is a leading global provider of visual solution products and conducts business in more than 100 countries worldwide. As an innovator and visionary, ViewSonic is committed to providing comprehensive hardware and software solutions that include monitors, projectors, digital signage, ViewBoard interactive displays, and the myViewBoard software ecosystem. With more than 30 years of expertise in visual displays, ViewSonic has established a strong position for delivering innovative and reliable solutions for education, enterprise, consumer, and professional markets, and helping customers See the Difference. To find out more about ViewSonic, please visit http://www.viewsonic.com.

*Program, pricing, specifications, and availability are subject to change without notice.

This news release contains forward-looking statements that reflect the Companys expectations with regard to future events. Actual events could differ significantly from those anticipated in this document. Program, pricing, specifications, and availability are subject to change without notice. ViewSonic and the ViewSonic trademarks are trademarks or registered trademarks of ViewSonic Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other corporate names and trademarks stated herein are the property of their respective companies.

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ViewSonic myViewBoard Suite Leads Evolution of Learning Environments With Expanded Tools for Collaborative Classroom Transitions - Business Wire

Mary Ann Greenwood founded a pioneering woman-owned business in Fayetteville in 1982 when she started M.A. Greenwood & Associates, a registered investment adviser (RIA). As a woman in a male-dominated industry, especially in a rural market, Greenwood was ahead of her time.

Nearly 40 years later, the regions oldest locally owned independent wealth management firm now known as Greenwood Gearhart Inc. is one of the states largest independent investment advisory firms, with roughly $700 million in client-managed assets and 650 clients in 33 states.

In a recent interview, president and CEO Brock Gearhart said the firms services exhibit a more modernized vision of what a financial adviser can be versus the type of adviser the previous generation had.

Were not your grandpas advisers, he joked.

Through a team-based, holistic approach, Greenwood Gearhart advises ultra-wealthy families in various areas, including investments, philanthropy, real estate and estate planning from locations in Fayetteville and a new office that opened earlier this year in Rogers Pinnacle Hills area.

Northwest Arkansas is on the map more as a region, Gearhart said. More people are moving here who have seen services provided in other markets that have a higher level of sophistication. So the demand for what they need is related to the wealth they have accumulated, but what they have seen in other markets is more and more sophisticated.

In many ways, Greenwood Gearharts evolution mirrors the regions, which no one would refer to as a rural market its growing up.

Gearhart believes the firm is positioned to call itself whats known in the industry as a multifamily office, a model that handles most traditional family office functions in terms of a suite of services.

While there is no universally accepted definition, Gearhart said a multifamily office could generally be described as an entity that supports the complex financial needs of a specific family and act as their chief adviser. In addition, they typically provide personalized services, technical expertise, creative business leadership and day-to-day management of financial affairs.

He said Greenwood Gearhart has hired the people to actually deliver all the services inside the firm without outsourcing. A lot of RIAs outsource services and try to coordinate them, which makes it challenging to deliver a consistent value proposition for clients.

Gearhart said the firm has also created a repository of online content and activities including videos and presentations that advisers can use in their work with families.

We believe we are the only true multifamily office in the region, Gearhart said. Our culture of every client is a client of the firm and not an individual adviser is something that has existed since 1982 and is a big competitive advantage of ours. Mary Ann structured the firm that way. She deserves a lot of the credit, and I think thats why we are at a pretty good jumping-off point.

The platform were building is off what Mary Ann put in place. That would not have happened if she didnt structure the firm the way she did. So we owe a great deal of gratitude to her, and I do personally.

SUCCESSFUL SUCCESSIONGreenwood retired in 2015, the culmination of a years-long succession plan to transfer the firms ownership to Gearhart. A Fayetteville native, Gearhart previously worked in New York Citys financial services sector before returning home in 2008 to work for Greenwood, whom hed known for years. He became a partner about a year later and president and CEO in 2013.

The firm never formally announced an ownership change and Greenwoods retirement. Gearhart said that was by design.

We call it the country doctor approach, he said. Mary Ann has built up tremendous trust over decades with some of our clients, and we didnt lose a single client through that transition. It was very deliberate.

We were public about it with our client base, and they knew what was going on. But [we] chose not to be overt about it externally. We felt that was the right thing for our clients. If they wanted to draw on Mary Ann for guidance, they could still do that. It didnt feel disruptive, and I think that was most important to us.

Greenwood still lives in Fayetteville with her husband, University of Arkansas Dean Emeritus Reed Greenwood. In a recent interview, she said Gearhart shared her company culture and investment philosophy, making him an ideal fit as a potential successor.

That [shared philosophy] made it possible, but Brock also had the same interests in building the firm, she said. You have to have someone willing to seek clients and talk with them. Running an investment management firm is more than just doing the investment analysis. Its a combination of developing the client and looking at the economic environment, the security analysis, and the portfolio management that fits each clients particular needs. Brock had an affinity for that that made it a really neat fit.

The more we talked, the more we knew that was what we wanted to do. So when Brock decided to come back from New York, it was kismet that put us together, I think. It was like minds that had a goal, and they coincided. Our clients have always been clients to the firm and not individual clients. It gives the client the best possible service, I think. And I think Brock agrees with that.

BIG-CITY EXPERIENCEAs an effective leader would, Gearhart credits employees for fostering the firms culture.

Weve got an outstanding team, he said.

Greenwood Gearhart has 13 employees, a consistent number even as the companys financial size has grown nearly four times since 2008.

Two critical leadership team members are Lisa Brown, the chief operating officer, and Johann Komander, the managing director of investment management. Like Gearhart, they are examples of native Arkansans who previously worked in larger markets before returning to the state to work at Greenwood Gearhart.

A Greenwood native, Komander went to college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and moved to Fayetteville in 2018. Before that, he spent nearly a decade working on Wall Street for Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs.

I would put my experience [at Greenwood Gearhart] on the same level of the people and culture I worked with while in New York, he said, with the added benefit of being in a market that is more community-oriented. In my mind, we have created the caliber of experience for people moving here from other markets or certain types of high net-worth individuals in the region are going to expect over time. Im very proud of that, and its a big reason why I decided to join this firm.

A Fort Smith native and UA graduate, Brown spent several years working for Houston Financial, an office of Northwestern Mutual based in Oklahoma City. Greenwood Gearhart hired her five years ago, and shes been promoted twice.

We have the expertise with our team, but we also have the depth of relationships with our clients that surpasses anything Ive experienced, Brown said. Its a real luxury.

Greenwood is one of the states most nationally connected business leaders, and economic development has been a significant interest of hers for years. She is a past chairwoman of the Arkansas Economic Development Commission and earned three degrees from the UA, including a Ph.D. in economics and finance. In addition, she remains involved with various cultural activities in Northwest Arkansas, including Symphony of Northwest Arkansas, Walton Arts Center and TheatreSquared.

She said retaining the states best and brightest reversing the brain drain is essential to Arkansass long-term health. Northwest Arkansas investments in quality-of-life amenities play a significant role in that endeavor.

We have a place to live that is quite desirable, and that is part of the story of [Greenwood Gearharts] success, she said. Not only is it a great place to live, but you can get professional services that are as good or superior to what you can get elsewhere.

FIRST GC HIREDKatie Eaves, who has practiced law since 2014, joined Greenwood Gearhart in April as the firms first general counsel.

Greenwood Gearhart has broadly expanded our wealth management services by bringing in a myriad of subject matter experts in fields varying from investment management to estate planning, Gearhart said. Katie Eaves is an incredibly talented attorney, and we are very fortunate to have brought her on board to enhance the services we can provide our clientele.

A Fayetteville native, Eaves most recently worked in the Rogers office of Friday, Eldredge & Clark. She joined the firm in 2017 as an associate in the trust and estate planning practice group and was elected partner earlier this year. She focused her practice in estate planning, trust and estate administration, probate matters, estate and gift taxation and formation, and planning for exempt organizations.

Eaves received a masters degree in taxation from the University of Florida, a law degree from the University of Arkansas School of Law and an undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas. She is a past president of the Benton County Bar Association.

Ive had the privilege of working alongside many of the people at Greenwood Gearhart while in private practice, Eaves said. I am excited with this new opportunity to join their team and provide additional services that complement their overall comprehensive wealth management services.

Gearhart said one of Eaves initial responsibilities at the firm is exploring forming a trust company.

Thats in the early stages, he said. Its something thats needed in our market and something that Katie is uniquely qualified to do.

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One For All: Greenwood Gearhart's evolution as a multifamily office reflects a region that's growing up - talkbusiness.net

HPEs Paul Meehan discusses the evolution of the cloud and what it means for the future of cloud infrastructure.

Todays IT landscape comprises a vast ecosystem of cloud and open-source software solutions. Weve taken a closer look at the cloud landscape, including how much the market has grown over the last year and what some of the major trends are within the cloud space.

But what is the most important aspect of the cloud that businesses need to focus on? IT veteran Paul Meehan is the hybrid cloud advisory lead for Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in Ireland with more than 25 years experience in IT and seven years experience specifically in cloud.

He told Siliconrepublic.com that governance and control are key to achieving success. The beauty of public cloud is how easy it is to start using it and how many challenges it can solve, he said.

However, the checks and balances that applied to traditional applications in your data centres were not always enforced against public cloud, and things unravelled quickly from a cost and control perspective for many IT departments.

He said its important to apply the right governance model whether you are working in the public cloud, the private cloud or a hybrid model. If you are not sure where to start, engage a partner you trust and they can help you on that journey, but I firmly believe it is paramount that you carry out due diligence first or it will cost a lot more in the long run.

Meehan said in early days of cloud adoption, shadow IT drove consumption of cloud services. This was when IT systems were deployed by departments other than the central IT department, sometimes to work around shortcomings or increase efficiency.

Over time, however, companies shifted to software-as-a-service, or SaaS models, and in the last year in particular, the accelerated digital transformation for many businesses has led to the exploration of public cloud services and hybrid models.

The first wave of cloud also proved expensive for applications with certain profiles. There is broad consensus that it doesnt make sense to run everything in the cloud, so I dont believe cost reduction should be the key factor in deciding whether to move workloads to the cloud, but it can certainly be important in deciding not to move applications, said Meehan.

The evolution of cloud also includes wider projects such as the European initiative Gaia-X, which aims to build a federated European cloud infrastructure that guarantees data sovereignty for European customers and adheres to an agreed set of rules and policies around flow of data.

Additionally, Meehan noted the growth of the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF), which serves as the vendor-neutral home for many open-source projects, including Kubernetes, Prometheus, and Envoy.

The CNCF is driving innovation on a scale I have never seen before, said Meehan. I believe it will still take a few years for containers to become the dominant technology, as it takes time for applications to be re-written to run in container form. This is one disconnect I see where container technology is ready for prime time, but the time to modernise will take companies a lot longer.

Last year, HPE announced HPE Greenlake, a new cloud experience for its European market, with data centre solutions company Interxion Ireland. Earlier this year, the company announced a newhybrid cloud practicewould be established at its Leixlip base in Kildare to help Irish customers with their digital transformation goals.

HPE is investing heavily in Ireland, and the launch of the hybrid cloud practice here aligns with hybrid being the direction of travel for most customers, said Meehan. The practice will support offerings HPE brought to the market over the last two or three years, especially new solutions within our Greenlake portfolio.

Additionally, HPEs CEO Antonio Neri previously stated that every HPE offering will be available as a service by 2022.

In the next three years HPE will be a consumption-driven company and everythingdelivered to you will be delivered as a service, Neri said at a company conference in 2019. You choose what you want, where you want it, and only pay for what you consume.

Meehan said this means moving everything to a SaaS model to mirror the simplicity of cloud administration and [we] are applying this to all our offerings, not just Greenlake.

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What does the future hold for the evolution of the cloud? - Siliconrepublic.com