It’s widely accepted that access to and analysis of data drives better outcomes across an operation. The problem faced by USAopoly, a Southern California-based specialty game maker also known as The Op Games, was determining the most time- and cost-efficient ways to collect that data and how much time data collection should monopolize.
As we sweat through a record-hot summer, room air conditioners are not only desired but a potential lifesaver. Unfortunately, even the quietest window AC unit can fill a room with a loud continuous hum on the level of an airplane engine, making the cooling cure nearly as bad as the sweltering disease.
The Midea U 8,000 BTU window AC ($399), however, thanks to a radically different U-shaped design, blows cold air in a whisper, and is, by far, the quietest window AC I’ve ever owned.
Your store is stocked with the latest bleeding-edge technologies for sale. But how do your customers know how much each of those high-tech wonders costs? Likely via decidedly low-tech paper or plastic price tags.
It may be time to make your shelf labels as high-tech as the products for sale on your shelves.
Making consumer-centric decisions is table stakes for consumer goods companies today, which is why Heineken has stood up Knowledge & Insight Management (KIM) — its internally branded cloud-based knowledge and insights platform that’s designed to incorporate the best features of search engines, AI capabilities, and security for capturing and analyzing consumer data.
I join Super SmartTechCheck podcast host Mark Vena, John Quain and Rob Pegoraro to discuss AirBnB efforts to recruit more hosts, AI photo detection woes, the legacy of the original iPhone, and the consumer electronics slump.
How small is too small for a laptop computer? How big is too big? A laptop with a 15- to 16-inch display, measured diagonally, is the just-right size for many—the most convenient convergence of productivity versus portability.
A “feisty” SmartTechCheck podcast hosted by Mark Vena with myself and fellow tech journalists Rob Pegoraro, John Quain, and AppleDsgn’s Niels Van Straaten on the major themes coming out of Apple WWDC 23.
You’ve grudgingly admitted to yourself that you don’t hear as well as you once did. You find yourself turning up the TV volume to the annoyance of your roommate, spouse, or kids, and/or resorting to closed captioning. You find yourself asking people to repeat what they just said way too frequently. Concerts are still ear-stingingly loud, but you have a hard time making out individual instruments or the words the singers are singing. Conversations with wait staff in restaurants, sales or check-out people, train conductors, medical office personnel, or friends, family, or co-workers at social gatherings have become hard if not impossible to follow, with voices from the folks right in front of you drowned out by the mass of chattering and ambient sound around you.
There have been only around a dozen self-fitting over-the-counter hearing aids (OTC HA) introduced into the market since the new FDA OTC hearing aid regulationswent into effect last fall. These new self-fitting OTC HAs are designed to help compensate for the mild to moderate hearing loss suffered by an estimated 35-plus million people in the U.S. and to approximate the performance of prescription hearing aids you’d buy from an audiologist – but at a much lower cost. OTC HAs remove the audiologist middle person, which means instead of paying $4,000-$8,000 for prescription hearing aids, self-fitting OTC HAs sell for less than $3,000, usually between $400-$1,300, depending on make and model.