Hotel companies love to brag about providing local experiences for their guests, but few actually live up to their billing. The Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, one of Ireland’s top hotels created a job to literally help visitors find their place in the destination’s history: a genealogy butler. Hotels have bath butlers, beachside butlers and beagle...
In a bid to reduce waste and be more green, the French government is requiring bottles made from recycled plastic to be cheaper than those made from new plastic. Specifically, this movement hopes to reduce the price by up to 10 percent. Depending on what you’re buying to begin with, this could be a significant discount. Either way, it’s clearly...
If you live in Seattle and want to pick up a quick snack without having to wait in a checkout line, you’ve now got two options for where you can do so, as Amazon officially opened its second cashier-less convenience store. To begin a shopping experience at an Amazon Go location, a customer must first download the Amazon Go app and swipe it upon...
If you live in certain neighborhoods in San Jose, California, you can now get some of your groceries delivered by a self-driving car. Bright green cars from the self-driving startup AutoX–with a backup driver inside–will pull up with your order in the trunk. In the backseat, the window rolls down to offer a shelf of extra food to buy. “Last...
What comes after physical-tracking wearables? Emotion-trackers, of course. There are several on the market and coming down the pike, including Upmood, launched via Kickstarter with the aim of raising just over £25,000. Upmood uses an algorithm that turns biometric data into analytics through a Bluetooth connection to the app to let you know of...
Back in April, Pernod Ricard announced plans to collaborate with edible plastics company Loliware to produce the “straw of the future”. The firm produces a plastic cup made from edible materials derived from seaweed and has just launched a drinking straw made from the same hyper-compostable matter. A number of firms within the industry like...
Many people would love to own high-quality, built-to-last furniture. But modern life, where people often rent accommodation for their whole lives, and move often, makes it difficult to own long-term ‘investment’ pieces. This type of furniture is also very expensive. Instead, people often buy cheap ‘disposable’ furniture, which often ends up in...
The Norwegian fertilizer giant Yara on Wednesday signed off on the world’s first electric and self-propelled container ship — the so-called Tesla of the seas — in a landmark in the development of autonomous shipping. The vessel, a collaboration between Yara, the engineering company Kongsberg, and Vard, has received some 133.6m NOK from the...
A university in Colorado has launched the world’s first space resources program. Just like Earth, asteroids are laced with valuable raw materials, everything from gold and silver to cobalt and titanium. According to the school’s website, the goal of the program is to prepare today’s scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, economists, and policy...
Amazon is field testing 30-minute pickups from Whole Foods, all without leaving your car. The retail behemoth has begun testing the service starting in Sacramento, California and Virginia Beach, Virginia, with more cities to come throughout 2018. Naturally, you have to be a member of Amazon Prime and order via the Prime app and place orders via...