73 – Vending Machines

Japan is known for various things Tea ceremonies, Sushi, Mount Fuji, Onsen (A Japanese hot spring), and Vending machines. There are more than 4 million vending machines are in Japan. You can find a vending machine on every corner of the street or at train stations. A vending machine is an essential part of Japanese peoples.

There is a vending machine for everything Breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, coffee, clothes, and underwear, yes you read it right, you name it they have it, as bizarre as it can get. Vending machines were invented in 1883 by Percival Everitt and as time passed it has spread all over the world.

There can be many reasons why Japan and the Japanese people are so obsessed with vending machines-

Long working hours – Japanese people are known for working long hours, they work overtime, and they don’t like to interact much with other humans so instead of going to a convenience store and buying something while standing in a queue they prefer vending machines.
Less Vandalism – Japan is one of the safest countries with a low crime rate, so a chance of a vending machine getting vandalized or robbed it very slim.
Cash driven economy – While every other country is implementing or pushing a cashless environment, Japan is still a cash-oriented society, and as most of the vending machines accept coins, you must have to insert one to get whatever you want.

72 – The Spectacles

Gone are the days when people used to buy glasses or sunglasses just because an optician recommended it, it wasn’t a style statement. Sunglasses are invented around the 1200s in Italy, in the 20th-century Sunglasses became eyewear, a fashion style, I remember when people talk about the trends of Sunglasses they never forget to mention Tom Cruises’ movie Top Gun, Ray-Ban sunglasses became a huge hit after the movie top gun.

Ray-Ban is one of the most popular sunglasses brands in the world founded in the year 1937. A lot of people don’t know that Luxottica which is an Italian conglomerate owns more than 60% of the Eyewear industry, apart from Ray-Ban Luxottica designed sunglasses for all the top brands like Chanel, Gucci, Burberry, Versace.

Lenscrafters which is an Ohio based company which sells prescription sunglasses ran into a feud with Luxottica over price issue, in response to that Luxottica kicked off all the Lenscrafters products from all of their prominent shops and Lenscrafters shares fall within a day and they had no option but to obey the giant Luxottica offer, which ended up as Luxottica acquiring LensCrafters, this speaks the volume of the company and how it enjoys the monopoly.

There will be no competition if you acquire the competition.

71 – How 2020 Unfolds

The new year begins with lots of new hopes, but things stumbled quickly, let’s talk about how the first week of the year 2020 started:

USA VS IRAN

America is back in the news again as tension escalated between the USA and Iran as the American president Donald Trump ordered to eliminate General Qasem Soleiman and the US military eliminated him by an airstrike on the 3rd of January. General Qasem Soleimani ranked as the second most powerful person in Iran, he was the top military commander of Iran, thousands of Iranians attended the funeral raising slogans against Donald Trump and the USA. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who is the supreme leader of Iran warns American President, saying “severe revenge awaits the criminals”. Donald Trump responded with a tweet saying, “If they attack again … we will hit them harder than they have ever been hit before!” experts predict things will go downhill as Iran might hit back.

Australia Fire

Australia is facing a huge wildlife crisis which is known as bush fires, according to the news because of the wildfire hundreds of houses are completely burnt and 23 people died. Wild animals affected the worst, thousands of animals are fatally injured or died. People are sharing heart-wrenching pictures and stories and appealing everyone on social media platforms to pray for the animals. Koalas, which are Australia’s native animal were largely affected by this because they are slow-moving animals and they were unable to run through the fire to save their life.

70 – Mentors

A mentor is someone who sees more talent and ability within you, than you see in yourself, and helps bring it out of you.” — Bob Proctor

I met a person, a long time ago who told me, you need to have a mentor in life. I wondered why and how a mentor can change the life of a person. Then started reading and get to know the stories of the people whose lives have been changed when they found a mentor.

I was reading about Masayoshi Son, CEO of Softbank and I get to know, with the help of a mentor he reached the path of success. Tadashi Sasaki who was also known as “Rocket Sasaki” was a Japanese engineer, worked as a vice president for Sharp Electronics.
In 1978 when Masayoshi developed an electronic translator and looking for an investor who can back him, Tadashi Sasaki supported and helped him.

M.S Dhoni

The world best finisher, who won us World Cup, T20 World Cup, Champions trophy but not many of us know that M.S Dhoni was a footballer he was a goalkeeper but things changed when his mentor saw his skills and asked him to try wicketkeeping and look where he reached now world best wicket-keeper who amazed the whole cricketing world with his unorthodox wicketkeeping skills and now he is mentoring Indian and CSK for IPL.

And Under a lot of players have worldwide gain recognition, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Rohit Sharma, Dipak Chahar.

69 – Throwback Thursday – 90’s Video Games.

Thank You, Mario, But Our Princess Is in Another Castle, the most heartbreaking lines which we heard back in our childhood and it still makes us so irritated.

Games and Gaming industry has been changing a lot lately, graphics, character, story, theme but still we are attached to the games which we played back in those, let’s talk about a few of them

Mario – Most of the 90s kids bought video games just to play super Mario bros which were launched in the year 1985, Quest to find her princess by competing with dragons and enemies, few powers on the way Mario consumes to throw fireballs or to run at supersonic speed Mario cross 7 levels to save her princess.

Contra – One of the most beloved action game, a lot of different guns various levels and a game which you can play with your friend makes it’s more amazing as those days we don’t have a lot of multiplayer games

Olympics – Many of us get to know about different Olympic games and their rules as we played the game which comprises 100 and 500-meter dash race, hurdles, long jump, shooting.

68 – Odd-Even and Delhi

Metro cities of India are facing severe pollution menaces. According to the World Health Organization report, New Delhi is the most polluted city in India. Every year between November to January, the pollution level and air quality index of the capital soars to hazardous levels.

Delhiites experience a tough time breathing because of smog and pollution. People and children are face health and breathing issues because of that. They need to wear masks before going out. Masks, which are costly and unaffordable for lower-middle-class.

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal tweeted on1st of November “Delhi is turned in to a Gas chamber.” The main reason behind the deteriorating air quality of Delhi is stubble burning, which is done by Haryana and Punjab’s farmers even when the government already introduced various policies to restrain this activity of farmers but nothing seems to work out since every year capital goes through the same issue and citizens suffer.

The government is looking for a robust plan to stop this menace. The Delhi government implemented the odd-even scheme for three months but didn’t continue with the plan. “Under the scheme, only vehicles with even or odd registration numbers will be allowed on roads,” which was suggested by CM of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal himself. This year the odd-even plan is set to return for the third time as the pollution levels increase. State transport suggested giving exemptions to women drivers and two-wheelers.

China, in 2008 started the same scheme in Beijing aimed to reduce traffic and smog pollution. The policy helped to reduce car emissions, around 40% less vehicle emission was reported. According to a third-party test.

I suggest every city should follow this policy, without effective policies and measures. What Delhi is facing, every city of India will encounter the same situation.

67 – Double 11 – Biggest Shopping Event of the World

An analysis published in December by The Nielsen Co. found that 39% of Chinese consumers are willing to “buy products of better quality with relatively more soaring prices. “On the other hand, 24% of consumers in China will seek good deals on the products they want.

Double 11 is started in China, in 1993 known as “Single’s day” or ‘Anti Valentine Day’ in recent years it becomes a global festival day were consumers shop 24-7. Citizens of China give importance to domestic consumption. Alibaba group holding, which is the largest retailer in the world piggyback this event as every year the shopping event breaks previous year sales record.

According to the reports – In 2018 GMV which is the gross merchandising value, it surpassed over $30.8 billion in sales within 24 hours smashing previous year record of $25.4 billion.

Employment is generated through this event as delivery companies hired 40,0000 extra staff to deploy for delivering parcels.

As it turned out as a National shopping festival apart from Alibaba other e-commerce players like JD.com, look forward to leveraging this opportunity. China is the world’s largest e-commerce market; economic growth is booming and with the help of innovation and technology e-commerce sector is growing rapidly.

In India, the e-commerce market is exponentially expanding companies like Amazon and Walmart backed FlipKart facing revenue losses still keen to invest money to lure Indian consumers. Just like Double 11, in India Amazon and FlipKart started similar sale festivals like ‘Big billion Day’ and ‘The great Indian shopping festival’.

66 – Future of Work

The next industrial revolution has begun – Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data. These are words you might be hearing more frequently than ever today. Scientists, policymakers, entrepreneurs are debating how all of these will transform the future of work.

Over 3.5 million people work in the fast-food industry, it is one of the easiest industries to land a job in, experts predicted, the fast-food industry will be affected the most because of AI. In the US and UK, you no longer have to place your order in your favorite restaurant when you are visiting it multiple times, with the help of facial recognition computer will automatically detect your past food order pattern, it will place the order and deduct the amount by locking just using facial identity which is easy, fast and reliable.

Amazon organizes various robotics technological fests and competitions where students design robots to single out a product, grab it and place it on a particular place and the best design is been awarded and then selected to use it for their logistics and product placing department at Amazon.

In a recent piece of news, 18-time world champion, the master of “GO” game, which is an ancient and most popular Chinese game, has decided to retire, as he was unable to beat the google algorithm, he claimed that “AI can’t be defeated.”

65 – Bringing Extended Reality to Consumer Goods IV

Machine learning, big giants are already started taking the help of machine learning to increase productivity and decrease the load of work, it’s a fast-growing sector in tech.

“Deloitte Research explains that augmented reality and artificial intelligence will transform the traditional healthcare business model offering AR/MR-enabled hands-free solutions and AI-based diagnostic tools.”

There are pros as well as some cons with it:

Costly – VR and AR headsets are expensive, not everyone can afford and experience it. The future seems to be different as mobile phones are delivering AR and prices will be affordable.

Privacy – Data breach is still going on various social media sites, Extended reality is more prone to data breach and hacking, mostly it carries personal information, the user will be in a dicey situation.

Social Engagement – Facebook, WhatsApp, Snapchat already destroyed the childhood of children they are always online busy in their cell phones, away from physical activities. Extended reality will provide various fun and amusement option for a consumer, which will make them dull.

64 – Bringing Extended Reality to Consumer Goods III

The real-estate sector where most of the time buyers get duped because of false advertisements and brokers, consumers can get a 360-degree walkthrough experience of the place and see the place as well as the surrounding area and decide, they want to lease or purchase the property.

Brands developing extended reality friendly apps. Apps like Snapchat and Instagram already into the game to engage users more into the app.

Most of the companies utilizing it as a marketing tactic, Lipton tea in the ad used a 360-degree view concept to explain to consumers about the brewing process. Carmaker companies like BMW, Mercedes providing 360-degree video driving experience. Hotels luring tourists to give them the inside look and feel of the room and ambiance. Through apps, tourists can tour properties, reserve room and everything on their smartphone. Rolex which is a renowned watch brand has an app that allows you to try watches on your wrist, Spects selling websites are also let you try your favorite frame which suits your face cut.

Training – It can help in critical situations and it will be most beneficial for Pilots, Soldiers, Healthcare service providers which will be immensely useful for them and they can respond in real-time. Example – Soldiers usually posted at the borders ensuring the safety of citizens sometimes suffers from casualties need medical support, XR can be of tremendous help.