Weekend In Tech Trends

Tech Trends- Nov 28-29

Cards Against Humanity is the winner of Black Friday, smart tattoos, Instagram’s new feature, and more in this week’s Weekend in Tech Trends.

Tech Trends 1) Cards Against Humanity redefines Black Friday Shopping

Black Friday, a day where businesses push their margins to bring the masses through the doors. At least that’s the story for most businesses. Cards Against Humanity decided to take a different approach. Instead of offering customers an unbeatable deal through their online store, they decided that they wouldn’t sell them the beloved card game. Instead, customers could purchase nothing for $5. That’s right, nothing.
The amazing part is that it worked. Cards Against Humanity brought in a total amount of $71,145. With a total of 11,248 people purchasing, which has some people purchasing more than once. While Cards Against Humanity is known for charitable giving, this time they decided to keep the money and give it to their employees. Check out how the employees spent it here. At the end of the day, Cards Against Humanity pushed the highest margins any business has ever seen on Black Friday.

Tech Trends 2) Google Glass patent gives insight on new design

While patents are typically only useful for speculation, Google’s new patent may give us insight as to what the new Google Glass could look like. According to the patent’s design, the new Google Glass will look more like Google Monocle.
The patent reads:
The band is adjustable such that it can be configured by a user to contact the head of the user at a first location near a temple, a second location along a portion of the user’s ear adjacent the temple, and at a third location along a rear position of the head of the user.
Once it is configured it should retain its design. It is unclear as to what the future holds for Google Glass but we do know it holds something. So keep an eye on Google as insights continue to surface.

Tech Trends 3) Tech Tat gives new meaning to the term “wearable”

New wearables are hitting the market every single day. Fitness trackers being the most popular. With the each one not being much different than the next, one company wants to change things up. A team called Chaotic Moon wants to turn your fitness tracker wearable into a tattoo.
The Tech Tat is made using electro conductive paint and could be used to monitor a person’s heart rate, pulse and body temperature. Chaotic Moon would also like to see the Tech Tat replace the need for a yearly physical. By tracking the information that the doctor would normally test, the Tech Tat can then keep your doctor updated so that an appointment would only be necessary if something was unusual.
But why stop there?
The Tech Tat also wants to replace your wallet as well. Chaotic Moon says that the Tech Tat can store your credit card information safely and can be pulled up per request. No specifics on how this may work so we can only speculate for now. Regardless, the Tech Tat is making a hard attempt at redefining the wearable industry.
Since being acquired by marketing firm Accenture, no one is sure whether this is just an interesting prototype or a viable consumer product. The company does say that the Tech Tat is a real working mechanism.
“The Tech Tat is an actual working prototype,” Ben Lamm, Chaotic Moon’s CEO, told Mashable. “We are continuing to develop this both conceptually and physically. And we’re making interesting new discovers and applications every week.”
Check out the video below-

Source: Mashable

Tech Trends 4) Instagram rolling out multiple accounts beta

After being extremely slow and far behind, Instagram is finally going to adapt a multiple accounts feature and is rolling out the beta as you read this. Right now the only way to switch between your personal account and whatever other promotional account you may have, is to fully sign out. Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all have a feature that allows users to switch between business and personal accounts. It’s about time that Instagram jumped aboard. The bummer is that the beta is only available for Android users at the moment. So if you’re on Android, give Instagram an update and check your settings to use the multiple accounts feature.

Source: TheVerge