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Tapia will warm your heart with jokes and laughter after a long...  

Tapia will warm your heart with jokes and laughter after a long day at the office. She will also help keep you that much closer to loved ones who are miles away by taking photos of your happy times together. Additionally, Tapia gives you helpful updates on weather conditions when you are headed out, and can play music when asked to set the mood or help you relax. As a roommate, friend, and daily partner, this robot will stay faithfully by your side and evolve right along with you on life's journey.

 
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VYO SOCIAL ROBOT FOR THE SMART HOMEVyo is a personal assistant...  

VYO SOCIAL ROBOT FOR THE SMART HOME

Vyo is a personal assistant serving as a centralized interface for smart home devices. With both social robotics and smart homes on the brink of market feasibility, Vyo offers an alternative to the more common touch-screen and voice-control interfaces. Vyo's design is that of a peripheral robot, straddling the boundary between home appliance and social presence. Users interact with the device using physical icons and quiet gestures, promoting the domestic sense of home technology.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/4-10-july-2016/design-ind/  
Design industry performing well despite shrinking profit margins  

Design has performed favourably against other sectors in a new piece of research which looks at the state of the marketing and creative industries.

Accountant Kingston Smith's Marketing Monitor report which looks at the strength of all sectors from the last year finds that across the marketing services industries consultancies are “delicately poised”, as they enter post-Brexit economic uncertainty.

The general state of play for all sectors is that there have been modest increases in fee income, which are becoming increasingly overshadowed by worsening margins.

Despite this there were also broad trends showing that the industry had recovered from the financial crisis.

Top 30 design consultancies increase gross income

Branding and design is performing well according to the report, which finds that its “top 30” (unnamed) design consultancies generated an additional £13.5 million in gross income year-on-year compared to last year's report.

However the gross income wasn't turned into operating profit and therefore profit margins are down one percentage point to 10.3%.

Kingston Smith recommends that a well run design consultancy should be generating operating profits of at least 15% of fee income and ideally 20%. While 11 of the top 30 hit 15% only five were in excess of 20%.

Talent shortages

One metric for looking at the health of the health of a consultancy is by comparing employment costs and fee income.

The average ratio of employment cost to fee income is on the rise, creeping up by two percentage points to hit 61% this year. When freelancers are considered this figure is even higher.

Talent shortages are cited as a reason for driving up staff costs and the recommended target ratio of employment cost to fee income is 60%.

Independent's catch group owned

There are 17 independent consultancies in Kingston Smith's top 30. The profitability gap is closing between independent and group owned consultancies.

Operating profit margins are now 11% for group-owned consultancies and 10% for independents. This is four percentage points closer than last year.

Average fee income per head in the design sector has worsened and now stands just under the benchmark target of 100,000. This averages out from group-owned consultancies earning £108,000 per head and independents earning £94,000.

However the group-owned consultancies spend more on staff costs and overheads, which is why their profit margins are not much better in the end.

How to be more efficient

As design work is by it's nature project driven and freelancers are often brought in to manage peaks and troughs, getting the balance right between permanent and temporary staff is “absolutely vital to protect those slim margins” advises Kingston Smith.

Another tip it gives is to have someone to oversee capacity management and sign off additional resource.

Design consultancies need to regularly challenge whether they are using staff in the most efficient way and come up with “new and innovative ways of working” that keep up with client demands, finds Kingston Smith.

The report looked at key performance indicators across other sectors, revealing that PR had performed the best, advertising had not performed as well as the year before, while in digital gross income per head has increased although margins are being squeezed.

Meanwhile in marketing and sales productivity remains steady but spiraling operating costs have hit profit margin.

You can read the full report here.

The post Design industry performing well despite shrinking profit margins appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/4-10-july-2016/well-know-design-business/  
How well do you know your design business?  

I recently sat down with Jack O'Hern, partner at accountancy firm Wright Vigar and an accredited DBA Expert. The starting point of our discussion was personal finances for business owners not usually a subject we broach at the DBA with our focus on the success of “the business” rather than the individuals who own it. But Jack's message is clear: unless a business owner understands their personal needs and desires with regards to their business, then it will never truly be a success.

Although business and personal success are intertwined, when you boil it down, your business success can be judged on financial metrics, whereas for yourself you need a different set of metrics that don't focus so much on money, but instead focus on the quality of your life.

“A financial advisor for a business owner shouldn't look at the business first, they should look at the person,” says O'Hern. “The business should work for the person, not the other way round.”

The business owner (or owners) need to work out what they want from their business by answering three questions:

1. Why did you set up your business in the first place?
For design consultancy owners the words “independence” and “freedom” tend to feature heavily, both creatively and financially. Do you want double-digit growth every year, or do you just want to keep a roof over your head?

2. What do you want out of your business?
You should look at whether you are getting what you want out of the business both emotionally and financially. Does it give you security? A certain standard of living? Are you happy with what you do at work on a day-to-day basis; is it what you expected you would be doing when you set up the business?

3. What is the end game?
It's important to know what you want to leave behind and how you want to leave. Are you interested in leaving a creative legacy, a thriving business that you have passed on in some form? Do you want early retirement and a life on the golf course, or do you want the opportunity to never retire but not have to deal with the stress of running a business?

Without truthful answers to these personal questions by all owners of the business it is difficult to successfully manage the business itself. They all impact on the financial decisions taken within the company.

In O'Hern's experience, the most common reaction to these questions is a realisation that the owner's original intentions on setting up a business have become lost under the morass of actually running it. That's why you need to remember what you are trying to do and then, more importantly, do something about it. This could mean firing that awkward client, investing in a big hire by bringing someone in to run the business thereby freeing up your time, or scaling back to a more manageable size so you can remain in control.

Life can impact on your work in so many ways, especially as we get older. From coping with poorly parents to putting kids through university you need to make sure that work works for you, and that starts with financial management.

The post How well do you know your design business? appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/4-10-july-2016/aiga-get-vote-poster-campaign-looks-activate-u-s-voters/  
AIGA Get Out The Vote poster campaign looks to activate U.S. voters  

“These political posters should be looked at as tools,” says Laetitia Wolff, curator for Get Out The Vote. “Design has a real power to change behaviour.”

Get Out The Vote is the U.S. election poster campaign from the AIGA, North America's professional association for design. Through an online gallery, the campaign which happens every four years to coincide with a presidential election uses the power of design and illustration to “activate” the public and get them interested in American politics, says Wolff.

Non-partisan campaign

While the campaign hopes to encourage engagement, it also aims to be non-partisan, and so the posters do not advocate for either the Republicans or Democrats, but simply inspire people to use their vote.

“Voting demonstrates that you belong to a nation, not just a party,” says Wolff. “Though we would still love to see the likes of Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump use the posters as part of the campaigns.”

The AIGA's Get Out The Vote campaign was first launched in 2004, and looks to both high and low profile designers to create posters that can be included within its online gallery.

Milton Glaser and Paula Scher

The initiative receives submissions from the likes of Milton Glaser and Paula Scher, and a number of other designers, the only specification being that they need to be a member of the AIGA to submit a design. The AIGA has 26,000 members across the continent, spread across 70 different hubs in the U.S.

Exhibition spaces of curated work

Alongside an online gallery of all submissions, which at the moment totals around 150 for this year, there are also exhibitions held in conjunction with the Republican National Convention and the Democratic National Convention, which are both taking place later this month. An exhibition of select design works is also held at the AIGA Design Conference in Las Vegas in October.

While the online gallery includes all submissions, the exhibitions are more selective, including a curated selection of 45 posters to correlate with this year being the 45th presidential election from “design influencers” and a hand-picked selection of others.

Making “beautiful imagery” a political tool

Wolff says the campaign aims to make issues that affect everybody more “visible, legible and accessible”, through using “beautiful imagery” to interest and activate people into starting a conversation about politics.

“Good design makes choices clear,” says Wolff. “Designers have an important responsibility to use their work as a communication tool and to engage citizens including themselves.”

The campaign has also partnered with the League of Women Voters this year, a non-partisan organisation which aims to mobilise and educate the public, both male and female, about voting. Together, the organisations host events throughout the year to encourage more people to vote by engaging them with design.

Posters can be submitted until 8 November

All AIGA members can contribute posters through the Get Out The Vote submission form until 8 November, the date of the U.S. presidential election.

The organisation also encourages site viewers to download and share the posters, using hashtags #AIGAvote and #GetOutTheVote, with the hope of activating more voters.

These are some of the posters submitted so far this year:

The post AIGA Get Out The Vote poster campaign looks to activate U.S. voters appeared first on Design Week.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/11/london-mayor-sadiq-khan-blocks-extra-funds-garden-bridge  
London mayor Sadiq Khan blocks extra funds for garden bridge  

Further doubt cast on future of proposed bridge after preparatory work halted over fears about public funding

The future of London's proposed garden bridge has been called into further question after the city's new mayor, Sadiq Khan, halted preparatory work on the structure over fears this could involve more public money being spent.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2016/jul/11/steve-bells-if-dark-lord-osborne-bigs-up-the-space-pound  
Steve Bell's If ... Dark Lord Osborne bigs up the space pound  
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Why Partnership is Essential When Solving Global Challenges  


This article has been submitted as part of the Natural Capital Coalition's series of blogs on natural capital by Camilla Toulmin, British economist, former Director and senior fellow of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

While philosophers can create progress in their fields with nothing more than brain, pencil and paper, an objective understanding of complex natural and social systems necessitates more than can be achieved by any single person. What is needed to advance our knowledge and to refine our policy in this field, is collaboration, and partnership.

First, between disciplines, so that the different tools, ideas and perspectives of the social and natural sciences can be more broadly focused on practical problems, much in need of solutions.

Second, between scales, as our world is an inter-locking system; so much so that changes to the troposphere, 12 miles above the Earth's surface, rebound on the prospects of micro-organisms nestled deep in the soil.

Third, between different actors and agencies. While it's true that government sets the wider direction and policy framework, our resources are used and managed by people, individually and collectively - on farms, across hillsides, in the oceans, in fact, on most of the planet's surface.

And, lastly, over generations of thought. You cannot hope to understand a system today, or predict where it might be tomorrow, if you haven't understood where it has travelled from.

My own work neatly illustrates these points. I am currently re-surveying a small village in the Sahel, the place where I first embarked on my doctoral fieldwork 35 years ago. In my work, I combine many different methods and disciplines, and rely on support from people all over the world. Researchers generally like to exchange ideas and new evidence, building a culture of sharing spanning the globe. I rely on this in my own work, as it helps me analyse what can be seen from aerial photos, compare trends in rainfall and crop yields, and learn how similar communities elsewhere have taken their own development in hand.



I have to work at multiple scales, understanding not only how the environment changes people, but also how people change the environment. National decentralisation policy has led to shifts in who exercises power and decision-making locally, while global market forces have turned these wide open sandy plains into a commodity to be bought and sold. For us to succeed in supporting local development, we need this extensive multifaceted understanding, from which to offer partnership to local people.

Gaining a livelihood in these drought-prone regions is uncertain, but people have survived and prospered here for many generations. Local farmers talk knowledgeably about how they play-off risks; by sowing millet with different growing cycles, and diversifying into sesame, maize and groundnuts for instance. I am talking with them about how they see the future, and ways to build greater resilience into their natural resource and farming systems. We apply our shared understanding of the changes they've witnessed over the last 35 years as the backdrop to aid reflections on the future. They're enjoying working with old aerial photos, and taking the black-and-white images in hand. The older men and women can point out who was farming each field as far back as the early 1950s.



The farmers and herders of this region face serious challenges ahead, as fertile land becomes scarcer, and rain falls in evermore intense storms. Even in the face of this, they can do much to manage their land, and diversify how they live in order to cope with this uncertainty. Some families continue to live in enormous domestic groups, made up of 100+ relatives, as a means to gain economies of scale, and share both assets and risks.

Many families here rely on the earnings of young men who migrate away for many months at a time. While a short-term solution, in order to prosper in the long term, people need sensible and supportive government. Government must provide stability though laws and institutions which secure rights for people and for the environment, and by investing in the public infrastructure needed to get goods to market.

I am engaging with people in local and national government, promoting the work that we do, and relaying the voices of villagers; facilitating conversations where they are able to tell their own stories.

This work is particularly important now, as the current government is handing out big areas of land to large scale agricultural enterprise; 20,000 hectares to a Chinese company for sugar-cane cultivation most recently.

However, new legislation is currently being introduced through parliament, bills that offer more secure rights to local people, as well as for local bodies which can both handle disputes, and register land. I am hoping that as farmers mobilise themselves and find common cause with neighbouring communities, they can press for ever-fairer deals when big investors loom large.

I hope to further understand these interlocked systems of natural and social capital, and believe this is possible; by combining disciplines, working at many scales, forging partnerships, and looking back in order to understand future options.

A global approach to learning and sharing is central to all such research enquiry. As we see unfold before us the extraordinary and troubling fall-out from the U.K. EU referendum result, I have ever greater concern for our natural environment, its care and conservation. While political intrigue and jostling for power offer short-lived rhetoric about how to generate jobs and livelihoods, we must keep sight of the longer term assets, on which our ultimate prosperity lies.

Collaboration across boundaries of all forms is vital to our shared understanding of the planet's complexity, where its thresholds and tipping points might lie, and how to manage and monitor change. It's therefore vital to unite and work together, regardless of the regulatory landscape, to solve the challenges that we all collectively face.

Disclaimer: Articles in this series are submitted by people who work in organizations who are part of the Natural Capital Coalition, or people who are involved in the natural capital space more generally, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Natural Capital Coalition, other Coalition organizations, or the organization that employs the author.

Follow Camilla on Twitter: @camillatoulmin
Follow the IIED on Twitter: @IIED


Camilla Toulmin is a British economist and former Director of the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Her career has focused on policy research about agriculture, land, climate and livelihoods in dryland regions of Africa. She became a senior fellow of IIED in late June 2015, and is Professor of Practice at the Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University.

On 13th July 2016, The Natural Capital Coalition will launch a standardized framework for business to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on natural capital. This 'Natural Capital Protocol' has been developed through a unique collaborative process; a World Business Council for Sustainable Development consortium led on the technical development and an IUCN consortium led on business engagement and piloting. The Protocol is supported by practically focused 'Sector Guides' on Apparel and Food & Beverage produced by Trucost on behalf of Coalition.

Keep up to date with the Natural Capital Coalition on Twitter: @NatCapCoalition


Keep up to date with our series on natural capital here.

www.naturalcapitalcoalition.org

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Astronomers detect new worlds unlike any detected thus far  

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Graduate students supported by the National Science Foundation helped helm two separate exoplanet discoveries that could expand researchers' understanding of how planets form and orbit stars. K2-33b, shown in this illustration, is one of the youngest exoplanets detected to date and makes a complete orbit around its star in about five days. These two characteristics combined provide exciting new directions for planet-formation theories. K2-33b could have formed on a farther out orbit and quickly migrated inward. Alternatively, it could have formed in situ, or in place.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt

 
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Sun Setting Over London  

ben.beedell1 posted a photo:

I took this shot yesterday evening just as the sun was going down ?☀️

 
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Sunset from the South Bank  

Jeppe Toustrup posted a photo:

 
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r0B0t: Froma Harrop: Surprise: U.S. factory jobs growing - Omaha World-Herald  

Froma Harrop: Surprise: U.S. factory jobs growing Omaha World-Herald What's happening is automation. Robots enable manufacturers to make lots of stuff with relatively few workers. The ability to do the job with far fewer humans goes far in canceling the advantage of low-wage countries. (Lower U.S. energy costs have ... and more »

 
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r0B0t: The Adtagonist: You're fired — love the future x - MarkLives.com  

MarkLives.com

The Adtagonist: You're fired — love the future x MarkLives.com From the advertising executive to the humble bartender, everything we do is either influenced by or fully vested in technology and its consistent 'tomorrowness'. Hold up, did you say bartender? Here's the thing. There's even a robot programmed to pour ...

 
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r0B0t: Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas - Merced Sun-Star  

Merced Sun-Star

Merced reacts with sadness, anger, fear to violence in Dallas Merced Sun-Star Authorities initially said there were three suspects in custody and a fourth killed by a robot-delivered bomb in a parking garage after a long standoff. However, on Friday afternoon, ... Back in Texas, Flowers worried for the future. “I'm just hoping ... Micah X Johnson, the Dallas police shooter, was taken out with a robot delivered bombBlasting News all 9,015 news articles »

 
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Ultrashort cell-free DNA reveals health of organ transplants  

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When cells die, whether through apoptosis or necrosis, the DNA and other molecules found in those cells don't just disappear. They wind up in the bloodstream, where degraded bits and pieces can be extracted. This cell-free DNA (cfDNA) is degraded due to its exposure to enzymes in the blood but is nonetheless a powerful monitoring tool in cancer, pregnancy and organ transplantation. One fairly recent breakthrough is prenatal testing for conditions such as Down syndrome, as fragments of fetal cfDNA can be detected in a mother's bloodstream. Now, borrowing a genomics technique used in the study of the ancient past, a Cornell graduate student has come up with a diagnostic tool that can open a window into a transplant recipient's immediate future through the analysis of cfDNA.

Image credit: Sarah Nickerson/Biomedical Engineering

 
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How Was Your Day … Real-Life Indiana Jones?  
"Once we got attacked by a walrus. He hammered his tusks into one of our kayaks."  
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Thames Barrier - High Tide  

Aleem Yousaf posted a photo:

 
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FlickrPhotowalk - Los Angeles  

ShutterJack posted a photo:

This is an installment in Tongva Park in Santa Monica, California. These weather vanes move with the wind. One of the photos from the Flickr LA Photowalk.
#‎FlickrPhotowalk #‎FlickrLAphotowalk

 
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Thousand Points of Light  

ShutterJack posted a photo:

Had a great time at the photowalk today. Discovered this under the Santa Monica Pier. The light shone down through the slats in the pier.
#‎FlickrPhotowalk #‎FlickrLAphotowalk

 
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r0B0t: Watch the 'Mr Robot' season two premiere episode right now  
Can't wait until Wednesday for the season two premiere of Mr. Robot? No problem -- the show's official Twitter account just posted the first episode. Watching it on Twitter might not give the full home theater experience, but we suspect fans will be...  
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SETI mulls reboot: believing the strangest things, loving the alien  

Radio? Just because we like it doesn't mean ET phones home

SETI (the Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) is both exciting and disappointing: exciting because of peoples' eternal wish for someone else to be out there; and disappointing because life proves so hard to find.…

 
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Cormorants watch for trout beneath the mirror surface of the lake  

Watendlath Tarn, Borrowdale At my approach the soot-black, long-necked bird opens its hook-tipped bill, and utters a harsh croak

Watendlath Tarn shines like a burnished mirror. Perfect reflections of the surrounding hills and a Chelsea blue sky are disrupted only by the occasional splash of mallards and greylag geese and jumping trout. Black buzzer flies (chironomids or non-biting midges) on the surface are hatching from the tarn bed.

I think of Judith Paris, the historical novel by Hugh Walpole, which was a bestseller in the 1930s, though little read these days. It is partly set in revolutionary Paris and partly in Watendlath, with tales of passion and murder played out against vivid descriptions of the Cumbrian countryside.

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Life-Hacks Of The Poor And Aimless  
The more frightening the economic outlook and the more floodwaters rise, the more the public conversation is turning toward individual fulfillment as if in a desperate attempt to make us feel like we still have some control over our lives.  
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