Tag Archives: algorithm

Tight on space? Try a shelf reinvented by Tylko

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Poland ranks 6th in terms of furniture production worldwide. No other of our industries have such a strong position. Despite such a well-developed market, it turned out that there is still room for innovation and development.

The founders of Tylko have created an application for designing shelves themselves. They are boldly invading the global furniture market, which is only just discovering the possibilities of new technologies and sales via the Internet.

Interior design with a Tylko shelf
Source: https://tylko.com/

 

How does it work?

You aim your smartphone at the place where you want to place the rack. You can view and configure a piece of furniture using the app: you can adjust the shape, height, and width of the furniture by sliding the slider and analyze the changing price. The application translates your design into production files and sends them to one of the factories that produce the parts that make up your shelf. It will come to you two or three weeks later as a flat-pack, a self-folding piece of furniture – sequentially packed, with personalized instructions and no tools required.

The Tylko shelf arrangement
Source: https://tylko.com/

Tylko shelf integrated into the interior
Source: https://tylko.com/

 

What distinguishes Tylko from other companies?

Surely the easiest thing to identify is customization. Tylko is not the first company that does it, but it does things completely differently, in a form that is very simple and accessible to everyone. Furniture is supposed to be functional in terms of ergonomics. It is meant to be beautiful, stable, possible to produce and to serve the customer for a long time. All this is written in a complex algorithm, which is very simple to use with a series of sliders to let users quickly tweak and apply dimensions, styles, and finishes. This is the advantage.

 

Why is Tylko a technology company?

Tylko is not e-commerce. The product is sold over the Internet, but calling this startup an e-commerce site is too simplistic. It is a technology company that has its products and creates them. Tylko is an inventor when it comes to a physical product.

The startup has very complex algorithms that make the furniture the way we want it to be, i.e. it meets all values and conditions. Drawing furniture for production has been completely eliminated. Instead of that, Tylko writes programs that draw furniture for production. Automating the creation of production files is a very strong thing at this startup.

In addition, the elements that make up the furniture are of different sizes. Each time they have to be packed in a different way which is also facilitated due to technology. The startup also created an algorithm that packs these things, and by the way, it creates a manual for the factory staff on how to hide these items inside. This process is completely chronological. We open package no. 1, take out the manual, there is an element no. 1, element no. 2, element no. 3. Thanks to this, especially in a small apartment, we don’t have to put everything down on the floor first and look for these things, but they are arranged in turn.

The main markets for the company are Germany, Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Austria, but sales are made all over Europe. Many American investors have tried to convince their founders to bring their business to the United States. However, the owners did not want to do this as the place where they want to develop their product is Poland.

Does the company have a chance to become a global brand that will be recognized? Is there still room for startups in the furniture industry?

 

References:

[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tight-on-space-think-modular-furniture-600zqdcfp

[2] https://www.forbes.pl/biznes/tylko-meblowi-rewolucjonisci/xcy5mp5

[3] https://techcrunch.com/2017/03/07/tylko-bags-3-1m-to-size-up-a-bespoke-furniture-business/

[4] https://mamstartup.pl/13-polskich-startupow-ktore-moga-podbic-swiat

[5] https://plndesign.pl/tylko-albo-az/

[6] https://gregalbrecht.io/pl/podcast/mikolaj-molenda-tylko/

[7] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/tylko-2

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Spotify’s Tastebuds tool will enhance your social music discovery

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The new function aimed at Spotify will allow us to slightly broaden our musical tastes. All thanks to our friends from the platform.

New Spotify’s feature logo
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/18/spotify-tastebuds/

 

How music sharing options look like now?

Thinking about what Spotify can offer today, we can mention social media integration. It is a popular feature that enables users to connect their Spotify accounts to their Facebook and Twitter profiles. That lets them access their friends’ favorite music and playlists and share their choices with others as well. Individuals can create, share, and edit playlists with other listeners. If users want recommendations, they can integrate their system with Last.fm, an application that provides music recommendations based on listening history. However, this is an external application that does not belong to Spotify. You can also view a Friend Activity ticker of songs your Facebook friends are currently listening to on the desktop app. You can search for specific users and follow them or view playlists they’ve made public too. Spotify doesn’t promote user search much anyway.

 

Why Spotify need a change?

Sharing playlists on Spotify is not a problem, but when it comes to speeding up the entire algorithm, things get complicated quickly. If we listen to music in a random way, it is known that Spotify will not start sending us recommendations based on it. If that were the case, playlists created using algorithms would not suit certain user’s tastes. Social sharing has never been the main priority for Spotify. The Activity Feed, which shows what your friends are currently listening to, is limited to the desktop version of Spotify. The in-app messenger for sharing music was nixed in favor of letting users share songs on social media or on their Instagram Stories. Apparently, that was a mistake as far as we know that Tastebuds is coming.

Tastebuds feature on Spotify
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/18/spotify-tastebuds/

 

But what will Tastebuds really give us?

As the information on the site is telling: Tastebuds will let your friends discover music that you trust. This description appears in the tab that has not yet been launched, but the developers have already sewn it in the application – in the left column, next to the Home Page, Browse and Radio. The prototype feature was discovered in the web version of Spotify by reverse engineering sorceress Jane Manchun Wong. She gave some more details on how it works. By tapping on the pen icon, users can view information about what their friends have been playing most. Then, they can easily listen along or add songs to their own library.

Tastebuds feature discovered in the web version of Spotify thanks to reverse engineering
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/18/spotify-tastebuds/

Spotify Tastebuds code
Source: https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/18/spotify-tastebuds/

 

It remains to wait for deployment

When will the new feature come into effect? There is no official information about it. A Spotify spokesperson confirms that they are always testing new products and experiences, but have no further news to share with the audience. For now, anyone can access a non-functioning landing page for the feature at https://open.spotify.com/tastebuds. Tastebuds could be a rebranded version of the Friends Weekly playlist that was discovered in May 2019. Whatever it may be, the test could be a sign of more social listening features to come.

Social is a huge but under-tapped opportunity for Spotify. Social recommendations could get users listening to Spotify for longer. While competitors like Apple Music or YouTube might offer similar music catalogs, users won’t stray from Spotify if they become addicted to social discovery through Tastebuds.

Do you think Tastebuds is just what Spotify needs? Maybe something else would make the application more user-friendly? Share your opinion.

 

References:

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/spotify#section-overview

[2] https://rms.pl/aktualnosci/sprzet/3239-spotify-tastebuds

[3] https://www.spidersweb.pl/2019/12/spotify-tasetbuds-czego-sluchaja-znajomi.html

[4] https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/18/21028474/spotify-tastebuds-playlist-friends-music-discovery-social-sharing-feature

[5] https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/18/spotify-tastebuds/

[6] https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/19/spotify-social-music-discovery-tastebuds/

[7] https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/9/17337182/spotify-testing-new-friends-weekly-playlist

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No more f-word while driving

Reading Time: 2 minutes

How often a poor road surface drives you to madness? It would be great to visit car mechanic only on the occasion of a routine control. Wouldn’t it?

Inventors of the US company called RoadBotics found an answer to this problem. They offer a smartphone-enabled road inspection tool that creates the map of the condition of the road surface. The solution based on deep learning algorithms examines data from a video made by smartphone located behind the windshield of the vehicle. It recognizes problems such as cracks and potholes. In this way, the tool analyzes a 10-foot road section and assigns its level of damage. The results are presented on a five-point scale where 1 – green is an excellent surface condition and 5 – red is failed.

“This assessment does not suggest what needs to be done, but serves as a triage tool, allowing your engineers and public works staff to narrow down on what requires immediate attention. It complements your current process and enables your municipality to reduce time spent on inspecting roads and focus on maintenance.”[1]

Savannah is the city that has already employed this solution. RoadBotics has analyzed half of the streets and roadways in the city within a few months at the costs of nearly 25 000 $. Normally, the city would have to hire interns who would take 3 years to perform an analysis of the road conditions in the entire city.

Heath Lloyd, the City’s Chief Infrastructure and Development Officer said:

“This partnership with RoadBotics will allow us to better assess the overall condition of City roadways and increase the accuracy of the data collected. It ultimately allows us to be more effective in managing the replacement of our infrastructure”[2]

RoadBotics was introduced to URBAN-X, the leading accelerator for startups. It is constantly working on developing its product, among others using it in self-driving cars.

 

 

Sources :

https://techcrunch.com/sponsored/this-company-created-a-high-tech-solution-to-a-2500-year-old-problem/

https://www.urban-x.com/company/roadbotics/

https://www.savannahga.gov/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=1927

 

 

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Facebook’s new algorithm is about to put end to clickbait

Reading Time: 2 minutes

 

ClickbaitEvery time You open Facebook News Feed you’re likely to see many clickbait articles with headlines like: “I thought I wanted a baby someday, but after watching this … yikes.”;” You’ll NEVER believe which two stars got into a fight on the red carpet last night!! CLICK to find out which starlet was fighting over!! à”. Those headlines are annoying and articles they direct to almost never meet our expectations from the time we clicked on them in a Facebook feed.

The great thing is that Facebook took notice of it and for the second time tried to fight with them. Previously the algorithm was searching for distribution of posts that led people to click on them and afterwards very quickly come back to News Feed without liking the page. This didn’t help much as these type of posts were still showing quite regularly.  It was easy to overcome the algorithm by creating a new page or even new post which had some time until it was stopped.

The new algorithm is no longer searching for symptoms as it focuses on the source of the problem. This allows it to work much faster and stop post before anyone will click on it. To achieve it Facebook team manually classified tens of thousands of clickbait like headlines in order to teach algorithm how they are composed and be able to distinguish them from content shared by legitimate publishers.

The system identifies which post is a clickbait and from to which domain it is linked to. Thanks to it punished are both posts itself but also a publisher. Pages and headlines that often use clickbait headlines will appear lower in News Feed.

In order to protect algorithm from reverse engineering and eventually overcoming it, Facebook will not reveal guidelines on how it is defining clickbait. It should motivate legitimate publishers to use headlines which do not withhold information allowing to understand what is the content of an article.

I hope it will motivate legitimate publishers to name their articles correctly as I saw that even popular new sites are starting to use headlines which do not reveal the content only luring us to click on them in order to find out what it really is about.

How do you like the new algorithm? Do you think it will be successful and long-lasting change?

 

Sources:

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/08/news-feed-fyi-further-reducing-clickbait-in-feed/

https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/04/facebook-clickbait/

http://businessinsider.com.pl/international/facebook-is-changing-its-news-feed-to-try-to-stomp-out-clickbait/zp6g5n0

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