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Enten’s intelligent headphones amplify focus

Neurable, US

Boston, US – Neurotechnology company Neurable has created headphones that help to maximise the wearer's productivity by intuitively muting distractions.

The Enten headphones use a brain-computer interface (BCI) that recognises when the wearer has hit their ‘flow’ while working and automatically reduces distractions. The headphones also recommend when the wearer should take a break. The product’s ambition is to help people feel in greater control over their time each day, through a human-centric product that is also practical.

‘The unveiling of Enten is an important step on our journey to commercialise neurotechnology and make this technology a part of everyday life,’ says Ramses Alcaide, CEO and co-founder of Neurable. ‘For years now, our industry has boasted about products that, in the end, are just not relevant to how people live. With Enten, we are rolling out this technology for the world to experience and enjoy for the first time.’

Intelligent interfaces are helping brands and consumers to recognise which stimuli are distracting, soothing or engaging. In a recent opinion piece, Marius Bartsch, head of customer engagement at Digitas, discusses the positive possibilities and insights these interfaces can offer.

Mubi’s messaging app counters communication fatigue

Mubi Remix by Pentagram

Global – The film streaming service has launched Mubi Remix, allowing film fans to send video messages using movie clips.

Created in collaboration with Yuri Suzuki, a partner at design consultancy Pentagram, the app scans over 1,000 iconic films and allows users to share their message using a chosen video clip from Mubi’s library instead of traditional text-based messaging. Working in a similar way to GIFs, the app uses machine learning models to match dialogue and visuals with the users’ messages.

According to Suzuki, the Mubi Remix app was created as a way to battle the ‘communication fatigue’ we’ve been experiencing over the last year, allowing consumers to translate their thoughts and feelings via iconic film moments that can then be shared with friends. ‘I had a real desire to bring spice back to how we communicate,’ he tells It’s Nice That.

After a year of communicating almost exclusively through screens and typed content, the way humans share their thoughts with others is ready for disruption. In our Paradox Personas trend, we explore the rise of Overshare Outlets as a way to combat communication fatigue.

Co-created sneakers with a 3kg carbon footprint

Germany & New Zealand – Sportswear companies Adidas and Allbirds have unveiled a low-emission running shoe that unites their expertise in materials, technology and sustainability.

Dubbed the Futurecraft.Footprint collaboration, the result is a performance running shoe with a carbon footprint of just 2.94kg per pair. The shoes will launch initially as a prototype in May 2021, with a wider footwear collection due in the autumn.

By working together – albeit remotely and across time zones – both brands are accelerating their respective ambitions to create a carbon neutral future for sports and style, sharing their materials, supply chains and innovations with each other.

‘Our partnership with Allbirds is a beacon of what can happen when competing brands from the same industry see the possibilities in coming together to design… this is a call-to-action for other brands,’ says Brian Grevy, an executive board member at Adidas.

In the future, we will see more brands swap competition for radical collaboration, exchanging ideas and supply chains in the name of innovation. For more examples, explore Symbiosis Strategies in our recent Elastic Brands macrotrend.

Adidas x Allbirds

Stat: Gen Z travellers ditch clichéd travel posts

Trippin

The Generation Z travel market in the US is ready to boom, but young travellers are becoming more cautious with how they document their trips on social media.

Youth travel agency Topdeck Travel, which commissioned research to gain an understanding of how Gen Z’s travel attitudes have been affected by the pandemic, found that 37% of 18–25-year-old Americans said cliché captions such as ‘catch flights, not feelings’ were their biggest pet peeves, and would not appear in their own feeds.

The most hated posts included ubiquitously staged tourist poses (34%), photos of food or cocktails (31%) and repetitive snaps of iconic landmarks (30%). While they may be more discerning than ever before when it comes to how they document their travels, Gen Z are eager to get away – a staggering 96% reported that they already have plans for upcoming travel.

Tourism boards and travel brands must rethink their marketing in order to attract Gen Z, who are ready to change travel for the better. For more, read about how anti-tourist collective Trippin is challenging what it means to be a young traveller.