The BYTE [2/13]

THE BYTE

Welcome to the BYTE, where we serve up the latest home and tech news from the last week for you to sink your teeth into.

This week we’re taking a BYTE out of the listed, the city of the future, whether or not you buy it, getting our feet wet, and language barriers. Dig in!

Generally

Getting Listed

Last week the 100 Best Places to Live in the USA and the America’s Fastest Growing Cities 2017 lists were published.

The Best And The Fastest

The 100 Best Places list was determined based off of the value/cost of living, desirability, job market, and quality of life. The top three cities were: 1) Austin, TX, 2) Denver, CO, and 3) San Jose, CA. Meanwhile America’s fastest growing city is Cap Coral-Fort Myers, FL (which is #70 in the 100 best places to live), followed by Orlando, FL, then Provo, UT. All of these cities were determined by the projected growth in population, jobs, GMP, wage, and home price. These will be the important cities to keep an eye on over the next year.

Smart Builds

Peña Station Next

That is the name of the new “smart city” neighborhood that Panasonic is partnering with the city of Denver, Colorado to create on the outskirts of the main downtown area. The city is an experiment to test a smart city on a smaller scale. The city is being built with smart streetlights, solar panel covered parking areas, a driverless bus, smart homes everywhere, and much more. Construction starts in March 2017 and it is hoping to be one of the pioneer neighborhoods in bringing living spaces into the technological future.

Take Notes

Who’s Buying It?

Zillow and Bankrate are here to help everyone figure out how many people want to buy a home and how they plan on doing it. Zillow found that the number of unmarried couples buying homes together has risen 11% nationwide. This increase might contribute to Bankrate’s findings of 59 million Americans that are considering buying a home this year. This number would be great for housing sales, however Bankrate’s report shows that there won’t be enough homes this year for a lot of these people to actually buy. Let the housing games begin.

Now I Sea

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released a study saying that by 2070 sea levels could rise by 8.2 feet. This would have a serious effect on the major coastal cities around the world, to see how these cities will be effected look here. Many of these cities, such as Miami and Charleston, are investing large amounts of money in keeping the water out so we will have to see which cities can truly stay above water.

Now You’re Speaking My Language

A Japanese company, Logbar, is releasing a device that translates spoken words to Chinese, Japanese, or English. Ili – the wearable translator, doesn’t need wifi to operate and you simply speak into the device and it will “say” the translation to whoever you may be trying to talk to. The product is being released in June 2017 and is expected to have more languages added soon. Language barrier, broken.

Totally Unrelated

Beauty And The Dark Lord

For those who are excited for Beauty and The Beast but still see Emma Watson as Hermione Granger this movie mashup is for you.