The BYTE [2/6]

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 office space, the smart home transition, what caused so much destruction, who’s constructing, and mind control. Dig in!

Generally

Upping The Work Load

2017 is gearing up to be a good year for office spaces. It is projected that this year will be the year for office construction and Google is trying to make these buildings healthier.

Working Smarter

2017 is projected to have an 11.3% increase, or a measly $20.5 billion, in office construction. Job growth and an increased movement to more urban areas are to blame for the increase in companies needing to build more space for their employees. Not only are there more builds projected but smarter, healthier builds. Google has teamed up with the Healthy Building Network, whose goal is to make buildings less toxic because, “We spend close to 90% of our day inside and indoor pollution is often worse than it is outside.” This pollution is often caused by the unchecked materials, finishes, furniture and products, so basically the whole building. With all this work going on here’s hoping these new buildings won’t be trying to kill us. 

Wanting Smarts

Well Known, Less Wanted

PWC just released some survey results on smart homes. The findings were that 81% of consumers are aware of smart homes, but only 26% actually want one. The most people that did want to get smart were consumers with a household income of $100,000 or more. Whereas for the people that didn’t want the tech yet, the biggest barrier for getting a smarter home was price and then security.

Take Notes

Who Needs A Demolition Crew?

The 2016 Natural Hazard and Risk Summary has been released by CoreLogic. 2016 had 15 individual natural disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion. The biggest culprit for this destruction was flooding and wind. You can thank Hurricane Matthew for the biggest hit of the year.

Deconstructing Construction

With housing being in hot demand right now it is hard to build them quick enough. Now it is getting harder because of the lack of people going into construction work. There are nearly 200,000 unfilled construction jobs in the U.S., which is a jump of 81% in 2 years. The reason for this is being attributed to the lack of vocational trainings in school now, so less people finish school with these skills. With housing projected to keep rising, let’s hope more people start saying, “You’re hired.”

Technology Is Cool…And Scary

Netflix released a video teasing an idea of a repurposed headband that will let you select which show to binge watch next just by looking at the screen. Cue never having to figure out how new remotes work. In other scary news, Boston Dynamics created a robot on wheels that can balance, jump, move quickly and fuel your nightmares of robots taking over the world.

Totally Unrelated

Don’t Call It A Comeback

There was an exciting game yesterday, but don’t let sports distract you from the important things, the funny/great/weird commercials.