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 this year’s best advertising, a shiny new outlook for paint, apartments, how many people scored a zero, and robo suits. Dig in!

Generally

Feeling Inspired
Last week the Cannes Lions festival announced all the top winners in each advertising category.

Now That’s Creative
Each year top advertisers get together and celebrate the really innovative and creative things companies are doing. The top winners for each category, such as outdoor advertising, integrated media, cyber, health & wellness and so on, get a Grand Prix award. Some notable Grand Prix awards this year went to Whirlpool, Burger King, Twitter, Adidas and more. Check out the big winners list here. If you aren’t inspired yet, check out the top 15 commercials from this past year here.

Painting The Future

Shiny Colors
The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) thought all of these new solar technologies were too clunky, so they made Solar Paint. This paint can be used on anything and can generate clean energy by absorbing the solar energy as well as breaking down moisture in the air to collect the hydrogen for fuel cells. The paint is supposed to work even in very dry climates and in places that don’t get enough sunlight to justify installing full solar panels. Don’t get too excited though, the paint isn’t hitting the shelves soon and probably won’t be for at least another five years.

Take Notes

Let It Soak In
The apartment and condominium absorption rates dropped. The absorption rate of apartments dropped below 50% for the first time since the fourth quarter of 2009. For condominiums the completions were up but the absorption rate also dropped to below 50%. The rate dropping may be because of the increased production of multifamily housing in the last few years.

0
Net-zero homes grew faster than ever last year. 33% to be exact. Net-zero homes are still only a small part of construction each year but in 2016 8,023 new single family and multi-family net-zero homes were built across the U.S. and Canada. These home will eliminate the same amount of C02 emissions as 16,406 cars. Most of those built were multi-unit homes with biggest being at the University of California Davis. Here’s hoping more people start shooting for a score of 0.

No More Back Pain
Older workers in Japan are welcoming robots on the job. New robotic suits are helping them still be able to carry objects around warehouses. Japan’s population is aging faster than anywhere else so the workforce needed help getting warehouse jobs done. The suit sits like a backpack and attaches to the arms and legs of the user and helps to support the weight being carried or lifted. Now we can start the countdown to cyborgs in all manual labor jobs.

Totally Unrelated

Real Life Mario
New Augmented Reality games put you in the action. This game recreates the Super Mario classic and lets you be Mario.