Amazon Announces To Your Trunk Delivery

On April 23rd 2018, Amazon announced that it will now deliver packages to the trunk of your vehicle.The company is launching the new service in 37 cities with the cooperation of General Motors and Volvo. Amazon Prime members will be the first to sample the new service, and in order to use the new service you must own a car that is connected to the internet. The in car delivery service only works with GM's On Star and Volvo's On Call services.

Amazon's delivery drivers will use On Star or On Call to locate the prospective customer's car. Once the driver has found the car, they then use an app on their smart phone to gain entry, insert the package, and the lock the customer's car. The app only allows the delivery drive to unlock the doors and trunk, and can no be used to start the ignition. For those interested, there's no installation fee or need for a smart lock or camera.

Researchers Create Self Cleaning Coating

On April 11th 2018, researchers at the University of Michigan announced in the ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces, that they have created a self cleaning coating that can also repel liquids. Anish Tuteja, an associate professor of material science and engineering and head of the research team are calling the new coating, "omniphobic." He says that the new coating is the first of its kind that's durable, clear, and can be applied to almost any surface.

Professor Tuteja went on to explain that in past experiments, researchers would try combining a durable substance with a repellent substance, but that would not necessarily yield a durable, repellent substance. His team, however, discovered the property or ability of two substance to mix together in just the right way, which they call, "partial miscibility." The researchers found that a combination of fluorinated polyurethane and a fluid repellent called F-Poss was the right mix.

The team believes that their new coating could eventually grime proof phone screens, counter tops, camera lenes, and many other everyday items. They have shown that their new coating can resist water, oils, alcohol, and even peanut butter. The research team is conducting further studies in order to make sure that their new coating is non toxic and is safe for use around children.

IBM Introduces World's Smallest Computer

On March 19th 2019, at the annual IBM Think Conference, researchers from IBM announced that they have created the world's smallest computer. The computer is smaller than a grain of salt and costs less than .10 cents to manufacture. It's designed to work with blockchain technology to track goods and is also able to analyze and store data. And, it has the processing power of a 1990s x86, which will be enough power to communicate with various tracking systems.

Spotify Goes Public

On April 3rd 2018, Spotify began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) with an Initial Public Offering (IPO), and individual stocks selling for an opening price of $169 a share. Spotify is the world's largest music streaming service with 71 million paying subscribers which puts it ahead of Apple Music which has 36 million paid subscribers. Its opening per share stock price gave the company a value of $29 billion.

Spotify was launched in Sweden in 2008 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. The idea was to provide those who engaged in illegal downloading, an affordable alternative. Its free ad based streaming service was first, but was quickly followed by its paid subscription version. The company received a $100 million infusion of cash in 2011, and with that money it was able to launch its platform in the United States.