The Death of Tupperware, a Luxury Airline For Dogs and Why Amazon eBooks Are Such Garbage

Meet Tupperware: The Slowing Fading Brand That Should Have Won The Nostalgia Trend

Tupperware parties were a thing; once so iconic that they symbolized an entire cultural movement of work-from-home (mostly) female entrepreneurs in a time when opportunities for women to run and own their own businesses were rare. Today the company is in rapid decline and the public shift away from plastic food containers is only one reason for it. A larger reason is the brand's steadfast refusal to update it's product line or direct sales-centric business model.

As it stands, the slow demise of the brand is likely to become a case study in business schools (if it hasn't already). This is a brand that could have made a shift, rediscovered it's heritage, leveraged the nostalgic trend that has resurrected many other flailing brands and exploded during a pandemic time when more people than ever were stuck cooking (and storing leftovers) at home. Instead, the brand is near dead and unlikely to come back.

What Would You Put In the "Forever Library" To Archive Human Existence For a Billion Years?

Several million years from now when future civilizations or aliens or whatever is around then looks back on human existence, at least they will know how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear back in 1983. That's just one of the archives of humanity that is part of the Galactic Legacy Archive--a library of humanity that has been sent to the moon where scientists estimate it will last for billions of years barring an unlikely meteor strike.

The entire library is on a disc made of nickel, a material that never decays or corrodes. It's made in nanofiche (far smaller than microfiche) and will require a microscope to read, but everyone involved seems fairly certain that sort of magnification will be easily available to future beings who find it. Also in the archive are 25,000 songs, early human cave art paintings and a frozen-in-time version of Wikipedia from 2022 that will offer a concerningly dated look at humanity.

Hopefully this is just one of many such archives that will be sent in the future. In the meantime, in case you are wondering ... you can already read how Copperfield did that famous trick here.

The New Luxury Airline For Dogs Called BarkAir Is Not a Joke, It's a Brilliant Marketing Stunt

Apparently it has been a dream of dogfood subscription brand BarkBox for more than a decade to create an airline dedicated to flying dogs and their human companions around the world. Now they are making it a reality through a partnership with private jet charter company Talon Air and the way they are doing is it actually quite smart.

They are focusing on long haul routes from the east to west coast of America and to London. The seats are all luxury with special amenities for dogs. They have a private concierge team to get to know the dogs and their companions ahead of the flight and the food, dog-calming scented cabins and in-seat belly rub buttons are all customized to dogs.

It's hard to guess how long the flights will run before they run out of money they're willing to lose, but while it lasts the entire effort is a brilliant marketing stunt for BarkBox to promote their core subscription business. The underlying message is clear: if they can solve this pain point for dog owners, their subscription service and everything else they do for dogs may be worth a try too.

AI Disproportionately Affects Women. We All Need To Fight Back.

This week, the "world's first Miss AI" digital beauty contest was announced with $5000 prize awarded based on beauty and skill using AI tools. One tech expert predicted that the AI girlfriend industry could hit $1B in revenue soon despite multiple reports of how the creators of these digital companions may be hoarding your private data.

While these issues could adversely affect people of any gender, one report found that 96% of all deepfakes online are non-consensual fake videos of women. Clearly the tools pose a disproportionate risk to women, which is one reason why the UK recently approved legislation to criminalize creating sexually explicit deepfake images. This is one positive step. Another is seeing more marketing campaigns and commitments like the recent one from Dove Real Beauty pledging not to use AI in their advertising.

Ultimately, the thing that will have the biggest impact though is more women working in fields where AI technologies are being used and developed. TechCrunch has a podcast dedicated to interviewing some of the women behind the AI revolution. There are a growing number of events such as the Women In AI Flagship Summit that are offering learning and networking opportunities for women, and communities like the 6000+ member global non-profit WomenofAI.org are working hard to connect women working (or aspiring to work) in AI roles with one another.

For us to live in a world that has more than digital beauty pageants and AI-girlfriends, these events and communities that empower women will need all of our support. The world would be pretty empty and soulless place if we continue to allow AI tools to manipulate or take away the voices of real women.