LSN : News : Need to Know 25 : 01 : 18

1. Global training collective brings together fitness and street culture

UVU Training Club, London

London – UVU, founded by trainer Adi Gillespie, is a training collective that moves beyond the gym and into the street.

UVU’s focus is on bringing together offline and online communities of like-minded individuals who are not only interested in training, but are ‘passionate for growth, physical, mental and spiritual,’ according to Gillespie.

UVU’s first product is a fitness manual that reflects this mentality, both in its careful design and in its content, which is a mixture of guided exercise postures, often based in calisthenics but also articles on nutrition and mental health.

The collective plans to launch a clothing line and continue to build its online platform as a place that ‘isn’t just about fitness’, Gillespie tells LS:N Global. ‘It’s more converging fitness, music, and street culture.’

The holistic approach of UVU is representative of a shift away from the Body Temples mentality and exercise just for the sake of fitness.

2. New York bar for audiophiles opens

Indoors at Nowadays, New York

New York – Outdoor bar and dance venue Nowadays has opened Indoors at Nowadays, a new adjacent space that is inspired by Japanese listening clubs.

The 5,000-square-feet space, adjacent to the original Nowadays, features two custom-made high-fidelity sound systems. Honing in on this audiophile element, the space will host an event on Sunday nights called Planetarium, where listeners are invited to bring blankets and pillows, lay back and get lost in sound for five hours.

Alongside this there is an extensive food menu, cultural programming and board games. Commenting on their approach to nightlife and building a venue with a following, co-founder Justin Carter told Vogue: ‘There’s a certain amount of darkness and dystopia that was associated with the dance world that we’ve always tried to steer clear of.’

In an era when nightclubs are closing, Indoors at Nowadays shows a promising way to rethink what nightlife means.

3. Fertility monitor uses AI to track ovulation

US – Fertility monitors found in pharmacies often only tell you when you are ovulating and nothing more. But the new smart monitor Mira, which is due to be launched later this year, is designed to use artificial intelligence to make pregnancy planning more predictable.

The monitor not only informs women of their ovulation, but also learns their cycle to more accurately assess when would be a good time to try to get pregnant. Mira puts more control in women's hands in an area that can be riddled with haphazard guessing.

Beyond fertility, the Mira analyser also has the potential to track for influenza or allergens. The team hope to expand beyond the fertility kit in the future.

Mira, US

4. Google machine learning used in an unexpected place

TensorFlow by Google, The Netherlands

The Netherlands – This week Google shared how its open-source machine learning library TensorFlow has been used to maintain the health of dairy cows.

Yasir Khokhar and Saad Ansari, founders of Connecterra, use the technology as a way to understand and interpret the behaviour of cows. They created an app, Ida, which acts as an intelligent personal assistant for dairy farmers. Dairy cows are equipped with sensors which then feed data back to the app. Combining sensors with artificial intelligence, Ida can understand the cows’ health and whether they are prone to certain diseases.

The Google case study represents a way in which artificial intelligence is now being used in traditional industries to make them not only more efficient, but also more sustainable. For more ways in which transparency and sustainability are pushing innovation in food and drink, buy our latest report.

5. Young people don't know how to be in a relationship

A new report, The Talk, by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has found that society is failing to educate young people on the romantic elements of being in a relationship.

The report, which surveyed almost 2,200 people aged 18-25, found that while many are educated on the sexual, technical sides of relationships, young people don’t understand how to develop a deep, caring relationship with another person. A majority (70%) said they wished they had received more information from their parents about some emotional aspect of a romantic relationship.

The findings are in line with another recent study, which found that adolescence is extending into people’s early 20s as they take longer to figure out adulthood.

6. Thought-starter: Will AI ever seamlessly fit in the workplace?

We spoke to Dennis Mortensen, CEO and founder of X.AI, about why big business is so keen on integrating AI agents and how they will affect your future workplace.

One of Mortensen’s key contentions is that, while businesses can easily calculate the cost savings of employing these types of AI agent, they also need to be aware of the need to train staff to manage them effectively, especially as the technology advances.

‘[One] important challenge is taking junior members of the team and teaching them how to manage because, if you’re 21 years old… you might not have managed people before. And this might not be a person, but you’re still giving [the AI] orders. They need to be taught to be forthright with their requests. We’ve also noticed that a younger demographic tend to include [the AI assistants] Amy and Andrew too early. They say: ‘I just wanted them to be in the loop.’ Be in the loop? No, we tell them that you need to instruct them what to do and when you want them to do it.’

Read the full Q&A here.