The US Army thinks these new mixed-reality 'doggles' can make special operations canines better than ever in battle

Ryan Pickrell
Oct 3, 2020

Command Sight founder A.J. Peper's dog Mater wearing augmented reality goggles Courtesy photo

A.J. Peper, the founder of the small technology company Command Sight, has invented an animal-wearable head-mounted display designed to allow handlers to better

 

communicate with military working dogs — high-performing canines that track narcotics, hunt explosives, and even engage enemies.

Visual cues can be placed in a digital overlay of the real world to direct and guide the dog in ways that physical and voice commands and lasers do not permit.

Senior Army Research Lab scientist Stephen Lee told Insider that this device could "help revolutionize how we use military working dogs off leash."


Thinking about new ways to talk to his dog, A.J. Peper, the founder of Command Sight, came up with an idea that the US Army says could revolutionize the way special operations forces direct military working dogs on the battlefield.

It's augmented reality for canines, and it works.

Over the past few years, the Army has been developing a mixed-reality heads-up display for its soldiers based on Microsoft's HoloLens technology.

Considering the potential applications of augmented reality headsets, Peper, who started a small technology company striving to bridge communication gaps between humans and canines, took a very different approach. "Why not put a HoloLens on a dog?" he thought.


Taking a regular pair of Rex Specs goggles, already used for canine eye protection by the military, Peper added an optoelectronic component, creating a heads-up display where visual cues can be placed in a digital overlay of the real world to direct and guide the animals.

Working with handlers, military working dogs track down narcotics, find explosives, and even engage enemy combatants. A Special Forces dog named Conan, for example, helped take down ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last fall and was awarded a medal by the president.

A view of the animal-wearable head-mounted display (AW-HMD) from the recent patent filing Courtesy photo

The augmented reality goggles that Peper invented are connected to a command interface that the handler can use to not only see what the dog sees but also communicate with the animal in real time, making their interaction more effective.

Using a chest- or wrist-mounted display or a laptop, Peper explained, "the handler could see the dog's environment and click anywhere or on any object in that environment to which they wanted to draw the dog's attention."


The Army, which has been supporting the project through the Army Research Office and its Small Business Innovation Research program, is very interested in the goggles.

Stephen Lee, a senior Army Research Lab scientist with a Ph.D. in physical organic chemistry, told Insider that "if we can, in a canine's augmented reality, place a point, like a laser point, to guide the dog when it's going around a turn or into a building to a specific spot and we can see what the dog sees at the same time, that will help revolutionize how we use military working dogs off leash."

A.J. Peper and his dog, Mater Courtesy photo

'A better way to talk to my dog'

Before he became an inventor, Peper was on a path towards a career in education, but after getting his Ph.D. in educational leadership, he decided to leave academia and instead become a consultant for emerging technology projects.

Throughout these endeavors, Peper, a "big dog lover" who has been very passionate about their training since he was a kid, was also involved in Shutzhund, a kind of advanced dog training focused on protection.


The idea that led Peper to launch his own company — developing a mixed-reality headset for canines — came in early 2017, when Peper asked himself, "How can I merge the fun and interesting parts of technology with the passion I have for dogs and training?"

That got him thinking about human-canine communication. "I wish there was a better way to talk to my dog," he thought. And, that's when it hit him.

With help from various partners, he quickly put together a working prototype, and with a functional prototype, he was able to start testing with his dog, Mater — the mascot for his company, Command Sight.

Augmented reality for dogs is cool, but the big question was whether or not the animal can actually do anything with the information that is delivered to them. "The resounding answer from the tests that I've run is yes," Peper said.


The testing, which was conducted safely and humanely and was not at all invasive, involved putting the goggles on Mater and then using the command interface to place an augmented reality indicator in Mater's field of view to identify an object of interest. Peper's dog would then energetically run to that object.

"You can imagine my jubilation when I put the system on my dog, fired it up, and he reacted to the indicator. Up until that point, it had all been theory," Peper told Insider. "I was jumping up and down and beside myself. It was a really amazing moment."

As Mater had never worn goggles, it took him about a week to get used to them. It took another two weeks to train him to respond to a physical laser, a common tool used by the military and law enforcement to direct some working dogs. It then took another week after that for him to make the transition from the physical laser to the augmented reality indicator.

The next step in the development process for the canine augmented reality headset is to miniaturize and ruggedize the system, as well as make it completely wireless, for rigorous field testing with special operations military working dogs, high-performing animals expected to quickly adapt to the new technology.

A drawing of a canine wearing the AW-HMD from the recent patent filing. Courtesy photo


Solving 'fundamental challenges that operators have'

Handlers typically use physical and voice commands to give military working dogs basic directions and lasers to provide more specific guidance, such as identifying a specific target or object of interest.


The effectiveness of physical and voice commands is limited when the dog is off leash and operating away from the handler, and there are serious concerns about the use of a light source that could be visible to the enemy.

If a working dog had augmented reality goggles though, a handler could provide directions to the dog as it rounded a corner, went over a hill, or entered a building, and they could do so from a safe position without alerting the enemy to the team's presence or the dog's intended target.

Once this technology is operational, "a handler could sit a mile away in a bunker, completely safe, and they can send the dog out and send these very specific directional cues to the dog," Peper explained.

And, the dog would move and act with confidence even without the handler at their side.


"In terms of the system being of value and being more than just cool, it really does solve for some real fundamental challenges that operators have," Peper said.

That includes the need for a reliable animal-mounted camera.

Lee told Insider that once Peper's goggles are operational, "it'll be one of the best camera systems period, even without the augmented reality. We're seeing what the dog can see."

"When it's mounted on the back, you see where the dog's torso is pointed," he said, explaining that having a camera inside the goggles will "be a breakthrough in itself."


He said that in ten years of researching and working with military working dogs, he had never seen anything like Peper's canine augmented reality system, which has him "super excited."

Lee said he expects this innovative technology to lead to more interesting possibilities. "I think that what [Peper] is going to do is open up amazing new opportunities we don't even recognize yet."

My job of 14 years was destroyed by a private equity company. It's time for Democrats to actually stand up to Wall Street.

Kristi Lynn Van Bucken,
Opinion Contributor
Oct 4, 2020

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) arrive to deliver remarks at the Alexis Dupont High School on August 12, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. Drew Angerer/Getty

A private equity firm bought and bankrupted Shopko, a popular retail chain store.

I was one of thousands of Shopko employees who faced the wrath of Wall Street flippancy.

If Democrats don't stand up to these big banks, this behavior will continue to cost regular people their jobs.

Kristi Lynn Van Bucken was an employee at Shopko for 14 years.
This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

The November election will determine whether our economy for the next four years will benefit working people like me or continue to enrich Wall Street millionaires.

We already know what four more years of a Trump presidency and Republican agenda will mean: more deregulation and tax breaks for the wealthy, which only make it harder for working families like mine to put food on the table.

So I was eager to hear from Joe Biden and his campaign when the Democratic National Convention came to my home state of Wisconsin last month. Hearing Democrats talk about building a fair economy for all, including for essential workers like myself, was a stark contrast to what we've seen and heard from President Trump and his fellow Republicans. But while the Biden campaign introduced a number of platforms to put working people first, it became clear to me that there are not yet enough concrete and permanent solutions to fight back against Wall Street's rampant greed, which is only growing during this pandemic.

Democrats, be a party that actually stands up to Wall Street.

During the Trump Administration, I was one of thousands of Shopko employees throughout the Midwest who were left unemployed, uninsured and struggling to make ends meet when Shopko was purchased by a private equity firm and bankrupted last year.

As the New York Times revealed , wealthy investors like Carl Icahn are exploiting the coronavirus crisis to literally make money off of the demise of people's jobs and livelihoods. They're calling it the "Big Short 2.0." Instead of betting on the housing crash, as they did in 2008, Wall Street executives are betting on the demise of malls.

It's clear Republicans will give a pass to the Big Short 2.0. The ball is now in the Democratic Party's court to demonstrate that it will chart a different course.

However, Democrats must go beyond lip service, and offer real solutions and policies that will rein in Wall Street. Unfortunately, that was all but missing in last month's convention.

And yet, in the Democratic party's national 2020 policy platform, Wall Street was mentioned just four times — including once in the table of contents. There is not a single mention of the pain that private equity firms inflict on our communities, as Sun Capital did with Shopko in Wisconsin, or a plan to relieve that pain and rein these firms in. The Wall Street Journal even noted corporate America's "sigh of relief" when Senator Kamala Harris was added to the Democratic presidential ticket.

The demise of Shopko, where I worked and found community for 14 years, is a classic example of why Wall Street is the enemy of working people.

For more than a decade, Shopko offered me and my coworkers not just a paycheck, but a family. We were proud to work at a company that was founded in Green Bay and served Wisconsin families.

But when Sun Capital Partners, a Florida-headquartered private equity firm, bought out Shopko in 2005, that community and my financial security were ripped away. No matter how successfully we ran the business, Sun Capital's apparent intention was not growth but profit, and they made that profit by ruining people's lives.

Over the next decade, Sun Capital executives drowned Shopko in nearly $1 billion in debt. They pushed the store into bankruptcy, leaving more than 14,000 employees desperately searching for a lifeline. Even during Shopko's liquidation, Sun Capital executives continued to collect: In total, Shopko executives paid themselves nearly $67 million in dividends and fees. My coworkers and I were offered nothing.

When Sun Capital finally shuttered Shopko's doors, they also broke commitments to Shopko workers by failing to distribute once-promised severance payments, leaving many in utter financial distress. Sun Capital pulled the same move on the state of Wisconsin, when it skipped out on $8 million in sales tax payments.

Astonishingly, Sun Capital isn't the only culprit in destroying the lives of working families and crippling our economy. Since 2009, private equity firms have destroyed over 1.3 million jobs by bankrupting retail companies and stripping them for parts. Many of the brands you used to shop at — from Toys 'R' Us, to Payless ShoeSource, Sears, and ArtVan — were destroyed the same way. In nearly all cases, workers were left with nothing.

Even our hospitals and nursing homes are being taken over by Wall Street, leading to major staffing cuts and unsafe conditions during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

As the Big Short 2.0 shows, action is urgently required, and that's why former retail employees have come together with United for Respect, a multiracial national nonprofit organization fighting for bold policy changes that improve the lives of people who work in retail, to fight for and win severance pay and demand legislators establish common sense rules for private equity firms.

Without a specific plan to combat Wall Street's excesses and greed, the Democrats' vision for a just and fair economic recovery — and their outreach to working people like me in this election — needs improvement. They can start by adopting the Stop Wall Street Looting Act (SWSLA) in their party platform, which was introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Mark Pocan last year, and would rein in the most harmful private equity tactics.

SWSLA would accomplish this by ending Wall Street's immunity from the debts, legal liabilities, and legal violations they pile on companies after they buy them out and gut them. SWSLA would also end the federal tax benefits for private equity firms which encourage their excessive use of leveraged buyouts. And in the event of company bankruptcy, like what we experienced at Shopko, SWSLA would ensure that private equity firms like Sun Capital Partners cannot just cut and run on their paycheck, severance, and pension obligations to employees.

It bears repeating: Democrats, be a party that actually stands up to Wall Street, and offer concrete and permanent solutions to fight back against Wall Street greed, because the strongest economic recovery — one that provides paid family leave, affordable health care and financial security — will be the one led by working people, not Wall Street.

Unemployed in North Dakota: A welder who's been out of work since February shares his story
Will Meyer Oct 4, 2020

Dodd (not pictured) has been out of work since February. Juan Silva/Getty Images

Garrett Dodd is a 22-year-old welder in the North Dakota oil fields based in Watford City, North Dakota.

He's been unemployed since February.

In the meantime, he's started doing photography and media production, but he says he's not done with welding just yet.

This is his story, as told to Will Meyer.


I moved to Watford City, North Dakota, from Fort Worth, Texas, in 2017.

I was part of a very active welding program in high school, and I had a really good teacher who got me interested in it. I started welding right out of high school. I worked for a city for a little while; I thought that's where I was going to retire at one point in time. And thankfully that didn't work out.

I ended up working in a fab[rication] shop in Dallas making $16/hour. I knew I could make more money, frankly, if I moved elsewhere. I worked in that fab shop for about a year, and every night when I was working there I would go home and get on social media and talk to people that are already in the oil fields, and try to make enough contacts for somebody to offer me a job.

I finally got to the point where somebody offered me a job, and I pondered on it for about four hours or so, and called him back to tell him I wanted the job, and he said, "Oh, that job isn't available anymore."

After that job slipped away, I knew the next opportunity I got I was taking.

And then a day or two later I got an email from a guy who is now a good friend of mine — it was a mass email that he sent out to a lot of kids that were in my position. And he said "Hey, this guy's looking for labor hands in Watford City, North Dakota, here's the pay, here's the number."

I called him, and he said, "The sooner you can be here, the sooner I can guarantee you a job."

It was a Wednesday, and I said "What if I was there Monday?" He said, "if you're here by Monday, I can offer you a job."

So Thursday I went in and told my boss — they knew it was coming, they definitely saw it happening — "I got an opportunity here, and I'm not missing it."


Times were tough back then; I didn't have enough money to travel across the country, and so I asked for my last check a week early. They told me no, and that Thursday could be my last day instead — they didn't even want me back Friday. So Thursday I stayed up all night and packed most of my belongings, and was gone the next day.
I took a chance and drove across the country.

Because I knew if I came up here and actually worked, and didn't fool around, I could be successful.

After some bumps in the road and a detour to Colorado, I got up here and I was able to work consistently with a welder. I worked with him for eight months. And after eight months, I was ready to break out and become a welder myself.

After working on my own pretty consistently for a couple years, making more than $200,000,I was laid off in November 2019 as oil prices were dropping. Layoffs for a welder are pretty common. It's nothing to freak out about or be ashamed of, it happens very regularly.


They laid me off, and I thought "OK, that happens," especially around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I made what I wanted to that year, and thought, "If I'm not able to work the rest of the year, no big deal." And then I wasn't able to work the rest of the year.

At the beginning of the year I found a gas plant that needed building, and I was hired on with another contractor. We built that gas plant, but that wasn't a whole lot of work. They were pretty far along with that project, so there wasn't a whole lot to do.
I worked there a month and they laid me off. I haven't really worked since February at all.

I just started moving onto a different hustle because I can't just not work. I have to do something. I have a lot of camera equipment, and I started doing photography and media production around town. I'm just kind of working on getting that off the ground. I don't really care to take family photos; I like to build commercials for businesses.

I'm definitely not done with welding. I have a lot of money invested into welding and earning potential with it. I enjoy media production and it's fun — it's just a matter of getting clients to constantly shell out money.

The oil price was also dropping before the pandemic really set in. I think there was still a crash coming, but the pandemic just really did a number on it.

You have to try to stay as positive as you can, I guess, but it's daunting for sure.

The day to day is kind of daunting; it puts you in survival mode, which I don't like. Just because it's hard to think beyond the tip of your nose. You're just trying to think of what the next day holds, not what the next ten years holds.

I'm just hoping for the best.

Remote work has shaken up energy costs for office landlords and employees. Here's how one provider is working with corporates to offset workers' higher electricity bills.
Alex Nicoll Oct 5, 2020

Office real estate has seen energy usage fall as some spaces remain unused and more workers work remotely. Shutterstock

Energy costs have fallen for commercial offices, but raised for workers at home.
Still, most office buildings can only shut down so much. At most, office buildings are using 25% less energy than usual. 

With energy costs shifting from landlords and employers to employees, one energy company is launching a program to allow employers to pay the difference.

The shift to remote work has brought office workers to their couches, desks, and kitchen tables, potentially upending office real estate markets and the boundaries between personal life and work.

It's also changed energy costs for office buildings and for employees who now spend 9-to-5 workdays in their new makeshift home offices.

Office real estate has seen energy usage fall, with building operations data company Hatch Data reporting office energy usage down 24% from pre-pandemic levels in May. It now hovers 10% down from pre-pandemic levels.

Lee Dunfee, managing director for engineering operations at Cushman & Wakefield, told Business Insider that commercial offices have seen roughly 15-25% reductions in energy use year over year.

Simultaneously, residential energy use has risen by 10-15% since the start of the pandemic, according to David Klatt, VP of operations and finance for a smart-building software company, Logical Buildings.

At the same time, business leaders are continuing to signal a more flexible future of work, which almost certainly will mean more office workers will remain at home.

Read more: 20 major companies that have announced employees can work remotely long-term

This could trigger a permanent shift in costs paid by employers versus those paid by employees.

One energy company, Arcadia Energy, has pioneered a new workplace benefit for remote work, allowing companies to offset their employees increased energy costs at home. As companies struggle to find benefits that can replace location-bound benefits like in-office lunches, Arcadia's subsidies could be a way for employers to eat up some of the costs of remote work.

We spoke to real estate and energy experts about whether these energy trends could continue and why do mostly empty office buildings still require so much energy.
An unprecedented dip

Almost all office space saw a huge dip in energy usage at the start of the pandemic. With fewer people coming into the office amidst lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders, lights were turned off for days at a time and small appliances were unplugged and went unused.

HVAC systems had to work substantially less hard to cool air in the absence of the heat of people's bodies and computers, especially during the summer months.

What they didn't do was shut down completely, even when the only building occupants were office managers checking mail.

"It's important to note that commercial office buildings for the most part didn't shut down and turn off," Dunfee said.

Lease agreements usually require landlords to make space accessible, and comfortable, for office tenants for an agreed-upon period of time, whether all day or during typical work hours. Without receiving consent from all tenants, landlords couldn't actually reduce operating hours or lower the working load on the HVAC by increasing the temperature or humidity level in an office.

Read more: The venture arm of a massive Canadian pension plan takes us inside its search for its first construction tech investment. Here's its playbook.

This means that single-tenant buildings were likely able to reduce their energy usage more than multiple-tenant buildings, because of the ease of negotiation between landlord and tenant, and that owner-occupied office space likely saw the lowest reduction.

"For a company like Amazon, that owns the building and has its employees work there, it can tell employees to work from home and shut down the building," Eric Tilden, director of sustainability at Cushman said. "Commercial office buildings simply can't do that."

With roughly 25% of workers back in the office in major markets, according to Kastle's Back to Work Barometer, and the energy load switching from cooling to heating, energy levels may get closer to typical levels this winter.
Bringing the costs home

Reports have shown that overall energy consumption has waned during the pandemic, but office workers still brought their need for climate conditioning and well-charged appliances home.

And, with higher usage, comes higher bills, and now employees foot the bill to stay comfortable during work hours.

"That cost burden has been shifted from employers to employees," Owen Quinlan, VP of analytics and data science at Arcadia, told Business Insider. "I think we need to think, as a society, how to manage that cost shift."

Arcadia is a clean energy company that integrates with public utilities and is the largest residential energy broker in the country. Arcadia's data shows that bills have risen roughly $10 to $30 a month for employees working at home, Quinlan said.

As a result of this bump, Arcadia has created a partnership program that has attracted some large corporates such as McDonald's. Companies can partner with Arcadia, and then have their employees choose to switch their utility bills to Arcadia.

Read more: Arcadia has raised $70 million on the promise it can take on 'a massive old monopoly industry' and slash your power bill

After employees switch their bills, the employer can decide to subsidize their increased costs or to buy carbon offsets to replace their increased emissions while working remotely (McDonald's has chosen the second option).

By choosing to subsidize remote energy costs, employers can introduce a benefit that fits the challenges and increased costs of remote work. Even in a world where employees spend some days back in the office, increased energy costs will remain an issue.

An Arcadia spokesperson said that renewable energy companies SkySpecs and CustomerFirst Renewables have also signed up for the program. The spokesperson also said that the company is in negotiations with banks, pharmaceutical, e-commerce and tech companies about offering the service.


Want to hear from the leaders of digital transformation in finance? Insider Intelligence is hosting two free webinars called "The Bank Insider Panel - Acting on Consumers' Accelerating Digital Adoption." Click here to reserve your spot. Learn more about the financial services industry

We need a Smokey the Bear-like character to help America tackle COVID-19
Pat Giles,
Opinion Contributor
Oct 4, 2020

Time Life Pictures/USDA Forest Service/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

In our country's history, we've long relied on brand characters to help get us through rough times

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an increasingly challenging experience.

I've had a hand in influential brand character campaigns, and we need a new character that can energize positivity in these uncertain times.

Pat Giles is the Head of Studio at Holler.

This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author.

Advertising can save the world. No, really! In fact, advertising may be part of the solution to some of our most difficult crises including the current pandemic. History has shown us that what people need is a good brand character wearing a mask.

I'm talking about characters, not mascots. Mascots are for sports teams, not brands. They represent players, fans, and city loyalties, but not a brand. I have nothing against mascots but I also love brand characters and have worked on many of them as a creative director and animator. What I learned was that a truly great brand character can make me want to eat a particular cereal, buy insurance, and bake dinner rolls. It can make me change my mind and change my behavior.

An inspirational brand character could be just what we need as a nation to come together at a critical time for public health.

Over the past 80 years, several fictional brand characters have shifted public consciousness and changed societal behaviors in measurable and important ways, and did so across party lines and above the fray of political lenses. The Ad Council, founded in 1942, was usually responsible for these campaigns. An examination of these characters shows their importance in history. With several major crises in front us, and deep polarization in this election year, we should discuss the importance of using one right now.

The Advertising Council was created by a former Sears Roebuck executive and head of the War Production Board in the FDR Administration, Donald Nelson. Its purpose was to use tools of mass communication to mobilize the public, as the nation did with weapons manufacturing, to win World War II.

Pop culture characters created by the Ad Council are sometimes mistaken for pure propaganda, as in the case of one of the most popular icons from the era, Rosie the Riveter. But in fact, Rosie was created by the Ad Council in partnership with the J. Walter Thompson Agency to introduce two million women into the workforce as part of the government's war effort.

The most famous of these Rosie ads was an illustration from J. Howard Miller with the immortal tagline,"We Can Do It," the campaign challenged millennia of patriarchal standards with a call-to-arms for women to join the battle and take on jobs previously thought of as for men only.

WWII patriotic We Can Do It poster by J. Howard Miller featuring woman factory worker in bandana rolling up her sleeve & flexing her arm muscles. Time Life Pictures/National Archives/The LIFE Picture Collection

By today's standards, the idea is antiquated. It was another thirty years before women as the family breadwinner became commonplace, and the battle against discrimination and for pay-equity remains. Yet, Rosie stands as an excellent exemplar for changing minds, of men and women alike, in advance of the common good. The "Rosie" campaign was only the first of many that would change public perceptions in a way that went beyond politics. Who couldn't agree with the spirit of "we can do it"?

The longest running campaign in Ad Council history is Smokey the Bear, launched at a time when nine out of ten forest fires were accidental. The science was clear: educate the public in order to reduce the number of accidental fires.

While wildfires are a growing challenge in the age of the climate crisis, according to the Ad Council, "the average number of acres lost annually to wildfire has decreased from 22 million in 1944 to an average of 6.7 million today." Now, it is also true that we are living through a very dangerous year, with six of the largest wildfires in US history occurring in 2020. To say that Smokey has his work cut out for him in the era of climate change is an understatement. But, with a 96% recognition and 70% unaided recall, Smokey is the most successful public-service brand-characters in history.

Smokey is effective because he made the issue personal in the tag line "Only YOU can prevent forest fires." He didn't scold the viewer. Rather, he empowered the viewer to be part of the solution. In the case of COVID-19, this could be an effective positioning. The average person can stop the spread by wearing a mask, practicing social-distancing and regular hand-washing. It's up to each of us.

Joe Sohm/Visions of America/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

Hundreds of campaigns like these have been able to rouse the public while overcoming typical pitfalls like alienating groups of people. In the 1970's, Woodsy Owl challenged people to "Give a Hoot, Don't Pollute." Crash-Test Dummies got people to "Buckle Up" in the 1980s. McGruff the Crime Dog took "a Bite Out of Crime." When I worked on the McGruff campaign, I learned with certainty that brand characters can, in fact, change human behavior and are effective tools to guide and unify communities.

Did McGruff eradicate crime? No. Did Crash Test Dummies prevent all car accidents? No. Did Woodsy Owl eradicate pollution? No. Were these characters able to make a dent in each of these challenges? Absolutely.

At Holler, my team and I partnered with the Ad Council on a campaign to drive conversations and perceptions on mental health. Together we created characters Goldie & Mo as part of the "Seize the Awkward" campaign to empower young people to talk to friends about their mental health. Created by Holler Animator Ryan Cho, our internal data shows that Goldie & Mo stickers have already started 100,000 conversations about mental health, helping people connect and have empathetic conversations instead of shame or fear. Again, underlying social science is driving the strategy: Talking about it is the first step.

Now, what can we learn from these campaigns as we face a new public health crisis? The evidence is plain and simple: wearing masks will lower the probability of transmission and aid in stopping the spread of the virus. Yet, people are still unclear about this, and politicians are failing to mandate their usage for fear of impinging on people's freedoms. Unlike seatbelts and forest fires, it is not "illegal" to walk around unmasked, but COVID-19 cases in the US continue to climb. There was a time in this country when driving with a seatbelt was seen as a hindrance, as unnecessary, and as an infringement of freedom. It took a combination of laws and public education to get seatbelt use to become standard practice.

Independently, organizations, brands and companies have adopted masked content and characters to take a stance and spread awareness. Masks have popped up on profile icons. Even local statues are being outfitted with masks. Evidence already shows that people are seeking out this content to understand and cope with the crisis. On Holler, our mask-related content has already been shared 1.3 million times in messaging and in financial transactions on Venmo. These were created as part of #AdTechCares.

SEE MORE AT https://www.businessinsider.com/character-smokey-the-bear-help-covid-19-cartoon-pandemic-2020-9

It's time for a brand character to get out there and educate the public. Or maybe it will take all of them. What Smokey, Rosey, McGruff and Woodsy have all taught us is that human nature is willing to change – that our neighbors, peers, and people on the other side of the aisle can be inspired by a character with a unifying goal. One that shows us that the slowing the spread of COVID-19 is up to us – and it starts with wearing a mask.


Pat Giles has led the creative advertising assignments for a who's who of character-driven brands, including Green Giant, Pillsbury, Lucky Charms, Trix, Cookie Crisp, Cocoa Puffs, Honey Nut Cheerios, Cheerios, Honey Stars, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo-Berry, McGruff, My Little Pony, Littlest Pet Shop, Squinkies, MARVEL/Playskool and is currently Head of Studio for Holler.


This is an opinion column. The thoughts expressed are those of the author(s).Read the original article on Opinion Contributor. Copyright 2020.

Scientists engineered plastic-eating 'super-enzymes' that can break down bottles in days
Aylin Woodward
Oct 4, 2020

Used plastic bottles are seen at a waste collection point in Tokyo, Japan, November 21, 2018. Toru Hanai/Reuters

More than 300 million tons of plastic are produced annually worldwide, and most plastics take centuries to break down.

A new study describes a "super-enzyme" engineered using proteins derived from plastic-eating bacteria. It can recycle a common type of plastic in days.

Such enzymes could help address the growing problem of plastic pollution.

More than 300 million tons of plastic are produced annually worldwide. Most take hundreds of years to break down, and even then, they just splinter into tiny microplastic pieces that will likely never biodegrade. Microplastics make it into the food we eat and show up in our poop.

But new types of engineered enzymes, created from plastic-eating bacteria, appear able to break down plastics in a matter of days.

These "super-enzymes" were made by researchers at the Center for Enzyme Innovation in the UK and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado. They break down a type of common plastic known as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) — used in single-use bottles as well as clothing and carpets — into its chemical building blocks.

Used at scale, they could reduce our reliance on fossil fuels (which are needed to produce new plastic), instead allowing manufacturers to reuse the same plastics over and over.

Engineering a 'super' plastic-eater

John McGeehan, director of the Center for Enzyme Innovation, is developing a "super-enzyme" that can break down plastic. University of Portsmouth/Stefan Ventur/PA

Researchers first discovered plastic-eating bacteria in 2016 at a bottle-recycling facility in Japan. The organisms produce two enzymes that help them break down PET within weeks. Scientists dubbed the enzymes PETase and MHETase.

In 2018, a group at the Center for Enzyme Innovation took PETase and tweaked it to increase the speed with which it deconstructed PET. This week, the team revealed in a new study that they improved on the process even further by stitching together DNA from PETase and MHETase into one "super-enzyme."

"PETase attacks the surface of the plastics and MHETase chops things up further, so it seemed natural to see if we could use them together, mimicking what happens in nature," biologist John McGeehan, the lead author of the study, said in a press release.

Whereas pitting PETase and MHETase against the same plastic doubled the breakdown speed they saw in 2018, this new creation breaks plastic down six times faster.

"We decided to try to physically link them, like two Pac-men joined by a piece of string," McGeehan said.

Millions of tons of plastic enters the ocean each year

A Palestinian worker carries plastic items to be recycled in a factory in the Gaza Strip, July 13, 2020. Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Global production of plastics has increased rapidly over the last 70 years, and it continues to grow at around 8% per year. Up to 14 million tons of plastic enters the ocean annually, an estimated 40% of which is single-use products like plastic bottles, which wind up in the ocean within the same year they're produced.

Scientists found more than 414 million pieces of plastic trash on scarcely populated islands in the Indian Ocean last year. Researchers have also discovered plastic in the guts of tiny creatures on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, 36,000 feet down. One study showed more PET microplastics accumulate in the deep ocean than float on the surface.

Microplastics less than half a centimeter in size in the Cocos Islands. Jennifer Lavers

Addressing this plastic pollution problem, of course, requires limiting production. But innovations like the new super-enzymes can help recycle plastic that already exists.

The French company Carbios is also working to develop plastic-eating enzymes, aiming to utilize them in "industrial-scale recycling within five years," according to The Guardian.

"If we can make better, faster enzymes by linking them together and provide them to companies like Carbios, and work in partnership, we could start doing this within the next year or two," McGeehan told The Guardian.

Another option, though still in its infancy, is to use magnetic "nano-coils" to break down plastics.

A nano-coil barely wider than one billionth of a meter. J. Kang et al./Matter July 31, 2019

A study published last year showed that these coils, which are just half the width of a human hair, create chemical reactions that convert plastic into carbon dioxide and water.

Softbank's new food service robot Servi could replace waitstaff and food runners at restaurants
Mary Meisenzahl
Oct 4, 2020, 6:25 AM

Softbank Servi. Reuters

Japanese company Softbank debuted Servi, a new food service robot.

Softbank is the company behind humanoid robot Pepper and the owner of Boston Dynamics.

Servi has already worked at Denny's and other restaurants amid Japan's labor shortage.

Japanese tech giant Softbank is testing out a new food service robot in Japan, Reuters reported. Servi, the appropriately-named robot, has several tiers that can be used to deliver food to customers as an answer both to social distancing because of COVID-19 and Japan's labor shortage.

Servi will act as a waiter, with the ability to carry food and drinks from the kitchen to tables. It will use 3D cameras and LIDAR technology to navigate around tables and customers, the same technology used by autonomous vehicles. It officially launches in Japan in January but has already been tested by some restaurants as a way to offer contactless service, including Denny's.
Softbank Servi. Reuters

When Servi launches, companies can lease the robot for $950 per month over a three year period. It's made by Bear Robotics in California, which also produced a Servi Mini for serving drinks. The full-size Servi has two trays and a bus tub, while the Servi Mini has one tray and one tub. Both can be controlled by an attached touchscreen or external tablet.

Softbank Servi. Reuters

Earlier this year, Bear Robotics raised $32 million in a funding round led by Softbank. Softbank has a history of investing in robotics startups, like Boston Dynamics, the company behind the infamous dog-like robots that went on sale this summer.


Softbank's most famous humanoid robot, Pepper, has also been used throughout the pandemic as a greeter and to ease loneliness among mild COVID-19 cases in Japan. Versions of the robot are also helping customers remain a safe distance apart in German grocery stores, while its Whiz cleaning vacuum robot has been used in hotels and other sites.

Servi. Business Wire

Fox Business host compares Trump’s physician to North Korean ‘propaganda’

Published on October 6, 2020 By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Physician to the President Sean Conley at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. (Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour) 

NOT A REAL DOCTOR,HE IS A QUACK A CHIROPRACTOR

Fox Business host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery this week compared President Donald Trump’s doctor and the Trump White House to North Korean “propaganda.”

Trump, who tested positive for COVID-19 last week, has been released from Walter Reed Medical Center and is back at the White House. Kennedy, during an appearance on the Fox News program “Outnumbered” on Monday, October 5, was highly critical of the Trump White House and Trump’s doctor, Navy Cmdr. Dr. Sean Conley, for being evasive about the president’s condition.

The 48-year-old Montgomery, a former MTV veejay turned libertarian/conservative pundit, told the “Outnumbered” panel, “I think we just had a sense that things were worse than they were letting on. If there’s one thing I don’t like, it is a lack of transparency. And everyone has been touched by the virus — either personally, or they know someone who’s contracted it and God forbid, has succumbed to it.”

On “Outnumbered,” she argued that the Trump White House is doing Americans a disservice by not being up-front about the president’s condition.

Montgomery stressed, “We know how quickly the virus can turn. And I think it’s really important to be straight-forward with the American people, because we’re not living in  North Korea — and we don’t have to be fed propaganda about the dear leader’s condition. So, if he is deteriorating — if he is requiring oxygen — I think it’s OK to tell people that.”

SEE 

MORE TRUMP QUACKERY

HIS SO CALLED DOCTOR IS A BONE CRUNCHER,

A CHIROPRACTOR BY ANY OTHER NAME 

Fox News doctor says he’s ‘concerned’ Trump could be experiencing ‘roid rage’


Published on October 6, 2020 By David Edwards

Trace Gallagher speaks to Ashish Jha (Fox News/screen grab)

Harvard Global Health Institute Director Dr. Ashish Jha told Fox News on Tuesday that President Donald Trump could be experiencing “roid rage” after taking the steroid dexamethasone for his COVID-19 infection.

During an interview on Fox News, host Trace Gallagher noted that steroids have side effects that include aggression, agitation, anxiety, irritability, mood changes and weight gain.

“The president is going to get a short course so I’m not worried about longterm effects of dexamethasone,” Jha explained. “But we definitely see in 30-40% of people pretty substantial effects on all those things that you mentioned: the anxiety, the agitation.”

“They used to call it roid rage,” Gallagher observed. “That was a real thing. And you know, a lot of bodybuilders and wrestlers have been through that.”

“What about psychologically?” the Fox News host asked. “Any concerns there about the use of steroids?”

Jha pointed to a recent study which found that a majority of COVID-19 patients had “some neurologic symptoms.”

“A third or so can get confusion,” he added. “And then you throw in steroids, which can also cause that. Again, I think all of that will have to be closely monitored by his doctors. I’m always concerned, especially in an older gentleman like our president that it’s going to be a risk factor.”

COVID 19 has killed more Americans than 5 wars combined

By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport @ RawStory - Commentary
Published on October 6, 2020

Overworked doctor sitting in his office (Shutterstock.com)

Sometime this week, even as we see Donald Trump being treated for COVID-19, it is likely we will hit 212,000 American deaths from coronavirus in seven months.

That is a mark passing U.S. deaths from conflicts in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan and World War I – reflected symbolically over the weekend with 20,000 empty chairs on the Washington Mall.

Globally, of course, we’re over a million deaths.

It’s a sober and ignoble achievement—a total that public awareness and attention should have kept lower, one whose growth rate should be diminishing and one that seems to encapsulate our divisive mentality about safety for others.

The problem will be getting Americans to take the contagion seriously.

Despite whatever efforts Trump, state governors, government health officials or others want to claim, the maps of disease growth show the United States faring worse than most other industrialized nations on most measures of per population disease control and deaths. This comes even as treatment options have improved and medical treatment has adjusted to recognizing opportunities for earlier intervention.

The total contagion counts show the insistence of Americans to resist even the simplest forms of protection, even while demanding that someone else provide it – for free.

And the president’s own nuttiness about insisting on a spin around the block as if to show off his good health before returning to the hospital just illustrates he is not even taking his own case very seriously. He just exposed everyone in the car. His personal campaign to look strong despite illness frankly is a mystifying version of leadership, for pushing for earlier-than-expected release back to the White House.

Even as pro-Trump crowds were gathering outside Walter Reed Hospital to cheer an ailing president, those waving flags and banners were standing together mostly mask-less, without proscribed physical distancing in some kind of tribal rejection of public health rules. The White House was reported to be doing little toward tracing those who may have been infected in contact with Trump or his close circle. And the president was taking pains to show himself publicly as a strong survivor of the coronavirus challenge, making the White House itself a live contagion point, as if that makes the disease less potent for those without his access to daily testing.

The reality we still face is that whether Trump emerges days from now in peachy health to successfully pursue election victory as one who has survived the coronavirus or opponent Joe Biden wins for being a far more sober, careful candidate respectful of the demands of the disease, coronavirus is still going to be here. It will be a long slog to get through it – something that Trump does not want to own. Even if we get a vaccine, Americans are saying by droves that they don’t see taking it.
Change of Heart?

We can hope that a healed Trump, chastened by his own treatment much like Britain’s Boris Johnson, will revisit what has become at best a casual set of policies toward public health to embrace an actual plan with as much fervor as he does Law & Order.

But there is no evidence for a sudden turnaround.

It is much more likely that Trump, who sees the world as a reflection of himself, will think that all Americans can have the kind of free-to-him medical care that he is getting from a committed team of military staffers with helicopter trips to the hospital, and the use of experimental drugs that have not passed FDA muster. He is likely, indeed, to suggest that the disease is no big deal, and that if he can suffer only mild circumstances there is no need for wider public adherence to anything from mask-wearing to protective arrangements in the workplace.

Indeed, it seems that even if we want to show ourselves to be warriors against disease, the government is providing little to no effective tools.

In Wisconsin and in red states where the virus is arriving later, the hospitals and medical staff are still talking about the lack of protective gear and overrun emergency facilities.

At the Centers for Disease Control, they are busily rewriting any public health advice for you and me to best comport with the political message from the White House to keep the economy as open as possible.

In Florida and Georgia, Republican governors are throwing bars and restaurants wide open despite oodles of video showing unhealthful gatherings that seem to be feeding disease and lobbying the federal government to re-allow cruise ship voyages when those always have proved home for respiratory contagion. Other Republican governors and legislators have busied themselves with court challenges to emergency orders for masks and lockdowns rather than trying to fight illness.

And there is Trump’s own insistence on mask-less rallies in closed areas in close formation that are good for campaign cameras but not public health. And, if we’re to believe the emergent timelines about last week, Trump knowingly exposed donors, at least, to the virus just because there was a lot of campaign money on the table.
How Does It Get Better?

When the government leans on the CDC for more positive advice about schools and other public gatherings, when Atty. Gen. William P. Barr attacks emergency lockdowns and compares a takeaway of individual rights in the name of public health with slavery, when Trump himself disdains the wearing of protective masks, we’re asking for trouble.

When Trump refuses to consider financial help to “blue” states for political reasons after urban centers were hit hardest by coronavirus, how exactly is this helping to fight for a healthier country? How is a Supreme Court challenge of Obamacare with no Republican alternative ready to go helpful in the middle of a pandemic? How is hyping the benefits of a vaccine release before Election Day a mark of effective medicine? Is the White House aware that under 20% of poll respondents say they will take a vaccine at all?

That stubborn reality thing keeps getting in the way.

A Washington Post piece noted that even some Republican leaders are now questioning a strategy in which Team Trump downplayed the danger of the virus. “There was a panic before this started, but now we’re sort of the stupid party,” said Edward J. Rollins, co-chairman of the pro-Trump super PAC Great America. “Candidates are being forced to defend themselves every day on whether they agree with this or that, in terms of what the president did on the virus.”

Whether Trump or Biden in the coming months, the problem will be getting Americans to take contagion seriously – or we will be living with constantly rising public health emergencies for years, with its widespread effects on the economy, on education, and on our security as Americans.

It was a cultural acceptance of dangers from smoking, not government policy, that changed how cigarettes are viewed in this country. Or excessive drinking. Or even obesity, though we’re still working on that one.


But leadership? We need to see some to believe in it: Make Leadership Great Again.

Terry H. Schwadron