On Fridays I post here a roundup of things I’ve mentioned on social media over the prior week, generally stories about emerging technologies, experiential activations, interactive art, advances in scientific research, and other things I find interesting.

I haven’t posted a recap in a few months, so here’s a selection since the New Year:

Will virtual reality be resurgent in 2018 with the release of new standalone VR headsets?

Image: Flickr user pdjohnson

Evidently IKEA recommends against storing your children in plastic bins. Who knew?

Image: Josiah Hobson

Uber and others in the tech-driven sharing economy are just following an older and much larger trend of American businesses moving from full-time employees to contractors and contingency workers:

Source: Current Population Survey; Lawrence Katz and Alan Krueger (2015)

At CES 2018 LG will show off its new 65-inch rollable OLED display:

Image: LG Display

NYT’s long and detailed article about the subway system, why it’s falling apart, and why NYC (and the nation) needs it to be fixed, is a must-read for all New Yorkers:

Image: Damon Winter/The New York Times

Researchers at Uber and Google are working to instill a sense of the unknown into deep learning frameworks, to make AI systems that doubt themselves:

Image: SAIMAN CHOW

Baidu is trying to beat Google in driverless car tech with a totally Google move – developing an Android-like open source self-driving platform:

Image: BAIDU

My GF Vanessa represents (with chihuahuas) for NYC as the lunch-on-the-go capital, in this roundup of what workers eat for lunch around the world:

Image: Mark Abramson/BBC Capital

Artist Daniel Rozin’s latest mirror sculpture ‘Last Chance to Shine’ is made of 832 tiles of colorful recycled Nespresso pods and is hanging at their NYC boutique:

Image: Amelia Holowaty Krales

Gucci is taking experiential retail to the next level with a museum-like brand experience in Florence that costs 8 euros to enter:

Image: Gucci

To see stories like this throughout the week, follow me on Twitter: @josiah17