Latest news with #Latch
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
ZD Jasper Selects Brilliant Smart Home System as a Standard Amenity for New VITA Condominium Development
SAN MATEO, Calif., June 12, 2025--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ZD Jasper, a leading New York based developer specializing in mixed-use residential buildings, chose Brilliant Smart Home System as the standard for its new 121 unit VITA development in the Hudson Yards area of New York City. Designed to align with the demands of modern living and sustainability, VITA is a fully electric property redefining energy efficiency in urban development. In 2022, it received the NYSERDA Buildings of Excellence Award for its low carbon design that prioritizes the well-being of residents. To fully realize this vision of sustainable, connected living, ZD Jasper has integrated Brilliant into the units—bringing residents seamless smart home control over lighting, climate, and energy-saving features, all through one intuitive system. A Perfect Blend of Smart Technology and City Living Recognizing the value of cutting-edge technology, ZD Jasper began incorporating smart tech solutions into their developments over five years ago to enhance buyer appeal. After evaluating numerous systems, Brilliant emerged as the clear choice given its sleek design, seamless integration across devices, and user-friendly functionality. "Based on positive feedback from prospective buyers, homeowners and our sales team, we brought the Brilliant Smart Home System into VITA," says Susan Wu, Chief Operations Officer at ZD Jasper. "It aligns perfectly with our values of connected and healthy living." The VITA development will feature the Brilliant Smart Home System alongside Latch Smart Locks, TOTO Automatic toilets, Wi-Fi enabled Gaggenau appliances, and Hunter Douglas motorized shades, creating an all-encompassing technology-forward living experience tailored to urban professionals. Innovative Tech for Modern Homeowners VITA is designed to meet the lifestyle of tech-savvy young professionals, many of whom work in leading tech companies nearby. Here's how Brilliant elevates their living experience: Low-Carbon Lifestyle: Automated climate and lighting controls optimize energy use, keeping bills low while reducing the carbon footprint. Peace of Mind: Supports integrations with smart doorbells which homeowners can add to enhance secure and convenient unit access. Personalized Comfort: Creating Brilliant's automated scenes, residents can effortlessly match their living spaces to daily routines. Whether it's "Morning Mode" to open blinds and adjust the thermostat or "Relax Mode" to dim the lights and play music, every home is uniquely attuned to its owner. About Brilliant NextGen Since 2016, Brilliant's technology has been critical to accelerating the mainstream adoption of smart home living with affordable and user-friendly home control and automation systems. Headquartered in San Mateo, California, Brilliant designs and manufactures award-winning smart touchscreen control panels, smart dimmer switches, smart plugs and multifamily platform software. Brilliant is trusted by hundreds of builders, developers, and property managers across the U.S. and Canada as a standard feature of their homes and apartments, providing homeowners and renters with a compelling unified technology experience in their homes. Learn more about for more details. View source version on Contacts Head of MarketingBrilliant NextGenerin@
Miami Herald
16-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
‘That's called being a natural': ARod makes the perfect shot in a game of cornhole
Alex Rodriguez showed off some impressive moves in Minneapolis on Wednesday, and they had nothing to do with baseball. The retired slugger shared an Instagram video of him walking on the street outside Target Center on his way to game 5 of the Western Conference Semifinals. The matchup was between the team he co-owns, the Minnesota Timberwolves, and the Golden State Warriors (final score 121-110). Rodriguez, wearing all white just like the fans, passes by a child playing a cornhole game on the grass outside the stadium. The inspirational song 'Latch' by electronica duo Disclosure plays in the background. A-Rod stops, has the boy throw him the bag, which he then tosses up in the air a few times, seemingly gauging its weight. He then studies the distance to the target, which appears to be about 20-25 feet away. The Westminster Christian alum, 49, winds up his famous right arm and one hands it, chucking in the bag in on the first try. (The move is called an 'Air Mail' to those in the know.) The MLB great (who can also play a mean game of hoops) raises his hands triumphantly as the crowd cheers and a bystander swarms him for a selfie. 'Can't believe this just happened,' read the text over screen. ARod's Instagram followers were duly impressed (including girlfriend Jaclyn Cordeiro, who left a pair of heart emojis): 'That's called being a natural in any sport.' 'Sweet! But not that surprising given you're one of the greatest athletes of all time.' 'He's a baller!' Even the former Yankee's critics from his scandalous days couldn't bust on the heartwarming clip. 'I hated has turned it around and I like the person he seems to have become,' posted the convert. 'The skill was never questioned.'
Technical.ly
28-02-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
Northern Virginia firm's bet on workplace culture pays off with an acquisition
After purchasing and remodeling a company morale-focused software platform during the height of the pandemic, a tech-enabled consulting firm is now an acquiree itself. Joe Mechlinski, Shift's founder and a best-selling author, sold the Latch tool at the beginning of 2025 to Los Angeles-based AI company Atlas Up. Latch is an asynchronous video communications platform for hybrid work where leaders can send out messages and employees can give feedback directly to the sender. AI technology also analyzes the feedback to help the leaders frame future communications. The goal is to help employees feel seen and heard, Mechlinski said, and eliminate the 'telephone game' between managers, staff and the C-suite. It's more personal than a deck at a team meeting, too. 'This is the way that the leader can put out a message,' Mechlinski told 'so that there's one version of that truth.' The deal involved the acquisition of just the product, in what's also known as an asset purchase. The entire company — once based in Baltimore's Fells Point neighborhood but now rooted in Tysons Corner, Virginia — was not sold. Financial terms were not disclosed. Atlas Up, founded in 2022, developed an AI chatbot platform dubbed a 'chief of staff' to help companies streamline their operations and get questions answered. For example, it can walk employees through the process of taking paternity leave and tell a staff member to calculate runway based on projected sales. Latch will be integrated into that platform, and the firm boasts high-profile customers in the public and private sectors like the FBI (which has leaned into using more AI over the last few years), SpaceX, Lockheed Martin, the Department of Defense and Booz Allen Hamilton. Mechlinski said his vision since buying Latch and its developing company Avanoo was to be a feature on another company's platform. Competing as a non-native AI platform would be difficult for raising money and garnering clients. 'I just knew at some point we needed to be part of something that was bigger,' he said, 'and see if we can help increase the probability of its success and the probability of a higher amplitude — a higher impact in the world.' Beyond his company leadership and writing, Mechlinski works with Novella Center leader Jeff Cherry as a general partner with Baltimore-based investment firm Conscious Venture Partners. Mechlinski will be working with Atlas Up in some capacity, focusing on raising money, go-to-market strategy and business development as a strategic advisor or something similar to a chief growth officer. The details are still being finalized, he said. Aligning strategy makes acquisitions work When Mechlinski acquired Latch in 2021, he had lost 70% of his business due to the pandemic. Today, Shift has five full- and part-time employees, down from 30 across the country before Covid. In some ways, Mechlinski looked to Latch to keep funding Shift. He also raised $1.5 million in 2022, and the platform accrued 2,000 users prior to the acquisition. He met with Atlas Up founder and CEO Jere Simpson in the firm's early days. The pair have invested in each other's companies, Mechlinski said. Over lunch in Los Angeles, he and Simpson talked about how similar their two companies are. 'He [Simpson] said, 'Do you think we're trying to solve this problem together? Do you think it's the same problem, trying to get people on the same page, trying to unlock productivity?'' Mechlinski also learned a lot about the delicacy of purchasing a company back in 2021. 'We understood that when you take your team jersey off and you start playing for a different team,' he said, 'there's a series of emotional stages that people go through.' It's been helpful that he and Simpson are aligned on strategy, which he said made the integration and purchase process a lot smoother. That mostly involves helping organizations boost workplace culture and streamline operations, which is Latch's focus. 'Our serendipitous connections and collisions, they're just gone,' Mechlinski said, referencing the pandemic. 'We don't do it as much anymore. And when we had a meeting, and then we'd all leave the meeting to go to the kitchen and get something to drink — that sometimes is the best five minutes of that meeting. That's the thing that we try to solve for at Latch.'
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Why TikTokers are pretending they got into Harvard
If it seems like more people are getting into Harvard than usual, blame TikTok. In recent months, the popular social media app has been overrun with videos of users young and old satirically playing the part of someone who got accepted into the nation's most competitive and prestigious university. 'Pretending the baby got into Harvard because we are bored,' says one January post, which shows two women and a small baby standing in front of a computer screen while the song 'Latch' by British musician Sam Smith plays in the background. 'Pretending nonna got into harvard because we're bored,' says another video, depicting an elderly woman vigorously clapping after she mimes opening an acceptance email. It's not just Harvard. Stanford University, which shares a single-digit acceptance rate, was also the target of similar mockery in TikTok videos. Posts about Yale and Princeton have notched hundreds of likes, too. And it's not just babies and grandmothers doing the pretending, either. In the TikTokverse, dogs and birds are preparing to pack their bags for top colleges as well, tuition be damned. The trend appears to have started with a TikTok video posted just before Christmas. The influencer Angelo Marasigan wrote the original 'pretending i got into harvard because we're bored' caption on Dec. 17, and the internet went wild. Marasigan's video has nearly 40 million views and more than 5 million likes. 'Is it that HARD to get into Harvard?' one user commented on the initial post, to which another replied: 'kinda.' The trend comes after years of heightened scrutiny of the types of universities that admit the fewest students – or, as Akil Bello calls them, 'highly rejective' colleges. Bello, an education policy expert, coined the term "highly rejective' several years ago on social media, and it took off. There's rising criticism of the admissions process at schools like Harvard, he said, which may be why the latest TikTok trend could be resonating with people in the same way his phrase 'highly rejective' struck a chord. 'The TikTok videos may be a reflection of the students,' he said, 'and their social-media approach to questioning the value of some of these institutions.' Though applications to the most competitive colleges haven't slowed in recent years, lawsuits and major scandals have uncovered new details about their long-secretive approaches to admissions. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted in the wake of the 2019 Operation Varsity Blues scandal showed overwhelming public skepticism of the college admissions process after it was revealed that celebrities and business tycoons were gaming the system with bribes. Fewer than one in five Americans at the time said they believed the college admissions process was fair. More recently, massive lawsuits have forced rich schools to reveal uncomfortable truths about their admissions policies. Emails and internal records made public through court filings in December illustrated rampant preferences for donors and the children of alumni at some of the wealthiest and most selective institutions. New findings published this month by James Murphy, the deputy director of higher education policy at Education Reform Now, show fewer colleges favor children of alumni in the admissions office. Though schools argue that utilizing so-called 'legacy admissions' helps them fundraise for things like financial aid, critiques of the practice have grown in recent years, prompting a wave of state-level bans, including a law signed by California's governor in September. 'Legacy is just symptomatic of this idea that elite institutions are disconnected from regular people's lives,' he said. 'And that leads to things like making fun of the whole idea of getting accepted.' Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@ Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @ This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why TikTokers are pretending they got into Harvard
USA Today
12-02-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
Why TikTokers are pretending they got into Harvard
If it seems like more people are getting into Harvard than usual, blame TikTok. In recent months, the popular social media app has been overrun with videos of users young and old satirically playing the part of someone who got accepted into the nation's most competitive and prestigious university. 'Pretending the baby got into Harvard because we are bored,' says one January post, which shows two women and a small baby standing in front of a computer screen while the song 'Latch' by British musician Sam Smith plays in the background. 'Pretending nonna got into harvard because we're bored,' says another video, depicting an elderly woman vigorously clapping after she mimes opening an acceptance email. It's not just Harvard. Stanford University, which shares a single-digit acceptance rate, was also the target of similar mockery in TikTok videos. Posts about Yale and Princeton have notched hundreds of likes, too. And it's not just babies and grandmothers doing the pretending, either. In the TikTokverse, dogs and birds are preparing to pack their bags for top colleges as well, tuition be damned. The trend appears to have started with a TikTok video posted just before Christmas. The influencer Angelo Marasigan wrote the original 'pretending i got into harvard because we're bored' caption on Dec. 17, and the internet went wild. Marasigan's video has nearly 40 million views and more than 5 million likes. 'Is it that HARD to get into Harvard?' one user commented on the initial post, to which another replied: 'kinda.' Trend follows years of scrutiny of selective college admissions The trend comes after years of heightened scrutiny of the types of universities that admit the fewest students – or, as Akil Bello calls them, 'highly rejective' colleges. Bello, an education policy expert, coined the term "highly rejective' several years ago on social media, and it took off. There's rising criticism of the admissions process at schools like Harvard, he said, which may be why the latest TikTok trend could be resonating with people in the same way his phrase 'highly rejective' struck a chord. 'The TikTok videos may be a reflection of the students,' he said, 'and their social-media approach to questioning the value of some of these institutions.' Though applications to the most competitive colleges haven't slowed in recent years, lawsuits and major scandals have uncovered new details about their long-secretive approaches to admissions. A USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll of 1,000 registered voters conducted in the wake of the 2019 Operation Varsity Blues scandal showed overwhelming public skepticism of the college admissions process after it was revealed that celebrities and business tycoons were gaming the system with bribes. Fewer than one in five Americans at the time said they believed the college admissions process was fair. More recently, massive lawsuits have forced rich schools to reveal uncomfortable truths about their admissions policies. Emails and internal records made public through court filings in December illustrated rampant preferences for donors and the children of alumni at some of the wealthiest and most selective institutions. New findings published this month by James Murphy, the deputy director of higher education policy at Education Reform Now, show fewer colleges favor children of alumni in the admissions office. Though schools argue that utilizing so-called 'legacy admissions' helps them fundraise for things like financial aid, critiques of the practice have grown in recent years, prompting a wave of state-level bans, including a law signed by California's governor in September. 'Legacy is just symptomatic of this idea that elite institutions are disconnected from regular people's lives,' he said. 'And that leads to things like making fun of the whole idea of getting accepted.' Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at zschermele@ Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele and Bluesky at @
