TINDER FOR TENANTS
Like me, you’ve probably seen buildings that have been empty for years. “Why hasn’t something replaced the old Panera Bread store?” I’ve often wondered. Fortunately, AI is solving this problem.
At the website SytesCRE.com, developers, landlords and prospective tenants use a kind of “Tinder for tenants.” But instead of uniting people for love, the way online dating does, Sytes matches developers and landlords with businesses looking for ways to expand, using an AI system called “Rio.”
Sytes’s smallest customer is a yoga studio. Its biggest is GoTo Foods, which owns Carvel, Auntie Anne’s, Jamba, Cinnabon, McAlister’s Deli and more. Dutch Bros, Popeyes, and Scooter’s Coffee also use the platform. Landlords can enter an address and instantly see which tenants are seeking that exact location. Tenants can declare exactly where they want to expand, so landlords see verified demand.
Rafael Weiss started the company when he realized that old-fashioned networking wasn’t working. “Especially if you aren’t the kind of guy to meet a thousand people and remember their names,” I said. But he is that kind of guy, he said, and it’s still difficult. You just don’t get all the info you need even by making a thousand phone calls. But at his site, you get an alert as soon as a prospective tenant joins the platform or an existing tenant wants to open a new location. Pricing starts at $50 a month and goes up to $166 a month.
Weiss’s first customer was Church’s Texas Chicken, a company with over 1400 restaurants in roughly 23 countries. In Church’s first eight hours online, they were sent 14 sites and accepted four. Two of the four were in markets where franchisees said nothing was available. They also said you couldn’t expand even if there were sites. Sytes proved them wrong on both counts.
But why would tenants want to share their expansion plans online, where competitors could see them, experts asked. The answer was privacy controls, which allow tenants to control exactly who sees their expansion plans and when.
In short, Sytes is like a legal version of insider trading. But instead of politicians scooping up properties when they find out that a new highway is going in, this info is open to all. Weiss himself has made money by buying a shopping mall that his site showed was swarming with potential tenants. His customers also look for vacant buildings, checking Sytes to see if any big tenants want a specific spot, then buying the building knowing they already have a match.
Monitoring Blood Pressure on Your Watch
Samsung Galaxy watches, versions 4 and newer, can now monitor your blood pressure. But you have to calibrate your watch every 28 days, in order to take readings on your wrist when the cuff monitor isn’t nearby.
The cuff squeezes your arm to feel the pressure of your blood flow. The watch uses a sensor to measure how long it takes for a pulse of blood to travel from your heart to your wrist. Generally, the higher your blood pressure, the faster that pulse wave travels. But since everyone’s internal plumbing is different, the watch must determine what a “normal” speed is for you.
My techiest friend has the Samsung Galaxy 4, which recently sent a message that it was ready to do blood pressure readings. The first three went well, but now it keeps giving him error messages. The latest Galaxy watch, the 8, is supposed to have better sensors.
Apple watches don’t measure blood pressure, but the Series 9 and Ultra 2 can detect trends and notify you of potential hypertension if you sync them with a Bluetooth-enabled cuff.
Using Your Tablet as an E-Reader
I love reading e-books on my phone or tablet through the Kindle app, especially when I’m on a plane. Even at home, I often use airplane mode to cut distractions.
For reading a tablet in bright sunshine, ZDNET suggests adding a matte screen protector. If you get tired of holding your tablet, consider the “Strapsicle,” which straps the device to your hand. There are versions for large and small tablets as well as e-readers. Instead, I put mine on a tablet stand and place it on a small table nearby to read while I use my rowing machine.
Cut to the Chase
Many how-to videos on YouTube take too long to get to the point. But you can ask Google Gemini or your favorite AI bot to summarize them for you.
When I’m using the Google Chrome web browser, I prefer Google Gemini to ChatGPT. By clicking the Gemini button in the upper right of my computer screen, I get a summary, since Gemini can see anything on the page I’m looking at, if I allow it. For how-to videos, you could ask it to create a list of the tools and parts you’ll need, as well as the steps involved.
Internut
“Digital human could allow for better early dementia detection.” Search on that phrase to learn how scientists at Texas A&M University use avatars to gauge a patient’s apathy and slowness to respond. Unlike human interviewers, a machine can measure lags between a question and answer down to the millisecond, comparing them with previous visits. If you spot Alzheimer’s early enough, you can stop or potentially reverse it, according to a study by Dean Ornish, M.D.