AI bees, Back Market takes on Apple and X becoming pay to play

BloomX bees

Three out of every four crops grown around the world to produce fruits or seeds for human consumption are reliant on pollinators. And it is bees, be they farmed honeybees, or the more than 20,000 different wild bee species, that do the heavy lifting.

But bees are under threat. Climate change, habitat loss and the use of pesticides are contributing to a fall in their number. But, BloomX, a tech startup out of Israel, is using AI to pollinate crops even if local bee numbers are very low. 

The firm’s main product is called “Robee” – a mechanical pollinator that vibrates and releases pollen designed to imitate that of bumblebees, which use their wings to agitate flowers. 

BloomX’s other product is “Crossbee”, a handheld tool for collecting and spreading sticky pollen grains between avocado trees. To date the equipment is being used in South America, South Africa, Spain, the US and Israel, and BloomX says it can increase fruit yields by 30%.

Both products are controlled by an AI-based software system linked to a mobile phone app, and each is fitted with a GPS tool so that farm workers know which areas of a field have been treated.

Whilst natural bees are better for the environment – and essential to life on earth – human ingenuity is nothing if not incredible when solving problems humans themselves have caused. 

Back Market takes on Apple

Back Market, a marketplace for refurbished devices, is on a mission to steal Apple’s thunder with a global campaign taking aim at Big Tech and its obsession with new products.

Coinciding with Apple’s annual keynote event, Back Market’s “Let Them Buy New” is an uncomfortable parody of the tech industry and its most dominant brand. The campaign shows gadget-hungry consumers clamouring to get their hands on “the new one,” a sneaky stunt targeting influencers and deceptive out-of-home ads.

The video mimics Apple’s classic marketing tropes, with shots of shiny floating devices and dancers triumphantly hoisting laptops and tablets. The creative then switches it up, as what appears to be an iPhone morphs into exaggerated versions of itself with extra camera lenses and “new” colours “like grey … and other grey.” 

Highlighting our obsession with new and the harm that can cause to the environment in a humorous, direct way is the coolest thing we’ve seen in a while.

X marks the charge

Elon Musk has said he will start charging people to use the social media site formerly known as Twitter. The billionaire businessman revealed on a live stream that the company would introduce a “small monthly payment” to combat “vast armies of bots”.

Musk has long complained about the presence of fake accounts on the platform, and tried to use his concerns to wriggle out of his deal to buy it last year. So far there are no further details about the new fee, such as a price or whether it would include extra features.

The move would kill off what has long been one of the site’s most popular memes, where users caption shots of particularly striking posts with a near-incredulous “this website is free”.

X already offers a premium subscription costing £9.60 a month, which gives users a verification tick, lets them write longer posts, edit existing ones, and prioritises their account in search results. It has remained robustly popular despite increased competition from smaller platforms like Bluesky, Mastodon, and the Threads app from Meta.

Much of Musk’s focus has been on monetising X’s user base, with advertiser spending having dropped due to concerns around his moderation policies. The question now is, will anyone want to pay for a service that doesn’t offer value and is re-platforming Donald Trump and Andrew Tate… ?