Bitcoin News Australia

You might already be familiar with the root beer float or, if you have a grandparent from New York, the egg cream.

But there’s a new carbonated concoction that’s sweeping social media: the dirty soda.

The beverage trend, which has taken off on TikTok, combines soda with a creamy component — milk, half-and-half, or a nondairy alternative like coconut cream — as well as flavor enhancers like lime juice or syrups.

The concept was first popularized by Utah-based beverage shop Swig as a fun alternative for a Mormon population seeking nonalcoholic and noncoffee drink options. Today, Swig has 63 locations in the US.

Now, brands are riding Swig’s coattails with dirty soda concepts of their own, per Nation’s Restaurant News.

• Coffee Mate and Dr Pepper collaborated on a coconut-lime creamer made specifically for dirty soda.
• Topgolf added two dirty soda options to the menus of its 88 US locations.
• Sonic Drive-In launched a “make it dirty” option at its 3.5k+ locations.
• Jack in the Box is rolling out Jack’s Twisted Sodas at its 2.1k+ locations this July.

In 2014, before the rush of dirty soda branding, Swig founder Nicole Tanner trademarked “dirty soda.” Swig even filed a trademark lawsuit against Sodalicious, another Utah beverage company with “dirty” soda offerings, calling it a “near exact knockoff.”

But multiple soda chains in Utah and elsewhere are now peddling dirty soda concepts.

Drink up

Dirty soda is an appealing option, as the sober-curious movement shifts from trend to mainstay and consumers continue to reach for alcohol-free drinks.

And, sober or not, drinkable desserts are trending on restaurant menus nationwide.

Plus, many credit Olivia Rodrigo for Swig’s shot to fame — the pop star posted a photo of herself holding a Swig cup on Instragram in 2021.

You know who really deserves our thanks, though? Lindsay Lohan, who was brave enough to promote Pepsi’s “pilk” campaign in 2022.

In 2014, Logbar Inc. raised $880k on Kickstarter — far beyond its $250k goal — to make a ring that was “like magic.”

It allowed wearers to control devices with gestures, something I’m sure we’ve all fantasized about since the first time we saw Star Wars.

Unfortunately, the one ring to rule them all… did not.

The concept

Logbar claimed the ring could detect commands from the wearer, then communicate them to Bluetooth or WiFi-enabled devices. Users could:

• Send texts by writing in the air.
• Pay bills by gesturing a check mark.
• Control smart-home devices like they had a magic wand.
• Receive alerts via vibration and LED lights.

Logbar sounded impressive and demoed well. Its inventor, Takuro Yoshida, won the TechCrunch Tokyo Startup Battle in 2013, and in 2014, Entrepreneur called it one of the “very few wow-factor gadgets” at SXSW that year.

The problem

It didn’t reliably do any of that stuff. YouTuber Snazzy Labs demonstrated several key issues with the $269 ring, including:

• It was huge — far too bulky to fit comfortably on a finger.
• The wireless charger was not wireless.
• Users had to have associated apps open for gestures to work, meaning it didn’t really save people time.
• Plus, the gestures only worked “about 5% of the time.”

Logbar’s Kickstarter backers were similarly unimpressed. Many commented that they’d never received a ring, while those who did complained that it hardly worked.

Today…

… wearable tech is popular, at least for health tracking. Oura has sold 1m+ of its rings, is valued at $2.55B, and will soon sell its products via Amazon. Samsung will launch its competitor later this year.

But if you still want something that makes you feel like a magician, you could try to get a Neuralink chip implanted in your brain — founder Elon Musk claims the startup’s first patient can control a mouse with their mind.