Welcome to AdFeeder’s web Wednesdays, your weekly dose of the latest news and stories that have caught our eye. From technology news to the latest vehicle releases and everything in between, we aim to bring you a quick run down of what you need to know each week.

After all of the spookiness from last week’s episode, which if you haven’t checked out yet, we encourage you to do so, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel while you’re at it! We’re now back to normality, with a host of topics to get through, starting with one very wholesome story from Vauxhall.

Gloucester mechanic retires after 75 years with same company

Meet Bryan Webb, a 90 year old gentleman from Gloucester who has clocked a seriously impressive career milestone. Bryan has worked for Vauxhall for a staggering 75 years, holding countless roles in both showroom and service departments, starting as a vehicle technician back in 1946. What’s even cooler, and what you can’t see under the sleeve of his navy cardigan is a wristwatch that was given to him to celebrate 25 years of his current role, which was back in 1970!

Bryan has worked as a warranty administrator at Baylis Gloucester and his career has seen him own a succession of Vauxhall models stretching across seven decades, beginning with a Vauxhall Velox in 1956. We just love to see incredible stories like this being celebrated, especially by the brand themselves! We wish Bryan all the very best for the future!

Facebook / Meta releases another new set of products

Next, we head to Facebook, or Meta as it’s now called after a pretty large shake up, and it seems it’s not just the name that is being changed. Facebook has come under a fair amount of scrutiny lately, mainly down to the issues its faced on how it uses people’s personal data insights to essentially amplify their fears and concerns, in order to drive engagement, and yet weirdly, the same company is also proposing that we incorporate more Facebook into more aspects of our daily life, with a view to a better future.

So what exactly are Facebook looking to bring in that will ‘revolutionise the way we use social media’? It looks to be a smart watch. A watch that looks very much like an Apple Watch, only with a front facing camera discreetly placed towards the bottom of the bezel. The image, that was actually found in the back-end files of Facebook’s View App relates closely to the descriptions of Facebook’s smartwatch, with plenty of media outlets reporting back in June that the device will include two cameras, and will enable users to detach the watch face in order to take pictures and videos on the go.

We’re very intrigued by the recent switch up and changes going inside Facebook, sorry Meta. Whilst they are under an awful lot of pressure at the moment, the speed in which products or updates are being realised is raising some eyebrows. There have been constant cries for help around protecting users from all kinds of content, or online abuse and fraudulent behaviour, but instead of working through those issues to find a solution, Facebook’s attitude is to simply produce more products for people to interact with.

Despite years of issues with hate speech, abuse and misinformation, Zuckerberg still holds firm to this overarching belief, that people are fundamentally good, and therefore giving them more tools to connect can only also be a good thing.

Celebrating style – SEMA 2021

Finally, let’s go across the pond to the US, and through the tyre smoke and revving engines you’ll find SEMA 2021, an iconic convention that celebrates creativity in the motoring world. If you’ve never heard of it, SEMA stands for Specialty Equipment Market Association and was formed in 1963. The names involved with the creation of this association truly are incredible – Bell Helmet founder Roy Richter, Dean Moon – iconic hot-rodder and aftermarket part specialist, and so many more.

Nowadays, SEMA consists of 6,383 companies worldwide, bringing together aftermarket manufacturers, OEM creators, media, car dealers, specialty equipment distributors, installers, retailers and restoration specialists, and they all use the Las Vegas Convention Centre as a proving ground.

It’s a chance for some of the biggest car modifying companies to showcase their work, allowing them to compete in the SEMA Battle of the Builders. The prize isn’t just a decent sum of money though, the accolade for winning such a prestigious award is likely to rocket your build and company to stardom. The competition isn’t exactly a walk in the park though, so almost every builder keeps their creations entirely under wraps until the big reveal at SEMA, meaning it’s unlikely you’ll have any idea what you’re up against.

It’s not just the famous aftermarket companies that get involved in the crazy builds though, SEMA is often a showcase for many manufacturers to release their brand new models. Due to the rich heritage of the show and the inclusivity of displaying quite literally any make or model of car, bike, truck, boat, whatever – brands love to use SEMA to release cars. Just thinking off the top of our heads the all-new GR86 from Toyota and Nissan going back to the future with the 400Z, it’s likely we’ll see plenty of these models making their debuts!

You quite often see college students who have put their motorsport or engineering courses to good use to create quite possibly the ultimate final major project, a functioning performance car thats rubbing wing mirrors with some of motoring’s elite modifiers, and that’s just really cool if you ask me.

Overall, we just wanted to take the time to appreciate such a cool event, sadly we don’t tend to see shows like this in the UK, and with SEMA being notoriously difficult to get into due to tight restrictions on who is actually allowed in, we’ll have to just enjoy it from afar for now!