The trend for better, stronger, faster in street racing shows no signs of well, slowing down. But what makes this different, is that the cars are all electric. Literally. Formula E will launch in September with 300 horsepower electric motor cars racing through the city center in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami and Monte Carlo, long considered...
Suburban tract homes are hallmarks of 1950s America when the dream for many families was to own a house on the outskirts of a city, drive to the shopping mall, shop at a supermarket and sit down to family meals in front of a flickering TV set. These days, the trend is towards living lives that are less plastic and more in touch with nature. We...
Every day now seems to bring yet another "first" object created by a 3D printer. We have seen super cool and colorfully printed shoes, canoes, candies and much more. Now, DUS Architects, a Dutch design firm, is in the process of creating the world's first 3D-printed building – a traditional looking Dutch house overlooking a canal in Amsterdam....
Hard on the heels of an announcement by the designer Karl Lagerfeld that he is lending his name to a new luxury hotel in Macau, the fashion designer Tommy Hilfiger has said that he too is creating a fancy hotel, this one in South Miami Beach. Hilfiger and his partners are said to be putting up to $100 million into the purchase and renovation of...
In this age of plenty, when any commodity you could wish for is readily available to anyone who can afford it, the glitter of "things" is losing its luster. Rich people can no longer be show-offs to their friends by flaunting expensive items, because their friends can easily acquire the same things themselves. In short, the new frontier of...
Just as airplanes can fly without pilots on board, ships can navigate perfectly well without humans on deck. When it comes to large scale shipping, in fact, sailing without a crew can have distinct advantages. Crews are expensive. They require living quarters, heat and plumbing, and they also need to be fed and paid. Staffing ships adds...
After a few false starts, smartwatches and wearable computers are finally set to make their marks in 2014. PayPal, the digital payments company, has become an early champion of the technology, launching apps that work with many of the current hardware leaders including Pebble and Samsung's Gear. Of course, it is far from certain whether...
Why aren't smartphone features integrated into automobile dashboards? It would make so much sense if drivers were able to install whatever driving apps they want – including music, text messaging and maps – and be able to access them all via large, user-friendly knobs and buttons. Or, better yet, via voice command. Why not indeed? This...
Since the world's first cat cafe opened in Taiwan in 1998, there have been dozens of, ahem, copycats in cities around the world, from Bangkok and Budapest, to Munich, Montreal and Paris. This month, London got its own cat cafe called Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium. British cat lovers can now have a cuppa surrounded by a pride of the cafe's eleven...
Weird-looking natural food stores were once considered to be on the fringes of urban grocery stores. But as eating healthfully has become normalized, natural food emporiums like Whole Foods in the USA and Food Lover's Market in South Africa have become the mainstream markets for a large, wealthy segment of the population. Meanwhile, as the...