Added 22 November, 2013
A humongous H&M flagship opened in Times Square this week as a paean to high-tech retailing. The store exemplifies the way in which bricks-and-mortar shops are fighting back against the Internet by offering immersive shopping experiences that just can't be replicated online. This being Times Square, shoppers are greeted by a pair of enormous...
Added 21 November, 2013
A few months ago in the US state of Colorado, citizens voted to legalize marijuana. Not just for medical uses, but for recreation too. Now the town of Central City has made history by licensing the country's very first pot store. Annie's, located in an historic building on Nevada Street, is situated right next to the town's police station. The...
Added 20 November, 2013
As technology continues to insinuate itself into our lives at an ever increasing pace, activities that have remained more or less the same for millennia are now seeing radical makeovers. Take playing with pets, for example. For thousands of years, if not more, that meant real, physical interaction – like throwing a ball or dangling a string. Now...
Added 20 November, 2013
Starbucks is so ubiquitous, the joke goes, that they just opened another Starbucks inside a Starbucks. In many cities around the world, you can't walk a few minutes in any direction without seeing one of these coffee shops. Now the brand is going even further by putting a shop inside a rail car. In cooperation with the Swiss train operator SBB,...
Added 19 November, 2013
Regular readers know that we recently wrote about the way in which the farm-to-table food trend is propagating around to other parts of our lives, like farm-to-massage-table spas (http://www.wikitrend.org/farm-massage-table-trending-spa-industry). It didn't take long...
Added 19 November, 2013
America is famous for doing everything big. Big houses, big cars, big refrigerators and more. But times, they are a-changin'. US realtors are now reporting a growth in so-called micro-apartments that are sometimes small as 200 square feet (18 square meters). What's behind this change? Economics, of course. The expense of a large home, or carrying...
Added 19 November, 2013
Now that lighting up indoors is banned in so many parts of the world, vaping is becoming the new smoking. But backlash against eCigarettes is ramping up too, with many restaurants and other public places saying no to that too. So what's an eSmoker to do? One answer is opening at Heathrow airport in the form of an electronic cigarette airport...
Added 12 November, 2013
Now that fancy pants bartenders are called "mixologists" and are getting top billing, just like star chefs, it is inevitable that more ingredients from the kitchen should make their way into drinks on the bar. Connoisseurs of olive oil know that many of the best ones go down smooth, be a bit fruity and have a wildly peppery finish. That is what is...
Added 11 November, 2013
Once upon a time, commuters had to rely on sporadic radio traffic reports to get a sense of how long their journey would take. No longer. Now several companies are competing to give travelers up-to-the-minute information on traffic jams and police actions that attract rubberneckers and slow cars down to a trickle. One of these companies offering...
Added 10 November, 2013
Farm-to-table, a moniker that's short for fresh food, locally sourced and unadulterated from the time it is picked to the time it reaches the kitchen, has been part of the dining lexicon for a while now. The trend has become so pervasive, in fact, that it is showing up in other parts of our lives. Take spas, for example. Put in the spa context,...